> Dragoning her Hooves
>  by Richardson
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Everfree Forest had never been a good place to wander, even in a fairly large group. The monsters that lurked within it's fearsome, murky depths were fearless of ponies, unafraid to attack at will anyone who dared venture within. That the rescue party for Twilight Sparkle was about to be used as a demonstration of just how fearless the monsters of the Everfree were was an irony not lost on Applejack as she weaved her way through the thick underbrush. The crash of trees as the massive manticore behind her barreled through the forest spurred her to even faster speeds, as she desperately tried to lead it away from the rest of the group, hoping to lose it over the bridge to the old castle.

They had come looking for Twilight after she had ran off from the village in a somewhat misguided attempt to 'protect' everyone from herself. Granted, the whole 'Trixie going on a monstrous rampage after losing herself to the same transformation' part was worrying, but Twilight had never shown any other signs other than her physical transformation. It had only taken an hour to gather up everypony in Twilight's inner circle of friends to go chasing after her, the last trace of Twilight's new form having long since vanished into the Everfree by that point. They'd struck out into the gathering darkness of the dusk, heading out into the forest knowing only that their best friend was in dire need of their help and comfort.

The sudden impact of Dash's flank into her face interrupted her thoughts, as the two tumbled end over end through the small clearing they had collided within, skidding to a painful halt against a trunk. Faintly, Applejack could swear she heard Pinkie screaming their names in terror over the roar of the massive manticore. All she could think about was getting to her hooves, the farmer pony stubbornly ignoring the pain as she rolled to her hooves. The hammering blow of the beast's paw cut her recovery off, as she felt her form flying across the clearing, the darkness rising up to swallow her about as fast as that nice tree seemed to be coming up to her face.

Spike looked on in horror as he watched Applejack slam into the tree trunk, the sickening thud of the mare's body hitting the tree terrifying to hear. Now they didn't just need to find Twilight to save her from herself, now they were the ones needing to be saved, and the only thing he could think of that could stand up to the over-sized manticore was a full grown dragoness, especially one that theoretically could still harness the full range of unicorn magics. Fluttershy's wail of horror could be heard as she dove for Applejack, paying no heed to the manticore as it rounded on Rainbow Dash.

"Pinkie! We've got to do something!" Spike shouted into her ears frantically, trying to get the frightened stiff earth pony to move before the beast noticed them.

"I brought stuff to cheer a dragon up, not to fight a manticore! Where am I going to find an aluminum bat and a pie launcher in the Everfree?" Pinkie's wild rant left Spike wondering how those two items could ever actually defeat a plus-sized manticore, even as he looked up from Pinkie's fluffy mane to see Dash living up to her name as she tried to do her best in stopping the manticore.

"Pinkie, get Spike out of here! I'll hold it-" The cyan pegasus found herself being thrown through the air mid-sentence, as the monster took advantage of her moment of distraction to swat her from the sky. The impact sent the pegasus crashing to the ground near Applejack as the manticore turned it's attention to the remaining moving object before it.

The pink earth pony squeaked for a moment as the massive paw swiped through the air towards her head, barely missing as she threw all of her energy into a frantic leap to one side. The rumble of the pony-sized paw crashing into the ground shook the clearing as she ran for her life, trying to figure out something to keep it busy long enough for her to throw a distracting party, or let Dash and Applejack tag-team the horrific beast. Tail whipped before her eyes, the stinger of the manticore stabbing into the forest floor before her in terrifying proximity.

Spike hung on as best he could, dimly recognizing his own voice screaming for help as Pinkie twirled around the obstruction, using her almost unnatural agility to her advantage. The force of Pinkie's rapidly speeding up movements threatened to drag him out of her mane, as he was whipped rapidly from side to side. The crashing of talon and tail into the ground could be made out over the blood rushing through his eardrums, roars of rage growing louder as the beast furiously tried to pin down it's prey. A swiping paw sliced in from the side, at last catching Pinkie off guard, sending her and Spike tumbling to the pile of ponies where Applejack and Rainbow Dash were just coming around under Fluttershy's care. The triumphant scream of the towering monster shook the branches of the overhanging trees, the manticore taking a step towards the cowering group.

At least, before it's scream of triumph turned to one of pain, as it fell to one side, blood dripping from a gash on one shoulder, the glint of light from a blade gleaming in the dim light of the forest. Everypony followed it's path, looking in shock at the visage of righteous fury etched into Rarity's face. The exhausted unicorn panted as she caught her breath from having chased after the group all the way from Ponyville, taking a moment to get enough air to speak. She straightened up before the manticore could, brow furrowed as she summoned her shear spells, the two-dimensional constructs sharp to the point of almost cutting air itself. "Someone's been a baaad kitty!"

The group stared in astonishment as the deadly dance began, Rarity using every ounce of her power and knowledge to turn her talents against the massive beast, throwing her constructs to clash against tooth and claw. Rarity could already feel the sweat building on her brow, panting as she kept up her bladed whirlwind. She wished desperately that one would have been enough, but the sheer bulk of the monster protected it from her relatively small blades. Her offense rapidly found itself blunted as she found herself forced to call up more and more shield spells to counter crushing blows from the beast. Each hammering paw slap against her magical shields actually slid her across the clearing. Rarity realized she had already been backed into a corner, the thick bulk of several trees blocking her from retreating any farther.

Her eyes darted about for anything she could use to regain her initiative, the growling of the manticore almost atop her by that point, drool dripping to the leaf-covered ground as it imagined her taste. Rarity's frantic eyes caught a glimpse of her friends, a growl of her own filling the air as she realized she was the only thing keeping the manticore from devouring them alive. Her magic's glow grew brighter as she drew upon her last reserves, a lance of energy modified from her archery spell whipping out, throwing the beast back as she charged out one last time. Everything she could throw into her attacks ripped at the tough hide of the manticore, tree branches snapping and leaves scattering under the intensity of her whirlwind. She could feel herself weakening with each step, as she slowly drove it back as far as she had retreated, the swishing of air parting around magic blades filling the air as she stumbled. Her attack paused for a moment before she could raise her head once more, feeling the tears of pain from magic overuse starting to blur her vision. The manticore began to stagger to it's own feet in the breathing room, Rarity trying to conjure just one more strike to drive it away.

She struck out, her vision breaking into a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors as she vaguely realized she had failed her friends, and missed her target. The darkness began to squeeze at her head, Rarity feeling so tired, so very tired from the strain of her onslaught, even as a blinding pain erupted against her face. Unconsciousness carried her off even as she felt herself floating through the air like a graceful dancer, the faint sound of someone calling her name touching at her mind as she felt herself sliding to a halt.

Once more, the manticore screamed in triumph, though raggedly from the numerous cuts that criss-crossed it's flanks. The white morsel had taken more out of it than it could have imagined with those nothing-blades. It would enjoy taking it's revenge from the little morsel's hide as it stomped forwards. Gone was it's former grace, it's former patience. This time, kill them all instead of feasting on their flesh live. Better that way, no more distractions. It was time to end... this? Why were the morsels looking past it, shrunk down even more into themselves? The ripping screech of trees being rent asunder, timber being tossed aside like a foal's toys was it's first clue that it was about to loose it's dinner entirely. Followed shortly by the ear-splitting roar of an enraged dragoness.

"You! Will! NOT! HURT MY SON!" Twilight's roar of rage could be heard across the Everfree, clear into Ponyville as she charged into the clearing. The manticore barely had time to react before her swiping tail slammed into it's flank, sending it skidding across the clearing. She glanced down at her friends, seeing the shock and awe, along with their injuries from fighting the creature before her. All her fault. If she hadn't run away, this would never have happened.

"Twi... M-Mom?" Spike gingerly peeked above Pinkie's mane at the former pony who had raised him, something in him knowing she was still herself where it counted, as he looked into her sorrowful eyes. Twilight seemed to be about to say something, clawed paw raising from the ground, reaching to him seeking forgiveness for leaving him. Then it struck again, Twilight screaming as she found herself rolled onto her side by the attack, feeling her scales starting to part under the rending claws.

Instinctively, she struck out with talon and magic, horns glowing as a telekinetic smash threw the creature from her form to give her breathing room to scramble to her feet. Her claws dug into the tangled earth of the forest floor, holding firm between her opponent and her friends. Her hord...- NO! Her friends were not treasures to hoard, and she would not become that, never that! Her growl at her own self's thoughts were interpreted as a challenge by the monster, which charged at her, tearing through the canopy.

Purple flames were it's response as she gave into her motherly rage, her knowledge letting her channel it into a multi-thousand degree jet of superheated hatred, instantly incinerating much of the canopy above them, the sunlight shining through to glitter against her scales. Tumbling to a stop, the beast screamed in pain, having been clipped by the cauterizing flame, a jagged burn etched into it's side.

"Twiliiiight! Buck it!" Applejack's shout reached through the angry haze clouding the dragoness's mind, a sudden realization striking her as she uprooted herself, twisting around in spite of the pain arcing through her side, hindpaws limbering up.

The beast had a moment to look up, into the shadowy bulk of the dragoness that had defeated him, before the heavens-piercing blow of two dragon paws kicking full force into his face sent him careening skywards, stars seemingly shooting past his face as he arced clean past the horizon.

Twilight chuckled once, remembering how she had always wondered if learning how to applebuck would have ever come in handy again. It was getting harder to think, as she looked to her flank, realizing that the painful scratches the beast had inflicted had in fact been deep gashes into her hide, what should have been iron and crystalline scales still soft and supple, and easily parted. Her breath began to hitch in her throat as she slowly slumped to the earth, the world growing dim around her as Spike's... her son's screams of horror could be heard, his tender claws pressing at her bulk as everything faded to black.

---------------------------------------------------------

And yet, why was the sun shining in her eyes? Couldn't she die in peace, having so royally screwed things up? Her ribs grumbled at her as she breathed, eyes screwed tight in pain as soft prodding poked at her hide. Mumbled voices whispered all around her, her pained mind unable to make sense of them as she reached out weakly, trying to drive off her friends so they wouldn't have to see her bleeding out. "Go'way... don't do this guys... Don't let Spike see this."

Her rumbling voice still was so strange to her own ears, so much harsher than her old one. She just wished it wasn't going to be the last thing it heard. The soft prodding grew harder, more insistent, before a hoof reached forth, beeping her muzzletip gently. The strange soothing mumbling could be heard once again as the sunlight grew even brighter in her closed eyelids, almost resembling the silhouette of Celestia in her feverish state.

"I know I've described Philomena as a dramatic, but I never thought it would apply to my faithful student, no matter what form she took... though I'm afraid you'll certainly wish you were dead these next few days..." Celestia's voice drifted into her ears, soothing and uplifting. It took but a moment for her eyes to snap open, gently glowing irises focusing on her now comparatively diminutive mentor. She seemed almost to glow with immeasurable power, the former unicorn realizing she could see Celestia's magic now, in all its blinding glory, even as it began to fade, revealing a host of familiar faces. Her friends, and her family. And everyone from Ponyville she had helped in her stay in the tiny village, who wore looks from shame to joy at seeing her alive, if not entirely well. A look up revealed she was in a giant tent in town, a view of town square easily visible beyond the throng. Longing filled her heart, as she could see her currently unoccupied library at the edge of her vision, impulse striking her heart.

"SPIKE!" Her anguished shout sent pain rippling down her side as she cast her eyes across the crowd, looking for her little purple and green-

Squeezing paws clutched tightly at her foreleg, as she looked down to see Spike clutching tightly to her leg, almost afraid to let it go in worry that she'd vanish without him once more. "Don't leave me again, Mom... please don't leave me..." Sniffles echoed in the tent amidst the sudden silence, as Twilight laid there, uncertain as to what to do for a moment. She caught the eyes of her mentor, the alicorn smiling broadly for a moment before giving a 'HUG HIM' gesture as subtly as she could.

It took only that motivating push for the gentle dragoness to do so, Twilight sweeping Spike up into the embrace of her forearms, clutching him tightly to her chest as she began to cry. Realizing how much she had become for him, and just how badly she had hurt him by running away in her silly, stupid flight of fear squeezed at her heart like holding onto someone pulling out of a sonic rainboom. Slowly, softly at first, she began to soothingly croon to him, nuzzling him as he cried into her scales. Then, as she grew more used to it, she began to softly whisper into his ears, repeating the single best thing she could say to him in the tone only a mother could muster. "Not again, never again Spike. I love you, and I'll never leave."

The gentle rocking continued for a minute, before Pinkie at last broke the revere. "Awwwww... told'ya she'd come around! We should throw a 'WELCOME BACK! party for her!"

The cheer that rocked the tent was deafening, as her friends held back the majority of the crowd from her, the startled purple dragoness popping her wings in surprise and shock from the thunderous cheer, even as her parents squeezed through to in front of her circle of friends, looking up at the bulk of their transformed daughter. The noise began to quiet down, letting Twilight tremblingly close her startled wings as the nurses shooed everyone but Celestia, the element bearers, and her family from the tent.

"I... uh, never thought you'd become famous quite like this, honey..." Twilight's mother looked up into Twilight's tear-streaked face, as her daughter smiled awkwardly at the approval shining up at her. She'd never thought that her parents would be... okay with this.

"I have to say, it's certainly quite awe-inspiring...I love your look, even if it wasn't your choice. Your mane really does look nice on you, even in this form." Her father's words made her reach her free paw up to her neck, feeling the thick, tangled mane there. She'd changed again, though she was glad that anything left of her old self was a good thing. Before it had all been cruel, jagged spikes lining her neck, running down the back of her head.

Purple eyes shot back to her flank, where just beyond the thick wrapping of slightly bloody bandages her cutie mark could once again be seen, gracing her hide with it's slight glow. She knew in her mind that her jaw must have dropped at that point, as she stared numbly at the reaffirmation of her identity, wondering when it had reappeared, or if it had been there all along and she'd been too blind to see it.

"Twilight, sugarcube, it's like Ah said, you haven't been honest with yourself. You never stopped being yourself in favor of being a dragon. Everything that made you, well, you is still there. Just more of it now. Who cares what'chya look like, or if you sound like Big Mac gargling salt water now. We still all know you're the Twilight we came to know and care for." Applejack stepped forward, plopping herself down against Twilight's flank.

"And even if you hadn't been, we would have been incalculably heartless not to give you a second chance to get to know you, no matter what form you appear in darling." Rarity sat before her, primly throwing her mane back as she snorted at the mere idea of abandoning Twilight to her fate.

"What kind of friends would we be to let you get hurt out in the Everfree? Loyal to the end we're supposed to be. Besides, I'm not letting the one pony... err, dragon, who's 20% cooler than I am get hurt because I couldn't be a friend." Dash flew up, landing gingerly on Twilight's back, leaning around her shoulder.

"And just thinking about how cold you must have been out there, even if you are kind of scary, it's just not right. I couldn't leave you out there by yourself! Especially with Spike looking for you." Fluttershy so boldly hugging her shocked Twilight, as the dragoness wondered what kind of a crazy world she had fallen into.

"Besides, who knows what kind of crazy awesome you could get into now! You're so big, and fast, and zoomy-zoom-zoom! And zaaap! Ker-pow! You saved us all with that craaaaaazy applebuck!" Pinkie seemed to almost be teleporting, as she bounced about, appearing on different sides of the dragoness faster than she should have been able to bounce.

"Such is the power of Harmony, Twilight Sparkle. I would have thought you learned that when you saved me. Now, though, I must interrupt your rest, and reunion, with dread news. Trixie (the not so great and powerful) has fallen, like you thought you had. She has stolen the bag, and seeks to awake the dark lord Tirek, and there is not a moment to loose." Luna's form darkened the opening to the tent as she strode in, her armor once again upon her as she gazed fearlessly up into Twilight's eyes, knowing what the answer would be.

"Oh, no." Twilight could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the name ringing an unfortunate bell in her mind. She knew that name, instinctively and from legend. A monster. A Nightmare. Spike dried his eyes with a fist as he looked up at Princess Luna, who slowly strode deeper into the makeshift medical tent.

"Yes. Luckily, she is wandering randomly at this point, from all accounts unaware of the Tomb of Tirac's locations. Even luckier is that she currently is heading the wrong way to find it. Both of which give us time." Luna telekinetically lifted her helmet from her head, the silver sheen of it's steel shell glinting in the sunlight as Luna set it down on a nearby table.

"Ah hate to be a bother, but who or what is a 'Tirek', and why is it a bad thing? Ah say let Trixie go. She's done nothing but hurt you, sugarcube." Applejack raised an eyebrow inquisitively at the name, unfamiliar with it other than a vague unease. The farmer pony knew she was probably going to regret the answer, but she had to at least ask. Especially given the horrified looks that Princess Celestia and Twilight were giving the Lunar Princess.

"Applejack, imagine Nightmare Moon." Twilight's voice trembled as she spoke to the orange mare, others catching the fear as well. Anything that could scare Twilight in her new form, well...

"I hear ya, Twilight. So, I'm guessing this Tirek guy is 20% scarier than Nightmare Moon, or Discord?" Dash hovered about, hanging before Twilight as the dragoness winced slightly at the raw nerves in the deep gash in her side.

"Try 200% scarier, and able to do to anypony what happened to Trixie and me once he gets that bag. He was able to withstand Celestia and Luna working together at their full power when he last rampaged. They sealed him away in a tomb of pure Adamantium, and threw it far into the corners of the world, so hard that all even they know is the direction they flung it in." Twilight spoke over the gasp of Rarity, knowing the mention of the rarest, and most precious metal known to Equestrian lore and science would catch her attention. What she didn't expect was for the fashionata to swoon and faint at the thought of the sheer tonnage of Adamantium needed being wasted on a dread tomb to be cast aside.

"I think you overdid it, sugarcube." Applejack trotted over to the white unicorn as she spoke, looking around for a bucket of icy water to splash her with.

"Um, what exactly do you mean by that, Twilight? You mean he's responsible for..." Fluttershy squeaked beside Twilight's mother, the elderly unicorn looking at her funnily as the butterscotch pegasus squeezed up against her. "Those big, mean, scary, gobble a full grown pony in one bite dragons? Uh, oh... sorry Twilight, I didn't mean to..."

"Offend, no... We, er, all dragons still carry the taint of Tirek in their blood. All of them can trace their lineage to the mortal races that were corrupted by his power. Even... me." Twilight swallowed nervously, realizing the horrible danger to her that the bag Trixie had found represented. Oh hay, the danger to all of Equestria when the dragons fell sway, if they hadn't already, to even- Her fierce growl as she realized that Spike was in danger as well caused her own parents to jump in surprise, backing away from the purple dragoness's flanks in surprise as she tried to crawl to her feet. "NO! I can't let her do that! Tirek won't have my Spike! I won't-" Her defiant roar of anger was cut short as she fell back to her stomach in pain, a strangled moan squeezing out of her as she clutched her stomach and ripped flank.

"I'm sorry Twilight, but not yet. You are not yet healed, and we need you, especially you. You represent something we never had the last time we faced the dark lord. A dragon beyond his touch. That is why you have transformed once more, cruel scales becoming clean, tough hide, spiked crest becoming mane once more. You were offered a choice no dragon before you has ever been able to make. That you were one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony allowed you to make that choice." Celestia's hoof gently ran down Twilight's side, a numbing sensation spreading out from it's touch as the pained moans eased from Twilight's form. The dragoness looked to her mentor and friend questioningly, wondering what that was supposed to mean.

"You mean I was in danger of- of falling?" Twilight found it hard to accept that she had been right all along, and that she still might be a horrifying danger to all of Equestria. Maybe it would have been better to throw herself off that cliff after all.

The bold, lightening laugh from her mentor shocked her out of her thoughts, the white alicorn clutching her aching ribs slightly from the intensity of the her echoing laughter. "Oh, heavens no, dear Twilight. Your friends insured there was never a danger of you falling to his influence. They kept you true to your upbringing, my training, to the elements you all hold. Their loyalty, honesty, their generosity and kindness and levity kept you from sliding into despair and ruin, and even in your darkest hour, they came calling for you. Their steadfastness will be of great aid to your quest as you journey with my sister." Celestia gently corrected her student, her words brightening the faces of each of Twilight's fellow element bearers in turn as they realized the full importance of what they had done.

"I- I don't know what to say. I guess, well, thank you. All of you, for saving me from myself. I don't know how I could ever repay all of you for being so selfless to me." Twilight continued to soothe Spike, even as she let her wings droop, settling over her friends in thanks for their actions.

"Be the Twilight we remember, darling." Rarity spoke first, Twilight's heart dropping slightly at the words. The one thing she couldn't b-

"We're not talking about how you look, or the way you act, Twilight. It's about who you are inside." Twilight perked up as Dash beeped her nose, the cheeky and bold pegasus looking eye to eye with her. The laughter of her friends caused her to blush for a moment, realizing she must have an utterly befuddled upon her face.

"You're still the wonderful pony who has helped all of us so much. You're still our wonderful friend through all that's happened to you. Um, even if you are rather big, and scary." Fluttershy's timid, quiet voice quieted the laughter as Twilight began to smile, realizing her friends were utterly right. Sure, she wanted to horde knowledge, and seemed to have a mean streak now, but she was still the same individual who had become Celestia's dear and faithful student. Just... grown up, so to speak.

"You always knew how to be funny, even if it wasn't what you were going for! You put up with all of our craziness even after you started letting everything get to you and that big new noggin of yours!" Pinkie bounced once more, reaching to grab a hold of Twilight's head so she could swing up atop the dragoness. Luckily, Applejack calmed Pinkie down with a hoof to pin her tail, so that Twilight wouldn't rear back and hurt herself again at the bouncing pink so close to her face.

"And you have always at least tried to protect us in town, even now. When you were being a silly filly, and thought you were going all dragony-evil, you ran. Ran to protect us from what you thought you were going to become. Wasn't the smartest thing Ah've heard of you doing, but it's the thought that counts." Applejack's drawl seemed thicker than ever as she held the squirming pink menace in place single-hoofedly, doing her best not to crack up at the various strange antics Pinkie rapidly went through to free her tail.

"Oh, a silly filly, am I? Who was it who decided to take on her family's whole orchard on their own, and nearly got all of Ponyville flattened when she wouldn't accept help? Seems about as silly as abandoning someone's friends because you're too scared of yourself and what you've become." Twilight reached out with a talon, tussling the farmer-pony's mane. The dragoness realized they were all right. She had already done the impossible, had stood in the fire when no-pony else could. Her gaze passed over her friends, no, family in remembrance of what they had already been through. For good or ill, she'd do it, no matter what her fear said, no matter if she was in danger. For Spike, for her parents, for even the members of her family she wasn't actually related for, the least she could do would be to go.

Applejack's snort elicited a raised eyebrow from the dragoness as she tried to figure out what the stubborn country pony found so funny, even as her parents butted in. The two elder unicorns looked around in confusion, realizing that they had been further out of Twilight's life than they could be comfortable with. "Twilight, honey, how exactly did all of this get started? You haven't written for a few months, so I'm afraid I'm in the dark as to why you ended up, well..." Her hooves spread wide, as she gestured at Twilight's extended bulk stretched across the tent.

"It's kind of a long story how, er, Mom ended up like this." Spike looked up at Twilight's face, her muzzle creaking into a grin as she raised her paw up to let him clamber onto her back. Spike didn't seem to notice how natural it was for him to address Twilight as his mom, something the lavender dragoness made a mental note to ask her mentor about, even as she nodded her head, tailtip flip-flopping a bit as she got started.

"Well, the best point to start with a long story is the beginning. And since I don't think I'm going to be ready to move for a while, I suppose I have the time." Twilight blinked as all of her friends squeezed in around her parents, sitting before her. She hadn't realized she hadn't really explained the whole crazy story to them before. The eager faces, including the princess's own, staring at her were so insistent, and yet foal-like and curious. "Well, if everyone wants to start at the beginning, once upon a time, there was a beautiful unicorn named Twilight Sparkle, the best and brightest student of the wise and fair ruler of the land, Princess Celestia."

The collective groan was definitely worth the aching ribs from her deep bellylaugh, she decided later that day. 120% worth it, all the way.

To Be Continued
> Chapter 1: Arrivals
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had been a relatively normal day (by Ponyville standards) in the library to start with. Relatively, as any day where Princess Celestia came by to visit could hardly be called 'normal'. Okay, so it hadn't been at all normal, given that she had come through the back door without any of her regalia, embarrassedly explaining to Twilight that she needed help in cleaning out the old treasury of Castle Everfree.

"It's something I should have done years ago, Twilight. Even if I have been busy for the past 1000 years dealing with the fallout of Luna's actions. It's strange, having been forced to clean it out by circumstances. It shouldn't have taken a thief showing up with one of my old tiaras to force me into action." Celestia explained it in a motherly fashion as she watched her beloved student and her young minion frantically gather supplies. A thought struck her as Spike pulled out a bottle of cleaning agents. "Oh. This must be why everypony hates spring cleaning so much."

"Books! Need reference books! Spike, bring me the references on old royal treasuries! Still need a sleeping bag, a tent, and- uh, no don't ask Princess Celestia how much she eats, we're going to need Pinkie and Applejack!" A veritable storm of objects hovered around Twilight, from pens and paper to the more exotic like a tri-focused gemstone base magic sink that floated above her head. 

The sea of supplies roughly tumbled and flew through the air for several more moments before Celestia's golden aura slowly overcame the magenta glow surrounding them.  Twilight dazedly turned to her mentor, who smiled back at her. A mischievous grin crept onto the solar princess's face, giving Twilight just enough time to mutter, "Uh-oh." 

Twilight found herself swept up off of her hooves as many of the things she had gathered in her haste found themselves floating back to their proper places. Twilight wanted to grumble, crossing her legs crossly as she was floated like a rogue foal over to her mentor, but the light chuckles coming from the white alicorn's chest put a smile back onto her face. Celestia brought her in close, and stretched herself up, letting Twilight rub noses with her affectionately. 

As they laughed heartily, Celestia pretended to pull out a checklist of her own, she intoned loudly, "One Twilight Sparkle!"

From upstairs, Spike's muffled voice responded amidst the crash of several large objects. "Check!"

It was too much for the pair, and Twilight landed ungracefully as she and Celestia broke down into a fit of laughter. Twilight wiped a tear from her eye as she kept on laughing, pretending to try and stuff herself into a saddlebag, which set off Celestia once more. Spike grumbled as he ran across the upstairs balcony, muttering to himself as he did. "Glad to see somepony is working."

Catching her breath, Twilight picked herself up and trotted over to her mentor. "I guess I really was getting a little too into packing."

Celestia shook her head while ruefully chuckling. She pretended to make a show of measuring how much her student had been overreacting, finally settling on holding an unshod forehoof half a hooflength off the ground. "Not too much, Twilight. I wouldn't make you prepare all the supplies needed for a personal favor for me." 

She took a deep breath, charging her horn and closing her eyes as she did. This was an old habit she had not indulged in for far too long, and it would be good to introduce her soon to be protégée to it. "Luna and I used to be quite ardent adventurers. We were always going out into the wilds with no plan and no destination. Sometimes, we didn't even have any supplies. We had to be careful, going out of our door; because, if we didn't keep out wits about us and a destination in mind, there was no telling where we would be off to."

Numerous flashes filled the room, each one pulling back in on itself to reveal armor, weapons, rucksacks and saddlebags, sleeping bags and tents, and enough magically preserved travel rations to seemingly feed two armies for months. Opening her eyes, Celestia jerked an inch backwards, sheepishly smiling. She had been certain that she had given much of her traveling gear away.  She turned to Twilight, who looked back with a wild-eyed surprise. "Oh dear. I didn't quite expect all of this to show up. I had- wait, this isn't all mine. Luna's been a little too busy behind my back, it seems."

"Um, as Pinkie would say it; 'In Case of Adventuring Emergencies'?" Twilight gingerly poked fun at her mentor, hoping it wasn't inappropriate. Several years in Ponyville had loosened up her nerves enough to even consider trying. At the sound of Celestia laughing gently once more, she joined in as Spike grumbling marched past behind them with the library's card catalogue. "Why did you stop, Princess?"

Celestia sighed exhaustedly, remembering all too well. "It was the thing we all dread." She slyly looked down to her student, while pointing to her regalia-less brow. "We took a kingdom to the head."

Twilight squirmed once more, finding the absence of Celestia's familiar jewelry outside of the diarch's private quarters to still be intensely uncomfortable and unsettling for her. Her shivers calmed as her mentor squeezed her tightly with a wing once more, dragging her up against the comforting white bulk of the princess. "Don't worry, Twilight. I wouldn't intentionally burden you with ruling anything."

"Well that's a relief!" Spike ran by as he shouted, carrying the second volume of the library catalogue.

Celestia began comparing some of the packs that Luna had clearly picked up in the short time that she had been back, picking out one she had gotten before her growth spurt for Twilight. "We need to hurry, though. I'm certain that the guards will soon catch up to Mrs. Hooves, even with my incentive to her of a muffin for every minute she keeps ahead of them. If they find out that I cast a body-double illusion spell and sent it their way, they will come back to look for me, and we can't have that."

"Why not?" Twilight struggled into the straps of her rucksack, unused to the complicated system of weight-bearing straps and webbing.

Celestia straightened out Twilight's mess, pulling the straps tight a little too quickly and strongly for the unicorn's taste. Slight choking gasps squeezed out of the unicorn as Celestia selectively loosened the straps again, fitting her perfectly. "Sorry. Well, Twilight, many of the artifacts we will be recovering are designed to be alluring, to draw in the unwary and weak willed. The more ponies involved, the more dangerous this becomes. You, though, have displayed a will strong enough to resist even Discord with something as simple as letters for you to read."

Twilight ducked her head as Celestia began inserting items into her pack carefully, pondering what her mentor had said. "Okay, I can understand that, Princess. But, why now?"

"Because, Twilight, as I have said, there are more than just royal treasures down there. Many of the items sealed away deep beneath the earth were terrible artifacts both meant for good and evil, sealed away deep below the surface in separate vaults. I made the foalish assumption after the battle that the damage would block them away forever, and that the forest would keep anypony from ever finding them again.  Clearly, I was wrong." Celestia strapped on her own favorite pack on. It was a marvel of Luna's forging skills from just before her fall. Its frame was as light as air, and it was still as strong as the day it had been forged. 

"Is there anything in particular that I should know about?" Twilight's tone was one all too familiar to Celestia; the tone of a dutiful student preparing to learn. Everything, ever, all of it.

The solar diarch shook her head, declining to lecture Twilight. "I dare not tell you yet, Twilight. Many of the artifacts gain power through being discussed, and I have suppressed their knowledge for centuries to prevent their influence from spreading. A talisman made of the heart of a dead alicorn, a bag personally sewn by Tirac himself, a terrible and destructive locket containing the power of a million rainbows..."

Celestia stopped and shook her head as she realized how much she had revealed. Glancing over, she pulled her seemingly wilted student close once more. Sitting down behind her, she wrapped both of her wings around the unicorn's frame until only her head emerged from the feathery embrace. 

Twilight looked up into Celestia's eyes, unable to think of anything to say. Then, she was too flustered to speak as Celestia smiled at her and poked her poor nose with a cruel and merciless hoof. 

"You're too serious, Twilight." Celestia stroked her student's mane with a wing, having to take a moment to steady the warble of pride in her voice. Twilight continued to try and protest the excessive praise that Celestia was dumping upon her; her nose scrunching as she frowned in thought. 

As she opened her mouth to respond, Spike ran past with an alarmed look on his face and the book log in his paws. She cleared her throat, trying again. "Princess, I'm not as good as you think. I'm-"

"Twilight, there is no other pony in the world that I trust enough to help me in this task. I need somepony with the caution to listen to me, the boldness to tell me when I'm wrong, the smarts to know what it is she's seeing, and the power to handle anything this task can throw at her." Celestia lit her horn once more as she spoke, guiding the last of the camping equipment and supplies that they would need for the expedition into their rucksacks. 

She began shrinking down, pulling in on herself into the illusion of a pink maned white pegasus as she tickled Twilight with her wings for a moment more. "Twilight, you've grown more than even I could have ever expected over the past few years, and though you still have relapses, you've become quite the leader. Very soon, you will be graduating from my teaching, because you will have surpassed me."

Twilight's jaw dropped as she heard what Celestia had said. "N-not your student anymore? But Princess I-"

"-Will be whatever YOU want to be for me. A friend, a companion, an equal, whatever you choose to do with our relationship, and wherever you choose to take it I will support. I owe you that much after everything I've put you through these past few years." Celestia stepped out from behind Twilight, marching around her so that she could hug Twilight face to face, crooking her neck around Twilight's to rest her head on her student's shoulders. "Now come along, Twilight. We should get some of Pinkie's snacks for the road. Luna doesn’t particularly like the idea of being on the throne in my place for several days, and I don't particularly like teleporting in the Everfree Forest; it feels slimy."

"Guys! Uh, I mean- uh-" Spike shouted from the stairs up from the basement, looking between Celestia and Twilight awkwardly. A raised eyebrow from his guardian convinced him to skip to the part that mattered. "Uh, yeah! I think we have a problem!" He held the library book log up in his paws.

Twilight whined in the back of her throat slightly, wincing at the phrase 'we have a problem'. Typically, it was followed up by her suffering a great deal of pain. "What sort of problem, Spike?"

"Trixie's back! And she checked out all the books on the old treasury and anything rumored to be in it three days ago!"

Shining stepped in, speaking up loudly. "So that's how it started! Trixie is lucky I wasn't there to pummel her for all the pain she's caused you, Twiley."

"Shiney! You weren't there; get out of my flash-... back? SHINEY!"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight blinked and shook her head as she snapped herself out of narrating her recollections of that fateful day to everypony. A small ache wormed into her heart as she noticed that Princess- No, just Celestia had disappeared at some point while she had been talking. Looking towards the bright rectangle of light that was the way out of the massive tent, she spotted her BBBFF, and her new favorite BSBFFF (in law) sitting framed in the light of the entrance. She jumped to her paws, unheeding of the shouts of her friends and family as they fell off of her forelegs. The ground shook as she limped over, her brother diving behind the tent wall as Cadance stood up to look at her with a great beaming smile.

"Sunshine, Sunshine;
Ladybugs awake! 
Clap your hooves, and give a little shake!"

To see a young dragon prancing happily is a rare and incredible thing. To see a young adult female dragon outright dancing is a wondrous and soul-shaking thing. Though, that may have more to do with the way that nearly 50 tons of flesh will shake the ground like a moderate earthquake. Witnessing a young mare of a dragon, still unused to her much more massive frame 'give a little shake' was far more awe inspiring, especially if somepony was in the danger zone of the 'little' shake.  Awe inspiring, if one meant 'Aww, crap'.

Shining had been smart enough to realize what his sister had been about to do, leading to his dive for safety behind the tent wall. Cadance, however, had not quite realized the dangers of convincing a dragon to dance. Purple furred and scaled rump bounced her at the end of the greeting, its mass sending her yelping in surprise out of the tent. She tumbled through the air, losing her tiara and shoes in the process, landing more than two dozen yards away.

Cadance woozily clambered back to her hooves, shaking out the mental cobwebs that had developed from her flight, as a midnight blue aura snatched her into the either. The teleportation field ZOT!ed Cadance back into the physical world in a mess by Luna's armored flank. Twilight looked down in horror at the twitching form of her foalsitter, unable to believe what she had accidentally done.

"Control, Sparkle! You must learn control!" Luna spoke with a thunderous voice, almost scaring the purple off of the dragoness. The diarch of the night shut her eyes, taking a moment to calm herself down before speaking a little further. In a calmer and quieter voice, she continued. "You continue to move as if you reside in your old equine form. You have forgotten your bulk, and your power. You must be more careful!"

"Don't get too upset with her now, Princess. It's the first time she's seen the rest of her kin since it happened." Applejack took her hat off as she addressed the princess, turning her head to where Twilight was bowing her own in shame as movement caught her eyes. "And don't you think of going nowhere, Twi. Ah'd hate tae have tae tie you up. The princess was just telling you to be careful now."

Twilight glanced back to where Cadance was still woozily getting through getting flank-checked by her. "But I promised to never hurt anypony again, and I just-"

Pinkie wriggled her hips in the air, before Pouncing her now super-economy fun-sized friend around the neck with a full on Pinkie Tackle. "Huggervention! You're not getting away again, Twilight!"

"Does anypony want to ask ME if I'm fine? I am, by the way!" Cadance sat up fully, shaking the last of the confusion and dizziness out of her head. Puffing a bit of her breath over her nose to futilely try and blow a lock of her mane out of her eyes, she spotted Twilight trying to get away again and trotted over. "Hey! I said I was fine! Twilight, the Deep Breath Exercise!"

Twilight closed her eyes, feeling the soreness in them from having focused on her brother clinging to her face between them. She stopped struggling with Shining, Pinkie, and Fluttershy who had all grabbed ahold of her in various spots, following her favorite foalsitter's advice. The dragoness whimpered as the deep breath tugged at her stitches, holding it tenderly at its apex.

"And trying to breathe any fire, out."

Twilight exhaled slowly, snorting one or two tendrils of cool flame that licked at Shining's armored hooves in the process. She visibly relaxed, slumping back down to the ground where her friends and family all proceeded to pounce upon her at once. Even Cadance trotted over unsteadily to nuzzle her favorite foalsittee along the side of her massive head.

Shining Armor slid down off of his sister's face, laughing as he did. "Okay, tackling you like that was actually pretty fun. I can see why you played 'Headhugger' all the time when we were foals."

"Gee, thanks." Twilight let her head drop the last hooflength of the way to the group with a morose thud as her side ached.

Luna dipped her head, nodding to Shining Armor. "General Armor, I thank you and your wife for your quick intervention with your sister. You have saved me a good deal of time that would have otherwise been spent tracking her down, dragging her back, and tickling her until she was too sore to move once more." The diarch of the moon smiled widely, a rare sight upon her face. She kept an eye on her current purple obstinate nemesis, though.

Twilight slowly squirmed away from Luna, eyeing her suspiciously and glancing over to her family with every chance she got. With Shining there, it was only a matter of time before her mom got going. "Tickle torture? Really, Princess? I guess Princ- ugh. I guess Celestia wasn't kidding about your eccentric sense of hum- Wait a second. General Armor? Shiney, I thought you had to retire when you became the Prince of the Crystal Empire! Why didn't you tell me?" Twilight fixed her brother with an impressive stare, which was strong enough to startle Fluttershy into hiding behind Cadance.

Shining rubbed the back of his head as he averted his gaze. Cadance rolled her eyes, unfurling a wing to smack Shining in the head lightly before she whispered into his ear. "I thought I TOLD you to write her. Especially after the wedding!"

"Sorry, Cadey. Um, I mean, I may have been pulled back to the service by Cadance when we started having giant monster attacks on the Empire a month and a half ago." Twilight and everypony else other than Luna and Cadance all swiveled their heads to Shining. He straightened up under the collected gazes, as everypony noticed the dark bags under his eyes and the multitude of cuts crisscrossing the exposed portions of his body for the first time.

Twilight's mother stomped forward, nabbing Shining's ear in one telekinetic aura and one of Twilight's horns in another, dragging them yelping closer to her. "Shining Armor Sparkle! It's bad enough that you didn't write your sister and stayed away when she needed you the most; but not telling me about being attacked by giant monsters!? For Shame! I have half a mind to tell everypony here about your little 'Afro Samurai' stunt you tried before your cutie mark came in!"

"Mom, leave him alone! I didn't tell him about this! I know we haven't been as close as we should be, but we've both been kind of busy with really important things!" Twilight winced as she saw how her brother was slowly turning pinker than Cadance as their mom unleashed the full and terrible power of her Momjitsu and the Canterlot Mother's Voice. It was all she could do to keep from yelping as the force of her mother's grip on her horns intensified and dragged her head over to convenient shouting distance.

"And you, Twilight Shimmer Sparkle! How dare you not tell us that you got turned into a dragon!" Twilight's mom pulled out of the sudden embrace her husband threw around her as she got ready to continue.

Rarity squeezed in between Twilight and her mother, trying to calm things down. "She was quite busy trying to get a handle on her new body, Mrs. Sparkle! She tried several times to send you a message, but rather unfortunate events took place that prevented their arrival!"

Twilight's mother stomped her hooves, surprisingly pounding two craters into the ground with her movement. Rarity scooted back against her friend protectively as the older mare started up again with tears in her eyes. "We didn't even find out until this 'Trixie' character throws you into our house! And that's after a month of being in the palace, and a fight that leveled most of downtown Canterlot!"

The old mare was practically quivering all over as she stomped the ground again and again, sending plumes of dust into the air as she screwed her eyes shut in anger and hurt. "You could have sent your friends, Spike; you could have come and told me so I could help you!" She practically screamed it out as she stood before her overgrown daughter.

"Velvet, stop. You're scaring her." Twilight's father wrapped his leg around his wild and normally wonderful wife once more, trying to calm her down.

"Scared her? Scared HER? She scared me! We almost lost her, Nightie!" Velvet Star Sparkle caught her breath with deep pants. "I could have taught her control, like I did before! I can do it, you know I can! I could have helped her, and her first instinct when she thinks she's disappointed somepony is to go hide again!?" She couldn't keep up her rant as the slight tinges of grey in the corners of her vision reminded her to breathe in instead of screaming out again. As her ears began to ring, Velvet realized with horror that she had been using her command voice after nearly 10 years of remaining calm through anything. Turning back to her daughter, she began to try and apologize as she noticed the glistening quiver of a tear in the dragoness's eyes, but nothing came out.

"Wow. Aren't moms supposed to be cool and collected, not lame and screaming?" Dash had lain down atop of Twilight's neck, nestled in between the slight ridge of a fin remaining and the dragoness's horns, absentmindedly comforting her by stroking the dragoness's restored mane, which had popped out of place during the commotion. Dash froze up for a moment as she realized what she was doing, only for Fluttershy to nudge her into continuing.

"But I- I mean- I did it again." Velvet looked away from her daughter, averting her eyes from her husband Night Light Sparkle, flinching as she looked up ever so slightly and found Luna's eyes staring into her own from less than two hooflengths away.

Luna solemnly nodded. "Yes, yes you did. It is understandable, though. A mother, fearful for her daughter's life? It was remarkable that you did not break down as you just now have at the first sight of her. It speaks greatly to your discipline." Luna slightly opened out one of her wings, reaching a hoof up underneath it to withdraw a silvery helmet. "And, despite the undiplomatic and unfortunate events regarding your 'retirement', those selfsame attitudes and habits that do you such a disservice to your daughter are exactly what Equestria needs in the times of woe to come, General."

"Hey, waitaminute!" Pinkie hopped up and down near Twilight's side agitatedly. "Twi-Twi's mom acts like a big meaniepants towards her, and you give her a job?" Pinkie's face did something startling, her ever-present smile morphing into a horrific (for her) frown as her brow furrowed in irritation.

"Yes, if she is good." Luna's frown slowly sank into a sad smile as she walked over to Pinkie, draping a wing over her. "Like you and your father."

"That's different!"

"Is it? She cares, but her military experience has a manner of keeping her from expressing her affection and care in a way that is understandable by her daughter." Luna looked up to Velvet, who had her eyes closed in thought, and concern for how she had acted over the years. The lunar alicorn smiled at Velvet, perplexing the purple and white mare.

She nodded, and turned to Pinkie as she continued. "Her attitudes are one of the hazards of being the captain of the Royal Guard for ten years." Luna chuckled lightly as she thought about the matter. Well, perhaps her sister could help. "Celly does run a support group for overprotective family members in Canterlot. It might be wise to attend."

Velvet nodded as she took the helmet in her telekinetic aura. "I suppose I'll have to keep that in mind. If I may be so bold, your majesty, I take it that you need me to command the expedition to find Tirek's Tomb? That is, of course, if Twilight is willing to forgive me for being a stupid foal of a mother who always turned to her command experience for Momming?" Velvet looked to her daughter, hoping to see a glint of forgiveness in her massive eyes. She followed Twilight's gaze to her new headwear of office, and hastily dropped it neatly onto her husband's head sheepishly.

Twilight nodded at last, smiling a little. "Yes, Mom. I forgive you. Even if you are scarier than dragons and changeling queens when you're mad. I should have asked for help, from all of my friends, and I didn't. I should have told you. Or Dad. I might have told dad through Spike..." The dragoness grunted slightly as her midsection stung beneath its bandages.

"Thanks for ratting me out, Twilicious. Good thing I'm wearing the helmet in the relationship for once." Night Light hastily put a hoof on his head, keeping Velvet from stealing her helmet back as she mock-growled at him. "Oh, hush. I have an album of embarrassing pictures of you two together in Canterlot, and I'm not afraid to use it!" Night Light threw his head back and cackled villainously as his wife and daughter let out nearly identical tiny wails of horror.

Luna spoke up over the laughter of Twilight's friends and family, fixing her gaze on the duo of mother and son. "If the three of you are quite finished, then no, General Star. We shall need your son as expeditionary commander. Many of the places we shall be venturing to require protection that only he or I can provide." 

Shining turned to his mother, who had raised an eyebrow. "Wait. You want me to lead the guard's offense against Tirac, while my mom coordinates the defense at home? If I may, Princess, I don't think you have the right ponies. She's not a good defensive commander..."

Luna nodded. "Precisely. We cannot afford a defensive commander. You know as well as I that the Empire is only the first place to be attacked, not the last. General Star will be engaging Tirek's beasts away from the cities. My sister has gone ahead to Canterlot to prepare it for the General's arrival, and to determine how many of Tirek's beasts have been raised, and their whereabouts." Luna gestured with a wing towards Canterlot.

"Ma'am, yes Ma'am." Velvet nodded, saluting the unfamiliar princess. She didn't know how informal she could get, and wasn't too interested in risking it. "I will get in contact with her immediately, Ma'am. And if my daughter tries running away again, ask my husband to turn to page 27. Especially 'Imma Toober!' It works every time."

Rarity, who had stayed back until then, stepped forwards in confusion over the issue. "I'm afraid to ask, Darling. But, 'toober'?"

"M-oo-oo-ooooom!" 

Night Light waited until his daughter's bellow of embarrassed anguish had finished, jumping in on the fun. "It involved a flower bed, thirty pounds of dirt, Velvet and I having a spat that was ended creatively, a hair to plants spell, and an obsession with potatoes."

Velvet took back her helmet, sticking it on her head as she made a run for the entrance to the tent. 

"Daaaad! Stop that!" Twilight's second bellow shook the tent as her mother bravely ran away towards the phone office of Ponyville.

Their talk was cut short as Nurse Redheart stormed in, having been at the improvised medical station outside. She held a broom in her mouth, brandishing it threateningly as she decided enough was enough. There were little drops of red all through Twilight's bandages, the excitement having opened up some of her stitches. "What are you doing!? You're stressing out my patient!"

"We are talking with her, why?" Luna's statement found itself followed up with her yelp as Redheart began chasing her with the broom.

"You've already caused enough discomfort to light up the medical monitors! Out! OUT! Visiting hours are over, no dragon for you!" Redheart turned to the others as Luna ran for the library, shaking the broom menacingly in the air. "The patient is going to go to sleep, or else!" 

The crowd needed no further encouragement, streaming out of the archway in haste as Redheart whirled on Twilight, threatening her with the broom. "And you, young lady, are too big and too hurt for this! Don't let them all back in at once until we take some of the stitches out! Sleep!"

--------------------------------------------

Celestia had all of her old journals pulled out from the royal attic and spread across every available surface of her room. Any of them might have a clue to the locations of the Adamantine Tomb, and she was looking through every one. A 500 ton block of adamantium falling from the skies after having been bucked up into a suborbital trajectory tended to be memorable. Granted, after 3000 years, there were many rumors and legends to cover.

She glumly looked up from her studies to Ponyville, wishing that she could have been a better friend. Wishing, that she could have avoided letting Twilight get turned into; well what she had. Wishing that she could have had the courage to stay through Twilight's narration of that first, fateful day.

And then she looked up again as she noticed Luna standing there with a sprig of hay stuck between her teeth as she chewed upon it in the corner of her mouth. Hay, not just one, her sister's mane and tail were filled with pieces that looked like they had gotten stuck there via the wild flailing of a broom. "Luna?" She just had to know what that the story was.

"Yes, Celly?"

"Did somepony try and assassinate you with a haystack?" Celestia hid her slight smirk with a hoof as Luna slowly turned her head so they could look each other in the eyes.

In a tired and deadpan tone, the younger diarch responded. "Nay. We have, however, found a new source of frontline medics in the nurses of Ponyville."

"Oh dear, Redheart?"

"Redheart."

"Well, all the ponies in that town are crazy." Celestia gave a rueful chuckle as she turned back to a map of the world. In it, she had placed five red dots, a few blue ones, and a green pin with a sun and smiley face stuck into the point representing Canterlot. "Just like my workload in trying to find where that tomb ended up. Bucking it over the horizon was a bad idea, Luna. We should have dropped it into the ocean or put a mountain on it."

"Nay, sister. We should never have let it out of our sight." Luna looked up at the map, her ears wilting as she noticed the placement of the pins. "Tell me we don't have to check all of them."

"You don't have to check all of them."

"We don't have to check all of them? Oh, thank you." 

"Just the red ones."

Luna whimpered as she considered the operational pace of the expedition. "But they are all over the world! Even with the Eclipse, we won't be able to inspect them all before Equestria is overwhelmed!"

"The Eclipse will be ready. Did Velvet accept?" Celestia snapped shut the journal she had been reading, turning to her sister.

"Aye. Unhappy that she would not be with her daughter, but she still accepted." Luna teleported in a stack of paperwork and reports on the final touches of the construction of her flagship to read and sign. The massive vessel's construction was being modified to support the expedition, including its rather large star member. Everything had to be taken into account. Advanced technology prototypes and untested spells, food supplies and scientific gear, troop outfitting, crew rosters, even funeral arrangements for those that would surely die.

"Good. Then Equestria will hold as long as it has to." Celestia turned around towards her bed, stalking out a distance out onto the grand shag rug of her room to flop tiredly down atop it. "Have Shining Armor and Cadance arrived with the last of the refugees from the Empire?" Another decision she would regret for the rest of her days, no matter how cold and necessary the calculus was in the face of what was to come.

Luna hmmed in confirmation as she stamped yet another form with her signature. "They arrived with the last of their ponies yesterday. They nearly broke our ruse with Twilight when General Armor made the mistake of mentioning the attacks on the Empire. I discussed it at length in private with him while Twilight's friends and family successfully distracted her. Cadance remains bitter from the losses, but agrees with us still." Luna could imagine what Cadance was going through, as her mental state after her return was relatively similar to the Crystal Empress's own. To imagine the Crystal Palace itself spilled out and collapsed into the streets.

"Hopefully we can keep Twilight distracted enough to forget what was said. She needs happy memories to keep her strong during the long slog ahead. She's associated enough pain with her current form already." Celestia slowly slumped even further into her rug, resembling a stuffed animal as she spread her wings flat across the floor to either side of herself and slumped her head down until the underside of her chin was buried in inch-thick shag.

"Aye. She made no further mention of it while we were there." Luna turned to her sister, envious for a moment. Only for a moment, as she considered that Celestia had been studying for days straight before Twilight had ran away, let alone how she had stayed up for two days searching and staying by Twilight's side begging for her to wake up.

"Good. The Crystal Empire can be rebuilt. Hopefully somewhere safer, and easier to get to. The Everfree Forest, maybe." Celestia tried to summon another of her journals, unable to call up the mental fortitude. "I'll have to keep an eye on Cadance while you are away. I hope she'll be willing to council Twilight from afar."

"She is. What of your former plans for your student?" 

"They'll have to be remade somehow, if she lives through this. Let her live through this..."

-------------------------------

A train pulled into Ponyville. Not an unusual occurrence under normal circumstances. But, a single-carriage train that had carried a pegasus guard, a griffon in uniform, and a horse from Arabia was a most unusual set of circumstances indeed. The trio nodded at each other, having met for the first time while on the train discussing the rather fascinating pamphlet that Princess Luna had passed to them earlier on in the week. 'Beware of the Pinkie?' She probably meant it as entertainment.
They marched towards the great tree in the distance; the place where Princess Luna had promised to meet them and where they would meet the rest of her 'command team'. Ponies scattered beneath the afternoon sun ahead of them, unwilling to cross paths with the formidable trio. The guard was silent, his generic steel-grey armor having long ago been adjusted so that he made no sound at all unless he willed it. The griffon marched stiffly, his red plumage bristling beneath his dress uniform as the medals on his chest jingled and jangled with every movement. The horse seemed to almost whisper in a phantom wind, his flowing robes dramatically slithering around him in a breeze that only touched him as the pattern upon his robe made him almost appear as if he was a ghost of a sand dune.

The tan and blue guardspony spoke first as they approached the main square. "So, welcome to Ponyville, sirs. It may seem peaceful, but watch out. I've heard more rumors that will curdle your fur than those that come out about the Everfree Forest." Flash Sentry's eyes wandered over the buildings of the square, settling upon a strange tent near the library that billowed and creaked oddly.

The horse spoke up, his dark fur twitching and bristling with concern, and worry that something was watching him. "Surely, it would not be the will of Faust that such an idyllic place would find horror within its walks.” The sand-walker of Saddle Arabia followed Sentry's gaze to the tent, and decided to ignore it, figuring it for an errant breeze hitting the right spot.

"Sounds like a small town full of itself. Even if it is on the edge of that damnable Everfree Forest." The griffon adjusted his stiff and itchy uniform, scratching at the epaulets identifying him as a Luftkommandeur of Raptoria. His blood red and brown streaked wings and his golden-maned head shone in the late-day sun as he tempted fate. "These civilian fools wouldn't know a surprise when they-"

"Sur-PRISE!" A pink blur exploded upwards from the shrubbery beside the trio in an instant. The Luftkommandeur fell over with a bleat that sounded much like a startled kitten as his companions laughed at his misfortune. "Didchya like it, huh? Huh!? I've been expecting all of you guys for a week! C'mon over to the library, c'mon!" The pink thing's hooves flailed about in the air before she settled back to the ground. "Oh, wait! Hi, I'm Pinkie Pie!"

The sandwalker shyed back, fearing her to be a djinn sent by Faust to tempt him. Lt. Sentry pushed carefully past him, taking the hoof Pinkie offered once she was on the ground gladly. The pink mare shook his hoof violently as he introduced himself. "Hi there, Pinkie! I'm Lt. Flash Sentry. The griffon on the ground is Luftkommandeur Redtail, and my other companion is... um, uh... sorry. I forgot your name."

The sandwalker turned between his equestrian counterpart and the djinn-like pony. Sand ruffled from his robes as he screwed up his courage and prayed to Faust that she would protect him in the shadow of the valley of death. He bowed to Pinkie, deeply bending until his head was at the level of her chest as he spoke. "Sandwalker Alkir al Mustari of Saddle Arabia, fair Djinn."

"What, me? A genie? Don't be so silly." Pinkie waived a hoof dismissively, and then tapped a hoof on her chin. "I'mma Pinkie Pie. I used to be THE Pinkie Pie, then I made a bunch of bad copies of me with the mirror pool, and one escaped..." Pinkie shrugged, having learned her lesson to never engage in self-cloning experiments using unstable rituals and to check next time to ensure that she was getting a smart clone instead of a construct. "Eh, it was my bad."

Redtail unsteadily rose to his talons, brushing road dust from his formerly spotless uniform. He had to blink to clear the neon afterimages as he stole sideways glances at Pinkie. "Well, that explains the warning pamphlets." A tiny growl of irritation escaped his throat.

"I have WARNING PAMPHLETS!?" Pinkie beamed broadly at the thought that she was so awesomely partyriffic that lesser ponies had to be warned, lest their hearts explode with the excitement. 

Flash nodded as he turned his head back to dig into his guard-issued saddlebags. "Yeah. I think it's just something that Luna- uh, Princess Luna made. The whole 'Leader of the Screaming Foals' and all. You left an impression on her. Ah-hah! Here we are!" Flash tugged the thick, glossy pamphlet free with a few tugs of his head and hoofed it over, snickering at the dumbfounded Pinkie in a chicken suit on the cover.

Pinkie ooohed and aaahed at the pamphlet, just before her nose suddenly twitched, before she arched her back for a moment while her mane blew halfway flat without any wind. The pink mare gasped loudly, snatching Redtail and Mustari up into a half-hug, half-deathgrip. "She's almost here!"

She sniffed at the air as a delicious smell prickled at their noses. "NooooO! The cashews are caramelizing, c'mon!"

Flash Sentry pulled himself off the ground, looking around as he uncramped his forelegs. It was difficult to cover one's face in full guard armor. Pinkie had swung his companions around through the air in her grip, before dragging them off to the library in a tree and slamming the door behind herself.

He hummed to himself, wondering if it was safe to follow. Certainly it wasn't a 'quiet, idle, boring little town'.

The faintest hint of what sounded like an explosion high above echoed out from somewhere high above his head. The tan stallion looked up, wondering what new strangeness was about to descend upon his head. Nothing, actually, save for what looked like a string made of clouds plastered against the ceiling of the world. It was perfectly straight, and growing before his eyes. Whoever it was, they were higher than he had ever thought of flying.

"N-no! Don't open it, Trixie!" The mumbling was loud, rumbling with the deeper undertones of a draconic voice. And it was coming from within the blowing tent.

The ponies of Ponyville rapidly cleared out of the plaza as the voice continued to murmur over the babble of ponies packing up. The quaking within the tent grew in intensity, almost resembling a giant pony in the midst of night terrors, prompting Flash to investigate further. Grass and dirt crunched beneath his hooves as he silently snuck up upon the tent. His guard rucksack found itself slipped off for silence and ease of movement as he slowly slinked towards the entrance, careful not to let his shadow fall upon the tent.

The whimpering intensified as he silently slid through the last few hooflengths to the entrance, about to look inside when a brief gout of flame rushed forth past him. Hay, that had been close. He could feel the heat from the smoldering sand from a few yards away. With that in mind, he decided discretion was the better part of valor and slipped beneath the fringe of the tent, gawking a little at the occupant within.

Purple came to mind. Purple, with a dense, downy fur coat backed with solid-looking scales hinting through the fur in places. It was flanked with two great leathery wings that ran down the length of its- no, her torso. Hay, they must have a wingspan of 75, maybe a hundred yards. It- the dragoness's muzzle was surprisingly soft-looking and rounded, its- her teeth hidden almost entirely behind her lips, save for two relatively small fangs that poked out from between her lips near the front of her mouth. The effect was actually... kind of cute, even if the six-inch fangs just looked that way because of the fact that her head was at least as long as his whole body, if not slightly longer.

The dragoness rolled over in her sleep, whimpering fitfully once more as he looked further back along her body and noticed a series of bandages wrapped around her lower torso, as if something had tried to disembowel her. Her mane, something he had never expected to see on a dragon, flopped to one side in an unruly mess. Rampant locks of her tri-color hair spilled everywhere, hiding her eyes, but not the tear streaks caked into the fur beneath them.

"No! No, keep away!" Her voice rumbled from her thick chest, whistling up her moderately long neck to escape through her nostrils and from between her lips. She was having some kind of nightmare!

Aw, buck it to Tartarus, he couldn't just sit around while some mare tormented herself in her slee- wait. Why had he called the dragoness a mare? She looked familiar, a lot like Bossman's sister between her coloration and the six-pointed star upon her flanks.  Even the ragged hairstyle and the way she was built and carried herself reminded him of- She was Bossman's sister! 

The rumors he had heard on his guard rotation near the Crystal Mountains had to be true, at least some of them. Some mare named Trixie, screwing around with dark magic zapped them both into pony sized dragons, or so he had heard. But here was Twilight Sparkle, somehow... well, bigger!

Flash numbly fell back onto his haunches. Twilight had always been sweet to him, even if she never even remembered his face, always buried in her books. Hay, she was a hero, even. Why had it happened to her? It wasn't right, seeing her twisted and changed, even if she was still beautiful in an exotic manner. 

Aww, what the hay? He couldn't be thinking of hitting on her in her current state, what would the Bossman say? 

All the while, Twilight's whines slowly grew louder as her nightmare turned darker and darker, making Flash fold his ears in discomfort as she started clawing at herself in her sleep. "Get it off, get it off! Celestia, help me!" The squeal of a plea was enough to nearly wake her up as she lived through something in her nightmare. Her claws, still safely sheathed in thick covers raked at her fur, as if trying to pull something off of her. She screamed in her sleep in anguish, rolling onto her back and wriggling on the ground.

Oh. Oh no. Flash paled as he imagined that she was reliving her initial transformation.

The rumors had been vague, but they had talked about some doohickie that they called 'the Bag of Tirac'. They talked about how it had something in it, something that turned ponies into dragons and could steal their minds if they didn't get help during their transformation. 

Oh, screw it. Twilight had become terrifying, and massive, but she needed a freaking hug. The guardspony got to his hooves, breaking into a gallop towards Twilight in the first opening she left in her sleep movements. She was taking a deep breath that was building to a rumble in her chest as he slammed into the base of her neck. The impact knocked the breath out of her in a nearly scalding cloud of acrid smoke, floating at the top of the tent.

Flash clung to her, humming an old tune that her brother had taught her before they had enlisted as loud as he could in the hopes that she could hear him. He hummed out the soothing line of music as best he could, holding on so that she wouldn't shake him free in her thrashing. And to his surprise, she calmed. Almost instantly, even, her wings falling idle and her paws slowly drooping before falling against her chest. From what he knew, her mother used to hum it to her when she was a foal.

Flash grinned, his op plan Huggly-Wuggly working once- Gah!

Twilight curled up around him like a python around its prey. He breathed shallowly as the thick fur enveloped him up to his chin. Her forelegs clutched him tightly to her chest in an adamantine grip, rubbing him against the ridge of her breastbone and across her barrel as she continued to calm down. Her erratic, frantic breaths slowed down into the deep ones of dreamless sleep. A quiet sob escaped her as she curled up into a ball, resting her head on her tail in a manner that left it close enough for him to touch as she continued to sniffle lightly. 

Flash slowly and carefully wriggled his forelegs free of her crushing grip, intending to free himself for the briefing that his Bossman and Princess Luna would be giving soon. Twilight gave the slightest of whimpers and squeezed tighter, tucking her head in so that it was halfway buried beneath the tight grip that her forelegs held on him. Her slightly terrifying muzzle wrinkled and worked with each whimper of discontent she let lose. Puffs of smoke escaped her nostrils with each sniffle as her tears slowly stopped running. Flash cursed himself and his somewhat warped sense of chivalry as he thought on what his old CO had taught him to do.

Comfort the mare, at nearly any cost.

Uneasily with a slight whine of his own, he reached out with his forelegs and grabbed the dragoness's muzzle, pulling it close enough for him to lay his head upon it and rest his chin between her nostrils as he awkwardly continued to hug her. A contented sigh rumbled through her, jangling his nerves like an earthquake before she spoke in a dreamy way. "Smartypants..."

A small 'ahem' came up from the ground behind him, prompting Flash to look back carefully. Standing as close as he dared to the normally restless dragoness, a little drakeling with nearly the same shade of purple as Twilight's fur stood; doing his best to look threatening. "Don't you dare take advantage of her."

Flash blinked, wondering who the little guy was. He had apparently been escorting the black and crimson-streaked pegasus who was standing just outside the tent entrance, who curiously stared in as her oversized wings twitched. The menace in his voice was pretty impressive for such a little guy. The drakeling remembered his charge after a moment, pointing towards the oversized tree that held the library, letting her know where to go.

As his captor shifted in her still uneasy slumber once more, Flash wheezed out his reply. "I'm crazy, not suicidal. Wouldn't dare with Bossman's sister. Especially when she's like this. That's an economy super-sized deathwish. Urk!" He laid his head back down on her snout to calm Twilight down as she hugged him once more.

The drakeling's eyes narrowed as he heard the familiar informal title. Flash winced, having not wanted to irritate the firebreather. "Bossman's sister? How do you know Shining Armor?"

"His old right-hoof pony before I got busted down by Luna; and before the Bossman retired. I figured it was Twilight when I saw her mane. I heard the rumors, didn't believe 'em 'till I saw her. I wasn't going to just leave her alone in the middle of a nightmare. Hug was her idea, though." Flash hoped that Twilight wouldn't roll over in her sleep. He could feel her twisting back and forth under him.

Spike nodded, glad to see that Twilight had latched onto somepony. "Mom, you're going to squeeze the stuffing out of Smartypants." The drakeling's soft warning thankfully worked into Twilight's head; relaxing the pressure on the guardspony as the dragoness relaxed in her sleep.

Thoughts ran through Flash's head. He didn't remember the Bossman's sister having a teenage- oh. "I know you now. Aren't you the Bossmans- err, Prince Armor's little adopted brother?"

"Nah. Twilight hatched me; Princess Celestia helped her raise me." Spike watched his former sister carefully, watching for sudden movements from her. He snuck up; stepping gingerly on the cracked and scorched earth until he was close enough to stroke through her downy fur.

He continued, watching Flash's awkward movements. "So, the princess is sort of like my dad. Ish. And Twilight was my mom/sisterly friend. Whoa!" Spike dove back, narrowly avoiding getting squashed by Twilight as she rolled onto her side in her sleep. 

Spike snuck back in as Twilight nuzzled her poor prisoner, stroking just under and behind her two backwards-pointing horns, a little over where her ears used to be. Twilight contentedly sighed in her sleep as he did. "Smartypants."

The guardspony awkwardly hugged her nose, trying to keep it from rocking him back and forth as he glanced up at Spike. The little traitor wasn't saving him from his horrible fate. Sure, his fate was entirely self-inflicted from being too nice for his own good, but still! 

"So, it's sort of a dragon-instinct thing. When she got turned into, uh, this." Spike gestured at Twilight's massive bulk. "I mean, she used to be both, but now she's big and- and I just can't see her as my sister anymore."

Flash sighed grumpily, finding himself being rubbed against Twilight's snout once more. "Great. Wonderful to hear. Sorry to interrupt your mother/son bonding bit, but a little help, please?"

"You're doing great!" Spike slapped his paws over his mouth as Twilight mumbled incoherently in her sleep. The males worriedly watched, afraid she was going to wake up, until she sighed once more, folding one of her massive wings out over her body. Cautiously, Spike took his paws back off his mouth and spoke softly while making a run for the entrance to the tent. "You've helped her get the best sleep she's had since she turned into a dragon! Keep it up!"

"Curse you, little trait-oof!" Flash found himself cut off as Twilight shifted her head to tuck him against the crook of her neck.

> Chapter 2: Briefings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Her sleep was fitful; restless from the memories invading her dreams once more. Her unwilling hug assistant briefly squirmed in her grip once more as she rolled over in her sleep, sending a new wave of memories rushing down into her head. It had all started so well...

--------------------------------------------------------

"AAaaauuugh!" The purple unicorn jumped, madly brushing at her mane as she shook her head and body in a wild dance to dislodge the creepy-crawlie. "Get it off, Get It Off, GETITOFF!"

A spell froze her and her itchy attacker in place at the foot of the debris field. The damp and dimly lit rooms left little for her frozen eyes to look at save for the hole in the wall streaming in light from the side of the old castle that faced the river. A hurried set of hoofsteps clattered over the cracked and loose pavers of the floor as her travel companion and expedition leader appeared. "Oh, Twilight. It's only a millipede."

Gentle magic wove through her frozen in time mane, plucking the intruder free with delicate care as the stasis field unwove from around her body. Twilight fell to the floor in a thump, panting as she calmed down. Well, she was calming down right up until Prin- until Celestia walked out in front of her and showed it to her at close range. "See, Twilight? Millipedes are harmless. They lack any kind of poison and are scavengers. In fact, with all of those legs, they're rather cute."

"Augh!" Twilight skittered back, thumping up against the collapsed vault doors in her panic.

Celestia seemed to almost droop in disappointment. "Right. I forgot that you've had so many bad experiences with nature. I'm sorry, Twilight. Nature's quite fascinating once you get past your fears, Twilight. So many variations, so many wonders."

Twilight took deep calming breaths, remembering the exercise that Cadance once taught her. She sat back up and lit her horn, reaching her aura down into her rucksack to pull out a thick checklist. She partially unrolled it, casting a spell to make all the letters upon its surface to dance downwards to make room for a new number one task. "Right. New objective: Clean campsite of all ickiness with extreme prejudice!"

"I wouldn't worry about our tent, Twilight. It has a spell built into it to prevent things from crawling in with us." Celestia pointed to their remarkably large temporary domicile. Twilight found herself reflexively smiling somewhat as she considered all the fun she would have studying it. It had a charm of Starswirl's Geometric Expansion, pegasi temperature spells, a free floating safe spell-heater for cooking, and somehow it had changed color and texture when Celestia had fired a spell at it.

Twilight nodded somewhat numbly, though, as she stuffed her checklist back into her half-empty ruck sack. Turning around, she looked up at the wall of rubble that blocked the way down into the treasury. Sometime in the past five months, one of the towers had collapsed upon the main building of the castle, crushing the section beneath a mountain of rubble.

In fact, judging from some of the pieces of tile that had escaped mostly unscathed, it had once been a part of Celestia's section of the castle. Twilight picked up a piece of the rubble with her magic, inspecting the tarnished old sunburst etched into the piece of still-polished marble. "Well, this isn’t going to be easy. Couldn't we just call it blocked off and leave it alone, Prin- Celestia?"

Celestia shook her head as she lit her horn. Rocks and chunks of masonry quivered atop the pile and began to wobble, roll, and float towards the hole in the room, and the river beyond it. "I know it could be fine, but I can't put it off anymore."

Twilight joined in with her mentor, adding in her own considerably terrifying telekinetic prowess to float pony-sized boulders away. Things nagged at her, including the strangest feeling that she needed to be down there, in the vaults. That there was something needing a helping hoof. "So, I still don't understand why you left these things behind if they're so dangerous Pr- Celestia."

Grunt. Clatter. Rumble-rumble-RUMBLE-SPLASH! Celestia turned her horn back to the pile as she absentmindedly began talking. "Are you familiar with the term... 'schmuck bait', I believe?"

Twilight jumped back as a small rockslide let more of the old tower slide down onto the pile of rubble. A rueful frown etched her face as she considered. "Yes, I'm familiar with the term, Celestia. Bright, shiny, and irresistible to many ponies for inexplicable reasons? An object that is dangerous, but somehow is considered fun to play with by many?" Oh yes, she was quite familiar with its connotations in regards to Pinkie Pie.

Wood groaned as Celestia ripped a two foot thick ironwood beam out of the rubble. She inspected it, noting that its rich red color was still intact, and she set it aside for repurposing one day. "Yes, that would be exactly the term I am thinking of. Most of the artifacts that we will retrieve will try to influence us like that, unfortunately. Even more insidiously, most of the more dangerous objects will want to be used. They want to be found."

Twilight paused, letting gravel roll down to pool around her hooves as she did. "Want to be used?"

Celestia lifted a boulder bigger than she was, tossing it out of the castle into the late afternoon sunlight. "They can telepathically induce influences and desires on an unsuspecting target. Or a suspecting but unprepared target." Celestia paused as she remembered the last stupid mistake she had made in handling the tools of evil. "Even from a great distance, they can touch somepony's mind, especially if they know about the object. Hence part of how they gain power from being talked about."

Celestia stopped upon the hill of rocks, spreading her wings to hop into the air to see how much of the pile remained. As she hovered in the air, she saw to her satisfaction that no more collapses would occur and let herself drop back to her hooves awkwardly, twisting an ankle slightly. "Ow!"

"Are you okay?"

"Fine. I'm fine, Twilight. No need to worry. Just out of practice." Celestia wriggled her forehoof, feeling how it sorely twinged. "Twilight, these objects worm their way into your mind. They make it seem reasonable to use them. They make you want to use them, make you covet them. Thankfully, even with all of the information in your books, Trixie has no way of getting to any of them."

Twilight pensively tapped her hoof in thought as she reviewed. "So, I have to triple-check all of my thoughts to be sure?" Darker images floated in her head, of herself hanging by puppet strings from torturous devices.

"Yes, Twilight."

"Um, speaking of which, if they can make a pony pull a Pinkie, why were they here?"

"Because I was young and reckless, and stupid. I thought I could shield the ones that I could not destroy forever."

"Did you?

Celestia sighed, a tear escaping her eye to run sadly down the length of her muzzle as she dipped her head. "Three years ago, you found out that I couldn't."

"Wait! My thoughts have already been twisted!?" Twilight yelped as she jumped back from the pile of rubble. With a frantic panicked urgency, her hooves jumped to her head and began patting it down to try and feel or drive off any influence on her mind as she fell to her rump. Could her friendships be a lie? She-she... that's why she was always getting more organized! She was going to turn into a giant clockwork-

Celestia's hoof cupped Twilight's chin soothingly. The setting sun streamed through the solar diarch’s mane, turning it into a fiery nimbus as she tenderly looked down upon Twilight. With tears in her eyes, Celestia explained the depths of her error. "No, Twilight. Not you. You saved her. Luna did not simply fall to the nightmare, she was pushed. In her desperation from more than a thousand years of neglect, scorn, and ignorance laid against her by the common pony she was more vulnerable than anypony before or since. The Helm of Horrors worked through a crack in my wards and ripped into her thoughts, corrupting her."

Celestia's legs trembled as she slowly slid down to the ground. "It corrupted her, tore all the good things in her apart. And when I couldn't save her, I left her with it for a thousand years.  I couldn't destroy it. But you did."

"P-Celestia, I didn’t know." Twilight turned to lie against Celestia, letting the alicorn rest her chin atop her mane.

"I know, Twilight. That is why I can't bring them to Canterlot. Nopony is safe from these abominations, and it would be foalish to bring them close to more victims in waiting."

Twilight nodded numbly as she rested against her mentor. Her gaze flicked back to the pile of rocks. "Princess, if Canterlot isn’t safe, if the Everfree forest can't keep them locked up forever, where will you hide them now?"

"I don't know, Twilight. I don't know.

--------------------------------------------------------

"Fine then, General Armor, where is Princess Luna? We have been waiting for four hours for her arrival!" Cmdr. Redtail fluffed himself up in irritation and protest. Hours with Pinkie tend to do that to somepony, and the no-nonsense officer had quite soured against the thought of her tagging along. Though the sandwalker Mustari stood with him and Zecora of the zebra lands on many things, the Arabian horse and the Ponyville resident zebra were obviously enjoying her company far more than he was.

Shining Armor rubbed the side of his temple with a hoof, feeling a headache coming on. How did his Twiley put up with it? It had taken him the better part of an hour to convince his former friend that he was still hard and battle ready military instead of having decayed into the softness of royalty. "I don't know Gossie. I have a few choice words for her myself. My guess is that she's probably performing another session of dream therapy with Twilight. She's still got some ways left to go before she'll have gotten over the trauma of her transformation enough to be fit for the expedition."

'Gossie' Goshawken Redtail harrumphed in irritation, looking out past Shining over the rail of the upstairs balcony to scowl at the ponies in the main hall of the library having a celebration. "And I suppose you're going to tell me that all of those civilians are coming with us onto the battlefield as well?"

Mustari stomped his hoof in irritation. "Perhaps your flights have dulled your sight and clouded your mind. Look upon them again, for you stand in the presence of the Bearers of Harmony. Thrice have they stood against odds that flattened any guard unit before them, and thrice have they fought more bravely and successfully than the Celestine Guard when pressed. Faust favors them." Mustari bowed his head, murmuring a prayer beneath his breath.

Redtail's talons scraped against his beak as he palmed his face with a paw. He had just barely kept from letting his lower beak flop open as he had glanced at the group. "Tell me that those undisciplined, hog-wrangling, simple-minded fillies aren't the- oh, what am I saying? Of course the sentimental-"

"Enough; we cannot afford to fight! Not if we are to be the last hope of the light!" Zecora's shout echoed through the building, awkwardly catching everypony's attention. She glowered at her airborne counterpart, continuing softly. "Next time choose your words more care; lest we are not there to see how you fare."

Shining Armor grunted in agreement. "Thank you, Zecora." The shamaness and former officer of Zebabwae nodded her head towards him in acknowledgement. "This bickering is pointless. Princess Luna wants them all on the expedition because they all offer something for its success. Furthermore-" Shining Armor's horn sparked impressively as something forced its way through the privacy shield around Twilight's library. "She is here."

----------------------------------

Cadance’s eyes widened in horror as she listened to the sad litany of woe of the dark pegasus before her. It was all just... "You're allergic to everything!?"

Pssssnckt! Psssnckt! "No. Jud Most dings." The grey and coal black pegasus sniffled through her stuffed nose, trying to find some clean air to breathe so that she wouldn't be hurting quite so badly. She flinched away from Dash for a moment, worried that she might break out in hives from any trace of liquid rainbows. The polychromatic pegasus leaned in again, using her cleaned wing to drag Dainty back.

Cadance grew pale as she tried to imagine what a life like that would be like. "You must be miserable, how can you-"

"-What? Be so awesome that Rainbow Dash, Mare of Awesome had to make a fan club for her? I dunno! Oh, wait, she flies three times faster than me at 80,000 hooves, that's how!" Dash butted in enthusiastically, leaving Dainty Dish squirming to escape her grip as Dash hoof-pumped in midair.

"It's nudding, really." Dainty Dish wriggled backwards, trying to pull her black and crimson striped mane free of Dash's grip.

"Nothing? Nothing!? Stop selling yourself short! Heck, you've got merchandise now!" Dash reached into her saddlebags, pulling out a medium sized plushy of the pegasus, complete with the red-tinted fur of her windburned nose. Cadance squeaked a little, snatching it up to admire the little doll.

"Uh-"

"The Dainty Dish Merchandise Fund's been waiting for you to withdraw for the past six months, Dainty!" Pinkie started to glomp the pegasus, stopping as she realized she must still have flour dust all throughout her coat and mane as the poor pegasus started sneezing in rapid fire. She sadly smiled and patted Dainty on the back, a gesture that Dainty returned. 

Pinkie perked up again, then just as immediately deflated once more as she remembered the project she had been working on. "I was going to say that I had a scrumptible treat for you to try, but it got a little too hot and some stuff you can't eat developed in it so it's no good for you anymore." Pinkie perked up again, diving under Twilight's center table and jumped back out again for Dainty. "But I've got cashews!"

Dainty’s eyes widened and she snatched the box of cashews from Pinkie with a ravenous hunger so she could shove her nose deep into it. Happy chomping sounds emerged as she chewed away. Her eyes rolled back a little, and she let herself fall onto her back as she plugged the box with her muzzle.

Cadance smiled, ruefully shaking her head at the sight. "Okay, okay. Her life does have some good things in it. But I'm still confused as to why she's here. Unless she's here to visit Twilight."

"Twilight? Wud's wrong wid her?" Dainty leaned back up, pulling the box of cashews from her muzzle reluctantly.

All of Twilight's friends and family turned to her, their solemn gazes making her feel uncomfortably small. Spike was the first to speak up as he sat in a chair off to one side, surrounded by Fluttershy and Rarity. "She's been infected by some kind of artifact of doom, and it turned her into a dragon along with somepony named Trixie. Then Trixie went nuts and riled up the ponies of Canterlot against her and she ran off to the Everfree Forest for a while. She's sleeping outside in the tent because she's too big to fit in here, and she's too dangerous to be close to when she starts thrashing around in her nightmares."

"So who's in there wid her?"

"WHAT!?"

"Tan coat, blue mane..."

Night Light knew who Pinkie was referring to instantly. The normally royal blue Sparkle stallion turned redder than a beet as he remembered how often he had chased off the delinquent from the house. "SENTRY!"

---------------------------------------------

"Gyah!" Twilight awoke with a start, rolling upright to see whoever had entered her tent. Her slitted pupils twitched in and out as they tried to focus to compensate for the darkness. Part of her semi-awake mind could have sworn that her dad had been screaming somepony's name to the heavens nearby. 

And why was the ground so lumpy and hard?

"If you don't mind, Twilight, I'd like to get up now." The muffled male voice came from beneath the expanse of her chest, startling the young dragoness with its closeness and position.

Twilight jumped to her hoo- her feet, looking down at the poor stallion who had somehow ended up beneath her. Surprisingly, he had held up fairly well for having a massive creature atop him as his armor had held up to the weight. Two gouges were rubbed into the ground beside him, almost as if he had been cuddled by her, but that was just silly. She scuttled back to give him some air and to keep from falling upon him. "Oh no! How did I lay on you? I'm so sorry!"

Flash Sentry groaned as he slowly crawled free from his near dirt-nap, waving off her concerns with a hoof as he coughed out the pain. "My fault." His voice was still weak from having been hugged to death and then back to life again. "Thought you could use a friend, Twilight."

"A friend? How did you know my name?"

"Of course I'm going to know the sister of the-"

"FLASH!" Shining Armor strode back into the tent, marching right towards Sentry.

"Bossman!" Flash started to high five his old CO, before his gaze caught the glint of the new general's stars upon Shining's uniform. "I mean, Bossman, Sir!" A heated snort behind Shining forewarned him of his old nemesis as shivers ran down his spine. "And Mr. Sparkle! So nice to see you again!" The glare of the elder stallion intensified, and Flash could swear he could feel his mane hairs starting to melt together. "Please don't flay me with a shovel, sir!"

"You touched her." Night Light withdrew a folding shovel from his saddlebags, pointing it threateningly at Flash with the intent to use it.

Shining Armor and Velvet Sparkle stepped in between the patriarch of the Sparkle family and the threatened guardspony. Shining spoke first as he dug his hooves into the ground, snorting as he rose to his friend's defense. "Dad, I wouldn't have spent five years setting him up with Twiley if he wasn't good."

"He's a guardspony, honey. Trained by our own son, no less!" Velvet stomped as she drug Flash forward with her magic and positioned him between herself and her son. She thumped him in the wings, shaking her hoof as she found him to be nearly iron-solid with muscle and ignoring his own grunt of pain. "See? Nice and strong for our little- uh, big girl."

Night Light resolutely continued to point his shovel at the tip of Sentry's nose, ignoring the chatter from Twilight's friends behind him. "Oh, that's nice honey. I take it you forgot about the fact that he was nearly busted out of the guard for harassing Princess Luna?" Nearly everypony present save for Flash and Shining gasped slightly and turned to the guardspony, who was wondering if there was a spell to shrink him until he could get stepped on by a microbe.

Shining Armor pushed the shovel tip away from Flash with his magic, stepping between his father and old friend again. "Conduct Unbecoming, not Harassment. Princess Celestia reduced the charges."

"Are you listening to yourself, Shining? Especially after I caught you smoking... whatever that was on the back porch!"
Velvet's gaze turned from her husband to her son, the redirected ire nearly enough to make Shining Armor hide behind Sentry. "What?"

Flash could swear that he felt his heart break loose of its mounting and bounce off of the bottom of his ribcage with an audible 'THUP!' that shook the area as Shining continued his ineffectual attempts to defend him. He mentally begged to the sun and moon that Shining wouldn't try to play the age card and keep agitating Night Light furth-

"I was 16, Sentry was twelve! We were young and stupid and it was my-"

Celestia-damnit! "Bossman! I can defend myself; stop digging our hole before it reaches Zebabwae!" Flash stomped his hooves as he screamed out his frustration over the issues with Night Light. A couple of moments of silence let him realize that everypony had backed away from him, save for two dragons. A few moments more and his introspection informed him that he had angrily spread his wings, and that they were crackling with lightning that mirrored his frustration. He took deep breaths to calm himself before he continued far more calmly.

"Mr. Sparkle, the only thing I was doing with your daughter was calming her sleep terrors that were caused by what sounded like post-traumatic stress from when she was transformed. I was humming an old tune that Shining taught me when she mistook me for one of her childhood dolls in her sleep and, uh... yeah." Flash respectfully explained himself, trying to keep his tone as neutral as possible. He didn't dare show satisfaction at the look of shock upon Night Light's face as the Sparkle stallion realized how badly his daughter had been hurting.

Flash bowed his head, closing his eyes as he continued on. "And you're right; my actions towards Princess Luna were disrespectful. Unbecoming of me. I saw her hurting when she first returned, and I wouldn't back off from trying to be her friend. I should have- I should have cleared it with Princess Celestia, but I didn't. Maybe if I had, it would have turned out better." He looked up once more, his breath sharply sucking itself back in as he saw the dark figure slinking into the tent behind almost everypony like a stalking tiger. He most certainly did not let out a tiny squeak of fear as Princess Luna fixed her gaze directly upon him as her eyebrow raised imperiously in questioning. "That explains the thud."

"Indeed, Lt. Cmdr. Sentry." Everypony who hadn't already seen her whipped around as the darkly melodious voice rang behind them. "And you are correct that you misjudged me in your approach. But, I never did thank you for at least trying when so many others did not attempt to ease my depression. Consider the revocation of all charges your reward." Luna stepped into the tent, her long legs striding across the partially glassed dirt gracefully.

Silently, she scanned over the command staff of the expedition, marking off each in turn. Her gaze lingered upon Redtail, her lips pursing as if she had tasted something somewhat spoiled. "I would have cleared you and restored your rank earlier, but your transfer made it difficult to find you after my revelations at Ponyville last year. Are you ready to take your place by your 'Bossman's side once more?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Wait-wait! He was all 'see mopey, PARTINATE mopey', like me?" Pinkie bounded over to stand almost nose to nose with Luna, frightening the diarch slightly with her suddenness.

"Yes." Luna kept the grumbles about demons to herself.

"I really should apologize again, ma'am." Flash warily watched Night Light from the corner of his eye as the elder Sparkle slowly pulled the shovel away and held it by his side. The guardspony wasn't entirely convinced that it was a good development, seeing as Night Light pulled out a blade sharpening stone from his saddlebags and began to rasp it against the edge.

"Yes, well, if we can move along, please?" Luna's horn began to glow as she teleported forth a series of pamphlets for the group.

"Like we should have four hours ago?" Redtail inserted himself into the conversation rudely.

Luna nodded. "Yes, we should have. However, I was delayed by the completion of the paperwork for our expedition, as well as dealing with Twilight Sparkle's continuing nightmares." Luna apologized gracefully, taking a long bow towards Twilight in the process. 

The dragoness reached up, feeling the slight crusty tear streaks upon her cheeks.

"So, the dreams of one girl are enough to drop all diplomatic niceties?" Redtail dropped his pamphlet on the ground and began to march towards the exit muttering in germane.

Luna's glower grew exponentially, her mane suddenly billowing as thunder rumbled from unseen lightning. He might have thought he had good reason, but he was not going to get away so easily. Her horn flashed, freezing him in place with her magic. "When that one 'girl' sits in this very tent and is the key to stopping Tirek? Yes, Twilight Sparkle is important enough." Luna unfroze him as she marched out to block him, slapping the pamphlet back into his claws.

"I'b nod trying to be rude, bud I'b nod cut out for long trips." Dainty Dish apologetically mumbled at Luna, her stuffed nose rendering her nearly unintelligible.

"A room is currently being fitted out in our expeditionary vessel to handle your rather extreme allergy needs, Dainty Dish. And, I have something for you now, if we can all step inside." Luna spread a wing in the direction of the library, inviting them all to share in the study material her sister had prepared. A moment of teleportation dropped off the study materials Celestia had prepared inside of the hollow tree, just leaving Twilight Sparkle for her to deal with. "Fair Twilight, do you think you could walk a hundred yards, and fit your head through one of the windows of your home?"

The dragoness nodded. "I think so. I might get stuck, though."

"My sister and I shall pay for the damages, Twilight. Fret not, for your once and future home will be ready when we figure out a way for you to fit within it once more." Luna stood up, walking out of the tent and stopping only to gesture with a hoof. "Come now, don't be shy! We have much to discuss."

The rest quickly filtered out to head back inside, leaving only Twilight, Redtail, and Mustari to hang back and stare at one another. Growling, Redtail stalked about, his tailtip quivering as he paced. "She wants to trust this expedition to a dragon's word." Redtail quietly and almost venomously spat the sentence out in the dim darkness.

Twilight looked down on him, a newfound instinct telling her to stand tall and slightly spread her wings angrily. Smoke curled from her nostrils as her toes dug furrows into the dirt. "Yes."

"Then we are already doomed. No dragon can be trusted in a situation like this." Redtail angrily cawed once as he spoke, bristling without fear at Twilight's dominance display.

Mustari placed a hoof on Redtail's back, holding him down without effort. "Let it go, my friend. There is nothing to be gained but scorn if you persist in antagonizing our hosts. Give her a chance." The dark grey stallion still snuck a worried glance towards Twilight in.

"A chance? A chance? A chance to end the world while we sleep?"

Twilight snorted angrily, sending a billowing cloud of black and choking smoke around the pair. "How will you trust anypony's word if you never give them the chance to prove it?!" Her angry rumble shook the tent with its volume. The smoke curling from her nostrils gradually lessened as she calmed, though it still sulfurously stank up the tent.

"Any. PONY. Not a dragon."

Twilight nearly snarled quietly once more before calming as she thought about it. He wanted the word of a pony? There was a promise she could make to fulfill it like that. Unbreakable, unthinkable to think about breaking it. "I cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my AUGH!"

Redtail bristled at her. "What kind of an oath was that supposed to be?"

"A Pinkie Promise. Hush-hush, can't tell anypony."

"As in a promise to the Pink Djinn?"

"Yeah, Pinkie Pie. And she can enforce it, too." Twilight smiled very carefully as she shifted very carefully to watch whatever happened. She spoke the next few words deliberately, measuring them out as somepony would a mixture of the most volatile explosives would. "Because breaking her friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend-"

"For-EV-ER!" Pinkie slowly sank back down into Redtail's flattened packet again until it folded perfectly shut upon the floor once more, giving him a knowing stink-eye the whole way.

"And she says she is not a Djinn." Mustari warily spoke as he approached the dropped packet. A hoof emerged from his robes, striking out with a quick motion to flip the packet open to reveal the secret passage beneath it.  Or, instead the perfectly frosted cupcake within.

"Yeah. If I ever went crazy, well... I'm not sure what she would do to me. Nopony's ever told me what would happen if somepony fully broke a Pinkie Promise. They all shudder and run away." Twilight shrugged, unconcerned. "So, now I'm mostly harmless."

"Mostly?"

"Well, I might step on you. That would be bad. As for what Pinkie is, the hay if I know, and I don't really want to find out nowadays. So, can we get inside and listen to Princess Luna now?"

----------------------------------

"Please hold still! This will sting going on, but it will let you breathe through your nose and breathe safely!" Princess Luna held a struggling Dainty Dish with her magic. The hyper-allergic pegasus twisted her head, trying to avoid letting the icky-looking device go on. Her sensitive nose already itched from the scratching of the pieces meant to go into her nostrils against her wind-burned nose.

Luna forced the issue, roughly pushing the nosepiece onto Dainty with a squeak of discomfort from the dark pegasus. "There! Breathe in through your nose, out with your mouth. There is a magical charge in the filter that attracts anything that might make you ill to it to keep it from reaching your system."

"What's that supposed to... mean?" Dainty's eyes spread wide as she heard herself perfectly clearly without the roar of the wind for the first time. "My voice! My nose! I can breathe!"

Rainbow Dash swooped over, snatching Dainty up in a hug. "Awe-SOME! I bet we could get you going four times as fast as sound with this thing on!" The dark pegasus squirmed in Dash's grasp as her chromatic counterpart spun her giddily around in circles thinking of nothing but the thought of helping to break yet another record.

"Ahem." Luna firmly cleared her throat, stopping Dash's swirling rampage.

Dash flinched as she realized that everypony had been watching her act more like Scootaloo than herself. Her eyes darted about, catching smirks on almost everypony's faces, and heard giggles from a few more. "I should put you down now..."

Luna reached out with a wing, catching Dainty as she wobbled back and forth trying to catch her balance as she looked decidedly nauseous. "Alas, no. If Miss Dish wishes to fly, she will have to remove it, as I am uncertain as to how well it will withstand her normal regime of flight."

"Four times the speed of sound? Impossible, even for you." Redtail had heard too many tales of the sonic rainboom to dismiss it, and had seen several aviators of the Raptorian Air Guard break past the speed of sound at high altitude. But four times? There couldn't really be more to the rag-tag bunch of farmers, tailors, managers and bakers than met the eyes, could there?

"Ain't her that does it." Applejack nearly reached over to snatch Dainty up in a hug, before she noticed the still decidedly green twinge to the pegasus, and the dirty state of her own hooves. She lightly bumped her with a shoulder before continuing. "Lil' Dainty here gets the sneezes and the whooping at low places 'cause of her allergies to...well, everything really. So, she went higher. 80,000 hooves higher. It's easier to fly up there from what Ah've heard, and the air is so thin she's gotta put a move on just to breathe. Can't hover worth a darn, but if ya give her a clear sky, watch out and duck yer head, 'cause she'll be gone faster than a plate of apple fritters."

Redtail's questions found themselves cut short as a resounding thud rumbled through the library, followed by a great draconic yelp of pain. "Spike! You latched the window again! What would have happened if Dash crashed through it?"
Spike winced where he sat on Rarity's back, looking sheepishly first to Dash, then to the window. "Sorry! Just been kinda quiet lately!"

"Yeah, well, I'd rather have to just resort everything from Dash knocking stuff off the shelves rather than pay for a new window again. Or hospital bills." Twilight's magenta glow hesitantly trickled into existence around the latch of one of the upstairs balcony windows, haltingly pulling it open before the glow vanished in an instant. The great blunt lavender snout of Twilight's new form poked its way through; pushing it open as Twilight narrowly squeezed her head and upper neck through. "So, what did I miss...? Uh- Why does Dainty Dish have a mustache? I'm not sleep casting again, am I?"

Everypony looked to the dark pegasus. Her personal air filter did look a lot like a thick, bushy black mustache. Dainty shrugged, looking up. "It's so I can breathe!"

"Oh. Oooooh." Twilight's head slumped to the deck of the upstairs balcony. "Wow. Why couldn't I have thought of that?"

"Yes, well if everypony is done now, we can continue." Luna summoned the projector that her sister had prepared, marveling at how far ponies had come. It was still cumbersome compared to the old ways, but the march of progress still fascinated her. The remote control slid in her magic over to her hoof, and she firmly mashed it to light the projector up.

"Operation Trebuchet Surprise?" Shining looked to Luna in confusion.

Luna's brows furrowed, and she snapped her gaze to the screen hung for the briefing. Surely enough, there it was in bright pink crayon-like lettering above a pictogram of a demonic centaur in the process of being fired out of Pinkie's cannon. She turned to Pinkie, who sheepishly shrank under her gaze as she sat beside Twilight's head. "We are not calling the operation that."

"Why not? There'll be trebuchets, and a big surprise!"

"No!" Luna massaged the base of her horn, feeling the headache coming on. She stomped the clicker, moving the presentation along. "Our primary objective is to locate and secure the Tomb of Tirek before Trixie is able to. If possible, we will also attempt to purify her with the Elements of Harmony, or failing that render her a non-threat."

She stomped once more, ignoring the feigned yawns and their not so feigned counterparts. Tasteless curs, they had no appreciation of the finer points of bureaucracy. The world map that her sister had made finally unhooked itself, clicking through and up onto the screen. "To describe the map, the red dots represent locations we believe that Tirek's tomb may reside, or are places that can raise him from the dead."

Velvet nervously shifted. It was one thing to hold out for a month, but this? "Princess, ma'am? If you have to check every one of those locations, then Equestria won't be able to hold. By train, if that's even possible, it will still take months to check all of those places."

"We will not require a train."

Many of the small group looked at each other, wondering just exactly what Luna meant by that. Velvet shiftily looked around, mentally filing that little tidbit away. Airships were too small and seagoing vessels too limited and slow for most of it. "I take it that those hundred blue dots are the secondary objectives?"

"Yes. They are the known locations of the remains of his great demons. Fiercesome monsters whose remains can be returned to the mortal coil. Destroying them before they can rise is our chiefest priority behind preventing their master from rising." Luna stomped her hoof once more, sending a slow and dizzying array horrors clicking across the screen. Hideous abominations made by fusing thousands of ponies together, beings made of blades, great reptiles that looked as if they had just come from Tartarus itself as they towered over hapless ponies...

Zecora stood a little taller, adjusting the strange mottled green outfit that she had snugly wrapped around most of her barrel. "Forgive me if I may; but how are we to defeat any of these in less than a day?"

Velvet and Shining nodded in agreement with Zecora, the shieldpony speaking up and voicing his concerns. "Speaking from first-hoof experience, we just don't have enough resources to deal with these things if they get resurrected. It'd be a total country wipeout." Shining winced, shaking his leg as the talk reminded his mind of the pain he had suffered during the evacuation. He could barely hold off one, how was his mom supposed to hold off one hundred?

"We have a Twilight." Luna pointed up to her sister's protégé, who blushed and found that her horns had jabbed themselves into the wall above her window as she tried to escape notice. A few chuckles escaped Twilight's friends as they considered all the things their friend had done and gathered around her. 

Luna pointedly looked at Redtail, waiting for him to say something. Seeing that he wished to sulk instead, she continued. "Yes, Kommandur, that is a good deal of why we are bringing her. I have been designing a set of armor that will make her even stronger and tougher than she is now to assist her in battle. Furthermore, the HMS Eclipse, my flagship, shall provide support from afar with its heavy firepower."

Small grunts of confusion escaped the military ponies (and griffon) at the mention of Luna having a flagship. Equestria didn't even have much of a navy, let alone did the princesses have a dedicated ship to themselves. What Luna said next disconcerted them even more. "It shall not be alone. We are calling upon each of your countries to supply us with additional combat support in this hour of need from the forces available in our mutual defense treaty. A contingent for the Eclipse, and one for defending Equestria as Tirek will strike here first."

"Kommandur, we need as many of Raptoria's fixed-wing flight vehicles as it can spare to augment our air power. We have room for a squadron aboard the Eclipse." Luna watched Redtail, watching him warily nod. She was worried he would object.

"Mustari, we would appreciate it if Saddle Arabia could spare at least two sand crawlers for the expedition, for we will need them to venture into the Glasslands." 

"You will have them; they already await your orders." Mustari adjusted his robes, drawing up upon himself.

"Bless you."

"If Faust wills it."

The corners of Luna's mouth twitched, as if she wanted so say something pithy in response. Her legs twitched as she straightened up and turned to the shaman in the room. "Zecora, I know that Zebabwae exiled you several years ago, but if there is any way to convince them to send us at least a battalion, I would greatly appreciate hearing it."

Zecora said nothing, merely nodding her head.

"And General Armor, I need as many of our Elite Pegasi squadrons, or best earth pony engineers, and lances of our battlemages as the defense of Equestria can spare. We will need them, before the end." Luna watched as he wearily nodded, remembering all too well how many had already been lost.

The mutual defense clauses of the alliances had only ever been considered a hypothetical event. With the fragmented nature of the world, nopony ever expected a threat that could be great enough to require their use would arise. Redtail still bristled ever so slightly besides the silent form of Mustari as Zecora leaned against the table on the other side from them. Shining Armor started to speak up before Luna silenced him with a wave of her hoof.

"We cannot fight a defensive war, even on our own soil. The Crystal Empire greatly suffered for it, ultimately leading to... well; no nation has the warmaking capacity to fight Tirek off alone. But put together, we might just be able to strike him first." Luna calmly explained herself, clicking onwards in her briefing slides once more. On the screen, a skeletal shape that looked vaguely similar to Twilight's form emerged, almost like a suit of armor.

"She makes sense. After all, do six together not make a singular whole?" Mustari looked up to the balcony, listening to the light chatter there. The six friends (and baby dragon) laughed and giggled together as they spoke, talking about foreign lands and the strangeness of Twilight's new body.

Zecora nodded, continuing where the Sand-Walker left off. "With those six victories are not as far; our way is illuminated by a friendship brighter than a star."

Redtail bristled once more. "Friendship is nice. Friendship creates unit bonds and improves fighting spirit.  But friendship is not a sufficient weapon in and of itself. Why should we bring them on the expedition? Let alone the sick pegasus?" Redtail looked up at the small knot of ponies once again. To his eye, only two had any kind of training. Namely, the one he thought was a dressmaker or prospector, and the one who was the local weather manager.

"Yes. Dainty Dish shall be outfitted with a special rig that will allow her to take pictures and send them to us instantly, giving us forewarning of coming threats." Luna clicked the slide again, showing a rough mockup of the form-fitting brace wrapped around the torso of a stylized black pegasus.

Night Light spoke up for Luna, remembering the lessons that Twilight had imparted upon him from Princess Celestia. "It's because the Elements act as magical amplifiers. When two ponies join their magic, their strength is considered to be added together then multiplied by the lower power of the two.  That is why my daughter and her friends are going, beyond their ability to wipe out magical threats." He opened his eyes, realizing he had mostly recited from instinct. 

"What? My daughter's special talent is magic; she recited it in her sleep. She's the student of Celestia-"

"Was, Night Light. My sister was to graduate her with full honors shortly before these unfortunate events occurred." Luna patiently corrected Twilight's sire, watching the others for reactions. Mustari grew more attentive; having learned something new as Redtail continued to blankly stare, waiting for Night Light to get to the point. "Do you remember what is said of alicorns, and the internal mixing of magics?"

Night Light sighed, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle. "Quite a bit. She used to talk about nothing else when Princess Celestia put the idea into her head that she could one day become an alicorn by studying magic hard enough."

Luna uncomfortably cleared her throat, blushing in familial embarrassment. "Yes well, continue."

"Right. Well, when a pony has more than one race's magic within them, it becomes an exponential increase rather than a multiplication. Two is enough to be royalty, and only three ponies that I know of have enough of all three race's magics to balance the types out. Namely, Luna, Celestia, and Cadance." Night Light watched as Luna helpfully brought forth her magic, letting everyone see how there were three strands to it. The twining tendrils of blue magic dimly shone in the library, twisting and writhing against each other bound together like a rope.

Cadance squeezed in, showing off her own. Disturbingly, little heart-shaped bubbles continually budded off of hers, thankfully dissipating before they could reach anyone. "Most alicorns ascend when they balance their magics, as usually one racial magic ends up vastly stronger than the other two. For me, it was pegasus magic until I accidentally cast a love spell with spectral stone."

"Right." Flash Sentry closed his eyes, ignoring the deep giggles from above as he tried to tune out the images of a dragon-sized slumber party. "Bossman could technically ascend, but with him being extremely strong in unicorn magic and earth pony magic that strengthens his shields, it'd be almost impossible."

"Wait. Celestia wasn't leading Twilight on?" Velvet turned a little paler as the traces of purple drained from her coat. "My baby girl... was almost-"

"Yes. My sister lamented that Twilight was so close. She has been trying for the past three years to cause an ascension on Twilight's part. Unfortunately, while in any other pony it would have been enough given her surprising strength in earth and sky magics, her unicorn magics overpowered the other two."

Redtail cleared his throat, growing impatient with the academic talk. "So, you're saying that you're bringing them all along to strengthen Twilight further somehow. Even though there is no known amplifier that can safely boost the power of more than three ponies. The knowledge was lost with Discord!"

Luna hummed mysteriously as she teasingly filed the edge of her hoof. "If only there was somepony who came from the time before Discord, who still remembered how to thanks to a thousand years of enforced coma keeping the knowledge fresh. Oh, wait."

"It would have to be close, right?" Shining looked up to his sister, a newfound look of awe twitching about his face as he realized what she could have become.

"Almost coat to coat, I am afraid." Luna tapped the slide once more, showing how close she meant in an image of some of the designs that had been talked over between herself and her sister. "We tried to think of many ways to reduce the risk to the other bearers, from temporarily transmogrifying them to crystals to embed within the element of magic to somehow fusing them with Twilight. Finally, we decided to stop being so silly and focus on creating a great armored suit to house them next to Twilight within."

Velvet seemed to glow ever so slightly as her mind remained lost in considering what had become of her daughter. "Wait; is dragon magic separate from pony magic?"

"Clever. You noticed that as well? Yes, it is. Twilight may be even more powerful than my sister or I, depending on the strength of her dragon magics. Strong enough, that when amplified by the elements, she may just finally be able to kill him once and for all."

"So, you combine Twilight's powers with the strongest earth pony I've ever known, one who seems to have a hint of pegasus speed to her." Cadance pointed to Applejack, who heard her name and blushed while drawing her hat down over her head. "Another earth pony who seems to be stronger in unicorn magics than those of the earth." Pinkie was oblivious to the hoof pointing at her as she somehow balanced on Twilight's bobbing head while ticking the dragoness's nostrils with two peacock feathers. "The second fastest pegasus known to exist, who can create impossible weather effects and make rainbows explode." She moved her hoof a little over, pointing at Dash who busily was talking about high altitude flight with Dainty Dish. "Another pegasi, who loves the earth more than the skies and who can make dragons and cockatrices cry." Fluttershy squeaked and blushed as she noticed the hoof pointing at her, ducking behind Applejack as Cadance pointed her out. "And, uh... Rarity." The dressmaker was too busy planning out an accessory line for Twilight's new form to notice the attention, cackling almost evilly in triumph.

Redtail grumbled to himself as he realized that he wasn't going to get out of watching over the group of civilians. "So, you think you can repurpose your 'Elements of Harmony' to destroy?" It would be nice if they had an effective weapons system, but could the six be trusted to stay out of trouble?

"Let me handle that. There is more than one way to join six souls filled with magic together." Luna quietly answered; unaware of the sidelong look that Twilight shot her.

"So, then... Where are we going?"

-------------------------------

Pinkie's party after the briefing had gone reasonably well. It wasn’t exactly a resounding success between Twilight having to spend half of the party unwedging herself, Redtail wanting nothing to do with it, and the troubles of Dainty Dish being allergic to 99% of the party, but it went well enough. The visiting military officers had agreed to help Velvet train her daughter to be less accidentally dangerous and to help the dragoness control her magic once more after the Iron Star of Equestria had dragged it out of them kicking and screaming. 

Though Pinkie's second batch of Dainty-safe cashew muffins had worked out about as well as the first, even if everypony else had enjoyed them.

Twilight had curled up where she had been standing after freeing herself, basking in the glow of the setting sun to stew in her own thoughts. Unease tugged at her face when she work up to find Flash once more wrapped up in her forelegs, while Dash rested upon a branch above her and Applejack stared out into the light of the setting sun before her. The warmth of the light soaked into the dragoness, slowly drowsing her off before she snapped herself back awake. 

"H-how long was I out for?"

"Ah'd reckon 'bout a half an hour. Ya started twitchin' and a' flailin' and a' hollerin' as soon as ya conked yerself out." Applejack turned her head from the setting sun, looking up to Twilight's face. Seeing the look of horror there, she quickly added to her statement. "Don't worry yerself any, sugarcube. He's too darn smart and nimble to get caught like ya accidentally did to Applebloom."

"I'm sorry, sorry. Applejack, I'm-"

"Sush now, sugarcube. T'ain't yer fault she got hurt. She was warned not to get too close when ya got like that and she did it anyway. Had her reasons, darn good ones too if Flash here is right. Ya couldn't have known." Applejack slowly trotted over, plunking herself down directly before her friend. The farmpony's hoof reached out to stroke Twilight's restored mane, only to pull it back as she thought better. "Ah forgive ya. She'll pull through."

Twilight unwrapped a leg from around Flash, raising it to her muzzle where she gently dislodged a solitary tear from the corner of her eye. "O-okay. How did he manage to get to me?"

"His name's Flash, ain't it? Name's kinda telling most of the time. Feller moved like Dash, and it was like he had eyes in the back of his head and all over them there wings of his. Rushed in, jumped over ever'thing and pounced ya' 'round yer neck. Started humming a lullaby straight into yer ears." Applejack jumped back as Flash's eyes snapped open, looking directly at her despite having been asleep. Her hoof stumbled as she snatched her hat off of the ground and pluncked it roughly back onto her head.

Flash leaned up in the paw that had been roughly curled around his body, moaning as his back popped three times in the process. "Then you hugged me right up." He squirmed in Twilight's grip, looking to get comfortable. "I don't mind. At least so long as you don't squeeze." 

A wheeze escaped him. "Like right now." The guardspony gasped as the pressure quickly released from his body. It hurt a heck of a lot more without his armor on.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Twilight all but tossed him from her grip as she released him back to the ground. She shrank in upon herself as he tumbled down her flank as she gasped and pulled back from him. 

"Twilight! Easy now, sugarcube!" The dragoness whimpered at her friend's bark of alarm. 

"I'm okay! I've had worse, just ask Cadance!" Flash shook his head, followed by the shiver of his shakeout slowly trembling down his whole body as his tail and wings fluffed out humorously. Applejack smirked as she noticed how much his protest resembled Dash's own post-crash antics.

He waited for Twilight to stop pulling back from him before continuing. "Twilight, I only wanted to have enough air to breathe. I don't mind being a living teddy bear for you, if that's what it takes to help you get over what was done to you. You don't seem to take sleeping alone well." Flash patted the side of Twilight's thick and plush hindleg before he crawled over it to rest atop her side.

Applejack nodded, shivering. 'Don't we know it. Ah lost count of the number of time's Twi here's done nearly made roast apples out of me when she's gone and fell into a nightmare 'bout what happened to her. Uh, no offense, sugarcube." The farmpony kept a wary eye on Twilight's still-twitching tail, having nearly been clobbered by it earlier.

Twilight laid her head down upon her outstretched forelegs sadly, whining a little. She jerked a little bit back up as something struck her. "Flash, how do you know the song that Shining used to sing to me? It almost always calmed me down when he hummed it in my sleep!" Twilight turned her head about, staring into Flash's eyes through the fuzziness of the place between wakefulness and sleep.

Flash rolled his eyes and gestured a 'throw it hither' motion with a leg to Applejack. The farmer took his ruck in her teeth and tossed it to him, accidentally smashing him in his face with it. "Bossman used to try and set me up with you all the time, Twilight. He was so worried about you." He pulled a photo out for the dragoness to look at; one that had become dog-eared and yellowed with age and the wear of having been carried around by a guardspony for years.

The dragoness perked up, first leaning in close to see it. She sighed sadly as even getting so close that she tapped it with her snout failed to clear it up, then back to use her farsightedness to work for her. A look of horrified comprehension bloomed at last as a blush burned through the fur of her cheeks. "No, no! Put it away!"

"Nah, let me-"The snort of amusement from Applejack burned the blush deeper into Twilight's face as the farmpony got a good look at a still blank-flanked Twilight with her nose buried deep into a book. It didn't help that she was at the top of a ferris wheel with Flash embarrassedly looking to Shining Armor on her other side.

"Oh, I've got bunches more where that came from." Flash tucked the photo away. "He tried for a couple of years before I got him to stop. I've got sock puppet and everything just to mock him the next time he tries." He reached deeper into his rucksack, pulling out one sock that resembled Shining on a drunken bad mane day, and another that resembled himself after putting up with Shining's bad mane day.

"Tell me he ain't serious."

Twilight twitched. "I have no idea!"

Flash slid the puppets on, adopting a fairly convincing falsetto of Shining Armor's voice. "Say, Flashio!"

"Yeah, bossman" He made the other puppet say.

"My sister is all lonely, and I need to get her out of the house before she turns into a book or something." He gave the Shining Armor puppet an elaborate show of looking depressed.

"Couldn't your sister turn me into a potted plant?" 

"Well, yeah..."

"And doesn't your Mom like to skin things?"

"Kind of..."

"And your dad used to go all over the world and knows shovel-fu fighting." 

"Uh, I think so..."

"And she's Princess Celestia's student! She'll make me do a sun run if I even slightly make her cry!"

"Nonsense, Celly hasn't made anypony do that in two millennia."

Flash jerked entirely upright where he stood for his presentation. "Wait, that's not what he said."

"Nor does General Armor have such a squeaky voice. A proper mockery would be to turn his Coltifornia accent nearly entirely unintelligible."

"Princess Luna is standing right behind me, isn't she?" Flash turned whiter than Shining Armor as he realized that he was most likely a dead stallion from Luna having overheard everything he had been saying. A hoof tapped him on his shoulder, making him yelp like Fluttershy as he leapt into a midair hover.

The navy blue hoof slipped back down into Flash's shadow, which had become blacker than coal. The shadow bubbled and rippled, expanding outwards for several hoofs before a long, dark horn began to emerge, dripping with liquid shadow. "Not precisely..."

Applejack's jaw dropped like a bucked apple as the horn continued to emerge until at last the brow of Luna's head flowed up out of the shadow. A mischievous look smirked from her eyes as her ears flicked the darkness from their slender forms; and she took a deep breath as her nose and mouth cleared the surface. 

She rocked her neck back and forth as the shadow rose up around it, pulling it from her fur with a sticky peeling noise as she came forth. Darkness clung to her frame, dripping from her in rivulets as she sighed happing from the coolness receding. Wings flared forth, slinging droplets of liquid shadow as they flapped once. Hooves, just as unadorned by her vestments of office as the rest of her pulled forth from the pool with the rest of her legs one by one, letting her set them upon solid ground. 

She rose up, shivering all over as the night breeze touched her, pulling her hindlegs free from the vanishing puddle one by one until she stood imposingly over the shaking and quivering form of Flash Sentry. She looked down upon him as the puddle of liquid shadow evaporated and returned to its owner, gazing upon his stiff-winged form with a look of pleasure.

And then she smiled widely, suddenly shaking herself out like a dog, flinging liquid shadow everywhere. Everypony spluttered as they were liberally sprayed with dripping blackness, turning their gaze back to their soiler. Flash bleated once more as he fell back to the ground, rolling onto his back unconsciously in fright. Luna giggled as she looked at her legs, noting the mosaic of spikey patches and great whorls formed from the way that the shadow had left her. Oh... "What? I was trying out a new spell devised from something Pinkamina demonstrated and suggested to us. Come now, get up, Commander Sentry. You are far too excitable at our presence!"

Everypony save for the aforementioned commander grumpily glared at Luna as the liquid shade evaporated from their fur. Flash twitchingly crawled to his hooves, his eyes still quivering from the show he had been given. "Threat understood, ma'am! If I hurt Twilight in any way, especially romantically, you pull me into a realm of eternal shadow and strand me there. I have no romantic plans on her, Ma'am!"

Luna's eyebrows rose inquisitively as she folded her wings and perked her ears forward. "I do not know where the threat was implied Commander Sentry, but do please continue. What are your plans, then?"

Flash straightened impressively, standing at attention. "Ma'am, as Twilight Sparkle's altered form means that she is in an altered state of mind, I intend to treat her as a close friend to help her mental balance without any subcontext until such time as such that she is restored to her rightful form and her mental status treated." He shot sidelong glances at Twilight throughout his speech, sweating slightly. "Ma'am!"

The slightest of sniffles escaped Twilight as she was reminded of her new 'normal'. Flash twitched as he heard it, straightening quickly from his lapse. "I said something stupid, didn't I, ma'am?"

Applejack started to speak, opening her mouth before Twilight beat her to the punch and shushed her. "This IS my new normal. The magic from the Elements of Harmony that... fixed me could only do so much. They stopped Tirek from completely changing the way I think, but if I could have gone back, they would have changed me back. This isn't some purely magical transformation. The life code that spelled out the way I looked, what I was as a pony is gone. It was twisted and changed as part of the process to make me into a dragon." Twilight rose to her paws, partially crawling around the group so she could let them see her in all of her terrible glory. 

"Who I was, the... mare I was, all that I could have been as a pony is gone. I'll never get her back. This- this is who I am now." Her breath hitched a little as she forced herself to continue. "Even if it is so hard to try and accept it."

"Eeyup. Mah big sugarcube here put on that weight legit-like. Once she got turned all the way fer a week, she got the craziest hunger and went after the royal treasury like a parasprite in an apple orchard. Next thing we know, she started growing like a weed until she darn near reached the size she is now." Applejack trotted up, slapping Twilight in her still low-hanging belly. 

Sure, the appetite had been terrifying at the time, but seeing a Big Macintosh sized Twilight munching on Princess Celestia's fine jeweled silverware like it was a giant cookie had been pretty amusing. Almost as much as seeing her looking just like a foal who had done gone and gotten the cookie jar nearly stuck on her head afterwards when Celestia  had walked in on her and Trix-... well, seeing her waddling out several hooves higher waddling out with the biggest darn pot belly Applejack had ever seen had been pretty funny.

"Thanks for reminding me of that."

"Tis nothing to be ashamed of. You were under compulsions both biological and mental, and your body demanded that you eat enough to grow into draconic young adulthood." Luna smiled sadly, sitting before Twilight. "Come, Sentry. Do not be a stiff, as we are all friends here."

"What?"

"I said earlier that I forgave you. Come, sit. Please.  You cared about ME, not just some mare who was Celly's sister."
Flash nervous came closer, until Luna could suddenly snatch him up with a wing and force him to sit next to her. "Uh, thanks."

Applejack slid up on Flash's other side, trapping him between two mares even as Twilight laid back down behind them. "So, why didn't ya just want to let things come out the way that they might? Ah think yer somebody who could make a cute couple with my sugarcube." Applejack nudged Flash in the shoulders, as if suggesting something.

"Well, if she wants to chase after me, I'm fine with that if it helps her. If she just wants friendship, I'm fine with that too. But I know every bit of her that Shining does, and... It’d be too easy for me to manipulate her and twist her around my hoof with that knowledge. It's not fair to her that I have all the advantages at the moment." Flash shifted in place, not liking where the line of questioning was leading them.

"Hey, look! I'm a big dummyhead trying to set my sister up without realizing what she would really notice!" 

"And I'm the big dummyhead who thinks he knows Twilight, but doesn't think to get her a rare book and read it with her!"

"It's the perfect plan!"

"I know, right? Dohohohoh!" 

Twilight looked up from the set of Flash's sock puppets she had put on her talons. Her eyebrows tweaked at the fact that she had somehow gotten her voice to match Flash's imitations of Shining's and his own mockery of his voice. "C'mon, I've lived in the same town as Pinkie Pie for two and a half years, and you think that I would somehow avoid getting... infected? It's not that hard to be funny."

As Flash spluttered, Luna and Applejack laughed uproariously and they were joined by the deep and rumbling chuckle Twilight had developed over the course of her transformation. "What's all that about having all the advantages over me? That's kind of sweet that you're think of me like that, but I've still got a few surprises under my wings. But yeah, I can do..." 

Twilight sighed deeply. "I could use a new friend."

Flash finally joined in the laughter, realizing his utter rout upon the field of funny. "Wow. I've never had that turned on me. What's next; is an even more awesome mare just going to drop into my waiting hooves?" The guardspony held out his hooves, challenging the world to make a mare appear in his grip.

Right about then, Dash turned in her sleep as the laughing and chatting penetrated deeply into her haze of lethargy. A pool of leftover darkness met her back, the slick substance offering no further grip for the weathermare as she smeared it all over her back. She slipped, falling right off the branch. She dropped through the air, flattening Flash with unerring accuracy.

Luna and Applejack jumped back, afraid that the universe might continue the humiliation as they stared on in show. Dash dazedly woke, feeling the slightest soreness. "Where am I? Did I sleep-fly again? And why are you laughing at me?"
> Chapter 3: Training
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dawn broke upon Ponyville once more, shattering the illusion of night and that of sleep. Shivering, Twilight awoke within her tent. Despite her size, she had been healing remarkably quickly. She had been out for three days after the incident within the Everfree, and only two more had passed since then. Other than a few bare lines still shaved into her restored coat and a few spots of stitches still left within her hide to help her heal, she was almost whole again. Well, as whole as she ever could be again.

She fitfully thought over the whirlwind of events that had happened over the past two days. Barely even a day after Luna had partially explained her plan; she had confronted Cadance behind the library and sweated the truth out of her regarding the fate of the Empire. It hadn't been hard to fit the peg into the proper hole. If there had still been an Empire to protect, Shining would never have left, let alone agreed to lead an expedition.

It was cute, and heartwarming to think that they cared enough about her to try and play up the illusion of normality. She didn't need normality, she needed to-

"Gngh!"

Flash Sentry mumbled in his sleep, stirring as he woke from the sound of Twilight's muffled groan of pain. Shuffling, he buried himself deeper between her raised shoulder blades, letting the fluffy heat envelop him. The dampness of the morning dew had worked its way into their pelts, chilling them more. 

A chill not unlike the evening of that fateful day.

--------------------------------------------------------

"Are you sure, Twilight? I didn't hear anything." Celestia put down the trashy magazine that she had been reading with Twilight, looking up with concern. Her horn lit with a golden glow as she stuffed it underneath their sleeping bags as she prepared for combat. Slowly, the aura of her magic trickled out, wrapping around the zipper of the tent, pulling it down to reveal the darkness beyond the confines of their tent.

Tiny clatters rumbled down the walls of their campsite, louder and more insistent than they had been before. The regular clatters of somepony carefully ascending stone and scree. Celestia's eyes narrowed as she extinguished the tent lights, whispering in the sudden dark. "So, we are not alone."

Twilight lit her own horn as she climbed out of her sleeping bag, peering through the gap in the door below Celestia's own head. "I think its Trixie."

"It could be. It could also be a horror from the vaults. Be on your guard." Celestia gripped the zipper in her magic once more as she prepared combat spells within her mind. The narrow view their door offered gave her little in the way of details to look with. "There is no telling what lies beyond our tent. We will have to be bold. On three, we rush."

"One."

Twilight stood a little taller, tensing up.

"Two." 

The unicorn adopted a sprinter's stance, lowering her head so she could point her horn at something. 

"THREE!"

They rushed from the tent together, lighting up the empty room with the blinding fury of the noonday sun. At first, it seemed like there was nothing after all. Nothing moved, nothing made a noise. The stained rocks glowed with the sheen of water as rain dripped down from the levels above and cascaded down the rough rocks, making them dark and slick.

Rocks tumbled down once more as the unseen climber slipped. The squeak of a mare falling on her rump rang out as a flash of blue brightly shimmered atop the pile. Celestia swung around, lighting up her horn brighter than before to alert Twilight. "There! They're heading towards the vaults!"

Twilight galloped ahead, making her way up the treacherous and painful slope. She climbed with a dogged perseverance as gravel began to slide down, continually burying her legs. 

Squeals of terror gave her motivation as Trixie above climbed for her life; tipping over the upper edge and tumbling down the backside in a terrific clattering and rumble of falling stone. A final yelp echoed in the chamber, followed by the clanging of dozens of stones against a thick metal door.

White hooves scooped themselves beneath Twilight's barrel, cradling her against her mentor's soft chest as she found herself snatched up into the air. It was soothing, being within the complete power of her most beloved mentor, but there was no time to dawdle in the moment as Celestia's great wings powered them up and over the scree. No telling as to whether or not the vault doors would hold. There was no chance that they could dare take in caution.

"There!" Twilight reached for a flat boulder atop the pile with her forelegs as Celestia swooped down. "That was Trixie! She's got to be under the influence of something!"

Celestia released Twilight, unable to land with her beloved pupil due to her size. She flapped once to clear Twilight, only to slam into the roof of the overhang with her head and tumble down. Crashing down, she screamed in pain as she slammed down upon her already sprained ankle, twisting it further as she tumbled down the slope in a tangle of limbs, pinions, and gravel. Dust filled the air as boulders bounded off of her, the great alicorn finding the intense pressure of the rockfall burying much of her body. "Twilight, stop her!"

At last, Celestia ground to a halt, pinned beneath a large chunk of rock as Twilight gracefully slid down uneasily, scattering rocks and pebbles as she stiff-leggedly rode a wave of debris. Celestia pushed at the boulder pinning her against the wall, feeling it barely moving with all of the strength of her long white legs. "I'll catch up!"

Nodding, Twilight dove over the boulder pinning her mentor, aiming for the open cavern of the opened vault door. Yelping, she tumbled as she found no sure footing, hitting the ground with her shoulder and rolling to a halt within. She panted, pulling herself back to her hooves as she looked down the three paths available to her. Dust was already swirling inwards, obscuring the hoofprints as she looked for the slightest clue. The slightest hint of a yelp from the center corridor gave her direction, and she took off down it, racing to stop Trixie.

-------------------------------------------

She didn't even feel the ball the first time it hit her face. Or the second time, for that matter. The third time it bounced off of the sensitive tip of her muzzle, smashing her nose painfully to snap her out of her memory. The thick, heavy dodgeball bounced back to the ground with a hollow, rubbery plonk, rolling across the parched earth of the tent to the trio- no, just a duo of fillies who glared up towards her through tears of anger. 

Though their parents had kept them away to give them time to settle, it seemed that Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo still hadn't forgiven her.

Acting with a rapidness that almost seemed instinctual, Twilight carefully laid herself completely flat against the ground, looking down her muzzle with mournful, tear-quivering eyes. Even her wings were splayed out just a bit, open for the crusaders to exact whatever retribution they wanted.

Scootaloo started to dart forward, dashing towards Twilight with a growl, only to trip and fall as her tail was snagged by Sweetie. The pegasus filly snarled, trying to yank her tail free. "Leggo! She doesn't belong here anymore!"

"Scootaloo! Stop it! She'll squish you like she did Applebloom!"

Twilight whined, skittering her head back. "I didn't mean to. I didn't know she was-"

"That's not good enough!"

"Do you three mind? I'm trying to sleep here!" Flash Sentry clambered to his hooves, looking down upon the fillies below crossly as he stood atop Twilight's prostrate form.

Scootaloo paused in shock as she saw him there. "No. No! That's not fair!" She couldn’t even see clearly as angry tears burned in her eyes, and a fire erupted within her chest. Lightning flickered between her feathers, little trails of ozone and smoke rising from her wings as she panted in fury. "How can you do that when Applebloom couldn't!? That's not fair!" She ripped her tail free of Sweetie's grip, pulling her friend over from the force as she leapt at Twilight screaming in anger.

Silently, Twilight waited. Compared to the claws of a manticore, the fury of a filly, even a pegasus channeling all the power of her weather magic, was nothing. She silently cried for Scootaloo as the filly howled and punched and bucked her long snout. She could take it. She would take it, for she had absolutely nothing that she could say that would make up for hurting their friend so badly. Just like she had nothing she could say to the citizens of Canterlot.

Flash jumped from Twilight's shoulders, swooping down and scooping up the filly in his hooves so that she would beat against his chest instead. "Kid? Kid! Calm down, please!" Flash groaned as he let her curse and wail and spit against him to try and get at Twilight again until she finally tired out and gave up. "Better?"

She sniffled. "No."

"Good. I would have worried if that had made you feel better."

"What?"

"Hate shouldn't feel good. It leads to places that not even I want to think about. I've watched more than one guardspony down in the Badlands get hurt or do worse things because of hate."

Scootaloo blinked through the burning of her tears, blearily looking up into the guard's face. The feeling of hot runny snot trickled against her upper lip, churned loose from her attempt at a rampage. Sniffling, she tried to suck it back as she wiped with a forehoof. "But she- how can you say that!? She-"

"Put your friend Applebloom in the hospital minus a leg, including partially disemboweling her. I know. Twilight is really sorry for it." Flash slowly lowered himself and his filly cargo to the ground, planting Scootaloo firmly against the dirt, pressing his hooves upon her shoulders so she couldn't run away.

"But she did it on purpose!"

"Did you, Twilight?" 

"I-... no. I didn't even know she was there. I- I felt something while I was- I was remembering what it had felt like to change. I don't even remember moving, just waking up to blood, and screaming and-" Twilight turned her head away, moving a foreleg carefully to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"Case solved, then!" Flash cut her off, stretching out a wing to try and calm her down with easy strokes. Turning to Scootaloo, he took a leg off of her shoulders to pat her on the head. " 'Sides, I hear that they'll be releasing her from the hospital today if her stitches are holding. At least according to her sister."

"Heard right, as far as Ah'm concerned." The voice echoed from the entrance to the tent, where two figures stood in the glow of the rising sun and cast deep shadows across the interior. Everypony squinted to see past the morning glare, seeing the golden yellow filly standing there with a new peg leg replacing her left back leg. 

Behind her, her gentle brother prodded her with her wheelchair again, trying to scoop her up into it. "Ah, knock it off, Macintosh! Ah'm not an invalid. Well, anymore." She ruefully added the last part as she stretched the stump beneath her prosthetic, feeling it sharply sting. "And Ah don’t need yer help in whupping somepony if they needed it, Scoots. And Twilight here? She don't need it. She's been whupping herself plenty from what Ah hear."

Applebloom looked at her friends as they made the oddest keening noise, almost like the squeal of fans chasing after their favorite pop pon- oh horseapples.

Sweetie Belle was the first to run towards her friend, stopping just short as Applebloom skittered back uncertainly. Scootaloo had no such considerations as she broke free of Flash Sentry's grip, running hellbent for her lost friend. The farm filly had just enough time to yelp in horror before she was tackled and knocked off of her hooves hard enough to send her new leg flying.

"Goshdarnitall, you consarned overgrown pigeon! Geddoff 'fore Ah clip them wings of yers!" Applebloom kicked Scootaloo off of her with her good hind leg, crying from the hurting stump beside it and the ache in her belly where stitches had nearly torn free. She didn't look at the prone form of Scootaloo, or the trembling wince of horror as the pegasus realized what she had done.

Applebloom looked around for her prosthetic, unable to see it as she rolled onto her back. Gently, a magenta field slowly lowered it onto her chest from above, held there by Twilight's magic. That same field of magic caressed Applebloom, slowly picking her up from the ground to float her into the padded seat of the wheelchair Macintosh had pushed for her. "Twilight? Ya didn't have to."

"Yes I did!"

"It's not yer fault. Ah'm the hoofbrain here."

"Applebloom, I-"

"Yer forgiven. Never had tae ask fer it." Applebloom twisted her peg leg back on, wriggling it as she marveled at how strange it felt once more. A hoof pressed her back into her seat as she tried to jump free again as Big Mac decided to cut off her shenanigans at the pass. "Ugh, fine. Ah'll sit here. Like a bump on a frog."

"Eeyup."

Scootaloo looked between her and Twilight, wondering why her eyes were burning so hotly. "How can you just forgive her like that?"

"Same way Ah can forgive ya for knocking mah new leg off and nearly popping me open again just now." Applebloom long-sufferingly sighed as she wondered how she put up with her friends. All the foals in town were crazy. "She didn't mean to, an' neither did ya.. 'Sides, now Ah can make the best new leg ya ever done seen! Just ya wait."

Sweetie Belle elbowed Scootaloo in her ribs, trying to get her attention. 

"Ow! Ow! What?" 

The unicorn filly rolled her eyes, looking to Applebloom. Her chair-bound friend sighed, shaking her head. Sweetie elbowed Scootaloo again, jerking her head towards Applebloom before miming putting on a pouting face while fluttering her eyelashes as she assumed a begging position.

"I don't speak mime..." 

Sweetie grunted in frustration, and twisted Scootaloo to face Applebloom. "Apologize!"

Scootaloo flinched, sinking down to the ground as she realized that she still hadn't even tried to make up for bowling Applebloom over. She averted her gaze, wondering why it was so hard to see all of a sudden past the blurriness. "I'm sorry."

"Well of course yer forgiven! Who'dya take me for, Tiara? It'd be darn awful of me to forgive Twilight and not forgive ya. Now git yerself over here so Ah can hug ya." Applebloom threw her forelegs for her friends, and they hesitantly trotted over into her reach. Gasps escaped them as Applebloom crushed them into her hug, nuzzling them with relief that her own ordeal was mostly over.

Twilight sniffed a little, awkwardly standing up. "How did a little filly like you get to be so wise?"

"Cutie Pox. Babs Seed. Gabby Gums. That darn talent show... Take yer pick. Ah figure it got so darn trampled into mah head that Ah had to learn something 'bout forgiveness." Applebloom poked her head over those of her friends, resting her chin on their manes as she ticked off the number of rather notable incidents that had occurred on her watch.

"I guess so." Flash elbowed Twilight in the leg as he heard the note of melancholy in her voice.

"But Ah AIN'T gonna forgive ya if ya keep on getting all mopey and 'woe is me' whenever ya screw up! Stop it!" Applebloom threw up her hoof accusingly at Twilight, letting Scootaloo fall to the ground as her squeezing death-grip was released.

Flash stepped forward, aiming to lecture back as he stomped and ground his hoof into the ground. "Young filly I-"

"Ah'm not done! Ah've been invalid, not under a rock! Ah know ya have a job to do, and yer never gonna be ready for it if ya let the slightest thing set ya back! So yer gonna screw up! We all do, part'a life! But if Ah hear ya've been moping again, Ah'll sick Granny on ya! Yer still an honorary Apple! That means ya get the Apple Family Punishments, too! Granny'll take ya to the spare barn and tan yer rump if she catch's ya slacking off, especially tae do that!"

Big Macintosh grabbed the wheelchair handle with his teeth, getting ready to wheel Applebloom off for a stern talking to about respect. "Awfully sorry. Don't know what's in her head."

"But Big Macintosh-"

"EeNOPE!"

"No, she's right. I- I shouldn't be doing this. It's so... selfish of me, thinking I'm the only one with problems in the world.  Okay, they are kind of big problems." Twilight looked back at her long body, feeling the ache in her belly still where she was busily healing. "But I can't just ignore the fact that everypony needs me. Thank you. Go easy on her, please Big Mac?"

He paused, contemplating over what she had said. After a few minutes, he nodded once and pulled back from the wheelchair. 

"Ya done now, Twilight?"

The dragoness paused, and then hesitantly nodded to the little filly. The graceful sweep of her neck bent down as she lowered her head until she was nose to nose with Applebloom. Golden hooves snapped up, giving her as much of a hug as the little filly could manage. "Yer family. Ya've got a job, and Ah want to see ya come home again."

Fur ruffled beneath Applebloom's legs as Twilight pulled herself free to nod. "I will. Spike! A new checklist!" Twilight blinked, looking around as she heard no reply. "Spike? Spike!?"

Flash scribed with his mouth on a new scroll, making down a couple of items on the list for Twilight. Chiefly, 'Survive; Train Up; Stop Being Mopey'. The gentle tip of one of Twilight's talons stroked his back, chilling him slightly. "I've got the list, Twilight."

"Could you help me find Spike? He's here! He should be here!"

Applebloom pointed towards the open fields that often served as the Ponyville Fairgrounds. "Last Ah saw him; he was headin' down to the fairgrounds. Ah would have thought ya would be down there with 'im. They're setting all that up fer ya to train up before you go, gonna have a big Fair about ya becoming an even bigger hero. Ah think it was supposed to start an hour ago, yer gonna be late."

"Late!?"

Applebloom's eyes opened wider as she realized she had used the L-word around Twilight. Magic gently shoved her and Big Macintosh out of the way as Twilight flung Flash Sentry onto her back with another tendril of magic. "We're going to be LATE!"

"Now easy now, Ah'm sure that the Princesses won't mind ya being a little behind schedule."

"Auuugh! Come on!" Twilight galloped out of the tent as Flash clung to her back desperately trying to hang onto her as the plain of her back undulated with each rolling stride. "Late! Late! How could I be LATE?"

"Well, that went well." Scootaloo coughed up a cloud of dust she had inhaled, slapping herself on her own back.  "Well, I hope you're not too mad at me."

"Ah'm not. And Ah've missed three an' a half weeks of crusading."

Sweetie Belle smiled vaguely as she looked to Applebloom. "Hey! I've got an idea!"

"Cutie Mark Crusaders, Heroes?"

"Yah!" "Yeah!"

Big Macintosh shook the last of the motion-induced sickness out of his head just in time to see the trio escaping down the road as Scootaloo and Sweetie pushed their friend towards the treehouse. Oh lordy and Celestia, he was doomed.

---------------------------------------------------------

"Late, late, late-late, LAAAAAAATE!" Twilight galloped down the road, trailing a dust storm behind her as she ran. She was late, TARDY! Celestia would be disappointed in her; she was missing what was probably her alternate graduation exam! How could she be late for the most important day of her life!? All of Equestria was depending on her, and she was going to be LAAAAAATE!

"Twilight! Slow down! It can't be that important, they didn't tell me to wake you up yesterday!" Flash flapped like a flag in the wind as he held onto her back. The whipping wind was too much for him to see where they were going, especially with the dust his plus-sized friend was kicking up in her mad dash to get to the fairgrounds. "Twilight, stop already! Whoa! WHOOOOAH!"

"Can't stop, LATE! Surprise exam, my graduation to test my magic!"

Flash yelped and ducked down as the ridge of the back of Twilight's neck snapped off a branch in front of him as it undulated with her pace. The oak wood bounced from Twilight's form without the slightest attention on her part, barely missing Flash as he clung desperately to her. He called up over the wind once more. "Celestia wouldn't do that! Didn't you say the other day that she was already graduating you!"

"Graduation needs exam! Exam means studying that I missed! Oooh, what have I done!?"

"It's not even seven in the morning yet! I think you're over-reacting! Stop!" Flash looked up again, his eyes widening as he saw what was ahead. "No, really! STOP!"

Shining Armor stood in their path with a giant roll of cotton candy gripped in his magic as he wide-eyedly stared at his oncoming doom mid-bite. He ripped his chunk free as his magic flared, throwing up a great barrier on instinct before Twilight's one-dragon stampede. Talons dug into the ground as Twilight planted all of her paws as stiffly as she could, kicking up plumes of dirt as she skidded and slid to a halt.

A bit too late, though, as she slammed against the barrier with earth-shaking force, cracking the first dome, and getting stuck in the second one that Shining Armor hastily erected to keep her from falling on him. 

Valiantly, the former commander of the Canterlot Royal Guard stood back up from his cower of 'Oh Celestia, my Sister is about to squish Me' and straightened himself out. Tiny jabs of his tongue pulled the cotton candy from his mouth as he walked over to where his sister was stuck like a fly in honey amidst his shield. "Hey, Twiley! You're two hours early! Did Applebloom tell you the wrong time to be here?"

Twilight panted as her heart finished its marathon, mouthing "Early?" as she did.

"Yeah, the townsponies decided to hold a big event to see what you can do now. It's going to be great! We were going to start at nine in the morning to let you sleep in so this could be a surprise, but we can start early, too!" Shining Armor waved his cotton candy around, gesturing over the hill. He pulled his sweet treat back, absentmindedly biting on it without looking. It had turned kinda bland though, like hot air. Hey-

"Twilight, I don't think your brother was done with that." Flash woozily climbed over Twilight's shoulder, tumbling down into the dirt road as the force field was collapsed by Shining Armor. "But maybe you should have come yourself to tell her, Bossman."

Twilight mumbled something through the giant wad of sugary mess she had in her mouth, sticking out her tongue to display her utter lack of care on the matter as she did. Straightening up, she loomed over her brother as she swallowed down the last of it, sighing happily as she began to wake up from the instant sugar buzz.

"Well, that would explain the cackling laugh and how she rubbed her hooves together. Alright, let me show you the rest of the way Twiley. And you owe Cadey a new Mega-Sugarsplosion Cotton Candy stick, by the way." Shining climbed the hill, gesturing with the denuded nub of the rock candy core of his treat's stick. A smile slowly grew on his face as he imagined Twilight's imminent reaction.

Twilight grumbled as she ran up the cost of bits in her mind for the pony-sized candy ball. "Well, you shouldn't have been eating HER treat, Shining. She likes... me?" Twilight shuddered to a halt as she crested the hill.

The dragoness's jaw dropped as she beheld the transformation the Ponyville fairgrounds had undergone. On the side nearest town, a series of great pavilions had been erected for food and ponies that had come to see her humiliate herself learning new techniques, or otherwise amusingly injure herself. Cadance was there as well, proudly wearing the Crystal Heart in her pertrayl as she greeted the large number of her subjects who had been resettled in Ponyville. 

Twilight's wings drooped back to her sides and laid flat as she failed to spot her mom, or her father, or her friends and visiting advisors.

Wait! There was Celestia, on the far hill on the other side of the fairgrounds, looking right at her. A startled look laid upon the solar alicorn's face as Twilight started to raise a paw to wave at her. A flash of golden light enveloped the white form, fading away to Twilight's dismay and confusion as the dragoness realized that Celestia had teleported away rather than wave back.

"What? What did I do wrong?" 

Flash Sentry swooped in, landing beside her. "Probably nothing. I keep hearing from Princess Luna that she has been kicking herself in all hours of the day over what happened to you. She's probably too ashamed of herself to face you, not anything on your part."

Twilight blinked, perking up somewhat as she realized the implications. Celestia wasn't disappointed in her, but in herself? "Remind me to pay Pinkie to 'Huggervention' her."

"I can do that." 

The trio slowly walked down to the fairgrounds, growing acutely aware of how the heavy thudding of Twilight's paws could be felt for almost a mile as everypony stopped and turned to stare at them. Ponies chatting beneath the awnings silenced themselves, turning about to face her as she awkwardly stood at the edge of the grounds. The eyes fixed upon her ran a gamut of emotions that lead from joyful to resentfully grudging acceptance. 

It all grew to be a bit too much for the still freshly minted dragoness, and she found her paws turning her about to run back to her nice safe tent by the library when the lasso came for her.

"YEEEEE-HAAAAW! C'mere now, lil' draggie!" Applejack's drawling voice twanged through the relative silence as her lasso toss caught around the twin horns atop Twilight's head. Twilight reared up in shock, yanking Applejack into the air for a moment to slap against her side. The earth pony mare neighed in shock and kicked herself off of Twilight, scrabbling for the safety of the ground. "Whoa! Whoa, easy now, sugarcube! Don't you bolt! Stop it!"

"Yeah! You Pinkie Promised to not run away anymore!" Pinkie tapped Twilight on the head, having somehow climbed up the dragoness's spine without being noticed. The baker dodged the panicked swipe from Twilight as she waved a floppy dog-eared notebook between her eyes. "I've got a really cool training montage set up and everything!"

"Private Pie! Front and center!" Velvet Sparkle looked like her horn was about to blow off into Low Equiss Orbit from sheer blood pressure. She had been dealing with the Madness of the Pie all morning, and only shuddered slightly as she timed Pinkie's zipping transit from atop Twilight. "We will not be doing a 'Training Montage', Private Pie! This is a military assessment of your aptitudes and skills and special training for Twilight Sparkle, understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" Pinkie snapped to attention, going from a messy private to immaculate in her movements as she saluted the older mare perfectly.

"Good. Princess Luna needs to see the five of you in the far pavilion." Velvet Star pointed down the length of the fairgrounds to a blue and white pavilion which remained shrouded in the darkness of night.

Loud, earth-shaking steps followed Pinkie's bouncing escape for a moment, before a light pink field snatched up a certain dragoness's tail. "Not you, Twilight. Your friends. Follow me." Velvet snatched the lasso from around Twilight's horns, tossing it back to Applejack.

Twilight whimpered slightly, turning about to follow her mother towards the courses laid out on the other end of the fairgrounds. String-lines were hung between pony-high stakes stabbed into the ground, and beyond them the ground itself seemed to oddly writhe and churn, as if something moved beneath the surface.  Ahead, at the start of the courses, Mustari stood upon four hoof-sized pillars, perfectly keeping his balance.

The sandwalker's robes still shimmered with trapped sand grains, even as every little gust and eddy of the morning breeze scattered more of the sparkling material from within his garments. Though he stood facing the rising sun with his head bowed, he somehow instinctively knew exactly when to speak up.

"Come, Sparkle. Tell me what you know of my homeland."

Velvet pointed to him, nudging one of her daughter's legs forward before stepping back and to one side. Twilight tip-toed forward gingerly, wincing as she heard something fall down and break in the distance. Mustari turned to her, somehow carefully balancing himself as he turned around on the tiny poles that he stood upon.

"It's a desert land, saddled between the two northern mountain ranges of the Zebrica continent. Those peaks run from east to west, open to the East Ocean on one side and it is blocked off by one of the World Peas in the west. The ponies there believe in Faust, the All-Maker who wrote everything into existence and who taught them right from wrong in their religion." Twilight recited most from memory, calling up much from world geography lessons with Celestia. And yet, there were blanks that she couldn't explain, leaving her with an incomplete picture of the country.

"Anything more?"

"No. I'm sorry if that isn't enough."

"Do not be. Faust weaves the wind of fate. For luck, it seems that she has kept the abilities of our homeland from you and many others. Now, she wills that you shall learn the ways of the mighty Sandwalkers, masters of the Earthpony arts." Mustari seemed to stand taller before Twilight as the invisible wind that always touched his robes ripped harder against them.

"The Earthpony Arts? Like... a form of magic?" Twilight's eyes opened slightly and dilated as her breath hitched in her throat.

"Perhaps it is. Surely you have noticed your bulk, have you not?"

Velvet butted in at that, bristling slightly as she jumped to her daughter's defense. "Did you just call my Twilight fat?"

"Merely large. Does she not shake the earth with her great size? She is one of the great spirits now. All the earth trembles in her presence unless she wills it not to. She is great, and mighty. Her merest touch is power incarnate and she can destroy simply by walking nearby." 

Twilight leaned in to Mustari, her smile growing uncomfortably wide and toothy. "So you're going to teach me how to walk quietly?"

"No. I shall teach you how to walk without moving. You have the magic of the Earth and the Dragon. Tell me, have you noticed yourself moving?" The grey sandwalker's eyes betrayed the smile he hid within himself.

"I haven't moved."

"The ground that has accepted you into its eager embrace would say otherwise."

Twilight looked down as she realized she wasn't craning her neck nearly as much as before. The ground loomed close as she discovered her legs to have disappeared into the dirt until her belly was halfway immersed into the frothed surface of the dirt. It was a vice-like grip that she struggled against, straining with her immense power against what felt like stone molded around her paws as she yelped in surprise.

"I should be able to get free! What's happening!?" Twilight summoned strength from deep within herself, pulling on a foreleg with all her might until it ripped free from the soil sucking at it. She planted it on solid ground, pulling her other foreleg free with great effort even as her hind end sank under the ground until it all froze solid around her. "And now I'm stuck entirely."

"This is but one technique that we sandwalkers have mastered. The desert hides great rivers running beneath it from the World Peak. Rivers that return the sands to the seas and sip from the surface. To walk within the desert, one must walk without hoofsteps in the sand." Mustari slowly slid back to the ground as the pillars upon which he stood returned to mere sand and collapsed beneath his weight.

"I would appreciate it if you would free my daughter." Velvet prodded at the rippled surface around Twilight, stepping back as it shifted ever so slightly.

"In time. She will be able to free herself when she taps into her Earth and Dragon magics." Mustari carefully poked Twilight on the nose and stepped back, waiting for Twilight to respond to his challenge. "I have placed you within my trap. Now I will teach you to escape it."

Twilight snorted once, curls of smoke rising from her nostrils as a deep growl built within her. 

"Oh, hey Mom! Uh- did I miss something?" Spike stopped behind Twilight as he walked up with a bucket of popcorn as large as himself in paw. "No really, are you taking some kind of crazy mud bath?"

"Spike, get your Grandmother a shovel."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Tae get this straight, ya want tae learn how Ah'd kill somepony? Why would Ah want tae kill anypony?" Applejack looked at the dummy positioned beside her as Luna, Shining Armor, and Redtail looked on at her with shared exasperation beneath the shade of the tent.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Lightning poured forth from the polychromatic pegasus's wings, incinerating the test dummy in moments. Dash kept pouring on the power, reducing it to a charry smell and a puddle of plastic forlornly bubbling on the ground beside her hooves.

"Rainbow Dash, cease! You have properly demonstrated!" Luna caught the lightning with her wings, adsorbing it into her own pegasus magic as Dash let it run wild by mistake. The arc of energy flashed between them until Dash finally relaxed her wings and let the power flow away from her.

The lunar diarch turned to Redtail and Shining Armor, enjoying the dumbfounded looks upon their faces. Dash turned around, wondering why she was being gaped at for a simple pegasi trick. "What? I just pretended my friends were in danger."

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Must I darling?"

"Yes, Rarity. This is just an assessment."

"But killing is so... violent! And vulgar! And so very final, I can't simply take such a thing back! I should never use my training for such a vile thing."

Redtail glowered, his gaze shadowed beneath the brim of his Luftguard hat. "Assume it will gut somepony you love if you do not. It is consumed by the need, and no other option shall work." He sat patiently, waiting for Rarity to do something. He wasn't expecting the fashionata to do anything, she was too pampered to-

Where had the dummy gone? Redtail partially leaned up over the table, looking around for any sign of the lost practice tool. A dozen pieces littered the ground, the massacre having happened so fast that even his fast-acting eyes had not seen it. Rarity sat before her handiwork, crying as she whispered over and over to herself. "For Sweetie..."

-------------------------------------------------------------

After she had figured out how to tap into her newly accessible magics, things had gone on swimmingly enough. Well, perhaps a little too literally. Climbing out of the magic quicksand trap had been easy. She had found her dragon magic as the little burning core of love and anger near her heart that lit whenever she thought of her friends or family. Especially Flash. Her earth pony magics had been bound up around the little ball of stubbornness she had become all too familiar with over the past two years and that had caused her all too much grief at the hooves of Pinkie.

Those two together? She had been creating glass sculptures as easily as one would work a stiff pile of pottery clay. She had done amazing things, like stomping a hoof to shoot a jagged pillar of rock out of the ground or pull things under with a current of sand. But despite all of that there was one technique that eluded her.

"Don't give up, Twilight! Keep slogging!" Flash helpfully called down from above on his soft and safe cloud with Spike resting atop him.

"Yeah, Mom! Don't let that dirt stop you!"

The idea was to turn the ground selectively soft just beneath her paws momentarily to soften the blows of her steps so that she wouldn't shake the world every time she moved. It would be like walking on pillows if it worked right. If it worked right. The trick was to avoid putting too much power into it or else the ground would soften too far. 

And she wouldn't be Twilight Sparkle without her annoying tendency to severely overpower her spells. Again.

"C'mon, Mom, you're over your shoulders but the flag isn't that far! You can get it!" Spike's cheering was getting slightly irritating to her nerves as she all but swam through what was supposed to be solid ground up to her chin.

Her course was meant to test her agility and grasp of the spell by making her carefully trod through a forest of eggs balanced on poles. And while she could honestly say that for the first time she had failed to knock any down, her movement was starting to make her wonder if she had a future as a tuber after all.

"Private Sparkle! Unless you're showing us your new potato impression, pull yourself out of the ground and try again!"

---------------------------------------------------

"Really?" Pinkie grumpily asked as she glared at the trio judging her. Well then, if they really wanted that kind of a party then fine, she'd give it to that poor dummy. Standing up on her hind legs was practiced and easy for her, as was pulling forth her party cannon with one hoof whilst withdrawing a cannonball in the other. She held the cannon upright so she could load and ignored the squishing and whoopie cushion noises the ball made as it rolled to the bottom.

Pinkie whirled her refitted cannon about, putting herself between it and the camp while still retaining an excellent center of mass shot. Right off into the Everfree Forest.

Without further ado, she fired grimly, turning the practice dummy into tiny shards scattered across the side of the tent leading to the great hole she had punched in the side. A tiny cough escaped Shining Armor as he considered what Pinkie carried with her.

"What? I grew up on the edge of the badlands. Need I go on?"

------------------------------

Applejack planted her forehooves into the loam of the ground, cutting grass apart with the edges of her hooves as she threw her weight over her forelegs to pivot. She spun herself around that center point, pointing her uncoiling hind legs directly at the dummy. Steel and plastic-coated horseshoes delivered several thousand pounds of force and sent the dummy flying across the tent while breaking up into a dozen pieces. It had taken her several tries to work herself up to the point of bucking it with the intent to kill. It just wasn't the Apple way. She had to think of it as a timberwolf or a certain dragon just to be able to pull it off.

"Now, would somepony explain mind 'splaining tae me why Ah'm bucking this thing like Ah'm trying tae kill it?"

Luna silenced Redtail with a muting spell, preventing him from interrupting her to shove his talons up his beak. "Applejack, you will have to kill on this expedition. Hopefully, you will only have to destroy monsters; but, I cannot discount the chance that some of the peoples of this world may be under Tirek's dread thrall. Nor can I dismiss the chance that some may attack us because they contain not even the slightest shred of Harmony within them." Luna trotted around the table, coming close to Applejack to drape a wing over the farmpony's shoulders with tender care. "I am afraid that none of you will be innocent at the end of this."

"Wait! What about Fluttershy?" 

Shining Armor winced, pulling at the collar of his uniform. "Well..."

----------
"NOPONY! HAS! THAT! RIGHT!
----------

"I wouldn't worry about her."

------------------------------

Redtail stalked across the fairgrounds in a foul and irritated mood from the strange mixed bag that was 'Equestria's Finest'. Sparkle was nowhere to be found for her own test of will, or the lessons in flight that he was almost certainly going to have to trick her through. Grumbling ground rumbled behind him for just a moment, but far more vexing to him was the way that the crowd tittered with laughter as he turned about to investigate. 

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Deep breaths were his guide, in and let the anger out. It did not matter that everyone around him was blisteringly incompetent, so long as he remained focused. He took to wing, spotting the General and her Sandwalker co-instructor sunning themselves upon a freshly created sandstone pillar without a care or any sign of their student. Beside them, Lt. Cmdr. Sentry held a book upon a fishing rod off of a cloud hovering at their level as the whelpling sat upon his back reading a comic.

"Where is she?" Redtail bristled as he swooped down from the air to solidly land beside them upon the wide pillar. Guffaws rippled through the air again, frustrating him further.

General Star smirked as she coyly sat up to directly look into his eyes as she innocently asked a counter-question. "Where is who?"

"Your species-confused dragon! You two had had one job! One job to-" Redtail trailed off as the crowd erupted into full-blown laughter once more. Redtail swirled about as something brushed against his tail teasingly, taunting him even. "Who did that? Who is the pony who just signed their own obituary?! I did not come halfway around this shell-breaking world just for some jack-naped foal to lose the Celestia-bedamned dragon I was supposed to train!"

Velvet grumbled as she prayed for patience from Celestia to deal with her counterpart. She knew she shouldn't snap at him, no matter how much he tempted her so. Rational, stay calm, and don't let him get to her. "A new development arose with my Daughter, kommandur. She passed the tests we developed for her abilities and then discovered a novel new use for them that had not been considered." Velvet smiled as she looked back at something behind the red-feathered griffon before her. "She's impressed me so far."

Redtail's expression twitched. "How darling for you. But that still did not tell me where your 'daughter' is. I couldn't care less about what in the name of the seven uttering hills the overgrown roaster is doing, tell me where she is now!"

A massive talon delicately tapped him upon the shoulder. "Right behind you."

Redtail screeched like a surprised chicken as he flipped around in shock. Twilight rose from the ground behind him like some form of strange dragon-tree. His beak dropped open as he witnessed her slow and languid rise from the ground, and how the earth seemed to ripple around her like water upon the surface of a pond. The dragoness looked surprisingly humble, with a sheepish smile upon her muzzle as she explained. "I kept on overpowering one of the spells that Sandwalker Mustari taught me. It was supposed to let me walk without disturbing anyone, but I kept turning the ground into water for myself."

Redtail clapped the two halves of his beak together, failing to keep from grinding them together as his two so-called counterparts snickered at his back. Unprofessional fools. "Private Sparkle, front and center!"

He could tell that the dragoness had learned something after all as she finished pulling her tail from the embrace of the earth and marched over to him. She knew something of military discipline, given the way that she neatly drew herself to a stance of attention before him. He circled her steadily, looking over her as he gauged the level of her fitness from the musculature of her body based off of his knowledge of griffon physiology compared to that of dragons.

Behind him, Mustari nudged at Velvet, nodding towards the pavilion where Luna was still testing Twilight's friends for their military aptitudes. She shot a look to Flash and Spike, who both were still goofing off to one side. The sandwalker made an insistent motion with his head, telling her to take them. She hesitated, pointing a hoof first towards her daughter, then to her own eyes before clopping her hooves together and grinding them together. Mustari smiled and nodded back, pointing to Redtail's back while gesturing out a throat-cutting gesture.

Velvet cleared her throat once more pointedly in Flash and Spike's direction. "Well, I think Twilight can handle herself. Why don't you two come with me while I check in on Twilight's friends?"

The trio departed as Redtail finished his inspection of his latest 'student'. Behind him, Mustari watched on as the irritable griffon broke into a hover, all the while muttering to himself. "So you might have the body of someone not completely hopeless. Now spread those wings!"

As Redtail's barked order resounded through the air, Twilight's body reacted on instinct. The massive spread of her new wings snapped open with a concussive thunderclap of overpressure and rose up into the air, kicking dust up from the disturbed earth that rushed out from where she stood to rattle the tents and pavilions of the fairgrounds. Leathery membrane stretched from her shoulders to nearly the base of her tail, covered in a thin and fuzzy coat along much of its length behind the set of feathers that graced the front of her wings to streamline them. Distributed amongst the width of her wings were cartilage bracers that ran from her wing bones to the trailing edges of her wings. With a great elbow to give her wings a place to fold from, the last quarter of her wings were made of a series of smaller membranes held together by five long and slender bones that acted as a fine control surface.

"Finally! She does have sense! Now fly!"

Twilight paled, the color fading from the fur upon her face as she faced the difficulty of what she had been asked to do. "F-F-Fly?"

Redtail glowered as he mimicked Twilight's stutter of fear. "Fuh-fuh-fly? NO! I want you to fall with style!" He waited for several moments for Twilight's slight reaction before snapping at her once more. "Yes! You overgrown fuzzy chicken! I want you to fly! Up, down; Up, down; UP, DOWN! Hop on it!"

"I can't! I haven't studied how to yet!"

"Well then break out the carving knife for me, because you might as well be roasted dinner to Tirek's beasts!"

"I don't know how! I haven't studied the flight characteristics of my new wing structure yet! I need to do practice flapping and controlled glides and-"

"You! Do! Not! Study! FLIGHT! Do, or do not! No study, no controlled anything! Act on instinct!"

Mustari lept from his platform as he saw how badly Redtail was reacting to his charge's lack of knowledge. The griffons of Raptoria were known for turning flight into an instinctive act from an early age, and he had an uncomfortable feeling as to what he was planning to do. "Kommandur, wait just a moment!"

"I will not wait while she endangers us all with her cowardice!" He snorted as Twilight took a step back under the force of the griffon's verbal assault. "Yes, you heard me! Pull those wings over your eyes and hide back in your tent! Who ever heard of a winged creature that can't fly? What's next, a twenty pig marching band?"

Mustari leapt up onto a series of flowing sand stairs, trying to grab the kommandur's tail before he started something incredibly stupid. "That is enough kommandur, cease before you bring down her wrath!" 

Redtail ripped his tail free from the sandwalker's grasp, screeching at him from above. "I will not cease! She has no wrath, no passions to rage! This sorry excuse for Faust's favor to firebreathers isn't even a dragon where we need her to be one!" He angrily pointed to Twilight, who no longer was cowering there. 

Claws flexed against the dirt beneath her great bulk, each breath she took rumbled with the far-off thunder of an approaching thunderstorm. Twilight trembled in place, but stood taller as she raised her head to look eye to eye with Redtail. "No."

"No? You're a foal in a dragon costume! The only pony you've hurt was in your sleep! You couldn't kill even if your precious friends were on the line!" He smirked as Twilight's fur bristled a little more at his last comment and as smoke simmered above her head. Just a little bit more and he'd break through. The friends, they were the key. "Are they even your friends anymore, or are they the hoard you'll lose because you can't even get a job done?"

Friends. Hoard? Protect. "You take that back."

"Make me." Neither noticed Mustari running for his life as they continued to argue. "Even your pansy pretty ponyfriend Fluttershy has more spine than you do!"

"What did you do to her? She's the kindest, most forgiving mare I know! She wouldn't hurt anypony!"

"Tell that to the training dummy she ripped the throat out of with her bare teeth!"

Twilight stood taller as dark shadows rippled across her coat. Smoking, the tips of her mane tossed in the miniature whirlwind that had begun to blow all around her. Ponyville residents of all walks of life began to scramble for safety as they recognized the signs of an impending meltdown on the dragoness normally so calm. "You hurt my friends, didn't you?"

"Your friends all were twice the pony or dragon that you are! You don't deserve them!"

"Enough! Both of you! This has crossed a line and-oof!" Mustari found himself swept out from between the pair by a careful sweep of the dragoness's claws as she cleared the battlefield.

"I deserve what is mine! My friends chose me!"

"Chose you? That's what you think? You're just a sapphire-sucking pet! You are not their friend! You are their tool, their weapon! And you'll be put away when they are done with-oof!" Redtail clutched his side as he was knocked through the air by a pounce from Mustari, who knocked him clear of a wild swipe from Twilight's paw.

"Sparkle, cease!" 

"I deserve my friends, I fought for them! They love me! They came for me!" Twilight swiped with her paw, growling in frustration as she failed to strike down the interloper who was trying to take her horde from her. All around them, natives of Ponyville ran for their lives from the sight of Twilight out for blood.

Mustari rolled with the kick that Redtail gave him and watched with frustration as the crazy fool tested the patience of Faust once more by launching himself back into the air above the furious dragoness. He wasn't going to be enough to stop the pair if they kept diving deeper into each other's throats. But who- her friends! They could stop her if they could calm her fears! He turned tail and ran for the pavilion where they were still being tested and tried. He didn't even notice the tremble in Twilight's wings as he ran as fast as he could.

"Is that the best you can do? My one-taloned grandmother could strike me down three times in your two strokes! You aren't even worth the attention of Princess Celest-aaugh!" Redtail started climbing for his life as Twilight let loose a primal scream and unleashed a stream on incandescent blue-white flame that seared the fur from the tip of his tail. He looked back from a thousand hooves up and cackled gleefully as Twilight's wings began to beat and push her up into the skies with thunderclaps like those of an exploding volcano.

He had gotten her into the air and flying. What was his step 2 again?

---------------------------------------

Luna rubbed the bridge of her muzzle as she resisted the urge to plant her face in her hooves as Pinkie looked at her unstealthily. Well, she thought Pinkie was staring at her. It was hard to tell with the Pinking Horror's eyes hidden behind her pair of glowing orange goggles. "Pinkamina, despite what the stories and comics say 'night vision' and wearing a latex bodysuit does not make oneself innately stealthy. Especially when the suit squeaks like a thousand dread balloons."

"Awwww." They had all been like Pinkie to one degree or another. All except for Fluttershy. Somehow the butter colored pegasus (she had to find out one day if she tasted like butter as well) had somehow slipped up to atop her back and had asked her if it was okay that she had gotten her. Luna swore that she had developed several new supernovae in her mane and tail from that little stu-

"Princess, Generals! Come quickly, Kommandur Redtail has done the most foolish thing that her could have!" Mustari's intrusion startled everypony as he burst into the pavilion, including Fluttershy who hid within Luna's voluminous tail once more.

Shining threw down his clipboard and teleported his armor back onto himself as his mother and Flash scrambled from where they had been laying. "What did he do?"

As if to answer his question, a breathtakingly terrifying roar erupted outside, shaking the pavilion with enough force to force everypony inside to clutch their ears. Spike was the first to recover, scrambling for the entrance flaps in a dead run "Mom!"
Velvet's magic whipped out, snagging his tail to drag him back into her embrace. "Stay here. Flash, you go!"

Nodding, he threw the flaps open in time to witness the blinding flare of light rising high into the skies as Twilight unleashed an inferno nearly as intense as the sun in an attempt to charbroil Redtail mid-flight. He gasped, falling back as even he had to blink back the afterimages from his eyes despite the natural pegasi protection against glare. Fumbling, his hoof pulled the crystalline earpiece from his armor and reinserted it into his ear. "Dash, grab the idiot and get him back to the Princess! I've got Twilight! C'mon Fluttershy!"

Fluttershy gasped and leapt into the air ahead of Flash alongside her chromatic friend who rocketed up into the air. Below them, Cadance galloped across the fairgrounds in a horrified sprint, glancing up towards her favorite sittee whenever she could. "Shining! What's happened to her?! One moment she was talking with him, and when I looked up again from helping one of our ponies, it was like she had gone feral!"

"He deducted that Twilight wisely hoarded friends instead of gold." Mustari replied as he finally caught his breath. He prayed to Faust that he would find the time to restore his old fitness before fighting tooth and hoof once more. "He used them against her in a plot to use her own draconic instincts to train her far quicker than what we would otherwise take."

"Flash, you catch that?" Shining shouted into the transmission crystal buried in his leg armor.

Flash's distorted reply came quickly. "I copy, over! Don't shout, Bossman!"

"Make sure he lives! We shalt kill him ourselves!" Luna angrily commanded as her mane sparked and frizzled with arcs of magic.

----------------------------------------

High above, Redtail dove into a corkscrew dive avoiding the jaws gaping close behind his tail. Air screamed over the primaries of his wings as he threw himself into a turn that blew vapor in a great puff of instant clouds that were instantly wiped from existence by the gout of plasma that erupted through where he had just been. Instincts screamed at him, and he banked left while pulling up just in time to be able to plant his hindpaws atop the bridge of her snout to leap away. She either had raw and immense talent, or sheer power to keep up with him, but she didn't have the experience to catch him. Wind rushed past him as he pushed for the Rainboom Barrier, looking to leave her in his contrail. He could do it, he had the power.

But he hadn't expected it to come so quickly. Colors burst before his eyes, spreading out in a shockwave of rainbow energy reaching to Canterlot and beyond. My, he had never expected there to be a streak of rainbow in his vision from the bowshock of his- oh shards.

Dash plowed into Redtail at one and a half times the speed of sound. Only her projected aura of pegasus magic stood between the pair and a messy kinetic death as her momentum instantly overcame his own. Rainbow pile-drove him towards the ground, streaking past Twilight's infuriated form in a roar of displaced air. She didn't have a moment to spare as she felt the unthinking flames lick at the tip of her tail, melting her colors together at that point.

The griffon could only snarl as he was driven towards the ground below. He could have found out whether or not she could control herself; found out if she really could save the world! It wasn't like she had a chance of hitting him!

Their flight at last slowed to sane levels as they approached the ground, leveling out from the vertical dive they had been in. Dash bucked him away from herself, throwing him to the ground with her hindlegs so that the fields of Luna, Cadance, and Velvet catch him. He looked up at her from where he floated and past her to the dragoness high above them who hovered ashamedly as a firey-looking yellow dot hovered next to her and an orange dot atop her.

Winking out as one, the fields holding him evaporated like the morning dew and dropped him unceremoniously to the dirt. He crawled back to being atop his talons as his chromatic 'rescuer' slammed to the ground before him in a perfect four point landing. Redtail pointed a talon at her, spluttering out his anger. "You! What did you think you were doing?"

"We wouldst very much like to know that ourself, Gossenheimer Redtail!" Luna thundered as she dragged him before herself. "What was going through thoust tiny, malformed brain when thoust had thy utterly brilliantly suicidal plan to provoke fair Sparkle?!" 

Luna towered above him, crackling with the fury of a scorned alicorn. Her mane, normally a slice of the night skies, was drowned out by thunderous storm clouds that further betrayed the inner fury within her. And her gaze, her gaze was more like that of a cockatrice's than a pony's. "Nay, don't answer us that. Convince us that thoust shouldst not grace our statue garden for thy utter stupidity!"

The rest of Twilight's friends rushed up behind Luna at last, having struggled to remotely keep up with her. Behind even them, Twilight herself floundered into a slow landing and gracelessly stumbled to a halt. She looked despondent, as if she felt that she had personally incinerated an entire orphanage of special needs foals. "Applejack, I guess you always were right. I'll just-"

"Sit here while Ah find the best way to peel this rotten fruit an' turn him to applesauce. Yer new Sandwalker friend done told us how he provoked ya. Kin stick with kin, hun. Ah ain't 'bout to go back on what Ah gave ya this time." Applejack pawed at the earth, remembering the sinking feeling of getting lectured by Applebloom of all ponies all too well still.

"I was trying to work past her mental blocks. She thinks too much. So I made her too angry to think."

"By threatening her hoard, you foalish fledgeling? Thou art luck that Rainbow Dash caught thou when she didst." Luna snorted in frustration, scarring the earth with a grind of her hoof.

"Yes. You've read her profile. It was the only way to make her act without thinking assuredly. Given that she has connected with her flight instincts now, the gamble was worth it." Redtail looked away from Luna to Twilight, who had begun to loom over the crowd as she growled like a great beast at him.

She snorted, releasing a cloud of black smoke from her nostrils to curl around him like a swarm of insects. "I thank you for that." The dragoness's words were flat and deep, and most frighteningly void of the warmth and charm that Twilight normally carried in her voice. "But if you ever hurt, threaten, bully, or endanger my friendships again, I will remember my teleport spell and I will eat you."

"Twi, be the bigger mare sugarcube."

"Well that's not hard." Spike wisecracked before he crawled up onto his mother’s paw to calm her. "It's hard Mom, I know. But he can't hurt them much. And didn't you say that friendship grows the most when it hurts, Mom?"

Twilight deflated as the words settled in. "Yes." She sighed as she felt how her blood still boiled. "I'm- I'm sorry, girls. I lost control." She looked to Fluttershy, flinching as the memory of the full force of the stare came to the forefront.

"Kommandur, I think it is high time for you to head back to your country to prepare them." Sentry pronounced as he sat atop Twilight's other forepaw. He did his best not to glare at him all the same.

Shining held no such compulsion, and only the glares of his sister, wife, and mother kept him from decking his old friend on the spot. "Gossie, I am well aware that you dislike the idea of having a dragon on the expedition to kill the lord of all dragons. I know that you have justifiable reasons to fear her and see her only as an asset. But you should have had a damn long look at her heart and the pony she used to be. MY SISTER, in case you forgot! If it wasn't for the fact that you are the only one who can convince and prepare Raptoria for the coming battle, I would be having far more than just words with you right now." Shining's horn lit slightly, only for his wife to snuggle against him to prevent him from doing something stupid.

"You're too soft on her."

"She just got out of a psychotic break from getting turned into a dragon!"

"Shining!" Cadance smacked her husband upside his head with her wing. As he shut up to rub the tender spot, she forcibly turned his head to where Twilight was protectively curling her tail around her friends. "She'll be fine. Relax."

"Relax? How can I relax when-"

"Oh look! She has at least eight friends to talk to! And her son that she doesn't want to upset!" Velvet sarcastically remarked. Her son had gotten the worst of his father. Or maybe it was the best, hard to tell. She turned her gaze to Redtail, who flinched under its molten intensity. "You wouldn't want to make my grandson upset now, would you?"

"No." Redtail growled as he sized them all up. Too damned sentimental, the lot of them. But if they were so deadset on the issue. "I will ask you this: how do you know that the Twilight you interact with is the real one instead of a puppet of Tirek?" 

He let his words sink in before continuing. "Thoughts to grin the blade with. I have done what was asked of me. I will ensure that Raptoria's squadrons are ready when you need them, good day." The griffon bowed before them all and left, winging into the air away from Ponyville.

Sentry turned to Shining Armor, Velvet, and Luna while concernedly clearing his throat. "Uh, Bossman? And Bossman's Mom. And, uh, Princess. Who is supposed to teach her flight now?" His eyebrows twitched as a sinking sensation gradually ran to his hooves. A sinking sensation entirely unhelped by Dash clopping to the ground next to him and throwing a leg around his neck while a grin grew on her face that would make Pinkie Pie cry in pain. "Nevermind."

Twilight turned to her mom with a despairing look on her face. "Mom, I'm really sorry. I- I shouldn't have let him get to me like that. I- I don't know how he got a reaction like that out of me. He said that my friends were too good for me, and that I was putting them in danger and-" Twilight choked up and began to slightly whine as she bowed her head in shame to her mother.

"You hoard your friends, Mom. Like everypony has been saying. Kinda obvious." Spike said to her quietly, letting his mother shudder slightly. "Hard to stay calm when your hoard is threatened, believe me."

Twilight nodded, the bobbing of her head slowing as the unpleasant implications sank in. "But- what if I get jealous of you girls making new friends? Or if I go crazy and lock you up to keep you safe?" Twilight started taking deep breaths without prompting as she felt her fears swirling around her.

"Gotta let that greed out in small doses, Mom." Spike looked to Velvet, who looked as helpless as he felt. He could help her. He knew he could. "You've got to keep yourself from wanting stuff like that. Grandma helped me a bunch after 'Spike want!', I bet she can help you too!"

Twilight sniffled slightly as she tried to keep a lid on herself. "Really?"

"I can try, Twilight."

To her surprise, it was Fluttershy who spoke up next. She certainly seemed to be speaking from experience as she timidly rubbed against her friend. "Its okay, Twilight. You feel weak inside, and you're scared anything might bring out the bad, no-good bits of yourself, like I am." 

The buttery pegasus slowly hovered up to look Twilight in the eyes. Not all that long ago, she had been in such a similar place to the dragoness. Pitying eyes visually comforted both of them as Fluttershy hesitantly hugged her. "I'd love to help. You need it."

Mustari looked over the group, marveling at them. "Perhaps there may be a way we can use this, Nightmistress."

"You're not thinking of-"

"Perhaps."

"I am not playing the villain."

"But of course not! But, if Faust is willing, I know of a place for you."
> Chapter 4: Journeys
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

08: Journeys

Twilight looked past the tip of her nose, observing the course before her. It was actually rather odd view, given the way that her field of view had been spread out and altered by her transformation. It had given her no end of balance and navigation problems for several weeks as she had gotten used to it.

A week of non-stop training had brought her to this point, a final capstone course to examine how far she had come. Challenge after challenge to rescue her friends from'peril' had been laid out before her, waiting for her move. Her claws dug themselves into the soft loam of the earth, letting her magic leak downwards to make the ground ripple around her toes under the stream of energy.

She looked up to where Mustari stood upon a judges stand with a starting pistol gripped in his mouth. The sandwalker's robes still billowed around him, scattering sand from Saddle Arabia everywhere. He was waiting for her to relax. Her mother's warnings stuck in her mind, reminding her not to lose herself in memory, to stay loose and unclenched yet ready to spring at a moment's-

BANG!

--------------------------------------------------

Celestia struggled down the hall, cursing the reminder that no matter how ageless she was, she was still biological. Her sprained ankle flared with pain under the slightest pressure as she hobbled into the darkness. The mighty noises of battle deeper in urged her on, especially ones like the awe-inspiring rumble of thunder that had rolled through a few seconds before.

She wasn't catching up, and the teleport interdiction wards within the complex kept her from cheating to jump ahead or snapping Trixie to herself to end the farce. She had to hurry, as they had passed the outer maze and had come to the most dangerous and ancient parts of the vaults.

Signs of a running battle littered the narrow and constrained blackstone passage. Chunks had been blown out of the walls by both parties in great and ragged chunks, nearly tripping Celestia up time and time again. The pavers underhoof were in many cases transmuted or melted into glowing puddles of dangerous ooze by stray shots from both combatants. Worryingly, the echoes of distant snarls and magic blasts dimly boiled up into Celestia's ears.

She hobbled around the corner, taking the right branch that showed signs of recent battle. Curses escaped the confines of her throat as she had to duck down. The scarred ceiling was lower in one spot, scraping at her back, slightly scourging the fur in places. She was still slowly growing even after three millenia. Stone nearly met the top of her head as she jerked from her student's scream of pain. "Twilight!"

The vaults shook as a whole as a titanic magical blast roared somewhere in the tunnels ahead. An alien squeal of air being ripped asunder by a beam of magic cut through the dust-clogged air and overpowered the clattering of a thousand falling pebbles. Celestia hobbled even faster as she mentally boxed up her pain, blinking and coughing as dust irritated her. A mental plee rang through her mind as she begged the higher powers for Twilight's safety, fearing that the sounds she had heard were not those of her protegee bringing the roof down upon her and Trixie's heads.

All grew silent, save for the clip-clop of Celestia hobbling down the dangerously tight corridor and the ominous rumbling creaks of settling rock above. Her mind ran in circles as she feared the worst, with a passing refrain trapped within. Let her be alright, let her be alright!

And then, she came to a crossroads once more. But no more had the battle raged. Trixie must have started running for whatever she sought and ignored her student's challenges. which way was a mystery to her.

Within the tight and difficult passage to her right, the Locket of the Rainbow of Light still sang hauntingly into the dark. Down the wide and black passage to her left, past a thousand traps laid the Bag of Tirek; the passage mouth looming before her with ominous intent. Celestia looked both ways for the slightest signs as she caught her breath with deep, gasping breaths. She swiveled back and forth, back and- wait! Light glimmered in the dark to her right, gleaming with her student's magenta glow!

"No!" She screamed as the horrors came upon her mind and cast images of Twilight's smoldering bones. Celestia rammed herself down the rightward tunnel. Of course, it had to have been the Locket! It was far less heavily shielded than the Bag, as it only beckoned ponies in times of great evil.

Magenta light sparked fitfully before the alicorn once more, calling to her. Twilight was begging for help! Spurred on, Celestia surged down the corridor, scourging her sides against the tightening rough walls of the passage, tearing chunks from them.

She only had a moment to experience confusion as rotten steel-clad wood suddenly barred the corridor before her. Celestia plowed through it with the force of a train, plunging to the floor before tumbling to a halt by crashing into the marble pilnth at the heart of the room. Light flickered uncertainly around the room, casting shadows from the aura of her horn. 

Metal rocked upon stone, a ringing laugh at her expense as she realized that she had fallen precisely for what she had once warned Twilight of. Creaking stone gave her little warning before the supposedly magically isolated and warded glass case tipped over and shattered upon her form.

Celestia picked the glass from her bloodied and scourged sides with care; picking the Locket of Light up in her trembling aura a moment later. The rainbow light within it swirled and pulsated, calling to her once more. She could stop it all, she just had to open it and let the cleansing light consume Trixie and burn away whatever sh-NO!

"No!" A concussive thud rumbled through the complex as Twilight unleashed magical hell. The scream of defiance by her student turned solar blood to ice. Fear allowed cold sweat to escape her and trickle painfully over the cuts and scrapes on Celestia's sides and wings.

"Twilight!" Celestia screamed her student's name as the horror of feeling the terrible pulse of dark magic sank in. It had already begun! Trixie was after the bag, and drawing on its power unaware of the consequences! Celestia snatched the Locket, flipping it up so that its magic chain would secure tightly around her neck. She rose to her trembling hooves, dreading to hear what might come next.

Thunder crackled through the halls, a shriek of pain slashing through the inky blackness caused by the close proximity of so many of the evilest artifacts in the world. Solar light flared around Celestia as some of the mental effects of the Locket took hold in her mind. It made its user fearless, a crusader against the dark, and careless towards their own safety. Careless enough to use the Locket, which at anywhere near full power would incinerate evil wherever it could find it. Even, unfortunately, the negative emotions of its user to tragic results.

Magic pulsed out from Celestia once more and blew the remains of the rotted door away as she cleared a path before herself. The walls were crushed back and smooth by a great pulse of solar magic as she ran. Bruised, battered, and fairly horrifyingly scourged, the solar mare skidded to a halt within the Y-intersection. Pulsing softly, the power of the Locket summoned itself upwards, sending a wall of scorching light down the tunnel towards the chamber of the bag, revealing the carnage of her student's rampage from beneath the veil of darkest darkness.

All of Celestia's will clamped down on the locket, smothering its power before it could reach the chamber at the end of the corridor. It wouldn't have cared if Twilight was a good mare or not. It never played favorites, just burned away all that wasn't perfectly pure. Association would work just as well as actually touching Tirek's power. But that power had to go somewhere, and her feathers smoked and smoldered as the power crashed back against her and roiled within.

Celestia's heart pounded as the sounds of struggling came to her once more. She leapt down the wide corridor, galloping against the warnings of her pain to save her student before it was too late.

"Not here; not now, Trixie!" Twilight's hoarse yell of defiance was cut short by another squeal of pain as the pair fought ahead.

The sound of wretched retching splashed about before a crackle of lightning arced across the stones in a rumble of bursting air. Trixie's voice was haggard, hoarse and scratchy as if she had cried out over and over again recently. "It calls me, Twilight! It calls to me, not you! I must answer it, it tells me to!"

Celestia's heart began to beat in time with her hooves as the rumbling of dark magic grew stronger. She could see the door dimly in the glowing light of the smoldering remains of the battle; she could almost hear how the mouth of the bag groaned as it surely was opening at that very second. There was no way to save Trixie, she was too close to it. But she could-

She should have paid attention to where she was going. Her hoof plunged deep into a pool of electric blue goo that bubbled its way ever deeper into the pavers with a caustic hissing. As her foreleg plunged in almost to her hip she pivoted over it involuntarily from her momentum; falling into a heap as her leg screamed its pain in more than one way. Acrid fumes burned at her nosd as the acid began to eat away at the keritin of her hoof and fur whilst the prickling pain made removing her leg from the sticky deep hole difficult. Golden magic flowed forth as she awkwardly pulled her leg free of the sticky mass, burning the slime away from her denuded fur coat.

The ground quaked all around her as the bag began to open in earnest within the chamber. Celestia put on one last burst of energy as her legs began to feel strangely weak. A side effect of the poisonous caustic slime, she imagined as she crawled the last of the way to the door, pulling it open to look within.

Black magic rose up as a cloud, holding Trixie over the bag amidst the darkening miniature storm as the entertainer began to scream in pain. Twilight spotted her mentor and started running for her. The unicorn's body was criss-crossed with wounds from her running battle, each uniquely horrifying and disfiguring, slowing her down. A great swirl of inky blackness broke away from the main mass as Trixie was swallowed up entirely; roaring down to floor level of the cavern to chase after Twilight in the form of a miniature tornado. Celestia reached out with her hoof, trying to grab Twilight as the unicorn desperately tried to hobble over to her, begging her to take it over the roar of the foul winds.

Twilight jumped towards safety, pulling Celestia's magic to her to try and save herself. But the golden glow slipped off, repulsed by the blackness that struck like a coiled snake. Twilight was driven into the ground, flailing with her legs as the ink of death curled monstrous tendrils over her. They tried one last time to reach each other, purple just barely tapping against white before the tendrils tightened their grip, pulling back.

A tear trickled from the alicorn's eyes as Twilight was slowly dragged away from her. Twilight rolled over, grunting in fear and defiance as she battled the darkness consuming her inch by inch. Magenta magic flowed alongside golden yellow beams as they both fired bolt after bolt into the cloud to try and stop it from sucking Twilight in. The young mare looked back again as her horn was swallowed and put out, and as her face was slowly enveloped, her eyes glistened with tears of terror and anguish. Lips parted, and Twilight's voice was just barely able to get out the first syllable of Celestia's name before another tendril of the cloud poured itself into her mouth and muffled anything she might have said. But even that couldn't hide her look of terror, or the desperately pointing hoof warning the alicorn as she muffledly screamed at her.

The solar diarch slammed the warded door shut, sealing it against the tendril of corruptive magic that rattled against the inside. A second later, and the door would have slammed shut behind her as she would have been dragged in.

She had... oh no. She had slammed shut the door on any hope of her student's survival. Slammed it shut on her sanity, her soul...

No.

Celestia tremblingly rose to her hooves once more, gathering all of her strength together. She called willingly upon the Locket, weaving a ward of protection all about herself. Trixie could have been purged with few regrets. But DAMN her if she was just going to leave Twilight to die a horrible twisted death as her soul was made into fodder. She would rather die trying to save her.

A shimmering white light spread out from the locket, coating her as she prepared for battle. Her golden aura shone bright behind her, lifting her up as she pulled the last of her strength together. The door slammed open before her once more, and a surge of rainbow lightning cleared her way as Celestia joined the battle for Twilight's fate once more.

And the door slammed shut behind her with a terrible thud.

--------------------------------------------------

While a thud was never something that Luna jumped at anymore thanks to her sister, she did have to admit that more than 200 tons of dragon mare slamming into the ground ranked high in her list of impressive thuds.

The diarch of the moon watched impassively from within her rope bonds that she had been waiting in all day. Uncomfortable braided strands of plant fiber cut into her fur and circulation as she slowly swayed in the breeze upside down over a vast pit of mud. The Pink One would pay dearly for her part in the grand humiliation.

Before her, Twilight ploughed through the course like a mare possessed. She dove into a complicated twirling maelstrom of massive hammers as her first barrier, looking to rescue fair Applejack from her place floating within a dragon-sized tub of floating apples. A giant magical construct created by the diarch to give Twilight a challenge, as was almost all of the course.

Twilight's scythe-like talons shredded wooden beams much in the same way a sawmill would as she sliced her was into the thicket of pain. Her tail flicked as the pattern mutated to prevent her from memorizing it, revealing the razor sharp fins embedded in the tip there as she cracked her tail like a whip against the largest of the spinning axels. The bladed edge of her tail cracked magic-created hardwood in half, splintering it apart and sending chunks of swing arms in all directions to crash into more.

Applejack spluttered in an attempt to say something as Twilight dipped her head down into the barrel of apples, only to fall silent as Twilight grabbed her. Granted, the silence may have had to do with the way that she pocketed Applejack inside her cheek between her lips and gumline, sliming down the farmer. Moments passed before Applejack found herself spat out into the protectively padded basket on Twilight's back, shivering from where she had been and what she was covered in.

"Sorry, Applejack!"

Twilight didn't waste a further moment on pleasantries as she crouched and lept over a whirling bar that barreled through at shin height. Leather surfaces snapped open with a thundercrack as Twilight swept open her wings and flapped several times to launch herself high into the air. As gravity began to grip her once more, she folded her massive appendages once more as she floated on a sea of pegasus magic over a violent pygmy thunderstorm to land on all fours atop the massive sheet of clouds that blanketed the area. Without even paying attention, a paw swept out in a backhand, punching apart a tornado that had been threatening to swallow her as she rose to a two-legged stance.

Talons snapped forward, grabbing writhing lightning from the barrage of traps before her. Deft digits twisted and folded the arcing discharges until they were folded into neatly knotted bows wrapped around chunks of cloud, held together with pegasi magic and prayers. Her left paw snapped out, kicking the bundles off the cloud with the boom of escaping thunder, clearing the way to descend into the black abyss of the cloud. Within those black depths, wind shears of unimaginable strength tore at her, trying to rip her apart as she all but swam through the charged cloud to the miniature eye at the heart of the storm.

The next sign anyone had of her was her escape from the cloud, clutching the cage of ice and rainbow wrapped around her chromatic friend as she broke the eye with an airburst of magic. Her wings snapped open once more as she glided through the abruptly dissipating cloud while angling for the ground. Fused sand cracked and shattered beneath her bulk as she touched down on all fours; a spiderweb of cracks radiating out from her landing place. Dash found her prison partially melting as she was placed into Twilight's carrying basket.

Silence reigned upon the spacially warped plane, a dull wind moaning against the shards of glass underpaw. Dash and Applejack climbed to the protective meshing of the sack, wondering where the next threat would come from. "Anything Twilight?"

The dragoness snorted in response, stalking up out of their small crater. She knew that Pinkie was supposed to be up next, but the plain was so unlike anything she was expecting. There wasn't even a candy jungle or a giant edible monster out to smother her in sugar. Giggling snorts amplified to a roaring extent put her concerns to rest, and raised more as a massive figure that towered over her emerged from thin air.

Oh. A 50 yard tall replica of the Mega Magic Marshmellow Mare. Pinkie cheered Twilight on from her cockpit between the eyes of the sugary death, waving down to her before unleashing a stomp from her construct. Twilight yelped and dove aside, rattling her rescuees in their basket. Claws lashed out, sinking into marshmellow to messily try and rip a leg off. Gooey molten marshmellow congealed around her claws, gumming them up as Twilight roared and ripped free with a wet slurp of goo.

Pinkie's construct roared and reared back, only to be slammed over entirely as Twilight took the severed limb and smacked it across the face. Unused to her two-legged stance, Twilight yelped and wobbled in place as her hammer blow left her reeling and flailing to stay upright. A vicious punch connected with her chest, tipping her back to crash into the ground, supporting herself with her out-thrown forelegs back against the glassed sand.

Alarm wracked her as the mashmellow beast flopped through the air towards her, giving her only a split second to roll out of the way. Plans raced through the dragoness's mind, evaluated by difficulty and benefits in a mere handful of moments. Gripping paws grabbed at the mooshy monster as it rose back up; Twilight clinging on for dear life as she was lifted into the air with her legs buried deep into the marshmellow stuffing. She wriggled into the nape of it's neck, biting into the monster all the way. 

Teeth ground against rock candy bone, severing the cartoonish vertebra with rumbling crunches. Mmm. It actually tasted pretty go- Focus!

Twilight ripped her head back, letting her ride fall limply to the ground as she decapitated it. Telekinetic auras dipped into the golem's head in search of Pinkie as quickly as Twilight could spare the power. Pinkie's normally pink coat was completely slimed with white deliciousness as she was pulled free, still whining and reaching for her former ride as she was uncerimoniously dropped into the basket with her friends.

Twilight kept herself from barking out a laugh of frustration and confusion at her friend's antics with a self-distracting snort as she let a sixth sense guide her towards the next phase of the course. Illusionary wastelands stretched out forever before her as the course-mistress tried to discourage her from continuing. 

Shaking her head, Twilight's eyes glowed with her magic as she pierced the veils of illusion with raw magical power. Wasteland suddenly gave way to a verdant flash-grown jungle that towered up high into the skies in a way that would be impenetrable to flight. Twilight stomped with a paw as she straightened up back into her two-legged stance, punching a wave of earth magic into the ground in order to force an opening in the jungle with a ripple of dirt. A jungle wasn't bad. Not compared to everything else they had been through. It didn't even project a subtle sensation of chaos of the kind that the Everfree did.

Silence filled the air as Twilight slowly stalked deeper into the jungle, broken only by the sounds of branches breaking against Twilight as her massive body ploughed through the lower canopy. Even standing as high as she could, Twilight couldn't quite see over the tops of the trees. Unseen, but quietly heard, faint rustles in the umderbrush alarmingly circled the dragoness on all sides beneath the multiple layers of jungle canopy. 

Twilight lunged downwards, grabbing at whatever had been slithering about around her. She brought her paws to her face, finding them only wrapped around and intertwined with twisted clumps of vines. It wasn't any help at all in figuring out what had been stalking her. Twilight threw the vines away, sniffing to see if she could smell something that smelled like Fluttershy over the riot of the jungle.

A pause entered her thoughts. Her paws were still heavy with something in them. She looked down once more and cried out in alarm as the vines she had grabbed earlier began to writhe and wrap around her paws. Thousands more whipped out of the forest, rapidly wrapping around her like the curse of a mummy within an Arabian tomb. The iron-like vines slowly began to pull her down, forcing her hindlegs down into the dirt as those wrapped around her torso and forelegs slowly bent her over, trying to lay her flat upon the ground.

Buck that. Twilight's fur became alive with flame, and the dragoness willed it forth into the jungle trying to consume her. Vines withered and died at her touch as she pulled herself free. Ashes rained around her as she whipped her tail and wings at the air. She could feel her friends sweltering as the temperatures soared around them. Heat was condensed, and trapped into terrible white-hot balls that dissipated all around as it was pulled away from the quartet upon her back.

Twilight panted, running through the mental exercises that Cadance had taught her to calm herself for Fluttershy's sake. Trying once more, the great dragon plotted a more delicate course, gingerly stepping in caution through the jungle as she sought out a yellow and pink flower of a feathery variety. She could feel her, she could almost taste Fluttershy's scent on the breeze.

And there zhe was, sitting uncomfortably upon a plinth in a clearing. Ginger steps carried Twilight to her; each carefully chosen to avoid the many nooses of vines waiting for her to make a wrong move. Fluttershy squeaked as Twilight came to loom above her, but barely flinched as the massive paw of her friend scooped up beneath her and put her away with the others.

Twilight's wings were unfurled once more so she could fly above the canopy and free herself of the oppressive jungle. In moments, she was above it all just in time to witness the jungle flatten like a popup in a children's book. The indistinct patterns of the jungle top shaped up into the walkway of a fashion show.

A dizzying array of lights swept out from all around her, blinding her with distractions on all sides. Shielding her eyes only went so far towards stopping it. Rarity. Of course it had to be her. Everything began to shine brighter as she protected herself, as if searching for a way past her defenses.

UP! She had to go up! Twilight rose into the air to try to escape the cacophony. Above it all, the magic barrier held fast, bouncing her back down into the sound and sight maelstrom below. Pain blossomed in her head, a most terrible migraine that burned at her mind growing between her horns. 

She could still do it, she needed to focus, focus and cast out the layers of sight and sound she couldn't handle. When she opened her eyes once more they glittered with a protective layer of magic that let her look upon the sheets of magic that powered the latest blockade. Ducking beneath one, she was immediately assaulted by numbing beams of light that stung her limbs and threatened to send her tumbling to the earth.

Her horns glowed, conjuring up a sheet of fog that she teleported down to, avoiding a crash landing. Bouncing off, she cast again, spewing forth a dozen streams of blasting magic at precise points within the dazzle maze. Twilight rolled to a stop as the magic of the lightshow began to crystallize and break apart, clearing away a path like a madmare who had grown tired of the tricks of a house of mirrors.

Rarity and Spike looked up to their friend as she stepped through the spell wreckage, having been drinking tea and enjoying one another's presence at the heart of a nested multi-layered ball of magic forcefields. Rarity pretended to not roll her eyes at the brutish approach that Twilight had taken, hiding the gesture within a flip of her mane that caused it to droop before her vision. Spike's dreamy sigh escaped as soon as she finished as he all but melted on the spot in a haze of admiring bliss.

One by one did deep rumbles escape from Twilight's chest; each a chuckle of an all too knowing mother. Her paw reached down once more, extending into an open invitation for the pair below. Prancing hooves delicately danced beneath Rarity as she climbed on carrying Spike within her telekinetic aura with demure giggles of her own.

Luna's frown deepened as she watched Rarity climb aboard her friend and join the others through the aid of her own magically enhanced vision. It wasn't supposed to be so easy for Twilight. She was supposed to have struggled more with the course, felt more than a moment's fear, suffered more than the poofing of a magically charged mane!

She most certainly was not a sore loser annoyed by her utter failure. Certainly not! The diarch of the moon was above such petty pouting now! But perhaps... yes, that could work.

Luna's specialization had always been illusions and secrets. Her magic's full potential fell upon the dragoness and trapped her within a terrible web of secrets and trickery, refracting and mirroring the images Twilight received as she attacked. Gravity spells disrupted the delicate balance of Twilight's inner ear to throw off her sense of direction and false sounds and smells betrayed her remaining senses. Luna smirked to herself, knowing that something would stop-

"Nay! Foul! Foul we say! A pox upon thee, a curse upon thine senses! Our labors ruined by thy methods! How? How doth thee escape our treachery!?" Luna cursed and swore as Twilight's eyes lit with the mysterious sorcery-sight she had been using for some time and walked through the diarch's tricks and traps without ever noticing them.

Dragon paws avoided treacherous footing with ease, wings and foreclaws cut away traps before her like the careful scissors of a seamstress. But the worst was the smile on her face, the smile of a mare thinking herself to be far too clever for her own good. "Oh, I don't know, Luna. I guess you're out of practice. I could see right through you."

Nay, the worst was the way that the mare of laughter upon Twilight's back giggled so hard that she began to snort. Composing herself, Luna frowned and plotted as Twilight began to cut her down. Very well, if she wanted to be such a winner, then Luna could play the part of the sore loser quite well.

"Tell me, o'Sparkle, how is thy footing?" Luna's horn charged as she prepared to cancel a certain spell.

Twilight bounced on her paws several times, wobbling as she did. "Pretty good, actually. I think I finally have that spell down."

"Odd." Luna smirked. She looked down to the ground and cast her spell, letting the surface part upon the sea of mud she had been working on all week. "I could have sworn that I had left a mudpit here somewhere."

Twilight had a moment to look down upon her doom. "I hate you so much right whoooaaaah!" Sinking like a stone, the dragoness was up to her waist in moments before losing her balance altogether to fall face- first into the mud.

Luna couldn't help herself as she was dangled above her trap much like the way a desperate baker would hold up a cake to save it from falling. Her cackles were loud and boisterous for several moments more. And then, Twilight let go. "Oh moonshine."

SPLUT!

----------------------------------------

"That was a dirty trick, Luna." Twilight was coated from chin to tail in the thick, sticky mud of the last trap. Shivers danced across her form like jiggles in jello as she clearly struggled to not shake out and tried to avoid splattering everypony for a mile.

"Tis war. All tricks are fair. Though yes, quite filthy." Luna herself laid upon the ground after struggling through her own trap, with only the sticky outlines of her wings and horn alongside her cerulean eyes to give away her identity beneath the demeaning earthy coat she wore. Her once glorious wings weakly flapped once, splattering the ground for thirty yards in either direction from Luna's sides. "I shall describe that as a pass, though."

"Agreed." Mustari walked to the group across the liquefied surface, somehow staying above it. His robes never touched the ground, always staying curled away from it by several inches. "The Generals concur as well. Twilight Sparkle, you are as ready as we can make you in the time we have available. A blessing and an omen, I would say."

Twilight trembled once more and extended her wings carefully to slough the cloying mud from them. "I don't feel ready. For most of that I just used brute force to batter it down. And it just came to me to do it that way, I never even thought of doing things carefully."

"Sometimes, that's just what it takes, Twiley." Shining Armor came up around the pit with Velvet, Cadance, Sentry, and Spike. He had an odd look upon his face, like he had become so full of pride over his sister overcoming all that opposed her that his pride was condensing into a liquid form and was busily leaking out.

Velvet rolled her eyes at the sniffles of her son. Rather hypocritical of her, given the way that she was rubbing 'dust' out of her own eyes. "There won't always be a neat solution, Twilight. Oftentimes, you will only find one that makes the least number unhappy." Velvet tried one last time to maintain her decorum before throwing neatness to the wind to gallop over to.her daughter's side. 

The mud that coated Twilight didn't bother her in the least as she grabbed a hold of her daughter's leg and hugged tightly. "I'm so proud of.you, Twilight. You're getting so good at this."

"She is." Luna intoned as she tapped the side of her head to dislodge a great chunk of slime from her ears. "She is also going to miss her train if we do not clean ourselves soon."

"Got it covered." Sentry clopped his hooves against the ground and ran for it. Everypony watched as his tail bobbed behind him as he ran, wondering what had gotten into him.

Twilight started suggesting things as she shook her head and neck loose of her earthen overcoat. "Well, I could use the Hex of Ultimate Cleanli-" 

"No, no! Quite fine, darling. It would be a very poor idea to do that. Opal hasn't forgiven you for that."

"Okay, well I could go jump in the lake and-"

Applejack shook her head. "Nah, bad idea. The water table would get polluted, and yer too tall to actually fit in the lakebed."

"Well, it's not like it is going to rain or something!" Twilight gestured up to the blue skies wildly, flinging splatters everywhere from her foreleg as she did.

Thunder crackled above in response and the skies blacked with roiling clouds. Twilight slowly set her paw down shakily as everypony gaped at the storm being pushed in. Dozens of pegasi were pushing the cloud overhead, possibly many more judging from the miles-wide width of the monster.

Pinkie glanced over and up to her friend unhappily. "Gee, Twilight, didchya have to tempt fate?"

Luna shifted back from the group, edging towards the line of sunshine several hundred yards away. She idly calculated the sheer quantity of water, and wondered where it might have all come from. Her best guess pointed to the old castle lake of Castle Everfree as the source. A most... disquieting and unfortunate choice. She had visited the old lake once. 

Once.

"We- um- I'm sure it is just a summer storm being pushed back into the Everfree. No concern of ours. Well, I shall see you all at the station! Fare thee well!" Luna broke and ran as she cleared the group, galloping like Pinkie was chasing her.

Twilight sighed. "Girls, I think that's our cue. Run." Twilight shook herself out and leapt over the group in a single bound before breaking out into a hearty gallop herself. "Run!"

Water roared down upon them from on high, racing out of the clouds with the force of a thousand pony stampede. The line of rain that rushed up upon them blackened the horizon as it chased them through town and over the hills. A pity it was just a little faster than any of them.

----------------------------------------

Flash watched the oncoming downpour from beneath the safety of the tall cargo terminal awning that had been put up by the Ponyville station. He could see the group coming his way through the murk of the rain, all huddled beneath Twilight's wings. He figured they were probably soaked given the force of the rain; and probably pretty chilly since Princess Celestia's standing orders said that any rain shower for Princess Luna needed to come from the coldest source possible.

Mt. Canter's meltwater lakes seemed cold enough. Flash chuckled to himself, turning back to where Night Light had hit it off with the Crusaders. The impressionable fillies had fallen hook, line, and suckers over the tales of lost cities and ancient mysteries. The little saps had never known what was coming for them.

"Girls? Ah really want to know how in the hay we went from Cutie Mark Crusaders Ancient Explorers to Cutie Mark Crusader Subwho-whatsing Book Sorters." Applebloom sighed with frustration as she sorted out yet another book for Scootaloo to wheel over to the correct box inside the boxcar.

"Subdued. Means something about being quiet and calm."

"Ya know what Ah mean, Spike."

"I have no idea. All I know is that it's made riding my scooter... boring!"

"Do you think it runs in Twilight's family?" Sweetie despondently asked as she slid one of the last books down the chute from the shipment from the Vanhoofer Museum of Pre-Discordian History.

Spike pushed the last empty box out into the rain to fall into a pile with the rest of the crates they had been repacking for the expedition. "I warned you. I warned you, but nooo- Nopony ever listens to Spike..."

"Ah get it, Ah get it. Yer whole family is Boring Evil."

Flash smiled for a moment more and clopped his hooves against the concrete of the cargo platform, sending a signal to the pegasi in the skies who shut off the storm. The sheets of pouring rain ceased and parted like the sun cleaved the night skies each morning. Laughter bubbled up within him as he beheld the soaked form of his largest charge, who trembled within her flattened and soaked fur like a kitten given its first bath ever.

"Whoever-" Her teeth clattered as she shivered. "-commissioned-" Clatter-clatter. "-that storm-" Clatter-clatter-clatter. "-is a dead pony trotting."

Flash blinked for a moment as he processed what she had said. Right, good thing that it was his boss's boss who had ordered the deed. "Standing order from Princess Celestia, Twilight. She said that her sister liked her rain baths cold and that any time she needed one it was to come from the coldest source possible."

"T-t-t-tis a LIE! That dirty, rotten prankster of mine k-k-k-kin! We prefer them hot, she likes it cold enough to form ice!" Luna's voice vibrated as she shivered from the cold. Her crown found itself dropping to the ground as the soaked alicorn began shaking out like a dog to rid herself of the freezing water.

Everypony scrambled to get clear of the spray, and everypony watched with horror as Twilight got ready to do the same. 

"Twilight! Don't do it! Use your crazy dragon fire magic on yourself!" Dash shouted as she pulled Fluttershy with her down behind the station platform.

Twilight stopped halfway through her first shake as she heard Dash, and tried to think things through. Pearly white teeth gleamed as she smiled and licked them before holding her nose shut. "Stand back everypony." She breathed deep, and blew with all her might as she shut her lips tight.

Fire erupted from every hair, boiling the water off of her instantly into a cloud of gently warming steam. Sighs escaped in a mass exodus as Twilight extinguished her flames and fluffed herself out, followed by everypony congregating about her legs. "Girls? Shiney? Ugh. I can't move my legs when you're- oh forget it."

"Twilight! Miss Twilight!" Sweetie clambered onto a stack of books carefully.

"Ya gotta help us!"

"Your Dad is making us sort books to pay for the stories he told us!"

Twilight smiled. "Oh! Well, great!"

"Mah eyes are turning into letters!"

"Please, Miss Twilight, save us!"

"Hmmm... nah. Why would I save you from learning?" Twilight had a grin that seemed a mile wide as she tried to escape the clutches of her cold friends.

"Nooooooooooooo!"

----------------------------------------

"Oh dear, can anypony tell me where my supplies might have gone? I did leave them to be picked up." Rarity looked around with Pinkie near the back of the train in the box cars as she searched for the numerous bags of her sewing supplies. 

Pinkie shrugged, looking for her mobile party wagon in the shadows. "Dunno, Rarity. Maybe they ran away? Here wagon, wagon, wagon!"

Flash poked his head in from the front passageway towards the passenger cars after having heard their commotion. "Oh, sorry about that. There was a limit to how much we could bring with us initially, so we had to leave most of it at your homes."

Rarity started to gasp, her eyes shrinking to pinpricks as she thought of being without supplies.

"But we can pick up things from the dragon capital and Raptoria when we visit them." Flash hastily added as he saw Rarity's state. A sigh of relief escaped her as she slumped to the deck of the car. "We should probably get moving before-"

"What the heck is THIS?! A cage? You're wanting to put me in a cage just to go to Canterlot!?" Twilight's outraged bellow rattled the metal walls of the car as the entire train shimmied under her weight.

Dashing like a certain pegasus, they all rushed out towards the front of the train, where Twilight angrily was shaking a trio of modified flatbed cars which were set up with a series of steel hoops for holding something up. Luna concernedly glided over to the dragoness alongside her father's quick trot.

"Be at peace, Twilight. Tis not a cage, but concealment for yourself. Canterlot is still sore at thy battle with-"

"Don't remind me." Twilight's head dipped down to rest on the paneled deck of the flatbeds. Her wings perked up first as she thought up a rather nice way to beat the nobles. "Can't I just-" Her mighty wings flapped once, clapping at the air.

"It IS a secret shipyard, Twiley. Sorry. Gotta make sure that Tirac can't possibly find it by reading somepony's brain or something." Shining Armor apologized as he hoped onto the train near Twilight.

Night Light hopped onto the flatbed as well, turning around to face his daughter. "Oh, don't pout so much, my little Twilicious. It ruins the flavor. I know you want to use your wings, but we'll have time later. I'll be right here with you for the whole journey." The elder Sparkle trotted up to the front of the front flatcar, patting the deck for his daughter to join him.

Twilight nodded, sighing as she felt the state of her wings. "Alright. I just- I just wish you could know how they felt."

"I'm sure I'll find out eventually." Night Light responded as he led his daughter aboard. He just barely stood still as she rubbed his muzzle with her snout, still unnerved by the strangeness of it.

The great dragoness sniffled as she laid down carefully upon the trio of cars like a snake. "I'm going to miss you, Daddy."

"No you won't."

"But-"

Night Light trotted up to her ear membrane and whispered four words that would have made her jaw drop had she not already laid her head down. Her eyes almost lit up from within as she nuzzled her father more forcefully. 

"Twi?"

"C'mon, girls! Let's go do what we do best!"

"Eat cupcakes?"

"Nope! Save the world!"

----------------------------------------

"Crusaders! The whole world is waiting on us, are we gonna let it down!?" Applebloom cried, unsteadily balancing herself on her new leg before her friends.

"Nooo!" Like hay were the CMC just gonna stay put without a fight.

Twilight shook her head as the infectious cheer warmed her heart as she listened to it from her dedicated flatbed cars. After they had installed the rather confining steel hoops over her, they had pulled taut a thick canvas cover over the whole assembly that left her comfortable in the warm darkness. She could see the other two bouncing up and down like miniature perpetual motion machines on one of the benches.

All of the families that had made it had all gathered together into small groups inside, saying their goodbyes and making fun of each other in the process. Even Luna had joined in, sitting by Velvet as she whispered something into the smaller mare's ears. Velvet smiled cryptically before breaking away and slinging Spike up onto her back as Night Light followed her back. 

"Miss us yet?"

"Not yet."

"Well she might not, but I do, oh delicious smochy-poo!"

Blushes of embarrassment turned the dragons in the car bright crimson with blushing. "Daaaaaaaddy! Stop it!"

"But the smooching must continue until a certain mare's morale is restored!" Night crowed as he swept Velvet off of her forehooves and into a low hug, followed by kissing a wet trail of lip-prints into her coat and down her neck.

"Bleagh!"

Velvet sighed melodramatically as she let her helmet fall off and her mane spill out onto the deck. "Foals. Hopefully they'll learn soon."

"I'll see what I can do. Even if it ends up being Sentry." Night Light rubbed noses with his wife romantically, adoring the way her muzzle scrunched in response. "I suppose I can live with him being around her 24/7."

"Just come home, Nightie. I don't care what that shaman said, you come home. It'll hurt enough being away for so long, don't you dare let that prophecy happen." Velvet curled her hooves around her darkly coated husband's neck and whispered her worries into his ear as she nuzzled into the corner of his shoulders.

"It's me,  smoochy. I'm a professional."

"Didn't you get turned to stone once?" Spike asked.

Night Light winced. "Only a little."

"And there was the time you contracted hay-mane fever in Zebrica, Daddy." Twilight pointed out as she wriggled her chin on the deck next to her father.

"Yes. I have bad luck. Please stop pointing out all of my embarrassing failures." Night Light brushed his mane, checking to see if it had turned to saw-grass again.

Velvet pushed him over, and against Twilight's bulk. Thick fur rubbed across both of them as Twilight shifted so that they laid against the crook of her neck, and they rested in quiet. "You do have a plan to get aboard, right?"

"I have some ideas. Provided you can distract the princesses." Night Light looked to Spike and measured him up. Twilight's Spikey-Wikey hat gave his best goofy grin at the thought of getting to go on one of the crazy family adventures. The drakeling was starting to get a little big, but he should still fit properly. Night Light ran some thoughts through his mind on the flexibility of steel cable and the likely designs of the berth of the expeditionary ship. "Yeah, I can get on."

"Well, I can distract Princess Luna if Twilight can keep Princess Celestia busy." Velvet mused as she considered the alicorn of the night. An intimidating and formidible mind, but one that could easily be distracted provided that the correct buttons could be pressed. Praise of her night, or her ship, perhaps. She fell into interesting routines just like their not-so-little Twilight. "You can keep her busy, right?"

"Oh, I still need a few hugs from her." Twilight gave her mother a little smirk as she thought of finally getting to tell Prin- Celestia that she forgave her. They both needed it.

"Good. Twilight, make sure you bring your father and son home." Velvet sternly booped Twilight on the snout to get her point across. Her husband might have been an old adventurer, but it was getting close to a decade and a half since he had last ventured into the wild, and all of his skills were likely rustier than the doors of the Ancient Castle of the Sisters.

"Velvet, stop nagging your daughter. I'll be fine. After all, who taught and inspired our little Twiliscous's favorite author and adventurer through his own early journeys?'

"Loosely inspired her. Can't they get Do to come instead?" Velvet corrected her husband as they nuzzled and cuddled together.

"She Works Alone. I hate the ones that do that and survive, they make it harder for the rest of us." Night Light grumbled as he laid against his wife. Twilight's foreleg slowly slid behind the pair and her paw curled inwards to drag them into a loose hug with her.

"Not nice, daddy."

The train lurched as the breaks released, and the whistle at the front blared merrily as the engineer stomped on its pedal. Eeking its way forward, their ride slowly squealed its wheels against the tracks as it finally broke free and began to move. The chugs of the engine puffing its way up to speed rhythmically soothed them as curls of steam slipped through the cracks in the canopy. Night Light began humming to himself in semi-time with the engine; humming a song he had often sang to himself in his youth on his journeys forth into the wilds of the world. Velvet joined in quickly with a hint of desperation in the pitch of her hum as she tried to remember the good old days once more. Spike and Twilight joined in hesitantly last,!each uncertainly trying to find a match for Night Light's notes.

"The road goes ever on and on; over the meadows and into song..."

----------------------------------------

"Aww, now ain't that the sweetest thing ya'll- hey!" Applejack jerked back and rubbed her nose as it stung from being smacked with the bottom rod of the window shade. Turning around brought her gaze to rest balefully upon Rarity.

The fashionable unicorn let her aura fade away as she harrumphed. "Manners, darling! Manners! Let them have their moment in peace! Goodness knows when any of us shall see our families again." Rarity tenderly nuzzled her little sister's head, enjoying the moment. She chose to ignore the simply horridly tacky burn-worthy sombrero her parents were busily placing upon her own coiffured mane at that moment.

"Ya sure Ah can't come with ya', Applejack?" Applebloom pleadingly whined as she sicced her sadest, pleading-est eyes upon her sister mercilessly.

Luna tapped Applebloom upon the head, stroking down to the filly's shoulder once she had her attention. "Nay, little one. Where we go, there is a good chance that we shall not return." Luna leaned over into the cool window wearily, continuing to stroke Applebloom's shoulder to calm them both. "Your sister will need you to be strong in her place while she is absent."

Applebloom tried to slyly nod to Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, who returned the gesture. "Well, if you sure say so..." She sighed, perhaps a tad more dramatically than she needed to.

Flash scooted over, trapping Applebloom between his side and Luna's cutie marks. "Say, did we ever find out how Zecora got out of the country so fast? One day she was there, the next: pift! It looked like her hut had been abandoned for months!" A stern cough made the pegasus flinch as he realized that one of his wild gestures had smacked Luna in the side.

"Nah, she's done that before. She's probably already back home through some kooky zebra ritual to kick flank and get everypony ready. Or is that everyzebra?" Dash waived her hoof dismissively over Sentry's worried before tapping at her chin as she pondered racial pronouns. Eh, screw it. Her forelegs snapped out and dragged Scootaloo back for the dreaded Rainbow Death Noogie.

"I believe that Rainbow Dash's conclusion is the correct one given the state of the shamaness's dreams the last that I walked amongst them." Luna bowed her head towards Dash. Her mouth twitched, dancing upwards in a smirk for a moment as her wing darted out and clipped Flash's ear lightly in retaliation for her earlier soaking.

"Oh, hay no!" Flash pushed Luna, trying to push the alicorn over to let Applebloom tickle her mercilessly, but the obstinate alicorn stood fast.

Cadance took a moment amidst the most ferocious battle of wills going on on the other side of the carriage to shake her head. Fascinating new bonds were popping up everywhere in her vision, much like the one within her that had made her smile cryptically more often than not lately. She whispered something into her husbands ear, her words turning him pinker than her coat as they sank in until he could no longer keep from blurting out in his surprise. "I'm going to be a WHAT!?"

Rolling her eyes, Cadance tapped him on his other shoulder, pointing him to the next bench over where Pinkie held a candleless sheet cake topped with frosting in their colors mixed and swirled around. Holding her hoof up with a flourish, Pinkie waved it over the surface like a magician revealing her trick, revealing the slogan iced onto the surface. "You're gonna be a daddy! Congrats!"

A few low whistles and a heavy set of applause rumbled through the carriage as Cadance cuffed him with a wing then nibbled his ear before twining her head to rest beneath his chin. She whispered once more, just loud enough for everypony to hear. "You had better come home, Shining Armor Sparkle. Twilight showed me the Gates of Tartarus. If you die, I will march into the afterlife, find you wherever you hide and drag you back out kicking and screaming by the ear."

Ulp. "Yes, ma'am."

Mustari bowed his head and whispered a blessing for the couple. "Fear not, angel of love. If Faust is with this expedition, then he of all of us is guaranteed to live. Though some may think so, I cannot see her being so cruel as to take a father from his child without seeing them at least once."

"Well, um... a toast for the happy parents, then!" Rarity rose up, tossing her mane a little as she drew attention to the pair.

"Here, here!"

A chorus of like-minded praise rose up in the train car as everyone joined Rarity in her toast, save for one forlorn sigh in the corner from Big Macintosh. Applejack slid up beside him, following his solemn gaze back towards Ponyville. On the horizon, the bulk of the main buildings of Sweet Apple Acres was slowly dipping under the horizon in the reddening skies of evening. "What's wrong, Big Mac?"

"Funny feeling. Like Ah'm never gonna see it again." Big Macintosh shuffled in his seat. His hoof absentmindedly patted his bag, and his old guard armor within it. He'd probably have to get it loosened. Darn apple pies were too delicious for their own good.

Everypony native to the town rushed over, crowding around the windows on that side of the train as the lonely wistful feeling passed over them as well. Their homes looked so little way over there in the dale Ponyville was built in. So fragile...

"Oooh, I hope my little friends will be alright without me. I can't even imagine what Angel Bunny is going through right now." Fluttershy shivered in thought as her timid mind came up with horrible scenario after horrible scenario in her mind.

Dash muttered under her breath, trying to avoid being heard by Fluttershy. "Probably hogging out on the town's food supply."

Thankfully, Fluttershy didn't hear as she snuggled into an offered wing. "Oh, we're going away! We're really going away! Oh, I'm so nervous that I might- squeak!"

Everypony save for Luna shied away from 'Shy, afraid to find out exactly what she meant. Luna rose up behind her, standing tall to look over the top of Fluttershy's head. "Knowing not where the journey leads, only that the way is just. Lost in our wanderings, but yet always found. Folly to try, moreso to not. Such is the way of all things in life, this more than others."

Luna finished reciting the bit of wisdom that her mother had once taught her, falling silent in the once more solemn atmosphere. Twitching still from the Crusaders still trying to get a reaction out of her. Alas, Celestia had performed far more savage attacks of tickling, and their efforts were in vain. Mostly. She at last sighed, and continued. "No matter what the outcome, we shall all meet again. Whether it be in this life or the next, though... I know not."

"Really?" 

"Aye, young Belle. And I suppose we shall all have a tale or two to tell."

Scootaloo looked hopeful and squished herself a little deeper between Dash's legs. "So everything is gonna be alright and I'll see Rainbow Dash again?"

"Tis only a temporary farewell, aye. Though we may meet on another shore, I intend to not be so easily taken as Trixie, and any who wish harm upon them must first best me."

The sun seemed to glow a little brighter for a moment as the last sight of Twilight's tree dipped below ths horizon. The group quieted as the last signs of Ponyville vanished behind the rolling hills. Home was behind them; the world lay ahead.

----------------------------------------

High above, on the highest peak of the tallest mountain in the Canterhorn range stood a white figure. With wings outspread to balance her upon the hoof-wide outcropping of rock precariously, she looked out upon her domain and despaired. She had brought this all down upon them through complacency and being so out of practice at doing anything other than paperwork that she was tripping over her own two forehooves. Did she deserve her post, her lofty crown and universal adoration?

Certainly not if she was tripping over her own bucking horseshoes!

Life continued below her, mostly unaware of the doom that was upon them all. She eyed the land with a practiced gaze, mentally mapping the places that Velvet would most likely wish to fortify in order to make their last stand. Surveying was probably the only thing she was good for.

A chance glimpse to one side brought the special train from Ponyville to her attention. It was so far away that it looked like a millipede crawling across the land down there. She wondered if Twilight could feel her gaze upon her back and look back up at her. Her tail flicked with agitation as she considered Twilight's probable reactions to her now. Disgust with her, maybe? Perhaps doubt and anger, or sadness. Could Twilight even stand to look at her for more than a few minutes?

Worse still was the opportunity she had cost Twilight. She had had the potential to become so much more, and- and it was unlikely that Starswirl's spell would work on dragons. Which meant that...

That one day, she'd loose wonderful, brilliant Twilight, and the world would be a darker place for it. It just wasn't possible for Twilight to loose more than a dozen tons of mass, somehow regenerate lost and scrambled life code, and survive her hideously painful transformation again. She was going to loose one of the few friends she had left in the world, and it was all her fault. She could have saved her!

She could have saved her. Saved her from mortality. She could have saved Twilight if she hadn't been so damned slow.

A crown, heavy with gold and jewels found itself flung from that peak with all the force an alicorn could muster. It disappeared into the deepening dusk as Celestia wept. A lousy, and unworthy princess.