Final Filly Fantasy

by Amereep

FFF II

Prelude

The mission to quell The Ice Queen's assaults, has concluded on a tragic note. Though the four ponies were there during her final moments, they were riddled with questions to what brought this unforeseen outcome.

What exactly did they face? What brought forth this transformation? Is this the doing of fate or was this orchestrated by an unknown enemy? What they were certain on however, was that this was an omen of what's to come.

They march their way home with this in mind, yet some are foreboding the thought of what the future may be holding for them.

The stars paint the night sky, and the four ponies have already set up a campfire on a monadnock to rest by for the night. All of their heavy equipment is back in Second Wind's wing, but they haven't settled down for the night just yet.

All four of them preoccupy themselves in their own way. Tempest Shadow is watching the campfire with a troubling mind, Flash Sentry is lost in thought as he stares at the sky, Second Wind is more active as he's writing in a book, and Shining Armor stands afar with his gaze viewing the horizon. The captain can barely make out the festive lights flickering in Ponyville with a feeling of guilt inside him.

"So you didn't make it in time for 'The Gathering of Friends'." Flash Sentry tries to console his captain, "I'm sure Princess Cadance will understand that you were on a mission."

"I feel like I let Flurry Heart down as well," Shining answers with low spirit, "but after everything that's happened, I really think the team needs some time to rest. Galloping through the dark with an exhausted team could be risky." He plops himself down by the fire, rejoining with the other three ponies that surround the flames.

"Two years." Flash thinks aloud, "It's a bit strange that we're honoring a day that was about bringing down, rather than building something."

"But Equestria became a more unified nation after those three tried to take control of everything. It even shows from last year when everycreature came back to celebrate the event."

"Still..." Flash returns back to his silence.

Shining reviews the team and spots Second Wind scribbling away in his book, "What are you doing there, Wind?"

"Updating my journal." he replies, still focusing on the words he writes.

"A journal, that's something I hardly see ponies do nowadays."

"Well I want to keep a record of all the experiences I've had as a Royal Guard."

"I see... so what made you want to join the Royal Guards anyway?"

Wind freezes, turning his attention towards Shining Armor with a fluster look on his face. "It's silly... but... I want to try and relive the amazing stories I was told about my mom. Thrilling tales like proving her worth to the king of dragons, climbing up the tree of life, riding on a phantom train full of ghosts, flying to the moon on a ship, and stopping a witch that controlled time."

"Your mom really did all that!?"

Second Wind turns in embarrassment from Armor's interest.

"What's her name?"

His face quickly fades to mellow expression, "....her name was Wild Rose."

"Wild Rose...." Shining places some thought into it, but shakes his head after a moment, "No, can't say I've heard that name before."

Wind has a bittersweet look on his face, "You wouldn't have."

An awkward silence falls on the group.

"...what about you?" Wind asks towards Shining, "Why did you become a Royal Guard?"

Armor waves off the question as if there's no great significance behind it, "It was actually a last minute career choice."

"You see, while Twilight was basically the prodigy of the family, I was more of the struggler of it. I could tell a good joke and get others to smile, but I wasn't smart or talented at anything particular really. I eventually needed a career, and while everypony my age was already aiming towards one, I still couldn't find one that worked for me."

"I was dating Cadance at the time, and while her career choice was pretty much already set, she suggested that I should be a Royal Guard. I was thinking that I would never be able to withstand a month, but she said I had what it takes to be a great guard. So, I gave it a shot and got to the point where I am today."

"She had you pegged right from the start." Wind smiles at her insight.

Shining shrugs, "What can I say? She knows me more than I know myself."

Wind turns over to Sentry, "What about you, Flash? Why did you become a guard?"

Flash keeps a straight face as he goes into thought, "....I .....I was hoping to gain something out of it."

The crackling of the campfire continues. Shining and Wind share a moment of bewilderment to his answer. "...care to go into more detail?"

The pegasus subtly ruffles his wings, giving off a melancholy impression about himself. "I rather not reflect on that now, if you don't mind."

"Well alright," Wind respects, "perhaps Tempest could give a much more elaborate story about her reasons for joining instead?"

Wind, Shining, and Flash turn to Tempest, who hasn't moved from the spot during the entire conversation. She's only been watching the flames of the campfire dancing throughout the entire time.

"....I'm going to sleep." Tempest declines and begins to adjust herself into a more comfy state.

She lays her head on her folded hooves, hearing Shining say, "We should probably get some sleep too." before she drifts asleep.

---

At Canterlot Castle, Tempest converses with Princess Twilight Sparkle over a cup of tea in the dining hall.

Tempest is giving her report on the events that have happened during the course of the mission to the pony sitting across from her. The sympathetic look of shock and sorrow is clearly visible on Twilight's face. She covers her forehooves over her mouth, trailing her eyes towards the reflective floor after hearing everything Tempest said.

"This is tragic," Twilight empathizes with The Ice Queen, "do you have any idea of what might have caused this change?"

Tempest shakes her head, "No, none of us really do."

The princess shuts her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath to calm her nerves, "Thank you again for your help on this matter. I can promise you that I'm going to see through to what caused this and make sure it never happens again." Twilight takes another sip of her drink before looking back at her guest. "So now that you're done with the mission, what will you do next?"

Tempest straightens up and speaks with confidence, "I'm going to continue to spread the news of the Storm King's defeat."

"Ugh, that excuse again?"

Tempest stiffens to the surprising remark. The pony across from her begins to stir a spoon in her tea with the use of her magic. Twilight rests her head on a hoof, making her bangs cover any information given from her eyes.

"Who are you trying to fool, me or yourself? You're just going to keep moving from town to town, doing little jobs to get by before heading to the next place and repeating the process there."

Shadow looks down at her drink, seeing images of her past playing in her teacup.

"Spreading the word of the Storm King's defeat, heh!" Twilight laughs, "You're just doing the same thing you've been doing before you met him. And you're going to be doing the same thing after meeting her."

Tempest looks away from the tea, finding it too irritable to watch.

"The faun was onto something, wasn't she?" the voice of the princess sounds capricious in a mocking manner, "'Drifting through life with no real purpose', I believe you said something exactly like that. But that cute description she gave, it was much more different than yours."

Tempest sees herself on the reflective floor and swerves her eyes away before she could scan up her body.

"'Cursed', that's such an innocent and wishful way of thinking it, while your description for it was much more truthful and accurate. What was it again... ah yes, you said you were 'Damned'."

Tempest snaps her head towards Twilight and sees The Ice Queen in the pony's place, imitating exactly what the princess was doing.

"So how much longer are you going to go on? How long are you going to keep 'looking away'?"

The handicapped mare begins to tremble, struggling to face down the faun before her and turns her sights away.

"WAKE UP, TEMPEST!"

---

"COME ON, TEMPEST! WAKE UP!"

The mare feels herself being shaken out of her dream and back into reality. Tempest sees Second Wind disturbing her and gives him a groggy face as a reply.

"We have to get going!" there's a sense of urgency in his voice.

She looks up at the night sky still overhead, "It's still dark."

"Not over there!"

Tempest rubs her eyes, looking to where his hoof points. Her eyes dilate at the site of Ponyville in the distance. The town is hardly visible, but what can be seen is a colossal sized barrier covering it with a kilometer radius of at least a hundred.

She jumps at the terrifying size of the dome that covers over Equestria. The barrier glows a radiant of colors of streams swirling and spiraling up towards the top where a single pillar of light is connecting itself with the ground. At the distance from where the four of them stand, the pillar is as thin as a hair strand, but at the bottom of that thread, sits Ponyville.

Shining whips his sights back on the team with a look of fear, "COME ON!"

The captain leads his team charging towards the barrier that's miles away. He feels his sense of dread getting worse at visible signs of a rainbow forming at Ponyville and striking at something still too small to see. There's a fight happening there, and each second that passes feels like an eternity that only keeps building.

After ten agonizing minutes, the dome begins to shrink along with the pillar of light. Smaller and smaller until the entire spectacle is gone from sight, leaving everything intact with no destruction of any sorts.

The team of ponies soften their pace, sharing the same expression on what to make of this event.

Still, after an event like this, they refuse to stop until they reach Ponyville.

---

Standing in the center of town after hours of galloping, the team is relieved and disturb that everything is intact.

Decorations of balloons and streamers are still up, concession stands of confectionaries and gems aren't spoiled, even the buildings and streets aren't damaged.

There are fewer creatures about, understandable given the late hour, but something is amiss. Earth Ponies and Yaks are struggling with issues involving strength. Pegasi and Griffins aren't flying about, and every single Unicorn is performing tasks using their hooves and mouths.

Shining looks at his teammates, "Split up, gather what information you can and meet back here in an hour."

Shining Armor, Flash Sentry, and Second Wind each went in their own direction. Tempest Shadow did the same, galloping through the streets and seeing everycreature looking tired and exhausted, yet it doesn't seem like it's from any kind of celebrating.

Tempest pauses the moment she sees a familiar face and starts galloping towards a busy princess conversing with the leaders of other races.

"The Great Dragon Migration is going to be starting in a few weeks. We're going to need to fly by then."

"You should be happy where you are, half of the Hippogriff can't even return home now."

"Changelings might be able to adapt, but we might be in trouble if a maulwurf attacks."

"YAK NO CAN SMASH!"

Twilight Sparkle rubs the temple of her forehead to all the delegating, but she's finding some relief to see Tempest approaching. "Just go to The Castle of Friendship and we'll settle things there." the princess asks of the leaders, "I'll be with you all shortly." All of them continue to bicker with each other, but they still do according to her wishes. Twilight turns towards Tempest and staggers before turning to the leaders, "And don't eat the walls, Ember!"

"I'll keep an eye on her!" spouts the griffin with the blind left eye.

Twilight gives a heavy sigh, expressing the stressful situation she finds herself in.

"I saw the dome from the outside of it," Tempest tells, "so could you fill me in on what happened inside?"

"The magic was stolen."

"Who's magic?"

"Everyone's and everything else." there's a tension sound in her voice.

Tempest gives her a moment before continuing, "Let's begin from the start, just what in Equestria happened here?"

"Well..."

---

"...as all of us were celebrating and reconnecting, one of us pointed out a light floating in the sky. Many of us were wondering what it was, but eventually, it made itself known when it landed in town."

"Well don't keep me in suspense," Second Wind insists on the young stallion with the spring bud fur, "what was it?"

"It was a fortress, a big one, one that's taller than town hall!"

"...on second thought, maybe it was better when you were building it up." Wind regrets.

"The structure was designed like three towers, with two of them connected to the third thicker one. It was almost like looking at a giant armored knight, or just a machinified living castle."

"Living?"

"There was always something moving with that thing, either it was adjusting itself with its two side towers or it was blowing steam, but the head portion is where it seemed to be alive the most. A red light, glowing from a miniature watchtower, was darting everywhere down at us. It felt like I was being judged by that thing."

"Okay, so what happened next?"

---

"It launched a projectile skyrocketing into the air. Within moments, we were encased in that dome and faltering as our magic was being drained." the bearded unicorn informs, "That pillar of light, it was our magic that you saw. First being pulled out of us to the surface of that barrier and then being shot down in a beam of light."

"Didn't any of you tried to stop it?" Flash Sentry asks.

"Of course, it seemed foolish that this mechanized behemoth would pick now of all times to strike us down. All of Equestria was here, The Power of Friendship would settle this issue in a blink of an eye, even if we were partially drained. But... I'm ashamed to declare that even with our combined efforts, we couldn't even phase it. That thing is completely impervious to magic."

"Did you try anything else?"

"We tried the old forceful way, but mere weapons and strength were of no good. Some were daring enough to be thrown at the beam of magic it was draining in hopes to replenish, if but for a moment. However, the eye on that machine would shoot lasers whenever we made an attempt, bringing down those poor souls. We simply had no way of stopping it until ultimately it drained us out of all our magic. We were fortunate that it was the only thing it did. Once it was satisfied, the barrier began shrinking and the trinket it shot began to fall, revealing itself to be a panel that was forming that pillar of magic. That panel reconnected itself to the main body of the machine and the bottom portion of it began glowing. The machine started to lift into the air and headed east until it vanished from our sight."

---

"And that was it?" Shining Armor asks Princess Cadance, "No, take over Equestria or anything like that?"

"No. Just stole our flux lights and left."

Shining looks down at his daughter, Flurry Heart. He gently rubs the filly's back as she sleeps in the comfort of her father.

"I'm glad you both aren't hurt." Armor tells with a gentle smile on a discouraged face, "I'm sorry I wasn't here when this happened."

"Don't be." his wife reassures, "I doubt any of us could've stopped that thing."

"No, I should've at least been here so you two wouldn't have gone through that alone."

Shining feels a soft pressure on his back, "But your absence might've just given Equestria a chance to recover."

He looks over his shoulder, feeling the vibration of Cadance's voice as she has her head on his back.

"You still have your magic, you and your team. The four of you might be the only creatures left that still possess Equestrian magic in them. Things don't seem that hopeless now that we have a fighting chance of getting our magic back."

The two of them enjoy a comforting moment of being together in silence.

"...Shining," Cadance breaks the moment, "Can I count on you to return the magic to Equestria?"

---

"I'LL DO IT!!!"

Twilight pulls back from Tempest's sudden outburst, "I didn't even ask you anything yet."

"You want me to retrieve Equestria's magic back, right?"

"Well, yes, but your eagerness was just so abrupt."

The handicapped mare reflects on the actions she's made and pulls back with a feeling of embarrassment.

The Princess of Friendship studies the mare with concern, "...what happened with The Storm Queen?"

Tempest begins explaining about everything that's happened on the mission to stop The Ice Queen. Proceeding with encounters of scroll wielders, the queen's transformation, how they barely were able to stop the magical creature they fought, and The Ice Queen's unfortunate fate.

Twilight shuts her eyes, going into thought after hearing the report. "...Tempest," she begins, "I know you've already offered to help us, and I thank you for that, but I'm afraid there's not much I can do to help you on this mission you're about to undertake."

"Outside of that machine heading east, I'm completely in the dark as to what you might uncover on this quest or the trials you might have to face. Something that can withstand The Magic of Friendship is something new to me, and I've never been more lost for an answer on what to do than now. But while we can't affect the enemy forces with friendship, that doesn't mean you can't affect your teammates, much like how Second Wind did with you." Twilight locks her eyes on the handicapped mare, "Keep that in mind, and support each other on this task to recover Equestria's magic."

Taking Twilight's words into consideration, Tempest Shadow nods.

"While my magic is gone, the rotation spell me and Starlight cast on the sun and moon months ago should still be in effect, so I suggest that you and your teammates think of a plan and rest up for tomorrow. I won't be going to sleep anytime soon, what with all the issues I need to make calls on now with the lack of magic, so I'll try and get some supplies by the time you're all ready to leave."

A thought suddenly strikes Tempest and she realizes that now would be a good opportunity to ask. She's experiencing that discomfort feeling of contrite twisting her insides, but it would be very helpful if she had this with her.

"If you're going to help supply us," Tempest hesitantly asks, "then could I ask for a request for a certain item."

Twilight tilts her head, "What do you have in mind?"

"A specially made sheath."

---

Shining Armor, Flash Sentry, and Second Wind converse over what they've learned over the past hour. Eventually, Shining sees Tempest Shadow rejoining the group, "We've been waiting for you."

"I was reporting to Twilight," Tempest avoids an apology with her reasons, "she's requesting us to hea-"

"Head off east and retrieve the stolen magic." Shining finishes her sentence, "Cadance asked the similar thing and we're talking abo-"

"About a plan to approach this giant machine."Tempest interrupts him. "I guess we're all on the same wavelength."

"So now that we're starting a new mission," Second Wind begins to ask, "who's going to be leading it?"

Tempest and Shining glance at Wind, "I am." The two leaders look at each other with a challenging glare.

Wind covers his mouth with his hooves and wings, "I made a boo-boo, didn't I?"

Flash nods.

"I thought we agreed that I was going to lead." Tempest asks with a little aggressiveness in her tone.

"That was 'then' and this is 'now'." Shining answers in a stern voice.

"How is 'then' different from 'now'?"

"'Then' was an infiltration mission. 'Now' is a national crisis."

"Which is why I am going to lead it."

"Not this time, too much is on the line here for me to put my faith on an offensive tactician."

"Okay, then what's your plan?. Tell me, what is daddy's plan?"

"We'll chase after it. Now that the fortress passed by Ponyville and how it brought everycreature to exhaustion, it probably wouldn't expect anyone tailing it. When we catch up to it, we'll cast 'Shell' and 'Protect' as a precaution if it tries to absorb our magic and assault it from behind when its guard is down."

Tempest slaps her hoof on her face.

"You got a problem with that, private?" Armor asks in a stern voice.

"Funny you should say that, because the obliviousness in that question just reflects how oblivious that plan is."

Flash and Wind begin conversing amongst themselves.

"One, do you really think you can outrun an aircraft in order to catch up to it? Two, if hoards of creatures all over Equestria were assaulting it and failed, how is the assault of four ponies going to differ? Three, we'd lose our magic before we could even get close to it for an attack, even if we cast 'Shell' and 'Protect', it can absorb magic and the spell cast upon us . And four, it's probably heading for Manehattan to steal their magic as well and will probably continue east over the sea, do you honestly think that the ferry would be open after an assault to help us continue our chase?"

"Then how would you handle it?"

"We fan out, try to find any clues or tips on the structure. We then exploit its weakness and flaws to get by its magic drainer and take it down from there."

"That's a good idea, BUT, that could take days. The structure would get farther away and the trail would go cold to where we have no chance at catching up to it."

"It could take days, or it could take an afternoon if we ask the right creature. That structure was built, wasn't it? So somecreature should be familiar with it."

"From the description everyone gave on the structure, the creature we would need to find would have to be a genius at mechanics in order to know how that thing works, which there doesn't seem to be any that around here to my knowledge. Our best shot is to go after that castle first thing at dawn."

"We can't stop it even if we catch up unless we can get intel!"

"And what good would the intel be if we lost the thing!"

"THEN LET'S GO TO KLUGETOWN!"

Tempest Shadow and Shining Armor turn to Second Wind's outburst.

"We could visit my Uncle Cider for advice. He's a wiz when it comes to machines, he made my prosthetic wing after all."

"Plus," Flash Sentry squeezes in, "we might even find a faster mode of transportation there."

Tempest and Shining glare back at each other for a moment before turning to the two pegasi, "Tomorrow, we head for Klugetown."

Comments

[prism heart]

Shining REALLY needs to pull his head out of his flank and let Tempest make the tactical decisions, he makes better diplomatic choices anyways.

[Satto Kez]

Sure hope this continues. It's good sofar.

[Amereep]

10197628

Sure hope this continues.

That's the plan.