Burning Curse

by Dinos4Ever

Feeding the Fire

Chapter 2. Feeding the Fire:
“What do you mean, Tia?” Princess Cadence asked.
“I mean, that this entire mess is my fault. Had I taken my responsibility to heart, and finished Dante when I had the chance rather than banishing him, we would not be in this mess.
“Tia, you cannot blame yourself for this. ‘Twas long ago, I do not even remember much of that horrific night. A tower of flame, a heartless cackle, and then nothing” Princess Luna said, in an attempt to console her sister.
“Yes, but being the highest ruling authority, it is my duty to accept responsibility. We must call a meeting with the Elements immediately, before they take too brash of action. I will fetch them myself. Twilight Sparkle is an incredibly gifted unicorn, but even I will find trouble with teleporting nine ponies and myself between Ponyville and Canterlot. I’d send a balloon, but I hardly think they would all fit into such a device”. With that, Princess Celestia lit up her horn in a glow of gold light, and vanished on the spot.
“Come Cadence, we must return to the Council for now, we have our duties to attend to. This has become much more serious than silly battle strategies. We need to converge a plan now that the Elements have been involved.” Princess Luna ordered to her pink sister.

---

As the nine ponies sat around in the Library, nothing was said. Nothing wanted to be said. There are no words that could express the sorrow of a parent perhaps losing their child forever. They just hoped they could find their foals before the unthinkable could happen.
Among the sniffles and clinks of tea cups, a bright light appeared near the door of the library. Looking up from their red, tear stricken eyes, the ponies gave greetings filled with sorrow, not even bothering to bow before royalty as they wound have found themselves so common to do.
“Good afternoon, Princess” Twilight Sparkle sobbed.
“Twilight, I need you and the other Elements of Harmony to come with me immediately” the Princess ordered.
“Where are we going, Princess?” Pinkie inquired, her main and tail gone flat.
“To Canterlot. You are to be given instruction from there.” Celestia responded.
“Ooohhh. Okay”
“Now, if all nine of you will please huddle amongst my horn, we are going to teleport”
“Teleport, but Princess, isn’t that dangerous with so many of us?” Twilight spoke up as she and the other eight ponies huddled up to her mentor’s horn.
“Normally yes, however this is an emergency. Those of you that have never teleported before, I would suggest taking a deep breath. First time teleportations can be a rather…tangible experience.”
And with that, Celestia’s horn began to glow, and with a concerned glance between Sky, Big Macintosh, and Sunny, they found themselves no longer viewing the library. Instead, the three stallions felt as if all the air had been punched out of them, and they were going to be squeezed until their eye popped from their sockets. Instead, they found themselves touching down upon the white marble of the Throne Room.
Sky Rocket, Big Macintosh, and Sunny Dee collapsed upon the floor, in a mixture of recovering from the feeling of their first teleportation and, for Big Macintosh and Sunny anyway, never wanting to leave the ground again.
Celestia looked upon the males and suppressed a small giggle as they kissed the ground.
“I told you it was a unique experience, now come with me, there is work to be done.”
As the ten ponies walked down the halls of the Castle, they couldn’t help but be reminded of their dire situation when seeing the murals and staccato ceiling paintings depicting happy foals at play.
Celestia led them along a side corridor that Twilight had never been down before, and to a room with a rather drab appearing door large enough to let a fully grown alicorn like Celestia pass through comfortably. Entering through the doorway, they found the room was mostly occupied by three stern stallions dressed in armor not too different than the fake armor that Rainbow Dash wore when she played Commander Hurricane during the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant. Among the three stallions were Princesses Luna and Cadence, all of them looking flustered and somewhat irritated with the three stallions. Lining the walls of the room were maps of different parts of Equestria. The map depicting the Everfree Forest as laid out upon the table with magic lines drawn all over it, all the lines leading to one particular spot on the map, a spot that was all too familiar with the Elements and Luna herself.
“May I present my Council of Three. These are my highest ranking and most trusted Generals I command. Admiral Tomcat here, commands the Royal Airborne Legion,” Celestia pointed to an armored pegasus in the far left. She then continued towards the right. “Commander Arlee Ermy here, commands the Royal Magic Corps, and General Pat Ton here commands the Royal Ground Forces.” Celestia pointed out the Unicorn and the Earth ponies respectively.
“And here is where we believe Dante is holding the children captive,” Tomcat spoke, his voice sounding like it had been partly blown away by air, which was likely due to his years of service in the Airborne Legion, “in the ruins of the old Royal Castle”.
“We had plans of obliterating the piece of shit, but damn it, the bastard had to go and make things complicated for us.” Arlee Ermy hammered out, with a very commanding voice.
“And so we have discussed matters and believe the best course of action would be to let the Elements of Harmony act, as it is their children who have been taken captive” General Pat Ton finished.
“As you can see Twilight,” Princess Cadence spoke up, “matters like these are difficult. I know how much you just want to storm into the place and take your foals back, but matters such as these require finesse. This is why I am sending you in as negotiators. Just you. You will have the entire Royal Military backing when you go, but for now I need you to stay calm and with the plan we have achieved”.
Celestia and Luna nodded with their sister’s statement, then Celestia spoke, “I have full confidence in your abilities, but if you will come with me, we can gather the Elements and Luna, Cadence, and I will send you on your way.”
With that, they Council of Three bode the pony’s good luck and so they returned to the throne room where they entered.
“Now, this is where I leave you to be separat-“
“What!” shouted the nine ponies is unison.
“Ah’m sorry yer highness, but Ah ain’t leavin’ none of mah kin behind. Apples stick tagethar.” Big Macintosh said, stamping his hoof down onto the floor with enough force to put a small crack in the marble.
“He’s right, Princess. If Ah have ta fight this here demon, then Ah want my husband and mah broth-, mah family fightin’ there with me!” Applejack corrected herself, implying to everypony in the room.
“Very well, I guess it is only natural for friends as close as you to wish to fight together, and I have no right, well…being the Princess I have every right, I jus-“
“Princess!” Twilight yelled noticing the white alicorn starting to stall for time. “I know how much you care for us, but every second counts. We need to get going.”
“Very well, follow me and then you will be on your way.” Celestia resigned, as she led them down a large hall that Twilight knew held the Chamber of Elements at the end.
As the ten ponies stopped at the doors, Celestia inserted her horn into the hole in the middle, and with a golden glow, the doors swung open to reveal the chest that held the Elements. Since Discord had escaped, it appeared that Celestia had increased security around the chest. There was now a glowing golden aura, the same aura of Celestia’s magic, which surrounded the chest in a dome as it sat upon a pedestal in the small closet.
Deactivating the protective aura, Celestia floated the chest over to Twilight and her friends, where she opened it and revealed the bejeweled Elements of Harmony within.
“I need you, all of you,” Celestia said as she pointed a hoof at the ponies, “To accept the responsibility that has been thrust upon you to wield this great power against such a terrible foe.”
“We get it, now hurry!” Rainbow Dash shouted her patience at an end.
Celestia said nothing, but rather placed the Elements upon each bearer, and then stood back.
“I take it you understand what you need to do, after what you saw in the War Council?”
“Yes Princess, we understand, and we shall do our all to stop Dante”. Rarity swore, before giving the Princess one last bow.
Suddenly, the ponies once again found themselves enveloped in a golden aura, and immediately found themselves back at the Library.
“What do we do now?” Dewey asked.
“Now, we confront Dante.” Twilight said to her husband with a confident smirk.

---

Meh, that's a lot shorter than I wanted but this seemed a good place to break.

Comments

[IMC]

So far, so good. A lot less action than I would've liked, though. I'm looking forward to some fight scenes in the near future. A couple grammatical errors, but otherwise I like it. I think that it will continue to develop and improve given time and the chance to work in some action. :)

[Dinos4Ever]

607217 Well, I was hoping to get to the fights in the next chapter, but life outside of cyberspace has prevented that. Now that I'm off for Summer vaycay, I can hopefully get this started back up. Then again, it'll be have after my assignment for Ty. Gotta a project due for him by the 11th.