> Friends to Journey's End > by tassadarth > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > A New Journey > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 1 A New Journey "Wake up Twilight, you've received a letter from the Princess" Spike said Twilight slowly rose from her bed as she asked "Why would she send such a letter at this time of the night?" Spike handed the letter to Twilight My Dearest Twilight you must leave Ponyville at once, there is a danger growing from the farthest lands. Please follow the instructions I send you during your journey. First, Gather up some food, and some camping materials, once your done I will know. Please, go do so now. Twilight started to gather supplies when a thought popped into her head ‘How will she know when I’m done?’ just then Spike came downstairs “we've received another letter from Celestia” he said. I have magic that nopony would imagine existed, just continue on with what I asked, I will be seeing you soon. Twilight finished gathering supplies for what she would think she would need for such a journey. As soon when she packed up the last item Spike had received one more letter. Go and gather up your friends, you will need them for where you all are going to go. First Twilight went straight to the house of Fluttershy she knew at least she wouldn’t be angry with being woken up this late at night.Twilight knocked on the door and told Fluttershy that Princess Celestia wanted each and everyone of their friends packed up and ready to leave for a big Journey. Fluttershy hesitated, backed into her cabin and closed the door. Twilight left the cottage assuming Fluttershy was packing her belongings for the trip. Next Twilight went on to Rainbow Dash’s house to inform her of their new journey. Rainbow Dash was ecstatic, she packed two saddle bags and followed Twilight to Sweet Apple Acres. Granny Smith complained it was too early to have visitors, that is until Applejack came stumbling down the stairs. Twilight explained the situation, and Applejack made no complaints, went back inside to gather not only her belongings, but plenty of food. Twilight could always count on Applejack. The moon was just about to lower beyond the horizon to put to sleep other parts of Equestria when they reached town. They all approached Rarity’s house/shop, knocked on the door and waited for several minutes before Rainbow Dash flew up to the windows of the second floor to knock on then to inform Rarity her presence was requested of her. She came down stair to ask why her sleep was interrupted, Twilight explained the whole situation, and she must pack all she can, but pack light. Rarity suggested that they go and retrieve Pinkie Pie, so she could finish packing while not in so much of a rush. Twilight was curious of why they hadn’t seen Fluttershy yet, she assumed that she was just fixing things up before she left, maybe allowing the animals to roam free of her house just to get help from other ponies. That thought would have to rest, they reached Sugar Cube Corner and Pinkie was wide awake with all of her belongings packed. Funny how Pinkie somehow know everything about everypony, even if the thing she knew was something that hadn’t left the four that knew. After rejecting Rarity’s packing decisions a few times they all left for Fluttershy’s cottage again just to gather her up for the Journey. Upon reaching the door they all knocked, and Fluttershy answered. She seemed to acting sick and wanted to stay out of this “journey” they were being requested to start. Twilight pleaded that they all would need her eventually during the journey, and that they were all friends and they needed each other. Fluttershy finally stopped resisting, and complied. Finally all of them were packed and ready to go. > A Long Way From Home > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 2 A Long Way From Home Spike burst through the door in fear of what he had just received. he spoke in a shaky voice as he said, “You are to travel beyond the Everfree Forest to find Safety, be sure to be quick and quiet, ration your food as you will need it in the future.” “WHAT WHY WOULD SHE SEND US INTO THE EVERFREE FOREST?!” said the six of them in unison. Spike ever so slowly handed Twilight the letter from Princess Celestia. She looked down at the letter, and nodded. She knew the way only just to Zecora’s shack in the Everfree Forest. “Lets get a move on... If the danger is spreading throughout the land we must find some sort of power, or item beyond the Everfree Forest, soon before Ponyville is attacked, lets go girls!” “New letter from Celestia, it says we mustn’t go past Zecora’s shack for she will ask too many questions for such little time that you all are needed in.” The group took a sharp left and continued their way through the Everfree Forest. The days had grown longer, the times of their friendship cheering them through the Forest would continue to run out of supply until a hopeful event would happen. They eventually came upon a great river made of a sort of purple goop that led them straight into a cave of wonders. “There must be some sort of joy we can have with each other in the cave, I mean it has purple goop leading into it seem like fun.” As they entered the dark cave they heard snaps and saw great flames shoot up from the far distance of the other side of the cave. All of them were finally inside the cave as the cave entrance collapsed behind them. “Oh no! how will we get out? Rainbow Dash try pushing that rock out of the entrance or we will have no hope of returning to Celestia with anything to stop the danger.” “Their adventure has only begun Luna, for this is one of the things they must discover before they can save us from this growing darkness.” The castle held itself strong with a shield conjured by the only one in the fortress to hold it, Shining Armour. “We must send word to the ponies of Ponyville that they must evacuate from that area, for the kingdom of Canterlot is under assault.” Said the Hooded figure as it vanished into thin air leaving all but only one little whisper saying “We will be in touch soon” as if it was a dark creature and powerful creature leaving. The group of ponies were in trouble, the cave door would not collapse under the pressure of Rainbow Dash’s Strength. She had to stop the madness of trying to get out that way. “Come on girls, let’s continue through this cave, maybe we will be able to find a new way out” said Twilight. They must continue through the caves to find the first object, for their journey is not nearly over. > A New Adventure > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 3 A New Adventure As they went further through the fires of the cave, random objects started to orbit on one axis around nearly hitting everypony as they slowly continued to try and find a way out. A Hooded Figure continued to appear and disappear in the shadows for it was watching the group of friends move along. They had finally entered a wide open room full of objects of unknown origin, there was a center piece in which everything in the cave system had seemed to been orbiting. It was a strange shaped object small enough and well placed enough for anypony to recognize it to be a magical and powerful object. As they approached the object, the Hooded Figure appeared straight in front of them and said “This is the orb of transportation, for it will teleport you to any location, but it can only be used in specific location in certain times of the night. It will be specified on the orb itself, we will meet again soon.” The Hooded figure quickly disappear for this time it had spiked the moral of the group. They had approached the only spot in the room that had appeared to be a sundial, but for the moon They looked up into the only spot of the ceiling that had been opened enough for the sun to shine in. For this room was a great room to rest in, and the Orb had happen to reveal that the time of night they would need to use it at would be late at night. “I guess today we will be sleeping until we can use this device to teleport to wherever this might take us, we will rest until all strength is restored and all of us are fed.” The ponies after the rest and food sung songs told stories and even read some books Twilight had brought along about roadside foods and such. Finally the crescent moon had risen to the point where the small blue dot had shown almost into place of the middle of the moondial. A few minutes had past until the point in which a big burst of what seemed to be magic flew around the dial itself as the orb flew out of Twilight’s hooves and straight to the center of the portal, and rose above it. This was now revealing a road an unfamiliar road that had seemed to be abandoned. The six of them entered the portal one by one of course Rarity offered first for she was the most generous of them all and in they all went. “Princess Celestia... The Hooded Figure awaits you on top of the highest tower for you.” Celestia continued to walk, thinking about what news would be coming from this unknown pony who had powers unimaginable. She now must face her fear of a power greater than her own... She decide to hear the news of what the six had encountered. “You see, if you can install one of these into your kingdom you will be able to help the six. You love the most at any event that they aren’t able to travel and help them with any questions they may have.” It disappeared along with the same message that had always come back along with it’s disappearance. “Luna I hope they’re all actually alright, I may try this ‘teleportation Sundial’ for myself, maybe its far too dangerous for my own little sister to use. I will be back a soon as I can.” > Completely Unexpected > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 4 Completely Unexpected The six had finally got to see the night sky again for they were finally out of the Everfree Forest. This road they had been teleported to seemed like it led somewhere, but it was very long it stretched on for miles and miles they didn’t know which way to go. The Hooded Figure appeared again to congratulate them for their success in using the orb, and wishing them luck for the quests that lie ahead. As always once the Hooded Figure was done there were no questions only a small burst of black dust, and the whisper which grew darker every time they heard it. “The six are on the path leading them straight into our kingdom my king, what sort of welcome shall we give them” said The Hooded Figure. A strange but familiar face arose from its hooves as it said “A painful welcome for i am the one who was destroyed by their treachery.” King Sombra rose from his black crystal throne which he crafted himself, “call for the wall to be fortified for i don’t want any kind of magic to be used in my kingdom.” “Lets take a vote, what direction should we go left or right” said Twilight. Applejack and Rainbow Dash voted left then Pinkie Pie and Rarity Voted right. The only one left to vote was Fluttershy for she did not want to vote for she thought her friendship would be torn apart between the five of them. Arguments grew from whispers from each group of two until ponies started shouting at each other as if it all mattered. They all stopped for it was day and a big flash of light appeared with a voice so distorted that it was hard to know who it was talking “You must go to the right for you will find somewhere to rest and maybe some company to.” The ponies continued on with their journey arguing down the road saying “see we were right always stick with your right.” “Well the left isn’t all that bad anyways how were we supposed to know what was off to the right when we didn’t even know what was off to the left.” They finally came to a spot which appeared to be a campsite that hadn’t been used for years there was no company for them here. They thought it was weird that they were traveling during the night and sleeping during the day. Midday a flash of light had woken everypony from their sleep as they grouped to talk ask did anyone know what it was. No one knew for it was a mystery to all except for one for this was only a light she had seen on her first day with her five new friends. A friendly pony had approached. “We should probably eat everypony we have a long road ahead of us.” More and more light started to shine through the forest in which they came from for it was Princess Celestia she had been the company they would receive. Nopony had noticed her until she spoke everypony were too focused on eating for this was one meal where no pony would be talking. “Why should a meal between six best friends go on so quietly?” All six stood up quickly all looking very surprised for the Princess stood before them. Twilight had explained what the Journey had done to all of them then asked what she was doing here before she disappeared in a burst of yellow dust with the whisper of “I just came to....” > A Rolling Darkness > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 5 A Rolling Darkness “Well that was a weird encounter with the princess, how is everypony feeling about our past problems” said Twilight. Applejack nodded and smiled for she was happy and ready to move on. Rainbow Dash flew up into the dark night sky doing many flips and tricks then said “when do we start” said Applejack. Fluttershy was of course ready, and Rarity simply smiled. Pinkie Pie jumped and jumped for she “really really really really” wanted to go. They continued on until they came up to a strange materialized pole with a rectangle posted on top. It read “Interstate 5” for more description of the surroundings there was a long road with two yellow lines going down the middle of the road itself. Tree lining the road as far as you can see and the fog was dense could barely see 15 feet in front of you, but the moon still illuminating the night sky as a hope for the six. As they continued a feeling of loneliness took over for all six had nothing much to talk about. They had almost no privacy, and no directions of where they were going besides the road itself. A pair of two yellow eyes had approached at a high speed. The girls took cover inside the forest next to the road as a weird creature going at amazing speeds zoomed past them. “It looked as if it had a pony inside, did any you get a good look at what was inside” said Applejack. Sadly enough none of them knew, so their journey continued the sun was rising. More of those horrific creatures passed by, they were in different shapes, sizes, and even colors. They had built camp for it was time to sleep and eat. The sun had rose from the far hills of where they knew was Ponyville. “I barely got to speak to any of them i will try to return there, and have enough time to explain things to Twilight. She doesn’t know what lies ahead.” Princess Celestia stared down at the sundial that had been install into her main court. In a quick flash the Princess disappeared with the small cloud of yellow dust following with the last words she had said. Light rose from over the trees brighter than any normal morning. “Girls i have reason to believe that the Princess is nearby” said Twilight. No one had listen for everypony was too tired from the time they had spent walking there on their own. “I Carry grave new no questions for this news will shock you" said Princess Celestia. > An Unexpected Presence > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 6 An Unexpected Presence “King Sombra rules over these lands be careful Twilight i don’t know what he will do for you six are the ones causing his destruction.” Celestia turned and walked away looked over to the hills she knew was where Canterlot was. “Next i will send Princess Luna during the night to protect you from what evil lies in this place.” She disappeared into thin air leaving the whisper “Good luck my little ponies.” “My king the ponies don’t seem to be giving up even after we had tried to scare them away. The cars aren’t working what shall we do?” Said the Hooded Figure they glanced down and saw one simple object smiled and nodded. “hey guys i think i see something in the sky i’m going to go check it out” Rainbow Dash shot up into the sky and came back down with a small cylinder with the same material that one pole had on it. On the side of this cylinder it read danger don’t pull pin unless meant to. Step 1 pull pin, Step 2 throw tear gas canister, Step 3 wait. Effects causes targets to be disabled temporarily. “Rainbow Dash where did you get this?” said Twilight. Rainbow Dash pointed her hoove straight in the air and said “there were two other pegasi up there one with this canister and another with some weird mask.” They approached a shack “maybe if we spend a whole day here resting we can start up in the actual morning.” said Twilight. Rarity approached the shack, and knocked on the door that had enclosed it. There was no answer so they barged in. It was empty they set down their equipment and went to sleep. They all woke up to some sort of smoke screen it was burning their eyes they all left the shack immediately. They all looked in fear as one of their packs cried and moved around. Twilight slowly opened the bag then laughed, and cried of joy while the other five looked at her wondering what it was. Spike walked out of the bag and all piled on him for a hug. “Spike what are you doing here i thought you were staying with the Princess?” said Twilight. “I don’t know i was sleeping and somehow when i woke up i was inside of this bag.” said Spike. “How did the tear gas canister open?” said Rainbow Dash. All of them looked at spike as he chuckled a little and then said “i didn’t know what it was, it was in Pinkie’s bag and i thought it was some sort of party thing so what more of a surprise than to use that for me to show myself.” They all smiled and hugged him tightly for he was very welcome. > The Next Morning > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 7 The Next Morning They had taken the whole night just to listen to what spike was saying for he was a Canterlot this whole time. “Well Shining Armor and Princess Cadence were recalled to Canterlot to help defend for you can see the darkness rising over the lands of Ponyville.” said Spike. All of them were shocked for they thought that this “danger” of some kind would be spreading slower. “Well Spike at least you’re out of there it’s great having our favorite dragon around for some more company” Twilight smiled as she said. They came across what seemed to be a dead end, rocks were covering the road. Trees growing through cracks in the road ahead, so they all decided they would have to cut through another forest to get to where ever this “safety” was. “King Sombra they’ve reached the forest at the edge of our borders we must put up defenses.” said King Sombra’s Guard. “We shouldn’t be in fear of such a little threat for there are only six of them and nearly thousands of us.” said King Sombra. “But they have the elements of harmony we should be in fear of that sort of power.” said The Hooded Figure. “No one said anything about the Elements of Harmony put up defenses at once those artifacts are too powerful even with the technology they don’t know of.” said King Sombra. The Hooded Figure disappeared with the whisper “i’ll see you soon” for King Sombra didn’t know who it was. “Assemble a meeting for all that is evil must know of where these pitiful ponies are.” said King Sombra. Three guards left the castle at once to gather what other evil waits for the orders from the leader of their order. “We must find shelter, there is a rain cloud up ahead and we don’t want to be stuck in any sort of a storm.” said Twilight. Rainbow Dash flew straight into the sky, and destroyed the cloud then came back down. “Why would you say such a Twilight i don’t see a cloud in the sky.” Rainbow Dash said with a smile. It was midday when they came across this enormous valley with plenty of spots to rest. “Girls i think we found our site to rest.”said Fluttershy. They all started running into the valley with smiles of joy on their faces for they had finally found a place that would be peaceful. They all passed through a magical field, and just from that their spirits were ruined for the valley had disappeared. > The Face of Evil > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 8 The Face of Evil They all moved through what seemed to be the opposite of what they all saw at the crystal empire that Cadence conjured. It was beautiful from the outside and horrifying from the inside. This was King Sombra’s working for there were plenty of black crystals that you could see. “Well i don’t think we’ll sleep well tonight knowing what we’re in now.” said Applejack. “Remember all you have to do is just laugh and it will all go away, don’t you remember when we all just became friends?” said Pinkie Pie. “I will surprise them for i have surprised you with my own identity. I know my way through King Sombra’s walls for he thinks i’m an ally to him.” The Hooded Figure disappeared leaving the whisper “keep my husband safe.” Princess Celestia looked over to Luna, and said “well at least we know who she is now, but how did she gain such powers.” Luna looked back over toward Celestia, and said “i don’t care where she got it at least she is able to keep them safe.” Twilight sat down during the middle of the day just to say “do you think we will see Ponyville ever again, i mean its been weeks since i’ve been in my own bed or even seen derpy pass by with my mail. where is the Princess i would have thought some news would have come by now. i mean it doesn’t seem all that hard we need some cheer or something new to talk about.” In an instant the Hooded Figure appeared, and said “you will receive new company, and some great new cheers for i am.” “Sir they have entered our walls what shall we do?” the guard said to King Sombra. “Let them come for i will be ready for any sort of magic they hold.” said King Sombra. In the same instance a letter dropped from the sky with the stamp of Canterlot. King Sombra opened the letter for it was from their enemy. “It reads that we shall fail no matter what sort of defense we put up we will just fail.” said King Sombra with a smile. “Our walls will never fail my king!” said a nearby guard. King Sombra smiled at the pride his own men had for his empire all in all being the king of this empire was much more of a deal than it was for him to rule the crystal empire, but he gained pleasure from what he did all day and night. > The Hooded Figure > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 9 The Hooded Figure She removed her cloak and hood quickly for she wanted them to know her as a great friend. “I am Princess Cadence, i have watched over the six of you, and i’ve taken a seat during some of King Sombra’s important meetings. Their ready for you, but i won’t let any foolish pony hurt my little sister. I know his secrets he has assembled some sort of order to help and destroy you.” said Princess Cadence she smiled and walked away. “I’m sorry though for now i must return to Canterlot for the Princess may have too many questions at the moment.” said Cadence. Then she disappeared into the air with the whisper “good luck.” They all continued until a strange formation of the crystals perfect for a little campsite. They all stopped there to eat and then sleep. They all just wanted to see Cadence again because she was the biggest amount of hope that they’ve seen for a while. King Sombra sat upon his throne pondering of what sort of strategy he should use to either take the Elements of Harmony or turn them against each other. “Gather up some changelings we are going to ruin us a friendship!” said King Sombra. Princess Cadence looked up and said “ it will be done.” “Hurry my little ponies for i don’t have much time to speak.” Princess Cadence said while waking them all up from sleeping. “King Sombra is going to try to tear you six apart by using changelings. He really doesn’t like you guys i don’t really understand for i am the one who in the end had taken him down. Well anyways he told me to pick some out for him to rip you six apart, but i’m not going to let that happen. Oh and i almost forgot this will help you enter his castle.” She handed them a map and some random crystal. This crystal was blue one side was flat the other side was very convex for it looked like it was yanked out of a mountain itself. The map read: Shoot all your happiness from your horn into the key for it will show the only way in. Good Luck “Well girls looks like we’ve found something new that might be very helpful. This doesn’t even say where it leads to.” said Twilight. “Maybe it leads into any door we want because it looks magical and feels magical why don’t we give it a try? huh huh!” Screamed Pinkie Pie. “Not now Pinkie we’ve still got to rest up, and get back on the road maybe when we get stuck.” said Applejack. > The Key > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 10 The Key The next morning they all woke up ate some breakfast, and got back on the road. They followed along a black crystal cliffside these part never really received sunlight. “Jeez this place could really use some sunlight, Rainbow Dash you mind clearing some of those clouds up there? Your cutie mark basically says you should.” said Applejack. Rainbow Dash shot up into the sky trying to clear up any clouds she could, but the clouds would only reveal one spot. Rainbow Dash ended up chasing one cloud around in a circle with it changed the sun’s shine from the sky. Pinkie pie shouted “DISCO PARTY!!” she quickly pulled out a dj station out of nowhere, and started to play music. “Pinkie where did you get that i said to pack lightly!” said Twilight. Pinkie Pie shut off the music put away the DJ station which just disappeared. “I’m Pinkie Pie i can do what i want, and get what i want here want some cake?” said Pinkie as she pulled a cake from behind her back. Everyone stopped even Rainbow Dash from above, and enjoyed Pinkie’s little snack. “We must hit them at night for that is the only time they won’t expect us!” said King Sombra. King Sombra pointed at three of his men, and said “you three must go and meet them in the crystal valley at once for these six must not be able to use what power i’ve been hearing of. These Elements of Harmony, i don’t know what kind of horrible power these things hold. We must take them from those hopeless ponies!” The three left as soon as possible. “Hey look there's a cave we can stay in there for the night.” said Fluttershy. All of them entered the cave put down their equipment, and went to sleep. The three guards came upon the cave in which the three were sleeping. They slowly crept in, and got prepared to bind they hooves and cap their horns. They were following their specific orders from King Sombra. strapping their wings down. Quickly Rainbow Dash got up swept the guards off their feet and went to help her friends. The three guards got back on to their feet, and continued to assault the six. Twilight picked up the key, and shouted “If we are going to spend the rest of our lives under King Sombra’s service as slave then we might as well know what this thing does!” She grabbed the key out of her bag, and thought of the first day she met her friends then shot that straight into the key. It dropped out of her hands, and on to the floor. It shined bright throughout the cave, and the moment the light of it’s brilliance was out the three guards shook their heads as if they were getting rid of some sort of headache. They all began to speak one said “where am i?” the other said “what is going on?”, and the last said “where is my family?” Twilight smiled, and knew exactly what she was up against. “You three were cursed by the Queen of the changelings her power has taken over your minds. I’m glad to have gotten you out of that.” Twilight said as she smiled. Twilight as she had activated the key thought this and only this “this is in the shape of a horn it must hold some sort of magic, lets see what it can do.” > King Sombra > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 11 King Sombra The three guards all left the six ponies alone for they were released from a curse they could not escape. It was morning when they finally found themselves awake again for the changelings that Princess Cadence spoke of had arrived. Luckily they were ready for them three changelings approached. The first one stopped, and started to look like it was tugging on his head. Off came the head when a familiar face popped up along with the other two. “I hope they’re alright i mean there are changelings after them.” said Princess Celestia. “They will be fine Celestia, after all i am the one who picked them out.” Princess Cadence said as she smiled. Princess Luna looked up at Cadence with a face not filled with joy, but with anger “what is that supposed to mean? Our six are out there with some changelings that you picked, are you on our enemy’s side?” said Luna. “No no no Luna i sent some of their friends to comfort them, so i disguised them as the changelings to make it through King Sombra’s inspection. He sent them on their way this morning.” Cadence said as she smiled even greater. “What news do we have of those changelings?” said King Sombra. One of King Sombra’s guards stepped up, and said “those three weren’t changelings it turns out that they were more joyful ponies there to comfort their friends.” King Sombra slammed his hoof on the side of his throne, and screamed “BRING ME THESE PONIES FOR I WANT THEIR POWER!!!” The First changeling was Derpy, the next was Raindrops, and the third was Shining Armor. “I’m sorry for all of us can’t stay long, but we are here to help. After we’re gone we must return to Canterlot’s defenses me being gone is not all the best thing for them.” Shining Armor said as he gave Twilight a hug. All 10 of them continued along the cliffside to this indention in the cliff. It seemed to be a door with a key, Twilight thought of that one thought and shot it straight into The Key. The magic shot from The Key pushing a ghosted version of the key straight into the keyhole. “Welcome to King Sombra’s castle be careful.” Princess Cadence appeared then disappear in the doorway that was now open. They all entered the black crystal mountain. “King Sombra sure has a big castle.” Fluttershy said in a shaky voice. King Sombra appeared in front of them, and said “You six i’ve been looking for. Give me your Elements of Harmony, and your lives will be spared.” All of a sudden the walls fell, they were surrounded by guards. Of course they all gave up their elements at the command of Twilight. “Now what are we supposed to do now Twilight you told us to give up are Elements of Harmony?” said Applejack. “I have a plan, a plan i know will work. For it worked the first time the Elements were out of our reach.” Twilight moved forward toward King Sombra, and smiled while saying. “Do you simply think you can take the Elements of Harmony out of our hooves, I don’t think so. You see the Element we hold is stored in our very souls, not in these pieces of jewelry.” All of the Elements disappeared, and reappeared on the six of their necks. Twilight smirked and said “For our friendship is MAGIC!!!” > All Just A Shade > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 12 All Just a Shade A Rainbow beam shot from the six straight into The Key. It lit up, and seemed to destroy King Sombra, he was gone forever leaving behind a small shard of his horn. Everypony around them instantly were released from the curse of the changelings. All of the guards dropped their weapons, and left. Twilight picked up King Sombra’s horn shard, and said “I don’t think this is all that we are going to deal with.” Rarity turned to the other four in their group, and said “we’re all going to miss you while you’re back at Canterlot. When are you leaving us?” Shining Armor turned around while saying one thing they all didn’t want to hear “well considering we have been here for a day, we have to leave tonight.” They all grouped up to build camp when Derpy yelled “OHHHH I forgot, here you go guys a letter from Celestia.” Derpy handed them all a letter each while smiling. Shining Armor gave Twilight a hug before leaving for everyone hugged even Raindrops and Derpy. “Well that was completely unexpected I’m sorry Celestia your six have been caught by King Sombra.” Cadence said while crying obsessively. Princess Celestia collapsed for she had known that when those six would nearly fail that the whole kingdom of Equestria would fall under darkness. She started to sob herself for she had lost her best student, and her friends. In a flash of a second Shining Armor and the other two appeared through the sundial that was installed in the throne room of Princess Celestia. He walked over to his wife Princess Cadence lifted her head up from the puddle she created, and said “why so sad? Have our defenses fallen? More importantly have our enemies attacked?” Princess Cadence looked up at Shining Armor who couldn’t look better, and asked “why aren’t you sad didn’t Twilight get captured by King Sombra in his ambush?” Shining Armor smiled while shaking his head side to side then said “their friendship wouldn’t let them go down without a fight King Sombra was destroyed by the power of the Elements of Harmony.” Cadence looked up at Shining Armor while saying “He is still alive how is this possible? Are they all ok?” Shining Armor gave a quick nod, and then Cadence gave him a hug as fast as she could for she just heard the best news out of all night. Derpy took care of the new mail she needed to give to Princess Celestia from all of the six letting her know that they were ok. Shining Armor went back to his work of keeping Canterlot safe by casting his defensive spell all around. He finally asked something that he thought would be impossible, but he asked anyways “hey Derpy you mind flying over to see our friends again to give them this letter it’s very important.” Derpy agreed, and started flying toward the last known location of her friends. > A New Time > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 13 A New Time Twilight approached the fallen shard of King Sombra’s horn, and picked it up. Once she picked it up its colors changed to a rainbow horn. King Sombra’s horn happened to be not his own. He had lost his during the fight for the crystal empire this was some sort of weird new magic. “Well i guess this is what he expected to harvest the Elements of Harmony with. It doesn’t seem to be any sort of normal magic, Rarity come feel the power radiating from this object.” Rarity shook her head, and said “I don’t know what this ‘thing’ is so I’m not going near it, and i can feel it from here.” Spike walked up to the horn, and picked it up. “I don’t see what you guys are talking about, i mean this looks delicious.” Spike said as he licked his lips. Twilight used her magic to pull the horn out of Spike’s hands, and put it in her bag. Pinkie looked at Twilight, and said “Let’s PARTEH!!!” Twilight looked back, and shook her head with a smile, then said “sorry Pinkie we can’t we still have a long ways to go.” Applejack and Rarity looked at each other then to Twilight then Rarity said “and where is this we are going?” Twilight paced back and forth thinking of an answer, but she couldn’t think of anything so she said “I don’t know but if Princess Celestia sent us out here to do something don’t you think she would come to us when we were finished?” They all agreed that it was important to move on to find new things. “When do you think this ‘message’ of your’s is going to be there?” said Princess Celestia. Shining Armor took a look around the room then nodded yes for he knew that his message was already on its way to them. “I don’t really know, but i have someone on their way now.” said Shining Armor. Derpy was flying across the skies when she took a quick rest upon a mountain. She turned around to find she was being followed. Derpy quickly dove straight into her follower for a hug. Raindrops got up from the hug/tackle. “You know i wouldn’t let my best friend go alone.” Raindrops said as she smiled, and hugged Derpy tightly. “Spike could you stop staring at the shard it’s not like you to become obsessive about only one object.” Twilight said as she put King Sombra’s horn into her bag again. Spike looked up at her while saying “I just find it to be very interesting, it seems to have some sort of powerful aura that reaches into my soul. It feels like it’s calling to me, can i see it again?” Twilight shook her head with a smile then walked off. Spike frowned looked at the ground then continued walking. Pinkie came up alongside of him, and then said “why so sad Spike, are you ok. Does our favorite dragon need a emerald cupcake?” Pinkie Pie quickly grabbed an emerald cupcake out of nowhere then handed it to Spike. He slowly grabbed it from Pinkie then said “Thank you Pinkie where did you get this from?” Pinkie looked at him in a strange face then said “I’m Pinkie don’t you know i can do what i want when i can.” > A New Arrival > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 14 A New Arrival “Hey Raindrops do you see them?” Derpy said while looking back at Raindrops. She looked around then said “no i don’t see them maybe they continued on, i mean doesn’t that make sense?” said Raindrops. Derpy made a quick dive downward as if she saw something. Raindrops followed her, they finally came to a slow stop on top of a hill. Raindrops quickly said “Why are we stopping? And why here?” Derpy looked at the ground picked up a muffin, then offered it to Raindrops. “Here we need to eat its been hours.” Derpy said handing Raindrops a muffin. After they ate they both took off to find Twilight to give her the message from her brother. “What in tar-nation is that?” Applejack said while pointing in the sky. “It’s simply a cloud Applejack i don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rainbow Dash said while relaxing on a small cloud. Quickly out of nowhere something knocked out Twilight from the sky. When she woke up she was surrounded by her friends still wonders what had dropped it. Twilight looked at the ground, and noticed a muffin with a letter wrapped around it. Twilight smiled then said “Derpy is up there Rainbow Dash can you go, and get them to explain this.” she pointed at the muffin. Rainbow Dash bolted into the sky, and quickly came down with two other figures. It was Raindrops, and Derpy. “What are you guys doing here aren’t you two supposed to be helping with the castle guard in Canterlot.” Applejack said. Derpy simply just stared at all of them with a big smile on her face then said “Open your letter i don’t even know what it says.” Twilight grabbed the letter then started reading she quickly stopped, and started to freak out. Once Twilight calmed down she turned to her friends then said “King Sombra is still alive all we destroyed was all just a shade.” They all gasped in horror of what they had just heard. Twilight then turned around for she carried even worse news. “Not only are we dealing with King Sombra, but also the Queen of the Changelings.” They all turned to her from where they were looking before, and said “WHAT!!” “It seems to be that they received your letter, Twilight is freaking out along with the rest i don’t know what else to say.” Cadence said. Shining Armor turned to his wife then said “Well they needed to know i don’t care if they are freaking out now, if they had found out later when meeting him again would you imagine how bad that would be for them?” Cadence nodded in agreement “Go tell Princess Celestia of this news at once i need to fortify the defenses I’m expecting an attack soon, considering they just lost a great artifact.” said Shining Armor. “Well with this kind of news Pinkie i don’t think we can have any kind of party until we fully defeat our enemies.” said Applejack. Twilight walked up to Applejack to whisper in her ear “don’t ruin her hopes of that party we still want all of us to have our hopes.” Applejack nodded to what she had just heard then said “We can still have that party for our success of destroy their ability of using this great artifact of theirs.” > The Great Journey > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 15 The Great Journey It was a warm winter morning in the kingdom of King Sombra. The nine of them continued to walk on for this was just the beginning of their “Great Journey”, Derpy and Raindrops spent most of their time behind the group having fun with each other. “Hey you guys can come up here if you want, we haven’t really talked all that much since we’ve been together this whole time.” Rarity said with a smile. Derpy and Raindrops moved up towards the group, and Derpy said “sorry we have been talking about how Canterlot is doing I don’t want to be worrying you guys.” Twilight smiled then looked at Derpy with that smile while saying “what is there to worry about I’m pretty sure my brother has the defense held up just fine.” Derpy looked at the ground while stopping, they all stopped with her. “Your brother has been having trouble with his spell especially having to worry about you six coming back.” Derpy said with a frown on her face. Twilight looked at her in sadness with tears in her eyes just with the thought of her brother failing Canterlot was something she couldn’t hold back from sobbing for the rest of the day for. Applejack saw the tears forming in Twilight’s eyes, she quickly gathered up every pony for a group hug for Twilight really needed it. “Princess Celestia the horn has changed back to its original state, what do you think this means. Have they failed us?” Shining Armor said with his magic slowly fading. Celestia looked Shining Armor straight in the eye without any hesitation she said “Of course they haven’t failed us, I don’t expect them to fail either now go rest for you really need it.” Shining Armor went in for some sleep, but all he could think of was that horn changing back into the dark magic it was originally. “I couldn’t help but notice you’re having trouble sleeping, what is on your mind Shining?” Cadence moved into the room like a shadow cast upon a wall. She went over the Shining before he could answer their eyes locked, and they kissed Shining Armor forgot all about the horn for he was in wonderland with his wife. After that night he found himself very refreshed, and happy he knew his sister was fine, and she would be for a long time. “We should make camp here for tonight i think Twilight needs some time to think.” Applejack said with a frown on her face, she knew it was hard for Twilight knowing her brother was really worried about her. Just before going to sleep they all rushed in to comfort Twilight she really needed the company of her five best friends, and even the other two she barely knew them, but Derpy had been her favorite mail service ever. Derpy rushed over to Twilight held out both of her hooves with a muffin in between them. “Do you want a muffin?” Derpy said while gesturing the muffin toward Twilight. She accepted it, and then went to sleep. The horn had changed again this time it was between the dark, and the light it was the perfect balance, it was the world itself. Everypony woke up the next morning to find the horn floating in the middle of the camp, it looked as if something weird was going to happen. > The Portal > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 16 The Portal They all woke up from their sleep to see the Moon-transport orb hovering over the fire. “What do you suppose this means?” Applejack said with a worried face. Twilight turned to her group of eight then said “I don’t know what this is, but it seems like a good idea to go through. I mean last time we used this it put us in a good position, what is on the other side that is what I’m wondering.” Twilight entered the portal without any questions. Rainbow Dash, Derpy, Spike, Raindrops, and Applejack followed. After those had entered the portal closed. Fluttershy started to freak out, Pinkie Pie tried to calm her down. This was not possible because their group was now separated Fluttershy couldn’t handle this kind of pressure to assign a new leader, or even to leave her friends. Rarity was still in shock from what had just happened, but Pinkie seemed to be fine. She wasn’t fine at all though in her head she was thinking “I must help my friends”, but she was really astonished by what just happened. None of these ponies were fine at all for they just saw their friends disappear through a portal that just closed on them. Twilight looked behind herself as the portal closed she collapsed in the shock that not all of them made it. Applejack continued on past Twilight, and didn’t look behind in fact she was in so much shock she was unaware of how her emotions were shooting off at that point in time. Rainbow Dash shot up into the sky to see if she could go, and find her other friends. Derpy and Raindrops followed Rainbow Dash, and helped her to a stop to say “We will go and find your friends, and reunite them with you guys take a break you all look very shocked. Go tell Twilight what we are doing, and you guys can’t change our minds.” Shining Armor woke up from a nightmare he quickly got into his armor, and went for a stroll around the patrols. He had noticed that he was shaking the whole time. “I need to recall this dream, and get help I can’t go around like this forever.” Shining Armor said to himself with a frown. A shadow cast upon many wall was following him, but he didn’t notice for he was still recalling from his memory of the dream what had happened. Shining Armor stopped to turn around, but he caught himself for he saw Cadence standing in front of him before he could decide to turn away. “What frightens you? I don’t want you to be in such conditions while we are on the edge of war. We need you to defend Canterlot, do it for the Princess. Do it for your sister, but most of all do it for me.” Cadence said with pride. Shining Armor Collapsed where he stood he looked up at his beautiful wife from which he said “I love you, if you weren’t here Canterlot would have already fallen. The Crystal Empire shattered, and my life ruined. Thank you.” Shining Armor picked himself up from the ground, and started to stumble back to his sleeping quarters. “Celestia they got separated what should we do about this. We don’t want them in this state they are under enough pressure as it is, but loosing their friends will make it much worse.” Luna said to her sister. > A Change > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 17 A Change “This simply can not go unnoticed Celestia we must find a way to get them back together.” Luna said with command in her voice. “We must let them learn from this experience Luna, we must not intervene. They will learn more and more about their friendship if we do less.” Princess Celestia said as she walked slowly past her sister. Luna looked at her sister in shock for she didn’t know how to respond to that kind of intelligence. “I think we should move on. We can probably find them later. Where is Rainbow Dash i thought she came through with us?” Twilight said while taking a look around herself. Rainbow dash dove from the sky down to her friends. “Derpy, and Raindrops are going on their own to find the others.” Rainbow Dash said to Twilight. She dropped down for she didn’t know how many friends she could bare not to have by her side. Applejack lifted Twilight from the ground, and said “Let’s go find our friends I’m sure they’re looking for us to.” There was a sudden shake in the ground when they all noticed the ground was reforming itself. Twilight went ahead to say “Sorry for the rumble if they’re behind us we will leave marks like this to tell them which direction we are going.” The ground formed an arrow pointing north. “I think we need to rethink our current situation right now this seems to be a little hectic right now.” Rarity said with tears in her eyes. Pinkie Pie dropped to the ground then said “I can’t take this much longer i’ve already had to say goodbye to my home, but now my friends. Why would anypony do this sort of thing? I miss them already why can’t they come back?” Pinkie was already laying on the ground with a sea of tears all around her. Fluttershy was sheltered in her bag hoping to find any sort of animal of hers at all to help her out of this mess, but she found nothing while tears gathered in her eyes. Rarity found herself in the worst condition she was in, but she was still willing to help her friends. So she gathered herself up to the best way she could be in this time to say to her friends “Maybe if we go looking for them we could find them, Fluttershy i think you should fly high above us to see the land farther ahead. Pinkie i think you should use your Pinkie sense to find anything that might help us. I will take the charge of trying to take the command of this situation we don’t want to be like this forever do we?” Everypony rose from their puddles of tears to try, and understand the new plan from their “Leader” Fluttershy started to rise into the sky, and Pinkie Pie went on ahead to scout out to see is they were up ahead. Rarity kept a slow pace to make sure they weren’t ahead of the others. Fluttershy was still crying causing a small drizzle above Rarity, but they all stood strong for they still needed to find their friends. They continued on for Fluttershy didn’t see anything, but she only saw trees her eyes we still dropping tears like bombs down to the ground. Pinkie was still sad, but not nearly sad enough for she had a Pinkie sense that she was going to keep to herself. She already knew that their friends would find them, and very soon. > Some Friends > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 18 Some Friends It was morning when Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity woke to a noise outside their camp. They was some absurd noises coming from the bushes nearby, Pinkie slowly approached the bushes in which those noises were coming from. “Pinkie be careful we do not know what we are dealing with.” Fluttershy said with care in her voice. She slowly approached the bushes when suddenly a little white fur ball popped out of them. She quickly backed up from being startled, but when she say what she was frightened by she laughed. Fluttershy approached as if she knew this creature. It’s head poked out of the ball it was curled up in for it was frightened to. It’s two ear rose up from the position of it’s head they pointed upward then the legs popped out of the tightly curled ball it was Angel. He had been following them for their whole journey she couldn’t believe that Angel for follow her this far. “Angel what are you doing here, I thought i told you to stay home?” Fluttershy said after Angel was done from being a ball. It pointed at her then started to weep, then stood up as if he wanted to help. “Hey Derpy do you see them yet?” Raindrops said as they flew through the sky. There was a dark cloud headed straight toward them, it was no normal storm cloud it was made from dark magic. They cloud flew over them blinding them from their view of the ground. Derpy quickly said “We should stop for now i think this is too much for us to handle right now we need to take a rest.” They both dove down to the ground for some rest. Angel pointed up into the sky for he saw a cloud, but this cloud looked like a very bad storm. “We should probably get inside the forest, and wait this storm out.” Rarity said with worry in her voice. They all entered the forest with haste to only find worse things than rain, and lightning. There were many types of creatures they had never seen in their lives. First there was a that at first looked like a cat, but after a while it looked like a crocodile. They all stopped in fear of all the creatures they saw, and slowly backed away. “I think we should maybe just continue on.” Fluttershy said with fear. They all ran from that location to a hill nearby which had some caves. When they all entered the cave they were surprised of what they found. “Any luck applejack?” Rainbow Dash said. Applejack was building what seemed to be a wagon to carry more than they could carry. She nodded with a bit of struggle while assemble in the wheel. Twilight walked passed both of them slowly. “Rainbow Dash you mind doing a quick sky check to see if our friends are anywhere nearby, like if Derpy and Raindrops are on their way back or something?” Rainbow Dash bolted up into the sky. When she came back down she looked over to Applejack then said “We should probably hurry there is a big storm coming our way.” Twilight gathered the tents to set up in a nearby cave, she didn’t want anymore of those tricks that separated them in the first place. Rainbow Dash cheered in the thought of an amazing idea. Rainbow dash said “I GOT THE BEST IDEA EVER TO HELP OUR FRIENDS!!!” > Symbolism > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 19 Symbolism Pinkie Pie cheered with joy as she awoke her friends. Raindrops stood up from her bed, and said “We’ve been looking for you guys, where have you been?” Fluttershy came around Pinkie for she was too happy to respond, and said “Where is Twilight, and the others?” “They are over in that direction.” Derpy pointed her hoof behind herself. They all headed outside, it was raining they all looked in the direction in which Derpy had pointed. They had arrived outside at a perfect timing the clouds were being destroyed by something they hadn’t seen for a while, but it was something very significant. A great event was approaching it’s time. “We need to prepare, our scouts report some many thousands of corrupted ponies approaching our position.” Cadence hushed Shining Armor as she walked toward him, she gave him a hug, and then said “You must do what you must do, you will always defend Canterlot i don’t believe anything, or anypony will breach the walls in which you guard, and conjure.” She let him go, and smiled as she looked him in the eye “I don’t believe that anyone will achieve victory, but you for you are the best guard i’ve ever known.” She had pride, and courage in her voice as she said. Shining Armor turned from her, and said “But you see we’ve got to have some additional help do you know of any sort of thing to help defeat this great army with?” She shook her head, then walked off after saying “I’m going to go get some rest I’ll see you in the morning.” Shining Armor left the room, and started to walk away from the doors while taking a deep breath. He looked up into the sky, and prayed to the sun saying “Please let there be a way, I don’t want this city to fall, not under my protection. Not with Cadence here I want this battle to be mine, not my enemy’s. Just let this happen I love her too much to let her fall into a dark fate.” He continued his walk along his posts of men. “What is your amazing idea Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked. Rainbow Dash simply pointed to her cutie mark, and then said “Why not send them a message.” Twilight looked baffled she didn’t know what sort of message she could send without knowing their location. “What sort of message you don’t even know where they are they could even be in front of us. Rainbow Dash shrugged, and shot up into the sky. She already had such immense speed to break the sound barrier, which was what her intention was. In an instant a loud crack came from where Rainbow dash was with a big rainbow cloud spreading like an explosion across the sky. Rainbow Dash continued into the sky with a thick rainbow trail following her. She did spirals in the air quickly Twilight knew what this accomplished. She was marking the area for her friends to see where they were. When Rainbow Dash landed Twilight said with a big smile on her face “Well i can’t believe we didn’t do that from the start how could we have forgotten your great Sonic Rainboom.” Rainbow Dash smiled, and said “We should stay here just the let them come back, or catch up. > Corruption > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 20 Corruption King Sombra’s army was growing fast throughout the land of Equestria, everywhere his army touched there was more corruption spreading. Leader Wolf Tongue lead the army, he was fearless. Wolf was originally a guard for the Crystal Empire, but the changelings got to him before he could fight back. He lead the army straight through Ponyville, he felt the fear of the nearby ponies. Every time this happened he knew that something was wrong about what he was doing, but when he had that thought he would also think. “I’m loyal to the Crystal Empire this is my task, and I will prevail!” He halted in Ponyville to have his army rest for the night. Shining Armor observed the lights starting up in Ponyville not so far away. He sighed then started to walk away, he headed for the guard barracks. As he entered the room he noticed the new guard prepared for battle. “Why are you in such uniform without being instructed to?” Shining Armor said to the new guard. He looked at Shining Armor, and said “My name is ChainBall I’m preparing for the upcoming battle, I’m guessing you’ve already seen the lights?” Shining Armor nodded, then looked at the ground with a frown on his face. He left the barracks to go gather some rest for he didn’t know what to expect for the next few days, he entered into his room. Princess Cadence was waiting at the door for him, he walked passed her, and said “You must find somewhere safe, I don’t want you to get hurt this is going to be my battle, and I will not let Canterlot fall. But just in case i want you to hide, I can’t bare to lose you.” He turned to her, and looked her in the eyes while saying “I love you” they both moved toward each other for a hug. “Come on it was this direction” Pinkie Pie screamed while hopping at full speed toward the rainbow in the sky. Fluttershy started to fly as fast as she could, she couldn’t be anymore happy in her life. She was going to see her best friends all together again. Rarity took a major rush ahead of all of them, she was careless for her looks at this point all she wanted to do is see the other three from their group for they all loved each other very much. “Hold on stop what you’re doing, i think i hear something.” Twilight said while keeping very still. Raindrop and Derpy came around the corner of the rocks. They slowed down at the sight of the other three. “Hey Raindrops, Derpy where are the others.” Rainbow Dash said. They both stopped, and turned around then bolted in the opposite direction of the camp. Rainbow Dash started to chase them, she wanted the answer to her question. When she finally caught up to the two of them she asked again. “They were behind us a little bit, but they know where you are” Raindrops said with a big smile. Rainbow Dash sped up into amazing speeds she just wanted to see her friends. In a flash the two that she thought were Raindrops and Derpy showed their real forms. The two changelings pulled out nets to try and capture the pegasi where it flew, but Rainbow Dash was too excited to see her friends that she went into super speed. As Rainbow Dash looked behind herself she stopped at a major breaking speed, and lead the two changeling straight into a tree. > Corrupted > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 21 Corrupted Shining Armor woke up the next morning to find his house surrounded by his guard. “Go back to your posts we need to be ready for this attack. Get everypony to a wall, and have them armed. ChainBall you, and your men reinforce the gate. Air platoon fly above the clouds, and give me a report on what we’re up against.” Shining Armor said before heading back inside of his house. He walked in, and in that instant he noticed that Cadence had already left to hid. So he went ahead to gear up for this upcoming battle. He approached the top of his walls, and shouted “No matter what we must win this battle, we must win for Canterlot, for our families, for ourselves!!!!!” The corrupted army moved swiftly toward the castle. Wolf Tongue moved the front of the lines of fearful corrupted ponies. He pointed at the castle, and yelled “TAKE IT DOWN!!!” At that moment the whole army of corrupted ponies charged forward. Shining Armor pushed some magic out of his horn, a beam of magic shot straight up from Shining Armor’s horn creating a shield. The army still charged forward crashing into the magic sphere. Shining Armor gasped as his shield broke at the touch of the corruption. The army broke through the front gate, and started spreading their corruption on everything they touched. Every soldier had been infected with what was now a whole empire of corrupted ponies. A bright light shot up into the sky, and started to collect in one fixed spot. The ball of light became bigger and bigger. In an instant the ball of light burst creating a big field of light scattering throughout the world. It hit the army like a wall, each pony fell to the ground. Shining Armor stood strong from which he thought was where the ball of light was collecting. All the ponies started to get up to fight again, but Princess Celestia, Cadence, and Luna came out from hiding. They all pointed their horns into the sky shooting all of the magic they could into one fixed point. Cadence shouted down to Shining “Help us with this spell shoot your light into it, and let’s see the results!” Shining Armor put down his weapon, and pointed his horn up into the sky he aimed, and fired. The ball of light grew to an amazing size. It began to burst, when it did everypony fell to their bellies, and passed out. This light was seen all over the planet. When everypony woke up they didn’t resume fighting they all felt as if this fight was over, and no enemies existed anymore. Everypony started to gather around one fallen soldier, one that had died during the fight. Shining Armor broke through the crowd, and said “I didn’t know this pony, but for his bravery in this fight we shall honor him for being the only one to fall. We shall bury him in a few days we need to keep our defenses up still though. ChainBall take your men to defend the wall make sure this fight is over.” ChainBall, and his forces left the scene. Shining Armor picked up the body slowly with his magic, and placed it in a more suitable location. This battle was victorious thanks to his loved ones. > The Others > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 22 The Others Rainbow Dash shot up into the sky shouting “It’s a trap!!” The others got up from where they sat, and prepared themselves for anything. Five changelings came out of the forest next to their camp, and started to approach slowly. Twilight quickly remembered her brother teaching her how to create that magical shield, but it required a lot of energy and time. She started the think about the spell maybe if she devoted less energy it would create a smaller sphere, maybe just around her and her friends. She tried the spell, and it started to work. the bubble drew around her and her friends, but the bubble started to grow the more she thought of her success. The bubble grew at an accelerating rate, it doubled it’s sizes every five seconds creating what seemed to look like an explosion. The changelings watched the bubble grow, and started to run away. This light grew and grew until it burst from an unknown magic. The changelings were nowhere to be seen. It seems as if the magic had just thrown them out of sight. The sky was glowing pink, there was another flash that blinded all of them, they all woke up noticing they had passed out. “Where is Rainbow Dash we haven’t seen her since those two darted off.” Applejack said. Twilight turned to look out into the distance to only see that Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found. “Where am i?” Rainbow Dash said as she picked herself up from the ground. She just noticed her wing had been broken. “How did this happen, how did i get here.” She looked up to see she had passed out while flying, and crash landed down the cliff side. Rainbow Dash tried to start flying, but it was no use for her wing was broken. She decided that after such a tumble that she should probably take rest, and wait until she could fly again. “Who is that? Is that Rainbow Dash?” Pinkie Pie said with excitement. She hopped her way over to Rainbow Dash, and noticed that she wasn’t with the others, and also had a broken wing. “Rainbow Dash wake up. Where are the others?” Pinkie Pie said while shaking Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash got up, and hugged Pinkie Pie immediately. “Where have you guys been i thought that by now you guys would have met us up there.” Rainbow Dash Pointed her hoof up to the top of the cliff. “That's where they are, but there was a big flash of light that had stunned me, and i crash landed down here.” Rainbow Dash said while looking at the ground. “Fluttershy you should go tell them that we are down here, and that I’m too injured to lift all of you up.” Fluttershy flew up the cliff. She came back down, and said “There is only an empty camp i don’t know where they are.” “Was that Fluttershy that i just saw?” Twilight said to Applejack. They both walked over to the cliff, and saw a group of ponies down at the bottom, and shouted “HELLO!?!?!” The six looked up, and one started to fly up. “Rainbow Dash’s wing is broken, I’m sorry she can’t lift all of them up here.” Fluttershy said > What Are Friends For > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 23 What Are Friends For “Why don’t we have Raindrops and Derpy lift you guys up? I mean they are pegasi. Fluttershy nodded in agreement. She flew down the cliff, and it took a few seconds. Two pegasi started to lift one by one the friends up the cliff. They were finally all together again. “Rainbow Dash what happened?” Twilight said. “I don’t know there was a big flash, and that somehow stunned me. So i fell down the cliff landing on my wing. I have no idea what that flash was, but it was bright.” Rainbow Dash said with some pain in her voice. “I think we all need some rest, especially you Rainbow Dash.” said Applejack. They all set up their camp, and went to sleep. They all woke up to the sound of a familiar voice. Shining Armor approached them all as they stood up from their tents. “The battle was won, and Sombra’s army is gone you all must go now before he gathers his strength.” Shining Armor said. “But we can’t Rainbow Dash just broke her wing, and we have been working our hardest to find each other which we finally have.” Twilight said to her brother. “We must get more forces, how could such a thing happen. We had at least a thousand at their doorstep, tell me how did they destroy a thousand in less than a day?” King Sombra rose his voice towards his messenger. “I don’t know, some sort of new magic. Maybe even these Elements of Harmony that are at such a power that you desire them.” His messenger said back with a shake in his voice. Sombra nodded over to one of his guards, and they took the pony by force. They took him down into the deeps of the castle, and threw him into the dungeon. “I pray to Luna please release me from this prison i need you.” the messenger whispered in the dark. Luna appeared, and said “What do you need RainFall why are you in such a prison?” He stood up from where he laid, and said “King Sombra threw me down here for no reason at all. Just because i gave him some faulty information.” Princess Luna started to fade away, and he stood there with a tear rolling down his face. Once the tear reached the ground he passed out. “Where am i? How did i get out from that prison?” RainFall said as he stood up from the palace floor. “Don’t worry you’re safe. MoonTransportainion isn’t the best way of travel at some times, but this was a great use of it.” Luna said as she pointed down on the ground beneath him. He looked down just to see what seemed to be a sundial, but for the moon. “What sort of magic is this, I’ve never seen this before. How did you discover this, please tell me i want to know?” RainFall said with excitement. Princess Luna turned away, and said “You will have to ask Princess Cadence she herself was the one to discover it.” “Why must we go now, you know him it will probably be a trap?” Twilight said loudly. “It’s not a trap, we took out his army in a way that no pony had any idea was possible. We used four different kinds of magic to create a super explosion to wipe all from the darkness of the changeling infection. I’m pretty sure you guys would have seen it from here they light was extremely bright.” Shining Armor said. > Spike > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 24 Spike “So, when can i get back into my work. Do you have any dragons i could experiment on?” RainFall said with excitement. Princess Celestia walked over to him, and said “Sadly enough we don’t have any dragons, what kind of experiments would you do anyways?” He walked over to his belongings that he had found in Ponyville. He pulled a journal out of one bag, and pointed to one page. “It says here that if needed to we could train a dragon to fight for us on our side.” He looked up from the book, and locked his eyes with hers, and said “This could help us in our war, now tell me do you have any dragons?” Princess Celestia looked at the ground, and said “I know of one, but i will have to ask someone for him. He is a great dragon, and we all know him as a great friends. Will this experiment do anything bad to him at all?” RainFall looked at her, and said “Oh of course not it’s not like i have to throw him into lava or something. It’s just a training system of rewards, and stuff.” Princess Cadence entered the room as Rainfall said “Bahhhhhhhhh, I don’t know any specific kind of things that could hurt a dragon anyways.” Princess Cadence ignored RainFall, and continued to Princess Celestia. “Well he is just explaining how he could help reinforce the castle with a friendly dragon.” Cadence turned to him, and said “How do you go about doing so.” He picked up his book again, and read directly from his own writings. “Well it’s a simple rewarding program where we grow one baby drake by giving him some of his own possessions. It’s quite simple all we need is a big amount of random objects, and a way to identify enemies.” Princess Luna came down from the ceiling, and said “Does Sombra have any sort of dragon guarding his fortress?” RainFall looked down at the ground, and said “Yes he does, but he doesn’t know how to keep it in line without disturbing it, and you don’t want to do that.” “You all have to leave now, he is weak we don’t want to miss this window.” Shining Armor said with some command in his voice. There was a flash, and Cadence appeared behind him “It’s not a good idea to go yet…” a changeling hopped on to Cadence’s back, and started to cast a spell, but Shining Armor’s horn started to glow brighter and brighter until it shot a burst of light. It shot the changeling right off of her. “Prepare yourselves, I have a feeling there is more than just that one.” In the exact moment that Shining Armor said that seven changelings popped out of a forest nearby, and six from a nearby pond. “How could you guys choose such a bad place, it’s perfect for such an ambush.” Shining Armor said while charging up his horn. Twilight started her spell, but then she fell unconscious. “NO!!!! Twilight.” Shining Armor shot his magic as much as he could the others tried their hardest to fight back the changelings, but more and more showed up. “YOU TWO SHALL PAY FOR YOUR TREACHERY!!!” the Queen of the Changelings landed in front of them all, and moved through a crowd of changelings, and said “Take these two the the interrogation room, take the others to the dungeons.” Her voice commanded the other changelings. > Captured > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 25 Captured The changelings forced them all along, the Queen of the Changelings lead the group of changelings along a mountain pass. The changelings seemed beaten up, and worn out they must have been following them for days now. Cadence took a glance back at the camp where they were captured, and saw Twilight’s body laying on the ground. She started a spell, and a burst of magic came out of her horn. The magic landed next to Twilight, and formed a letter in which started to write itself. When the letter was done it rolled itself up, and set itself near where it was targeted at. “So where do you think we are going?” Cadence whispered to Shining Armor. The same instance that she said that the Queen of the Changelings stopped the group to go back where they were, and said “Silence, I don’t want any weird magic going on back here.” She went to the front of the group again, and started to lead on again. Twilight woke up to a note laying beside her. She picked up the note, and read. “You were too tired to perform your spell good you got rest, but follow the hoof prints. The Queen of the Changelings has taken us captive. Cadence” Twilight got up the instant she read the letter, and started to follow the hoof prints that went off into the distance. “What do you specifically want with us?” Cadence said to the Queen of the Changelings. She stopped, and moved toward Cadence. Then said “Oh you know I just want to hold those who destroyed my plans captive.” The Queen moved back up to the front of the pack, and continued through the mountain pass. The changelings all started to fly, and went straight down into a cave. More changelings appeared down in their positions. They all started to enter a cave, and Pinkie Pie said “This cave looks really really really familiar.” her voice echoed through the cave. Cadence turned to Pinkie, and shushed her. The Queen turned around, and went straight to Pinkie, and said “What how do you know of this cave it’s been secret for years?!?!” Pinkie looked at the ground, and said “I saw it in my dreams thats it.” The Queen nodded, and said “Take this one somewhere I will know she is” Two changelings came over to Pinkie, and picked her up to move her to a different location. “I need these two in a different room.” The Queen said while pointing to Cadence, and Shining Armor. Cadence looked at Shining Armor, and whispered “Don’t worry she’s fine, and she’s coming to help.” Cadence smiled, and followed the guards escorting them. “Escort those others down to their cells.” The Queen pointed to the group of four ponies cowering in the corner. > An Unstoppable Power > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 26 An Unstoppable Power Twilight rushed through tree, and bushes following the trail of the others. She went through valleys, and mountain ranges. She finally came upon a place surrounded by changelings. Twilight tried to remember a book she had read about stealth spells, it would be most useful in this situation. She ended looking through her bags hoping she had packed it. When she had finally emptied her bag out she finally remembered the spell. She had cast it once before, but she didn’t know how much energy it would take out of her. She decided it was most important to get her friends back, so she casted the spell. Twilight started to slip in, and she didn’t know where to go there were too many trails. She followed the biggest amount of hoof prints in the soil. It lead straight into a cave. When she entered she noticed it was pretty well guarded, Twilight looked around for a little bit, and noticed Pinkie sitting in the corner crying. She walked up to her in the invisible form, and whispered “Why so sad, one does not simply cry when a friend is around.” Pinkie jumped as Twilight whispered that in her ear, and whispered “Is this my mind playing tricks on me, we all thought you were dead.” Cadence looked around the room in which they were moved to. It was a dark room full of changelings, and it seemed to have maps hanging on the wall. Some ponies were in the service of the changelings, they were under the infection the changelings. Shining Armor, and Cadence looked at each other, and said “We can do this.” They both started to charge up their magic. A bolt in the charge of both of their magic started to grow in size as they focused more on each other. When the bolt reached a magnificent size it burst letting out an energy only produced by those two once. When i released it clear all in a 10 mile radius of the changeling infection. All of the guards dropped their weapons, and started to leave the area. The Queen walk in the room, and said you shall not ruin my plans again. She pulled a lever, and a loud echo of a gate closing filled the chambers of the cave system itself. “We need to find the others, do you know where they are?” Twilight whispered to Pinkie. She nodded then said “But i can’t go with you, you see they put me here because of me saying something.” Twilight focused on Pinkie, and started to cast the spell. Once she was done casting Pinkie looked around like a maniac, and said “I’M INVISIBLE OH MY GOD!!” Twilight quickly covered her mouth with a hoof. “Please don’t shout we are trying to be quiet, just be thankful they didn’t notice you.” The guards all started to walk out, so Pinkie and Twilight started their journey down through the caves to find their friends. When they reached the bottom and found the others. Twilight uncloaked herself and Pinkie, and said “We need to use these.” She tossed each Element of Harmony to each one it belonged to. They all mounted their Elements, and started to head toward the main hall. They all entered noticing Cadence, and Shining Armor frozen in place as they watched them walk in. The Queen looked at the six, and said “Now what are you six going to do destroy me with magic of friendship? Oh please don’t bore me to death like that please move along i have some things i need to do.” Twilight moved ahead of the group, and said “Well you guessed right prepare yourself for the power of FRIENDSHIP!!!!” > Changelings > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 27 Changelings The Queen screamed, and started to bend into a ball, and the ball started to glow right as the power of the Elements were charging up. She disappeared in that instant that the Elements were almost charged. Shining Armor, and Cadence both unfrozen from where they stood both started fade, while saying “We need to return to Canterlot at once.” They both disappeared, and Twilight looked over to her group of friends. “Well where do we go now?” Twilight said. They all started to leave the main hall, and noticed the main gate was locked. There was no way to the other side, so they all decided to go through the caves to see what they would find. They all started to go throughout the cave system, and for protection Twilight kept a bubble protection shield around them. It was draining her energy fast, but she knew that she didn’t want her friends taken away from her again. “I can’t keep this up forever, I think we should stop for now, and get some rest. I almost forgot to ask where are Raindrops and Derpy?” Twilight said with some worry in her voice. Rainbow Dash and the others all responded with a shrug. They didn’t know where they were either they were trapped in the caves, or out on their own. “I remember before my wing broke that they were there, but became changelings the other second.” Raindrops looked down at the terrain below them “Do you see them Derpy, I can’t see anything in this fog. I think we should land, and try our search tomorrow.” Derpy looked over to Raindrops, and said “We have to find them we can’t even find the others where could they be?” Raindrops started to dive down, and said “We have to rest it’s been hours.” Derpy followed, and started to say “But we need to….” A changeling charged in front of Derpy, and crashed straight into Raindrops. She started to fall rapidly. Derpy looked to her right, and saw another charging for her. These were like missiles fast, and deadly. Derpy started to dive down as fast as she could trying to catch her friend. She almost hit the ground when quickly Derpy caught her a few feet off the ground. “Don’t worry Raindrops I never let my friends fall without me catching them.” Derpy said with a big smile on her face while carrying Raindrops. She started to wake up from being knocked out by the changeling, and said “What happened? Are you okay?” Raindrops stood up from where her body laid down. She looked around, and found a muffin with a letter on it. “Went to find firewood be back when I can. You rest up you will need it for tomorrow.” Derpy came back with some small amount of firewood, and started a fire. A changeling moved through the caves following a path that he knew only to another exit. He started to hear voices, so he changed his form to be a not so well known pony named TrioFeet. This was a pony down in the depths of the caves themselves. TrioFeet moved fast trying to gain attention to himself by creating noise behind these ponies. He finally reached them, and said “Can I join you I have nowhere else to go I need friends, can you help me.” The six looked at each other, and said “Sure, but what is your name?” The changeling looked at them, and said “My name is TrioFeet.” > Deep in the Caves > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 28 Deep in the Caves “Well you’re welcome to join us TrioFeet.” Applejack said after getting the confirmation nods from her friends. They all came along to a small opening in the cave a little too perfect for a camping site. They all settled down. Twilight walked over to TrioFeet, and said “You look tired you should get some sleep, here take my tent I’m not that tired at all.” Twilight handed a small bag to TrioFeet with a smile. TrioFeet took the bag, and thought how she was going to do this. Changelings can’t sleep while around such energy of love. TrioFeet headed for the camping site after saying “Thank you Twilight.” Pinkie Pie approached TrioFeet, and said “Hey you want some cake.” as she pulled a slice of cake out of nowhere. TrioFeet accepted the cake, and moved on. This form she had taken didn’t really suit her, especially when it came to be so dirty. Rarity walked passed TrioFeet, and turned straight around after passing, and said “You mustn’t go around looking like that.” So Rarity pushed TrioFeet into her tent, and came out looking the best she could. TrioFeet just wanted to get away from such love, she felt as if this was too much, and was feeling a little guilty. She had finally reached her area, and noticed she had no pillow just a stack of books. Fluttershy came over to her tent, and offered her pillow. TrioFeet had finally tried to refuse this kindness from just new friends. Anywhere else she had tried with other people it took years to get so acquainted. She had finally fallen asleep after having a spike of energy roll through her like a supernova. When she woke up she had noticed the six had set her up a place to sit around the fire with them, and some food to eat. She finally came over from having an attack like the one the night before where her energy levels were overflowing with love. She even had troubles sitting down. They all packed up the equipment from the breakfast, and continued down the mine. when they got a little further down with a bit more love from the six TrioFeet snapped. She stopped in the middle of the front, and started to say “I need to say something. I’m sorry everypony for I have deceived you all.” They all glanced at each other wondering what she had meant. TrioFeet stepped up, and started to cast a spell while saying “I’m sorry you all are too great for me to drain you all can you teach me how to be like you?” She finished the spell turning her back into a changeling they all gasped in horror, while Twilight approached the changeling, and said “Of course we will teach you, but what will we call you TrioFeet is obviously a different pony. Who are you” The changeling moved around the room thinking she really couldn’t think of a name so she looked over to Twilight, and said “Just call me Trio for now i don’t really have a name for myself.” Twilight looked over to her, and said “Okay Trio, but sorry to say but your current form kind of makes chills go down my spine can you change to somepony that doesn’t exist?” > Imagination > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 29 Imagination The changeling stared at the ground, and started to think. She really didn’t learn how to do such a thing. “I don’t know how to.” Trio said. Twilight approached Trio, and said “Why don’t you just simply imagine one?” Trio looked at Twilight in confusion, and said “What is this imagining you speak of?” Twilight looked at Trio in confusion, and said “It’s when you image something in your head, and add your own details to it.” Trio looked like she was having trouble so Pinkie bounced over to her location, and said “Here i know of a pony her name is Throck, she has a Long tail that is gold, and her mane is gold and silver. Her main body color is a tannish color, and her cutie mark is a pony’s face. She study’s ponies.” Trio looked at the ground with the image of what Pinkie just described to her, and started to cast her spell. When done she was perfect, and Pinkie came out of nowhere, and said “See not that hard to imagine. You just imagined a pony that doesn’t exist.” Trio looked up at all of them, and said “I did it, I can now be known as the best changeling existing.” She looked at Pinkie, and gave her a hug, and said “This is the wrong way i think we might want to go save the actual TrioFeet. She’s in a prison cell, and i know a secret way out follow me.” They all started to ascend from where they all came down from. Twilight went ahead of Trio, and said “Why didn’t you tell us earlier that we were going in the wrong direction?” Trio stopped, and said “I haven’t been here that long we had been following you guys for weeks waiting to attack. When half of you went through a portal we thought to capture you then, but we wouldn’t have all of you. After all of that they finally led me to their camp in which they put me through basic training. When the cave doors closed all i could think of was follow my old prey, and see where it headed to. When i receive love i gain energy, when i gain energy i can recall things a lot more.” Trio continued around Twilight who stood there thinking about all the information that Trio had just given her. “If we somehow got you on our side, do you think its possible to turn all the changelings against the Queen. She kind of wants us gone.” Twilight said with a smile. Trio turned to her with a sigh. “I don’t really know, because like i said i haven’t been around for a while. I was made a few months ago.” She continued up the cave, and then turned into an unknown corner. They all followed, but they lost her. “TRIO!!! Where are you we lost you.” Rainbow Dash shouted into the darkness. Twilight screamed as she saw a shadow cast over them from the incoming light from the top of the cave. “What is this monster?” Twilight screamed as she ran down the cave. Trio popped out of nowhere, and lead them through an invisible door, and whispered “That is the guardian of the caves stay still, and be quiet.” The beast walked past the invisible door slowly while checking it’s surroundings. Twilight looked at Trio with a big smile on her face, and gave her a hug. When Twilight finally retracted from the hug, Trio was glowing with energy, and said “I’ve never been loved so much in my life. With this kind of power i could overthrow the Queen with no problem.” She walked out of the invisible door, and started to walk up the cave system, she stopped to look back, and said “You coming or what, I’m not going to wait all day.” The six followed her lead. > The Queen > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 30 The Queen Twilight, and the others followed Trio as the flowed up the cave like water, but against gravity. They all followed the green light that Trio was giving off, that was being powered by their love. Trio and the others finally reached the ground level of the cave system. Trio looked over to them, and said “We are going to go and defeat the Queen, I will need your help though.” Trio smiled at her new friends. They all continued through a new cave leading even more downward than the previous one. Once they reached the bottom they instantly saw a figure they knew, but didn’t know. This pony was TrioFeet, she stood very tall in her cell as the seven approached. TrioFeet sat down into the corner, and said “No more i don’t like you changelings. I’m too weak to do anymore.” She started to cry, but Twilight spoke up “We aren’t changelings, at least not all of us. We are here to save you, and destroy the Queen.” TrioFeet got to her feet, and said “Then let me out of this cage without having to escort me, then i will know your not changelings. What did you mean not all of you were changelings, are you all taken captive?” Twilight looked over to Trio, and said “No, but we only knew of you because of this changeling.” Trio quickly changed out of her form to a changeling, and back again. TrioFeet looked at the seven with a blank face. She didn’t know what to think nopony had taken a changeling captive not ever. Trio looked over to TrioFeet, and said “Don’t fear me I’m here to help. They’ve morphed my mind to think differently. Changed my point of view, and changed my soul.” TrioFeet looked at the other six with a weird face, and said “You ponies did this, even with a changeling. How?” They looked at eachother, then said “Well according to her with great kindness.” TrioFeet left the cell after she said that, and continued out of the small cave system. She screamed, and ran back down the cave. Twilight looked at her, and asked “What’s up there that made you scream like that.” TrioFeet passed out onto the ground, so Twilight and the others walked up slowly to see what it was about. When they all reached the top they all saw the Queen waiting for them. She instantly said “My changelings come to me, and I will let you feed off of their love until end times.” Trio flew up into the air, and started to cast a spell. Twilight smiled, and said “Sadly enough she is on our side.” The Queen chuckled at that, and Trio shot a beam of light directly at the Queen. She glowed a bright green as the beam continued, and said “You’ve all been fooled, how can such powerful ponies be fooled so easily?” Twilight thought for a moment, and quickly withdrew her love for the pony they originally knew as Trio. Trio still pointed her horn at the Queen as her magic started to glow white, and the Queen collapsed onto the floor as this happened. Twilight walked over the the changeling collapsed on the floor, and said “Maybe you shouldn’t try to deceive us. I just used your own changeling against you. I put all my hatred into her, and it blasted into you. Now you’re weak as you can be. Will you choose to have an alliance with Canterlot, or shall i destroy you where you stand?” TrioFeet stood at the cave entrance to the prison her jaw dropped to the ground. The Queen looked up to Twilight, and said “You will never count on an alliance from such a weak creature, why should i accept?” Twilight looked up as a quick flash came from the entrance of the cave. > Hope > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 31 Hope Cadence walked toward the Queen, and said “Why do you think you’re so weak huh?” Cadence smiled at the Queen who lay on the ground. She got up from where she lay, and said “How does one not see a flaw in their own weaponry. I mean she just used my own changeling against me.” Applejack looked to Twilight who started to say. “I’m going to tell my friends what i did so they understand a little more.” Twilight lead the other off to the side, and said “You remember in the caves when Trio told us she was a changeling. I channeled some of my own energy into her making seem as if she was receiving energy from love, but what i did was when she started to channel that energy to the Queen i thought of deception. I thought about Equestria being owned by the worst villains i know. So what happened was channeling all that sad energy through her brought the Queen down to such a weakness we could overpower her.” “Do you see that Raindrops, It looks like them.” Derpy pointed down toward the mountains where the Queen, and the others had moved to after a small conversation. Derpy and Raindrops quickly dove down to their location. When they both landed Raindrops said “It looks like you all got together, we’ve been looking for you guys for almost a month.” Pinkie Pie smiled, and hugged both of them as a thank you for their service. They both decided to stay with them because of the other work they would have to do at Canterlot. Cadence moved throughout the cave system looking around, until she finally stopped to say to the Queen “Canterlot will be capturing this land in behalf of these ponies’ bravery.” She placed a flag down with a big bright sun on it. Showing that this land was now ruled by Celestia. Twilight bowed down to the flag in honor of her own lands. Cadences looked over to Twilight, and said “I have one thing to ask you for a moment. We have a big dragonologist in the Canterlot castle. He wants to experiment on Spike, can he?” Twilight looked at the ground, and said “Will he be hurt in this experiment of his?” Cadence nodded no, and Twilight quickly answered to the nod saying “Then yes he can be experimented on.” Cadence disappeared the instant that Twilight finished her sentence along with a little more of a flash that instantly brought Spike to them. “Uh, hi” Spike said with a smile. Twilight hugged him, and said “I just confirmed them to experiment on you, be good” She smiled, and watched as he disappeared into thin air. Derpy looked over to Twilight right as a tear rolled off of her, and said “Hey, I’m sorry about you having to take this really long journey, but here is a muffin.” Twilight smiled at the offer, but she couldn’t eat at the moment she was still absorbing the feeling she was getting from when she defeated the Queen on her own. She was happy that at least one had been dealt with. > Dragons > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 32 Dragons Twilight got up from where she sat still crying tears of joy. Applejack, and Rarity moved over to Twilight to comfort her, but she walked away, and said “I need my time. Today has been very long.” She walked off into the distance, and decided it might be safe to sit down in the plain sight of her friends, who knows what is out there. Shining Armor walked into the guard barracks, and noticed it was empty. He thought to himself “Where are all the guards?” He walked outside, and noticed Chainball walking around the city. Shining Armor approached him, and asked “Where are all your guards they aren’t in the barracks, and i appointed Wolf Tongue to send a platoon to the captured changeling caves. That place needs a good guard, but the castle needs better. That why i kept you here, you’re the best guard i know.” Chainball looked back at Shining Armor, and said “Thank you for such a compliment, but i bigger things to worry about. If our enemy is smart, where is the other army? If I had an army defeated, and I had more I would send it.” Chainball looked off into the distance, and started to move on, Shining Armor followed him. “Where are your guards, shouldn’t they be out celebrating?” Chainball looked back at Shining Armor, who was following at a slow pace, and said “They are honoring the fallen one. He apparently fell off a tower, I would be honoring him to right now, but I still have to worry about the safety of my family, the city, and all the other population here.” Shining Armor spoke up before he could list off more of why he was guarding. “There isn’t much to worry about, with the Queen disabled King Sombra doesn’t have that much power, close to us at least.” Chainball quickly responded “But that is still power he has, what defenses do we have? We have at the most 300 guards. If I don’t manage them correctly it could cost the whole castle.” Shining Armor was surprised at what he knew “I’m supposed to keep this secret, but we have a dragonologist up in the castle. He is working on training a dragon to defend the castle itself, so we have more than just 300 guards.” Chainball looked at Shining Armor in surprise, and said “How does one simply train a beast that I’ve not seen controlled?” Shining Armor shrugged, and said “It’s all in RainFall’s notes, we don’t know much about it.” ChainBall looked over to Shining Armor, and shouted “Why wouldn’t you check him? He could be a spy you know. If he is he could show our weaknesses to the enemy.” Shining Armor rushed up to his side as he said “We didn’t have a choice, Princess Luna kept us from doing anything. She is the one who brought him here, she apparently saved his life from a deep and dark prison.” Twilight stood up from the rock she sat upon, and walked over to her group of friends, and said “We should get a move on. We don’t want to lose too much time. Cadence seemed to want to talk to me, after I talk to her we will continue our journey.” Twilight moved over to Cadence who pulled Twilight off to the side, and said “Once you reach his fortress wait for spike. King Sombra has a dragon, you need to be careful.” > Canterlot's Defense > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 33 Canterlot’s Defense RainFall got up as the small baby drake entered the testing room, and said “This is excellent, exactly what i needed. What shall i call him?” Spike looked to him, and said “You can call me Spike, that is what everypony calls me.” RainFall picked a few objects up, and tossed them to Spike “You will need these eventually, but we need you to get up into size.” RainFall looked over to the guard near the door, and said “We need a whole lot of random objects to give this dragon so he can grow from the size he is now.” The guard and several others left the room, and returned with random goods from furniture to food. They all set them down near RainFall, and stood back at their posts. RainFall looked to Spike, and said “I’m sorry to say, but we need to chain you up for our safety.” Spike looked to the chain on the ground. It was too big for his head, but he knew about the size he would reach. He grabbed the neck chain, and put it around his neck. RainFall looked at him, and said “Good, now we can give you several things, and see how fast you can grow.” RainFall handed Spike a simple mirror. Spike looked at his reflection, and started to grow at a slow rate. RainFall then handed him a small box, and said “You will need to keep your items in organized space.” Spike placed the mirror in the small box, and started to grow a little more faster. RainFall continued this process until the box was full. He searched the objects until he found a bigger container, at this time Spike was already twice his normal size. Spike looked around in greed, and started to walk toward the pile of objects near him. He instantly stopped with a tug at his neck as the chain strangled him. Spike walked back to the middle of the room. Once he got back there RainFall handed him an object, and said “I want you to walk over there, and back.” Spike refused to do so, and stared at the pile of objects that he was cut off from. He finally decided what hurt could it do if he simply walked to the other side of the room. Spike walked to the wall, and looked back at RainFall. As soon as he reached the other side RainFall grabbed a piece of furniture from the pile, and handed it over to Spike. “A dragon? Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?!?” Twilight screamed a Cadence. “We didn’t know until recently. A dragonologist was rescued from King Sombra’s castle when he got back to us he told us about the dragon. We had no idea up to that point.” Cadence said after backing away from Twilight. Twilight looked up to Cadence, and said “Sorry it’s just how long I’ve been away from home, it’s difficult I really just want to have a day back in ponyville with all my friends having a nice day. This journey has been tearing me apart, I wake up in the middle of the night from nightmares. I mean I don’t even know how my own brother is doing, last time I saw him you two disappeared without a word.” Cadence walked over to Twilight, and hugged her “Don’t worry everything will be fine, we have RainFall working on Spike to train him to defend you, and Canterlot castle.” Twilight retracted from the hug, and said “I hope everything goes fine. We need to continue otherwise where would we be if we stopped, and waited for a few days?” Twilight turned around, and started to walk off into the distance. > Friends > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 34 Friends The others turned with Twilight as she passed them, and continued to follow along with her. “We need to pack up, and start moving as soon as possible. We can’t lose any more time. If we have a dragon on our hands we need to get there by the time that Spike has grown, and has been trained to follow our specific commands.” Twilight said as she walked through the camp. They all finished packing their belongings, and started to walk away from the changeling caves. “I’m surprised that we could pull off such a stunt, I mean Twilight how could you think of such a thing that was amazing.” Applejack said as they walked out of the canyon that the caves laid in. Twilight simply smiled, and said “My friends were in danger, and I needed a plan to get us out of it.” She stopped in the middle of the road, and said “But we don’t really need to worry about that much anymore it was a great plan, but I don’t think sharing the magic will make us any more happy than we already are.” Rarity walked directly up to Twilight, and said “It’ll still be a great story for the road, we have a long way to go, and need to have something to entertain us.” Twilight looked at the ground, and said “Perhaps it could, but I can’t explain it now. Why don’t you guys tell me what went on when I passed out?” RainFall pointed to the captured changeling, and said “Light him up spike!” Spike looked at the small thing that instantly took form of Rarity. Spike slowly started to shrink, and said “I can’t she’s too important to me.” RainFall shot a beam of light going straight past the changeling, and said “This is what it truly it don’t let it deceive you, destroy it. NOW!” Spike looked into the X-ray light that was being produced from RainFall’s horn. Spike noticed that the changeling was smiling, and walked through the portal saying “You wouldn’t hurt me Spike? You wouldn’t hurt your friend Rarity?” Spike in the instant she said that let a burst of fire erupt from his mouth. This caused the changeling’s magic to fade, and the changeling burst up into flames only leaving a small pile of ash. RainFall quickly said “Very good, here is your treat.” RainFall gave him a small amount of jewels. Spike looked at them, and said “Where are my friends, I want to see them they mean too much to me.” A big tear began to develop in his eyes. RainFall looked over to Shining Armor who was observing the whole thing. RainFall gestured for Shining to join him over in his mini observatory. Shining Armor came over asking “What am i supposed to do, I can’t disrupt their journey can I?” RainFall then responded “We must keep him happy, and keep him from shrinking. This part is too important to screw up.” Shining Armor nodded, and disappeared into thin air. > Let Dragons Be Dragons > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 35 Let Dragons Be Dragons Rarity started to say “Well when you tried to… What is that? Do you hear that?” They all turned to look in the direction of the sound of running. In the distance they all saw Shining Armor running at full speed toward them. They all stopped walking away, and shouted “WHAT’S THE HURRY!?!?” Shining Armor stopped in front of all of them, and said “Sorry Twilight, but you are coming with me.” The instant he finished the sentence Twilight and Shining Armor disappeared. Twilight grabbed on her brother, and said “Are you crazy did I just lose all of my progress on my journey?” Shining Armor pointed over to a wizard nearby, and said “He instructed me to gather you to calm down the dragon.” Twilight looked at him with a small frown, and said “Well at least warn me I can’t just disappear like that around my friends.” She walked over to the cage that Spike was being kept in. Spike turned to see Twilight, and rushed over to see her. He was a giant. He finally reached the bars, and bent down to see her, and said “I’m so happy to see you, how are the others doing. I’ve been in this cage for a while I don’t know what is going on. All I know is that I’m a part of a big experiment to build a bigger dragon, but after a changeling showed itself as Rarity I’ve been shrinking ever since then.” Twilight smiled, and said “Everypony is fine, we’ve been through a lot. I need to get going, you think you’re going to be ok?” Spike looked at Twilight, and nodded. Twilight walked back over to her brother, and said “It’s time to go back, I need to continue this can’t be that long of a stop.” “Sorry I can’t the Princess has requested that you stay, and rest for a bit you need it.” Shining Armor responded. Twilight sighed, and walked back over to the cage, and said “It seems I’ll be staying for a little bit longer, do you need anything? I haven’t seen you for such a long time.” Spike responded shaking his head no. “Where did she go? Why did she go? Does anyone know?” All the ponies gathered around in a circle trying to find out what was going on. No pony seemed to have an answer to their questions. They all decided to go back to the caves where Princess Cadence held her ground. When they reached the canyon they were greeted by a whole platoon from Canterlot lead by the pony known as Wolf Tongue. He looked like he was ready for battle, and was a scary one himself. They all headed for the caves where Cadence took refuge from the burning sun. “Do you know what’s going on? Shining Armor just took Twilight, and we don’t know what to do.” Cadence turned to them, and said “There was an emergency in the labs at the castle, and they needed to calm down a dragon.” They all shrieked as she mentioned the word “Dragon” Fluttershy dove for the bushes nearby. Pinkie walked toward the bushes, and said “There is no dragon nearby don’t worry Fluttershy.” > Dragon Watch Season > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 36 Dragon Watch Season Princess Cadence pointed in the sky, and said “Actually Pinkie its dragon watch season. When all the dragons start to migrate across the world.” Fluttershy poked her head out of the bushes, and screamed. Applejack pulled Fluttershy out of the bushes while saying “Come on Fluttershy you need to face your fear, you can’t be like this forever.” Fluttershy looked up into the sky, she started to back away toward the bushes when a huge flash happened nearby. “TWILIGHT!! Where did you go we missed you.” Twilight walked over to them with a big creepy smile on her face, and said “I just went to find some peace and quiet.” They all looked at her with confusion on their faces. “Now why would you say such a thing Twilight we’re your friends if you wanted quiet we would have let you have it.” Twilight turned away from them, and said “sorry it’s just all the stress of this journey I think you all can understand, right?” They all looked at her as she walked away from them. “Why can’t I go back now? We are running low on time we don’t want our enemy gain his power back, I mean I saw him with my own eyes he is in bad condition. We can’t simply just give him this time.” A shadow said from across the room, Princess Celestia turned over to her, and said “You need this rest Twilight you’ve been having trouble, and i know it. I heard about you passing out when the changelings came to capture you, you can’t go on forever like that. I also would like to congratulate you on defeating the queen. How did you go about doing so?” Twilight sat there thinking about how to put it into words. “Well you see she had her changeling try to deceive us, and I thought for a bit about it. When we finally reached the queen I knew that the changeling would channel all the energy that it had gathered into the queen, so I decided the moment she started to do so I would push all of my sad, and anger into her. This caused the queen to collapse in the drought of energy, she was defenseless.” Celestia walked back and forth looking for words to say. “Well that’s an interesting strategy to use against a changeling. I will make sure that the word goes out about how to defend yourself against a changeling.” Twilight looked at the ground “I feel like I’m betraying my friends, they must be wondering where I am. I mean can’t you just send some sort of messenger to them. I’m worried that something bad is happening, I mean it’s dragon watch season Fluttershy will be terrified by now.” Princess Celestia shook her head “I just have to say we can’t do that we need everyone at the castle to make sure our defenses hold, and don’t you think that she should overcome her fears?” Twilight nodded, and walked out of the room. “What do you think Luna, is she fine? This must be difficult on her, she loves her friends what shall we do about this?” Luna flew down from the ceiling, and said “She is under a lot of stress, under all that she still is loyal. She wants to finish this journey to go back to living normally.” Celestia sighed, and walked out of the room. > Fight or Flight > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ` CHAPTER 37 Fight or Flight “Twilight look, is that Spike?” Applejack said pointing her hoof into the air. Twilight just continued on “I don’t know what you’re talking about Applejack it’s just a cloud.” A dragon swooped down from the sky, and landed nearby. “What are you creatures doing on my mountain?” The dragons said as he moved toward them. They all pointed off into the distant lands of Canterlot, and said “We’re on a journey from the castle of Canterlot, what is your name?” The dragon stopped for that moment to think “It’s been such a long time since I’ve used my name i don’t know. Just call me Inkendov.” Pinkie Pie hopped over to his location, and said “Hi I’m Pinkie Pie how are you doing Inkendov?” Inkendov laughed, and said “Do you really think that dragons have feelings? That is pathetic, I’ve come to see a friend of mine.” Inkendov was staring directly at Twilight as she said “Hi Inkendov it’s been a while.” The instant she finished the sentence the Queen of the changelings burst out of the form of Twilight, and said “You 7 come with me.” Pinkie Pie looked around, and said “7?” The Queen pointed over to the nearby bushes “These two have been following you for days.” Derpy and Raindrops walked out of the nearby forest. The Queen pointed to Inkendov, and said “Get on the dragon, NOW!!” Everypony but Fluttershy got on. The Queen walked over to her, and yelled “YOU GET ON THE DRAGON NOW!!!!” Fluttershy started to back away as the changeling charged up it’s magic. “I don’t want to get on the dragon.” Fluttershy said in a shaky, but quiet voice. Finally the changeling picked Fluttershy up with her magic. Pinkie Pie quickly tackled the Queen yelling “NO ONE TREATS MY FRIENDS LIKE THIS!!!” This inspired the others to come out to fight. Fluttershy realised that they were nearby the camp with that big army, so she started to fly toward that area to get help. Rainbow Dash noticed Fluttershy running away from the fight, and raced up toward her “Where are you going Fluttershy?” She stopped, and landed to say “Remember when we were in that camp nearby?” Rainbow Dash nodded “There is an army there, so can you guys keep those two distracted while i get them?” Rainbow Dash responded saying “Affirmative” She dashed back over to the fight, and told the others about the situation. > War is War > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 38 War is War “Ahhhhh, mister.” Fluttershy said as she entered the camp. Wolf Tongue turned to see her “What is it, I have too much to do so be quick.” Fluttershy stopped for a moment to catch her breath “My friends are under attack by a dragon and a changeling nearby, can you come and help us?” Wolf Tongue nodded, and gathered up a few soldiers, and said “Lead the way.” Fluttershy took off in a run, and ran as fast as she could. They all finally came around a corner where they could see them trying to survive. Wolf Tongue pulled out his sword, and pointed it in their direction. “Attack!” Wolf Tongue yelled as they all charged toward the dragon. Inkendov and the changeling looked up from their current attackers to see a line of 20 Pegasi charging in their direction. Once Inkendov saw them he turned to them, and let loose his flames from his throat. As soon as the flames made contact with the first one in line, he could see a magical bubble forming around the front of his armor. Inkendov roared from this madness, and started to take off, but he noticed he was being held down by something. The changeling looked over to the forest to see to figures standing side by side casting spells on everything around to cause the chaos of the fight. “So what am I supposed to do now?” Twilight said to Princess Celestia. She responded with “You may return now, your friends are in trouble, and need your magic to help defeat their enemies.” Twilight looked at her, and said “I told you we shouldn’t have let King Sombra regain his power, what did he send at them so i can be prepared?” Princess Celestia sighed, and said “It’s not King Sombra, it’s the changelings they decided to revolt, and were accompanied by a dragon.” Twilight shriek, and said “HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME TO FIGHT OFF A DRAGON?!?!?” Princess Celestia sighed again, and started to speak “I don’t kno…..” In that instant RainFall burst into the door, and said “Did i hear dragon, what about a dragon?” Princess Celestia explained to RainFall the situation. He came to a conclusion after looking at his notes, and said “You simply need to cast this spell on the dragon, and this one will block fire. Then you will have to use whatever you got to do what you can.” Twilight looked over to Shining Armor who was listening in. He walked over next to Twilight, and said “Goodbye.” They both disappeared right then and there to help their friends. > How to Fight a Dragon > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 39 How to Fight a Dragon Shining Armor and Twilight appeared in a forest with shouting nearby. “We must go help them, we don’t know what condition they're in right now!” Twilight yelled while running in the direction of the shouting. Twilight and Shining Armor stood there looking for a weakness on the dragon. They heard running coming from an area they couldn’t see. Once Wolf Tongue and his army came into to view the dragon had already directed its attention to them. Twilight focused on the dragon as it lifted its head, and started to let out fire. She started to cast the spell directly when the flames collided with the soldier’s armor in the front, and started to push the flames back. The dragons roared in frustration, and started to lift off. Twilight redirected her attention to the dragon, and started to cast a spell. No matter how hard the dragon tried it couldn’t lift off due to this spell. “Shining, cast your protection spell” Twilight said struggling to keep the dragon on the ground. Shining Armor started to cast his spell, until a small group of changelings came up from behind, and knocked him out. Twilight turned around to see seven changelings behind her, she couldn’t keep her spell going. She needed someone else to help her. “Help, they knocked him out. HELP!!” Twilight yelled hoping that her friends would hear her. Rainbow Dash darted toward Twilight’s scream for help, and ended up flying straight into net that was set up perfectly for her. Fluttershy was caught by a small fish net, and the other just got caught by the changelings themselves. “Bring them to me one by one, they didn’t expect us to be so powerful. They thought of us as weaklings, who is the weakling now?” The Queen shouted at the six of them. “Where are the others, we had more with us. Did you capture them to? I don’t think so, if you hadn’t been so foolish to only capture us six instead of the whole group of armored pegasi behind us you would probably have more information about whatever you’re seeking.” Twilight said with some anger behind her voice. The Queen simply laughed, and said “You see all I was seeking was revenge against those who humiliated me in front of one of my worst enemies. I don’t need any sort of information about that. I have you six right here in front of me do i really need to capture those others to get to you? I don’t think so, now you all with be shown to your new rooms that you will spend the rest of your lives in. Just wait for the endless torture of my minions draining your love until you're all depressed to the point life isn’t living anymore.” After this statement the Queen started to laugh again evilly, and signaled for a few changelings to move the group of six, but they didn’t move. Twilight walked forward, and said “What is this do you expect us to go down so easily?” The Queen stared at her, and said “Well what are you going to do stare me to death? I don’t think that will work out for you so well, now go where my changelings are directing you, or i could do something a lot worse.” > Trapped > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 40 Trapped Twilight stared furiously at the Queen as she stood up from her throne in which was built from miserable ponies. “How do you expect to defeat me? You don’t have those precious Elements of harmony you used against King Sombra.” Twilight simply laughed at the fact that the Queen was being foolish. Twilight gathered up her friends, and said “One does not simply take the Elements of Harmony away from its creators!” They all seemed to stand in a perfect formation waiting for something. Twilight staggered a bit after a few minutes noticing that her element hadn’t arrived yet. The Queen laughed evilly at their ridiculous action in trying to retrieve their elements. “What happens when you constantly have the elements under a floatation spell? If you don’t know, then you should. It stops any movement made by non physical objects.” Twilight looked at the ground in sadness, and said “Well is there any way you could stop this?!?!” She started to cast her small protection spell, and grew stronger and stronger as she casted it. “Why aren’t you fools doing anything about this, GET HER!!!” The Queen shouted at her minions, and rose up from her throne. “You won’t defeat me this time.” The Queen disappeared. Twilight was almost done with her protection spell when a changeling nearly tackled her, and Applejack jump to take the pressure while the others fought off other changelings. The protection bubble started to spread at an exponential rate, and eventually covered the whole room knocking any changeling it hit farther and farther away. “Where am I?” Shining Armor said as he stood up in the middle of a small forest. He looked over the closest clearing, and saw big scorch marks. Wolf Tongue lay in the middle of the battle, he was still alive, but he was lying still as if something was preparing to attack him. Shining Armor looked up to see an enormous dragon about to release more flames upon Wolf Tongue. Shining Armor started to cast the spell to reflect the flames to protect Wolf Tongue, but the dragon got to attack first. The flames had almost reached Wolf Tongue when a bright purple bubble formed around Wolf Tongue, who had gasped in shock of the flames not effecting him. “You shall not fall in battle Wolf Tongue.” Shining Armor shouted from the nearby forest. Wolf Tongue got up from the scorch marks on the ground, and picked up a chain from nearby. He threw is over the dragon, and continued to this process until he had the dragon trapped. All of this nearby men popped out of the bushes shooting arrow at the dragon, and shouting “VICTORY TO THE SHADOW LEGION!” Shining Armor murmured to himself “Shadow Legion?” Wolf Tongue walked toward where Shining Armors shout came from, and said “Thank you for your help, we wouldn’t have won if it wasn’t for you.” > A Return > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 41 A Return “Who is the Shadow Legion?” Shining Armor quickly asked Wolf Tongue. Wolf Tongue walked over the cliff nearby, and said “We’ve decided to name ourselves that after we encountered hundreds of changelings, and won.” Shining Armor congratulated them, and teleported out. He finally arrived at the castle in which Princess Cadence was waiting for him. “Where have you been, I’ve been so worried. Is Twilight ok? Last I heard you and her were fighting a dragon.” Shining Armor stared at the ground, and said “After a while of us protecting the Shadow Legion we got knocked out from behind, I woke up and noticed the battle was still going, so i decided the help Wolf Tongue, and ask if he had seen my sister. When i had asked the question I got no answer, so I thought I would come back here, and comfort you.” Cadence hugged him, and said “I understand your reasoning, and we must go. We can’t stay here forever, let’s get some rest.” They both headed to their house in Canterlot, and rested up for their next task. They both woke up around the same time, and prepared to go away. “We must find them, I hope they’re fine, but if they’re not we will be there to help them.” Shining Armor said as he prepared himself for the journey. He equipped himself with his longsword, and put on his set of armor. “I’m ready to go how about you?” Princess Cadence turned to see him, and said “Here, give me a moment, and get some breakfast before we go. We can’t go on empty stomachs.” She grabbed some items out of a nearby cabinet, and continued the put items into a bag. “We can’t pack that much, we need to travel fast.” Cadence turned to him again, and said “I’ve been to parts of this world you’ve never seen. This is a bag that can hold unlimited amount of items, and will always weigh less than a feather.” Shining Armor’s jaw dropped to the floor, then he said “Why didn’t we give that to the Princess when we knew they were going on a journey?” Cadence looked around the room, searching for items that they would need. “I got this bag not to long ago, when they were still on the move. I thought that they wouldn’t need it by now, because they’ve already traveled that far, why would they need to come back to pack more. They also have a Pinkie Pie, she is too brilliant that she has everything she needs with her, haven’t you seen her just pull something out of thin air. Its amazing, I don’t know how she does it.” They both stopped the chatter, and grouped together, gave each other one last hug, and teleported out. > Lost > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 42 Lost They both emerged from a great swamp, and Shining Armor said “Where are we, I thought we were supposed to go to the post. This must be miles from the post, Cadence are you here?” He took a quick look around to not find her. He shouted her name “CADENCE!!” He started to run in a random direction to find it not to help. He stopped to catch his breath, and gather his thoughts. “I wonder what she thinks of all this, I must have slipped out of the teleport bubble. I had no idea that was possible.” “Where, Where am I?” Cadence stood up from on top of a cliff, and looked for Shining, but didn’t see him. She looked instantly as she heard a voice off in the distance shouting something. She couldn’t understand what it was saying, but maybe they might know what was going on. “Shining!!” She got no response. She lifted her wings, but she had apparently crash landed on this cliff, but her wings were broken. Where was she, it looked as if there was a campsite nearby, and a forest behind her. She looked off of the cliff to see a small desert running along the cliffside, but beyond that there was a swamp. She looked for a route down, because she was too weak to use her magic. She couldn’t waste time resting while her, and Shining were apart. Shining looked around, and found nothing that would help him. He looked over to find a clearing nearby, he walked over toward it find that he was on the bottom of a cliff. There was a massive desert between him and the cliff. He finally decided that if he were to find Cadence at all he would have to climb up to the top. He found a small route of rocks leading up to the top of the cliff. He started to climb only to see another figure at the top, he decided to take the risk of yelling. “Cadence is that you?!?!” It turned it’s head faster than many ponies could, and started to head down toward him, he got into battle stance, and prepared himself to be tackled. Cadence appeared the through the fog, and jumped on him for a hug. They both asked each other “What happened?” The both had no idea, but they decided it wasn’t important, and they should rest up. > Caged > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 43 Caged Shining Armor woke up to find himself in a cage on transport to who knows where. He stood up from where he sat, to find that Princess Cadence was no where to be found. He recalled that the night before, he had noticed that Cadence wasn’t acting like herself, but he didn’t think anything of it. It was a weird event that had happened. Was he deceived into thinking that Cadence had just found him, or was this some sort of mind trick? He heard chatting ahead of his cage cart, and saw some pegasi, and some changelings pulling a long chain of carts. All Maybe she hadn’t been caught. He stood up trying to keep his balance while the cart bounced about along the gravel road. In the instant that he decided to give up on searching, the caravan stopped at an uncomfortable speed. He heard a fight up ahead, he tried to bring himself up as tall as he could be, but there were too many carts in front of him to do so. “Hey can you tell me what’s going on up there? You see I’m looking for somepony who was with me.” The pony in front of him responded “There’s a princess apparently trying to fight off all of them up there.” Shining Armor jumped at the response, and teleported out of the cage. He wouldn’t have earlier because of how many of them there were, but now was a different situation. He rushed up to the front of the caravan to see Cadence fighting off six changelings at once. When she saw him she seem to be flowing with more energy than before. Shining casted his spells, and did what he could to help Cadence. They both during the fight gave each other glances, and were happy to see that they were both completely fine. Cadence seemed to be getting less and less tired the more she looked at Shining, and grew happier as she saw him fight the best he could. Shining Armor finally decided that enough of them had been dealt with that he could cast his protection spell to get rid of the rest of them. He started to cast, and had to focus on just the changelings, he knew that after the spell he would have to regain his strength, and fight off the others that weren’t changelings. The spell was finally finished, and a few seconds afterward he was flung off of the cliff due to a crazy pony who saw what he had done, and wouldn’t let his friends go without being avenged. This pony was also known as the changeling TrioFeet. Cadence saw this event, and went diving for Shining. They both reached the bottom of the cliff, but before hitting the ground Cadence started to fly upward, while also using her magic to slow Shining Armor down so he wouldn’t die or get injured from the fall. > Nothing Like Home > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 44 Nothing Like Home Shining Armor fell unconscious while falling off of the cliff, when half way down the cliff side he woke up due to the fall, and the last thing he saw before he passed out again was an angel like figure flying down from the cliff. She started to cast something with her horn, and continued to follow him down the cliff until his last thought was “This is it I’m going to die, at least my last thoughts were about this angel…” He fell unconscious, and continued down the cliff. Cadence used all her strength in trying to slow him down enough not to hurt him, but to help him. They both finally reached the bottom, and Cadence decided it was a nice time and place to take a nap. A few hours later Shining Armor woke up next to Cadence who was still curled up in a small ball sleeping. He walked over to her, and kissed her on the hear, he said to himself “In my last seconds my mind generated you as an angel, and you are an angel to me. You’ve not only saved me this time, but back in the Canterlot, and many other time too. What could I ever do to just repay such a beautiful creature?” Cadence woke up in the middle of the sentence, and listened closely to Shining Armor’s statement, she hopped up from her resting place to give him a hug for his generosity in words, and said “You’ve already repaid me, why do you think I’m with you, who could be better than you? You’ve vowed to protect me for the rest of your life, you’ve protected me from countless changelings, and will never take any sort of pain. This is my payment back to you, and you deserve more than just his.” Cadence hugged him harder, and slowly let loose her grip, and backed away. “We have to get going, even though I know we’re both tired, we both know what’s at stake if we don’t hurry up. They need us out there, there’s a lot more than just those changelings about. I heard they just dealt with a dragon.” Shining Armor stood up from the ground, and said “My men The ‘Shadow Legion’ dealt with that dragon, I don’t really know what else they did to it after chaining it up. I saved Wolf Tongue's life from the fires of a dragon. I think we need a little more rest. Yes we do have a lot ahead, but I was just held captive for who knows how long, but we’ve been separated for far too long, we need our time to recover.” Shining Armor plopped down on the ground, and said “Will you join me?” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "For all the people that don't read the author notes. Please read them, and if you dislike my story please give me feedback of why you don't like it, I'd love to improve it in anyway possible." Tassadarth > Rest At Last > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 45 Rest At Last Cadence sat down next to Shining, and said “For once I feel as if we are truly together, all those other times it felt as if we were just joined by magic nothing else, we’re truly destined to be together.” They both hugged under the moonlit sky. “We shouldn’t stay here in the darkness.” Shining Armor said as he stood up “We should probably go gather some firewood. I can’t bare being away from you for too long, why don’t you come with?” They both started off into the nearby forest to gather wood, both were talking to each other. “What do you think went wrong with the teleport? I appeared down here, and moved up the cliff. For some reason I saw you, and we rested next to each other on top of the cliff, but when I woke up you were nowhere in sight, and I was trapped in a cage.” She stared at him for a second before answering “It’s pretty obvious don’t you see? You were deceived by another changeling, this one had just appeared in the correct timing to make you think it was me.” Shining stopped in direct moonlight looked up at the sky, and collapsed to the ground, and said “How could i have been so foolish not to notice such a detail, I thought you were just confused of how we had lost each other in the process that you would act in such a way, but I guess you’re right about this. I’ve failed yet again to recognize my bride, even my own moonlight.” He stared at the ground intently, then stood up still facing the ground, and continued walking in the direction of the forest. He stopped at the sight of two feet in his path, he looked up to see Cadence looking confused. “Why would you think that would give you any sort of permission to leave me, I can understand how you feel, I won’t hate you for such a thing, you are foolish, but not in the way you’re thinking of.” She hugged him briefly, and turned to walk with him further into the forest. “So where are we going to set up camp, I don’t want to be out here longer than we have to.” Shining Armor said as they entered a clearing. He pointed to a spot nearby, and said “That is perfect, we have water nearby, and we have a great view of the night sky.” She looked at him, for she knew the obvious, he was trying to set himself up to the best he could for her in one night. “Yeah this is great, you go gather the firewood, and I’ll set up the tents.” Shining Armor did as he was asked, but when he came back all he found was a nice blanket set down in front of the lake in the moonlight, and candles around. Cadence stood up, and said “This is what I’ll call our honeymoon.” She smiled, and hugged Shining. > Again? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 46 Again? Shining woke up to find an empty valley with a small pond in the middle, he remembered this from the night before, but it was missing something, or someone. He searched the whole area before he noticed that she was gone, where was she he thought. He picked himself off the ground to search in more depth, but as he took his time to walk around he noticed that there was nopony to be seen around here. “Cadence” He shouted hoping she was just in the nearby forest, he looked over to the bags that were packed, and started to search them in hope for a note saying “Gone to Canterlot, be back soon” Sort of thing, but he found nothing. He rushed through all of his own stuff, and all of her stuff, but found nothing to lead him to her. He continued his search, he was not going to lose her again. He stopped for a second to think, he needed to pull himself, and his thoughts together if he was going to make any progress. He continued to think to himself “Those damn changelings took her didn’t they? I have to do something about them. They can’t just keep doing this, and expect it to go unnoticed.” He spoke out loud to say “Where ever you are you’re not going to fool me, I’m eventually going to outsmart all of you damn things, nothing you can do about it!” He was hoping for maybe three of them to pop out so he could deal with them himself, but nothing was even in the line of sight. He saw a small speck flying across the sky, and decided to try getting it down there “HEY you! Can you come down here to help me for a second!” The speck got bigger and bigger until it took the shape of a pony, and reached the ground. “Derpy, but you’re supposed to be in Canterlot. Do you happen to know where Princess Cadence is, she was here last night, and now she is nowhere to be seen.” Derpy looked at him, and sighed. “She was taken by a caravan of changelings to the south of this position, maybe if you move now you could possibly get to them.” Shining stood up from his thinking spot, and rushed to pack the bags and leave. He moved everything as fast as he could so he could assist her as fast as possible, and said “Thank you Derpy for your help, you can have a break from guard duty when this is all over. You’re a great soldier.” He picked up every bag, and started to run in the direction in which Derpy had pointed him in. As he was running he thought to himself. What was she doing out here, where was she going, how does she know about the changelings. Is she one herself, or am I just over reacting? He stopped to see that Derpy was indeed following him, and said “I have a quick question, Who is your best friend?” Derpy looked at Shining strangely for a second, and said “Raindrops of course, everyday I give her my favorite type of muffins.” > Caravan > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 47 Caravan Shining Armor relaxed now knowing that Derpy was not in fact a changeling. He picked up the pace, he needed speed in order to catch up to what they call a “Caravan” He said to himself “This thing must be stopped.” He ran and ran dodging tree and rocks all scattered throughout the small forest. He came to the edge of the area to find that it blended into a swamp. He continued with caution, he couldn't simply slip, and let them get farther just because of a simple mistake. The swamp was slowing him down as he went, but as he noticed this he pushed his muscles as hard as he could. He was getting closer, he looked up into the sky to see a big cloud of smoke, he was hoping that was their camp. He moved in closer and closer, and finally came to the camp. It was empty, he looked about the trains hoping to find Cadence, but she was nowhere. No ponies or even changelings anywhere. The fire in the middle of the camp still burned, that meant that they were close. He picked up the pace, he followed the tracks to ran into the forest. Maybe they were bringing them to a trading post. If so he didn’t care what he had to do to get her back. Derpy followed slowly, and said “This seems like it’s a good place for a trap, don’t you think Shining.” Shining Armor turned around to see Derpy shaking, and said “Yes it very much does, but no ambush will catch me off guard.” He turned around to see a cave entrance up ahead. He ran a little faster hoping this would be it. As he came to a complete stop inside the cave he found a group very familiar to him. The Shadow Legion sat before him looking at him strangely. “What are you doing here Shining, I thought you were supposed to be out there taking the fight to them.” Wolf Tongue said as he walked over to report to his captain. “Cadence and I got ambushed in the night, and they took her. Derpy here said she was taken by that caravan outside, do you know anything about them?” Wolf Tongue looked at the ground, and sighed “We took it down this morning, and found that each slave was already sold.” Shining Armor fell to the ground. > SLAVES? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 48 SLAVES? Shining Armor dropped to the ground, he laid there sobbing. He couldn’t believe this news, where had she gone? He really wanted to know what was going on, he had no idea that it might get this serious. He regretted even stepping a hoof outside of Canterlot, now his wife was missing, and the great Shining Armor was broken down on the ground crying. He couldn’t take much of this anymore. He could remember the night before, when they had spent the whole night together. He thought to himself “Only if I could relive that night everyday.” He got up from the puddle of tears soaking into the ground, and said “Wolf Tongue, can you order all your men to follow me, and help me find Cadence. This mission is too important for me to go without her.” Wolf Tongue nodded, and turned to a few of his high class soldiers. When he turned back Shining Armor had disappeared out of plain site. “Shining Armor, where did you go?” Wolf Tongue looked around only to see the trail of hoof steps along the road leading around a corner. All of the changelings in the cages seemed to be freaking out about something. The sky turned pink, and kept on spreading, after the pink was done a big streak of blue followed it. What was this sorcery no pony had seen this before. What was going on with the heavens above? Cadence flew down from the sky to find a camp full of soldier bowing down to her as she landed nearby. “Where is Shining Armor, he and I have been separated for quite some time now. I need to see him now, I don’t have much time, we don’t have much time. There is a big force pushing it’s way through the Everfree forest. We need to act soon, take all of your forces over to the nearby changeling caves that we captured a few weeks ago. In there you will find a portal leading back to Canterlot, they will need your help. Where can I find him though, I found the others, and they are in some big trouble.” Wolf Tongue pointed her in the direction that Shining had gone. She picked up her pace in hope that she would catch up to him soon. Knowing him he was hoping to catch up to her too, so they were both running at the same speed. Cadence decided that it was a waste for her to run, and started to use her wings. She glided above him for quite a while yelling trying to get his attention toward her. He would constantly look around when she shouted, but would never know she was above him. One last final try “SHINING ARMOR, PLEASE STOP!!” He stopped in his tracks to look around. “Where are you, I’ve been looking for you for days. Where have you been?” She landed behind him, and said “Distant lands, I’ve found your sister and the others, and they are in a bad situation, we need to help them now!” They both started to run in the direction that Cadence had pointed out, and didn’t stop. > Bad Situation > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 49 Bad Situation Twilight woke up near a cave to find herself alone, she had hoped that at least one pony was nearby. She took a quick look around, she then noticed that she was in a containment cell. She thought to herself what had happened before her black out? Where was she when she blacked out? Was her friends with her at least? She looked around the room she was being held in, the only way out was a small door made of bars. “Is there anypony here!?!” She yelled out the door. A small muffled sound came from the caves beyond, she thought she would try again “Hello? Is there anypony there!?!” The muffled noise got louder, she was sure that this noise was at least responding to her. “HEY, CAN YOU AT LEAST SHOW YOURSELF? I WOULD DEFINITELY LOVE TO TALK TO ANYPONY!!” The muffled sound eventually got louder, and turned out to be grunts. A huge dog came around the corner of the cave, and said “Hi my name is tom!” The dog yelled. It had a collar made of diamond, and below hung a bong that read TOM. “I’m guessing you’re a part of the Diamond Dogs?” Twilight said with a worried voice. The dog grunted, and walked away from the holding cell. It turned around, and said “You are the other one that can cast that weird spell to find us gems right?” Twilight shook her head, and the dog unlocked the door, and pulled Twilight out. “You go and find me gems, and you might earn your freedom.” She shook her head free of the dog’s grip. She thought to herself “Maybe if I get to an area where I’m supposed to cast that spell I could free myself and the others with my protection spell. Then again I don’t really know where they others are, I know that Rarity is at least going to be out here looking for some to.” She followed the big dog to the main room of the caves they were living in. “Rarity, do you happen to know where everypony else is?” Rarity looked around, walked over to Twilight, and whispered “They don’t know about the other, I have no idea where they are, but they can’t know that they exist. If they find out they will use them as weapons against us. We got captured when you and I looked for firewood.” The dogs looked around, and said “What other ponies? I don’t see any others.” Twilight shook her head, and said “Never mind about that, so how am I supposed to work for my freedom again?” The dog turn to her, and said “What freedom?” She gasped, and started to cast her spell. A small bubble formed around her and Rarity It continued to grow. One dog decided to touch the outside of the bubble growing faster toward the three of them, Tom flew across the room after touching it slightly. In a few seconds the bubble started to flash, and grew at such a rate that it could have been mistaken for an explosion. This made each dog fly straight into the walls of the cave, and made little holes in the walls for them to coware into for the moment. At the final moment Twilight looked to Rarity, and said “Prepare yourself, we are getting out of here!” > A Drop > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 50 A Drop “Where did you go Cadence? I was so worried about you.” Shining Armor said with a frown on his face. She turned to him, and smiled “I’m sorry the hounds were calling for my arrival, I needed to see them as soon as possible.” Shining Armor scratched his head, and said “The hounds?” Cadence sighed, and said “The hounds are our enemies, they think of some sort of very powerful sorcerer that they can depend on. I know their plans because of this, they had called me in to tell me that they were tracking the six, and were planning to attack soon. I had to stop them, that’s why I had to leave immediately.” “Oh okay, I can understand why, but next time could you at least leave me a notice. The Shadow Legion left me to run in one direction, they gave me some bad news, I didn’t want to happen.” “Okay, so now that we’re on the surface where are we?” Twilight said as she overlooked the valley up ahead. Rarity walk next to her, and said “I have no idea, but we need to find our friends. We can do anything together.” Two cracks made their way to the edge, and caused an avalanche. Twilight fell off the canyon wall, and grabbed on the ledge. She struggled, and said “Rarity help!” Rarity turned back from the firewood. Twilight was barely holding on by a small branch, and fell. Right before Twilight’s eyes Rarity flew up above her, and changed her form. Twilight thought to herself “I’ve always hated those changelings, when do they stop.” “King Sombra, our forces are ready, that impost just left to inform them we have nothing. The plan is going well.” Sombra rose from his throne, and said “Then unleash our forces from the everfree forest, they won’t stand a chance. Especially since they won’t know what hit them.” “Chainball, the Shadow Legion awaits order. Princess Cadence ordered us from the recently captured post to come back to tell you we’re under attack.” Chainball gasped, and ordered a few of his squad to prepare for a battle, and turned back to him “We can’t let this city fall, I know most of my men will start fighting if their attack leads up to this statute.” They were standing in the middle of a park, where a big statute held its place in the middle, this statute was of the fallen one. > Reunion > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 51 Reunion Pinkie Pie woke up near a small river, she took a look around only to find herself in the middle of a dense forest. She slowly stood up trying not to make a sound, she thought to herself “Where am I? How did I get here? When did I get here?” As she was making a last look around, she found her Element of Harmony lying in the river wedged between two rocks. She walked over to it, and picked it up “This will come to use later, I don’t believe I’ll be finding them anytime soon.” She walked up to a nearby tree, and put on her Element of Harmony. As soon a she put it on it glowed like the sun, and shot a light blue beam up into the sky. The tree itself started to move, and fell apart. “Fluttershy? Why didn’t you show yourself earlier, I’ve been worried. Where are the others?” Fluttershy finished removing her tree costume, and said “There are more than just ponies roaming this forest, I’ve seen a Rarity drop a Twilight off a cliff. I don’t know which one to trust, was the Rarity the changeling, or Twilight? We all don’t like changelings, I have a feeling that if a changeling put on an Element of Harmony, it might not do what yours in doing now.” Pinkie Pie then noticed that the beam from her Element of Harmony was still being shot into the sky, was it some sort of beacon? They would never know, there was a rustling sound in the nearby bushes. Fluttershy quickly put her tree costume back on, and Pinkie said “Wait what about me? What do I do?” The instant she said that Rainbow Dash popped out of the those bushes covered in mud, and some other substances. “Who were you just talking to Pinkie?” Pinkie looked around, and said “Do you happen to have your Element of Harmony?” Rainbow Dash nodded, and put the simple necklace around her neck. The jewel embedded on the inside glowed, and shot another beam up into the sky this one was red. Fluttershy took off her Tree, and hugged them both. Pinkie Pie then realized that Fluttershy wasn’t wearing her’s. “Hey Fluttershy, why don’t you put on yours? I mean, you’re right I don’t really like those changelings. They’ve tricked us too much.” Fluttershy picked up a nearby bush, and started to got through it. After a while she picked her bag out of the bush, and put on her Element of Harmony. A pink beam shot up into the sky, while looking at the beautiful light show of love they saw slowly the beams were guiding themselves together. They started to form a small ball of light in the moonlit sky. The moon had just reached the midpoint in the sky, and it dropped down. “The moon isn’t supposed to drop this early, what’s happening?” The sun rose, and Princess Celestia flew down to the group of ponies. > Monsters > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 52 Monsters “Celestia, what is happening? Why did the moon go down so early? Why are you here? Do you know where Twilight is?” Pinkie Pie said. Celestia looked to all of them with total seriousness on her face, and said “I grant you three a few days time to gather stuff together. This light is to stop the incoming forces outside of Canterlot. I’m here to tell you that Twilight is in terrible danger, and was hoping she was with you three. Rarity isn’t very far from here though. I have no idea where Twilight is though. I’m hoping she finds this sign of the elements that I came to, she needs to find you immediately.” Celestia turned around “I must return to Canterlot at once, you take care my ponies, and the best of luck on your journey.” With that Celestia flew up into the air, and started to head toward the mountain that marked Canterlot. Pinkie looked at the ground, then shot her look up to the morning sky, and shouted “RARITY, WHERE ARE YOU!.” With this Rarity came out of the nearby bushes saying “I’m here, I’m here.” She came to the clearing of all three of the others to find that Twilight nor Applejack were here. “HEY, Applejack!” Applejack came out of the same bushes Rarity emerged from, and said “Where is Twilight? We thought she was with you three.” Twilight woke up at the bottom of the cliff to find that she was saved by a small pond of water. She looked around, and thought to herself “Why didn’t I drown in this water?” As she thought that a big creature exited a nearby cave, and walked over to Twilight. She panicked not knowing what to do she screamed, the creature continued its way over to her. It finally reached her, and said with a very calming voice “Why are you screaming little pony? I’m not here to harm.” This big creature looked like a troll, it had huge arms, big feet, and stood 7 feet tall. Twilight was only 3 feet tall, she was an ant in comparison to the towering ogre. It held out its hand, and said “All i want is a friend.” Twilight felt sorry for the creature, she could understand why nopony wanted to be its friend, it was scary. Twilight in response to her thought said “I’ll be your friend, I don’t know why others wouldn’t.” > Monstrous Forests > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 53 Monstrous forests “Only one of my friends to my belief will freak out about me walking with you.” Twilight said to the ogre with a smile. The ogre still looked at the ground, not knowing what to say Twilight decided to stop, and have a small talk. “So, I know we just met, but you haven’t said much since I’ve agreed to us being friends. I know you’re new to having friends in all, but you could have imagined what we as friends do right?” The ogre shrugged, and continued forward, Twilight didn’t have much to say. This creature didn’t seem all that dangerous, but it did give off it’s own bad feeling. A few minutes had past when she saw one beam of light shoot up into the sky, and as more time past more and more beam shot up. These beams were colored accordingly to her friend’s Elements of Harmony. Twilight looked up to the ogre, and said “THAT MUST BE MY FRIENDS!” She picked up the pace to regroup with them as soon as possible. The moon dropped early, and the sun rose up as soon as it dropped. What was going on. She finally got to the nearby bushes of the opening in which her friends stood. She looked behind her while saying “Ok that’s them, are you ready to meet them.” By the time her head turned to look for him, she noticed he was nowhere to be seen. Twilight decided it would good to go and search for him, he would be a great resource of defense against what would lie ahead. She came back to a smaller clearing that had shown her why her new friend didn’t respond to her, nor continued to follow. This ogre apparently wasn’t any normal ogre. It was a half breed between both a cave troll and an ogre. Twilight looked around, and found a small flower on the ground, picked it up, and moved it over to the stone statue of the ogre friend. “I’m sorry it had to be this way.” Twilight turned back, and ran into the clearing with her friends. They all were lying on the ground asleep. She didn’t want to wake them up, so she sat there watching her great friends sleep until they would have the strength to move on. A few hours later Twilight was lying on the ground waiting, when she heard a familiar voice come from behind. “Twilight, where have you been? All your friends have been so worried about you, they didn’t know what to do without you.” Twilight turned to see Princess Cadence standing next to a nearby tree, as Twilight and Cadence greeted each other the others woke up in surprise to see Cadence, and were in more surprised to see Twilight. > Back to the Journey > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 54 Back to the Journey “TWILIGHT! Where have you been, we’ve been so worried.” Applejack said as she woke the others. Everypony looked up to see their leader, and gave a big smile. “Are you ok Twilight, you’ve been gone for so long?” Twilight walked to the middle of the whole group, and said “I’m really sorry that I wasn’t around, but I fell off a cliff. This ogre at the bottom of the cliff apparently saved my life. I decided since all it wanted was some friends that I would let it come along, but it turned out to be a cave troll/ogre breed. It turned into stone the moment the sun rose.” Cadence walked over to Twilight, and said “We all must rest here, I know you want to continue right now, but we must not move on from here. A recent oracle has spoken to me, she told me that I should stay close to my sister, and watch for them. That’s exactly what I’m going to do, Shining Armor should be here soon, he just decided to take a few minutes to clear his mind.” Just then there was a small rustling in the nearby bushes, and Shining Armor stumbled out of the. He stood up, and said “We have to watch ourselves, I just encountered a few changelings.” He was speaking directly to Cadence, and turned to see the rest of them, and made a huge smile when he saw Twilight. “I’m so happy to see you, we still need to get us moving though, you know what happened last time we slept because we wanted to catch up.” At that the eight of them packed up all of their belonging, and started to head toward the edge of the forest. They all finally came to a clearing where all the trees from that point were dead. Shining Armor then pointed out that there was a castle in the far distance, and said “I’m sorry to say, but we both need to get back to Canterlot. We need to help with their defenses and hope that we could get an army up to assault that castle.” Shining Armor grabbed Cadence, and they both disappeared. Twilight looked to her group of ponies, and said “Ok, lets do this.” > Dead Forest > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 55 Dead Forest Twilight was the first to walk in, all the trees around seemed to not have any sort of life cycle, they were all just dead. Rainbow Dash and Applejack followed, then Rarity behind them. Twilight looked around, and said “Fluttershy, where are you?” A tree on the line of the dead and the living moved, and said “It’s too dark and scary over there, I don’t want to go.” Twilight grinned, and moved back over to Fluttershy, and said “You don’t need to be scared Fluttershy, you got us.” She turned to see all of her friends waiting on both of them, Rainbow Dash looked as if she was prepared for anything, Applejack stood completely calm next to Rainbow Dash, Rarity stared at the ground in which was all mud and muck, and Pinkie Pie was still laughing at how all of the trees around were dead. Twilight held out her hoof, and said “Don’t worry Fluttershy, as long as we’re all together, nothing will stop us. Just look at this forest, all it is are dead trees, they can’t hurt us.” Fluttershy realizing this dropped out of the tree, and crossed the line between the living and the dead. Twilight smiled at all of her friends’ bravery shown of by them all agreeing to join her in the new dead forest, she felt a little scared, but she knew that this task wasn’t easy from the start. She turned to see all of her friends waiting for her, and started to walk toward the castle in the distance. “We must send something to help them, they don’t have a weapon to attack the castle on their own.” Shining Armor said to Princess Celestia, right now she was looking past Shining Armor toward a nearby window. Shining Armor turned to look behind him, and see the window made for the six who had defeated Discord with their friendship. Shining Armor looked around, and said “This is a castle we’re talking about, not a small village. They can’t simply just use the Elements of Harmony on every foe they face, send spike they need a familiar face to comfort them, and protect them.” The Princess sighed, and said “Fine.” She turned to a nearby guard, and said “Go alert RainFall, he need to release the beast. Let loose the monster, they need him now.” The guard panicking from what was just told ran out of the tower, and met up with RainFall. “They said to release the beast.” RainFall nodded, and looked over to Spike who now had grown almost as big as the cage. RainFall walked over to the cage, and said “Well Spike, it turns out that you get to see your friends soon, they need your help. You’ve become quite big in the past few weeks, and I have a big feeling that you’re going to do your best.” Spike roared from the cage, and stomped around in joy, RainFall saw this, and said to the guard “He is ready, send for Shining Armor.” > Release the Beast > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 56 Release the Beast “What do you need me to do RainFall, is his training complete?” Shining Armor said as he entered the big room. RainFall pointed out that Spike had now grown to the full size of the cage. Shining nodded to this, and gathered as much magical strength as he could. Shining focused all of his power onto the dragon inside of the cage before him, and shot a big beam of magic between himself and the dragon. His magic surrounded both of them, this bubble started to glow brighter and brighter until they both disappeared. “What’s that in the distance? Is that, Spike?” Twilight said as she pointed her hoof in the direction of the castle nearby. They picked up the pace, they didn’t care about what was around them, how exhausted the truly were, but a friendly face was all they needed. Spike’s massive form took up a nearby field, he rose above the clouds, and seemed to be very calm in comparison to the last time they all saw him as this. Fluttershy in the instant she saw him dug a hole, and hid on the inside of it. “Fluttershy, there’s nothing to worry about, it’s just Spike, he won’t harm us.” Twilight said as she pointed out the purple scales and the green spikes. Spike turned to see his friends, and stood up from where he sat. He was very happy to see his great friends, this was an event he would remember for a very long time. “Twilight!” The enormous Spike roared at them. “I’m so happy to see you, it’s been so long since I’ve seen any of you. I hope none of you have forgotten me.” Spike smiled as he said this, tears started to form in his huge eyes. Rarity stepped up, and said “Poor poor Spike, don’t cry. We haven’t nearly forgotten about you, we’ve been worried about you. We didn’t know what they were doing to you, we didn’t know they were doing such a thing with you.” A few minutes had passed when a roar from the nearby castle erupted from the keep itself. King Sombra’s dragon was growing impatient. Spike turned to the castle, and roared louder than he has ever roared before. The dragon’s response was a lot quieter than the last one was. Spike smiled, and started to laugh, Pinkie Pie was the first to join in, and the rest joined in as seconds past on. “Well, I guess our journey is coming close to its end, I’m going to miss the times we’ve had. At least we will have great stories to tell our fillies about.” Twilight said as she looked to her group of friends. “One last hug before we start the last chapter of our journey.” They all began to cry, and all group around for the last hug during their journey. > The Final Chapter, Enemies are Friendlies, but Enemies are Enemies > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER 57 The Final Chapter Enemies Friendlies, but Enemies are Enemies King Sombra sat in the darkness of his castle “Where is the queen, has she seen this weapon of theirs? I want to know of these Elements of Harmony, I want to know how to defeat them, this castle won’t fall without my permission. Nopony will step foot in this keep, this shall be the last fall back position, where is the queen of the changelings I need to see her now.” King Sombra’s guard stepped up, and said “They have rethought their alliance with us, they don’t want to be destroyed in this battle. Apparently The Elements of Harmony are too powerful for us to fight them. We’ve never had to face them, all that we’ve faced is the power of a relic that destroyed us before The Crystal Haart.” King Sombra stood up from his throne “Those cowards, I guess we will have to fight them on our own, they won’t get to the fear inside of us. Call for my army to assemble.” The guard turned and ran toward the closest door. A few days later. “Great and powerful warriors, we must win our next battle. This depends on our future, these ponies want to invade our lands, and destroy our homes. They think they can plant the fear into our hearts, FEAR IS OUR WEAPON, THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO BREACH THESE WALLS AS LONG AS WE’RE STRONG!! NOW GET BACK TO YOUR POST, AND DEFEND LIKE NONE OTHER.” Sombra’s army roared, creating the rhythm of a victorious song, he knew that the battle up ahead would be won. He turned around, and said “Call back my troops in the Everfree forest, we will need all we can get for this battle.” The messenger he was talking to said “Yes sire” He dissipated, and reappeared next to the army’s general. “Lord Sombra is recalling all troops back to his castle in the dark lands. Some glorious battle awaits us.” The dark pony looked to him, and said “What sort of battle would be better than taking down Canterlot? This is one chance we won’t have for a long time.” The messenger shook his head, and said “The six ponies famous for destroying many foes are at our doorstep, and we don’t have any chance to defend ourselves without an army to back us up.” “They enemy is retreating, why? I thought this battle would be our last, but it seems to be different? I don’t know why Sombra would take back his whole army when they got their grip around our necks? Is there something bigger forming up north where he is settled upon that dead forest?” Chainball was pacing back and forth, he hadn’t known anything but war. “Did we demand a truce, I don’t know what to believe.” Shining Armor entered the army’s barracks, and said “Don’t worry Chainball, I have know idea why their retreating either, but we didn’t go to peace. These monsters need to be extinguished from Equestria. We will meet up with my sister and her friends next to their castle. They have a defense and offense of a dragon, so I think they might be fine without us until we arrive.” “Your troops are ready for you lord Sombra.” King Sombra turned to see his main general waiting for him. “Why did you pull us back, we were at the brink of bringing down the great Celestia. If you would have let us carry on with the assault there would be nothing for us to worry about, and now that we’ve pulled back. My scouts have told me that their army is assembling, and disappearing. They all enter the castle, and don’t come out. Do you think that they’re building a tunnel to our kingdom? I will never know of this, this castle is doomed since they have their army, The Elements of Harmony, The Crystal Heart, many relics beyond our reach, and a dragon. How could you think that this battle is going to be won. We’ve already had to recover your remains after you were destroyed into a hundred pieces by the Crystal Heart, why would you want to face it again?” The general walked to the back of the room, and said “All my men are loyal to me, me not you. I might just go and join their army, instead of waiting here to die! I don’t want to take any risks. THERE IS NO FALL BACK FROM HERE, IF YOU LOSE HERE, THERE IS NOWHERE TO GO TO. THIS IS A LOST CAUSE, YOU WILL NEVER WIN AGAINST THEIR GREAT ARMY. WHY SHOULD I STAND BY YOUR SIDE, HUH? THIS IS A SUICIDE MISSION, MY MEN AND I ARE OUT, GREAT TIME SERVING YOU MY KING, BUT YOU’VE GONE INSANE IF YOU’RE WANTING TO FACE THE FORCES OF DEATH!!!” The general stormed out of the throne room of the castle. King Sombra sat astonished by what he just received from his general. The moment he had walked out the door, he threw something behind him. The general had dropped his recruit badge, proving that he had stood with Sombra since his first days in their army. Sombra had only felt this emotion once, and was now feeling it again. Once when he was a phillie, he had somepony who he had loved very much, this pony planned with him that they would rule Equestria (in a good way) together. They would build a better world. Then she broke down with a curious disease that had never been seen before. She then died a few days later of the cutie pox. This made Sombra go into a deep rage, he blamed it all on the doctor, on Equestria itself, but he couldn’t let his promise go. He had then sworn his life on ruling Equestria forever. This magical seal he put on his life would keep him alive until he had completed this task, or died trying. “How is everypony doing? Are we going to be able to move tonight, or do we need more time to recover from our previous experiences.” Rainbow Dash said as she hovered above all of them. Twilight collapsed the ground, and said “I think I’ll need more time, I got thrown off a cliff by a changeling. It was not pleasant.” She paused for a moment as she saw a banner fly across the sky, she recognized it, but she wasn’t sure. “Did any of you see…” She stopped thinking she was making a fool of herself, and continued to try to fall asleep. A few hours later the moon went down, and the sun went up. “Why does Celestia keep changing the day night cycle?” As she was saying that the sun was moving across the sky at a significant speed, it hit the other side of the horizon in a few minutes. The moon and the sun continued to go up and down for hour, each pass gaining more speed than the had before. “What is she trying to…” Twilight then remembered last time she had a lesson from Celestia, they were talking about scientific explosion, and what the sun and moon were made up of, but if they collided it would take a few days to make a new sun, unless they had multiple powerful unicorns working on it. “Everypony take cover, the Princess is going to make the moon and the sun collide causing a giant explosion, probably to catch our enemies off guard. They must be wondering why the day and night cycle is changing so much. The explosion will leave all that see it blind for a week or two.” They all started to run toward the canyon walls, that enclosed the valley they were in. This left a small choked passage to enter the dark forest, or the swamp beyond. “We need to find a cave, it will shelter us from the beautiful rays of blinding light.” They all ran along the rock face hoping to find a small crevice to hide in. Pinkie Pie finally jump in joy, and said “Look look look, I found one.” The Crevice lead down a little, but it was big enough for the six of them, Twilight was the last to enter, but before she did she looked up to the sky to see that the sun was about to stop it’s movement, and start the collision with the moon itself. She hurried down into the small, and hid behind the wall. A really bright light shined around the cave wall, followed by a very loud sound, after all was over. They sight of the outside was almost too hard to see, but one thing stood out from the rest, a whole city of lights had appeared right there. They all walked out to find that Celestia’s army had already started its assault of King Sombra’s castle. The six walked over the leading camp to find Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, and Princess Cadence all watching the battle from a distance. Shouts from the distance brought tears down all of their faces, but the kingdom had already been warned, but King Sombra didn’t want to back down. Derpy flew down from the skies, and said “There is a mass of men approaching us, what do we do?” Celestia turned to see somepony she didn’t expect to find “What are you doing here Karratic?” They pony was dark, but had a soothing voice “I came to join, King Sombra has gone mad. I would stand by his side for anything, anything but this.” They all laughed, and moved along. Spike waited at the gates of the castle, Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie approached him, and entered the castle. The remains of knocked out ponies laid on the grounds everywhere. They all entered the keep where most of the fighting was taking place. They all carried their own weapon, one that is not understood by most, but is the most powerful. They all wore smiles on their faces as they simply walked into the throne room of the castle. One item they unpacked from their bags not expecting to find was the Crystal Heart, Celestia must have slipped it in while they weren’t looking, this was a good charm to give them, and they would have to use it to even nearly destroy him. All entered the throne room the find King Sombra sobbing in his chair, Twilight saw something she had never seen before, a broken promise that bound him to life forever. “You ponies come to destroy me right? Make sure this time you actually kill me, I don’t want to live forever anymore. This life is only meant to live once not forever. All that you can accomplish can be taken in one life, this just gets old. They told me to stay strong, so I did, they were all I cared about, but time took them along with everypony I’ve known. Just destroy me already, this is what I would be expect to be waiting for me if I had done anything truly bad.” The ponies looked at him in sorrow, and felt sorry. They all got up into formation, Twilight held the Crystal Heart in her hooves, and they all started to float up into the air. The magic inside of them flowed like none other, Twilight remembered one thing that a traveler had told her a long while back “When you’re about to destroy your enemy is when you know them the most.” They all floated up, and shot their power into the sky causing light to shine over Equestria again, this caused the castle to shine with a bright glow, and everything bad was now wiped from existence. The power of all of the relics had saved Equestria. > Epilogue > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- EPILOGUE All enemies of Equestria were now all gone, Twilight moved throughout the ruins of the castle wondering what she would do next. The journey itself had changed her in a good way. She was expecting there to be more than just that finally battle, a journey back, but with this new magic of mass teleportation they would have to use that instead. “Princess Celestia, what do I do now? I’ve been wondering all around the undiscovered parts of our own map, I don’t think I really want to go back.” Celestia chuckled, and said “Well of course not, all that go on such a journey never want to return. You will stay here, and hopefully your friends to.” Her horn started to glow, and she pointed it at Twilight as it got brighter and brighter. It seemed as if she was having trouble casting the spell, Twilight turned around so she didn’t have to worry about much of what she was doing. As she turned to look the castle was reassembling itself back together, she finally finished casting the spell. At the last moment of the spell being cast a flag popped out of the top of the castle, and Twilight felt a tingling on her to sides. There was something new, something different about her. She decided it wasn’t much. So she headed over to her friends to tell them that they were for now on staying in this castle until they decided otherwise. The all gasped at her approach. “What are you all staring at? It’s not like I’m leaving you forever, we’re all staying at this castle together.” All five of them continued to stare at her “You guys are now trying to creep me out, what is going on?” Rarity decided to speak up first “SHE GAVE YOU A CASTLE?!?!” Twilight stared at her, and said “Well I guess you could say so, but I don’t think I’ll call it mine, when its ours.” They all continued to stare at her intensely, and didn’t want to speak unless spoken to. “What is wrong, we’re all going to be together aren’t we?” Applejack pointed to Twilight, and said “We’re not so freaked out about how we get a new castle to ourselves, but about the wings that are coming out of both of your sides, I hope you realize that you’ve been awarded to become a princess now right?” She looked to her left and right, and realized that this was correct. They all formed around for a hug, and gazed over to their new castle. “A stronghold to keep out our worst fears, as long as we keep a smile on our face, they won’t ever get to us. This is our journey’s end, a new beginning.” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By the way, the castle this is talking about is the art shown on the cover. > Author note > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thought I might as well update this part right here , I haven't gotten much done with my new story, and editing this story is going slowly with really long work weeks. I've been trying to schedule time to work on one or the other, but I'm either too lazy, or not inspired enough to write. I haven't even considered the option of taking down this story, or my other one, because they are my ideas and almost completely mine alone. Tassadarth :D 03-22-2015