Knights of the Realm (MLP)

[Kinni]

Here am I. This thread is made to crosspost my newest fanfic Knights of the Realm. Also available on Fimfiction and Spacebattles.

To explain simply, it is an AU where Twilight, Trixie and Sunset are Celestia's students and being trained to become Knights of the Realm, defenders of Equestria.

But to Celestia's annoyance, while they are good at that, they are also somewhat... eccentric.

Let's start.

Knights of the Realm

Chapter 1 - The Eccentric Knights

Celestia looked at her three new apprentices. Sunset Shimmer, with her amazing magical potential. Trixie Lulamoon, with her perfect illusions. And Twilight Sparkle, with her extremely unusual magical affinity.

All three of them had shown remarkable potential in the magical tests conducted all over the world. And it was likely they would become amazing mages under her tutelage.

She only had one question: Was she willing to risk putting them on the path of a Knight of the Realm, even with all the danger that was implicit in that path?

She thought of her sister, and decided that the answer was yes.

"Hello, little fillies." She said in her most welcoming voice "Do you have any idea what I'm going to teach you?" She wanted to encourage them to be independet as much as she could. There was a limit to how much she would manipulate someone, and she wanted them to be able to tell her no.

"You're gonna teach us magic?" Said Sunset. As she was a year older than the other two, she seemed to be taking the lead at this point.

"That's right. But I am going to teach you something even more important." She answered with a smile.

"More important than magic?" Twilight asked, somewhat incredulous.

"Indeed. In the past, there were ponies, and even some non-ponies, who swore to defend the land of Equestria from any possible threats. They've trained to become the best versions of themselves they could, so that they could be the best defenders possible." She said, letting her admiration for those long-dead heroes pass through her voice.

"The best versions..." It was clear little Trixie was interested in it.

"That's it. They were the strongest, smartest, most noble and most courageous individuals in all of Equestria. Do you want to learn to be like them?"

"Yes!" Sunset jumped at the chance.

"I also want to." Trixie said after thinking for a few moments.

"If I can..." Twilight gave her opinion after a much longer pause.

"That's good, because I can't just turn you into Knighs. To become a Knight, you need to apply yourself and work hard. You need to endure difficulties and learn hard lessons." Celestia noted how each of the fillies reacted to which part. She was going to give it her all to make them as great as possible.

-

Six Years Later

Celestia looked at her three apprentices, now teenage mares who already had their own jobs, lives and friends. She decided this was the best time to see if they were really going to be the Knights she was hoping to make them into.

"So. You three have found jobs and lives of your own. Do you still want to follow the path of a Knight? I can guarantee it's only going to get harder from here on out." She told them in a serious voice.

The three glanced at each other, seeming to have an entire conversation with just their eyes. They had really become close to each other in those last few years. Apparently, the lessons on camaraderie and team work and all the other stuff were sinking in.

"Well." Trixie said "From what we could gather about the work of Knights, we're not going to be on missions all the time. And Trixie can do special new shows after every mission, telling the tales of courage and valor, and showing any new tricks she picks up." She did a flourish with her hat before finishing "There's no reason for Trixie to give up."

Twilight came next "While my work as a magic teacher doesn't have the same flexibility of schedule as Trixie's, I can still go on missions if I organize myself properly." She smiled "No problem. And besides," She looked to her cutie mark "I can't really exercise my real talent by teaching foals, anyway."

Sunset just shrugged "You know, helping you raise and lower the sun is a nice gig and all, but... It's just too calm for me, I want to be able to do more exciting things." She nodded "And I guess that means we are all going to get some extra training soon. Who wants to try to work out some more Special Combinations?" She asked the other two with a cheerful voice.

"I do!" Twilight answered "Oh, this is going to be awesome, I know there will be a lot of new study materials and I'll have to plan a lot of new speeches based around what I learned and..." She kept going on about all sorts of speech variations for different situations, and about the best ways to give a speech depending on who or what you were fighting, and some other things Celestia didn't catch.

"Don't forget that we will need to make even more new strategies, and have cool names for all of them. We need to be able to dazzle our opponents with our strategical acumen and our amazing use of amazing spells." Trixie put in her own two cents.

And then Celestia couldn't get in a word edgewise. The three of them started bouncing ideas of each other, and getting more and more excited, and she got some alarming snippets of conversation like "can make it colder than absolute zero" and "and then the illusion becomes a real magic circle" and "I figure it could blow up a mountain".

The princess started getting a headache. She thought it may have been a mistake to let her apprentices read so many old epic tales about Knights of the Realm. Things could end up being even more hard to handle than they already were. Her apprentices were dedicated, but perhaps their dedication was bleeding off in weird directions.

Still, she figured this was just a phase, the three were going through. They would mature soon, so there was no need to try to douse their enthusiasm unnecessarily.

Yes. This was definitely the right decision.

-

Four Years Later

Celestia's eye twitched. She wondered if there was anything she could have done to affect this outcome. Perhaps she had been a little too hard on her apprentices, who sunk down to new levels of... eccentricity in order to handle the pressure. Perhaps she had been far too subtle with her indications that perhaps they should not try to emulate literary epic heroes quite so closely. Perhaps she could have gotten their parents a lot more time with their fillies, because they frequently only had each other and it was clear their behavior fed upon their shared bond to grow like a parasprite infestation.

But no, perhaps nothing would have worked, and destiny really wanted this. Perhaps this was the price she would pay for the salvation of her sister, seeing the start of a very silly new era of heroes. But still, they were her dear apprentices, and deserved to be treated as such.

"So. You three have surpassed every single prediction I could make about your growth." In many different meanings, she thought "Your bodies are strong," As the guards have found out "your minds are sharp, your morals are inviolable, your teamwork is legendary," Perhaps too legendary "Your will is magnificent and your magical abilities have reached a standard that I've only seen a few times in history." Thank the World "On all accounts you three are ready for the last step." She paused for a moment, knowing this was an important statement "To become true Knights of the realm, you only need to complete a special Knight mission. And I am ready to give one to you." She took a deep breath "Even knowing that you may die trying to fulfill it, do you still want to take part in this mission, to perform a service to the land of Equestria and become true Knights?" She already knew the answer, but if she was going to innaugurate a new era, she was going to do it right.

Twilight was the first to step up, she then stood in her rear legs and started declaiming, in a way that wouldn't look out of place in a very melodramatic stage play "For the years I've trained, for the ancestors who brought me to life, for the heroes who inspired me and for this world so bright..." She made a slight pause, for effect "I promise that I shall never waver from the path of a Knight, no matter what horrors I face or what dangers I confront." She put her hooves back on the floor and bowed heavily, causing tens of clones of herself to appear all around the room and bow along. Multicolored and multisize clones. They disappeared before Celestia could start having flashbacks "I accept whatever mission you feel adequate to charge me with." She said, as she raised her head back.

Trixie was the second one, and stepped forward in perfect compass with Twilight stepping back, which made her remember all the time they took to train their Team Movements "The Great and Powerful Trixie is not the type who will back down when things are tough." Her horn glowed, creating a spiral staircase which she started climbing as she talked "And her honor will not allow her to decline doing any missions that might help others." And suddenly Trixie seemed to be teleporting with each step, going up and down the stairs randomly "Specially not when it might make a great story to be told for generations!" Suddenly, Trixie was by her side, having replaced herself with an illusion, seamlessly "And that is how Trixie feels." She took off her hat with an elegant bow and went back to her previous spot. The Princess was happy she didn't try to project her speech to everyone in the castle.

Finally, it became Sunset's turn "All this power I was born with..." She lowered her head "I want to believe it was meant for something. I want to believe my talent is something that will make me loved instead of feared. I want to believe that this...!" She started charging an improbable amount of magic. Celestia didn't even react, way too used to this kind of thing "Is something that will have a positive effect in the world!" She released her power in a blast upwards, annihilating a good portion of the roof of the castle.

Sunset returned to her previous spot, before using a spell to fix the damage.

Celestia's eye stopped twitching. She said:

"Then, let's go to the operations room, in order to explain your mission."

-

It wasn't a big journey. A teleport and then walking for a few more rooms. She heard with a single ear as the three unicorns congratulated each other on the "awesome speeches". The Princess decided to get it over with quickly. She conjured a map of Equestria with an illusion.

"Here," She pointed to a spot on the map "Is the current territory of the Mad King Sombra. He used to rule over the Crystal Empire, until Princess Cadance, in the act that earned her ascension, managed to take control of the Crystal Heart and banish him." She sighed "But she wasn't able to save my sister, whom he has been using as his top enforcer for the last thousand years, transformed by black magics into the form of Nightmare Moon." She showed an image of the Nightmare "He set up in the region of Barb, enslaving its inhabitants and creating a special field of darkness that prevents alicorns, but specially me, from coming near."

She stopped for a moment, before showing an image of Sombra "Your mission is threefold, in order of importance. You must save the ponies that are under the control of Sombra, rescue my sister from his mind control and defeat him, to prevent him from simply trying to take over somewhere else."

Trixie looked at the map "We'll need records about this place, the population, resources and everything."

Celestia floated the relevant papers over to her, having already expected this.

"So, has anyone tried to get in?" Sunset asked.

"Yes, a company of royal guards invaded to try and save the population, but none of them managed to return. The barrier also seems to cut off all communication." Celestia informed her.

"In that case, I think I should set up a connection with Spike. It should be able to sidestep the barrier and allow for communication and delivery of resources." Twilight said "Do you have the information about the magical properties of the barrier?"

Celestia floated a page to her, and she got out a scroll and started making calculations. Trixie also looked at the page.

"Trixie will need to get close to the barrier to confirm, but this also seems like an alarm system. She'll have to think of someway for us to be able to enter without tripping it." She explained.

Sunset started wondering about the possible defences, including magical traps and the possibility the guard contingent was also under mind control and would fight them. The other presented their own points and the planning proceeded.

Celestia smiled, despite everything, she had complete faith in their ability.

-

Three Days Later

"So, I guess we're as prepared as we're going to get." Sunset said, as she looked at the bags the three were carrying.

"And I've already made the special connection with Spike." Twilight said, somewhat sadly. The small dragon had not reacted well to not being able to go with Twilight in such a dangerous mission,

"Now we just need to teleport close to the barrier and initiate out mission." Trixie said, trying to change the subject.

"Good luck, my students." Celestia said "I hope to see you victorious soon."

The three smiled at her, then they got up on their rear hooves and started posing.

"For the glory of the Knights!" Shouted Twilight.

"For the protection of the innocent!" Shouted Trixie.

"For the good of the world!" Shouted Sunset.

"KNIGHT FORCE, MOVE OUT!" The three shouted, their poses coming into synch, then disappeared in three pillars of light.

Celestia sighed, not being surprised by that. Then she was relieved to note that she still feared for the safety of her apprentices, instead of being too numb.

"I just hope they don't traumatize my sister..."


Chapter 2 - Meeting the Resistance

The three of them had set their destination well, and appeared only a few meters away from the barrier. It was very intimidating from so close up, a dark dome constantly cracking with purple lightning all around its surface, the barrier itself expanding and contracting chaotically, like it was trying to expand and devour everything around it, the entire area around it completely devoid of life due to voracious magic needs of the dome sucking out all the energy from the earth.

"Dibs on breaking the barrier!" Sunset announced immediately.

Trixie looked at her "That will depend on what exactly is anchoring it, but considering your usual specialties, it's very likely you'd end up doing it anyway, Sunset."

"Just making my interest clear early, is all." Sunset answered.

Meanwhile, Twilight was making a small speech "For the sake of the stolen life of this land, I swear I will do everything I can to make this barrier be ended." She recited solemnly.

"First, let the Great and Powerful Trixie prepare our stealthy entry into the enemy territory." Trixie proclaimed, and went to work.

Sunset looked as Trixie started to fiddle with the barrier, knowing this would take a while. She turned to Twilight "Anything interesting to mention?"

"I've already thought of how to make our introductions when we actually meet other ponies in this first mission."

"But I thought Trixie would do the introductions?" Sunset tilted her head.

Twilight shaped the earth into two confortable chairs for her and Sunset to sit "She's going to introduce us when we meet enemies, but I convinced her to let me make the introductions to normal ponies."

The two of them kept talking, going back through their spell lists one last time to guarantee they knew exactly what the others could do. It wasn't really necessary, given they had already done so before coming, but you never knew when the inspiration for a new spell variation would strike. Sunset was particularly good at adapting under pressure.

Trixie didn't take that long to come back, now with a small ribbon on her mane. She showed two more ribbons to her partners "Here, put those in your manes. It should work to disguise our magic signatures enough that the barrier won't react. It will also make it harder for us to be caught by general magical detection."

"And Sombra will obviously have something much better than than general magical detection anywhere important, right?" Sunset said, as she was tying the ribbon to her own mane.

"He's still not ready for us." Twilight stated definitely.

The three of them walked up to the barrier, Sunset passed through without hesitation, Trixie held her hat in telekinesis as she went and Twilight took a deep breath before going through.

Inside the dome was like a whole other world. The sky was dark and full of even more of the purple lightning that could be seen fron the outside. What light could get through was weak and gray, as if passing through a heavy fog, and it was clear the envinronment suffered for it: There was no sign of any small animal or insect moving through the hills, the grass seemed to lack colors and the trees seemed to lack leaves.

Trixie took off her hat to an imaginary audience and said something about "starting the show", but Sunset wasn't able to understand it perfectly.

"Right," Twilight said "since I haven't felt anything like a magical alarm reacting, it seems that our ribbons worked perfectly." She turned to the other two "As planned, I'm going to gather information in the town" she indicated the town they could see in the distance "And then we decide on the next step."

The other two nodded, and Twilight's horn shined, then she took a step and seemed to stretch, before disappearing.

"Let's get to walking." Sunset said, starting the trot towards the town.

-

Twilight more or less understood why neither her partners nor her teacher understood when she explained how she did those kinds of things, but it still seemed so simple to her. Find a place to go, like that cloud, sense the light reflecting off her own body, redirect it to the destination, then change places with her own reflection. After all, the reflection was very similar to her.

Still, she was in her element as she moved from place to place, barely using any energy, while simply teleporting to the town would spend a lot of energy and cause enough ripples to allow a powerful mage to detect them even with the ribbons.

Finally, she reached the town, first standing on the side of a buiding (using an application of viewpoint manipulation so basic it barely warranted mention) then jumping to just under the earth, right in the middle of the town (by convincing the ground it was malleable enough to stretch).

Looking from underneath the earth, Twilight observed the town. It was easy to see that the ponies weren't happy. They kept to themselves and avoided making eye contact with each other. The streets were silent because there was no conversation, no peddling of wares and the ponies even seemed to try making the least possible amount of noise while walking. And of course, it seemed like they had been right about the fate of the guards. There were a few of them, here and there, moving robotically and with unfocused eyes. They were obviously brainwashed.

After observing for a while, Twilight noticed that one of the ponies on the street (a blue stallion with an orange mane and a lantern cutie mark) seemed to be slowly passing near every single other pony. Sensing that something was up, she swam towards that pony (having to hold her breath) and managed to catch him whispering:

"Tonight, at the Crafters home."

Bingo. It seemed like Twilight had found the resistance. She went around until she found a mailbox with 'Crafters' on it and managed to perceive the fact that the house that mailbox belonged to had a significantly large basement, probably the place where the meeting would be held.

She left the town and waited on the outskirts until her fellow disciples of Celestia arrived. She explained what she had found, and noticed that the day was getting close to ending.

"We should definitely meet up with the resistance. They should have information that would be very good to have." Sunset said.

"The night is cold here, so cloaked ponies will probably pass by unremarked. What about simply going to the meeting?" Trixie proposed, with a mischievous smile.

The other two agreed, and soon three cloaked unicorns were making their way through the streets, without attracting the least attention from the guards or other ponies (it helped that the ponies were deliberatedly staying away from each other). With a small spell to increase hearing range, they discovered the "password" that the members were giving to the mare who answered the door (long live the princess). And they were able to inflitrate the house and be led into the basement without any problems. Trixie was barely able to stop herself from giggling.

The basement was big enough for a large congregation of ponies, there was a small stage at the back, and the three of them took positions at the opposite end of the room from the stage. More and more ponies entered, to the point where it was becoming pretty full, but then a mare with a white coat and purple mane stepped onto the stage. The meeting started with simple reports of recent happenings, and Trixie waited to see when Twilight was planning to introduce them.

It turned out that she was only waiting for the right straight line. When the mare asked if anyone had anything extra to say, Twilight answered:

"I have something to declare!" said in a perfect stage voice, which immediately attracted the attention of everyone in the room.

Twilight's horn glowed, grabbing the concealing cloak in telekinesis, Trixie followed suit, and saw that Sunset did the same. Then, in perfect synchrony, the three of them threw their cloaks to the air (Sunset made them disappear, since they were only magical constructs).

"Under orders from Princess Celestia, we, her three apprentices, have come to free this land from the tyranny of Sombra!" Twilight continued, reinforcing her point with large gestures.

"Who... who are you?" The mare on stage managed to ask.

"I'm glad you asked that. Here!" She indicated Sunset by pointing with both forelegs to her side without actually turning "Is Sunset Shimmer. Among Celestia's three apprentices, she is the strongest!"

Sunset recognized the cue and gave a step forward before charging enough energy to make her whole body glow.

"Here!" She did the same thing, this time pointing to Trixie on her other side "Is Trixie Lulamoon. Among Celestia's three apprentices, she is the cleverest!"

Trixie knew it was time to show off. She reared up on her rear legs and cast an illusion spell strong enough to put images of Trixie and her name all around the room.

"And I!" Twilight indicated herself, rearing on her rear legs and tilting backwards "Am Twilight Sparkle. Among Celestia's three apprentices, I am the most mysterious." Her tone had become less boisterous on the last few words.

Twilight fell backwards, into a hole that appeared suddenly. Then she reappeared falling from the ceiling in a completely different part of the room, falling on another temporary hole. And that continued, with Twilight eventually falling sideways through the room before suddenly appearing back at her starting point.

"And we are here to help." She said, in a small but well projected voice.

Trixie approved completely of this introduction, but before she could say so, they were besieged by all kinds of questions and demands. It took a while for things to settle down, and the three had to do a lot to be recognized as truly being what they said they were, but eventually things calmed down enough for them to be able to actually talk with the leader of the resistance.

"My name is Ranger Time." She said "This group was formed to try and find out any weaknesses on Sombra's control of this region, and we have a lot of useful information." She looked downcast "We just haven't had any way of actually using it."

The three knight candidates were beside her on the stage "Just tell us and we'll do our best." Said Sunset.

Ranger smiled and nodded, before starting "First, Sombra never leaves the castle. He sends some kind of illusion that goes to inspect the town and the work camps, but we found out the thing had no smell and didn't leave any traces even when it should.

"Second, the castle is a leftover from an old noble that lived here. We have a map of it, and we updated it based on the testimony of the ponies who were sent there to work on renovations. We don't know what kind of magical defenses the castle has, but they are potent.

"Third, Sombra has access to 40 brainwashed guards who were sent here some time back, 17 pegasus, 14 earth ponies and 9 unicorns.

"Fourth, there are three work camps where Sombra forces us to work in order to produce for him. The first is the mine, where we harvest precious gems. It is supervised by one of Nightmare Moon's avatars, an unicorn who specializes in darkness magic. The second is the king's field, where he forces earth ponies to exhaust themselves growing food in those miserable conditions. We don't know what he uses it for. This place is supervised by the earth pony avatar, who seems to specialize in manipulating silver. The third place is the factory, where pegasi and unicorns are forced to charge jewels with their magic, before they are shipped to the castle. This place is supervised by the pegasus avatar, whose specialty is unknown, but her cutie mark seems to imply something related to lightning.

"Fifth, Nightmare Moon spends most of her time in the castle, but sometimes goes to the town or the work camps."

The mare finally stopped talking, and the three apprentices huddled up, discussing all sorts of possibilities and plans. Trixie was the expert in that kind of thing, but the other two weren't slouches either, and kept putting forth reasonable suggestions and ideas.

Eventually, they had the beginning of a plan, and turned back to Ranger Time.

"We have a plan." Trixie said "And if things go right, by this time tomorrow this entire region will be free."


Chapter 3 - The Plan

Celestia was thinking about her apprentices when Spike ran in. More specifically, she was thinking that perhaps the test of the Samsara of one hundred lives had been a little too harsh. She could remember how she justified it at the time, but in hindsight those reasons didn't seem quite enough of a justification, even if Trixie had ended up gaining new insights into illusion magic from that test.

"Princess! Princess! They have sent a message for you!"

Celestia grabbed the scroll in Spike's hands and read through it "Hmm... They are requesting the names of every member of the guard company for debrainwashing purposes. And Twilight wants me to send one of her old cardboard cutouts of herself. They've joined up with the rebellion and will try to remove Sombra in a single day."

Celestia thought about it. It was slightly reckless, but Sombra was very good at adapting when he had time to prepare, so that could be the only chance of actually completing all their missions.

She sent Spike to get the necessary papers and teleported the cutout to herself, She would not leave her apprentices hanging.

-

"Okay, now that we have all the names, you need to get the unicorns from the resistance to make spell papers using this plan" Twilight showed a scroll "And putting the names on the spell papers on the right parts. This should be able to free the guards."

Ranger Time looked at the scroll and thought about the plan "But who gets the spell papers?"

Twilight blushed "Ah, sorry, I forgot about that part, you should make four complete sets. Three for us and one to stay with you guys just in case."

That seemed reasonable. She looked around and saw that the other two apprentices had figured out ways to entertain themselves. Sunset was playing with a magic cube that had way more moving parts than any other she had even seen, and Trixie was putting on a small magic show.

Ranger went to give the orders to the people they had available, and when she came back, the mare saw that Twilight herself had found something to do, and was apparently teaching magic to a filly unicorn. She smiled, those three heroines that Celestia sent really made people feel at ease. Apparently, the plan was going to start two hours before sunrise(or what passed for sunrise inside the barrier anyway), so they were going to sleep soon.

She went back to organizing things.

-

Candity had a simple job. She just had to get close to the castle and deliver that cardboard cutout. Her night vision was good enough to go through the first part of the path, and then the eldritch lights coming from the castle did the rest of the job. When she got close enough, Candity dropped the cutout of that Twilight Sparkle unicorn. Then she watched in amazement as the thing seemed to unfold in itself and turn into more or less a normal pony, who began trotting towards the castle.

Apparently, she was going to serve as a decoy, keeping Sombra attention on the castle by tripping his alarms while the three were going to attack in the mine. It seemed simple and unlikely to go terribly wrong. They had clearly thought of everything.

Candity suddenly felt a sense of dread and started to run back to town.

-

In Sunset's opinion, the journey through the mine was terribly boring. Okay, Trixie and Twilight were apparently having to concentrate a lot to get through all the alarms and traps without being discovered, but Sunset really didn't have enough ability to help the two with that work, and was just "keeping watch", which pretty much meant trying not to fall asleep out of boredom. Really, when they were discovered, Sunset was mostly relieved.

She didn't really think they would be able to sneak attack the avatar of a princess, anyway.

"Who goes there? How have you gotten here without being detected?" The unicorn with a shadow cutie mark demanded to know.

She was actually rather intimidating, with a cloak that seemed to be made of living shadows, a vibrant grey coat and silver mane and a sharp helmet that seemed to be made more for intimidation than actual protection. The heavy feeling of dark magic coming from her didn't reduce her intimidation factor any, either.

Sunset could tell, Trixie had been waiting for this opportunity. She shot fireworks into the ceiling and took a pose with her forelegs to the air.

"From all over the lands of Equestria, three fillies were gathered!" She stomped the ground "Chosen among countless others for their great magical potential!" She raised her head to the sky "Trained and tested by Princess Celestia herself to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Knights of the Realm!" She did a somersault in place and created glowing plaques with the names of the three to appear above them "Sunset Shimmer, Master of the Magic Enhance! Twilight Sparkle, Master of the Magical Sign! AAAAAND... Trixie Lulamoon! Master of the Perfect Illusion!" She made the plaques explode in a shower of sparks and did a pose. Sunset and Twilight doing matching poses they had worked out during Pose Training.

There was a beat.

"What?" The avatar asked, flabbergasted.

"Not going to repeat my performance." Trixie stated sharply, then she shot a beam at the unicorn and the battle was joined.

A barrier of semisolid shadow erected itself to block the attack on the unicorn, then tendrils of darkness shot towards the three knight candidates, hoping to skewer them. Sunset did a magic-assisted jump backwards, Twilight did one of her weird teleports, wavering out of the path and Trixie vanished, revealing that had just been an illusion. Sunset took a brief moment to remember how annoying that had always been in their spars, before Twilight did her own attack.

"Soap slip!" She cried, creating a bar of soap that sped along the ground, hoping to trip the enemy.

The shadow user was surprised for a moment, but still managed to bring a tendril to spear the soap bar. That was a really versatile defence, it seemed like brute force was necessary, and thankfully that was Sunset's specialty. She quickly charged and cast a spell.

"Magic Enhance! Comet Dash!" She announced, forcefully enhancing the spell at the cost of a significant portion of her magic. But the results made it more than worth it.

The small but powerful fireball she had cast became a solid ball of earth covered in fire, and shot itself at the shadow unicorn at nearly supersonic speeds. The impact released a terrifying sound and the shadows seemed to explode, sending bits of themselves all over the area and sending the unicorn flying to the wall.

That one had always been one of Sunset's favorites.

-

7 years before

"Teacher! Teacher! Look what I did!" Sunset was jumping in place and waving to Celestia.

The Princess took a look at what used to be the south wall of the east wing of the palace, now a complete ruin.

"I figured out another cool spell with Magic Enhance! And if I take a little longer, I can even cast it normally!" She stop, thinking hard "But what would happen if I used Magic Enhance on that spell? I'm sure it would make an even cooler spell!" She decided with a nod.

The Princess was trembling. She must have been really proud of her student, Sunset deduced.

-

The avatar didn't reach the wall. With a yell, an amazing amount of shadow matter flowed out from her, forming a stretchy cushion to absorb the impact. Then she unleashed a moving wall of shadow matter directly at Sunset and Twilight. However, the purple unicorn smiled when she heard the voice she had been waiting for.

"Perfect Illusion: Mana Break!" Trixie announced, from where she was hidden directly above the enemy.

The showmare had always said the two of them made for amazing distractions to help her perform.

The unicorn avatar screamed a second after the spell hit her, her wall losing cohesion. Twilight could sympathize, Mana Break was a spell that played havoc with the body's ability to detect and manipulate its own mana, due to sending an overwhelming amount of contradictory signals. It was extremely hard to counter, though Sunset had some success simply releasing unfocused bursts of magic, so Trixie quickly teleported out of the probable blast radius.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Came the incredibly loud shout, and the body of the enemy shook in a grotesque movement, just before shooting out an entire rain of shadow fragments everywhere.

Thankfully, Sunset had already charged up a shield spell. It took form, a thick hexagonal shield that was also concave.

"Magic Enhance: Bunker Shield!" And the shield thickened even more, growing and gaining more facets and an additional layer.

Trixie and Twilight immediately took refuge behind Sunset, as the barrage started hitting the shield with the sound of canonballs hitting metal plates. Trixie looked to Twilight and glanced in the direction of the enemy. The purple unicorn immediately started charging the spell that would put an end to the fight. Trixie also charged up a spell of her own.

Seconds later, the barrage stopped, and the two apprentices were already waiting for it. Trixie teleported Twilight directly in front of the avatar, who was momentarily recovering from the exertion of too much magic at once, exactly the weakness of this kind of uncontrolled magic.

"May a half-life spring up from a full one..." She chanted, finishing the preparations for the spell.

"Chaos Magic: Life Divide!" The beam of the spell hit directly in the horn.

Two eyes appeared on the horn, and then a tail, and arms and finally the horn completely turned into a squirrel, which jumped away, leaving the unicorn's head bare.

After a second of silence, their opponent started becoming fainter and fainter, until she disappeared. While a normal unicorn would survive the same spell, an avatar is an entity created from magic, which can be disrupted with a large enough shock.

The three apprentices of Celestia had been successful in defeating one of Nightmare Moon's avatars.

Then, they immediately started running towards the exit of the mine, knowing that now Nightmare Moon would know she had lost an avatar, and Sombra would discover of the existence of intruders. They cast speed spells to reach the exit faster, knowing they would be able to escape before the alicorn's arrival unless she teleported. That was also why they had took the time to disable everything when coming in. And Twilight was already preparing a teleportation trap, which would at the very least give them time to get away.

-

From the top of the castle, a massive beam of energy shot directly towards the mine.

-

Trixie saw the beam of energy first, and recognized it as a forced movement spell, using the mine itself as a focus. She didn't have time to do any more than that before the spell activated.

The three unicorns got shoved right back through the mine, straight into a circular chamber, which sealed itself soon after.

Trixie saw the runes on the wall activate and recognized the unforgettable magic interference of anti-teleportation wards.

Then she felt the charging of magic energy right underneath her feet, an amount that was rapidly growing. She exchanged alarmed glances with her partners.

It seemed like the plan needed adjustment.


Chapter 4 - The Plan Needs Adjustment

Twilight looked as Sunset took a deep breath. The power obsessed unicorn was volunteering to take care of the situation, and neither of the other two made any move to stop her. There were situations where finesse was required, but that was most definitely not one of them.

"OVERDRIVE!" Sunset shouted.

Her body seemed to explode with a burst of magical power that was so overwhelming, Twilight had to fight not to instinctively take a step backwards, even though she knew she was under no danger from her partner. Then Sunset charged a spell for two entire seconds, time that seemed almost too long considering the steady charging of power of the trap beneath their feet, which already had a considerable amount of mana gathered.

The spell she cast took the form of an arrow of energy that seemed made to be shot out of a ballista. A particularly large ballista created to deal with magically reinforced castle walls.

"Double Magic Enhance: Bunker Buster Blast!" And the arrow grew by a factor of 1.5, but more importantly, the energy it consisted of seemed to deepen and become wilder and denser. The very air seemed to crack and burn around the arrow.

Over the years, Twilight had managed to understand more or less how Sunset's Magic Enhance worked. It was not simply overloading a spell, since it actually changed the very structure of the magic. Instead, Sunset seemed to be able to touch the very concept of enhancement, forcefully making a spell into a better form guided by her own thoughts, since the spells tended to become bigger and more destructive, instead of more focused and easier to control. It bypassed the need for a longer casting time to create a better spell, and the price was a significant power expenditure.

But power was something Sunset had in spades.

All those thoughts passed through Twilight's mind in the instant before the arrow shot at the wall, and were blown away by the sheer impact as it hit. And then the arrow exploded with a deafening sound (their prepared ear protection spells activated themselves) and the whole room trembled, as the effect of the spell annihilated every single one of the wards around them with the transferred force. It was a perfect expression of Sunset's specialty.

But even for her, it would be impossible to charge such a spell quickly without the use of an Overdrive, and that had a price.

Sunset collapsed unconscious.

Twilight and Trixie ran over to her and quickly charged a combined teleportation spell, feeling like the trap was about to release its own spell at them. The three unicorns disappeared from the room.

-

Moments later, the trap room erupted with a massive spike of energy, spreading through every available space, literally frying the rock walls.

Less than ten seconds had passed from the moment the trap activated.

-

Trixie already knew what she was going to see when the teleport concluded, but she still winced at the sight of the ribbon she had given Twilight disintegrating as the magical feedback of the teleportation passed through it, knowing her own ribbon was in the same state, and Sunset's had already been reduced to nothing back at the trap room.

And of course, the spatial disturbance of such a hasty teleportation was pretty much a beacon to their location (which was why they had chosen an open field next to the mine, instead of going directly to the town) which meant Nightmare Moon would be coming right about...

"Intruders, prepare to be destroyed!" And the corrupted alicorn appeared right on cue. Trixie quickly decided on a strategy.

"Hello, Princess Luna!" Trixie cheerfully called out to her "Sorry for killing your avatar! It was nothing personal, okay?"

The enemy blinked, seeming to have been thrown off by this sudden change in the script. Trixie charged a spell, concentrating in being as distracting as possible. Sunset was currently too unconscious to stay in a battlefield, and Twilight was the best suited to take her to safety, which meant the job of keeping the alicorn's attention fell squarely on Trixie's shoulders.

"Perfect Illusion: Sea of Silhouettes!" She shouted, creating an army of illusory replicas of herself, which flew right towards the mind controlled Princess Luna.

The Alicorn screeched and created a globe of darkness around herself with a quick spell, swallowing up the replicas in an instant.

Trixie felt Twilight and Sunset disappearing, and smiled as she charged another spell. She had a solo fight with a corrupted alicorn to deal with, and even though there was no audience, the azure unicorn intended to make it a hell of a show.

-

Ranger Time was startled when the two unicorns appeared right beside her. She was in a depression five miles from the city that the apprentices of Celestia had chosen as a fallback location. The mare became even more concerned upon seeing Sunset unconscious and not seeing Trixie with them. She asked almost unwillingly:

"What happened?" She hoped the answer wouldn't be what she feared.

"Sombra got us with a fairly clever trap." The purple unicorn said "Sunset had to Overdrive to help us escape, and we lost stealth. Trixie is distracting the Nightmare."

Ranger relaxed visibly. From Twilight's tone of voice, things weren't as bad as they could be. She might have been simply trying to make her fell better, but it didn't seem to be the case. Still, she was curious about something:

"Overdrive?" She asked.

Twilight shook her head slightly "First tell me if there's important news for us."

Ranger was embarassed, but she shook it off "The guards have been recalled to the castle." She wanted to have more information, but that was the only message she had received ever since she took position at the start of the plan.

"Okay. In that case will need to use plan variation 4c. So I have time to explain things before Sunset wakes up." The purple unicorn nodded. Then she started talking with a lecturing tone:

"You know how sometimes ponies force their magical reserves too much and they get weak and unable to use magic for a while?" She waited for Ranger to nod before continuing "That's the result of drawing more energy from the soul than your body can handle. The soul reduces the production of energy to discourage the pony from doing something that could cause serious harm.

"Overdrive is a controlled way of pulling extra energy from the soul, an entire burst of energy. But the consequences are harsher, as you can see." She motioned to the fallen unicorn.

Ranger nodded thoughtfully, so this was the kind of thing apprentices of Celestia learned... She returned to the present upon hearing a small groan.

"Oh!" Twilight said, smiling broadly "Sunset is waking up, which means she should soon recover completely and regain her magic."

The unicorn giggled, which Ranger Time thought seemed inappropriate to the situation. Then she went back to talking.

"Which means I can't stay here anymore, it's time for the next part of the plan." She turned to her companion and charged a spell.

"Chaos Magic: Flying Route!" She declared, and hit the flame-maned unicorn with the spell.

The body of her fallen companion started shining, and then floated into the air and started gaining speed.

"Go, Sunset Missile!" Twilight yelled, her hoof pointing forward, before teleporting and ending up standing atop Sunset's quickly accelerating body.

"Riding into the Danger Zooooooone!" She shouted, quickly flying off.

Ranger Time went speechless for a moment, before saying the only thing she could in this kind of situation.

"Those mares are weird."

-

The dark magic corrupted, mind controlled version of the Alicorn of the night and moon was familiar with all kinds of negative emotions. She was constantly engulfed in rage, her despair flared up whenever she was left alone for too long, envy was an old friend, and shame was constantly coming from the untouched parts of her soul.

Still, all of those were currently being choked out by a much simpler emotion: Annoyance.

Gah! That thrice damned unicorn is the most aggravating opponent I've ever faced! Eveything I use, she manages to dodge, teleport out of the way or turn out to have been an illusion all along! And while her spells don't cause any actual damage, they still hurt! From which layer of Tartarus has this demonic fly come?!

-

In a small hospital in Manehattan, Doctor Delivery felt a strange sense of indignation for a moment.

-

The Nightmare saw and felt the illusionist mage charge another spell, she blasted the entire area (which was already looking like a post-apocalyptic land) with an overwhelming amount of magic, while still holding a dimensional lock spell.

And the unicorn somehow managed to create a platform and ride on the edge of the shockwave without being injured, before blasting her with another of those painful attacks!!

As the Alicorn tried to work out some combination of attacks her opponent wouldn't be able to evade, her attention was caught by a throughly unexpected sight:

At the extreme edges of her large sight range, there was a glowing yellow unicorn flying through the air, with a purple unicorn standing on her back. The corrupted princess experienced another unusual emotion at the time: Utter bafflement.

Gahhh! And then the unicorn hit her again! She was going to kill that Tartarus forsaken creature if it was the last thing she did!

-

Sunset was annoyed. Ever since childhood, she was always aware that Legendary Heroes were experts at riding things into battle, be they dragons, spirits or their own directed power. So, the three of them had trained to be able to ride anything for the moment where this would become relevant.

And in the end, it turned out Twilight was the first out of the three to ride something into battle, and had done so by turning her body into a riding board. And it seemed like she had been planning something like this for awhile, considering what Sunset had heard after awakening.

Thankfully, she was fast approaching a viable target for her current frustrations. The earth pony avatar of Luna was in sight, and she still hadn't noticed their approach. This could only mean one thing, and she moved her head to signal her passenger.

"PREEMPTIVE ATTACK!" The two shouted at once, and Sunset charged her own spell, Twilight following in a practiced way.

"Duo Magic: Spiral Cannon!" The two cast, releasing a spiraling blast of solar energy with great explosive potential (courtesy of Twilight's chaos magic increasing the volatility).

The avatar felt the attack coming at the last moment and moved, accelerating faster than should be possible for an earth pony and still being hit by the shockwaves and leading edge of the explosion.

Twilight jumped out of Sunset's back, who felt the flying spell running out and mobilized her magic to spread over her body and cushion her fall.

Then, the earth pony flew in their direction, and Sunset could see that she was covered in some kind of silver armor. Twilight created a wall in the way, and it didn't even slow the silver mare down.

Sunset used a mana reinforced hoof to block the enemy, then had to quickly move to the side as a piece of the armor flowed into a needle-like blade trying to stab her. She quickly charged and cast a close-range explosion to get some space, and then Twilight came through creating an iron net that actually managed to trap the opponent for several seconds before she formed rotating saws to cut through her restraints.

Neither of the two unicorns had been idle during that time, though. Twilight captured her again, inside a jelly-like substance that couldn't be as easily cut. As for Sunset...

"Magic Enhance: Solar Laser!"

She had been preparing her finishing move.

A laser was a good way to put it, it was a focused orange blast that went straight through the enemy's body.

She screamed, then collapsed, the silver armor flowing away, and the body shimmered out of existence like the other. Another of Nightmare Moon's avatars had been destroyed.

It seemed easier than the previous one, but that was only because her abilities weren't suited to this kind of fight, and the fact they attacked first and wounded her a bit, and didn't give her time to recover. That was how Sunset saw the situation anyway.

-

The Alicorn emitted a sound that was half shout half grunt, as she felt another of her avatars be destroyed, and with it, even more of her power was sapped. She still wasn't having any luck with that damned unicorn, who seemed to somehow always know what she would...

Even though the Nightmare was far from sane by any measure, she still had enough presence of mind to deduce what was actually going on when the idea got in her head.

Ignoring the next painful attack (always painful, always distracting, never causing any real injuries) she cast the strongest and most comprehensive spell against mental influence the rules of her mind control allowed her to.

And the unicorn disappeared. The unicorn that had been fighting her for several minutes without getting any real injuries herself, who seemed able to evade any attacks she threw.

Nightmare Moon screamed in explosive anger and teleported to the site of the death of her second avatar.

-

Perfect Illusion: Shadow Opponent was a flawed spell, in Trixie's opinion. The manipulation was too blatant and too easily countered, which was bad when the real worth of the spell was in its ability to last long without any maintenance by the caster, while other illusions could only last for a moment and still have a big impact.

Still, for some situations, it was definitely the perfect spell.

She relaxed and her two partners teleported to her position, cancelling the spell she had up specifically to conceal the spatial disturbances of teleportation, rendering them impossible to follow. It was just in time, as she felt her other spell being broken.

She looked at the two, who had sent a message as soon as they destroyed the avatar, and received news of her position in return. Now, the enemies knew nothing of their positions, which was just how Trixie liked it. After all, it was hard to do an amazing entrance if everyone already knew where you were.

"So, what's the situation?" She asked.

"The guards have been pulled to protect the castle." Twilight said "And my roaming eye tells me Nightmare Moon went to protect her last avatar."

"Then it's time for us to attack the castle directly." Sunset stated.

Trixie didn't contradict her. The show was getting closer and closer to the climax, and they were still on schedule, regardless of the problems.

She couldn't wait.


Chapter 5 - Attacking the Castle

The three apprentices of Celestia took three small bottles filled with red liquid from their three bags.

Those three bottles contained one of the most useful potions they had packed for the journey. It was specially designed to alleviate muscle fatigue, which was a problem after long or intense periods of activity without rest.

They drank the potions, and talked while waiting for the effects to appear:

"Let's throw a rock at the castle. If it's big enough, we can crush a lot of wards and trip many traps early." Sunset proposed.

"The main problem with that is knowing where the guards would be, so that we don't hit any of them by mistake. Twilight, can one of your roaming eyes check for us?" Trixie asked.

"Sure." Twilight replied, conjuring a small blob with an eye and sending it towards the castle.

"What kind of combat spells do you think Sombra knows?" Sunset asked.

"Considering his obvious connection with the castle? He definitely has a lot of prepared traps and tons of ways to draw extra power from the envinronment. Not to mention the special jewels and food he receives. Safe to say, we won't be able to outlast him." Trixie answered.

"Remember that fighting him directly comes only after we rescue Princess Luna. Otherwise he would sacrifice her in an instant, the moment he felt himself to be in danger." Twilight said with her eyes narrowed.

The three of them kept discussing the possibilities of their final push for a few minutes.

-

The castle of Rongarde looked as peaceful as the castle of an evil sorcerer could ever look. It was still in the morning, which seemed to lighten the view of the threatening architeture, make the dead fields around it seem less wrong and prevented the eldritch lights from being seen.

But this relative peace was about to be broken, as an enourmous chunk of earth that had been ripped from the ground and compressed into an extremely heavy and dense sphere, flew through the air at high speed and hit the front entrance of the castle.

The impact was monumental. The shockwaves alone caused windows far away to break, and the part that was directly hit exploded in all directions, each of the pieces causing even more mayhem in their trajectories. Dozens of spells hit the projectile at once, many doing nothing due to being designed for use on living things, and many others having only a limited effect due to the sheer mass of the object in question.

Sunset shed a single tear, out of appreciation for the scene.

The guards started going to the blast zone, and that was when the three apprentices teleported in.

The guards quickly gathered to their full number and prepared for combat. Despite their mind-controlled states, they still had enough presence of mind to fight using the group formations and strategies they had used previously.

Sunset wasn't worried. The three had trained for this kind of thing.

-

Celestia decided that having the three fight an entire batallion of guards while under magic suppression was probably going a little hard on them, in hindsight.

-

Sunset immediately cast a barrier breaker blast at the middle of the formation to make the enemies scatter, and then the three apprentices ran into the confused ranks. Sunset used a combination of magic enhanced close combat techniques and medium range blasts of solar energy to deal with opponents trying to attack from a distance. Her shields were taking a beating, but they could take it. Twilight only made the battlefield more chaotic by randomly rearranging parts of it and animating others, to the point where some soldiers were attacked by giant mouths made of stone, she refused to stay in a single place for more than a moment. Trixie had the most refined fighting style, denying sight to her opponents via a cloud of mist and using countless visual and auditory illusions to make them attack each other.

And worst of all, at least in the perspective of the soldiers?

The three just would not. Stop. Talking.

"Blast, blast, blast! Special delivery!" She threw a guard at a group "Receive the might of the specialized close combat/magic hybrid style developed by me! Sunset Shimmer!" She bowled over a group of soldiers with an aura-covered, boosted onrush.

"And neither the days of suffering, nor the terrifying tests could prevent us from following in their footsteps! Because for every setback, we grew stronger! Every day moving forward a little bit more, in the hope of of reaching this stage! And that is why..." Twilight kept going, her speech uninterrupted by all her spells and movements.

"Let me show you guys a trick! Now you can hear each other... Now you can't!" And a deafening sound drilled into the ears of the guards who had the misfortune of being in the area of effect of Trixie's spell.

To make a long story short, the guards were soon wishing things would just end already...

-

Twilight looked at the forty guards collapsed on the floor, groaning. Satisfied that they had gotten all of them, she reached into her bag and took out her copies of the spell papers and threw them at the guards. Letting the built-in similarity spells lead the right papers to the right guards.

In a matter of a few seconds, all the guards had been relieved of their mind control.

Them Twilight and Trixie ran forwards and started casting spells, as the castle itself started fighting them.

It couldn't be helped. The room they were in had no surveillance due to a combination of the effects of their projectile and the spells Trixie was using, but there was no way for them to prevent Sombra from noticing his mind control spells breaking.

Twilight animated parts of the wall and ground to shift into barriers, and saw that Trixie was hitting the very walls with her illusion spells, to confuse the targetting systems of the lasers, stone fists, flying blades, fireballs and all sorts of other attacks that were raining down on them from the less damaged sections of the hall.

Sunset wasn't helping, because she had another part to play at that moment.

"Magic Enhance: Adrenaline spike!" She cast, sending a wave of light to flow into the bodies of the guards.

All 40 guards blinked and got up, looking to the unicorns that had beat them up and freed them.

"Red Cosmos Company, you have new orders!" Sunset started, in a drill sergeant voice "Retreat to the town and escort the civilians out of the barrier!"

They looked at her without comprehending for a few seconds, so she gave another order:

"Now! The civilians are the priority! Go, go, go!" She shouted, and that finally got the guards moving and out of the castle.

Sunset looked at them for a moment and then went to help her partners in their endeavor.

-

"Nightmare Moon! Come to me!" Sombra demanded.

A few seconds later, the corrupted alicorn appeared.

"How have you not destroyed the intruders yet?!" He demanded.

"They are very good at evading me. They even managed to kill my avatars." She answered in a monotone.

Sombra snarled, then calmed down fractionally.

"I guess I'll just have to make sure they can't run away, right?" He nodded to himself "It's been long since the last time I've actually fought.

-

The idea in Trixie's mind was simple. They needed to reduce the variables Sombra could use against them. That was why they sent the guards to escort the civillians to safety, taking away two sources of potential trouble all at once. For the same reasons, the three were moving slowly through the castle, with Sunset completely wrecking any structures with her destructive spells and Twilight making any traps and wards useless by spreading her chaos magic everywhere, turning every single surface and object into more chaotic constructs that were running wild.

That was why, when Sombra appeared together with Nightmare Moon right in front of them, he had to take two entire seconds to charge before dropping anti-teleportation stones all around the area (having had to seek power from the more distant, undamaged parts of the castle), instead of doing it instantly.

That was why Trixie had time to charge and attack the Nightmare with an attack of her own, which was innefective but sufficiently distracting.

That was why Sunset could blast Sombra with a spell that almost went through his automatic protections, given they were weakened by the mess his castle was becoming and that room already was.

That was why Twilight could get close enough to do her job.

"Chaos Magic: Sidestep!" She shouted, touching Sombra with one of her hooves.

Then, both her and Sombra disappeared.

It wasn't teleportation, not really, and it meant Sombra was out of the picture for the moment. It was time to do their second mission.

While Nightmare Moon was still in shock over the situation, Trixie extended a hoof to Sunset. This battle would require perfect coordination. She still remembered Sunset teaching them how to Dance.

-

5 Years Earlier

"And with this, you two should be good enough to deal with things in case the enemy challenges you to a dance-off." Sunset nodded, looking at her partners.

The two exhausted and disheveled unicorns splayed on the ground could only groan.

-

But even outside of a dance-off, this would still be useful in managing perfect coordination during an extended battle. The two fell into a practiced ballet routine, and started talking without stopping the dance, switching off speakers for every sentence.

"Princess Luna!" Flip and twist "For the sake of our master!" Spin "Your sister Princess Celestia!" Jump and catch "We will free you from this evil influence!" Stop, point at the Nightmare.

After all, introductions were important.

NM gaped "Are you well?" She asked, baffled (which was fast becoming a familiar feeling).

"I'm feeling pretty good, actually, thanks for asking." Sunset said casually, charging a spell.

"Likewise." Trixie said, doing the same.

"Duo Magic: Chasing Thunder!"

-

Sombra was getting more and more irritated. That purple unicorn had pulled him into a chaotic sub-dimension, isolated from most of his power. And she was evading every single spell he used with her chaotic teleportation. And even though he was already trying to unravel the magic powering that dimension, he wasn't having much luck, chaos magic was difficult to deal with even in the best of cases, and this was far from it. And the last source of anger?

The purple unicorn kept talking nonstop.

"And that is the nature of this world. The result of thousands of hours of effort in trying to mix spatial and chaos magic. But even with that, I wouldn't be able to fuel this world without having trained my magic capacity via..."

Even spells capable of hitting the entire limited space they were in didn't work. She just made the red matter of the walls flow over herself as a shield.

He just needed a little more time to finish a spell to prevent her teleportation from working. He knew enough about chaos magic to do it...

-

One of the most useful parts of the chaos magic was that, while effects needed to be paid in equivalent energy, she could choose which effect to pay for. As such, while dodging all of Sombra's varied spells and attacks would usually take a lot of energy, since she was only doing it to keep making her speech, without attacking or charging any other magic, the cost was pretty much non-existent, as it was following the effect of "continue making speech".

Considering how much mana it took just to keep her Sidestep going, this was a relief.

Still, Sombra was a centuries old threat and a masterful mage. She wasn't that surprised when he managed to stop her flashes.

She immediately stopped her speech (she had already said all she wanted, anyway) and focused in controlling the Red Matter. She sent a wave of sharp tendrils into the opponent, who, surprised by the sudden shift from defense into attack, almost didn't get his shields up in time. However, he then retaliated with a homing blast, that Twilight blocked by bringing up a barrier of Red Matter, then she started skating and surfing all around the space (even on the walls and ceiling) via a controlled wave of Red Matter. All while sending multiple types of attacks at Sombra from all directions.

Suddenly, she felt him creating a magic formation, and had to blast it with chaotic magic to prevent it from activating. Sombra was adapting, and she tried to channel Sunset, increasing the rate and power of her attacks to give Sombra less of an opening to counter. He also started teleporting around the space and using varied attacks, having adapted remarkably quickly to the unique conditions of the Sidestep.

The battle had gone 3D, and Twilight felt her careful control of the Red Matter start to slip, as the strain of so many spells in a draining situation took its toll on her. The Red Matter started acting more and more wildly, thrashing all around, while the tendrils, barriers and etc that Twilight created started taking on weirder and sharper forms, almost seeming to come alive. Even surprising the Unicorn Warlock.

Then Twilight realized, that since Sombra was the only pony in range, she didn't really have to restrain herself so much. She could indulge in some of her deeper urges...

Her manipulations lost all semblance of control, the whole small world seeming to become thousands of ever-changing creatures, some coating Twilight in a chimeric, shapeshifting barrier that ate all magic nearby, and some pursuing Sombra in a whirlwind of claws, teeth and weird appendages, seeking to rip him apart. As for Twilight herself?

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" She cackled. Her eyes adopting a disturbing shine that seemed completely at home in this monstrous envinronment.

It had been a while since she had so much fun.

-

Sunset, Trixie admitted, was a really great dancer. That was why she could teach them, after all.

That was half of what allowed them to stay ahead of the incredible onslaught of attacks Nightmare Moon was sending their way. The other half being the amazing combinations of illusions and brute force attacks the two of them could use.

The battle moved all over the castle, and every part they went through was completely levelled. In fact, that was part of what they were trying to do in the battle as well, denying Sombra the magical resources he could get from the castle. It took a few minutes, but the battle managed to completely destroy the castle, with magic deflections, last-minute teleportations and convincing illusions all playing a part in causing Nightmare Moon's own attacks to cause the most damage to the envinronment.

And even with this, Trixie sighed in her head, the barrier was still standing. It looked like Sombra himself really was the anchor of the spell. So much for the easy solution of getting Celestia to come and help hold her sister down while they did their job.

It was all up to them.

She communicated the plan to Sunset with a long-suffering glance and was answered with an eager grin. She took over their defense completely, weaving complex illusions and telepoting at high speed as Sunset prepared the spell that would be the key to their strategy. And she had to purposedly allow NM to have a free shot that was only dodged by a hair, just to put her in the perfect position when Sunset finally unleashed her magic.

"Multiplicity Magic: Solar Chains!" And the sixteen magic circles she had set up in the last two minutes all glowed, forming an even bigger circle and releasing huge yellow-orange chains that actually managed to hold onto her.

Sunset immediately threw Trixie at the sky, and the showmare did two spells at high speed while the Nightmare was distracted, one to put an illusory version of herself at Sunset's side and one to hide her own body as she flew up into the air and over the alicorn.

Nightmare Moon exploded with power, managing to shatter the chains, but necessarily reducing her defenses to the minimum, which was when Sunset's prepared spell hit her, destroying the rest of her defenses and stunning her for a brief moment.

And at that moment, Trixie landed on her back an activated the prepared spell on her necklace, ready ever since two days before:

"NIRVANA REBIRTH!" And directed the spell precisely into Nightmare Moon's head.

-

Sombra had many preparations in case someone tried to free his servant, the worst of which were spells that would destroy her mind if it seemed she was being released.

Nirvana Rebirth got around and then broke those spells by the simple expedient of destroying Luna's mind first.

For a small, terrifying moment, Luna felt herself empty of all experiences and thoughts, but then the second part of the spell kicked in.

Feeling a call to her soul, Luna re-experienced her entire life. Somehow both at an accelerated pace and redoing every experience in full fidelity.

When she finally got to the present, Luna collapsed to the ground, her dark magic bleeding off of her in a fast stream.

-

Trixie wasn't completely surprised when Sombra exploded out of the empty space with a shout of rage, but she did relax slightly when Twilight shimmered into view beside her, looking somewhat wild eyed, but no worse for wear. Sombra grabbed the unconscious Luna with his telekinesis and made an ultimatum:

"Surrender, or I will kill her!" He said, with a voice full of anger.

The three shared a glance that communicated much. If their special glance-based languaged were to be translated, this glance would be found to contain the following conversation:

(Sunset: That's a bluff, isn't it?

Trixie: More or less. He seems angry enough to do it, but it's not that easy to kill even an weakened Alicorn, he's trying something else.

Twilight: He must be planning to use our hesitation as an opportunity to gather power.

Sunset: Then, we don't hesitate, let's save Luna and get him with a Twin Annihilation.

Trixie: He's mobile enough to be able to dodge it. So Twilight will need to hold him down for it.

Sunset: But then it won't be a real Twin Annihilation...

Twilight: I'll see what I can do. Let's show this bastard [untranslatable glance-based pun])

And Sunset took a step forwards and started charging a spell, attracting Sombra's attention.

Trixie used the distraction to quickly charge her own spell, and sent it camouflaged on the waves of the power Sunset was emitting. The spell exploded right next to Sombra's horn, distracting him from his telekinesis spell (but not harming him, a spell powerful enough to do that wouldn't be able to be camouflaged). Twilight did her part creating a hole right underneath Luna, who dropped inside it and ended up behind the three unicorns.

"You..." Sombra started, but Sunset choose that moment to let a small bit of power from her charging escape, distracting him again. Because she was really charging a lot of power.

Trixie used the distraction to charge up her own spell, which was quick since she hadn't used a lot of power on her spell.

"A perfect illusion fools the world itself..." She did her chant.

"Perfect Illusion: Magic Circle!" And casted her spell.

There are spells so complicated they can't be used without special preparations even by the most talented of mages. Magic circles are frequently used to cast those spells, since they can hold the "spell script" and even help gather the power needed from the envinronment.

Trixie's spell circle was good enough to hold such a spell script and gather magic from the world, even though it was just an illusion. It was a very special spell.

However, her spell circle couldn't complete the spell, since it wasn't real enough to serve as an anchor.

"OVERDRIVE!" Sunset didn't care about that.

Trixie released the thread of the spell, allowing Sunset to take it over.

"May the righteous fury of the sun descend...

"Magic Enhance: Solar Annihilation!"

In the instant before the spell would have failed due to the lack of an anchor, Sunset enhanced it, becoming that anchor.

That was a spell complicated and powerful enough that Sunset could not cast it normally.

It was enhanced further.

A mini-sun appeared in between them and Sombra. Even with Sunset directing most of the heat towards him, it was almost unbearable for the three. And the warlock made to teleport and evade the attack.

Twilight prepared to release the spell she was charging, but then Sombra was hit by a massive lightning bolt, courtesy of a pegasus that suddenly appeared in the sky.

Trixie smirked. The last of Luna's avatars, now just as free of corruption as her, and completely uninjured, had appeared. She had wondered about it when Nightmare Moon didn't call the avatar to herself during their battle.

Sombra's automatic defenses managed to keep him from frying, but he couldn't dodge as the sun was thrown at him.

That was when the extent of his preparation became apparent. He summoned countless jewels, and drew power from them and the land. He cast countless pre-prepared protection spells, and poured every scrap of power he could muster into them. Countless layers of defense manifested themselves in the moment before impact.

The shields resisted the power of the sun for one, two, three seconds.

But there was a limit to how much power he could draw on such short notice. The shields broke, and the rest of the power of the spell hit him.

And yet the warlock was still standing when the spell ran out. He raised his jewels, resolving to use everything to destroy his opponents.

But the fight was already over. Twin Annihilation was one of the ultimate combination attacks the three had worked out, one with each of them in the lead.

And Twilight could do her part in the attack, since she hadn't needed to waste her magic holding Sombra. She dropped the spell structure, while keeping the charged energy.

It was good, since the alternative would be Trixie and Twilight overdriving a lot more than recommended to defeat him before he overwhelmed them.

Speaking of that...

"OVERDRIVE!" Twilight did enough of an Overdrive to obtain the necessary energy fast enough that Sombra couldn't stop her.

"Cause and effect shift under my command...

"Causality Sign: Double Effect!" And Twilight performed the last spell of the fight.

And before Trixie's eyes, the ultimate form of Twilight's chaos magic was realized: Conceptual Manipulation. And Sombra was hit with the same amount of energy that went through his shields in the previous attack.

"AAAAARRRRRRGH!!!" His scream was deafening.

"COMBINATION ATTACK: TWIN ANNIHILATION!" The three announced as loud as they could.

Sombra's last resistance was broken and his body was utterly consumed by the solar flames.

This was confirmed by the barrier breaking and letting the sun shine down into that region with no hindrances for the first time in years.

Twilight and Sunset fell down unconscious.

Trixie watched as the pegasus avatar flew over to Luna, and helped her stand. Her attention was then taken by the appearance of Princess Celestia.

Trixie did a small head bow (she was too tired for anything else) and Celestia said:

"My faithful apprentice, it's good to see you've been sucessful. How are your partners?"

"They didn't Overdrive that much, so it's fine. Sunset should be waking up any moment now, and Twilight in two minutes. Now if you'll excuse me. I need to lay down for a bit."

And Trixie proceeded to do so. To the amusement of her teacher.

-

Celestia approached her sister with joy in her heart. But Luna spoke before she could.

"Sister... I'm sorry... The darkness... It's my fault..." She had tears in her eyes.

Celestia didn't let her go any further, and wrapped her in a hug.

"Enough, sister. You can think about that later. You can atone later. For now, I just want to enjoy having my sister back."

And Luna started to cry, hugging the sister she had been separated from for so long.


Chapter 6 - Proclaiming the Knights

There was a large crowd of ponies present to watch this historical moment. For the first time in centuries, there will be new Knights of the Realm on the lands of Equestria. Sunset, Trixie, Twilight and Celestia were on stage, the first three doing only an extremely casual bow, to represent their elevated status as heroines.

On the front of the crowd, the ponies closest to the stage were very significant: Ranger Time and the rest of the town ponies, plus the guards and their families, who were very grateful to the apprentices of Celestia for saving them.

And Speaking of Celestia, she was obviously the one who had the duty of making the speech and officially proclaiming the three as Knights.

"My faithful little ponies... I have watched you grow for the last ten years, and I could see the effort you have made, the tests you have passed and your dedication to the cause of good.

"And yet, I have never been as proud of you as I am now. You have managed to rescue every single pony who had been suffering under the hoof of Sombra, the civillians, the guards and even my own sister.

"Your feats of heroism and magic are some who will be talked about for eras, and I have no doubt that this is only the beginning of a whole series of grand tales, as you protect this realm from threats.

"As such, it is my honor and pleasure to proclaim you three as Knights of the Realm, great heroines of Equestria!"

Celestia floated three silver tiaras into the heads of her three apprentices, and the crowd went wild, as the three waved at them, now officially Knights.

After the noise died down, Celestia began talking again.

"Since the position of Knight means the greatest duty in the world, it also brings with it some privileges.

"First, you may choose any official title to be designated by, so long as it doesn't encroach upon existing titles.

"Second, you will have absolute adminitrative authority anywhere in Equestria while in a mission, in order to make it easier for missions to be completed.

"Third, you are now second only to the alicorn royalty of Equestria in terms of social status. The nobility will have to act respectfully towards you, and not vice-versa.

"There's a few other things, but those are the most important for now. And it falls to me to end this ceremony, and start the celebration!"

The crowd went wild again, and the party started. Celestia looked at her apprentices, the guests of honor, blending in with the partying ponies in their own individual ways (Trixie, by doing another epic recitation of the adventure, Twilight by dancing with dozens of ponies at once via her clones and Sunset by going on stage and singing, showing her skills). She thought that whole thing made the situation of the previous day almost worth it.

Almost.

-

1 Day Earlier

Luna approached her sister, with a somewhat awkward expression. Celestia honestly thought it was better than the guilty expression she had been showing often in the past days.

"Sister?" Luna asked.

"Yes?" Celestia said with a smile.

"I have something to ask about your apprentices."

Oh. The solar alicorn had been afraid of that. She thought of how to explain to her sister how things had gone out of control, how she didn't want to smother their personality, how the three seemed to become even more motivated on preserving their view of the world upon encountering difficulties...

But before she could say anything, Luna continued:

"Can I have their autographs?"

Celestia's thoughts ran to a stop like a meteorite hitting a planet. She answered the only way she was able to:

"What."

"They were so cool!" Luna exclaimed, with literal stars in her eyes "First there was that illusion, and then they started dancing, and..." And Luna continued with a disorganized but still fairly detailed account of her experiences with the trio, her voice becoming more and more excited.

Oh no... It's just like I feared... Celestia thought. They were only the beginning... The madness is spreading...

Celestia maintained her usual smile in front of Luna's enthusiasm, but inside her own head? She was screaming.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

-

It was the day after the proclamation of the new Knights of the Realm. Luna heard a knock in the door to her room.

"You may enter." Luna said, wondering who it was, it didn't seem to be her sister...

She got her answer when the door opened.

"You are Spike, the dragon companion of Twilight Sparkle, aren't you?" She recognized.

"Yes I am, princess Luna." He said, with a certain stiffness.

"What business do you have you me?" She said kindly.

The small dragon took a deep breath and looked at her in the eyes.

"I could never join Twilight and the others on their trainings." He started "First I was too young, then I was too scared. Celestia taught me a few things so I could serve as an assistant but..."

He extended his hand forward.

"After having to stay here while they went in a dangerous mission, I've decided that I am more afraid of not being able to be there for them, than I am of the trainings and the dangers themselves.

"I asked Celestia if she would train me to become a Knight like them, but she said you would be a better choice to help me. Would you do it?"

Luna looked at the dragon and saw the determination in his eyes. She thought of how her sister had raised those great Knights, and she thought of the possibility of them needing help in a mission.

There was no question of her answer. Luna walked over to Spike and put her horn upon him.

"I hereby accept you, Spike, as my apprentice. Under my training, you will become a true and valorous Knight of the Realm!"

A dragon knight would be really cool, after all.

Sombra Arc End

Next: Apprentices Arc

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 7 - First Night and First Day in Ponyville

The three Knights got out of the flying carriage.

"So, Ponyville." Sunset said "Seems like a quiet place. Just right for a base of operations where we can relax and recover in between missions."

"And it's really close to Canterlot, too." Twilight said "Princess Celestia did well in choosing it."

The three decided on a place to meet up on the next day, since it was already getting late and they should go get their accomodations set. Then they went their separate ways.

-

Sunset and Twilight left the mayor's office half an hour later, with all the documents necessary to take up habitation on the library. Twilight was somewhat more excited about the idea than Sunset.

"Can you imagine? All those books to organize, and all that time to research!"

"Hmm."

"And it will be the perfect place for me to teach the unicorn foals!"

"Hmm."

"It's sad that Trixie won't be with us like old times, but she really likes that wagon, and we can call her for a sleepover once in a while!"

"Hmm."

"I hope Spike is doing well in his apprenticeship with Princess Luna. Perhaps I should send Teacher a letter asking about it?"

"Hmm."

And that continued until they got to the library.

"Okay. First of all, we need to unpack our bags. And then..." Twilight, who had been looking at one of her checklists, paused when she heard snoring.

Sunset was down on the couch, already asleep.

"Or you might go to sleep and leave everything for me to do..." Twilight sighed, then she smirked and repositioned Sunset at the edge of the couch with her telekinesis before going on her way.

A few minutes later, while she was arranging things on the top floors, she heard a "bam!" sound and grinned.

-

Trixie took only a few minutes to draw the magic circle.

Everyone who knew about magic circles would understand that, while that wasn't particularly exceptional, it was still pretty good, specially considering the level of complexity of that particular circle.

The education of Princess Celestia's students was broad.

After finishing, Trixie took a few moments to relax and return her mind to its best condition. That wasn't actually necessary, but Trixie loved her wagon, and would avoid risking it without reason.

Then, she activated her magic, connecting the magic circle in front of herself with the perfectly equal magic circle that was in Canterlot, under her wagon (already prepared earlier in the day).

It took a few seconds, but the wagon appeared in front of her and Trixie finished the spell, breathing deeply to recover from the exertion before walking inside and closing the door.

-

The next day, Sunset woke up an hour before the scheduled dawn. She did her usual morning routine before leaving the library and concentrating.

She slowly charged her magic, building it up for thirty seconds before activating her spell.

And she teleported straight to Canterlot.

Specifically, it was one of the few locations in Canterlot castle without any anti-teleportation wards, which was specifically created so that Celestia's students could get to the princess quickly.

She trotted along until she got to Celestia, in the same place where she usually raised the sun. The Alicorn smiled at her, and then the two started charging magic.

As the time for dawn got close, they wove their magic power together, and then raised the sun.

Sunset was always humbled by the experience. The sheer power used to move that star was something awe-inspiring, and she was proud of being able to help, even a little. It was a secret dream of hers being powerful enough one day to move the sun all by herself, allowing Celestia to sleep in.

After the spell was complete, she almost dropped in exhaustion. It was the first time since the mission that she had done her job, and it made the fact she wasn't recovered yet painfully clear.

After recovering, she went with the alicorn princess to have breakfast, before saying her farewells and leaving to return to Ponyville.

-

Twilight had already reorganized a lot of the library, that had become a little messy over the time it had not had a dedicated librarian when the time came for her to receive her first student in Ponyville.

"Come in!" She said, upon hearing a knock in the door. A gray unicorn filly came in.

"Hello. Dinky, isn't it?" The filly nodded "You have come at exactly the right time. Come here." She brought Dinky to a small desk in front of a blackboard "You can call me Twilight, or just teacher. Before we start, tell me about every spell you have done in the last few weeks."

The small unicorn was awkward at first, but Twilight was experienced, and soon had Dinky doing a very detailed (if hard to parse) account of her experiences with magic. Then, she was doing basic spells like light and telekinesis in some simple but effective exercises, as Twilight examined Dinky with her own magic to obtain a detailed understanding of her proficiency.

It wasn't a long class, and soon Twilight had sent the filly off and was alone at home again. Sunset was still outside, doing her daily exercises.

The unicorn teacher started to plan the next classes, making several annotations about Dinky's skills and hashing out possible self-study routines in case she had to go on a mission unexpetedly.

Then, it would be back to reorganizing.

-

Trixie set up her stage.

In recent years, she had often foregone the physical stage in favor of creating an illusory one, just to show her skill even more and make the show better. However, it would be better for her not to strain herself at that point, so the stage was a necessity.

Still, she put up an illusory sign with a countdown to the start of the show, designed to build up anticipation. And the show would start at three in the afternoon, the best time she had found for a show in a small town like Ponyville.

As the time went on and the countdown passed, she saw many ponies coming and going, and those ponies would spread news about the show until the time came.

The crowd that gathered as the countdown came closer and closer to the end gave Trixie a smile. This would be her first show as an official Knight, and having it be in a small town with a limited audience gave the show itself an air of exclusiveness that she liked.

Eventually, the countdown reached zero, and the conversations around the public were reduced to almost nothing. Trixie took a step forward and began her show.

"This is a story that began a thousand years ago, with two sisters who ruled over the night and day." She showed illusions representing the two alicorns.

"This is also a story of three fillies who dreamed of defending their land and fighting for good." She showed illusions of three very specific cutie marks spinning around each other.

"And this is a story about a great villain and his schemes over the ages." She showed a menacing silhouette of warlock Sombra.

"Ever since that villain came into being, many heroes rose up to fight against him." Lights appeared in front of Sombra "Most recently, one great heoine managed to rescue the people he had been ruling for generations." One of the lights shined brighter, revealing the cutie mark of a crystal heart.

"But one of his biggest victims was still trapped even after that." And the lights disappeared, giving place to an image of the alicorn of the night, chained in a connection with Sombra. Then, the two disappeared, replaced by an image of the alicorn of the day and the three cutie marks of her apprentices.

"However, her sister had a plan, and she raised those three fillies into becoming something beyond simple heroes. Into inheriting a legacy that had not been seen on Equestria since ancient times."

And the alicorn silhuette disappeared, while the cutie marks turned into the silhuettes of the unicorn mares "The legacy... of the Knights."

She waited for a moment, letting that introduction sink in. Then it was time to start the real show. She charged up a more complex and powerful illusion, and covered the stage and audience in a replica of the dark dome of Sombra's territory.

"Sombra had taken over an entire region of our land, and condemned all the inhabittants to a life of slavery inside a prison of darkness, where there weren't many differences between night and day." Illusions of a guard company, with their features obscured, ran above the crowd of ponies, before being caught in chains of darkness "Even the guards sent to try and save them ended up as prisoners."

Soon, the illusions started getting more elaborate. An image of the castle with Sombra overlooking the region from there, Nightmare Moon flying around in the air, while the guards were moving robotically further down.

"Of course, heroes appeared to oppose Sombra and find ways to free the people." The silhouette of a certain resistance leader appeared, moving behind the guards stealthily "And when the Knight candidates came for their mission, they teamed up with those heroes of circunstance." Then, illusory versions of the three apprentices of Celestia appeared and moved together with everything else.

Trixie proceeded to tell about the battle with the unicorn avatar of Nightmare Moon, and the subsequent trap they fell into "But even after escaping the trap, they were not out of danger, for the mind-controlled alicorn was ready to destroy the intruders. Sunset had to be carried away by Twilight, while the great Trixie distracted the opponent!" As she said that, she started a battle with the illusion of Nightmare Moon, warping the stage herself with magic to present the reality of the alicorn's attacks.

She maintained her illusion and battle while also showing the battle against the second avatar "And it was then that Nightmare Moon discovered she had been fighting an illusion all along!" The Trixie on stage disappeared, elliciting awe from the spectators, as she had seamlessly teleported and replaced herself with an illusion previously.

She reappeared together with the illusions of the other apprentices and proceeded to perform and narrate the battle with the guards and the following attack on the very structure of the castle, as well as the appearance of Sombra himself on the battlefield.

"And Twilight managed to drag Sombra into a chaotic subworld, where he wouldn't be able to interfere with our attempts at saving his last prisoner." She then recreated the battlefield, an entire illusionary castle which was see-through, as well as the silhouettes of Sombra and Twilight, having their own battle in a separate world "And thus began our dance of battle, as we made sure that no part of the castle would survive intact!" The battle proceeded, with the castle illusions being destroyed little by little, and Trixie and the illusions moving everywhere, even among the crowd, including the public in the spectacle.

And once in a while, Trixie and most of the illusions turned into silhouettes, as she showed the battle between Sombra and Twilight with more detail, including how the very space in which they were fighting began to warp.

"And Luna was finally free, but Sombra wouldn't allow us to win so easily, and started gathering all the magic he could while holding her as a hostage." She then showed and narrated the maneuver used to save Luna from his grasp "And to finish him off, we joined our powers together in combination: Trixie's illusion magic circle created a spell, Sunset's enhancement made it stronger, and when the Warlock managed to survive even the sheer power of the Sun of Annihilation, Twilight warped causality itself, to cause the attack to take effect again." She showed a less graphic version of the destruction of Sombra, since there were children present.

"And with Sombra dead, light could finally shine again!" And the grand finale, she unmade the dome of darkness and created an illusion reproducing the monumental change from night to day, before

letting the sun go out to reveal it was just an illusion, and the real sun was currently behind a cloud (weather magic).

Trixie was hit by the deafening noise of the applause, and gave her thanks to the audience.

It was good to be back.

-

Sunset was doing what she would classify as "light exercise". She knew very well that most ponies, and even her fellow Knights would disagree with that assessment, and the only ones who would agree would be some extreme athletes.

She was galloping around the town with weights strapped on her back. Once in a while, she would stop to do a few sets of core exercises, while at the same time practicing her spells and quick-casting. It was a routine created to maintain her body in perfect condition, as her fighting style involved physical combat to a much greater degree than the styles of her partners.

Still, it was much less than what she usually did. It wouldn't do to strain herself before she recovered after all.

Sunset stopped to drink some water and caught a glimpse of a pegasus doing a similar exercise routine in the sky.

She approved of what she saw. It was clear that mare understood about exercise methods, and was dedicated enough to work up to that level.

Sunset took an extra moment to return her breathing to normal and went back to her exercise.

-

It was lunch time and Twilight decided to eat out. She ended up in a store called Sugarcube Corner.

She went to the counter, which was manned by a pink earth pony mare.

"Hello. Good afternoon." She said "Can I have two strawberry cupcakes?"

"Sure, that'll be ten bits." The pink pony answered, extending her hoof to get the cupcakes on the other side of the store "Oh, you're Twilight, one of the knights, aren't you?"

"Yes." Twilight said, as she paid the bill and went to sit on one of the tables "How did you know?"

"I was on Trixie's show and she made illusions of the others." The earth pony said, her smile broadening on thinking of the show "You were the one who could do all the weird things!"

"Weird things? I guess you could say tha- wait a minute..." Twilight looked straight at the cashier "Did you just warp space to get the cupcakes? Was that chaos magic?"

"Chaos magic? I don't know, I just reached for it?" The pink mare seemed honestly unsure.

Twilight got up and walked back to the counter, the cupcakes held in telekinesis above her head "Oh, that is just amazing! You... I mean, what is your name?" Twilight blushed, having finally remembered her manners.

"I'm Pinkie Pie. Nice to meet you!" She did a little spin and a nod.

"Nice to meet you too." Twilight couldn't help but smile "But back to our conversation. It's the first time I've found somepony else who had chaos magic."

"Really?" Pinkie tilted her head.

"Yes. I had to work out entirely based on old tales and Celestia's recollections of having met others." Twilight put a hoof in her chin "Could you tell me about what you can do?"

And thus the conversation entered high gear. Twilight almost forgot to eat as the two compared their respective abilities, with Twilight being interested on the Pinkie Sense while Pinkie thought being able to make clones would be cool. But soon the unicorn realized there was a lot of untapped potential on the pink earth pony, and her will as a teacher made Twilight unwilling to leave things like that.

"Hey, Pinkie, want to learn something cool?" She said casually.

"What do you mean?"

"Could you try putting your hooves in two places at once to open a path between them like it's a door?" It was still a casual request, even though most ponies probably wouldn't even understand what she was saying.

"You mean... like this?" And as she moved her hooves, a door in space in between two separate points of the store was created "Cool." Pinkie said.

"And the best part is that anyone can go through it." Twilight said, using a spell to close the spatial door "How about you become my apprentice? There's so many things you can learn!"

"Apprentice?" Pinkie blinked "But I'm not a unicorn."

"But you have chaos magic like me. And there's a lot of things you would be able to do with adequate instruction. And I could also learn more about my own powers from teaching you." Twilight outlined her reasons, then looked at Pinkie, leaving the decision in her hands.

The earth pony thought about it for more than a few seconds, before smiling at Twilight "Okay. That seems like fun."

Twilight smiled as well, and the two grasped their hooves together for a moment, to seal the deal "Then, from now on, we shall learn everything we can. First, we need to set up a schedule..."


Chapter 8 - Looking for Apprentices

That night, the three Knights were meeting up at the library.

"So, how did your day go?" Twilight asked with an eager smile.

Sunet sensed mischief and Trixie also seemed to but they didn't have any reason to not answer.

"Nothing really special." Sunset said "I went to help raise the sun, did my light exercises to confirm my physical state and thought off a few ideas about new spells to research."

"Trixie's day was magnificent!" The blue unicorn said "She did her first show as a knight and it was a complete success! She's already thinking of the next cities to make shows on."

Twilight nodded with her eyes closed, in a way that had the other two already bracing themselves to what she would do.

"My day was also pretty good." She said, in an entirely too casual way "Did some organization. Opened up a few new research avenues. Got an apprentice. Ate some really good cupcakes... It was really productive."

It took a few seconds for Sunset's mind to process what she had heard, but when it happened...

"Wait, you got an apprentice?!"

"Somepony you can actually teach?" Trixie was just as surprised as Sunset.

"Yup! She's an earth pony that actually managed to develop some sort of premonition abilities even without training." Twilight had a broad smile "I can't wait to see what kinds of things I can teach, and learn from her.

"Ah, and I almost forgot. She wanted to throw a party to welcome us to the town. Could you make some time in the weekend?"

The other two thought a little and answered in the affirmative, before asking for more details about this new development.

So Twilight started talking about how they met, and about how she had already helped her create portals, and the kinds of things she was planning to teach...

And her two partners kept glancing at each other when she wasn't looking, communicating silently.

-

Later on, Twilight had decided to go to sleep early to prepare for the next day, but Trixie and Sunset had important things to talk about.

"We are totally getting apprentices of our own." Sunset said in a tone of voice that made discussion impossible, not that Trixie actually wanted to discuss.

"Yes. It would be a shame if Trixie's magnificent skills in illusion magic were lost to the future generations. Okay, she did record them in scrolls which are now in the secret library, but Trixie

still wants to have someone to discuss the finer points of illusions with." Trixie admitted "Also, it would be cool to create an entire legacy of users of Perfect Illusion."

"I don't know about a magic legacy, but creating something like a martial arts school, only for my special combat style... That would be amazing!" Sunset shared Trixie's excitement "I just need to

find the perfect student to develop my methods, someone who shares my passion about power!"

"Someone who shares Trixie's attention to detail and understanding of the ways of manipulating perception!" Trixie agreed "Then Trixie'll be able to teach them the finest points of the

reality/illusion dychotomy neither of you ever managed to understand." She looked at Sunset.

"And I'll be able to teach them how best to hone their skills towards the ultimate, absolute power neither of you are interested in." sunset looked back "And then we'll see which of us is able to

raise the most outstanding disciple."

"We certainly will." Trixie grinned, sure of future victory "We'll need to set up a proper Disciple Competition, with very clear rules." Trixie was already thinking about similar events in the old

stories, and ways to manipulate the competition in her own favor.

The two talked for a little while longer before separating, with Trixie going back to her own house to sleep.

-

The next day, Trixie woke up early in order to set things up. She sat herself down in the central plaza of the town and created a very large and exageratedly colorful (even in her own opinion) sign, which contained the message she wanted to send to the nearby ponies:

(THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE, MASTER OF ILLUSIONS, KNIGHT OF THE REALM OF EQUESTRIA, FAMOUS SHOWMARE, APPRENTICE OF PRINCESS CELESTIA, DEFEATER OF SOMBRA, SAVIOR OF LUNA AND FUTURE LEGENDARY HEROINE [because the legends are still being written], IS LOOKING FOR AN APPRENTICE TO LEARN THE GREAT AND MYSTERIOUS ART OF ILLUSIONS. THIS IS AN UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY IN HISTORY, FOR THE SECRETS OF THE SECRETIVE ART OF ILLUSIONS ARE ENIGMATIC, AND VERY FEW MASTERS ARE WILLING TO EXPOSE THEIR OWN METHODS. COME AND SEE IF YOU'LL BE THE ONE TO ENTER INTO THIS MARVELOUS WORLD!)

Yes. The message was perfect. All she had to do was wait for the inevitable line up of potential candidates.

Well, people did in fact line up, but things didn't go exactly like she expected.

"Hey, are you going to do another show?"

"Not soon, and the next will probably in another town. Was that the only reason you entered the line?"

-

"Could you do a magic trick?"

"Sure! Here it is:" Trixie made the stallion's horn disappear for a moment "So, are you interested in performing magic tricks?"

"Not really, but thank you."

-

"Do ya think Ah could get a cutie mark in illusions?"

"You never know, try the trick written here and we'll see."

...

"Bummer. No cutie mark."

"How did you set the coin on fire?"

-

"Here, miss Trixie, a package from Manehattan."

"You didn't have to enter the line to bring me a package."

-

"Can you teach me how to read minds?"

"No."

"Ah. Not interested, then."

-

"Could you make me beautiful for my date tonight?"

"Trixie thinks you should go to the spa instead."

-

And it just went on and on.

Trixie was getting tired.

-

Twilight and Pinkie Pie were in the library for the first lesson of the latter's apprenticeship.

"Right." Twiight started after the two of them had gotten confortable in their chairs "The very first thing to think about when you have an affinity for chaos is just how much control you can afford to lose."

"Lose... Control?" Pinkie seemed curious and... somewhat scared. Twilight was already predicting her answer.

"Chaos magic is naurally wild and can be used more easily when the user doesn't have complete control of their own actions. Letting your restraints slip and your hidden side come to the surface gives you a boost." Them Twilight looked at Pinkie with what she imagined was the same kind eyes Celestia had when she explained it to her "So, you need to understand what you would do without control, and if you should use it or not, and when."

Pinkie was silent and hesitated for several seconds, but Twilight simply waited until she was ready.

"I just... I just can't." The pink mare said, looking down "I can't lose control at all."

"Then it's decided." Twilight answered simply, causing Pinkie to look at her in wonder "This is something only ourselves can decide. Chaos is a dangerous form of magic that needs to be used responsibly. If you don't think you should release the restraints, then no one else can force you to. That just means you have one less potential source of power."

"Ahhh... That's good then." Pinkie's mood had already recovered "What other sources of power are there?"

"Many, many others. So many I can't really explain them because it would take too long and ruin the schedule I prepared for this class." Twilight showed a piece of paper held in her telekinesis "But absorbing energy from the envinronment is a common one, and you can also try to use more of the energy of your soul via special methods. Of course, each method is very personal and I would only be able to guide you towards them, not actually teach you how to do stuff."

"Is power really important?" Pinkie asked.

Twilight giggled "Don't let Sunset hear you asking that. But you've actually hit the nail right in the head. While you need power to do anything, there are many ways to do great things bu using less power. Chaos magic is full of workarounds." Twilight lectured.

"That makes sense, I've done things like that."

"I'm sure you have. Chaos magic is pretty instinctive. But let's go to the next topic of discussion: Desires, hopes and dreams." Twilight smiled slightly.

"I love talking about this!" Pinkie jumped in place, staying frozen in the air for a bit and smiling at Twilight.

"Right." Twilight cleared her throat "The main thing to understand is that every magic, not only chaos magic, depends on what kind of pony you are, what is important to you. It's only that Chaos magic is affected by this most directly. In my case, I love learning, I wish to be a Knight that protects Equestria and I value my friends the most. Those are the things I would consider the most central to myself."

"For me..." Pinkie thought for a bit "I love my family and I love making other ponies happy. My wish is that every pony, minotaur, yak, donkey and all others in the world be able to smile." She said, looking into the distance in thought.

"Understanding yourself is the first step, and it will help in making your magic manifest more easily." Twilight then brought out a small book titled Basic Calculus "And the last thing we will need to focus on is Math."

Pinkie froze in place, as she had been in the middle of a movement, this left her in a very awkward position. Twilight simply waited for the earth pony to recover.

Pinkie, with the rest of her body still frozen, moved her head in a particularly jerky manner, like she was a robot whose joints needed to be oiled. She then opened her mind and spoke with a hoarse voice "What? Why?"

Twilight explained patiently "One of the most important aspects to chaos magic is a sense of timing. Even while just relaxing, I'm still aware of time to the tenths of a second, and while doing difficult spells, I start counting time in terms of hundreths of a second, or even faster. This kind of sense of time is ncessary to be able to use chaos magic perfectly. That is the first reason. The second reason is that understanding numbers, it becomes easier to understand underlying reality, so that you can understand all kinds of knacks to warp it. You don't need to in order to use chaos magic, but it simply makes things a lot easier and more convenient. So, I'm going to have to ask that you study this book in between classes."

Pinkie looked at her in absolute horror.

-

From all the legends she had read, Sunset was sure of one thing above anything else. The fact that there were heroes all around the land, hiding within the populace, just waiting for the chance to prove themselves and burst into history.

In that case, all that she had to do was give them a chance to prove themselves, a chance to show what they were made off, and what better than a challenge to do that?

AS such, Sunset spent the day walking around Ponyville, holding a sign that said:

(DO YOU WANT TO PROVE YOUR STRENGTH? DO YOU WANT TO PROVE YOU WILL AND CAPACITY TO BE A HERO? KNIGHT OF THE REALM SUNSET SHIMMER CHALLENGES EVERYPONY TO TRY AND RESIST ONE OF HER SPELLS WITHOUT MOVING. WHO WILL TAKE THE CHALLENGE?)

It didn't take long for a pony to take the challenge, a green earth pony stallion with a red mane. But the result...

"Force Push!" Sunset shouted, creating a wave of force that threw the poor pony twenty meters away.

"Ah... It seems like I may have overdone it slightly." Sunset said embarassed, and galloped after the stallion to see if he needed help, while the ponies around looked at her in utter horror.

After that, ponies were very reluctant to try their luck against the Knight. She was still sure she would find somepony who would be able to surpass the challenge, but that certainty...

-

"Argh!" A muscular pegasus screamed as a gravity spell brought him crashing into the ground.

-

"No no no! I give!" A lilac unicorn mare surrendered easily after beginning to get overwhelmed in the magical hoof wrestling match.

-

Slowly started to slip away...

Sunset didn't really expect anypony to be able to resist the force of her spells. She was the strongest unicorn in Equestria, and a specialist in pure power. But what she really wanted was for one of the challengers to actually come back and face her again despite being outmatched.

At least this much will was necessary to become her apprentice. The same kind of will that creates heroes.

It was then that Sunset realized what she was doing wrong. Heroes appear when necessary, when the situation forces normal ponies into going above and beyond what could be expected of them. Her challenge wasn't important enough for that, since it was just a way to demonstrate strength.

The unicorn Knight burned her sign with a fireball spell and started to trot back home, in a bad mood.

It seemed like she would need to think more about that.

-

That night, the three Knights met back up on the library again, and Twilight listened closely as Twilight and Sunset explained they had tried to find apprentices of their own and failed.

"And I understood that it's hard to find hero-level ponies without having the benefit of a dangerouus situation where their qualities can shine through." Sunset finished her story with that.

"In Trixie's case, it's just that she didn't realize how hard it is to find ponies with the right specialty in such a small place. It was practically a miracle that you managed it." Trixie said.

The two of them were in a bad mood, so Twilight decided the best thing to do would be to make them think about something else.

"Okay. You two didn't manage to do what you wanted today, and will need to rethink your approaches... But brooding about it won't solve anything." Twilight waited a bit, as the two slowly considered her words "And by the way, we should be completely recovered in two or three days. So it would be best for us to start planning our new team training sessions, and thinking about spell research again." Twilight nodded, and the other two became more interested "After all, what have we learned from our first mission that can makes us better Knights?"

That did it. Both Sunset and Trixie had thought about those things for the last days, and really wanted to talk about them.

"Our power still isn't enough. It's good enough for most opponents, but this time our biggest advantage was being able to use Overdrive to charge spells very fast. And this is not the kind of thing we can repeat too often."

"Trixie agrees, but we also need better ways of tracking magic flow and formations so we aren't caught in that kind of trap again. Also, our combination magic was good, so we should try and develop more of it."

"My spells didn't have that much of a direct effect, so I think I should try and develop better offensive spells." Twilight offered "I think perhaps invoking the state of destruction of an object..."

Soon, the three were discussing animatedly all their new ideas and developments, as well as making up new cool arias and chants to use, as well as outlining possible new team attacks.

Twilight smiled upon seeing that the other two had completely forgotten about their earlier bad moods.


Chapter 9 - Finding Apprentices

Pinkie tilted her head to the right. Then she tilted her head to the left, so much she became horizontal. Then she jumped to the ceiling and tilted her head upwards (downwards). Then she sat on the floor and crossed her front legs, closing one eye. Then she leaned forwards, opening the eye and closing the other one. Then she grabbed the book she had been looking at and fell backwards, with it open.

The cakes, who had been watching that sequence of actions, finally couldn't stop themselves.

"Pinkie, what are you doing?" Mrs. Cake asked.

The pink earth pony looked at them, then walked over to the two and showed the cover of the book to them.

"You're studying calculus?" Mr. Cake asked "Why?" He said after Pinkie nodded.

"Well, I met that Twilight the Knight yesterday and she said I had the same type of magic that I do and she even taught me something cool I didn't know I could do, so she asked me to be her apprentice and I accepted, but she said I should learn this kinds of things and gave me this book, but I'm not getting what this is all about and I don't want to disapoint her and our first class is today and there's so many things it would be cool to know but I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to understand what she wants to teach and I'm trying to make it fit into my head but nothing is working and..." Pinkie said breathlessly.

"Calm down!" Both Cakes said forcefully.

Pinkie took a deep, deep breath. She held it for long enough that her chest visibly inflated, before letting it out.

"Okay, Pinkie. What exactly are you having trouble with?" Mrs. Cake asked kindly.

"It's just... I know how to do normal calculations, like everything I need to help work the counter and all the little numbers you use when actually baking something. But this... Diferential and Integral stuff... Everything you do needs a bunch of equations and formulas, and even if I look at the examples, I can't actually work out how to do any of the problems. It's just too far out, I can't understand what's supposed to be happening..." Pinkie looked down.

The Cakes looked at each other, then Mrs. Cake took over.

"Pinkie... You said you are going to meet that Twilight today, so why don't you talk with her about it?"

Pinkie looked conflicted "It's just... She gave me this book, saying I should study it 'in between classes', like she expects me to get it easily... And I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint her... I don't want that." She looked down sadly.

That made everything clear. The two more or less understood how Pinkie's mind worked, so they knew what to do in this situation. Mr. Cake was the one to talk.

"Pinkie... Did you say to your teacher that you never had any experience with that?"

"I... No, but..."

"And apparently this involves that magic thing. Isn't it possible that she understood it easily and simply thought you would be the same? Or even, she might have done it this way just to check how well you do without instruction, so she can tailor her classes accordingly." This time it was Mrs. Cake who talked.

"Could be, but..."

"And she is your teacher. You can talk to her about what is giving you trouble and she will help, or even find someone else who can teach it to you. Or some other alternative. If you're not making any progress, the right thing to do is inform her of your problems so that you can work on it together." The mare continued.

"Together..." Pinkie closed her eyes for a moment, and then smiled "You're right! I can't just keep brooding and forcing myself. I'll just wait until our class and talk about it!" Her smiled broadened "Thank you!" She hugged both of them and then left, saying something about going back to work.

The Cakes smiled and went back to their own matters.

-

Trixie had, after a lot of thinking, decided on a new, more subtle strategy. She was going to walk around town under an illusion. And not only that, the illusion would only serve to hide what she was wearing, a particularly ridiculous emsemble including a tutu, a clown horn and a multicolored shirt. This way, if anyone were to see through her illusion, that pony wouldn't be able to resist giving some sign of it. But Trixie thought the chance of that happening was low. More probable would be someone managing to detect the magic emissions of the illusion itself, or realize that her coat wasn't moving or receiving the light quite right. Trixie had purposedly made the illusion less perfect than she was used to, but it would still take someone with talent to detect it.

Trixie went wandering around the city of ponyville without any specific destination in mind.

Well, that was not quite right, Trixie was aiming to be seen by as many ponies as possible, and the places she went were based on this principle. She entered every store she could see, deliberatedly followed concentrations of ponies and kept going back to the main plaza every so often.

It was in one of those visits to the main plaza that she hit paydirt.

There was an orange mare with a blonde mane next to a counter selling apples (just set up, apparently), she was with her back to Trixie, talking with three fillies (one of them being very familiar to the unicorn from the previous day) who then walked off together. Trixie was planning to buy an apple, since she was feeling a little hungry, but as soon as the mare turned to her, her eyes widened and she exclaimed:

"What the hay are ya wearing?!"

-

"Good job!" Twilight praised, and Dinky released her spell, making the small statue fade from the garish blue it had been into its original gray color "With this, your light manipulation spells are doing pretty well." Twilight looked at the clock on the wall "And it looks like we are going to have to end things here."

She helped Dinky collect back her stuff before leaving, and marked the lesson on her checklist, noting that the next lesson planned didn't need adjustment.

The next thing in her schedule was spell development, which she was excited for, because she was getting closer and closer to completion in her current project.

The idea had been born due to the necessity of using more powerful spells easier and faster. Prepared spells had problems in that they were prepared, and as such were rigid and couldn't be easily adapted to the situation, together with the fact that there was a limit to the number of them you could have all at once.

With chaos magic, the first problem could be nullified, which would make the second a non-issue. Chaos magic was naturally the enemy of this kind of rigidity, and the day before, she had managed to fuse two separate spells together to make a new spell with their combined powers, which would be as powerful as their combined energy.

The idea was that she would have two prepared spells, and fuse them together with a new spell done at the time, creating a powerful combined spell that she could turn into whatever effect was needed at the time. The production name was Merged Spell. Both prepared spells would also be weaker than the max she could muster. Not just because it would require less upkeep to maintain them, but also because, even if she could merge the spells, she would never be able to control the resulting energy maelstrom (that was more Sunset's thing).

All that in mind, Twilight spent the next two hours imprinting the prepared spells inside her body. Casting wasn't actually all that slow, despite the fact that she was writing magic circles to perform the spells with the greatest possible precision. What actually ate time was the unicorn trying to stabilize the spells, which was difficult for anyone, but specially someone who had such an unruly type of magic. And stabilized, in this case, meant they were active in ways that wouldn't break containment as long as she gave them maintenance often, and the energy upkeep was low enough that it wouldn't significantly affect her recovery speed.

Reading all that makes it seem complicated, but it was far more complicated than what could be explained here. Prepared spells were already a rather difficult magic even for specialists and without any of the additional complications Twilight had to face.

Still, it was done, and the purple unicorn streched a little. That had been good progress, even if there was still some issues to be worked out. So Twilight decided to go to the kitchen make a lunch.

However, before she could get there, Twilight received a letter.

It was from Spike, and he was just writing to say that everything was okay, that he was making progress under Luna's lessons and that Princess Cadance had come to talk with the night Alicorn a few times and seemed nice.

Twilight smiled, making a note to write back later, and went to the kitchen.

-

Sunset was walking down the streets, lost in thoughts about the best way to try to find somepony to be her apprentice. So she almost didn't react when the blue pegasus landed right in front of her.

She did react, and her aura defense did activate, but since she wasn't in any actual danger, the activation was small and didn't show any visible signs.

"What is it?" Sunset asked, already in serious mode "Is there somepony needing my help?" Because the pegasus had come fast and apparently needed to talk to her, which possibly meant an emergency.

"Nothing so dramatic." The pegasus rubbed her head, apparently embarrased, before looking at her in determination "I heard about your test of strength, and I want to show what I'm made off!"

Sunset blinked, then sighed and prepared a force spell. Upon seeing the pegasus brace herself, she lanched the spell, sending the mare flying.

The unicorn was about to go check on her, when the blue pony got out from her uncontrolled flight and came back to land in front of her.

"Again!" She shouted, hitting her chest with a hoof "I can do it!"

Slightly bemused, Sunset used the spell again. And the result was the same, including the blue mare coming back asking for more. Sunset then started varying the spells, firing off every powerful but non-harmful spell she had in her arsenal, with the pegasus managing to take all of them and keep coming back for more.

Sunset's eye twitched as she continued her barrage of spells. What had that pony been doing on the day before? She then stopped the spells for a moment.

"Hey. What's your name?"

The pegasus took a moment to recover from the sudden change before answering "I'm Rainbow Dash, the most awesome pegasus you'll ever see!"

-

There was only one thing Trixie could do in this situation. She removed her illusions, letting everyone in the plaza see what she was wearing.

"Trixie is wearing thse clothes to show that you can't always trust what you see!" She took a moment to let the ponies around process that, before leaning closer to the earth pony mare and asking:

"What's your name?"

"Applejack." She was nonplussed.

"Okay, Applejack, Trixie'll need to talk to you later, when and where would be a good place?" Trixie didn't let up or give the mare time to recover.

It worked, as Applejack mentioned the Sweet Apple Acres and a time three hours from then. The first part of Trixie's challenge was complete, and she decided to turn her discovery into an improptu show, manipulating her own clothes and those of volunteers with illusions (including touch based illusions) while moving through the plaza.

It was fun while it lasted, but eventually Trixie declared the end of the show, took off her costume and teleported it back to her wagon before asking around about where Sweet Apple Acres was. She then sat on a bench to wait until the appointed time, while at the same time thinking about how she would convinve Applejack to become her apprentice, which would be the second and last part of her quest to obtain an apprentice.

She ran several scenarios through her mind during that time.

Eventually, the time came closer, and Trixie trotted to the specified place, not having exactly a plan (as she didn't know enough about her target to make one) but knowing enough about convincing people to make a fair attempt.

She easily found Applejack, who had apparently been waiting for her.

"So, I guess you want to know why Trixie was wearing that getup under illusions and why she called you here?" Trixie asked simply, to make the rest of the conversation flow better, and the earth pony answered with a nod.

"It's simple. Both things are related. Trixie was using that illusion to try to find somepony to be her apprentice. And she called you here to ask you to become that apprentice." Trixie said, looking directly at Applejack's eyes.

"But why?" The mare asked "Ah don't know anything about illusions, and Ah'm not an unicorn."

"You may not use illusions, but you do understand them." Trixie remembered something from one of the stories she had read together with the others "In order to understand truth, it's necessary to understand what illusions are, the same way it's necessary to understand truth in order to create the best illusions." Trixie shook her head slightly "Your Eyes of Truth are a magnificent skill, and helping you take them further is more important than simply teaching somepony how to create illusions." Trixie was absolutely serious.

Applejack was conflicted "Ah-Ah can't. There's always a lot of work to do in the farm and ah wouldn't have time to learn seriously."

Trixie was undeterred "If that's the case, Trixie will help with the farm to give you enough time. This is important enough."

Applejack was clearly taken aback "Ya'd go that far? But... Ah already can see through illusions, so why do you need to train me more?"

Trixie smiled "You may be able to see through normal illusions, but take a look at this!" Trixie charged her magic "Perfect Illusion: Cloak of Light!"

And Trixie disappeared right from under Applejack's eyes.

"What?! How did ya do that?"

"That is an illusion designed to work on a deeper level." Trixie said from the air, before cancelling her spell. Seeing as Applejack still seemed hesitant, she decided to deploy her final argument:

"If your ability turns out to be needed in the future, it would be bad if it wasn't developed enough."

Applejack looked at her, and then made her decision.

"Okay. Ah will learn with ya."

"Trixie will teach you as best as she can."

-

"Okay, Ranbow Dash." Sunset started, deciding to skip any unnecessary talk "I want you to become my apprentice. If you think you're awesome now, you should imagine what you would be capable of under my tutelage."

"Apprentice?" Rainbow Dash could barely believe what she was hearing "As if you're awesome enough to become my master!" Rainbow Dash crossed her front legs.

"Excuse me?" Sunset was almost insulted, it was almost like that pegasus didn't even know who she was "I happen to think being a Knight of the Realm of Equestria is plenty awesome enough for anypony."

"Tch. Okay, that is cool." Dash admitted "But if I become subordinate to somepony, I wanted it be one I respected personally... Like the Wonderbolts!" The blue mare opened her wings wide with a broad smile on her lips "I have seen their stunts and they're awesome! But I didn't see what you three did to save Princess Luna. Maybe you're cool but not awesome, do you get what I mean?" Dash waved her right foreleg in the air, hoping to make herself understood.

Sunset understood perfectly, and that exchange made her certain she wanted that pegasus as an apprentice. She knew exactly what to do "Oh, so you need to see how awesome we are in person, don't you? Then there is only one way. Let's do the reverse of the challenge. You give me your best shot and I won't move an inch."

Rainbow rose to the challenge "Let's do it! I will make you eat those words." She flew into the air, gaining distance for her own attack.

Sunset readied her aura, manifesting it in the most defensive state possible, and cast a few protection spells. It was probably overkill, but she wanted to make a point. Then she felt an immense amount of power coming from the direction Rainbow Dash had flown towards.

Looking there, Sunset could see that the pegasus had created a multi-layer (five or six, it kept shifting) lightning cocoon. And then she flew in Sunset's direction, and from what the unicorn could sense, she was dragging literal tons of air along.

It seemed like the Knight would need to get serious.

"THUNDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER..." Rainbow Dash called, as she got closer and closer.

Sunset used five different anchoring spells, then used the three strongest shield spells she could get up in the time remaining.

"DASH!" And contact was made.

In the brief moment of impact, Sunset felt like she was being hit with a mountain. A mountain covered in lightning.

Then, she was immediately assaulted by the feedback of her three shield spells breaking like so much glass. The unicorn poured every scrap of magic power she had access to into her aura defenses, and held on to the anchoring spells with pure will.

After an interminable period of time (two seconds), the attack finally ended, and she saw Rainbow Dash dropping right in front of her.

The pegasus raised her head, and Sunset spoke with a shaky voice:

"See... I didn't even move an inch."

Rainbow's voice as just as shaky.

"Okay... I will admit that you are awesome..."

Sunset sat down and the two of them waited for their bodies to recover from the exertion. Sunset was cringing, thinking of what Twilight would do when she saw her friend had gone against doctor's instructions.

(The ponies who had witnessed that tremendous magical clash vacated the premises, seeing that the show was over.)

A few minutes later, the two were recovered enough to talk seriously.

"You are awesome indeed, but..." Rainbow Dash started. Sunset only barely stopped herself from yelling 'oh, come on!' "Are you sure you can help me? After all, you are not a pegasus."

Sunset sighed "The learnings of the Knights of the Realm are wide." She pointed her hoof at the pegasus "And I'll show you. Start flying around in a circle."

Dash complied, curious, and Sunset used a spell.

Instantly, Dash's speed doubled, and she felt incredibly light and strong, but it only lasted for a few seconds. The pegasus flew back down to Sunset.

"Right. That is cool, but it's still an unicorn spell."

"Indeed." Sunset admitted "But I used this specific spell because it was originally invented based on a pegasus method of magic control."

"Seriously?" Rainbow Dash asked, excited.

"Yes. And it's those kinds of things I can teach you. I can assure you that Rainbow Dash the pegasus will become much more awesome if you accept." Sunset was tired, but she put all her remaining ability to convince into those words.

Rainbow Dash finally caved "Okay. I will study under you. I want to become the most awesome pegasus possible before entering the Wonderbolts."

Sunset smiled, then imagined Rainbow Dash rising on the ranks of the Wonderbolts and passing down her own way of doing things. This made her smile even wider.

---

AN: And that's all I have for now. I should be finishing the next chapter in a few hours, though.

 

[Kinni]

Here's chapter 10:

Chapter 10 - Two More Apprentices

Trixie, as one of the Knights of the Realm who had been trained (and trained herself) for the position for years, naturally had a quite good situational awareness most of the time. However, walking back to her wagon after speaking with Applejack was quite a special case. Trixie was currently recovering from a mission in a safe space, she had also gotten tired from the effort of trying to convince Applejack (which was mostly keeping her composure and not allowing cracks in her determination to appear) as well as using a somewhat powerful illusion, and finally, she was relieved from actually suceeding in her objective. All that could explain why she ended up tripping and falling into a mudpool as she was walking back.

"Argh!" Trixie said, getting up "Trixie is filthy!"

She immediately got out of the pool and started using spells to clean herself off, but after getting rid of the excess, Trixie got an idea.

"Trixie's seen a spa around here. She could go there to clean this whole thing and relax for a bit."

She nodded to herself, that seemed like a good idea since she didn't have anything else pressing to do.

Now, where was the spa again...? Trixie remembered, and started towards there.

-

Twilight was drinking a cup of coffee as she heard a knock on the door. Pinkie was there.

It didn't take long for the earth pony to be ushered into the house and offered her own cup of coffee. But it was when Twilight asked casually where they should start on the class that the script changed.

"Actually, I have something I need to say to you." Pinkie answered seriously.

"Oh? What?" Twilight inquired.

Pinkie put forward the math book like she was making an offering "I don't understand!"

Twilight took a moment to process what the mare was actually telling her. Then she made the adequate question.

"So... You mean you can't understand anything about the mathematical concepts of diferential and integral?" She asked carefully.

"Yes! That's exactly it! I don't understand!" Pinkie explained animatedly.

"Well..." It was a complicated problem for Twilight, she was a teacher yes, but a teacher of basic magic and didn't have any experience teaching adults, much less teaching math. And it just had always seemed so simple for her...

But before Twilight could finish her ponderings, Pinkie Pie's body suddenly shook, performing a series of localized spasms that were completely non-natural. And after it finished, the mare adopted an expression of horror.

"Was that your Pinkie Sense?" Twilight asked, already focusing for a possible situation.

"Yes! And Fluttershy is in trouble!" Pinkie exclaimed.

"Where do we need to go?" Twilight asked. She would have offered to go by herself, but probably only Pinkie would be able to track the pony in danger.

"Everfree forest. Near the edge. That's all I can tell you." Pinkie said, concentrating hard.

That was enough for now. Twilight charged a teleport and suddenly the library was empty.

-

Sunset got home and opened the door, already in pre-flinch mode. But when she didn't hear Twilight, the unicorn slowly entered the library.

"Twilight, are you here?" She asked in a raised voice.

There was no response, and Sunset relaxed slightly. It seemed like her sentence had been delayed.

-

Trixie quickly got to the spa. She entered the building like a conquering heroine returning from a mission... or at least how the stories said such would enter someplace. Trixie had first hand experience with the fact that conquering heroes usually had to be carried back home after a mission, due to overdoing things, but making an illusion of herself being carried int the spa would send the wrong impression. Trixie simply decided to emulate the stories in this point due to the fact that she didn't want to show any weakness from being dirty. Heroes were inspirations to everypony, after all. It wouldn't do to let a little bit of dirt get her down.

The fact that she had considered all those things while she was walking towards the door was proof that the Knight really were ponies who didn't follow the standard.

Still, going back to the story, Trixie entered the spa and walked towards the reception, and besides the counter pony, there was also another unicorn inside, a white mare with a purple mane and a three diamond cutie mark. The mare noticed her, and ran over.

"Oh dear... What happened to your coat?" She asked, sounding completely horrified.

Trixie knew how to answer that "Even the greatest of heroes are still flawed!" She flipped her hat "Despite all of her skill, not even Trixie is immune to possibly losing focus and tripping into a mudpool." Trixie announced grandly "But Trixie remains unbowed, no matter what harms may befall her!" She reared up on her back legs in a galant pose, before coming back down.

The white unicorn nodded "It is certainly important to remain confident in the face of setbacks, but since you're here, you must be looking for a full treatment to recover from such a dreadful experience." She looked at Trixie in understanding.

"That certainly seems like an attractive idea, though Trixie hopes it won't take too long, she wants to go back home early." The azure unicorn remarked.

"Oh, this may be a problem." The pony on the counter entered the conversation "You see, miss Rarity has made a reserve for a full treatment that will start in five minutes, and considering how long it takes..." She trailed off, seeing as the two customers had understood.

"Oh my, this simply won't do." The white unicorn, Rarity, stated with determination "Vera, my dear, isn't there a special doubles option for the full treatment? Couldn't you change my reserve so that Dame Trixie can share the treatment with me?" She stopped and looked at Trixie "Only if she is okay with it, of course." The unicorn smiled.

Trixie couldn't think of a problem "Trixie is okay with that if it is a possibility."

Vera looked at them "I think it should be alright. We'll have to grab more of the products on short notice, but the day is slow and I can help."

"That is perfect then, thank you darling." Rarity did a perfect high-society style bow.

Trixie paid for her part of the doubles ticket (noting that it was cheaper than a normal ticket) and then Rarity caught her attention.

"I see that you are exactly like the rumors said, and how I expected from that show." She then tilted her head to the right "But could you tell me about your fellow Knights? I want to know more about the newest heroes of Equestria."

The Knight smiled, that mare certainly wanted something, even if her interest seemed casual, still, there was no reason to lose a chance to expand the tales of the Knights further, so she started talking about Twilight's studious nature and Sunset's love of challenges.

Rarity was a good listener, and an engaging conversationalist. They were still talking while receiving the treatment from the spa ponies.

-

The two ponies appeared next to the Everfree forest, and Pinkie ran in, closely followed by Twilight.

Seeing the earth pony running to the rescue, Twilight decided that the first thing she would teach Pinkie Pie would be how to easily use the chaotic movement style. Then, shaking her head while still running, she started casting spells on the path itself, using her chaos magic to examine the route they were taking and also to repel the threats that, while small, would be able to interfere with their ability to proceed with their mission.

Besides that, Twilight was also casting several small protective spells on herself and Pinkie. Subtle things capable of protecting from inhaling dangerous substances, or from being disabled by extreme noises or smells, or even from gaze-based attacks like those from a cockatrice. And that was not even mentioning the more general protections spells against heat, eletricity and normal force.

Twilight Sparkle had researched about every kind of monster and dangerous place she could over her years as Celestia's apprentice, since she knew there was a high possibility that the three would end up going to any of those places and/or fighting any of those creatures. Due to that, she was extremely clear about the dangers of the Everfree forest, from the possibility of monsters like cockatrices and manticores to dangerous plants like the poison joke and the black apple tree. The unicorn knight believed in being prepared, and even though there were always going to be things one couldn't prepare for, there was no reason to not prepare for those you could.

Still, their journey over the relatively small section of the Everfree forest they had to cross was fairly smooth sailing. Which made sense, since she was throwing chaos magic around, and that kind of magic was associated in nature with some of the nastiest and most annoying natural phenomenons in the world, like the endearing mushrooms and the poison joke itself.

Thinking about it, Twilight let a relatively small part of her concentration slip, thinking about all the cool things she could do with her own chaos warped plants. She could carry seeds around which had a variety of effects, and simply make them bloom when necessary to really give her opponents grief. Too bad warping life itself was one of the hardest feats to perform with chaos magic, and was simply too time consuming for her at that point. She could make such cool things were it not the case... Like a flower whose spores could make people tell the truth, so she could extract information from her opponents! Yes, that would be aweso-

Her thoughts were suddenly cut off when she came upon view of the exact problem they were coming to face. It was a group of trees whose branchs were growing and moving recklessly. Their target was a butter yellow pegasus with a pink mane, and the branches had joined up to form a cage around her. A cage that was contantly growing smaller, while extra branches kept attacking the mare and trying to knock her out of the air.

Well, this is something I wasn't prepared for. It looks like some random chaotic effect, even if an effect of this magnitude wasn't supposed to happen so far from the center of the forest, but chaotic magic did often ignore expectations with the glee of a foal with a new toy.

Pinkie then ran in and managed to warp inside the cage, before starting to bash away some of the branches attacking the pegasus (Fluttershy, from what she had said before). Twilight decided that, since she obviously could already do chaotic movements, Pinkie should instead learn to be able to do them freely instead.

The Knight kept moving forward and charged her magic, while being prepared to use a merged spell if it became necessary. It looked like her apprentice was a heroine, and as a Knight of the Realm, she wouldn't allow a heroine to suffer while she was present.

-

"... And that is how we trained our bodies to be able to recover from any type of poison or similar that may affect us. This also made all three of us unable to become drunk, but really, we wouldn't want to anyway. One time Twilight accidentally got drunk due to a training accident and suddenly all three of us had been turned into modern art. Let me tell you, Trixie didn't like being a modern art piece, and judging by the fact that we got an entirely new kilometer deep hole, Sunset didn't like it either.

"Really, it would have been easier to use this kind of body manipulation magic if we were earth ponies or even pegasi, but it still works well." Trixie finished the latest part of her story.

Since she didn't hear any commentary, she opened her eyes to see that not only Rarity, but also both of the spa ponies (Aloe and Lotus, from what Rarity had called them) looked completely horrified.

"What? Is being unable to get drunk such a big deal?" Trixie didn't understand their reaction.

"No Dear, that is not what we are concerned about..." Rarity spoke, having recovered "Instead, it's this ridiculous 'training' you speak off. Causing this kind of painful damage to your own organs... I cannot imagine being able to do such things while being only sixteen..." She seemed somewhat nauseous.

"Oh, that? It was nothing. The real hard training was the will stuff." Trixie assumed a thousand yard stare, and her audience decided they had better not ask.

-

Celestia suddenly got the feeling that putting the three in complete sensorial deprivation for a week had been going too far.

-

Still, Trixie had been completely satisfied with the special treatment given to her by the spa. She would have to return one of those days, maybe she would even make a habit of going there after every mission. She could tell that all that relaxing made her much closer to actually recovering completely.

All good things had to come to an end, though, and eventually their session at the spa was finished. Trixie got back her hat and cape, and Rarity made a small proposal:

"Would you like me to take care of those?" she pointed at Trixie's clothes.

"Take care?"

"I am somewhat of a local specialist in clothing, and I could help with returning your things to a pristine condition." Rarity said with a slight smile.

Trixie looked at her for a few seconds... And then a few more seconds... Eventually Rarity caved.

"Okay. I will admit I am not being completely selfless here. I also want to make a few additions and modifications to your emsemble, because I think it could be made even more fabulous if you had themed additions for special occasions." Rarity put a hoof to the air teatrically "And having one of the Knights wearing one of my pieces would result in such a great exposition of my work!"

Trixie smiled, she actually liked the white unicorn, and felt that it would be interesting to get to know her more. As such...

"Then let's go, I want to see some samples of your work before actually deciding."

Rarity smiled at her, and then led her through the streets until they got to Rarity's boutique.

They got there pretty quick, but there was still enough time for Rarity to talk about many of the ideas she had for possible versions of Trixie's clothes. Though Trixie thought Rarity acted kind of weird when she asked about the best materials and cuts to burn and explode for distractions. Wasn't that one of the most important parts?

Once inside, Rarity began to do her magic, in both senses of the word.

Trixie actually considered it a show. Rariy was manipulating every single fiber in her clothes all at once, making them vibrate to remove every last bit of dirt, patching some parts that had become ragged due to the previous mission and even (after consulting with Trixie to make sure it was okay) removing some long term damage that had been patched wrong over the years. It was truly magnificent.

Rarity gave the cloak and hat back to Trixie, who inspected them. And that was when Trixie became certain of what she had to do.

"Ms. Rarity Belle, I would like to you on as my apprentice." Trixie said politely.

"Huh? What?" The fashionista was stunned "What brought this on?"

Trixie gathered her thoughts for a moment, wondering about how to explain.

"As a mage who seeks the highest peak in the art of illusion, Trixie is always at risk at falling out of line with reality itself." She said in a solemn manner "In order to protect herself from such a fate, Trixie has set up several ways of reminding herself of the real world. The many flaws in my cape and hat were so minute and complex that they were almost impossible for anyone other than me to fully detect or replicate, and Trixie's soul remembers them, so if she tries to do it herself, even unconsciously, it will be immediately detected."

"Really...? But... You said..." Rarity was confused.

"As such, this was something of a test. Trixie wanted to see if you would have the eye for detail needed to fix it. Don't worry, she can put the flaws back easily, it will not be a problem." Trixie flipped her hat and put it back, and did the same with the cape "Trixie is interested in seeing if she can see what pathways your magic will take with some help in developing it. She is sure it will be magnificent." Trixie then looked Rarity in the eyes "Of course, if you don't want to, Trixie would still like to buy some clothes made by you. This kind of talent is rare."

Rarity was almost completely speechless, but she still had a question in mind.

"Weren't you looking for an apprentice to learn illusions? You didn't mention anything about it."

Trixie could understand what she was wondering about.

"Actually, Trixie got another apprentice earlier today. She is an expert in truth, something that is opposite but also complementary to illusions. It's not exactly waht Trixie had in mind, but it is a talent she wants to help grow. The same way, you are a talent Trixie wants to see developed, she is sure you would do well with illusions, considering your sense of detail and she may even teach you a thing or two. But your path is different, and Trixie is interested in seeing how it will develop. It is going to be a surprise, but Trixie thinks it will be worth it."

Rarity stopped, she thought, and she decided.

"I will accept to become your apprentice, Dame Trixie."

"Glad to have you."

-

Twilight moved quickly. There was one way to easily reduce the pressure on the two ponies who were inside the cage of brances, and that was to attract the attention of the branches themselves.

Thinking about Trixie, and how she would use such a distraction to great effect, the Knight charged a spell and aimed at the ground.

"Chaos Magic: Earth Shift!" The spell hit the ground and spread out under all the enemy trees. The ground itself started turning to stone.

If there was something trees hated, it was somepony messing with the ground, so Twilight immediately became the target of a prodigious number of branches, removing a lot of the pressure from the pair of ponies.

And that wasn't all, as Pinkie Pie's approach seemed to have revitalized Fluttershy, who started attacking the branches that tried to sneak up on Pinkie from behind.

And suddenly Twilight couldn't look anymore, because the branches were upon her. However, she had begun charging her next spell as soon as the first one completed, and it was already ready.

"Chaos Magic: Black Trap!" And the spell hit most of the branches, but could only affect some of them. It was a high stakes spell, but the results were good enough to justify it.

Because the branches that were affected started to attack and hinder the other branches. Because the spell, at its heart, was based on messing up with friend/foe recognition. Still, even with the effect being more than enough to stop the attack of the branches, Twilight had to go to the next step soon, because the spell also wouldn't last for very long.

Twilight shifted to a new position to the northwest of her previous one, in order to get away from the screen of branches, so that she could see what was the situation with the other two.

The situation hadn't changed in the two and a half seconds she had lost sight of them. They were still managing to hold on and fight against the remaining branches, which meant Twilight had the perfect opportunity to help them escape, while most of the branches were still tied down due to her previous spell.

So, Twilight decided to channel the old saying and fight trees with more trees. The fact that those trees were full of chaos magic actually helped.

"Chaos Magic: Growth Outbreak!" With a blast of magic, she made a three grow inside the cage of branches, separating them with sheer force of growth, and opening a breach.

"Escape through here!" The Knight shouted to them, and started blasting the attacking branches to give the two a chance to escape.

They didn't need to hear it twice, both Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie moved through the opened hole, and Twilight kept the branches off them until they passed her, before following them while still keeping an eye on any possible dangers.

It didn't take long before they got too far for the branches to follow them.

When the trio finally stopped, with Twilight saying the danger had passed (she still kept an eye on the other possible dangers that could appear at any moment in the forest), Fluttershy started breathing heavily from the exertion. Pinkie Pie was better off, but she certainly didn't seem as bouncy and ever-moving as she usually was. This kind of danger situation really took a lot out of ponies who weren't used to it, so Twilight wasn't surprised.

After the pegasus recovered, Twilight decided to try and figure out how things had gotten to that point.

"Hello." She said in a friendly manner "My name is Twilight Sparkle. You are Fluttershy, aren't you?"

The pegasus was somewhat hesitant, but soon answered.

"Yes, I am."

"Okay." Twilight said "So, could you explain what you were doing inside such a dangerous forest?"

"Ah, it's not dangerous at all..." Fluttershy seemed somewhat unconfortable speaking "To me, anyway..." The last words were barely above a whisper.

"Oh, could you explain that?" Twilight asked, noting that Pinkie Pie seemed to be almost vibrating with the need to talk. But she was clearly holding herself back, perhaps understanding that communicating with Fluttershy needed to be done with care.

"It's just... Ms. Zecora told me about the plants I needed to avoid... And to never go in too deep..." Fluttershy seemed to brighten up a little before the next words "And I can talk with the animals."

"Really?" Twilight looked at her cutie mark. That was a rare ability, especially for a pegasus.

"Yeah! Most of the 'dangerous' animals are actually quite nice when you get to know them." Fluttershy nodded confidently (in comparison to her usual), clearly this was a subject close to her heart "And the ones that aren't... Well, we have an understanding." Fluttershy said mysteriously.

"Hmm... I can understand. This kind of event happening so far from the center of the forest is really unlikely." Twilight nodded.

"And I can't talk to plants." The pegasus said sadly.

Twilight somehow didn't like seeing her like that, so her next words were fairly instinctive.

"Would you like to?"

"Eh? What? I..." Fluttershy was confused.

Twilight opened her mouth to say it was nothing, but then she actually thought of it. She thought about Fluttershy's unusual ability, what her words about being able to walk in the forest implied, and how she bravely defended Pinkie Pie when she came to rescue her. She decided to give it a shot.

"Hey Pinkie, what do you think about having a fellow disciple?" She asked the earth pony.

"Yuppers! That would be amazing! You want Fluttershy to be your apprentice?" Pinkie did a hop and supported herself with her front hooves, while keeping her back legs in the air, like she was a circus performer.

"That's right." Then she looked at the pegasus "What do you think? With some instruction from me, you could be able to talk to trees. Do you want to be my apprentice?" She said softly.

"I... I like trees..." Fluttershy said, that seemingly being the only part she could respond to. Twilight was patient and waited for the answer.

"I... I do." Fluttershy finally spoke, seeming to have mustered all her will to do it.

-

Sunset sighed when she heard the door opening and Twilight's voice. She had been tense for so long it had basically already run its course. Twilight's arrival was pretty much a relief by that point. She wasn't even scared anymore.

Sunset walked to the front entrance.

Twilight heard her coming "Sunset, you will not believe what happe-" Then Twilight saw Sunset and immediately realized what had happened "Sunset Shimmer, did you overload your magic again?!"

Oh, now the fear was back. How wonderful.

Those were Sunset's last thoughts as Twilight was advancing upon her.

 

[Kinni]

Just a small interlude before we get to the meat of the arc.

Interlude 1 - Luna's Confession

Spike walked to the training ground. One thing that had become completely clear over his apprenticeship with Princess Luna was that she didn't like to be predictable. He could never be sure exactly what kind of training he would be receiving each day. One day, the Princess would pur him under extraordinary magical pressure, enough to crack his scales, and order him to fight back with his own soul. Another day, he would sleep and pass through nightmarish trials in the dream world, utterly convinced it was all real until she finally allowed him to wake up. And another day, he would have to deliberatedly try casting spells beyond his own level, under Luna's supervision, in order to improve his magical control and will. The only thing he could be sure off was that the training would be tough, and he would come out of it stronger.

Still, even with that said, he was surprised to reach the scheduled place and not see the night princess. Instead, he saw her pegasus avatar, Lightning Chaser.

The dragon had thought the avatars were weird and puppetlike at first (Luna had quickly recreated Silver Soul and Dark Moon, the avatars who had fallen in battle to the Knight candidates), but Luna had explained that they were actually a lot more lively and free than they seemed, but they still had to recover completely from the influence of the combination of Sombra's mind control, her own use of black magic and simply not being able to actually express themselves for such a long time. Luna even told him that avatars have all the rights of a normal pony (and showed the relevant laws in several books), and she lets them have their own lives with no more interference than a particularly skilled and important royal guard would receive.

"They are part of me, but at the same time are their own ponies. The same way, I am a part of them, separate but connected."

And time showed that she was telling the truth. Silver Soul showed herself to be a jokester who also loved to cook and frequently made weird culinary experiments (there were a lot of new ingredients she didn't know about due to being isolated during Luna's stint as Sombra's slave), Dark Moon actually reminded him of Twilight and the others with her constant bragging about "the powers of darkness", so much that he intended to introduce them to each other and watch the show, and she was also quite smart and liked to tell stories. Lightning Chaser was the one who was most similar to the way they were before, and that was only because of her no-nonsense personality and a sense of duty that reminded Spike of Shining Armor, Twilight's older brother.

"You got here two minutes late." She said "What happened?"

"Erm..." Spike hesitated, she was always pretty hard to speak to "I was studying mystical forms and lost track of time." Then he decided to ask "What happened to Princess Luna?"

"Her meeting in the Crystal Empire has finally been set, and she had gone there." The pegasus said without much of an inflexion.

"Ah." Spike knew what that was about, so... "What is going to be the training today?"

"You need to be pushed harder in order to truly tap into your potential powers as a dragon. So, today we will be fighting seriously." That said, Lightning started to gather her namesake around herself, charging her own fur to the point where she began to glow.

Spike knew there was nothing else to say, and didn't want to be simply blasted while trying to talk, so he put his left arm up and tried to summon whatever energy he could muster in order to at least not lose too quickly.

The avatar charged like a bolt of lightning, and then the dragon was too busy trying to keep himself conscious to think about anything else.

-

The expression overcapacity is frequently used for situations in which an event venue contains more ponies than its specifications were supposed to allow. This word could technically be used to describe the state of the commercial plaza of the Crystal Empire, in front of the stage that had been erected there, however, it didn't seem entirely adequate. Perhaps if a few other adjectives including the word "over" were added it would represent things better, like overburdened, overloaded and overkill. But even then, perhaps you would need to add another adjective that doesn't quite fit but gives the right impression, like overemcumbered.

The only ponies who had more than the explicit minimum of space to themselves were the foals, mostly due to riding on their parent's backs. Even with the high number of multistage stands that had been constructed for the event, even with the pegasi sitting on their prepared cloud stands, even with many ponies looking from the windows of nearby buildings, there were just too many ponies in a single place. Even Luna, one of the immortal Princesses of Equetria, had rarely seem that many ponies all at once.

Before stepping on stage, the night alicorn looked to her sides. To one side was her dear sister, who had never stopped believing she could be saved, and had even trained those great knights for the purpose. On the other was the young Princess Cadance, whom Luna had met when she was still Nightmare Moon, and who did the impossible, surpassing life and magic to defeat Sombra. The princess still remembered with awe the scene of that small pegasus, having lost both her wings and one of her legs, but still grinning with the confidence of victory. Obviously, she had recovered with the ascension.

But all that was unimportant at the moment, she had a confession to make.

"Ponies of the Crystal Empire... I stand before you today because there are some things you should know.

"You know me as Nightmare Moon, the alicorn servant of King Sombra, who served as his enforced during centuries in which he oppressed you.

"You also know me as Luna, sister of Celestia and the Alicorn of the Night, who was mind-controlled by Sombra and only recently released from his yoke.

"However, what you don't know is how Luna turned into Nightmare Moon. And the most basic answer to that was envy. I was envious of my big sister, because the ponies seemed to love her day, while they didn't care about my night.

"I desired to force ponies to acknowledge my night, and for that I sought power in black magic. It is a kind of magic that is dangerous even at the best of times, and my feelings were too mixed up and confused for that to be anything but one of the worst possible times.

"I lost control and became Nightmare Moon, and in my madness, would have banished my sister and brought about eternal night. But before I could do that, Sombra managed to bring me under his control.

"The greatest truth is this, were it not for my weakness, for my having fallen into madness, I would never have ended up under his sway, and he wouldn't have been able to enslave you for so long.

"I may not have done it out of my own will, but in the end, it is still my fault. As such, I have come into the presence of you, the ponies who were most harmed due to my actions, to confess and receive your judgement."

Having said her piece, Luna went silent, and looked over the crowd, waiting to see what their reaction would be.

For the most part, the reaction was silence. The ponies looked at each other with a variety of expressions, and all of them seemed to have something to say, but none of them felt brave enough to speak in this kind of momentous occasion.

In this kind of silence, the sound of the clearing of a throat rang like thunder.

Everyone looked at the talker. It was a very old mare, who was sitting in one of the stands relatively close to the stage.

After clearing the throat she started to speak. At first her voice was too low to hear, but Cadance helpfully used a spell to amplify the sound and she started again.

"You say it is your fault that Sombra was able to take control, but while that may be true, I feel like there are some things that should be brought up before any decision is reached.

"You may not know it, Princess Luna, but even as Nightmare Moon, as the enforcer of the terrible King Sombra, we still had a lot to be thankful to you."

Somehow, the silence found a way to become even heavier and thicker, before the old mare resumed speaking.

"You were the one who did the job of tracking down, capturing and punishing rebels. But due to your actions, many ponies managed to avoid an even worse fate.

"You took them and tortured them with nightmares, but the ponies were then returned to their families. You may have put spies in their minds to prevent further rebellion, but you left them alive, something that Sombra wouldn't do. He would make examples of them.

"And it's not just that. You also took charge of the punishments for other offenses. And again, you let ponies live and stay unmaimed, things Sombra wouldn't do. Even when you were under Sombra's control and the black magic's influence, you still cared for us ponies.

"But above all else, there's one thing I think should be considered. You say it's your fault that you got caught by Sombra and made us suffer, but I say the pony that suffered the most under Sombra was you. There's no need to punish you any further."

The ponies gathered on the plaza considered this, and tried to decide how they felt about it. But somepony else had something to say. It was a small red filly with no cutie mark.

"I... I don't understand all that complicated stuff... But you did something bad and you're sorry, right? Then I forgive you."

The effects of those small words were, if anything, even greater. Soon, more and more ponies started saying "I forgive you", and the chorus spread through the crowd.

Luna couldn't stop her tears from flowing.

 

[Kinni]

Just one more chapter till we get to the meat of the arc...

And we have a concept-heavy chapter...

Chapter 11 - First Lessons

Trixie entered in the library with her characteristic level of subtlety.

"Trixie has arrived!" She shouted, while creating a series of mini-fireworks to explode around her.

But before she could get to the second part of her entrance, Trixie was stopped by the sight that greeted her inside the library.

It was Sunset. She was chained to the wall a few meters above the ground, with heavy manacles on her legs and thick chains around most of her body. There was also a full complement of heavy-duty medical instruments somehow glued to the wall, some of them visibly connected to Sunset, like an IV. While others didn't have any visible connections, like something that seemed kind of like a heart-lung machine, but was obviously not one. And to top it all off, she also had a magic seal in the shape of a paper scroll wrapped on her horn.

"Good evening, Trixie." She said in a much more casual voice than would be expected given the situation "I ended up setting Twilight off."

The aforementioned unicorn choose that moment to appear from another room.

"Welcome, Trixie!" She greeted her, before pulling out two cushions for her and Trixie to sit with Sunset nearby.

The showmare decided that there was nothing she should be concerned about. While most ponies would probably be thrown off by an unexpected situation, Trixie and her partners had an extremely high level of willful acceptance of everything around themselves, which had been cultivated through their years of training (Twilight's often weird powers causing trouble had been a pretty big part of that). This was part of the reason why they were so skilled in both magic and their knight work.

"Trixie has managed to obtain not one, but two apprentices today." She said, smiling at them.

"Oh..." Twilight said "I also got a second apprentice today. She's a really cute pegasus called Fluttershy who can talk to animals and walks casually throught the Everfree Forest." The unicorn smiled.

"And I have managed to get an apprentice for myself. She is a pegasus called Rainbow Dash who wants to become a Wonderbolt." Sunset added, not wanting to be left out of the conversation and still managing to sound terribly casual (a very remarkable feat, considering her situation).

"This certainly seems to have been a fruitful day for all of us." Trixie said, trying and failing to match Sunset's casualness "Trixie'll tell her story first." Trixie never gave up on a chance to make a show, which was only compunded by the fact that, even though she had accepted the situation with aplomb, that didn't mean she didn't want to know exactly how things had proceeded to that point.

"Trixie walked through the town while wearing weird clothes hidden with illusions, trying to find somepony with the requisite attention to detail to be apprenticed to a master of illusions..." She stopped for effect and saw the other two lean forward slightly "But it turns out that what she found was something much rarer and more difficult to see... An actual pony who has undeveloped, but still powerful Eyes of Truth."

Her two partners were surprised, that kind of special ability was something truly extraordinary, and considered as such even in the stories.

"The holder of such an ability is an earth pony farmer called Applejack. Trixie managed to talk with her alone, and even though she was stubborn, Trixie eventually managed to convince her to become an apprentice and develop her ability." Trixie then paused again, to let that part of the story impact, before adding "But it turns out Trixie's initial wishes would end up being fulfilled in a most unexpected manner." She built up anticipation for the next part of the story, and saw that she had the full attention of her audience.

"In a way that Trixie herself could only call destiny, she would end up crossing paths with her second apprentice after accidentally tripping and falling into a mudpool." She did a small movement to attract their eyes to her conspicuously unmuddied body "Causing Trixie to necessitate going to the spa to clean herself up.

"And there, Trixie met a unicorn seamstress called Rarity." This time there was a longer pause "We shared a special treatment at the spa and she showed interest in the stories of the Knights." Trixie smiled mischievously, to get her partners to wonder about what kind of stories she had told about them "And Rarity offered to help Trixie with her clothes in the boutique she owned.

"It was there that Rarity's talent was discovered... As she managed to unweave every single detail of Trixie's Pattern of Reality." Upon that revelation, Twilight and Sunset pretty much gaped at their partner, knowing exactly what that signified "And Rarity was perfectly willing to become Trixie's apprentice when the whole situation was explained to her." Trixie finished with a flourish.

Sunset, deciding to be the next, started telling her story "I didn't even had a plan. Not that I didn't want one, but I was still thinking about it." She then tilted her head in confusion "And it turns out my previous attempt was the right thing to do after all. Rainbow Dash came to me, having heard about the challenge I had made, and simply kept going again and again to try and beat it.

"Of course, I wanted her to be my apprentice, but she had reservations. I managed to get her to see that she could learn cool stuff with me. But I had to do somethingicrediblystupid" She said quickly, upon seeing Twilight glaring "And allow her a free shot that I overloaded my magic in order to keep from moving at all." She blinked "That mare was pretty strong, her attack was much more dangerous than I expected it to be."

"Well, leaving that aside." Twilight said, still miffed "My story is actually the most dramatic. Pinkie Pie suddenly got a sense that Fluttershy was in trouble, and an aproximate location." Twilight stopped for a moment, seeing that the two had gone rigid upon hearing about it "Yeah, her ability really is something else. Anyway, we teleported to the edge of the Everfree Forest and Pinkie guided me to the place.

"It turned out that trees were attacking Fluttershy, and they had even created an actual cage of branches to trap her." Twilight made a motion with her hood in emphasis "Pinkie Pie warps inside the cage and... Well, the rest isn't actually that dramatic. I distracted most of the branches, grew a tree to open a path and the two escaped." The unicorn nodded "I got interested in her ability to talk to animals, and managed to get her attention with the possibility that she could extend that to talking with plants. And like I already said, she walks through the Everfree Forest casually on a regular basis, apparently."

"Looks like I'm the only one who has just one apprentice. Well, it's more time for myself, anyay." Sunset said.

"But I'm having a problem with Pinkie." Twilight waited for the two to pay attention before continuing "She said she didn't understand the calculus book I lent her, and I don't know how I can teach it in a way she would understand."

Trixie looked at her partner "Twilight... Did you think of asking Princess Celestia for help?"

Twilight looked at her for a moment and facehoofed "Argh. Of course, I could simply ask her to get me in contact with some specialized teachers... I think I just got too caught up in thinking 'she's my apprentice and I have to help'."

"Well, you know how it is, sometimes you just miss some things." Sunset said "That's why we have partners."

That resolved, the three went back to talking about their new apprentices.

-

Over the next few days, the ponies that became the apprentices of the Knights of the Realm had their first lessons:

-

"What is this necklace about?" Rainbow Dash asked, seeing the necklace of paper tags that Sunset had on her neck.

"This is something Twilight put on me to detect if I'm using too much magic." Sunset said with a rigid smile "I shouldn't do that while I'm still recovering."

"Ahh... That's not going to cause trouble with my training. Right?"

"Not at all. It's you who is going to do the really exhausting things." Sunset paused "But first, in order to help ground this training session, I have a question for you."

"Okay. What do you want to ask?" Rainbow Dash didn't get what she was trying to do.

"What is the main similarity between pegasi and earth ponies?" Sunset questioned with a smile.

Rainbow Dash opened her mouth to answer... And closed it again. She really thought about it. The pegasus knew that this question had something to do with what she would be learning, and considering that...

"Both can enhance their bodies with magic, isn't it?" She hit upon the answer.

"Close." Sunset said "It's more like both tribes do this naturally, while unicorns can also learn it but it is not natural." Sunset waved the distinction off "But you've gotten the spirit of it right. The main difference between them is that while earth ponies have a general physical enhancement, pegasi actually have a whole suite of specialized enhancements that are activated independently."

Rainbow Dash thought that felt like it was right "And that means...?"

"That means you can maximize the effect of your enhancements by understanding and controlling each of them separatedly. They're all basically natural magical formations inside your body that you instinctively pour magical power into to do your feats. Getting full control of them would make it a lot easier and more efficient." Sunset then smiled maliciously "So the first exercise of today is trying to get in touch with the formation that deals with weakening the effects of physical shocks. And that means you will be flying straight into the ground at full speed."

Seeing Rainbow's suddenly worried face, Sunset thought it was just desserts for getting her in trouble.

-

"And I'll be getting some help with teaching you math in the next few days. For now, we're dealing with something very pressing, doing the chaotic movements consistently." Twilight finished her explanation.

Pinkie Pie tilted her head to the right "What is chaotic movement?"

"That's when you use shortcuts most ponies can't see." Twilight explained simply.

Pinkie gasped "But you can't just do that whenever you want! Things aren't always lined up right..."

Twilight smiled "That's the kind of thing training helps with. Like, it may seem that things stopped lining up, but if you change the angle from which you view them... You can use them normally."

Pinkie nodded slowly, trying to understand what she could mean by that, then she remembered something "Ah... You said we had to figure out ways to gain power... And I though, how about emotions?"

Twilight stopped for a moment and then looked up "Using emotions as power is... complicated. Technically, everypony can do it, and does it without even knowing, because emotions are a part of the self. But it is mostly an instinctive thing that can't really be used for more than a single spell before the extra power disappears." Upon seeing Pinkie's expression fall, she continued "However, there are ponies who mastered the way of emotions to such a level that they don't have those problems. It is a hard and dangerous road, and the more power you wish to access, the worse it gets... Still, it can be used relatively safely at low levels, which may be all you really need. Let's pencil it down for further discussion."

Pinkie was smiling again, thinking that her new teacher really knew a lot.

-

"Applejack, the first thing you must know about what you're going to learn in this apprenticeship is that to see truth, you must understand truth, and to understand truth, you must understand the world itself, from the most basic framework of reality to the highest of the concepts. So, a lot of the things Trixie will tell you won't help anything unless you really think and meditate about them, and try to understand them from your own point of view. You must seek the truth with your soul for it to develop the best means for piercing the false." Trixie talked in a serious and straightforward manner, knowing that her apprentice would respond better to that kind of treatment.

"Ah, get it. Ya ken point the way, but Ah have to do the work mahself." Applejack nodded, if she was going to do this, she would do it seriously "So where do we start?"

Trixie smiled slightly "We start with one of Trixie's favorite subjects, magic itself." She cleared her throat "Magic is simply the ability to use the power of one's soul in order to affect the world. No matter who it is, everybeing that has a soul can do magic in a way or another." She paused for a moment, letting Applejack parse this "And the soul is the self, so everything that affects the self will affect magic as well, even things that you wouldn't expect can be incredibly important. To make an example, Trixie would say that language is incredibly important for magic. As for how important... Applejack, what do you think of the fact that I call my specialty magic Perfect Illusion?"

"Ehh... It seems like a little bit too boastful, if ya want mah honest opinion." Applejack answered.

"Boastful..." Trixie said in a careful tone "It is indeed boastful, but it is in fact an oath. The words Trixie usse to call her magic, the name she gave it... It is a restriction. Princess Celestia and Trixie discussed this a lot when she was younger, because using those kinds of words is dangerous. If Trixie doesn't continually strive for perfection in her illusion magic, she will lose control of it, and consequently, of her own self. You may call it boastful, but it is still on a controlable level. If Trixie called it Absolute Illusion, on the other hand... Let's just say that it is very easy to become exactly the sort of thing the Knights fight against." The unicorn said softly.

Applejack had to fight not to stare at the showmare. And she felt like she was beginning to understand exactly what kind of ponies the Knights had to be in order to serve as the protectors of Equestria. She engraved this moment in her heart, predicting that it would become important for her magic in the future.

-

"Animals are connected to nature, just as plants are. This forms a conceptual connection between the two. Connections are important to magic, and I think you would do well to keep that in mind." Twilight told Fluttershy.

"Hmm..." The pegasus frowned slightly as she thought "So, that means that if I want to talk with plants, I just need to think of the fact that they are part of nature just like animals?" She thought that seemed a little too simple.

Twilight blinked "Ah? No, actually that would be a pretty hard thing to do, since it would mean interfering with a concept directly. It's not impossible, since it would just be a small interference, but it is definitely not first step material." She tilted her head to the right "I actually mentioned it just because even knowing that this connection is possible would help you make it even if you take other paths."

Fluttershy thought about it, she was a little embarassed by her mistake, but Twilight hadn't laughed at her about it, so she decided to ask "Then what kind of paths can I take?"

The unicorn smiled broadly "There's quite a lot of them, but the best results can be achieved by choosing the path that is most suited to you. That is one of the reasons why I asked so many questions about you." She put a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder "And considering how much you care for the animals, I think the best option is the route of empathy." Twilight did a spell that created a small billboard with the word 'empathy' to appear above Fluttershy's head "Empathy is an understanding of others, and as such is already well-suited for communication. You care for your animals and try to understand them, so you need to extend that care to the plants. But to really care for them, you need to understand them, and as such your first task will be to try and think like a tree."

Fluttershy couldn't help but smile, this was exactly the sort of thing she liked doing.

But she hoped Twilight would dispel the "empathy" billboard sometime soon.

-

"You said you wanted to help me achieve my potential... But is there really clothes-based magic that you could teach me?" Rarity asked Trixie.

"Trixie could teach you Gemcrafting, or really, general magic crafting. That could be good, but she was actually thinking of starting with something more basic and seeing where that leads us." Trixie said.

"More basic... You mean, like my telekinesis?" Rarity remembered Trixie praising her talent in multitasking with telekinesis.

"That's half of it. Trixie means your ability to create in general. Constructing your results in your mind before constructing them in reality. This ties into your eye for detail as well." Trixie paused to see if Rarity was still following her words "Every single thing in the world is made of a combination of parts, and the concept of Building, or Crafting can be used in all sorts of interesting ways." Trixie suddenly disappeared, with Rarity being startled when she showed up again at her side "Imagine, if you will, having the ability to turn even the most common materials into the most wonderful and marvelous objects..."

Rarity understood what Trixie was doing, but she couldn't help but think about what she could do without the limitations of materials.

Perhaps she would be able to create wonders that would stand the test of time and be remembered for eras in the future...

-

One day, Sunset woke up, feeling like the time had finally came.

She checked herself with magic, and saw that she was right, her body had finally recovered completely.

Charging her magic with gusto, Sunset sent messages to Trixie and Twilight (she could have just called Twilight, but what would be the fun in that?). She thought that it was time for them to show their apprentices how the Knights were as a trio.

 

[Kinni]

A shorter chapter than expected, but we're almost there, people.

Chapter 12 - Knight Spar

There was a small field outside of Ponyville that was commonly used for gatherings of ponies. That day was no exception, but the specific ponies who had been gathered there for a meeting were quite different from the usual.

"Trixie and her apprentices have arrived!" Trixie announced, appearing suddenly from under a multi-layered illusion. At her sides were Rarity (who was manipulating a huge number of tiny rocks in her telekinesis) and Applejack (who blinked twice and then started rubbing her eyes, saying "urgh, Ah could not see thought the illusions in time").

Soon after, Sunset telported in, causing a small explosion to appear around her, before repairing the damage to the ground with a quick spell. Rainbow Dash dived down from a distance at incredible speed, somehow managing to negate her inertia enough to stop completely as soon as she hit the ground, in an amazingly precise landing.

Then, Twilight shimmered into view, and Pinkie Pie appeared like she had just taken a step into the place and the step somehow covered a huge distance. Fluttershy flew in, gliding slowly through the air.

"As the teachers, we should introduce ourselves first." Twilight said "I am Twilight Sparkle. Teacher of basic magic, apprentice of Princess Celestia and Knight of the Realm of Equestria." She smiled as she looked to the gathered ponies.

"Here is the Great and Powerful Trixie Lulamoon." Trixie did a teatrical bow "Showmare extraordinaire, apprentice of Princess Celestia and Knight of the Realm of Equestria."

"And I'm Sunset Shimmer." Sunset finished with a casual tone "Assistant in sun-raising, apprentice of Princess Celestia and Knight of the Realm of Equestria." She smiled slightly "I know our introductions may seem similar, but we have literally lived together for half our lives and choose the same career path. It would be stranger if they weren't."

With that, the ice was mostly broken, and Rainbow Dash decided to shatter the rest of it by going next.

"The name's Rainbow Dash." She said in a voice full of confidence "I'm the fastest pegasus alive, a weather manager and in the future, a Wonderbolt!"

"Ah guess Ah'll go next." Applejack began with a calm voice "My name is Applejack. Ah'm a farmer from the Sweet Apple Acres, and Ah guess Ah got something called eyes o' truth?"

Suddenly, Applejack felt an immense existential pressure coming from her teacher, who was grumbling something like "introducing the ability needs work" and "remedial lessons are in order". She looked to the other two Knights, who were looking at her in slight disappointment (Twilight mouthing something that could be interpreted as "didn't even put the required capital letters"). The farmer suddenly felt like she had commited a grievous mistake somewhere, and would suffer the consequences later. Her fellow apprentice decided to take the focus off her.

"I am Rarity Belle. I work as a seamstress and fashion designer and have been chosen as an apprentice by Knight Trixie, and my dream is that my designs will be famous in all of Equestria." Rarity said in a smooth voice.

"I'm Pinkie Pie!" The aforementioned mare exclaimed, almost as soon as Rarity was done "I'm a party planner and baker. And Teacher Twilight choose to teach me because I can use chaos magic like her!" She then produced from her mane a hand drawn picture of herself and Twilight, with the words "chaos magic buddies" on the bottom.

The ponies present very deliberatedly did not stare at Fluttershy, for varied reasons (some knew her, some had enough social know-how to understand why it would be a bad idea, and some had heard from Twilight). So the pegasus did not have much trouble doing her own introduction.

"My name is Fluttershy... I'm an animal caretaker and I'm studying with Twilight to be able to talk to trees." She said in a somewhat low voice.

"Okay," Twilight said, seeming to have taken the role of leader of the meeting "Since this is a good chance, do you have any questions for us? I think it should be a good opportunity to see our differing viewpoints in practice."

"Actually, I have one." Pinkie Pie put a hoof in the air and started waving it "Why do you keep breaking things with your magic and then fixing them? Is this some kind of special training?"

"Actually, no..." Sunset said, with a doubtful expression "The whole 'destroying things' matter is because keeping my power unrestrained works well for preventing me from losing touch with my Magical Origin... But fixing everything later is because Princess Celestia made very, very sure that I learned to fix what I break." She did a deep, full-body shudder "Very sure..."

Rainbow Dash decided to say her own question before they could start thinking too much about this.

"What I wanted to know is, which of you three is the best mage?" She said with her characteristic eagerness.

"Trixie." Sunset and Twilight deadpanned, while Trixie said proudly.

"Oh." That was weird "That was an unexpectedly simple answer." Said Rarity.

"Don't get us wrong." Twilight said "We're not simply letting her have the lead position."

Sunset continued the explanation "It's just that, while I only managed to develop my Magic Enhance a few years after becoming Celestia's Apprentice, and Twilight's Magical Sign came even later,

Trixie was already using Perfect Illusions while only ten years old, and she simply refined her magic and developed her aspects during this time. A few years headstart is no joke." She sighed.

"And here I thought saying this kind of stuff was a sure trigger to a fight." Dash joked.

"Oh, were you hoping for that...?" Twilight said teasingly.

"Actually..." Trixie considered "We haven't had a spar in a while." She looked to the apprentices "What do you think about seeing a semi-serious fight between Knights?"

The five agreed with the proposal, with varying levels of enthusiasm, and the three Knights started setting up the arena. They went to a less frequented location in order to avoid interruptions and started drawing on the ground, creating a complex, multilayered magic circle which they then activated, causing small light streams to come out of of it and infuse the three.

"This is for safety," Twilight explained "This special circle is connected to the minicircles created inside of us, and if it detects that we are about to receive a major injury, we are teleported out of the battlefield."

"This seems like it would be fairly useful for fights." Rainbow Dash decided.

"It's not as great as it might seem. We need a lot of preparation to make it work, it only works for a limited time in a limited zone and can be disrupted very easily." The chaotic unicorn answered.

Everything ready, the three Knights positioned themselves at equal distances from each other, and the apprentices went to a safe distance in order to watch.

As expected, Sunset made the first move.

"Magic Enhance: Solar Missile!" And her sphere of light extended and became denser and hotter, before flying in Trixie's direction.

The showmare teleported out of the way of the attack and reappeared in two different places at once, meaning that one of them was an illusion (or both were illusions, and the real one was concealing her presence). Twilight always felt this was the hardest part of fighting Trixie, you had to split your attention between many things at once, becasue there was no way of knowing which parts were dangerous. The fact that she also had to pay attention to Sunset only made it worse. Still, it was only the beginning of the battle, and she had enough concentration to spare to be able to think all those things, while she prepared her own attack.

"Chaos Magic: Living Earth!" She blasted the ground, which started shifting up and down in irregular patterns, aimed at restricting the movement of the opponents. Twilight's regular strategy was based upon controlling the envinronment.

On the other hand, Sunset's regular strategy could be described with only two words: Overwhelming Power. As such, she decided to hit two birds with a single stone, and charged her magic a little longer than usual, while struggling with the shifting ground and having to keep an eye on possible Trixie interruptions. All that to be able to use a powerful enough spell.

"Magic Enhance: Flying Earth!" And the sphere of power she had gathered shot into the ground, before releasing a huge explosion, that completely ripped apart the structure of Twilight's spell, as well as caused bit of earth to fly all over the battlefield. Trixie was good, but even her would not be able to manipulate her illusions to take all that into account so fast.

However, Trixie would not simply allow herself to be caught.

"Perfect Illusion: Shadow World!" One of the two Trixies announced, and suddenly a deep darkness fell into the battlefield, completely denying sight.

Sunset thought of banishing the darkness with a spell, but only for a moment. In the following moment, she used a small, omnidirectional force spell centered on herself, and was rewarded with the feeling of a small object being destroyed.

Twilight, on the other hand, almost got to feel the pain of a sharp stone fragment piercing her neck. She managed to chaotically shift forward, even blinded like she was, but the distraction made her subsequent spell take a little longer to charge.

Sunset realized that Trixie had probably sent that attack sneakily during the first stage of the fight, and attacking while she was blinded, and just after Sunset had used a lot of magic in her attack was exactly the kind of thing she would do. However, Sunset had detected the attack, and Trixie should not have enough power for any big spells for at least four seconds, which was a huge amount of time in a battle like this.

Two seconds later, Twilight finished casting her own spell.

"Chaos Magic: Exploding Golems!" She called, and earth golems suddenly appeared all around the battlefield, trying to grab anything they could get their hands on.

Trixie cast a hasty spell on the closest golem, confusing its its targeting system, and moved away using the rest of her magic in a shield o try to resist the explosions. Yet, she realized her position was becoming more and more untenable.

Sunset, on the other hand, was caught by a golem. However, by that time, Sunset had already charged her magic for three seconds. It was more than enough.

"Magic Enhance: Eruption!" And then, the entire battlefield was utterly annhilated by a flaming eruption coming from under the ground. Sunset rode on the edge of the explosion, freeing herself from the golem as it was destroyed. Her two partners didn't have energy enough to do anything, and were teleported out by the magic circle. Sunset flew to the air, and then came back down, victorious.

"OW, OW, OW!" She started jumping in place "BURNING HOOVES, BURNING HOOVES!" Sunset threw herself to the ground and started casting spells on her own hooves.

Twilight and Sunset had teleported to her, as soon as she started yelling, but soon realized that everything was fine.

"That was an experimental spell, wasn't it?" Twilight surmised.

"Yeah." Sunset answered, already feeling better "I still haven't completely worked out the heat transference problem. But just a few burns doesn't count as a major injury, so..." She ignored the stink eye Twilight was giving her.

"Hey, you guys!" Meanwhile, Trixie was talking with the apprentices "We're going to rest a little bit, so if you want to talk about us behind us backs, this is the best opportunity!"

Pinkie Pie laughed, and the others followed suit soon after. Then they started speaking with each other, exactly the way Trixie had planned.

The rest of the day was considerably more normal, but the apprentices ended up becoming friends with each other, which was the main goal of that exercise anyway,

 

[Kinni]

Once again, this was supposed to go up yesterday, but I was too tired.

Chapter 13 - Letter to Celestia

Time passed, and the apprentices got more confortable with their situation, and started learning more about their teachers.

-

In the house of the Apples...

"Ya really wanna know how it is to learn with Trixie?" Applejack asked her sister.

"Yeah. Ah did try the test to become her apprentice but failed. Ah wanna know how it is for you." Applebloom said.

The farmer mare thought about it "Well... In a word... It's weird."

The filly rolled her eyes "Ah already know that, sis. Ya been saying that word a lot the past few weeks. Can't ya be a little more specific?"

"Okay, let's see if Ah ken explain this... Ah never know what she's gonna do next. One day Trixie explains some important magical concepts and has me repreat what Ah understood by mahself the next day. Another day she has me reading old stories and trying ta tell which parts are lies. Another day Ah have to try ta look through the earth ta see the core of the world, or look at the sun ta see the soul of princess Celestia. Or she simply does some advanced illusions that Ah have to try ta see through as fast as possible. Not ta mention that whole thing about properly introducing the Eyes o' Truth." Applejack looked at her sister with a pressured expression "Ah cannot figure out what she's planning!"

Applebloom raised an eyebrow "Have ya considered that perhaps she might be winging it?"

The farmer mare considered that for a few moments...

"Dangit!"

-

In the Sugarcube Corner...

"So... Did the thing with the calculus get solved?" Mrs. Cake asked her tenant.

"Yupperoni!" Pinkie nodded eagerly "There's this whole method of keeping numbers on your head at all times, but I actually understand how to do the math now!

"And also, I've already learned all sorts of cool things! Look at this!"

Pinkie Pie then proceeded to split in two, and one of them went to the kitchen and started doing the preparations for the next day.

"Cool, ain't it?" The pink pony asked.

The Cake mare seemed to be somewhat ambivalent about this development.

"It is somewhat cool..." She allowed "But how did Twilight even teach you to do something like this?"

"Oh, we did a lot of things! Like when she said I needed practice with seeing things from a different perspective, so she did that spell to make me walk upside down the whole day! Do you remember?"

"Yes, I do..." Mrs. Cake had thought that was weird even for her tenant.

"There was also timing training, which means moving my hoof at exact time intervals that Twilight chooses randomly. And I mean in terms of hundreths of a second." Her smile became smaller "It is pretty hard..." Then she recovered "And there's also training in meditation to understand myself. It was boring in the beginning, but I managed to discover all kinds of fun things inside of me! And it's always different so it's a surprise!"

The older mare blinked. Meditation really wasn't something she would usually associate with her tenant, but before she could finish her thought, the copy Pinkie Pie came back from the kitchen and stepped into the other Pinkie Pie without missing a beat. Being caught off guard by that new development, she could only say:

"It seems like you are in good hooves."

-

In the spa...

"Aloe, Lotus, there are some things I need to get off my chest, so please don't mind me if I ramble a bit." Rarity said while in the middle of her usual spa visit.

"Sure, miss Rarity. We're here to serve." Aloe said with a smile.

"Okay... where do I start... It's just that being Trixie's apprentice is a little different from what I expected. There's the magic learning and conceptual theory, that is a little hard to wrap my head around, but still manageable, but somethings she does are simply too weird and unexpected!" Rarity's tone had become noticeably loud "She has this whole obsession with having me give 'cool' names to the spells I learn and the pieces I create, and her tastes are difficult to please without going gaudy..." Rarity took a deep breath "And then there's the 'training', like asking me to create the gaudiest, most overdesigned and complex dress I can, then coming back a week later with every piece and having me recreate it from memory... Or when she kept using her telekinesis to interfere while I was in the middle of a delicate piece and having to focus twice as hard to nullify her influence... Or even trying to create an entire dress using only water for everything, which means having to hold every part of the design in my head and exert telekinesis to keep them whole constantly, even as I'm designing the other parts... I've never been able to do this one."

The unicorn shifted her head from side to side "I mean... It's rewarding because I can actually feel my magic becoming better and more focused, and I keep getting ideas for better and better designs so I can tell all that training is working but... It's just so tiring... In many different aspects... The training is hard but it becomes even harder with Trixie constantly telling weird stories, or doing weird spells like the one that felt like she was everywhere in the boutique at once... And her insistence in practicing chants to get the right cadence for every kind of unlikely situation..." Rarity closed her eyes and let out a huge sigh "There's just too many things to retort, and I lose my balance."

She sighed again, then smiled.

"Thank you. I really needed that." She said.

"We're happy we could help." Lotus said with a smile.

-

In Fluttershy's house...

"So, Fluttershy, how's it going being Twilight's apprentice?" Rainbow Dash asked her friend.

"Oh, it's wonderful!" She said excitedly "I can already tell at lot more about what my animals are thinking and feeling, and I'm even managing to understand trees a little! ... How about you, how's your training?" She asked in a lower voice.

"Ah, training is eas-" The mare suddenly did a full-body shudder "hard, very hard."

Fluttershy blinked "That doesn't seem like the kind of thing you would say."

Dash showed a rigid smile "Teacher Sunset explained to me that the training needed to be hard to push me to my limits and actually get results. So everytime I said the training was easy, she kept increasing the intensity.." She then shook her body and forced herself to break out of the flashbacks "But really, there's nothing too out of the ordinary about the trainings, just things to make an awesome flier even more awesome! Like being able to use my pegasus magic more easily, or increasing the resilience of my body via the training of the use of the body magic formations, or improving my senses and concentration so I can react faster." She nodded, forcing herself to think only of the results.

Fluttershy considered "That seems nice. My training is more like carrying as many animals as possible and trying to understand everything their feeling throughout the whole day... Or being buried under the ground for a night with some life-preservation to keep me alive to become closer to the earth... Or having parts of my body turned into plants for... I don't really know." Fluttershy smiled in an embarassed way "Twilight is nice, but sometimes I don't understand what she is thinking."

Rainbow Dash boggled for a moment before recovering "I think all the Knights may be a little weird." She thought about her own training once more, and her tone became a lot more tense "Rarity told me a little about how her apprenticeship with Trixie, and it's also not normal. As for me... Sunset seems to have some kind of obsession with destruction and power. Everything is measured in those terms. She measures my resilience by comparing the amount of power from her spells I can withstand with the amount of destruction she could cause with those same spells. She asks me to keep destroying harder and harder things with applications of my weather magic... And she trains my concentration by making me dodge a ridiculous amount of magic projectiles..." She put her hooves over her face.

"I'm tired." She said.

Fluttershy could only smile awkwardly.

-

And a few days even later, Princess Celestia received a letter.

Dear Princess Celestia

I am writing this letter to inform you of how the studies of my apprentices, and those of Trixie and Sunset are doing.

Starting with mine, Pinkie Pie's abilities are becoming more and more stable by the day. She can reliably do her movement and positional manipulations, and her Pinkie sense precognition can now be used consciously for certain things. I am also getting closer to replicating her ability to store things in her mane. But perhaps her greatest achievement lies in her capacity of manipulating spells in progress, specially chaos based spells. Her ability to manipulate the raw energy used by the spells is something amazing, and I think she stands a good chance of being able to master emotion magic.

As for Fluttershy, while she may not have the same variety of achievements, what she has been able to accomplish in these last few weeks is amazing. Her ability to communicate with animals has gotten to the point where complex concepts can be passed between them via just glances. And she can already communicate with plants reasonably well, a little more and she'll reach the point of being able to converse with an entire forest at once. I don't know what will be the next goal after that, but I'm excited to think about it.

According to Trixie, Applejack is quickly mastering the various aspects of the Eyes of Truth, being able to see a lie and determine which type it is, as well as seeing through physical objects and being able to see magic connections and other formless things. And her ability to see through Trixie's advanced illusions is growing by the day. Trixie hopes to have Applejack learn how to see through distance as the next topic.

As for Rarity, her learning has been a lot less focused, so there's quite a lot of things she learned how to do. But some of the most important would be taking her multitasking to an exceedingly high level (and it's Trixie who says that, and you know how high her standards are), her ever-growing mastery of restoration spells, and her ability to exert power in an incredibly minute scale, to the point she has the potential to learn spells capable of messing around with the building blocks of reality itself.

Finally, there's Rainbow Dash. Sunset says that she was already rather powerful just with her normal training to be a wonderbolt (and you know how Sunset is about power), but Sunset's training is taking her to a whole new level and helping her be able to use her skills more easily and consistently, which was a problem for the pegasus, apparently. Sunset says Dash can now accelerate from a lying position to her max speed in only a few seconds, and she's able to create tornadoes that can destroy houses fairly easily. And her resilience is enough that even with Sunset's destruction capacities, she is still a "tough nut to crack" in Sunset's words.

All in all, teaching these apprentices has been a great experience for all of us, and I am beginning to understand what you must have felt over our training.

Hope to see you again soon.

Your faithful student

Twilight Sparkle

"Hmm... It seems that my apprentices have found a way to distract themselves. That is good." Celestia said to herself. She had been worried that the three would not be able to deal well with the time in between missions, so it was nice to see that it wasn't a concern.

She started pondering what to write in return, when her magical senses caught something that completely derailed her train of thought.

Oh, no. She thought. Discord is free.

There were two things she could do about it, and after sending a message to initiate a state of emergency, she wrote a short letter to her apprentices, and sent it hurriedly.

She managed to do it just in time.

-

By a stroke of luck, at that moment all three of the Knights and their apprentices were together for a meeting. That resulted in all of them receiving the news at the same time when Twilight received the letter.

"Oh, it's a letter from Princess Celestia! It says... Discord is free, your new mission is defeating him." Her cheerful tone disappeared completely halfway through her statement.

She dropped the letter and looked to her partners, who looked at her with grave expressions.

"Who is Discord?" Applejack asked, realizing that their behavior was very far from the usual.

Twilight sighed, but remained tense "Discord is one of the most powerful threats to Equestria that ever existed. He is the spirit of chaos, and his abilities in chaos magic are powerful enough to overshadow the princesses." She took a breath "Two thousand years ago, Celestia and Luna managed to defeat and seal him, but only with the help of two Knights of the Realm of the time and three other brave heroes."

As she spoke, the apprentices were filled with tension, realizing that this was something incredibly major. Trixie was preparing to take command to get them moving to hash out some kind of plan, but Pinkie's body contorted in a way that would have been humorous at any other time and she spoke two words "He's coming." before everything went chaotic.

The clouds shifted, adquiring the consistency of jello and raining chocolate milk, bits of earth started rising to the sky and laughing, and the very wind itself started tasting like brocolli. In the distance, the mares could see that even more random things were happening in the town. Then, a gigantic portal opened above the city, and a claw started forcing itself through it.

"Hi!" Came a voice from behind them.

The eight ponies turned around and came face to face with the legendary being. He has the head of a pony, a deer antler on the right, a blue goat horn on the left, one long fang, different-sized pupils, a snake tongue, a goat beard, and white bushy eyebrows. He has the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat. In addition, he has a bat's right wing, a Pegasus' left wing, a horse's mane, and a dragon-like snake's tail with a white tail tuft. He waved his right arm, causing a wave of raw chaos magic to shot towards them.

"Chaos Magic: Redirection!" Twilight cast, releasing a spear of energy that hit the wave, causing it to turn into a variety of objects, like balls, birds and blenders, which flew of in several different directions.

"Oooooh...! So it was true! I couldn't quite believe that Celestia had actually taken an apprentice who could use chaos magic..." Discord smiled "She never seemed like the fun kind of pony."

Twilight suddenly had a flash of insight. There was a way of turning this to their advantage, to allow her partners a better chance against Discord. So she spoke:

"Many things have changed since the last time you've been free, Discord." She began, without particularly planning her words "The true nature of chaos has been discovered, and your brand of it is just outdated." She said with a grin.

"Outdated?!" Discord snarled "Like such a magnificent force such as me could become outdated..." He opened his mouth and exhaled a banner saying "always in fashion".

"If you really believe this, then you will accept my challenge. Your way of chaos against mine!" Twilight announced.

She received harsh glances from her partners, but their non-verbal communication managed to estabilish that her plan (though Trixie thought it was far too simple to be called a proper plan) really was the best chance they had, even if it yook some discussion.

"Hah! You are going to regret messing with me!" Discord announced, shifting to wear a shirt saying "I accept".

"If that is the case..." Unexpectedly, Pinkie Pie decided to intrude on the conversation "Then I will also take part in this duel, since I am Twilight's apprentice!"

Twilight looked at her, Pinkie looked back with a smile. Twilight sighed and thought that having heroes around was tiring. While that was going on, the other ponies left the future battlefield, going to do their own part in the plan.

"An apprentice, hmm?" Discord put his claw to his chin "I've always wanted one. Guess I'll take her." And shifted right behind Pinkie Pie, touching her head with a finger.

The earth pony froze and started to lose her color... before getting herself moving again in a flowy way. Then she shook her head and hit the side of it with her hoof several times, until a black mist came out of her ear "Argh... That was unfun..." She said, as she went back to normal colors.

Discord gave a "huh" and Twilight casually cancelled the spell she was planning to use to free Pinkie Pie and reformed it into a sphere of magic she shot in Discord's direction.

The fight had already began, and though Pinkie had managed to overcome Discord's first trick, the battle would be a true trial for both of them.

Twilight hoped she could hold out long enough for the others to figure out a solution.

 

[Kinni]

Next chapter

Chapter 14 - Split

"Pinkie, use the slipstream!" Twilight alerted her apprentice, that being the only instructions she could possibly give for the duel, considering exactly what kind of duel it was.

Discord opened with creating a monster that seemed to consist entirely of mouth and setting it upon Twilight, but before the unicorn could do anything against it, Pinkie proved that she had listened.

"YEEEEHAAA!" Suddenly, she was riding in one of the monster's teeth, somehow avoiding being cut by its extreme sharpness and controlling the beast despite it having no nerves or anything else that could potentially be exploited by a rider to control a living ride. She turned the mouth back against Discord, who turned it into glass and shattered with a summoned hammer, creating an entire shower of of glass shards flying towards the ponies.

Twilight was the one to deal with that attack, turning the glass shards into bouncing balls, that bounced off the ground and shot back towards Discord at a much greater speed. She was also using slipstream.

The slipstream was the name the unicorn gave to one of the discoveries she made about chaos magic. Said simply, it took less energy to affect something with chaos magic if it "followed" the use of a higher amount of that same amount of magic. It was actually fairly complicated and confusing, but that was the gist of it. And Discord was using a lot of chaos magic, more than enough for them to be able to fight without using that much magic.

That was important, because while the two could do all those things by themselves, they would rather not wear themselves out by using too much magic too early, since this was a fight where the main goal was to last as long as possible.

So the fight continued in the same vein for a few more exchanges, and the preferences of the three involved in the battle gradually became clear. Discord, with his immense age and power, was attracted to big and flamboyant displays, as well as making references to things only he would understand. His spells were full of strange mechanisms, werid languages, ancient beasts, and tended toward the big and loud end of the spectrum. Twilight on the other hand, was an expert in mystery and orderliness, reversing spells in unexpected ways as well as making order itself the punchline used by her magic, like when she made a swarm of bees do a synchronized dance routine. Traces of the influence of her partners could be seen in hermanipulation of position for unexpected attacks and in her quick escalation of small spells. The fact that she also started reciting a speech about "the true nature of chaos magic" and everything she had gone through to learn it also helped. Finally, there was Pinkie Pie, who didn't have nearly as much power to spare as either of the two, so focused on creating the greatest effect by changing the least possible. However, it could easily be seen that the root of her chaos magic tended towards fun, with all the party themed effects and her trying to make friends with a lot of the spells Discord used.

Still, a fight between specialists in chaos magic would never be able to remain static for long, and it was Discord who decided to change the script. By turning a statue Twilight was making spin into himself, he got close enough to touch her horn. The unicorn quickly gathered all the power she could to repel him, but on such short notice her hasty defences couldn't help but buckle under his overwhelming power. And her horn disappeared.

"Oh, how sad... What will the little unicorn do without her horn?" The spirit of chaos asked mockingly.

Twilight Sparkle glared at him, then she extended her hoof to Pinkie, who took a party hat out of her mane and gave it to her.

Twilight stuck the party hat in her head, and it glowed, gathering magic.

Discord was unable to react before Twilight blasted him with a spell that split him into the several animals his body parts belonged to. He quickly reformed himself, only to be hit with one of Pinkie's party cannons, getting the battle going again.

-

Fifteen Minutes Earlier...

The six other ponies, who had left the area to allow the fight to proceed unhindered, got to a safe distance before stopping.

"There's no time for politeness, so I'll be quick." Sunset said, with a serious face "Me and Trixie have received our mission. Do you want to help?"

"Of course!" Rainbow Dash didn't even hesitate.

"I agree." Rarity was only a little behind "I may not be a Knight, but I will do what I can."

Applejack and Fluttershy (the pegasus with an uncharacteristic fierceness) also agreed to do what they could. Sunset nodded.

"Right then. Trixie, how are the princesses?" She asked.

Trixie cancelled the spell she had been using "Seems like Discord trapped them in Canterlot."

Sunset considered that "Then we have two objectives to try to accomplish while Twilight and Pinkie are giving us time. We need to rescue the princesses, so that they can give support, and we need to fix as much of the chaotic effects as possible around Ponyville, since less chaos nearby will weaken Discord." She then looked at her partner "Trixie, you should take your apprentices and go to Canterlot, since you can probably use your illusions to conceal when the princesses are released. Do you have any better ideas?"

Trixie shook her head "No. This seems like the best use of Trixie's talents." She turned to her apprentices "Applejack, you should try to use your Eyes of Truth to find the centers of magical activity, since those are the places the princesses will be trapped in. Rarity, Trixie'll show you a spell based around returning things to a 'whole' state that will serve to deal with smaller chaos effects. But!" She said suddenly "If you think of other ways to help, don't hesitate."

Applejack and Rarity nodded at this.

"Right. So Rarity, keep an eye on this spell formula..." Trixie started casting a spell while deliberatedly writing the formula visibly and slowly.

Meanwhile, Sunset had turned to the other two "Fluttershy, you should be able to use your empathy to find distressed ponies, which will definitely be near the biggest sources of chaos around. Take me to them, and give whatever support is necessary. Rainbow Dash, you will have the most important job." She looked at the blue pegasus with an extremely serious expression "Keep a safe distance from the fight and be ready to rescue the two of them if they get in trouble."

Rainbow Dash replied "I understand." With a completely serious expression and went flying to do her job.

Fluttershy closed her eyes and focused for a few moments before pointing out a direction, then the two set off.

After Trixie finished demonstrating the spell, Rarity tried and failed to reproduce it, but a bit of additional instruction by the blue unicorn allowed her to suceed on the second try.

"Then, let's go." Trixie said, and charged up a lot more than usual, because teleporting three ponies took a lot of energy.

And with a sound that was much less elegant than Trixie's usual teleports, the three ponies disappeared.

-

Twilight had the opinion that things could be going a lot worse.

Her thoughts were because of her apprentice, Pinkie Pie, who turned out to have the right abilities, mindset and level of skill to remain standing in a fight against the Spirit of Chaos, Discord.

At the beginning of the battle, Twilight kept a lot of her attention on the pink mare, ready to help the party pony in case it was necessary. But over the course of their duel with the draconequus, she started to relax her vigilance more and more, as Pinkie kept getting out of dangerous situations under her own power. Her abilities were entirely suited for the task, as she had a lot more ease in manipulating her own body in chaotic effects than Twilight herself. Pinkie could split herself in two to evade a cut, flatten herself in response to being crushed, easily reversing the process, or simply disregard injuries by turning them into jokes, acting like she was an actor who was only pretending to be hurt. Not to mention her skill with the chaotic movements and the fact that her Pinkie Sense could predict Discord's most dangerous attacks.

As for her mentality, the simple fact that Pinkie Pie was keeping her cool even though this was only the second time she had been in a dangerous situation was already enough to estabilish her will as firm. Pinkie seemed to be able to maintain a belief that things would be alright, and was more than ready to make an effort so that would come to pass. Most ponies would be overwhelmed by the pressure of the situation, lose sight of their objectives or simply lose focus. But Pinkie had spendidly avoided all those pitfalls and was doing impressively.

Finally, there was the question of Pinkie's skill. Because even with the right mindset and abilities, it would still be useless if she could not apply everything correctly. And the earth pony proved to be a prodigy, managing to use the right abilities at the right moments, advancing and retreating based on the situation of the fight and even observing Discord himself to figure out when the flow of the duel would change. She was clearly growing during the fight, being able to react a lot faster than the beginning, and she even started doing her own (sort off) speech, about how she was going to throw Discord the best party he had ever seen.

But still, there were limits to everything, and the draconequus finally managed to find Pinkie's.

She had just managed to make him choke with a confetti bomb, and Discord actually created a portable spatial distortion in between his hands to retaliate. Twilight gasped when she saw that, and immediately activated both of her prepared spells to execute the mix:

"Merged Spell!" She shouted, willing her magic to go fast enough.

While she was doing this, Discord had managed to enlarge his spatial distortion to the point it became a house-sized sphere fo whirling chaotic energy and threw it at Pinkie.

The party pony tried to use her chaotic movement to dodge, but that technique was, at its heart, a manipulation of space, and the very nature of Discord's attack caused enough disturbance in space that she couldn't find a path to move through, despite her unusual skill at the technique.

And the distortion swallowed her up.

She wasn't hurt by it, but the effect of Discord's attack could be compared with the spell Twilight had used against Sombra during that battle, Sidestep. But a comparison was all that could be made, because Discord's spell was on a completely different level. It created a cage of space around the pink pony, isolating her conceptually from every connection with the world, with a brute force approach that simply left no room for any clever tricks.

But Discord wasn't the only one who could use brute force.

"Freedom is the wish of all things...

"Open Sign: Release Magic!"

If Discord's spell had been conceptual isolation, Twilight's counterspell was conceptual acceptance, drawing all of existence (locally) into itself and rejecting nothing. This time, it was Discord's magic that buckled under the strength of an opponent's spell, partially due to the power of the merged magic and partially due to the conceptual advantage. The cage of space that had already left the world was forcefully brought back into reality and dissolved into its component parts, which were absorbed and used as additional energy for the spell to deal with the parts of the magic that weren't physical.

Pinkie was dumped on the ground, dizzy.

"Should make a party for escaping from that nasty spell..." She said groggily, before shaking her head and refocusing.

Twilight sighed in relief and got back to the fight. But inwardly, she was very concerned about how things would go from then on. She had no more prepared spells, and while Discord probably wouldn't use such a powerful and dangerous attack again all that soon (it would be too much like repeating a joke), having lost that trump card meant the unicorn had much less room for maneuver.

She hoped thing were going better for the others.

-

Despite the danger of the situation, Sunset could not help but have fun.

"Magic Enhance: Explosion Chain!" She cast, creating a series of explosions that destroyed a huge golem that had been preparing to swing a fist at her.

And why should she not be? While her partners would probably try to be elegant and disable the chaos effects with complex spells, but Sunset preferred to simply smash them with pure power. Not that it was completely mindless, because it was only Sunset's experience in handling chaos effects that allowed her to target her magic effectively, but it was very far from being complicated enough to impair the unicorn's enjoyment of the situation.

Even the fact that she had to keep Fluttershy safe while she was fighting only played into the scenario, as protecting somepony who was precious to her partner while she was away was a common ocurrence in the old tales.

After the destruction was complete, Fluttershy flew into the remains of the golem, pulling out a green foal.

"Are you okay? Don't worry, everything is going to be alright." The pegasus conforted the crying foal for a bit, then put him on his hooves "You need to leave this place, go back through there and you will be able to escape." She pointed out a direction and the foal thanked her and went.

Then, Fluttershy closed her eyes and concentrated before pointing in a new direction "This way!" She took to the air, but fhew slowly enough for Sunset to overtake her with her magic enhancement.

They still had a lot of work to do.

-

Meanwhile, Trixie's group was going through the streets of Canterlot.

Not that they could be recognized as such just from seeing them. When they got there, Rarity had expressed annoyance with the fact that her first visit to Canterlot happened when the city was twisted in that manner. Buildings had distorted proportions and weird structural gaps, the rivers were flowing through the air, and twisted into crazy routes that made them look like rollercoasters, the trees had started walking around and taking pieces of the buildings to eat, and even the ground had distorted to the point that all kinds of sharp cliffs, spiralling depressions and other geographical oddities were popping up, making getting from point A to point B an arduous task.

The group of Knight and apprentices had completely different tactics from Sunset's duo. This was because their goal wasn't to remove every source of chaos they could find, but was instead to reach the princesses and free them. The three ponies tried to avoid as much as they could of the chaotic creatures that were running around the place, with Applejack using her Eyes to see the best paths to get closer to the castle, Trixie using her illusions to distract the creatures and lure them away, and Rarity using her telekinesis to help the group move through the difficult terrain. Besides that, Applejack kept trying to see further away to locate the exact position of the princesses (she had already realized that they were in the direction of the castle), Rarity was using the spell Trixie taught her to deal with the monsters that got too close and Trixie was using remote vision spells to monitorate both the space around them to avoid possible ambushes and the fight between Discord and the pony chaos wielders.

As expected, Trixie had the hardest job. Even just keeping watch of the surroundings would already be the hardest job, due to the amount of focus it took to keep the stability of the spells and make sense of the distorted space, but Trixie was also looking at Discord, so that she would know if the situation changed and they had to quickly change their plans. Trixie was continually thinking of all the possibilities of things that could happen, and their responses to them.

"Ah got it." Applejack suddenly spoke up "Both princesses are in the same place, one of them towers in the back of the castle, in one of the lower floors."

Trixie nodded "Good work, let's go there. But there's a place we need to stop by in the way."

"Why do we need to stop somewhere?" Rarity asked.

"To create an illusion big enough to cover the entire city, Trixie will need access to the magic formation." Upon seeing their blank looks, Trixie explained "The magic formation is a special place where the Knights can harness the power of the city itself. It was created so that Canterlot could be defended from powerful threats."

The two apprentices nodded in understanding, and they went back to the task of moving through the city, it didn't take long for them to get to the place where the magic formation was put.

"Trixie..." Rarity asked slowly "Was there something about chaotic creatures being attracted to big concentrations of magic?"

She said that because, on the circle that delineated the space of the formation, countless monsters were gathered, creatures of all kinds of shapes and sizes, all of them seeming completely unwilling to leave.

"Trixie seems to recall something like that from her studies, yes." The blue unicorn answered in a blank tone.

"Ah guess things could not really be that easy, right?" Applejack said what they were all thinking.

-

Twilight was currently facing a difficult decision.

She was already beginning to feel tired from the continuous effort of the fight. She could still keep going for a while, but her focus and reaction speed would start dropping. And from what she could see, Pinkie Pie was only slightly better. Worse still, from the flow of the battle and Discord's movements and expressions, she could guess that he would use another powerful attack very soon, and she couldn't be sure of being able to deal with what he would do, considering his abilities were very unpredictable.

She would then have to Overdrive, leaving Pinkie facing Discord alone for far too long.

No, she had to do something else instead, even if it was very reckless, she couldn't simply leave Pinkie in danger. So she opened her mouth and called her apprentice:

"Pinkie! Grab two of the red potions!"

Pinkie saluted and warped to the library. It was good that she had already shown her apprentices where she kept the spare potions, just for fun. Twilight kept Discord's attention on her by using a sequence of three spells that were an entire level stronger than what she had been using before, since trying to preserve her strength didn't matter as much anymore.

The earth pony reappeared very quickly, carrying the two bottles, Twilight grabbed one of them with telekinesis and spoke:

"Drink the other one."

Both ponies quickly drank the red liquid and felt their muscles relax. This should give them enough endurance to keep fighting at a high level for while still, but this would not be enough to deal with Discord. So Twilight spoke a few more words to her apprentice:

"Stay on the edges, I'm going to release all my restraints."

Pinkie looked at her in shock, then nodded at Twilight's expression and moved away. The unicorn closed her eyes, and a few meters away, Discord stopped what he was doing (turning a gust of wind into a fish) upon sensing something coming from her. Twilight went to the depths of her mind and looked at the representation of her determination and self control, heavy golden chains that seemed to contain an entire identity, and were holding a small kaleidoscope of chaotic colors. The unicorn focused on the kaleidoscope and it grew, utterly shattering the chains, and kept growing and growing to the point it swallowed up Twilight's consciousness, and nearly every bit of space on her mind.

Outside, Twilight's shadow seemed to shift, and then it smiled. Twilight herself brought her hoof to her mouth and giggled.

"Hi, hi, hi..."

 

[Kinni]

I don't know how this happened, guys. I wanted to get through four scenes today, but the first scene kept getting longer, and ended up with 2.320 words by itself. So, I decided to end the chapter early. I'll try to bring out the next chapter soon.

Chapter 15 - Unrestrained

Trixie quickly realized that their only chance to actually get close enough for her to use the magic formation was by reducing the number of enemies. She also realized that the fact that the enemies were completely distracted by the energy of the formation was the best advantage they had in that situation. So, the Knight decided to use a spell that would take a while to charge. As she was charging, she gave some instructions to her apprentices.

"Trixie is going to lure most of the enemies away, then we'll just have to break through. As long as Trixie can get to the center and access the formation, she will be able to deal with every one of them."

"Seems simple enough." Applejack said distractedly, as she was still looking at the mass of monsters with her Eyes of Truth, having said there was something she wanted to try.It didn't take that much longer for the spell to be completely charged.

"Perfect Illusion: Desire Drive!" She cast the spell, and used a complicated process to send the spell formula beyond the crowd of creatures and far enough away for it to make a difference. This was complicated due to the amount of chaos magic in the air, but Trixie had experience dealing with that sort of handicap.

When the formula reached far enough away, the spell activated, and suddenly it was like a powerful wellspring of magic had appeared in the location of the spell. The nature of Desire Drive was to simulate the desires of the targets, and the chaotic monsters obviously wanted to absorb a pure source of magic. There was a stampede of the weird, mismatched creatures, as most of them left the formation to go after this new tasty magic, the spell having worked as well as could be expected.

However, it was still only most of them. A few of the creatures, specifically the ones that were nearest to the center, simply couldn't be lured away so easily, due to being in the process of absorbing a great deal of magic all at once, and Trixie didn't really expect that to work perfectly. So there was only one thing left to do.

"Charge!" Trixie shouted, and started galloping in the direction of the center of the formation, before adding "I just need to get to the center and we win, cover me!"

The other two were already galloping right alongside her, and they quickly got the attention of the monsters.

The first monster in their path had the appearance of a small sphere with incredibly long and spindly limbs, ending in hands. It did not have any visible sensory organs, but it somehow managed to detect the approach of the ponies, and turned to "face" them (it did not have a face).

"I got it!" Rarity shouted, and The three kept going forward for a bit more, before the monster took a step forward, apparently preparing to do something.

It did not have the chance, as its hand was coming down on the floor, Rarity activated her telekinesis, and twisted the limb to land awkwardly and make the monster lose balance, and then she gave a terrifying telekinectic push to the sphere, making the other three hands leave the ground as the creature fell to the ground.

The three went past the monster, only to be faced with two other obstructions to their path, in the form of a cricket-like being, with a crown of tentacles and a gigantic bunny head connected to a bouncing spring.

Trixie charged up her magic, without stopping her galloping, this would be a difficult spell, even if she only needed to distract the two for a few seconds.

"Perfect Illusion: Point of View!" The magic split in two, with each of the parts going to the head of one of the creatures. It wasn't quite using two spells at once, and more like a spell doing two things, but it was the sort of thing even skilled mages would struggle to replicate in those kinds of conditions.

The effects of that spell were at once, simple and complicated. They were simple because they only changed the perception the monsters had of the ponies, where instead of running straight at them, the monsters saw the ponies change direction to their sides (the left monster saw them moving to his right and the other saw them moving to his left), but it was complicated because Trixie had to modify the spell to deal with the weird senses of the chaos creatures.

The two moved, each to one side, leaving a path in the middle open, which the three ponies passed through.

And finally, right on top of the center of the formation was the biggest of the chaos monsters. Its body was shaped like a raft made of tree trunks, it had three hads, each one with different mismatched faces, featuring bug compound eyes, dog muzzles, shark teeth and several other features. And supporting this big body was an amount of legs that could not be easily counted, all of them the same, but pointing at different directions. Then, a previously invisible mouth opened in the middle of the body, and the creature roared in challenge, at the ponies that were coming at it.

Applejack accelerated, easily overtaking and distancing herself from the two unicorns, showing that she wanted to deal with that thing. Trixie still charged up a spell, just in case.

The earth pony attained a speed that would be considered respectable even by professional athletes, and the monster tried to bite down on her with each one of its three heads, but Applejack's quick movements to the left and right allowed her to dodge them. The farmer got under the monster and her agility was tested even more as she dodged dozens of kicks by constantly jumping between the ground and the top of different feet, ducking and at one point, actually running on the side of one of the legs. And then, she got to a specific point, looked up with eyes that were shining with magic, jumped, spun in the air, and bucked the creature.

The chaotic monster released an unholy screech, and then cracks start appearing in its body. Light came out of those cracks, which expanded more and more, until the entire monster was glowing with a yellow light. The creature contorted itself and finally exploded in a multidude of sparks, releasing a gray pegasus mare who fell to the ground, groaning.

Trixie had not stopped galloping during all of this, and had gotten close enough to see Applejack with a wide smile. Her own questioning expression seemed to have gotten through to the mare, who explained:

"Ah did it! Ah saw the weak spot with mah own Eyes! Then it was just hitting it with mah earth pony magic." She said proudly.

Trixie got it, and smiled at her as she passed by the farmer. She was almost at the center-

And appearing out of thin air, a chaos creature who looked like a pyramid with three wings dived down at her. Trixie hardened her defenses with her charged magic, knowing she didn't have time for an actual spell...

And the pyramid was hit by a shower of small fragments of rock, disrupting its trajectory and making it crash without hitting Trixie.

The blue unicorn risked a glance backwards and saw a hole in the ground, with Rarity wheezing by its side, apparently having exhausted herself doing whatever she did. Trixie looked forwards again and galloped the last few meters to the center of the formation. She realized, during those last few seconds, that Rarity should have used her telekinesis like thousands of tiny shovels to excavate the earth and throw the pieces of ground at the monster. It was a very impressive bit of magic, specially on such short notice. The unicorn Knight realized how good her apprentices were, and decided she should show off a bit to reward them for their new advancements.

She got to the right spot and used her magic senses to connect with the formation. Then she "unlocked" it, to be able to actually use the power of the entire formation all at once. The way to do so was one of the biggest secrets her position afforded her to know. Immediately, she could feel the extreme power of the formation, ready to be used.

"Amplify Domain..." She whispered, and drew upon the formation to be able to execute the spell. It was actually not a very complicated magic, being something Sunset developed, because the only effect of the spell was increasing the range in which the user could directly exert their energy.

But the magnitude of the spell was immense.

Trixie's Domain expanded to cover the entire magical formation, and kept expanding, to the point where even the chaos creatures which had been lured by her previous spell were included in it. While normally, to affect long distances with magic, it was necessary to form a spell and then "throw" it, which had the risk of the magic decaying on the way if the distance was too large. But that was only because normally, one's own Domain only covers a few feet away from their bodies. But now Trixie could directly form a spell anywhere her expanded Domain reached.

Now that she could use the enormous power of the formation, the biggest limitation on what spells she could use was how complex the spell formulas she could use were, since simple spell formulas simply couldn't hold too much magical power, and Trixie wanted to use as much of the overflowing power she had access to as possible.

So Trixie's first use of the magical formation was complex yet elegant. Creating a formula that would target every single one of the chaos beings, would compensate for the interference of the chaos magic in the air, and would use exactly enough energy to dispel the chaos magic, leaving the ponies inside unharmed. As she wrote the formula, the mental strain was noticeable, but far from her limit. It was simply the most efficient way of dealing with it.

And the most stylish.

The apprentices looked around as they saw small points of light appear on the bodies of every single chaos creature they could see. And before they could do anything about it, the points of light started shining brightly, and every one of the creatures started shrinking, their forms losing their special features, and their presences becoming more "real" for a lack of a better term. Every single one of them howled, roared, screamed and gave off all sorts of noises that could be imagined, in a terrifying cacophony of noise.

But eventually, everything stopped, leaving only a bunch of ponies groaning on the floor, disoriented. Applejack and Rarity looked at their teacher, completely stupefied by that display of power.

But Trixie quickly got them moving:

"Can you gather the ponies and bring them here?" She asked.

The two hurried to comply, and Trixie started a new spell. She had rescued all those ponies, so there was a need for a place where they could be safe while she and her apprentices were busy saving the princesses. Thankfully, removing so many chaos creatures from the place had cleared the air significantly, so her next spell was significantly easier:

"Perfect Illusion: Keep Out!" She cast, creating a field around the space of the magical formation and imbuing the field with a very powerful enchatment designed to keep out bad influences. In this case, it was made to prevent chaotic creatures from coming close by presenting an illusion of absolute order, something that was inimical to their being.

By that point, Applejack and Rarity had come back with the freed ponies. They were fairly afraid, but seemed to have taken some confort in the presence of a Knight. Trixie decided to reassure them:

"You should be face here, Trixie has cast a spell to keep the monsters out. We are going to rescue the princesses next."

The ponies were relieved, and Trixie started on her next spell, which would be the hardest of all of them, because it would cover the entire city. She spent an entire minute composing the spell formula:

"Perfect Illusion: Fake Reality!" And the spell spread from her, to englobe the entire city of Canterlot, taking root despite all the wild chaos magic around due to the sheer overwhelming power she had drawn from the formation and poured into the spell.

But at its heart, it was a very simple magic. It was made to present, to anyone who would look, that there was nothing interesting going on in the city. Discord was connected with chaos everywhere, and this would be enough to allow them to save the princesses and remove the chaos he had wrought on Canterlot and reduce his powers without him being aware. It wouldn't work under normal circunstances, but he was fairly distracted at the... moment...

Trixie saw, via her remote vision, Twilight removing her restraints. She looked at her apprentices:

"We're getting out of time! It's not going to be confortable, but Trixie can use the power of the formation to overcome the interference of the chaos magic and teleport to the castle. Come close!"

Applejack and Rarity saw that Trixie was more serious than they had ever seen her be. They moved without discussion, and the unicorn Knight quickly created the spell formula and activated a forced teleport.

The ponies still there could only wait and hope...

-

Pinkie Pie was a cheerful pony who always believed that things would go alright, but she couldn't help but show a worried frown. That's because her teacher had told her what happened the last time she released her own restraints completely.

Half of Canterlot had been destroyed.

She felt helpless, knowing that Twilight had been pushed to this point because she wasn't strong enough to help. But still, Pinkie decided to do whatever she could, even if it was only trying to point the chaotic unicorn in the right direction.

Discord was waiting impatiently to see what the purple unicorn would do. Despite how much they had angered him, the spirt of chaos honestly felt that he hadn't had so much fun in more time than he cared to count. There seemed to be no end to their tricks, and he was looking forward to what that unicorn would do. In fact, he actually started to seriously think about taking both of them under his wing, to think of the chaos they could wreak-

Suddenly, a gigantic hoof stepped on him.

Twilight giggled, and it could be seen that one of her legs was halfway through a small portal that had appeared from nowhere "Tag, you're it!" She removed her leg from the portal, and the hoof that had smashed Discord also disappeared.

The draconequus unflattened himself "Oh you..." He took a step in Twilight's direction.

And a hand closed around the Knight "Got you!"

He got hit with a snowball "Sorry, try again!" Twilight shouted at him, from the complete opposite direction.

Discord opened his hand. In it was a paper saying "I o U an unicorn Knight".

The spirit of chaos realized that he would have to actually make and effort this time.

And thus began the highest stakes game of tag ever since the last time the three Knights (only apprentices at the time) had decided to run one of their "special tactical simulations". And if there was an event that could earn the title of "chaotic battle", it was that confrontation between Discord and Twilight. Her power had escalated enough that she could perfectly match him even though he was using "big attacks" all the time now. He trapped her in a conjured prison, complete with guards and other inmates (all discord), and she responded by befriending one of the inmates and organizing a break out in less time than it took to take a breath. He grabbed the entire city to be able to grab her in his hand, and a bunch of Twilights showed up, wailing about "Twilight's death" (she had indeed closed her eyes and become stiff), and took her away to organize a funeral (Discord pressed fast-forward in his remote to make this go faster). He pulled out a picture of Twilight, touched the unicorn in the picture and declared her to be it, and the Knight in the picture reached out and touched him, saying "Tag, you're it again!".

The fact that she was still using the party hat as a horn only made the situation weirder.

And the earth pony seemed to be unwilling to simply leave things to her teacher, she had challenged Discord to a game of "I Spy". And since she didn't have the same level of power that let Twilight contest with Discord, Pinkie Pie instead was using her smarts. Like when she said she spied something beginning with "E", and Discord brought out a weird, two-headed and five-legged creature which he called an equanicuderas. And Pinkie said that wasn't it, and Discord brought out a sealed envelope containing Pinkie's signature that the thing she had spied was an equanicuderas, but by that point she had replaced the equanicuderas with a bunch of rocks shaped like a rabbit.

And things went on like this for a few exchanges. But it turned out that, and this surprised Discord, it turned out that unrestrained Twilight was even less patient than him.

"Bored now." She said, and then her party hat shined, and suddenly all three of the participants in the battle were inside a conjured classroom, with Twilight at the teacher's desk while Discord and Pinkie were sitting on tables for students.

"Class, today we are going to learn why Discord should stop causing so much chaos so thoughtlessly." She announced.

Pinkie froze, and slowly turned to look at the spirt of chaos... before sighing in relief. He had taken a pose of complete attention and seriousness. It seemed like he wanted to see where she was going with that. The earth pony's heart was beating wildly, because there was very little she could do if things went south. Still, she kept listening as Twilight talked, and she actually already knew many of the reasons, because of the unicorn's lessons about the nature of chaos. She talked about how chaos without purpose was totally boring, how chaos was itself because it was unexpected, and would lose that if it was all chaos, all the time, she talked about how an excess of chaos magic would eventually harm the very structure of the world, causing it to collapse and preventing any more fun from being had...

"But still, all that is secondary." Twilight said "There is one reason which is even more important than all of that put together."

Pinkie Pie and Discord both stared. The pony because Twilight had never talked about an even bigger thing than all that, and Discord because he could feel everything was just the set-up and he was about to see the punchline.

"Because it would make Fluttershy sad." Twilight said solemnly.

There was a moment of absolute silence.

Then Pinkie Pie nodded. Indeed, making Fluttershy sad was something that would have extreme metaphysical consequences. And it was something incredibly obvious, so there had been no reason for Twilight to mention it to her.

Discord, on the other hand, had a different reaction.

"Who is Fluttershy?" He asked in a questioning tone.

Twilight stared at him in disbelief.

"Who is Fluttershy...? You actually don't know who Fluttershy is...?" She muttered "Then, allow me to enlighten you!"

The classroom exploded, and with a shine of her horn, Twilight erected a gigantic monument in the form of a stone tablet, and on that tablet was an image of Fluttershy.

"She is Fluttershy!" She pointed "Can you see it? Can you see how cute she is?!" Twilight's words resounded through the entire town and even inside the Everfree "Look at her eyes! Could you bear to make them sad?!" Twilight was speaking with an immense conviction.

-

Meanwhile, in another part of Ponyville, Fluttershy was blushing heavily. She had seen that gigantic image of herself and was hearing the words Twilight was saying, and she simply froze on the spot.

Sunset took pity on her and grabbed her with telekinesis and kept going.

However, despite her apparent stoicness, inwardly she was thinking about how she would tease her partner about it later.

-

Rainbow Dash was looking at everything that was happening from the sky, so she obviously understood everything that was going on, including the context.

She facehoofed. The pegasus knew the Knights were weird, but this was still unexpected.

Rainbow didn't think she would mention this part when she retold the tale later.

-

In the city of Canterlot, Trixie was currently fighting a castle again.

She hoped this kind of thing wouldn't become a routine, castles weren't opponents she could dazzle with her tricks, so it felt a little empty to fight them.

Just from the fact she could have such thoughts in the middle of a battle was enough to realize things weren't going badly. She was actually also keeping up her remote vision spell still, so she saw the scene.

Even as she kept thinking of possible outcomes for this situation, a small part of her mind was thinking about how she would tease her partner about it later.

-

Discord put a hand on his chin.

"Hmm... I think I remember her. She was one of the ponies that were with you earlier... She should still be near..." He turned and started making a gesture... And was interrupted by a book to the face. And not just any book, but a door sized book.

"Hey, I still haven't finished! Don't lose focus!" Twilight shouted at him.

"Tch." He pointed at the book and turned it into a squirrel "Where was I..." He was completely disregarding the unicorn.

"Looks like a book is not enough." Twilight was frowning, but she suddenly smiled "Better use the whole library, then!" And a familiar tree library appeared in the air next to the unicorn and threw itself at the spirit of chaos.

Pinkie winced when she heard the sound of things breaking from inside the library. Twilight wouldn't be happy when she came back to her senses. And her unrestrained state was becoming more and more unpredictable.

The party pony hoped the others would come back soon.

 

[Kinni]

Chapter 16 - Rescue

The reaction to the sudden arrival of Trixie, Rarity and Applejack to the castle was immediate. It couldn't be different, since Trixie had utterly destroyed what passed by "wards" for a chaos master like Discord (mostly, things that turned you into a fish if you tried to pass through) in order to actually enter the castle with a teleport. It was loud and obvious, which would be fine if the team was serving as a distraction, but they were in fact the only attack force. Attracting all the attention was a problem, but one they would have to surmount. Trixie knew this would happen, but decided that it was better than wasting any more time.

But anyway, the reaction was immediate, and the first threat they faced was a bunch of paintings throwing themselves at them. And that wasn't all, because the subjects of the paintings started coming halfway out of their portraits, and they started charging magic (most were unicorns, but the earth ponies were managing a glow from their hooves and the pegasi from their wings). Both Rarity and Applejack knew that Trixie wouldn't be able to use a big spell so soon after that teleport, so the farmer raised a hoof and hastily charged magic before bringing it down and making the floor shake, making the earth pony and unicorn portraits stumble. Then Rarity activated her trusty telekinesis and one-upped her, fouling the pegasi portrait's wings and at the same time pulling on the hooves of the others, making all the chaos portraits fall to the ground.

Upon seeing that, Trixie didn't hesitate. She started galloping in the direction of the portraits while charging magic, and released her spell before they had a chance to get up.

"Perfect Illusion: Space Warp!" But instead of hitting the portraits, Trixie targetted the castle itself, taking advantage of the great amount of chaotic energy that had subsumed it to make the castle itself think the ponies should be a few rooms ahead (the maximum she could get on such short notice). This was essentially tricking the castle into chaotic teleporting them. Upon having a moment to breathe, Trixie called Applejack, who focused on her Eyes of Truth again and indicated a direction. The Knight and her apprentices resumed their movement through the castle, and it took more than half a minute for the next layer of defenses to hit them, enough time for Rarity to ask about something.

"Trixie dear... What's that floating sphere you have there?" Rarity was referring to a sphere of light that was floating beside the showmare.

"That's my way of being able to use big spells easily." Trixie said proudly "It's the Sphere of Charge, a special magical construct that can contain a big amount of magical power for me to use at any time. I actually finished creating the construct today, but didn't have a chance to charge one with magic, but the magical formation made it easy to do so now."

"Ah get it." Applejack said "Then Ah guess there should be a reason why ya haven't got more than one of those."

"Very perceptive of you, Applejack." Trixie sighed "This thing is actually fairly hard to control and takes a lot of concentration to maintain. I can't do more than one yet."

Their response to that would have to wait, because the three were attacked again, this time by a squidlike creature apparently made out of tons of pieces of armor fused together awkwardly. It moved on seventeen tentacles and quickly got up close to them. However, this time Trixie was completely ready to deal with problem, and she charged up a spell to show Rarity and Applejack that she would field that one.

"Perfect Illusion: Mistaken Movement!" And this time she attacked the opponent directly. Trixie would have moved them forward again if she could, since time was of the essence, but chaos magic resisted doing the same thing consecutively, so it would be very hard and tiring to force the castle to comply. Instead, Trixie decided to simply make the obstacle in front cease to be one, and her spell was designed to hinder the target's ability to control its own movements. Which would be specially effective on something that had such a complicated way of moving.

And it worked, the chaotic squid fell on its side and started twitching, unable to get its "legs" back under itself. The three ponies passed it from the side opposite to the legs and kept going.

And that was when the castle decided to stop being cute and actually start attacking by itself. Floor and ceiling bent and met each other like a closing jaw, the walls started growing hands, hooves, horns and weirder apendages to try to grasp, crush, skewer and generally harm the ponies, entire sections of architeture set themselves on fire, vomited acid or started freezing up. It was much harder for Trixie to deal with than the comparatively straightforward castle defenses of Sombra, and she would have been totally unable to do it were it not for her experience dealing with Twilight's chaotic spells, which meant she could predict what the castle was trying to do by feeling the energy, and she could interfere with the chaotic magic effects via her illusions. The fact that the "mind" behind all those attacks was fairly simple and couldn't easily deal with the interference made it easier.

She couldn't have done it by herself though. Having to deal with the continuous stream of attacks from the castle would take away her magic faster than it could replenish itself, and Trixie would probably have to use her Sphere of Charge in a single powerful attack in order to temporarily disable the castle and give her the chance to keep going. However, she wasn't alone, Rarity and Applejack perfectly understood that their best role in this battle would be to buy Trixie some time to recover. They took turns doing so, since neither of them was skilled enough to deal with the threats presented by the castle without exhausting their own magic reserves, and the three ponies settled in a rhythm that went Applejack, Trixie, Rarity, Trixie again and back to Applejack, maximizing their effectiveness.

Rarity was mostly using her telekinesis to deal with things (removing pieces of the ground to act as shields, breaking supports to bring down parts of the roof, holding back things that were thrown at them), but also managed to make good use of the anti-chaos spell (she was getting a lot of practice with it), and even managed to take some basic unicorns spells a lot further than she would have believed possible, like when she transmutated an attacking carpet into salt, and when she used her gem-finding spell to fly towards a candelabra. Applejack, on the other hand, was a lot more limited on what she could do, having to keep manipulating the envinronment by using her Eyes of Truth combined with her own innate earth pony magic to locate weak points both structural and magical, and she soon discovered that the excess chaos magic all around made it so it was actually easier to do complicated shapings of the earth than it would be to simply break things. Applejack kept the ground under their hooves moving to make them faster, created her own earth apendages to counter-attack and even created cannons to shoot at whatever was a threat. She was actually feeling like a unicorn.

While Trixie, of course, was the MVP. Each of her spells had a much bigger effect than either Applejack or Rarity could do, allowing the three ponies to cross for a bigger distance before the castle "recovered" and sent the next attack after them. Trixie's illusions seemed to have no end to them, creating countless copies of the three to confuse the targetting of the attacks, making parts of the castle read as "intruders" and be blasted by the defenses, increasing the effectivity of her apprentices by using a spell that made them believe they could do more, actually giving them the ability, creating a temporally ally via a spell that made the chaos magic think it would be a good idea to "give them a fighting chance"... Her two apprentices understood more and more why Trixie was one of the protectors of the realm.

Still, all three of the ponies were getting more and more tired, it was mostly their sheer determination to save the princesses that kept Applejack and Rarity from weakening, and even with her special training, Trixie was starting to have trouble concentrating. Her mental fatigue was, in fact, the biggest issue. She was still looking at the chaotic fight and having to maintain her Sphere of Charge, not to mention all the complicated spells she was doing. Thankfully, they managed to reach the end before getting to their limits.

"Almost there!" Applejack shouted, then she stomped on the ground, making it break and forcing Rarity to use her telekinesis to help make their descent into the lower floor more soft. She also quickly cleared away the cloud of dust formed by their landing, allowing all three of the ponies to finally see their goal.

Celestia and Luna were trapped together, which really made it easier to use one single spell to free both (as Trixie had planned). That was the good news, the bad news was the fact that Discord seemed to have given special attention to the construction of their prison. The whole room was a single, massive chaotic being, and it made every other chaotic being they had seem before seem straightforward. The ground and walls seemed to have the consistence of a tongue and were constantly contracting and relaxing like a beating heart. The walls on their sides were full of eyes and other facial features, as well as windows, lamps and nails. The ground was full of leg-like tendrils, made of rocks, water, glass and all sorts of other materials, and containing claws, fangs, knives and other threatening, pointy things. The wall in front of them was the place the princesses were trapped in, and protuding from it were tentacles made from all sorts of small animals and objects connected together, and each tentacle seemed to have its own magic.

This was such an impossible creature that it was only the energy it was constantly draining from the princesses that kept its existence stable.

Trixie assessed the situation quickly, and gave her apprentices some very simple instructions.

"Give me time to charge this spell, and this will be over."

Then she started galloping on the direction of the princesses, charging magic at the same time.

Applejack and Rarity were only a step behind, and they took their focus to the limit, knowing their teacher was trusting them to protect her. Just before they got to the tendrils, Applejack overtook Trixie and pushed her magic down, to beyong the floor of the room until she found actual ground she could manipulate. That earth was brought upwards and formed a barrier around the charging ponies, a barrier that had an arrowlike tip and kept moving at the speed of the galloping ponies like a high-speed tank, and started to plow through the tendrils. Rarity, for her part, used her telekinesis to the very limit, both forcing the tentacles to point in other directions and throwing bits of stone at lethal speeds to try and damage them. She couldn't get all the tentacles, but Applejack's earth tank managed to resist the attacks it had to. This lasted for a few seconds.

And Trixie finished charging her spell.

"In the middle of chaos, my route is firm..."

And Trixie teleported.

She only went a few meters forward, enough to be able to touch the wall with the princesses, but doing so at the very heart of the chaos Discord had created made it the hardest teleport the azure unicorn had ever done in her life. Even Twilight's teleportation counter-measures didn't force her to go to such lenghts to bypass them. Trixie had exhausted every scrap of power in her body, and it would take more time than she had to recover enough magic to do anything impressive.

But she didn't need to wait, because her Sphere of Charge was still there. And as soon as the teleportation sinished, Trixie started a new spell.

"Those divided will fall..."

A spell has three components. The first is the very will to change the world. The chanting done before using certain spells was a way to focus the will to allow greater feats of magic. The second was the energy needed for the spell, and Trixie could use the energy she had prepared. The third was the structure of the spell, the spell formula that directed the magic.

This was the part that gave Trixie trouble.

Despite being taken by surprise, the tentacles on the wall reacted quickly enough that the Knight only had seven tenths of a second to build her spell. Usually this would be far more than enough, but this was the last defense Discord had put to keep the princesses contained. This was a creature of chaos so powerful and complex it resisted any normal methods that could be used on others, so

Trixie had to do something particularly special.

The showmare Knight expanded her awareness and wrote the spell formula as she took in the state of each part of the creature. It would be impossible if she didn't have experience with Twilight's chaos magic, and even then, there were some things she had never seen before and had to work out counters to from first principles. The formula kept getting more and more ridiculously complex, adapting to affect every part and every effect and every scrap of energy of the creature. Trixie abandoned her remote viewing spell, knowing she simply had no way of maintaining her concentration on it while creating that spell.

The azure unicorn experienced a subjective time of minutes during the small window of time she had, simply because her sheer concentration made her hyper-aware of every thousandth of a second. Creating that spell was like a journey through several dangerous lands, and by the time it was over, Trixie felt slightly different herself. But she didn't have time to think about it.

"Perfect Illusion: Chaos Break!"

And the stored magical power Trixie had been carrying exploded into the horrendously complicated spell formula Trixie had just put together, and then expanded, infusing itself in every single bit of the creature, where the spell took effect.

Chaos Break was a complicated spell, but simple to explain. It made half of the creature perceive the other half as being made of pure order, its very opposite. And did this for both halves. The monster attacked itself in the most basic of ways, spending an insane amount of magic in a fruitless attempt to remove the other half, which was doing exactly the same thing. The thing dissolved, dumping the ponies in another room. Trixie saw that the princesses were free.

That was when the pain hit.

"AAAAARGHHH!" Trixie screamed, holding her head.

It was like something was splitting her head open. Doing such a complex spell so fast had strained Trixie's mind more than anything she had ever done. Trixie tried to endure the pain for two excruciating seconds, before she felt wings coming around herself, and realized there were no enemies present, so she didn't have to act tough. Trixie let tears come to her eyes and sobbed quietly while her teacher did her best to confort her.

Meanwhile, Princess Luna was talking with Rarity and Applejack.

"So you are some of the apprentices I've heard so much about. Your actions really are worthy of heroes." Luna said praisingly.

"Thank you, your highness, you are too kind." Rarity said politely,

"That was just what Ah had to do, Princess." Applejack said her own piece.

"It seems like you have been pushing yourselves hard. How do you feel now?" Luna asked, casting a spell to remove fatigue.

"That's amazing! Thank you, Princess!" Rarity felt like she could do the entire adventure all over again.

Applejack had similar thoughts, and she saw that Trixie was receiving the same treatment from Celestia.

"Hello, Princess." Trixie said when her headache became easier to bear.

"Hello, to you too, my student." Celestia said "How are things going?"

Trixie felt well enough to reestabilish her remote vision spell, and her blood ran cold.

"Princess! You have to send us back, now!" Trixie shouted, and joined her magic with Celestia's in a practiced way, making a hasty teleportation spell that sent the three heroic ponies back to Ponyville.

Celestia knew things were bad because of how Trixie had acted, so she made her decision quickly.

"Luna, go free this city from chaos, I'll see what I can do to help against Discord."

Luna nodded and teleported out, and Celestia did a remote vision spell of her own, hoping things would not end up in the worst case scenario.