Chapter 2:

The flight to Canterlot was uneventful and Twilight was incredibly happy when the trip finally came to an end. Jumping out from the carriage, Twilight began walking toward the castle and began walking faster when she saw that princess Celestia was coming to meet her.

“My faithful student, I am glad to see you here so soon. But I wish it were under better circumstances.” Celestia said

“Can you tell me more about what is happening? Your letter was very sparse on the details, all I got was that it had something to do with princess Luna.” Twilight said with a thoughtful look on her face. Her teacher’s own face grew slightly more grave at the mention of her younger sister. But any further conversation was interrupted by Shining Armor and princess Cadence walking in.

“Twily!” Shining armor shouted running toward his younger sister and giving her a hug. Twilight returned the hug but felt very confused.

“I thought you guys were in the crystal empire? Why are you guys here?” Twilight asked looking at the two ponies before her. Shining Armor looked slightly dejected before Cadence gave him a small reassuring hug. Celestia answered for the two of them

“I called your brother in because the problem happened to fall in with his line of magical expertise, but he was unable to find the source of the problem, Cadence was worried about Luna personally and came as well.” Celestia explained to Twilight, who nodded slightly less confused.

“So what is the problem exactly?” Twilight asked her brother who had a slightly sheepish look on his face before assuming a more formal tone of voice.

“Princess Luna was discovered inside an impenetrable force field of her own making. Princess Celestia thought that with my knowledge of barrier spells I would be able to find a way to take it down or bypass it. I spent a full day trying but still couldn’t come up with anything.” He rubbed the back of his neck in slight embarrassment. Celestia gave a reassuring smile to the now embarrassed Shining Armor.

“It would be best to show you what is going on, if you would, please follow me to Luna’s bedchamber.” With that said, Celestia turned back toward the castle and walked through the doors in front of them. The remaining assembled ponies all nodded at each other before following the princess inside.

They began walking through the tall halls of Canterlot castle, Twilight getting a strong sense of nostalgia as she walked through these familiar halls. While most of her lessons had been conducted at the school for gifted unicorns building proper, there had been times when Celestia had brought her to the castle for lessons on some of the more advanced subject matter. She had always left those lessons with Shining, who had been in training to join the royal guard at the time. Some of the rooms they past had been the sites of some of her favorite lessons with her teacher.

After a few minutes of walking and reminiscing on Twilight’s part the group stopped before a door decorated with a large full moon, showing near exact detail with the celestial body in the sky. Stars and constellations were surrounding the large centerpiece, but only some of the constellations shown were ones that Twilight could remember as being visible in the sky.

There was no question that this was Luna’s Room, but what surprised Twilight the most was that this was the same room that Celestia had first introduced her to stargazing in. She knew from memory that there was a great view of the night sky, both with a telescope and without, she also faintly recalled some covered furniture that she hadn’t asked about it. In hindsight it made perfect sense that the Luna she knew would have a room dedicated to the night sky.

The four of them walked in and were immediately greeted by the sounds of Luna in apparent distress. It hurt twilight to hear someone she considered a friend in pain, and the source was easily identifiable. A large indigo bubble took up most of the room, and extended to just below the ceiling. Twilight was left speechless as a piercing howl, not of pain but of anger, rang out of the bubble. The voice was more reminiscent of a certain tyrant that had been gone for years. Celestia’s face fell slightly when the sound stopped.

“That… That was not Luna’s voice.” Twilight said discouraged slightly.

“I Know.” Celestia said her face grave, but she refused to talk more. She simply nodded to Twilight, giving her permission to begin her analysis of the bubble.

Twilight slowly walked toward the magical construc, walking around the perimeter of the bubble she looked for any signs of weakness in the magical barrier. She also noted that up close she could see into the magical bubble faintly and saw the outline of princess Luna writhing on the ground. Twilight put this out of her mind for the time being and resumed her observation, but found nothing.

“Is there something wrong Twilight.” Cadence asked from her place by the door. Twilight turned back to the assembled ponies with a slightly confused look.

“This shield is perfect,” Twilight began, “Normally there are visual signs of weakness in any shield spell because there is always a point that the pony will overlook or forget to enforce, or they will work too hard to enforce it.” Twilight explained when she saw that Cadence was rather confused.

“What can be done if she has made a perfect shield?” Celestia asked, breaking her silence.

“I would have to run some tests with my magic and will need time to focus, could I please have some time alone with the bubble?” Twilight responded, Celestia nodded and left the room, followed by Cadence. Shining Armor stayed behind for a second and gave his sister a hug.

“I know you want to help, but don’t do anything dangerous, alright Twily.” Shining said to Twilight.

“You know how careful I am Shiney, I’ll be fine, and so will Luna.” Twilight replied. Shining broke off the hug and left the room.

Twilight took a deep breath to focus her mind before she reached out with her magic toward the shield. Her magic exploring for any chinks in the bubble that were to small to be seen with the eye. She came to the end of her exploration, her magic now creating a secondary bubble surrounding Luna’s. She had found nothing on the surface, but she was ready for the next phase.

Nothing worked.

Twilight had tried every analysis that she could think of, but all of the results pointed to one conclusion. Luna’s bubble was perfectly made in every way. Twilight was now literally running up against a wall. She couldn’t deconstruct the shield, and it could only be deactivated by Luna’s magic.

“Graah! This is impossible!” Twilight shouted. She Glared at the bubble, wishing that she could test just how much power she could blast at that thing before it broke. She sighed, and instead levitated an old book by Starswirl the bearded out of her saddle bag. She looked at the table of contents again to see if there was anything she may have missed before. Suddenly she noticed a group of words that sparked a crazy idea.

“Magical frequency,” She repeated to herself. She turned to the pages that were listed, and began reading. “Oh Twilight Sparkle you must be crazy to even consider this.” Twilight said to herself. She had been familiar with the concept of magical frequencies, they were responsible for the unique color a unicorn’s horn glowed when performing magic and was the reason that ponies could very rarely all power the same spell at the same time, the waves of magical energy would interfere causing unpredictable consequences.

Starswirl and other magical scholars had hypothesized that changing your own frequency that of another pony’s was possible , and had even came up with a few experimental methods they thought would work but none dared to attempt it as failure was liable to result in cutting oneself off from their magic forever or death. But if it worked the two ponies would have a larger combined magic pool to draw from and could both power spells without risk of interference between them.

Twilight was weighing whether she should attempt this. But the more she thought about it the more it was clear to her that this was her only option to have any chance of getting inside the bubble. If she could change her frequency then she could disable the shield using their then shared magic.

“I’m sorry Luna, but this is the only shot I have at helping you.” Twilight said before turning to the book to make sure of the method detailed in the book. She nodded to herself, feeling less only slightly sure that she had a shot of pulling this off. Twilight approached the bubble again, and placed her horn against it. Summoning her power to her horn, she focused on the color of Luna’s magic. Finally, she let her magic flow into the shield and willed it to combine with Luna’s.

Slowly she felt her magic pool start to close to her, but she was expecting this, all the books said that this would be likely to happen before the pools merged. She poured more of her power into it, trying to keep the flow steady. Just when she felt her magic exhausted, a new surge tore through her and she felt the two magic pools join together.

“There,” Twilight said, panting with exhaustion. “Now I… Can….” Suddenly she fell to the ground unconscious.

Author's Notes:

This second chapter is still following the original story but with a few new elements and rehashing in different ways. The biggest addition would be Cadence and Shining Armor being acknowledged. If you have any criticism that could help me make the story better please leave a comment.... Or don't.... I'll just be here then.... Bye!