• Published 9th Mar 2013
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Vengeance of Dawn - Scipio Smith



Princess Twilight Sparkle comes under attack by a foe seeking revenge for something Twilight does not even remember. It seems that finding your destiny can steal others' away.

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Fateful Day

Vengeance of the Dawn

Chapter 1

Fateful Day

A beautiful day in Canterlot. The sun, brought forth by the majesty of Celestia's power, shines down upon the gleaming spires of the capital, twin testament both to the glory of ponydom and to the fruits of harmony long maintained. It shines upon the aristocratic ponies in their top hats and elaborate frocks as they mingle in the tea shops, the drawing rooms and in the hustle-bustle of the streets. It shines upon the back alleys, pawn shops and upon low apothecaries in Canterlot's less welcoming districts. It shines upon the race track and the art gallery, upon the airship deck and the opera house. It shines upon the palace and the school. It shines upon all the denizens of the golden city: unicorn, earth pony or pegasus.

It shines upon Twilight Sparkle through the open windows as she stands in the high tower and tries to convince a panel of sceptical looking examiners that she is worthy to enter the hallowed halls of Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. A purple and green spotted egg sits in a hay cart in front of her. Flustered, nervous, struggling to remember even the simplest levitation, young Twilight tries everything that pops into her panicked mind to affect the egg. Desperate, she even waves her forehooves at it as she has seen stage magicians do.

The exam board is not impressed.

Her parents, watching in the corner of the room, prepare for tears and consoling hugs and an evening spent soothing the sorrows of their daughter.

***

The sun beams down upon Shining Armour, currently in training to join the Royal Guard. On this particular day he is patrolling alongside an experienced guardspony by the name of Lancer, who is expounding to him the finer points of keeping the peace. But Shining Armour is distracted, thoughts of Twilight and her exam steal his attentions and his mind away, something his trainer is not entirely ignorant of.

"Of course," Lancer said, "The biggest threat we have to contend with are swarms of ravenous flying banana-fish."

"Yes sir," Shining Armour said absently. He paused in mid-nod, "Wait, what?"

"Have you got something on your mind, lad?"

Shining Armour shook his head, "Sorry sir, it's just that my sister is taking her exam for Princess Celestia's school today. I can't help but wonder how she's doing."

"Magic school eh?" the older pony grimaced. "Don't worry lad, I'm sure she'll do just fine. Before you know it she'll be putting on airs with the best of them and you and me will be saluting her."

"Twily isn't like that," Shining Armour said.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not judging," Lancer said. "If I could bend the world to my every whim I'd put on airs as well."

***

The sun shines down upon Breaking Dawn, Princess Celestia's star pupil and a figure whose approach is viewed with awe and apprehension throughout the school. At this moment however, this golden unicorn has forsaken the hallowed halls in favour of the streets of Canterlot, where she is wrestling with a grey pegasus in a backalley while four other ponies look on.

By all rights she should be in school: her essay on Post-Migratory Inter-Tribal Relations is due in tomorrow and she has another essay on Theory and Ethics of Compulsion which is late. Neither has been so much as started. But Breaking Dawn has the princess wrapped around her hoof, Equestria's ruler dotes upon her like an old grandmother and there will be no repercussions from her truancy. Three times the guard have dragged her off over petty offences and three times she has escaped with only a mild verbal reproof from her mentor. Breaking Dawn knows what she is, what she is destined for, what her sunrise cutie mark proclaims her to be. Dawn knows that for the sake of that she can be, will be, forgiven much. That is why the truancy and tardiness are ignored, that is why the curfew breaking and the visits to low cider palaces are tolerated. That is why she has not received a single detention or indeed any punishment in her entire academic career. Her fellow scholars call her, not without a trace of rancour, The Untouchable.

The pegasus she is wrestling with, who goes by Razor Wind, is defeated, born to the ground and held until she submits. The grey pegasus yields with grace and good humour, joining in the congratulations of Breaking Dawn's triumph by the ponies who press about. There are six of them, including Dawn and Razor: two unicorns, two earth ponies, and two pegasi. She has assembled them specifically, for great as she is she knows that it is with their help that she will do her greatest deeds. In time, she knows that these six ponies who meet in dirty backstreets and off-limits establishments will be the eventual enablers of her destiny. So it is written, and so the Princess has told her.

***

And lastly the sun shines upon Princess Celestia, for it would be ungenerous to allow her none of its benefits after all the trouble she has gone too to bring forth the light. She is in the palace gardens, pacing up and down not far from the statue to Victory, wondering whether she has done the right thing.

She is old, and one does not live to be such a ripe age without one or two regrets and self doubts being amassed along the way. Right now, the course that it troubling her mind is the test being put to a young unicorn filly in one of the high towers right now. Is she being fair? Is she being cruel? Is the disloyalty unworthy of her? Does she risk blighting a young pony's life for nothing?

For nothing. That is the point. For near a thousand years she has waited, plotted, schemed but most of all hoped. Hoped that redemption is possible, that a way can be found for her beloved sister to be brought back from the abyss of despair and darkness. There will only be one chance, one opportunity, and she cannot waste it. If she is wrong now, if it turns out that she was right before, then she has lost nothing by making sure of it. But if she was wrong before, and is right now, then she must know. To continue on her present course, on the wrong course, would be disastrous. She must know while there is still time.

And if she is wrong now, and was right before, then she will arrange for Twilight Sparkle to retest for entry at a later date, sitting the same exam as every other pony. That should be enough to make amends, if she is wrong, shouldn't it?

Unfortunately, Celestia cannot see such a simple way to make amends if she is right, to make up for all the wrongs she has let slide in the past. Wrongs that, through her behaviour, she has caused as much, more, than the perpetrator.

Steeling her resolve with thoughts of her dear Luna, Celestia waits for news.

And then, with a rumble of thunder and a blaze of spectral light, a sonic rainboom bursts across the sky.

Equestria will never be the same again.

On a rock farm, a bored pink filly looks up at the beautiful lights and smiles with pure joy for the first time in her life. She will rarely stop.

In a meadow bordering some woods, a shy pegasus discovers that she can talk to the animals as she coaxes them from their holes and soothes their fearful spirits.

Outside of Ponyville, a young unicorn discovers her talent for bringing out the beauty in everything.

In Manehattan, a homesick farmgirl is reminded of what really matters in life, and remembers just where she belongs.

In the skies over Cloudsdale a rainbow pegasus finds out the meaning of speed.

And in a Canterlot tower, Twilight Sparkle loses all control over her magic as it explodes out of her in a raging torrent. The light blazes out all across the city.

***

Breaking Dawn's companions cower from the combination of the rainboom and now the vast quantities of magic being released. Breaking Dawn is filled with sudden dread at the realisation that this is power even she could not hope to match. She hopes no pony notices her legs are trembling.

"What in Celestia's name is that?" Razor Wind yells.

"I don't know," Breaking Dawn has to shout to be heard over the noise. "But I have to get back. The Princess might need me." Not even Celestia's indulgence might explain her being absent for this kind of crisis.

***

"Twily!" Shining Armour shouts, and tries to run in the direction of the tower before a pair of strong hoofs seize him and drag him back.

"Wait, wait," Lancer hauls back on the younger pony. "You can't just go galloping off into... that thing. You don't know what it is yet."

"That's where Twily's taking her exam, and Mom and Dad are there," Shining Armour cries out, gesturing up at the tower. "I can't just do nothing while-" A humongous dragon pokes his head out of the tower, destroying the roof on his way. The magic continues to blaze. "What is that? What's happening."

"Calm down," Lancer snapped. He knows the young colt has one thing right, they cannot do nothing. But that kind of peril is no place for a trainee, and there a times when guardspony must take his life in his own hooves. "You stay here and keep the street clear. I'll─"

"I will go," Princess Celestia appears, silent and majestic, her mane flowing behind her, her serenity making her seem oblivious to the crisis unfolding, "I must see this for myself."

"Your Highness," Shining Armour gasps, "My family, are they okay?"

Celestia places one hoof upon his shoulder, "Fear not, Shining Armour, all will be well. I promise."

Lancer coughs, "Your Highness, I do not think it is wise for you to enter without the protection of─"

"I will be quite safe," Celestia says, calmly but firmly, "I must do this. In fact, I am the only one who can."

Protected by her powerful magic, exulting in spirit at her discovery, Celestia makes her way into the eye of the storm, where the frightened filly is lost to the power inside her. With a gentle hoof, and a calming smile, Celestia tames that raging storm, and the humongous dragon is soon returned to his true form: a baby sucking on his tail.

With the crisis passed, Celestia extends an offer to young Twilight Sparkle to become her personal student and protege.

Urged on by her parents, Twilight accepts, and buoyed up by the discovery of her cutie mark, soon dissolves into a mass of excited shouts of, "Yes! Yes!"

Celestia watches the young unicorn's excited antics fondly, makes a mental comparison, and concludes that she has made the right choice.

Twilight Sparkle will grow up treading the halls of the School for Gifted Unicorns and will, like Breaking Dawn before her, pass through them without a single punishment or recorded disciplinary infraction. In Twilight's case, it is because she never does anything to earn one. The other students call her the Marble Pony, an acknowledgement of her academic perfection as well as a criticism that there is something cold about her.

For Twilight, that fateful day is the beginning of a grand adventure. She will discover friendship, adventure, danger, excitement. She will see her brother married, and her foalsitter raised to the throne of the Crystal Empire. She will challenge the spirit of Chaos itself, rescue Princess Luna from the clutches of Nightmare Moon, run from a hydra and descend into the lair of the Diamond Dogs. She will feel life's passions to their top and drink it's sorrows to their dregs. She will learn more about magic than she could ever dream of, grow up, and fulfil her destiny as a hero and a princess.

For Breaking Dawn, that fateful day is the end of her world.

Author's Note:

All subsequent chapters will be in past tense, but I thought that present for this prologue considering the flashback nature of it and the omniscient narration.