Game of Harmony

by CommanderApplejack

Prologue: Once upon a time

Author's Note:

So for the people who've followed this before, I'm tweaking and re-writing the story up until the point where we were before.
The plotline won't differ majorly but I want to expand on some stuff I find to be inadequate at this moment.

Prologue

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there was a being of disharmony called Discord. He ruled the land through chaos and disorder until two sisters stood up to him, through means of powerful magic they petrified the being and hid the remaining statue.

After their defeat of the chimera, the two sisters went to the ponies living in the lands of Equestria and assumed control, but it was not to last.

As time went on, the elder sister fell to greed. The elder tried to remove her younger sister so she could rule alone, a battle ensued but the younger sister was no match for the elder.

In a final attempt from the elder to spite her sister, she used the magical artifacts that they had used on the spirit of disharmony to remove her from existence, burning the final likeness of the younger sister into the moon.

But her tyranny would not last as under the leadership of Princess Platinum the third, a unicorn rebellion dethroned the tyrant and established the UNICORN EMPIRE showing once and for all the superiority of UNICORNS over lonesome mud-ponies or mutated chickens!

"Wake up you traitor!" A kick landed in the pony's stomach, rudely awakening her. "Judgement day piece of thrash, get on your hooves"

The pony remained on the floor looking defiantly up at the guard who had woken her.

"No."

The guard chuckled, "Are you sure?" He asked as he bucked the pony in the stomach again, putting her in a state of agony. She tried to summon her magic but was blocked by an inhibitor ring around the base of her horn.

"Get me some rope and a collar!" The first guard shouted to another guard who was waiting outside of the cell. A few seconds later the items that he had requested floated through the bars of the cell, "Raise your head traitor."

The pony still refused to comply with the guard but a violent yank on her hair with telekinesis forced her to elevate her head. The cold metal band slid around her neck and locked in place, the guard binding the rope around a ring hanging from the collar like a leash. "Now you can walk with us or we can drag you through the shit outside."

The pony thought for a moment but ultimately decided she would not stoop down as low as to be dragged through the crap. The pony slowly got up on her hooves, everything hurting from the physical abuse she had received that morning and from those before.

"Good choice." the guard said, tugging the leash, making the pony stumble forward.
The pony groaned as she was being led outside, light assaulting her eyes that had been in darkness for two days.

Around her tents stood in a grid pattern, the ponies that usually occupied them standing beside the road.

"Race traitor!"

"Chicken lover!"

"Go to Tartarus, piece of filth!"

They were all shouting insults at her and so every now and then she got hit by something thrown from the crowd, some even daring to come up close and spit on her.

At the center of the encampment, there was a raised platform with some sort of
two-sided guillotine, a closer inspection showed a sky blue pegasus with three scars from gryphon claws running down her face and her wings locked in the device.

The pegasus this mess had all started with a day ago.

"Step up to the platform." A guard ordered her as she reached a flight of stairs, refusing to go up there was another tug on the collar again making the pony stumble forward up the stairs by force.

"We are all gathered here today to witness the punishment of a traitor and an abomination of nature!" An announcer yelled at the crowd who immediately got into an uproar. "Lieutenant Sparkle, you have been accused of collaborating with the pegasus. How do you plead?" He asked the pony.

Twilight looked over at the pegasus who she now saw was also gagged. The pegasus was slowly but noticeably shaking her head and looking at her with pleading eyes, she had known the pegasus for a day but she already was loyal enough to want to stop Twilight from doing anything stupid.

"I was wrong." Twilight said, waiting for a moment before continuing. "Pegasi aren't monsters that haunt the sky as we were told! They're ponies just like us with families, they're no less inferior than we are!" That was the moment a buck landed on the side of Twilight's head giving her a nasty cut and knocking her over on her side.

"Your decision is an unfortunate one." The announcer said, "Lieutenant Sparkle, you have been found guilty of collaborating with the pegasus. Punishment for this crime is death." He finished telling Twilight, turning to the pegasus. "Pegasus, for your crimes of trespassing and corrupting of one of our officers you've been sentenced to a life of servitude on the farms. Additionally, there is no place for a winged pony in our glorious Empire so they'll be removed before your sentence is enacted."
He told the pegasus, Twilight remembered her name to be Rainbow Dash. She struggled against the restraints holding her wings in place to no avail, she shot a pleading look to Twilight who herself couldn't do anything either.

One of the guards pushed Twilight forward to an executioner's block, a pony with a black mask came up on the podium levitating a large axe alongside him. He'd break off her horn first and then decapitate her, as was the way with any traitor to the empire.

"Any last words?" The executioner asked in the most cliche way possible as he put his hoof on Twilight's horn. She looked at the executioner but her eyes soon drifted to something in the air far behind him.

A small smirk crossed her face as she recognized what it was, she may die here regardless but at least she wouldn't be alone.

"Dragon."

A loud roar came from the majestic beast as it soared down spitting fire onto the encampment. Fires lit as entire tents went up in flames. Taking advantage of the confusion that caused, Twilight lightly bucked the executioner in the chest relieving him of his axe and knocking him down off the platform. The dragon meanwhile had turned to make a second pass on the encampment. Twilight took a look over at Rainbow who was again desperately trying to get out of the device to prevent herself from being burned alive, "Buck it." She muttered to herself, "Not like I've got much more to lose anyway"

Quickly releasing the clamps holding the wings of the pegasus in place, Rainbow immediately fell forward as the restraints were released. As she took off her gag she turned to Twilight.

"Didn't think you'd... Watch Out!" The pegasus shouted as she pushed the unicorn back, a spear sticking in the wood were Twilight had just stood.

"Thanks, now follow me!" Twilight shouted while she jumped off the podium into the disorganized crowd, Rainbow hot on her tail.

"Where are we going?!" Rainbow shouted as the dragon made another pass, burning even more of the encampment.

"Prison tent! I need to get this bucking inhibitor ring off my horn!" Twilight shouted back as they made a sprint to the tent where she was held captive. The tent was empty when they arrived, seeing that at the time no one was being held captive except her and Dash.

"What'ya need, unicorn?" Rainbow asked as the unicorn was rummaging through a box.

"Something that looks like a wrench and fits around the ring on my horn." Twilight explained.

"Like this one?" Rainbow said through her teeth as she was holding a black wrench in her mouth.

"Yes! Put it on the ring and turn it anticlockwise twice." Twilight told the pegasus. Following the instructions, Dash got the ring off of Twilight's horn.

"You always thought you were so smart." The guard who had escorted her stood in the entrance, "Thought you could get away from this too, Sparkle?"

Twilight shifted a step closer to Rainbow and lit up her horn in anticipation of a spell. "Get out of my way, Sapphire. You know that you're outmatched even when armed." Sapphire's silence took too long in Twilight's opinion so she decided to charge him. Putting up a small barrier to prevent him from using his spear she bucked him straight in the chest at full power, hearing a couple of ribs cracking. "Run!" She called out to Rainbow, who was already running for the entrance. Outside unicorn soldiers were running around with ranged weapons shooting at the dragon whenever it passed,

"We should get some equipment and supplies!" Rainbow said to Twilight. The unicorn, meanwhile, was ripping off parts of cloth from a tent.

"I know. Here, put this on." Twilight said, tying the cloth to Rainbow, covering her wings. "Follow me, hopefully there isn't anypony in the tent we're going to." The two ran through the burning encampment to a tent close to the edge of it, slowly peaking into it they saw a stash of equipment without anypony guarding it

"Score!" Rainbow said as she ripped open a box, "These are boxes of pegasi Equipment!" She said pulling out a suit of armor, tossing it to Twilight and pulling another one for herself. Twilight meanwhile was raiding a weapons cash levitating two gauntlets in her magic, "How do you use these? I've seen pegasi fight with them but how do you extend them?" Rainbow grabbed a gauntlet and put it on, Twilight mirroring her since they had to get moving soon.

"There's a button on top of here that when you press..." A blade shot forward from the top of the gauntlet, "...then a blade will come out. It'll lock in place until you pull back this notch." She pulled back on a little notch on the front part of the extended blade, making it slide back into the gauntlet. Twilight replicated the action but instead of using her hooves, she used magic. Satisfied with the result she stood back down, grabbed a nearly empty saddlebag, and peaked out the tent.

"Crap. RUN!" Twilight shouted, the two of them running out of the tent towards the edge of the encampment. Behind them the dragon, now peppered with arrows, made another attack run burning a row of tents including the one they were just in.

"We need to get out of here before that thing barbecues us!" Rainbow shouted to Twilight.

"Way ahead of you!" She shouted back as they reached the edge of the encampment near a forest. "That's the forest where we stumbled upon you." She added while running to the foliage of the forest where they took a bit of a breather.

"I need to find my little sister, if you want to leave me now I won't stop you. You've already given up enough for me." Rainbow said as she looked back at the burning encampment.

"I've got nowhere to go and you owe me now so I think I'll tag along," Twilight replied while keeping her gaze at the encampment. Rainbow pulled Twilight into a wing-hug, "Thanks Twilight. You're not bad for a unicorn."

"Also that pegasus armour looks really silly on you with its wing holes." The two shared a chuckle.

Twilight checked the saddlebag she had snatched to see what kind of supplies she had managed to grab, a compass, a long rope, a small utility knife, some sort of scroll, and most importantly a rolled-up map. Quickly opening the map she found a relatively accurate depiction of all of the three pony kingdoms, though for some reason the entire continent was named 'Equestria' for one reason or another.

"What's that scroll?" Rainbow asked, picking it up and inspecting it. The seal on the scroll was that of a sun with eight arms. Neither Twilight nor Rainbow recognised it so they decided to break it and see what was contained in the letter it was stamped on. A black leather wristband of sorts with a red crystal lightning bolt embedded into it dropped from the rolled-up paper as it was unrolled.

"What's this?" Twilight said inspecting the band, though it didn't look like there was all that much to it. Regardless, Rainbow pulled it from Twilight's hooves as she too was curious about the thing, though when she got it in her hooves the crystal suddenly started glowing.

"Unicorn, what the buck is it doing?!" Rainbow called out as she tossed the thing onto the ground.

"I've got no clue... but it doesn't seem to be giving off harmful magics," Twilight muttered as she concentrated on detecting any magic from within her body. A loud roar came from the camp as the dragon crashed into the middle of it, reminding the two ponies that they still had to get as far away as possible.

"We'll figure it out later after we find my little sister," Rainbow told Twilight, tossing the opened scroll back into the bag.

Twilight nodded and bound the saddlebag to her barrel setting off for the location where she had overpowered and captured the pegasus days before and where her treason had begun.

Comments

[sim alfa]

[Corascal]

Sold. Want more. NOW!

[Starlight Nova]

Is this a Game of Thrones crossover?

[Venerable Ro]

"So you're finally awake."

"Tried to cross the boarder right?"

"Walked right into that imperial ambush same as us..."

[New Rebellion]

Hm.... The opening of this story....

History is written by the victors. I wonder if that's the case here too? That Princess Celestia wasn't an evil tyrant who was justifiably overthrown. Merely that Platinum and her cronies had done everything in their power to twist the truth and warp history's view on the alicorn sisters? At least, that's how most governments and usurpers act after securing their power, especially in ancient China.

Anyway, a VERY interesting first chapter and I'm super eager to see what comes next!!!