Prologue
Prologue
The side of the mountain erupted in a storm of fire and ash, obliterating the tranquility of the small island. Shards of wood and rock rained down as fire and dirt blew forth, burning everything in it’s path. Steam exploded from under the ground, creating sinkholes and blowing more craters into the mountain as the water below was instantly vaporized. Slowly, the mountain started to sag towards the east as the explosions tore it apart from the inside out.
Princess Twilight Sparkle was barely ahead of the chaos.
Locked in a dead gallop, Twilight could feel the heat of the firestorm behind her as the forest exploded. She glanced at her right wing and mentally let out another string of curses at the luck of dislocating it. Teleporting wasn’t an option either. Her horn fizzled painfully at the thought of the magic required to ju—
“Watch out!”
Twilight barely had enough time to look over her shoulder before sliding to the left. A tree, broken and sharpened into a deadly projectile, whizzed past her and slammed into a jutting rock ahead of her. Twilight leaped over a fallen log, and barreled through a couple of thorny bushes when the thundering of another set of hooves caught her attention as she looked over on the ridge near her.
A white unicorn with a freely flowing purple mane, clad in a protective crystal armor, galloped along the top. Empress Rarity leaped off the ridge, and landed next to Twilight as the two continued to run.
“This is all your fault!” yelled Twilight as she jumped over a charred stump.
“Darling, this is hardly the time to— ” Rarity stumbled ahead of an exploding larch, as a massive boulder smashed it into a cloud of splinters and continued to bounce after them “—be casting blame. And if it was, you’d be to blame! It was you who told me to poke the dragon with a stick.”
“I was being sarcastic!” roared Twilight as her aching horn flickered with magic. The boulder bounced off of a quickly summoned, cracked, and frayed magical shield, and disappeared into a grove of trees on their right.
“And I was suppose to know!?”
“Seriously, what sane mare would wake a sleeping dragon!?”
“I said I was sorry!” shouted Rarity. “He is clearly overreacting!”
A thunderous roar shook the air around them. Twilight risked another glance behind her and watched as the snow capped peak blew up, raining boulders as large as houses down into the trees and ash cascaded into the air. The explosion framed the grim silhouette of a massive winged dragon as it came soaring out of the mountain peak.
Urging her sore legs to move faster, she yelled to Rarity as she passed her. “If you poked me in the eye with a stick, I’d be angry too!”
“Where did Discord find that beast?” demanded Rarity. “It’s like— move!”
Twilight didn’t have time to do anything. She felt the armored form of the Crystal Empress slam into her flank. Followed by a shockwave, and the crash of crystal armor into the unstable ground beneath them.
The motion, while probably saving her life, had caused Twilight to lose her hoofing, and tumbled right down into the dirt. Pain erupted from everywhere, and she was sure her right wing was dislocated again as she went sliding down the mountain.
But there was no time to think about it, Twilight flapped her left wing and gave a hard push. The action forced enough of an air under her to send the alicorn bounding up onto on her hooves.
She was about to cry out for Rarity when she saw her, not twenty feet away. Rarity’s armor was blackened along one side, and she could see several new and rather serious cracks along the right shoulder. It was clear by the expression on Rarity’s face that it hurt, and running was just as unbearable for her as it was for Twilight.
But they didn’t have a choice.
Twilight looked ahead and swore. Before them was a massive gorge, too large for them to jump. An idea slowly formed into her head as she galloped faster. “Rarity!”
The Empress looked ahead and nodded, seemingly able to understand just what Twilight had planned. The crystal armor crept up the mare’s neck until it formed a helmet around her head, and her horn glowed with a bright blue aura. Another roar got both of the mares' attention as they ran, closer this time. Twilight barely had time to weave to the left as a chunk of sharpened rock, slammed into the ground in front of her.
The dragon was clearly upset.
Twilight watched as Rarity galloped ahead of her and disappeared over the edge of the gorge. Time slowed as a final boost of adrenaline spiked through Twilight’s veins. She leaped into the air and twisted around, facing the dragon, and her horn glowing with power that only the Goddess of Magic could command. The dragon now close enough that Twilight could see the hate in the one good eye it had left.
Twilight unleashed the magic built up in her horn in a blinding magenta explosion, localized to the gorge’s opening. The resulting boom drowned out the roar of the dragon, and the shock wave flung the princess head first down into the darkness of the crevice as dirt, rocks, and other debris rained down in after her.
She struggled with the feeling of plummeting. It had been a long time since she fell. Wings will do that to you. Her dislocated wing flapped uselessly, trying to gain some purchase with the wind when she felt the crystal brush against her hooves. Slowly, the feeling became more constant until it felt like she was on a solid piece. Twilight channeled just enough magic into her horn to light the area around her, and found herself on some sort of crystal slide
Just behind her, she felt the crystal slide suddenly snap as something very large crashed into it. The action tossed Twilight back into the air and back down onto the slide, knocking the wind from her. This time the slide was fragmenting under her hooves. A pale blue light raced along inside the crystal, giving it just enough strength to let Twilight slide by before fragmenting into the darkness below. Soon, the slide dipped into a large crack in the cliff wall.
Once through, the slide evened out, slowing Twilight down until she tumbled to a stop in some long, hidden, underground cave. She laid there, panting for a while before standing up on shaky hooves, and rubbed her head near the base of her horn. The headache and the pressure from that concussive spell was fading, but not as fast as she would have liked.
“Rarity?” called out Twilight, as she staggered forward. Exhaustion and pain began to seep into every inch of her body as the adrenaline spike wore off. She squinted about, not seeing much more than rock walls and the faint dripping of water. “Rarity? Where are you?”
“H-here.”
Twilight looked to her left and increased the light coming from her horn with a grimace of pain. Rarity lay unmoving, save for her ragged breathing. Her armor, chipped and scarred from days of use, was still surrounding her body as she lay near a puddle of water.
“Did... we get it?” groaned Rarity, as the crystal helmet folded back down into her armor. She feebly shifted her head to look over at Twilight. “I don’t think I have another round with that dragon left in me.”
Twilight stumbled over to Rarity, sat down next to her, and used a hoof to pull out a very pink butterfly made of some sort of now charred stone from her threadbare saddlebags.
"Tourmaline?" asked Twilight.
Rarity gave it a quick glance. "Morganite, by the looks of it. I'm surprised it came out of the wall so easily."
Twilight nodded, "Yeah. The dragon's thrashing around dislodged it."
“And here you thought it was a bad thing to rile it up,” scoffed Rarity as she plucked the gem from Twilight’s grasp with her own magic and brought it closer to her, giving it an appraising look.
“Getting the Kindness Stone, no,” said Twilight in an overly sweet voice, before staring daggers into the unicorn next to her. “Getting chased down a collapsing, exploding mountain by a half-blind dragon, all of which could have been avoided. Yes. That was bad.”
“I said I was sorry,” mumbled Rarity, still admiring the gem. “It’s beautiful.”
Twilight fell the rest of the way down and laid her head on her hooves and closed her eyes. She was too tired at the moment to give into the bitter need to push the issue more. They’d been running for so long, trying to survive on this island that rest seemed like a foreign pleasure to her. Listening to the steady dripping of water, feeling the cool stone beneath her sweaty and pained body, this is what she wanted.
And a painkiller would be fantastic too. So would a peach smoothie, or a pillow. Maybe some candies. A good book. And a fresh garden salad with those tiny tomatoes, and garlicky croutons.
The sound of rummaging through a saddlebag and a sudden pressure on her right shoulder broke Twilight out of her wishful thinking and she gave out a huff of annoyance, and looked over to find Rarity wrapping a bandage around her wing.
“You’re hurt,” she stated, tying the bandage.
“Dislocated, again, I think,” replied Twilight as she shifted to allow the unicorn better access to the wing. She hissed in pain as Rarity prodded and poked at it. “What in the wo—”
“Hush, and give me a second darling,” said Rarity, running a frozen hoof along the edge of the wing, and down into the joint in Twilight’s back. The pain seemed to taper off at the cooling touch of the Empress. “My, don't you think that rock formation over there is interesting?” Rarity asked suddenly.
Twilight looked at the slate wall ahead of her. “Who are you, Maud P—” A popping sound, and a sudden flare of pain caused Twilight to go slack jawed, and slump her head down to the floor. “Oww.”
“You’re fine,” said Rarity, as she laid back down. “It wasn’t nearly as bad as the first time. Stars above, you wouldn’t let me come anywhere near it. Still, it's better to take care of it now.”
Twilight nodded her thanks. And they shared a few moments of silence, each marked with the drip of water somewhere in their forgotten hollow.
“Are you okay, Rarity?”
Rarity let out a tsk that echoed. The sound of armor plates scraping and clinking together as Rarity lifted her head up to appraise herself filled the stale air. “Darling, it’s just a few scrapes and chips. Nothing a little buff and polish won’t fix.”
“Nothing? You took an indirect hit from a fireball, and almost cost us the game,” deadpanned Twilight. She heard Rarity’s armor squeak as she shrugged the comment off. Twilight softened and nudged the unicorn to get her attention. “Still, thank you, Rarity.”
There was a pause for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“For pushing me out of the way back there in the forest. If that fireball hit me, I…”
Rarity opened her mouth to reply as Twilight trailed off, but something in the distance stopped her. Her eyes narrowing as she fought to stand back up. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
“What is…” Twilight looked behind her. She could hear it now. The distant scrapings, the echoing shrieks and howls from further in the darkness. “What?”
“Diamond Dogs,” snarled Rarity as if it was some sort of filthy curse. “We aren’t done yet.”
“Do you think they know we’re down here?” breathed Twilight. “Can you teleport?”
Rarity shook her head. “Short distances if we get into trouble, maybe. But I feel like I’m at my limit just keeping this armor summoned.”
Twilight cursed under her breath. There was no way she was in any sort of shape to manage teleportation for the distance they needed. And that left only one other option. She picked the Empress up and unceremoniously slung her across her back.
“Hey, wha—”
“You’re hurt, and we need to move fast,” said Twilight. “Especially if these are like the wild dogs from earlier.”
“But I—”
A single glare from Twilight was all she needed to silent any further protests from Rarity. “Which way to the top?”
Rarity looked away from Twilight and studied the rock formations around her for a moment, before pointing a hoof out to a small passage to their left. “That way, I think.”
Twilight took off as fast as she could push her aching muscles, which ended up being a sort of half trot, half gallop. She dipped between stalagmites, and slipped into the passage, that was less a passage and more a glorified crack in the wall. She grinned as she remembered what day it was, and what she was going to tell Rarity before their argument and trek to the mountain caves this morning.
"You were right, you know," she said, hopping over a rock as the sounds of the dogs in the deep grew louder.
"I was? About what?"
"You have the worst birthdays."
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Incentive for me to finish the first one, I should think.
~Skeeter The Lurker
Holy shit, that prologue was epic!
Ah, more! I can't wait! I loved 250. :)
Awesome. But question:
Shouldn't that say "slump her head down onto the floor?
Also, you doubled up on puncuation here:
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I'm not totally sure if it is okay the way it is or if it needs to be adjusted to that. I'll check with someone. Thank you for noticing that and the double punctuation.
Alright, let's hope this birthday goes a little less disastrously than the last one.
That really isn't a very diplomatic way of interacting with a dragon.
No kidding.
Definitely a very action filled start to this. In my headcanon this is Luna forcing Twilight and Rarity to relive their friendship through dreams. One per night since the last story ought to make the point.
I'm curious to find out when this little adventure happens in relation to the rest of the story. Is Discord actually working to bring them together? Did we flash back to simpler times? I'm looking forward to Chapter 1 to find out.
So... Twilight denotated her spell in the dragon's eyesocket...? I wasn't quite sure.
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Hmm. No, it acted more like a flashbang, and it went off at the opening of the gorge. I just looked at it, and adjusted it to be more clear on which hole she was shooting stuff at.
Thanks, and sorry for the confusion.
And yay! Another Commander!
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Right. Yeah, it was a touch unclear. (The fact I'm running on barely minimumal mental fucntion today doesn't really help, mind...!)
That was an exciting way to begin a new story!
I'm happy to see you're continuing this series, thank you!
Awesome chapter
Thank you for continuing this wonderful AU. Looking forward to the rest of it.
What I want to know is....how does this chapter fit in with the rest of the Story? It seems like it's a Prequel to your previous story.
I am just kind of confused to how this fits in, and what exactly is going on.
Though I DID rather fancy this chapter, and it's great to see more writing coming from you!
pre12.deviantart.net/5c2b/th/pre/i/2015/325/8/5/bed_time_story_by_hillbe-d9hkh8m.jpg
nice adventure,,,
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I do have chapter one coming out today, and I hope it will put to rest some of your questions. I'm sorry, I am not sure on how much I can say without spoiling everything. It is an important part of the story, but I don't dare say anything until a couple of chapters come out explaining some things.
Sorry.
Cute. I guess it'll be a while before we figure out what they're doing on that island.
Hmm, not much to comment on yet but I like this added insight into Luna and her now almost mental roommate Sapphire. Hope to see more soon.
The conditioner bit was really cute by the way.