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Heart of Loyalty

by PonyAmorous

Chapter 4: Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

The gentle morning rays of a pleasant, but perfectly ordinary day fell upon the bedroom of a young lavender unicorn. The shapeless form beneath the covers turned, reluctant to leave the comfort and security of the bed, but tempted by the smells of breakfast wafting in from the kitchen below.

Finally surrendering to the delicious aroma and the grumbling of her stomach, Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes, climbed out of bed, and made a quick attempt at passing a brush through her mane a few times. As she stumbled down the stairs in a groggy haze, she was momentarily blinded by a flash of green.

“Oh, hey Twilight.” Spike said. “There you are. Breakfast is almost ready. Also, this just came for you.” He held up a scroll, and Twilight’s eyes widened when she saw Celestia’s seal, the remaining grogginess rapidly leaving her body. She quickly tore it open and began to read aloud.

Dear Twilight.

Your presence at the castle is requested at once. There is an issue of grave importance that I must discuss with you. I have already dispatched a chariot for your transportation and it should be arriving within ten minutes. You do not need to bring anything with you, but please come alone.
- Princess Celestia

“Ten minutes?!” Spike exclaimed, setting down a plate of pancakes and toast in front of Twilight. “What’s with the short notice? Is there some kind of emergency?”

“I don’t know, Spike. It sounds pretty dire, but she’s not calling for the Elements to be brought together.”

“Yeah, what’s with that come alone business? Makes it sound like some kind of test or something.”

“Test?” Twilight’s ears perked up. Of course! It had to be some kind of surprise test! “Ah! W-what should I do? I’m not ready!” Twilight hopped up and began to anxiously trot in place.

“Eat breakfast.”

“What?”

“Twilight, if it is some kind of test, which it still may not be, then seeing as how the princess gave a whole ten minutes of notice, it’s not supposed to be the kind you study for. So the best thing you can do is just eat.”

Twilight reluctantly sat down and began to nibble at her toast. After a few minutes she looked up and asked a question.

“You don’t think I’ll have to liberate another principality do you?”

Spike gave only a noncommittal shrug.

“I don’t think I could handle something like the Crystal Empire again. We only scraped by thanks to you and Cadence after I pretty much botched it at the finish line.”

“Hey now, you didn’t botch it. You just delegated to your extremely well trained assistant.”

“Well I won’t have you around this time to ‘delegate’ to.”

“Look, Twilight, you’re the smartest, most capable pony I know. Whatever Celestia wants from you, I know you can handle it. And I’m sure she wouldn’t even be asking if she thought otherwise. You’ll sail through it and be a big hero, everyone will cheer, I’ll say I told you you’d be fine and you’ll be all ‘Thanks Spike, I should have listened to you all along’. Then there will probably be a big group hug.”

“Thanks Spike.” Twilight gave a warm smile and pulled her number one assistant in for hug. “You always know just what to say to make me feel better.”

The tender moment was interrupted by a harsh knock on the door.

“That’ll be them,” Twilight said, pausing to take a deep breath before turning and greeting the two royal guards at the door. As she accompanied them outside and boarded the chariot, she waved a quick goodbye to her dependable assistant. “Take care of the library and all my friends while I’m gone, okay Spike?”

Spike waved a clawed hand in the air and shouted back as the chariot took off into the sky. “Don’t worry Twilight, you’ll do great! They’ll be adding a new stained glass window by the end of the week!”

As the ground faded down below, and they passed up through the clouds, Twilight leaned back in her seat and tried not to worry. It was a losing battle. She couldn’t help but speculate wildly as to what Celestia wanted from her.

Was there an increase in changeling activity? Had Discord slipped back to his more malevolent chaotic ways? Had some other ancient threat surfaced after a thousand and some odd years? And why weren’t her friends called at the same time? Was Celestia secretly ill and needing her to embark on some quest to the edge of Equestria to retrieve a curative flower while keeping the whole thing under wraps to avoid a panic? Was she just planning a highly secretive birthday party for Luna?

No answers were forthcoming as the chariot approached the landing strip at Canterlot Castle. As she exited the chariot, a new pair of guards appeared and formed an escort at her sides. A quick glance around revealed a significant, but restrained increase in guard presence, as if somepony wanted to tighten security while maintaining the illusion that all was still well.

That illusion was greatly weakened when Twilight crossed the threshold into the castle and felt the tingling magical static of an interdiction field. Teleportation would be strictly impossible within the castle grounds.

Okay, definitely some kind of threat. Definitely something with high magical capability if they felt the need to ward the entire castle against magical entry.

Or exit. A small voice in the back of her mind added.

Twilight dismissed it as baseless paranoia. A relic from a few weeks ago when she couldn’t walk into a room without mapping out escape routes. She didn’t have time to be distracted by such silliness. Celestia needed her. Still, old habits died hard, and with mounting curiosity as to what exactly was going on in the palace, she turned a hyper-critical eye and ear to her surroundings.

The first thing she noticed was that all the side doors and passages were barred shut. This had the effect of turning the hallway into a straight line, segmented by several pairs of open doors, from the now tightly shut front gate to the doors of the throne room.

Second was that the sound of hoofsteps seemed too loud. While turning her head as if to admire the row of stained glass windows on her left, she was able to catch a brief glimpse over her shoulder to confirm that her escort was growing. Guards were quietly peeling away from their positions at the barred side passages to follow a distance behind the two at her side.

It’s nothing. You’re being silly. You’ve been called by Celestia to address whatever is going on. You’re an important pony. Of course they’re going to guard you. But the voice in the back of her mind was quickly growing stronger.

If they’re guarding against some external threat, they should be sticking to those doors and watching the perimeter.

Twilight approached one of the pairs of open doors that formed an intermediate checkpoint in the very long hallway. She took careful notice as the guards moved aside to let them pass and quickly shut the doors behind them, resuming their posts on the interior side.

There! If they are keeping something out, they should be on the other side.

Maybe Celestia is keeping something dangerous locked up in the center of the castle and they’re here to keep it in?

Then why were they facing outward when we arrived?

Twilight didn’t like where this train of thought was going. The expansive hallway was beginning to feel more cramped by the second, and the magical field weighed on her coat like an itchy and restrictive blanket as the large double doors to the throne room grew closer.

Stop it. You’re being paranoid. Not everything is about you. You need to get yourself together and-ACHOO!

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sneeze that echoed for several seconds in the suddenly silent hallway. Twilight looked back to see that every single guard had frozen dead in their tracks, knees bent in anticipation, and with all eyes focused intently on her. What had started as an annoying buzzing in the back of her mind had jumped up to a loudly ringing alarm.

I didn’t imagine that! What was that all about?! Trying her best to pretend she hadn’t noticed a dozen royal guards looking at her like she was an angry hydra, Twilight gave a nervous laugh.

“Hehe, sorry about that. Does anypony have a tissue or something I could use?”

The two nearest guards exchanged a quick look before one reluctantly fished a bright red hoofkerchief out of a pocket. Twilight thanked him and took it in her magic.

While blowing her nose and using her levitation as a cover for the glow around her horn, Twilight began to multicast. Using a passive scan in the infrared and magical frequencies, she took a look behind the rapidly approaching doors to the throne room. Two bright beacons, Celestia and Luna, sat in the center of the room where the thrones would be. A dozen smaller figures filled the room, mostly pegasi, with several unicorns mixed in. Twilight was glad she was only using passive detection, as she knew the unicorn guards would be able to detect an active ping almost immediately.

The alarm in her head continued to ring louder as she took note of the lightly glowing forms, strategically positioned on either side of the doors, which when opened inward, would conceal them in a pocket by the walls. All the better to burst out and surround an unsuspecting target.

It reached a fever pitch when she noticed a small anomaly. It was just a tiny, ring shaped distortion floating near one of the unicorns, no bigger than two centimeters across. A small ripple and lensing effect in the background magical energy. She might not have noticed it at all under normal circumstances, and it was only the now screaming siren in her skull that prompted her to look for just such a thing, and allowed her to infer what it was.

A magical inhibitor. A ring slipped over a unicorn’s horn to disrupt the flow of magic and prevent spell casting. Twilight’s heart skipped a beat, her blood froze in her veins, and her mind was momentarily quiet, save for three words.

IT’S A TRAP!

Twilight clamped down on her physiological responses, forcing her lungs to continue breathing at a regular rate, despite the demands of her soaring heartbeat. She forced her legs to continue walking at a normal pace without shaking, and she hoped sheer willpower would be enough to avoid anything else that might tip off the guards around her.

On the outside, she was Celestia’s faithful student, eager to meet with her mentor, and without the slightest suspicion that anything was amiss. On the inside, she was screaming in blind panic as her world fell apart.

THEY KNOW! HOW DO THEY KNOW?! SHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHITSHIT!!! DO SOMETHING TWILIGHT! THINK OF SOMETHING!

But there was nothing to be done. A sealed castle gate sat on the other side of several barred doors and a dozen guards who were rapidly herding her towards the throne room, now less than 20 paces away, where a dozen more guards and two princesses sat in ambush for her. There was no avoiding it.

She’d be taken away in chains and put on trial in a national spectacle where her friends and family would disown her, and ponies would line up to denounce her and gossip about the sheer scandal of it all for weeks. When that humiliation was finally over, she’d be locked away somewhere where she’d never see the sun again, much less Ponyville. She’d certainly never see Rainbow Dash ever again.

NO!

Less than 10 steps away from the throne room doors, Twilight stopped and flung the hoofkerchief she was still holding into the air, momentarily drawing the eyes of all the guards, before flaring a blinding flash of light. By the time they had reflexively raised a hoof to their faces, she had already spun left and started galloping as fast as she could.

Twilight’s hooves moved rapidly across the hallway floor, bathed in the multicolored light of a large stained glass window. It was a dramatic depiction of Twilight and her friends as saviors of Equestria, wielding the Elements of Harmony against Nightmare Moon and Discord. Twilight stood in the foreground, surrounded by her happy friends as ponies cheered and a reunited Celestia and Luna smiled down from above.

Twilight summoned a small barrier to protect her face and forelegs, and with a quick blast of telekinetic force, her smiling counterpart exploded outward into a cloud of razor sharp, multicolored shards. Twilight didn’t hesitate as she leaped through the raining shards, and into the open air.

Then began a very long fall.

***

Rainbow Dash was awoken by a loud banging on her door. She rolled over and pulled a tuft of cloud over her head in the hope that if she ignored them, whoever it was might go away and let her get back to sleep before trying again in the far superior PM hours. Unfortunately, they were quite insistent on forcing her to part from her bed and spend part of her day off confronting one of her worst foes. Mornings.

Crawling out of bed and grumbling obscenities under her breath, Rainbow Dash stumbled across her house. She paused to throw some lettuce into Tank’s terrarium and continued on to the front door, flinging it open with a very annoyed “What?” Her vision finally focused on two royal guards.

“Ms. Rainbow Dash?” the one on the left asked.

She gave a quick glance up at her distinctive rainbow mane, and another at the rainbow bolt cutie mark on her flank. “Last I checked, yeah. What is it?”

“Your presence is requested at Canterlot Castle. We have orders to escort you there immediately.”

“Huh? Why?”

“No reason was specified, just that you are to be retrieved as soon as possible.”

Rainbow Dash blinked a few times before giving a yawn and a shrug. “Yeah, okay. Just let me grab some breakfast.”

The guards shook their heads. “I’m sorry, but our orders specify to escort you there immediately.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Fine. Just hang on a sec.” She reached into her nearby ‘on the go’ food bowl and grabbed a carrot for the flight. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

The movement of air past her face, along with the increased blood circulation from her pumping wings helped her to shake off the remaining sleepiness as she followed idly behind the two guards.

Wonder what this is all about? Do the princesses need some baddie put down? Sonic Rainboom to wow some snooty ambassadors? Usually these kinda assignments get relayed second hoof via mail to Twilight. Must be pretty important if the scowl patrol has to get me out of bed personally.

Annoyed at the pace she was being forced to follow at, Rainbow Dash pushed forward. She knew the way to Canterlot perfectly fine, and was sure her escort could keep up. She wasn’t trying to leave them in the dust or anything, and if they couldn’t keep up with her “leisurely” pace, they had no business being in the royal guard. Besides, they were the ones who had stressed the apparent urgency of the situation.

If it’s that important, Twilight will probably be there too. She never gets left out of the really cool stuff.

Idle fantasies filled Rainbow Dash’s head. Visions of her and Twilight fighting back to back against waves of changelings, manticores, and assorted monsters. Twilight letting loose with sweet laser blasts while Dash unleashed a dizzying flurry of hoof strikes.

They were almost at Canterlot Castle, and she was just getting to thinking up snappy one liners for after she had flown them both out of the collapsing temple with the staff of phlebotinum, when something in the distance caught her eye. There was some motion near one of the windows facing the sheer cliff face, and it looked like something was falling. Whatever it was seemed to have moving bits, almost like flailing legs. In fact, it was shaped like a unicorn. A purple-

TWILIGHT!

There was a deafening crack caused by air crashing into the vacuum where Rainbow Dash had been as she instantly bolted past the sound barrier. Eyes fixed on her target, the only thought she could focus on was the overpowering need to move faster, and the fear that it still wouldn’t be enough. Fortunately, it was such a long drop to the ground that she had enough time to fly up under Twilight, spread her wings, and brake as hard as she could to slow them enough to pull up with a good 10 meters to spare.

“AAAHHUHWHA!!? DASH?! What are you doing here?!”

“ME?! WHY ARE YOU JUMPING OUT OF WINDOWS?!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she began to angle down for a landing. Twilight glanced up to see guards beginning to pour out of the now broken window, and gave a panicked tug on Dash’s mane, pulling them back up again.

“NO! We have to go! We have to get out of here right now!

“What? Twilight, what are you-”

“FLY!”

Resolving to get her questions answered at a later time, Rainbow Dash turned around and rocketed away from the castle. Those questions began to multiply as she glanced back to see that they were now being chased by guards. Worse, some of them were actually gaining.

Normally, Rainbow Dash would have no problem leaving any other pegasus short of a wonderbolt in the dust, but an extra passenger meant more than just added weight. Carrying another pony on one’s back seriously impacted both aerodynamics and the balance of any kind of turn or evasive maneuver. Rainbow Dash adjusted the best she could. She was still an aerial force to be reckoned with, but it was enough of a difference that several of the fastest guards were slowly closing the gap.

Figuring they’d never shake their pursuers out in the open, and with no cloud layer overhead to lose them in, Rainbow Dash angled left towards a winding valley that ran into a small forest offshoot of White Tail Woods. Plenty of twists and turns to get lost in. She laid on an extra burst of speed .

Unfortunately, she had forgotten to account for the two guards who had arrived at her house that morning. Now in front of her, they were quickly moving to intercept, and forced her to adjust course away from her intended target.

Even worse, the evasive turns she was being forced to make were allowing her pursuers to rapidly close the distance she had opened up before. As the first of those at the front caught up to her, more and more of her attention was taken up with dodging attacks.

She jerked to the right, barely avoiding a flying tackle, and not even seeing a second that would have hit her if not for a bright purple flash of Twilight throwing up a quick barrier, causing the guard to bounce off and spin out briefly before righting and flying back for more. Moments later, they narrowly avoided a net, which Twilight caught and threw back, entangling the two guards who had thrown it.

Even with Twilight’s defensive assistance, Rainbow Dash knew there was no way they were getting away like this. With the rate they were being swarmed, she could hardly fly straight for more than a few seconds, and there was no way she was going to be able to get enough distance to break line of sight while carrying Twilight. Maybe if they landed (not that she had much of a choice considering how they were successfully forcing her lower and lower) she could hold them off long enough for Twilight to escape on hoof. Then, unburdened, she could use her full abilities to make a proper escape. As her hooves hit the ground at a gallop, she slid and spun 180 degrees to face her pursuers, feeling Twilight hop off her back as she came to a stop.

“Twilight, you ru-”

“Get out of here Dash! I’ll hold them off.”

“What?!”

“I said I’ll hold them off while you escape. We’ll meet up again where we had our date for our 1 month anniversary. GO!

Rainbow Dash shot an incredulous look at Twilight while the guards began to land around them. “I heard you, but there’s no way I’m leaving you behind. YOU run while I hold them off.”

“I don’t really have time to argue about this Rainbow! I’ll be fine. You need to-” Taking advantage of her momentary distraction, a nearby guard took the opportunity to lunge at Twilight.

Rainbow Dash watched the scene progress in slow motion. She didn’t know why they were fleeing the guards, if they were imposters, mind controlled, or just part of a huge misunderstanding. The last few minutes had been nothing but a confused mess, but this second was simple. As she saw the guard lunge forward, something pulsed in the back of her mind, clearing all thoughts except one. Somepony was trying to hurt Twilight, and the one unshakeable truth of the world was that anything threatening Twilight had to be eliminated.

The world turned red, and before she even realized it, she was blazing through the air and delivering a kick that knocked the guard out cold, sending him flying ten feet through the air. The other guards quickly closed ranks and prepared for a fight. Rainbow Dash shifted to an upright hovering stance common in most forms of pegasus martial arts, ready to prove that her black belt at home wasn’t just for show.

“Dash, please! You have to get out of here!” Twilight hissed.

One of the guards who looked like he might have slightly more rank than those around him stepped forward.

“This is your last chance to surrender peacefully. Do so and you will not be harmed. Resist, and I cannot guarantee your safety.”

“Not a chance!” Rainbow Dash shouted back. “At least not until somepony tells me what in Equestria is going on here!”

The guard simply nodded. “The unicorn known as Twilight Sparkle is under arrest for-”

And then the world went black.

***

“Sorry…” Twilight whispered as she saw Rainbow Dash crumple into a snoring heap after being struck in the back by a sleeping spell. She certainly wasn’t proud, but she simply couldn’t let Dash hear the end of that sentence. Twilight knew it was a small delay at best. Dash would still have questions when she woke up, but that could be addressed after she had tackled the issue at hoof and gotten them both to safety.

Well...time for things to get ugly.

Twilight stood over Rainbow Dash in a defensive crouch, horn glowing faintly, and fixing a cold glare at the guards around her. She didn’t exactly know what she was going to do next, but she had a strong suspicion it would be something she didn’t want Dash to see.

Restraint, Twilight! They’re just ponies doing their job. We don’t need to hurt them.

I count six professional soldiers against an untrained librarian being wildly optimistic about her chances of victory.

Which means we have to make our opening strike count. Have to hit hard and fast, and end this quickly. If we waste too much more time, the rest of the guards will catch up and that number is going to climb dramatically.

Twilight worked on recalling everything she could from her copy of ‘The Equestrian Guard Operations and Doctrine Guidebook’, a parting gift from her brother before he had left for the Crystal Empire, particularly the parts regarding tactics and rules of engagement for subduing hostile unicorns.

Surround target and maintain constant motion to disorient.

Already, the guards had taken to the air and surrounded her, flying four feet off the ground as they circled rapidly around her. Twilight tried not to focus her eyes on any one target, concentrating instead on spotting any change in movement from her peripherals.

Harass with paired strikes at 180 degrees to each other. Strike the horn to stun if possible.

Twilight kept her head low and braced herself. Spotting something at her 2 o’clock, she quickly raised simultaneous shields at 2 and 8, deflecting the two pegasi back into the spinning circle that quickly reabsorbed them. She avoided several more attacks, either raising small temporary barriers, or quickly hurling herself perpendicular to the line between the two attackers.

Continue to harass target until they either withdraw to a more defensive state or are goaded into attacking.

Twilight didn’t have time to sit around in a shield bubble. It would just turn into a siege. They’d simply pin her in and wait for further backup, which was likely coming in seconds rather than minutes. Even if her shields were as strong as Shining Armor’s, she wouldn’t be going anywhere. They’d have all the time in the world to crack it, or just build a prison cell around her.

No, if she wanted to get out of here, she’d need to take some offensive action, which meant intentionally springing the trap. A reckless plan quickly coming together in her head, Twilight put a shield around Rainbow Dash, still asleep at her hooves, then fired a shot from her horn at the nearest guard. He artfully dodged, and the circle immediately collapsed inward, rushing to counterattack and overwhelm in the split second window of vulnerability. They converged on the center, but Twilight wasn’t there anymore.

As Twilight had noted during her reading of the guard manual, there were pages upon pages discussing the finer points of aerial dog fighting between pegasi and the importance of full, three dimensional awareness in flight. This was understandably ignored in the sections on engaging unicorns and earth ponies, where air superiority was taken as a basic assumption, and focus was put on how best to use an aerial advantage against ground bound enemies. When would one ever need to look up to defend against a non-flying opponent?

Twilight Sparkle grinned as she reappeared 60 feet in the air. As she began to fall, she took aim at the now conveniently tightly clustered guards and let loose with a wide beamed stun spell. Not wasting a fraction of the few seconds she had, she teleported back down to the ground, popping out in a small arc as she oriented her exit trajectory at an upward angle to burn off the momentum from free fall. As soon as she had hit the ground and stopped sliding, she instantly teleported into the middle of the briefly stunned guards and started moving rapidly from one pony to another, touching her horn to the first unarmored spot she could reach.

Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!

One by one, they each fell to the ground.

Whew! I did it! I-WAIT! FIVE?

Twilight threw herself to the ground, narrowly avoiding a tackle as the last guard sailed over her. Unfortunately, he was able to turn around much faster than she had anticipated, and his second attempt caught her in the chest, knocking her to the ground. As soon as she was down, he was already on top of her, and she barely had time to spot the hoof hurtling towards her head.

The hoof struck solid ground as Twilight disappeared from under him and reappeared on his back, quickly jabbing her horn at the exposed back of his neck.

SLEEP!

Twilight spent a few precious seconds to catch her breath. After casting a quick healing spell on the poor pony whose jaw Rainbow Dash had shattered, she hurried over to collect her marefriend and get out of there. The second wave of guards was distressingly close now. A few seconds more and she’d be able to start identifying eye colors.

Orienting herself in relation to the navigational beacon she kept on the library, Twilight found the coordinates she was looking for. A purple glow surrounded her and the still sleeping Rainbow Dash. Just as she opened the connection, her concentration was suddenly disrupted by a spear landing at her hooves.

There was a bright flash, and then Twilight was inside the Everfree forest. She quickly looked around. In front of her stood a hollowed out tree, containing a cache of emergency supplies, just as she had left them, but Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found.

“DASH?! DASH! WHERE ARE YOU?!” Twilight shouted, but her cries remained unanswered.

Twilight held her head in her hooves and leaned against the tree. She was on the run, crimes completely exposed, and about to be the subject of a nationwide marehunt, and Rainbow Dash was missing.

Great. Looks like scenario 7C.

Twilight gave a long, pained sigh as she stood up and began retrieving supplies.


Author's Note

Here you go, new chapter. Things FINALLY kick into gear. Not sure how long until the next as this is the end of what I actually have mapped out. I have ton of cool ideas for different things I want to do, but no solidified timeline of how to fit them together in any kind of coherent fashion, much less one that doesn't seem horribly contrived.

Amusing Sidenote: One of the things I've been most concerned with for the various hazy ideas I have for future chapters, is carefully balancing Twilight's level of competence in combat. She's brilliant, resourceful, and brimming with raw magical ability, but it's not like she has much in the way of formal combat training. She's an academic, not a trained battle mage. Thus I was worried about accidentally writing her too OP. Now after the recent S4 finale, I'm wondering if she's really OP ENOUGH.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4 Estimated time remaining: 9 Hours, 19 Minutes
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