Seekers in Equestria

by dracone

The Visible Face of Opposition

“I can't believe this plan was something I agreed to,” Twilight grumbled as she and Rec were quite obviously moving through the corridor that had a non-functional magic trap, “I mean seriously the very thought of doing something with so little preparation despite having plenty of planning and forethought is just...ugh, how you not go mad over these sorts of things.”

“Desensitization,” said Rec, “I'm so used to doing these half baked plans that it has become more of a force of habit, if it makes you feel better the plan we hammered out wasn't the whole plan.”

“Say what?” Shouted Twilight, “what's the rest?”

“That depends on whose in on the first part of the plan,” said Rec with an eerie calm, “it's your job to figure out the rest of the plan on your own, in other words improvise and devise a set of plans tailored to you specifically and what you know about your partners. Claudia and Mandi are pretty good at it, then again we have very different dynamic than our current team. Just remember you that Seeker spells require you to actually say their name, to mask them seekers usually work them into conversations, I'm sure you'll excel at that.”

“I've only learned four total Seeker spells, and only one of them is an attack spell.”

“Seekers will often use the 'light spell' I showed you as an attack, it can serve many purposes beyond simply lighting your way. Besides any spell can serve more than one purpose, you just have think about a new way to apply your spells.”

All of a sudden a group of earth ponies with masks hiding most of their faces surrounded them with swords in their mouths, a pegasus in pure black armor in a style that reminded Rec of Roman legionnaire armor stepped forward, the style was completely foreign to Twilight. Rec just shook his head like he had been expecting something more, especially since pegasus was wearing a centurion's helmet that had its decorations done in the style of a pegasus wing. To be fair it was taking a noticeable amount of his will power to keep from laughing at the look. The pegsus also had a circular madallion with the image of an alicorn with an X overlaying it.

“Well,” said pegaus in a commanding, raspy voice, “her ladyship Princess Twilight Sparkle is here with only an unknown unicorn for assistance, you should have brought better help, especially since everypony here can't use their magic. You would have been better off with an earth pony, since they're used to not being able to openly use magic.

“That condescending attitude look bad on you,” said Rec evenly, “might we inquire as your name, you can call me Amulet Scholar if it's all the same to you,” Twilight almost made a move to question the unicorn next to her when it hit her, Rec was assuming an identity since this group obviously didn't know anything about him.

“Yes, well,” said Twilight, “we were doing some midnight exploring and charting of the caves, Scholar's specialty is magic items and all that and I figured it might be good to have his company in case we encounted anything unusual, after all we didn't really know what could be down here and having somepony who might know a thing or two about any unusual artifacts we found would be nice. We were just minding our own business when all of a sudden we couldn't use our magic anymore, we did come with one of my friends, but she got lost a while ago, and since we've been charting the caverns down here we don't know where or when we lost her.”

“Well formalities are important,” said the peasus, “I'm Noble Demon, and all I want to know now is which of your friends came with you?”

“The kind you can't really miss,” said Rec, “bouncy, hyperactive, overly gregarious, that sort of thing.”

“You brought Pinkie Pie with you on an exploration mission? Why would you bring that overly energetic ball of pink with you?” said Noble Demon

“She's very perceptive, and perception is what we need when charting unknown territory,” said Rec matter-of-factually.

“Yes well, the energy of somepony like that doesn't agree with me,” said Noble Demon. He motioned for the guards to follow him while leading his new 'guests' and started trotting the direction Twilight and Rec had been going.

******************************

After about another half hour of trotting they were brought to a large chamber, in the center of the chamber was a golden statue of an earth pony holding a winged staff aloft around half the size of Twilight. Around the statue were unicorns who were wearing the exact same accessory as Noble Demon. Rec and Twilight both realized they must have some sort of significance, and both deduced the madallions might have a relation of some kind to the neutralizing field. There deduction proved correct when Rec tried to get closer to inspect the statue and was blasted in the leg with an energy burst from one of the unicorns before being shoved by one of the eight earth ponies surrounding him and Twilight.

Both he and Twilight gave the fifty-three ponies in the room, including their guards and Noble Demon, a disapproving look.

“Who are you? What do you want? Why have you made all of Canterlot lose it's ability to use its magic? Your putting innocent ponies at risk,” said Twilight.

Noble Demon stood on a platform next to the statue before saying, “we are the Pony Liberation Council, we regret that Canterlot has to suffer like this, but it is necessary to ensure the oppression of the alicorns has be made more difficult.”

“Oppression? What have I done to oppress anyopony? I've just barely ascended,” said Twilight, “not to mention all of the greatest innovations in technology and self-expression blossomed under the rule of Princess Celestia, she doesn't really do anything other than raise and lower the sun and hold open court for anypony who wants to address her with a matter they believe is of great concern. Princess Luna has just barely returned to holding the night court with the same expressions as Celestia's day court, Princess Cadance isn't even in Canterlot and she hardly does anything in the Crystal Empire anyway. How can any of us be oppressors or tyrants?”

“Celestia and Luna rule as absolute queens, yet have the gall to only go by 'Princess', it is something that truly makes me sick.”

“That's your reason for trying to insight rebellion,” said Rec calmly, “do you have proof that the rule of this nation would be better if turned over to another power? Do you have historical evidence to suggest that a rule with the abscense of the alicorns is better? Are you sure the populace wants this? Wil the populace accept this? Have thought any of this through? Or are you just some board spoiled brats who decided to play at revolution so as occupy your time in a way you think is meaningful? You need to think it over a bit more if you're coming up short for answers.”

“Silence this infidel,” said Noble Demon, “he knows not of the powers he is up against!”

Rec just shook his head and reached into his flank pouch and brought out the amulets for Gearheart, Nordrake and what looked like a silver shamrock with a green gem in the center. Before shouting out, “Meet the trials, Gearhaert; take the shot, Nordrake; Crush the unjust, Crom Cruach,” as if on cue Nordrak appeared flying in the air, a mechanical looking earth pony (whom Twilight assumed was Gearhaert, she was right), and what looked like a giant worm with a dragon's head appeared next Rec. “Alright, you all know what to do, just remember no lethal force. You ponies ready to eat my NimbleFire and ShadowSpeed?” With that he was already on the move and in just a matter of seconds all eight of the earth ponies surrounding them were dropped to the ground unconcious. Twilight saw Rec moving at high speed batting at each pony he came across with his forehooves at a rate that she figured even Rainbow Dash couldn't match.

“What? That's impossible! Nopony should be able to use magic without the medallions,” sputtered Noble Demon.

“You just need to redine your thinking a bit,” said Twilight, “let me introduce you to, Ironsquire,” with that what looked like an earth pony with heavy armor that went all the way up and protected everything, including the entire muzzle and ears, with a large shield held securely the right foreleg appeared next to her, “keep me safe, I have a plan, Noble I hope you don't mind if I give your accessory a BubbleLift,” with that the main part of the medallion around Noble Demon's neck was caught in a light blue bubble and started floating up over his head.

Meanwhile pegsi with medallions were moving at top speed to try and catch Rec unicorns blasted at Nordrake and earth ponies used their blades to cut at Crom Cruach. Crom was proving most difficult because every few seconds after bing separated his pieces literally grew from both ends of the cut to rejoin and make the worm-like dragon creature large before it squeezed the helpless ponies into unconciousness. Gearhaert was proving trick because not only did he seem to be composed of metal, but he also kept cycling through a variety of utensils to combat the unicorns and earth ponies that were ganging up on him, and losing.

A few minutes later Rec's speed spells wore off and Nordrake was finally taken down, as was Gearhaert, Crom was still going strong until he was lifted by magic of eight of the twelve unicorns still conscious. The whole battle had only taken eight minutes, and Twilight became dismayed at how easily her bubble was burst when she tried to raise Noble Demon's medallion of him. Despite all that Twilight was smiling, it had been so long since she had tried a new spell. Ironsquire was still active, but he only hurt anypony that drew near Twilight so they decided to just leave the magicless alicorn with her surprisingly adept guardian.

“That was pointless,” said Noble Demon when the dust settled, “what did you hope to accomplish? All you did was render a few of us unconscious, that's all!”

“Yep, the distraction worked perfectly,” said Rec with a smile, “you didn't even notice your statue went missing within the first minute of the fight, I call the operation a success.”

“Agreed,” said Twilight, “I just wish I had done more, but I'm still learning this new magic you introduced to me.”

Noble Demon looked over where the statue had been and found it was no where to be seen and all he could say a the sight was, “but how? When? Huh???”

“Our so called 'missing' companion has been invisible this entire time,” said Rec, “while you were all busy focusing on us she was free to take the artifact and make off to somewhere else with it, the best part is we didn't really decide on a rendezvous site so it could be anywhere, and so could she.”

“And with that phase one of the plan is complete,” said Twilight, “honestly I thought it would be a little harder than this, I mean seriously you only have twenty active ponies right now, we just took out over thirty ponies a few minutes ago.”

“I put my faith in my ponies,” said Noble Demon, “and if need be step in to keep them from incurring further damages. You, unicorn, whatever you called yourself, you're far more adept at combat than I surmised, usually unicorns are no good in a fight by themselves.”

“I've had practice,” said Rec, “tell you what, how about we have duel? The stakes, if I win you cease this coupe and have all the members of your order turn themselves in to the authorities to await a trial, but if you win you can choose your demands of me. The rules are simple, anything goes so long as there is no outside interference or help, what's in the arena at the start is all that can be used. You can take a few minutes to gather the resources you want to use for the competition, I'll wait, I have all I need on me.”

“Challenge accepted,” said Noble Demon, “I find the terms acceptable, and I'm a pony of my word. If I win you show me how you managed to use magic in a magical dead zone and explain how all these other ponies and monsters appeared and helped you and Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

“I find your request amicable,” said Rec with a nod.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? Look at him,” said Twilight, “he's clearly had military training.”

“The kind that lacks subtlety,” said Rec, “his armor and helmet are of a similar style to an ancient empire from my world, one that was very heavy on the use of its military and had its structure practically built around the military. That said their combat style was the basis for several major western fighting styles in my world, all of them had one thing focused on brute strength. I've been trained in a series of combat styles that are a bit more... open.”

“I just hope you know what you're doing,” said Twilight.

“So do I,” said Rec as he turned to see a smile pile of weapons land in the impromtu battle arena.

Noble Demon yelled out, “the battle shoe has been thrown, nopony is allowed to intervene or interrupt, this is a battle between ponies, a sacred rite that few have the courage to acknowledge these days, it is rite that all pegasi should be taught to honor, that all unicorns should be willing to understand and earth ponies should learn to embrace, this is a one-on-one duel with no rules for the combatants, this kind of competition hasn't be held in Equestria since before its official founding, I urge everypony to respect it without question, watch and honor the terms of the victor regardless of the outcome. If you fail to acknowledge the terms of surrender because the victor was not who you wanted you will personally answer to me as I teach you just what it means to honor an agreement.”

“Nice show,” said Rec evenly, “but we both know you're just putting on a show, the moment you see you're losing you'll tell them they can join in the fight. You just said all that because your extremely confident you'll win with very little effort. I've encountered your kind before, egotistical and highly charismatic, I have to deal with one on a regular basis when I'm out in the field. So, let's see how far we can take this thing, hm.”

“You know not of what you speak,” said Noble Demon.

“Do you even know the meaning behind your name,” said Rec as he got into position.

“It's just a name,” said Noble Demon, “there is no meaning behind it or to it.”

“Every name has a meaning to it,” said Rec, “it says something about the individual it's attached too.”

“In the language of the Celts the name Arthur means bear, a name that has connotations of strength behind it. Your name is a bit more interesting with its meaning.”

“And what would my name mean? Once the answer is given the fight will commence,” said Noble Demon.

Rec smirked and said, “a noble demon is a villain with a code of honor, they have rules that dictate how they interact with the heroes, other villains, underlings, and even bystanders. In other words they have rules that dictate how they do things even to the point of restraining them from taking advantage of events, and will do all they can to never deviate from those rules. You have yet to show any of that, in fact I think you've just assumed the name because you think it sounds imposing, you're and idiot with a lot of charisma and that's all there is too you.”

As if on cue the pony calling himself Noble Demon launched into the air and made a mad dive at Rec, Rec just shook his head and sidestepped without even using any spells, Demon missed him with the attack and shot back into the air, “you dare mock me, the greatest of the great pegasi warriors in a thousand years?”

Rec just shook his head again and under his breath said, “DoubleSpell, HyperStride,” blue flames appeared around all four of his legs, first time I've tried something like this, thought Rec. Turning his attention to Demon he said, “I hope can hand my FlashJump,” in bright burst of light that dazed Demon and Twilight, along with the onlookers, Rec appeared above Demon and said, “Get ready for an OverSlam,” a blue aura surrounded Rec's falling form before he collided with Demon and hopped the pegasus and mutterered “NimbleFire, ShadowSpeed, the auras of the two speed spells encased him just before he hopped of the cavern ceiling onto Demon again. He continued the high speed jumping onto the flying pegasus, who in addition to being very annoyed was showing signs of being hurt and damaged. After the twelfth pass Rec said, “and now for a FeatherDrop,” he stopped in midair and started falling at what looked like the normal falling rate with a bright orange dome beneath him and landed light as a feather on the ground.

“Why is it you can still use magic? It shouldn't be possible,” shouted Demon who charged from the air only for Rec to quickly sidestp him again just as his remaining powers wore of.

“A mystery for another time,” said Rec evenly, “you've lost this one, you just haven't realized it yet. You've taken heavy damage while I have yet to break a sweat with my actions. Face it this is your loss. How often do you train? How do you train? These are things you must consider.”

“I am example of physical perfection, why would I require training?”

“When I say train I mean practice.”

“There is no need for one such as I to practice! Everypony you may now make your assault on this infidel,” with that all the other ponies in the room made their way to attack Rec.

“I practice every day, for several hours, and spar with my friends and family almost as long,” said Rec, “it helps to build our relationships and helps keep us fit. Those that claim to be perfect are the most imperfect, perfection is not something that be objectively defined, perfect is a subjective term, its meaning is different that if you asked a hundred ponies to define perfect you would get a hundred different answers, perfection is like beauty,” he sidestepped the attacking pegasus, “it is always in the ye of the beholder. Now I think it's time we ended all this, you really should be careful before you slip into a DarkSleep,” his eyes gave flash of violet before everpony in th room, other than Twilight, collapsed to the floor asleep wherever it was they were in the room.

“How long will that last?” Inquired Twilight.

“Judging by the size of the room and total number of occupants I can see, by my calculations, about twenty minutes,” said Rec, “let's go find Pinkie and the statue, also we're taking it to your place.”

“Why? It would make more sense to study it at the school,” said Twilight with puzzled look and confused tone to her voice.

“A school that has been potentially compromised by a rogue faction, we're better off taking it someplace that has not potentially be compromised.”

Something clicked in Twilight's head, “oh, the evidence we found in school, I see where you're going with this line of thinking, let's get out of here and tell the princesses what we found.”

“First we need to disable the enchantment that's active on the statue. A quick analysis with the mythichive, which they didn't bother to relieve me of for some reason, should help us determine the best way to disable the atrifact. By my calculations we still have an hour and a half before sunrise is due.”

“And you said that sleep spell would have everypony out cold for twenty minutes, we can't disable the statue's magic and fight a rogue faction at the same time. We need to hurry.”

“Yuppers,” came Pinkie's voice from in front of them, Rec dropped the spell from the pink mare to reveal Pinkie was literally four feet in front of Twilight, standing on her head on top of the statue.”

Twilight rolled her eyes before saying, “let's just get this thing deactivated and back home with us.”

“Sure thing,” said Rec as he pointed a hoof at the statue and said, “BreakSpell,” they all felt like a heavy coat had been lifted from them.

Twilight lifted the statue up in her magic before saying, “we'll do a thorough analysis at home!”

“And I have new beginner's Seeker lessons to prepare for, we really need a master seeker here for this. I have feeling that Pinkie isn't the only new seeker we're going have to face.

____________________________________________________________

Meanwhile with Claudia and Luna. Luna asked, “You named your sun? Did you also name your moon?”

“Of course,” said Claudia, “the moon's name is Luna.”

Luna smiled and said, “what does it mean in your world?”

“Luna means Moon, a little uncreative when you think about it.”

“Why would you name your sun and moon.”

“It's a holdover from earlier cultures,” said Claudia with a sense of amusement, “but it continues because we have found new suns and moons throughout the cosmos, it started with our solar system then moved to worlds and suns further out. We have nine heavenly major bodies in our system, eight of them are full planets.”

“And the ninth?” Inquired the nocturnal alicorn.

“A dwarf planet, its erratic orbit is one of the reasons it doesn't have a status as a full planet. Our world is the third planet from our sun.”

“What are the ones that are closer?”

“Well, Mercury is so close to the sun that solar winds have blown its atmosphere away before it could properly form, that and it takes longer for a day to pass on the planet than a year. Venus is closer to us, it has its own moon, but it has such a dense cloud layer that you wouldn't be able to see anything, and the surface is so hot that the acidic rain of the planet evaporates to rejoin the clouds before it reaches the planet's surfaces, the unmanned probes we did send to planet have confirmed the atmosphere is too toxic for us survive on it.”

“You've learned of the other worlds in your system without visiting them?”

“Advanced technologies can do that for you,” said Claudia with a smirk, “we've even sent explorers to visit our moon a few times.”

“What did you learn about it?”

“That while the moon is pretty to look at it has a lack of atmosphere so we would need to put some work into making it a place for us to live at some time in the future of our world.”

“Oh,” said Luna as she blinked a few times, “when I was Nightmare Moon I was trapped on our moon, I feel like it needs a name from our little chat. I am at a loss as to what its name should be, I am the one who controls its rising and falling.”

“In the mythology of the Greeks the name of the goddess of the moon was Diane, but that seems a bit wrong when I look at your moon. It feels like a vigil guardian watching over those who wander in the dark of the night, what do you think of the moon?”

“I think,” Luna stopped to think, “the moon is a sentinel, it kept Equestria safe when I was a being of terror that would doom the world as we know it. It has remained a vigil guardian and good friend regardless of the years.”

“Your sentry, as it were,” said Claudia with a smile, “one that wards off the worst of things.”

“Yes, Warding Sentry,” sounds like the right name,” said Luna with a smile. Suddenly she and Claudia felt the effects of the artifact being disabled, “It would seem your friend and Twilight were successful, I wonder what they will report for us. We should make our way to the throne room.

**************************************************

Rec, Pinkie, and Twilight arrived up with their prize in time to witness the sunrise. Twilight smiled and said, “It's nice to see Princess Luna and Celestia's schedules were throne for a loop, “we still have to present this thing to the princesses and give a report.”

Rec gave a nod and gestured for the mares to lead the way. Pinkie teased him by saying, “you just want to look at our flanks.”

Rec gave a light blush before saying, “Well, I will admit that thought might factor into the decision, but it's mostly because I don't know my way around this place just yet. I'll be honest, you both do have attractive rears.”

Twilight gave a light blush, as did Pinkie combined with a giggle. A few minutes later they set their prize down before Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, Mandi and Claudia and gave their full report, taking turns.

“Well,” said Celestia after they finished, “we'll look into this new faction, in the mean time we should follow mister Formula's suggestion, I believe he is right in assuming the school could be comrpromised, I'll speak with all the most trusted members of the staff to look further into this matter. Luna approached the statue while her sister was talking and reached out a hoof to touch the artifact, she had always been a patron of the arts and this was a beautiful statue with a lot of detail put into it. A small light blue light started to glow from statue and suddenly the lunar alicorn was wearing an amulet that looked like a set of four gray open flower petals with a blue oval gem that had a yellow highlight.

Rec looked over at Luna and then back to Celestia before facehoofing and saying, “And now I need to give beginning Seeker lessons to both of Equestria's diarchs, a hperactive pink mare, who knows who else when we get back to Ponyville. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, especially since I'm at the journeyman level of being a seeker at best, but Celestia and Luna need to cancel court for a few days and join us in Ponyville so I can better teach them and whomever else just so happened to awaken as a seeker while we were out.”

Celestia gave big grin and said, “This is going to be fun.”

“Mandi, you can explain why there is a Solwing amulet on Princess Celestia later, right now we need to arrange for our transit back to Ponyville.”

“That we can provide,” said Celestia with a smile.

“I can tell I'm going to hate it already,” snarked Claudia.

“Oh relax, they're royalty,” said Mandi, “I can't see how whatever they provide in terms of transit can be that bad.”

“Trust me,” said Twilight, “you're probably going to like this.”

Author's Note:

The amulet that described for Luna is that of Archwarder, it kind of looks like this . I wanted just show the image, but the system said the address was invalid. Also the link will take you to Archwarder's wiki page, for a number of reasons I wanted to give Celestia and Luna a titan each. I thought a bit about what titan they should have, I factored into how the amulet's aethetics would go with their personal aesthetics. I chose a Krono-Titan for Celestia because the gold color of their amulets fit well with her regalia colorations and wouldn't seem out of place if it were added on her, and Solwing because in all honesty I wanted her to have a companion for her phoenix to play with if she wanted. I gave Luna a Meso-Titan for much the same reasons Celestia was given a Krono-Titan. Now if any of you decide to look through the official Huntik wiki and find titans you think would be a better fit for Celestia and Luna shoot me a line about it, explain why you think that titan would be a better fit. Next chapter will be back in Ponville with Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, the CMC and Orchid.