//------------------------------//
// The Better Prepared 
// Story: The Elements Journey 
// by Merlitz 
//------------------------------//

	It was a crisp autumn night, the leafs on the trees outside had begun to turn a fiery red and yellow, and six pony friends were having themselves a delightful sleep over.  The candles on the wall of the castles flickered softly in the evening lights as the six pony friends took turns telling ghost stories.  Board games, drinks, snacks, and various other items littered the ground as they all sat upon blankets and pillows to avoid laying directly on the cold stone floor that made up the entire castle interior.

Twilight Sparkle, the princess of friendship, pinned her ears back as she listened to Rainbow Dash tell a particular story about a headless horse, told with more gore and detail then she usually puts into it when telling it to little fillies. After all her friends were older and hopefully able to handle more intense stories. Fluttershy being the exception of course, she had found herself a nice safe spot under Twilights wing. Hiding behind it and her own long flowing mane for safety. As Rainbow Dash nears the end of her story her words get softer and everypony has to perk their ears a bit to listen closer. "And they were never heard from.....AGAIN!" she screams out the last word, applejack found herself letting out a little eep, rarity shivering a little from the details of the story. Fluttershy had all but vanished across the room hiding behind the Cutie Mark Map.

Pinkie, it seems, was nearly unaffected. She was screaming and running around the room, but to everyone's surprise she was smiling and laughing the whole way. Apparently doing it more for fun rather than actually being scared it seems. "Oh my gosh Dashie, that was a great story, and how that headless horse cut off their heads even though he couldn't see was amazing!" Pinkie being her usual hyper active self pops up behind Fluttershy. "Don't you agree!"

Fluttershy darts across the room nearly frightened out of her skin and dives under Rainbow's wing shivering in fear. She thought she could handle all the stories but Rainbow had a way of putting emphasis on everything that made it sound just so frightening. She just squeaks in response to Pinkie shivering.

Twilight speaks up. "I think we may have had enough ghost stories for one night. I'm not sure some of us can take anymore. Maybe a different topic?" Twilight says perking her ears with a wide grin looking around the room.

Applejack rubs her chin and thinks a moment, everyone else seems to do the same, minus poor Fluttershy who was trying to swallow her heart back into her chest. Somewhere along the line it seems to have made it into her throat, metaphorically speaking. "Hey Ah got something thats been a buggin me for a few days now. iffin ya'll don't mind us bringing something up a little unsettlin." she says looking to them in turn.

Rarity, curious if the first to ask. "What ever do you mean Applejack Darling?" she says in her usually charming voice, as she gentle shakes her hair from her eyes a little bit.

The rest of the friends turn to Applejack and quiet down to listen. She speaks up after getting her words straight. "Have ya'll noticed, there has been more threats on Ponyville and Equestria lately then legs on a caterpillar." Her eyes watch her friends, they think and all seem to pay even more attention as they all seem to agree, even Fluttershy pokes her head out curiously. Her muzzle and eyes peaking from below Dash's wing. "What I figure, we need to do more than just sit around her and tell stories all the time. Having fun is great and all, but once and a while we need to be ready for the worst. As granny always said, if you see a storm blowin, you better get going."

Rainbow Dash puffs her chest out and smirks loudly. "I don't know what your talking about, together we are unbeatable. Everything that we have faced, we totally beat their sorry hides back to where ever they came from." she says proudly. she pats her chest with a hoof and looks tot hem all. "Besides, how can we lose with me on our team."

Pinkie chimes in hanging from something above, not seeming to wait her turn to speak up but saying whatever came to mind. "Yea, but almost all of those wins were total luck or just pure effort on our part, but hey we can always do it again right? I mean we have the rainbow power but totally don't know how to activate it again in a pinch, but I'm sure we can figure it out right before we need to." she gives a big grin and a squee!

Applejack lifts and eyebrow. "That's the point, we haven't even figured out our own magic yet and just barely understand this map business. Maybe we should, i don't know, prepare just in case something big comes along again? We barely made it through Tirek for corns sake!"

Rainbow's ego deflates as she can even see the truth of the matter. Her ears fold back and she looks away and down, she grabs a pillow and slides it under her head as she lays down defeated at that notion. "Ok yea, but what do we do? I mean like how would we prepare if we don't know what's coming?"

Twilight having been listening has already found herself a parchment and quill and has began to write down some notes. "Applejack your brilliant, if we prepare we may have less to worry about if something did happen!" she says excitedly.

Rainbow chimes in again raising her voice and extending her hooves upward. "But HOW?!"

Twilight shoots her an annoyed look. "By making plans, having special ways to deal with situations, like if we have fast enemies, the ponies who lead the charge would be you and applejack, if we have threats that can be talked down, Rarity and Fluttershy can be used to sweet talk them and maybe make them see what they did wrong." she says making more and more notes. "By learning each others strengths and developing plans based on those character traits we can increase our chance for success and lower our chance of collateral damage tot he surrounding town." 

Pinkie bounces. "Ooo Ooo Twilight what could I do, huh huh huh? What am I good at?" she says happily wanting to be mentioned in the planning.

Twilight smiles proudly, prepared for her friends outburst. "With your pinkie sense we could have an easier time detecting danger."

Rainbow whisper to Applejack. "And if we want to annoy them to death we can just hand her over." she giggles as Applejack shoots her a curious look. Applejack thinks about it a moment and smirks a bit, it was well known Pinkie can be a little overboard at times, her friends knew how to handle her but someone else might actually surrender if they had to keep her hostage.

Applejack nods a bit. "Sounds like a great idea Twi, how about we get some sleep tonight first though, and start thinking about it in the morning, no point in wasting our breath when we are all plum tuckered out." she says with a yawn, and looks to every pony else. The yawn spreads like wildfire as it was already late in the night.

Early the next morning, Twilight Sparkle was wide awake and ready to get started, she seemed eager to get going as not only will this help in their plans to defend all of pony kind, but she will get to learn more about her friends and their abilities. This alone was enough to excite her. She had already been up for a couple hours making checklists and putting together tests and diagrams. She trots around her castle happily with her trademark grin on her face. She looks outside and sees the sun peaking above the towers in Canterlot, while she may be and early riser she knows they all stayed up late and didn't wish to force the excitement she felt on them, but it was late enough now. "Rise and shine girls!" she says cheerfully. In the time she was awake she did take the courtesy of making some quick breakfast for everypony. Serving it at the table in the dining room. "I've been up really early making breakfast and preparing everything for our big day today! I can't help it I'm so excited, the prospect of learning more about all of you, all my friends, was so overwhelming I couldn't stay asleep once the sun rose!"

Spike wearily strolls into the dining room and rubs his eyes. "Oh hey everypony, whats going on?" he says as he drags a little rarity plush behind him along with his blanket.

Rainbow speaks up with a mouth stuffed with food. "Mmmphharommmmdnosd." completely confident that everyone can understand her continues on with a mouth full. They did not of course and looked to each other with confused looks.

Applejack tosses her a glare cutting her off way before she was done. "Mind chewing your food and swallowin first sugar cube, maybe then we could be understandin ya." she shakes her head and facehoofs a little when rainbow slurps up her food and gulps it down nearly choking. She takes a big gulp of cider to clear her throat.

"I said, Twilight here is going to figure out how awesome we all are, well....heh....mainly me, and find out what we could do in case some evil horrific monster comes along and work up some totally awesome battle plans so we can beat them back to where they came!" she said pounding her chest proudly, confident in her abilities.

Rarity, slightly repulsed at the way rainbow eats, although she still dearly loves her friend speaks up next. "Yes Spikey Wikey, thats about the sum of it, you see we decided last night we wanted to be ready in case of more trouble." she politely sips on a cup of tea and smiles around the room. "I mean it only makes sense, I don't know about all of you but I would love to go home in one piece after dealing with some horrifying beast."

Spike blinks a bit. "Yea that does make sense, I mean I would hate if anything were to happen to any of you, your all my best friends in the whole world." he smiles to them. and looks seeing a plate of gems at the other end of the table. "Oh twilight you didn't forget me!" he leaps up and runs to the bowl and begins to shovel them.

Twilight smiles. "How could I ever forget my number one assistant?"  she looks around as every pony finishes their meal. "While you were all asleep I've been setting up some equipment and papers, if we all work together we can get my paperwork done so we can get to planning, it shouldn't take but a few hours." 

Rainbow coughs as she chokes on some of her food. "A few HOURS of paperwork?" she looks almost shocked. Rainbow may like books but filling out paperwork drove her nearly insane, she does enough of that when she goes to the clinics after a bad training accident. "Come on Twilight how can you expect us to do that?"

Twilight glares back. "I'm not asking you to do the paperwork, but you will be helping with the testing, physical tests and such. If I know what your all capable of at your best, then I can better plan out situations. This will also give us spots that we can improve upon to make our team better." she says clapping her hooves together smiling at the end. She turns her gaze to Fluttershy. "This may be hard for you, a little anyway, I got to ask you to show me the best of everything you can do, but remember your doing it for the animals too, we protect everything working together."

Fluttershy having been quite the whole time nods softly. "I don't mind, showing my friends what I can do is much much different then showing a group of ponies on stage something, your my friends and I know your not judging me." she smiles weakly, she was still a little nervous, but she believed she could do it.

After breakfast all the friends went out back of the castle, Twilight had used her magic to set up a variety of different tests and ability measuring tools. She also made sure to set them up out of sight of anyone besides them, making Fluttershy feel more comfortable showing what she could do. The tests ranged from speed and strength to magic and agility. It took the better part of the afternoon, as each pony did their best at every obstacle and every measuring device twilight could conceive. Twilight then broke out cups of water for everyone and spread them around and ran the tests herself with rarity and spike taking the notes instead of herself. Once she had finished the tests they all took a break while Twilight went to work.

Pinkie bounces around somehow still having energy while the rest of them laid panting a little in the cool grass in the shadow of the castle. "That was so much fun Twilight, I can't believe testing could be that much fun, it was unbelievable!" she says giggling and bouncing around humming a little tune to herself.

Twilight cocks an eyebrow at Pinke and pulls out her paperwork and makes one more small note. "Seemingly limitless endurance...."she  finishes with a smirk to herself. After some time while they all rest and talk among themselves Twilight finally organizes the last few papers and clears her throat. "Ahem, Ok girls." they all perk up and move over in front of twilight to listen. "Alright, there are some obvious conclusions and some other things I was able to deduct from this."  she says smiling, happy with her notes. "On the strength and speed end we have Applejack and Rainbow Dash Applejack being the stronger one and Rainbow being faster naturally because of flight, but in a grounded situation, your about both on par for speed. our agility on the ground is low and have more brute force."

Rainbow Speaks up. "Who needs agility when your running when you can fly like me!" she oofs with an elbow to her side.

Applejack says softly. "Shush rainbow."

Twilight clears her throat again and continues. "Agility end we have Rarity, due to her poise and grace she has an easier time on more complicated obstacles, Pinkie Pie seems to be more well rounded and due to her pinkie sense is able to avoid danger better, Flutter shy is average all around but her special talent with animals makes her invaluable, since she can call on more help for any situation, and myself I carry the heavy magic. but with knowing how strong, how fast and how magical we are i can now use this information to plan moves!" she hands out copies of everyone's results to everyone. Then uses an example. She casts a spell to make a small magical energy version of Tirek appear between them. "Something like.....Rarity and Pinkie could be in front of the group, dodging attacks and keeping him distracted. " they follow quit and move in front as the phony Tirek fires harmless beams of light, that they giggle at and playfully dodge with ease. "While Rainbow and Applejack Could either defend me while I'm casting a spell, or try and come in from the sides and restrain him."  The two ponies join in the fun, mock tackling the light show acting like they are holding onto his hooves. "Fluttershy could use some birds as a distraction and then I could use my magic to bind him!!!" she then casts a spell towards him the energy and she didn't realize she cast a real spell, the energy shackles she shot towards it, spin around and flash violently, sending a shockwave in all directions. Twilight blacks out a moment and wakes up with her friends around her. "I'm sorry every pony I got too excited and cast a real spell, is everypony ok?" she asks.

Rarity smiles sweetly and moves in to help twilight up. "Twilight darling, we are all fine, we understand, we were getting a little swept up too, it was delightfully fun. Think nothing of it." she says. "Nothing went wrong, just a little accident."

Or so they thought. Deep in the bowels of tartarus, something went wrong, Twilight spell was a little too powerful. Something indeed was now amiss. A chain is heard falling to the ground, and a pair of yellow eyes glowed in the darkness and a raspy laugh can be heard.

It was nearly a week later when the group of friends had been putting their final touches on some of their new techniques and cooperative defenses they had been working so diligently towards completing. They all say in a circle after a hard days work and nodded to one another taking glasses of water and gulping them down, even Rarity as un-lady like as it was, was happy with herself having put in a hard days work, looking rather disheveled and dirty. One could not accuse her of not putting forth the effort. Not when her friends were at stake would she ever slack off. Even if it meant getting dirty. They were all talking among themselves as Spike was heard in the distance. "TWIIIIILIIIIIGHT!" he was running at them with a full head of steam a parchment rolled into a scroll in hand. He almost tripped over himself as he brought it to her, and quickly passed it over. 

Twilight Sparkle took the scroll and unrolled it, the seal already haven been broken. She had told spike to read anything the princess sent and if it was important bring it to her. In giving these instructions she had never considered what she was reading to be one of those possible outcomes. "Tirek......is free.....his magic bonds have broken some how...." she thinks long and hard a moment.

Rainbow Dash blurts out. "How is that even possible, he was locked away with magic binds that were designed to hold only him, that's what the princess said, that it was a spell she personally crafted to ensure they stayed locked on him." she puts her hooves on her sides as she hovers above seemingly in shock.

Every pony looks to each other, Twilights mind raced with thoughts faster than everyone was talking. She perks up and rewinds what Rainbow just said in her mind. "Could it be?" she says. All of her friends turn to her and go silent. "Maybe, just maybe when I tried to cast those binds on that magically made Tirek, it interfered with the binds the princess made, perhaps we cast a similar spell." she rubs her head. "Oh dear, this is all my fault, what do we do now?" 

Applejack speaks up after having read the scroll. "We do what we have to, we stop him, the princess said, most every pony is avoiding him so he's not getting near as strong as he was before. The letter says that everyone is running away and he's barely gotten maybe 10 or 15 ponies magic yet. Everyone knows what he looks like, so it's natural they are running away."  she smiles with confidence. "We were able to stop him when he had all of the magic in Equestria, I think we can handle him with our new tactics now."

Pinkie Pie speaks up. "Oh oh I'll get my party cannons this will be so much fun!"

Rarity gives a proud smile. "He won't know what hit him."

Fluttershy cowers a little and looks around, she sighs. "I guess we have to, no one else knows how to handle him....I mean, we don't have much choice." she takes to the air and finds a passing bird talking to it, it nods and darts. "The birds will scout around, if they find him they will circle for us."

Twilight lights up at that. "Good thinking Fluttershy! We will be able to find him much faster that way and we can prepare ourselves for him while they locate where he is." she turns to everyone else. "Ok every pony get your things ready it's time to take Tirek down....again!" she folds her ears back realizing she had to say again..

As the friends gathered their things from their homes, one little bird begins to spread the word, from bird to bird, spreading it along the sky, the birds flock over the land and begin to pass the word along to other critters. Chipmunks and groundhogs all began keeping an eye out. It wasn't long until they had all of equestria teaming with little eyes trying to find one being out for magic and torment. It didn't take long for the little eyes to find and bring his location back to the ponies who were making their way out with supplies to deal with the evil being once more. The birds swirl around in circles where he was located, hiding in the forest plotting his next move. The friends look up and take note and begin setting up their gear they had specially made for such a circumstance, a forest fight near the edge with a tree line. 

Twilight looks to them all and nods. "Remember the plan." a collective "RIGHT!" was the response, The friends scatter, Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie remain in plain view, Fluttershy and rainbow dash take flight and Applejack remains hidden in the brush.
Tirek pushes his way out of the trees, he wasn't much bigger then an adult alicorn yet. He snarls. "Princess Twilight, you found me I see, but no matter, your strength will make it much easier to take everyone else's."

Twilight smiles confidently. "Not this time Tirek, we are ready for you, we beat you once, we will do it again!" she bows her head and charges her horn building the magic within. She fires a magical beam of purple energy towards Tirek, he leaps to a side to avoid it. Fluttershy in the air takes notes that he decided to avoid rather then just take the blast. Applejack draws her legs back and from a pile of sizable stones bucks one hard towards Tirek, one strikes him in the head and he stumbles growling in pain.

Tirek Roars out. "Who dares strike me?!" he says banging his fists on the ground and turning to the bushes where the rocks came from. He begins to charge a beam of energy the orange glow building between his horns. Rainbow Dash swoops in as he is about to fire and lands a hard kick on his face and flies off, causing the beam to miss Applejack who was poised to jump but didn't have to. She smiles and moves away from the last pile and moves to another. Keeping low and quite til she gets there she kicks another causing Tirek another sharp blow of pain to the back of his head. About the same time a magical purple beam hits him in the flank and knocks him down. "Not bad princess!" he says as he pushes himself up. He grabs the two boulders and hurls them at the three in front of him in the open, Pinkie Pie runs towards Twilight along with Rarity and they scoop her up and move her side while she charges another spell, allowing her time to focus. Tirek Sees this and begins a hard charge towards them charging his energy. An orange ball gathering in his horn about the same time Twilights energy was building. She was preparing a teleportation spell to move them behind Tirek for another blow. The girls all swooped in knowing the signals and get around twilight. Unfortunately Tirek's magic was slightly faster than she could account for. The orange beam flies forward and strikes the teleportation bubble, the energy mixes, it grows rapidly and Tirek is blown away into a teleport bubble of his own, as the energy combination seems to be draining his energy into the spell, he withers to less then his weakest state before winking out of sight.

Twilights eyes begin to glow white and the girls are afraid to move as the bubble consumes them, she begins to hold her head as she tries to control what was happening, a brief glance sees Tirek's fate and as Twilight tries to regain control of the magic that wasn't supposed to mix, due to the conflicting energy her horn cracks as the spell finishes and they wink out of existence, leaving a scorch mark where they once stood.