“Give them something to fear, young Sparkle,” Death said. “Show them your power, Philosopher. The true war begins today.”

Twilight leapt onto the stage and approached Sweetie Belle’s unmoving body, hoping she had imagined the scene that had just unfolded before her eyes. As the purple unicorn stood over the corpse of one of her only friends, she felt a strange jolt. With it, the color drained from the world, and everything began moving slowly. Twilight looked around in a panic before trying to magically make everything normal again, with no success. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t channel her magic. “What’s going on?” she said, her voice echoing slightly, much like the Reaper’s.

“You have invoked the power of the Judge,” Death responded. “As long as you channel her power, your soul will remain in the spirit realm, with her form.” He put a shadowed hand on Twilight’s head.

“Why am I here then? What do you mean by ‘power of the Judge’?” Twilight asked.

“Approaching the spirit of a close friend in need of guidance has thrust you into this realm to aid them.” Death gestured to Sweetie’s body. “Release your friend, and you may return to your body,” he said before fading away.

Twilight swallowed, and examined her friend’s corpse. A small glowing orb floated up, and took on the form of the white unicorn below it, but with one key difference: A purple gem floated in front of her, with a chain extending to her chest. Sweetie Belle’s spirit floated, blinking. “Hey, Twilight, weren’t you a unicorn before?” she asked, cocking her head to the side a little. At this, the purple unicorn put a hoof on her head where the shadowed hand was moments ago: Nothing. She was an earth-pony...or at least, her spirit was. “And, uh, wasn’t...wasn’t there only one of you?” she continued, pointing behind the panicked earth-pony. Twilight turned to be snout-to-snout with a unicorn version of herself.

“I don’t...how...WHAT.” Twilight was struggling to comprehend the situation at hoof, when Sweetie Belle spoke up again.

“This have anything to do with your conversation with that dude? If it does, just help me do...whatever it is I have to do, and get back to your body,” the white spirit said. “While you're at it though, could you maybe get this chain off? It’s starting to creep me out a little.” The purple mare shook herself back to normal, and approached the spirit.

As Twilight inspected the chain and the attached gem, another jolt hit her, this time pulling out memories of her dream. She shook her head rapidly again, and began poking at the chain. “Logic is telling me this is your 'soul shard', and if it breaks, I get the feeling you’d be gone. If I break the chain though...” she said, being met with a dumbfounded look from Sweetie Belle. The purple mare turned, and bucked the middle of the chain as hard as she could, shattering a link. As the metal broke, the shard shot towards Sweetie, dispersing her spirit on contact. “Well, that worked better than expected,” Twilight said, walking back to the other her. “I...don’t actually know how to do this,” she thought, looking at herself. “Maybe if I just jostle myself a little and oh Celestia that sounded wrong.” Twilight pushed herself with a hoof, jolting herself for a third time.

When the purple unicorn opened her eyes, the world was full of color again, and the nearby ponies were all talking about what they had witnessed. She was not aware that, floating high above her, something was watching her.

“I see the Princesses picked a good pony to replace them,” a shadowed being thought, as he hovered backwards through a portal.

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Rainbow Dash was fighting a Manticore she had two of her unicorn trainees summon. As she delivered the final blow - a fierce kick to the torso - time seemed to stop, and a dark portal opened near her. “What do you want now?” she rudely asked to the figure that floated from it.

“I merely wished to inform you that the last of your missing friends has made her presence known...by publicly executing Ms. Belle,” Death responded calmly, catching the rainbow maned pony off-guard. “In addition, Ms. Sparkle is progressing quite nicely...though I recommend you begin training her in hoof-to-hoof combat soon, Warrior.”

Rainbow Dash dismissed the news of Sweetie’s death and a third betrayal. “You knew this would happen...I know you did. Why didn’t you tell us? You know when EVERYPONY is going to die!” she yelled, furious.

The Reaper laughed. “Ms. Dash, what would the purpose of living be if you all knew when you’d die? Ah, before you speak, know this: I AM telling you. Ms. Sparkle NEEDS training. Her magic may be strong, but magic alone will not save Equestria,” he explained. “More deaths are coming, and sooner than you think. Prepare yourself, Dash. I will NOT save your life again. If you fail, Equestria burns.” Time returned to its normal speed as the shadowy being disappeared. “Everypony depends on you, Warrior. Success or failure, Equestria’s fate is in your hooves. Train the Philosopher.”

The cyan pegasus stood, still furious, before calling to one of her students. “Get Twilight here, now. Get Brandy, Spike and Scootaloo here, too,” she said. “Know what? Buck it, get Derpy, Vinyl, Redheart...and I guess that Honeydew guy...all them in here. By the time I’m done with ‘em, they won’t have to worry about fighting.”

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“Rainbow Dash taught us how to actually fight as if our lives depended on it, which they did. We learned how to defend ourselves if we were jumped by up to three ponies. She had to get a different trainer for Spike, though, since it’s pretty hard to teach something with hands how to fight when you’ve got hooves,” queen Sparkle said, stifling a chuckle. “Spike’s teacher actually had quite a bit of experience with weaponry, too. He taught us - Bic Macintosh included when he arrived - how to use a sword, he taught Spike to use a bow, and even how to make arrows out of anything he finds. His name was Travis Tav, but he asked us to just call him Travis. Claimed he was from some other world where he was a literal zombie, and that he was an assassin.” The queen let out a short sigh. “As hard as it was to believe, we had to if we wanted the training. If not for him, we wouldn’t have survived the year, after all.”

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Twilight was galloping through the tunnels between the main Rising Sun station and Rainbow Dash’s training area, the one-eyed orange pony clad in leather armor known as Travis, and Spike were both keeping pace. “Alright Scoots, this next move is meant to be used when the enemy is...Oh, hey, guys,” the rainbow maned pegasus said, noticing her partner enter the station with his companions. “What’s the hurry? Brandy set himself on fire makin’ molotovs again?” Rainbow Dash chuckled.

“No, ms. Dash, but Brandy is related. He has requested we fetch you two for an emergency meeting,” Travis said, bowing, his green mane falling over his eye-patch. “He asked me to head to the engineering station and inform them of an order of...” he stopped, reaching into a saddlebag to pull out a slip of parchment. “Five hundred pairs of strong bronze wings, and Fifteen hundred cuirasses,” he said, slightly muffled, before replacing the sheet in his bag. “Personally, I prefer the protection and mobility my Core Hound leather provides. Not too encumbering, either.” The armored pony grinned. “Though the hounds in question likely wouldn’t be present in this world, upon thought.”

Scootaloo opened her mouth to ask what the earth pony was talking about, but was interrupted by Twilight before she could. “It doesn’t matter, just come with us!” the purple mare said, grabbing Rainbow Dash. The orange pegasus just shrugged and galloped after them.

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“Three years had passed since Sweetie Belle was killed...three years we trained ourselves every day. We had managed to liberate every city save for Canterlot, and I had finally been able to control Pinkie’s power enough that I could phase in and out of my body at will, and I could sense when somepony was lying. By this point, we had already gathered that the orbs the princesses split into gave us our powers, and that Pinkie, Rainbow and I were the Judge, Warrior and Philosopher respectively...Pinkie’s abilities would have made her a not-so-grim Reaper had she known about them before she died; Rainbow’s made her more agile; and mine concentrated my magic.”

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Brandy was standing at a large table topped with a highly detailed map of Castle Canterlot. With him were Vinyl Scratch and Honeydew, who were calmly discussing what music they thought of during battles, and a silent Big Macintosh. The old brown unicorn sighed as the door opened, and three ponies entered with a dragon. “There you are! Just gotta wait for Travis now,” Brandy said, relieved to have somepony that he could have a conversation with. “Tav said he had to get some things from his quarters after delivering the request, so just take a seat, grab a drink, and relax for a bit.” The four ponies discussed recent happenings in their lives, with Big Macintosh joining in every so often.

After about an hour, the door opened again and Travis entered with a large rucksack on his back, a dagger on each of his shoulders, a tiny compass hanging from his left ear, a small frosted disc from his right, and an assortment of bladed rings hanging from his belt. Everypony in the room began to laugh at the sight of the armored pony. “What - what’s with the getup there, Trav?” Rainbow Dash managed to get out between laughs. “And why the hay are you wearing earrings?”

Travis trotted over to the table and dropped his sack on the floor, looking at Spike. “There are some arrows in there for ya, Spike. Corestone tipped. Strike ‘em like a match and fire 'em off,” he said, before turning to the cyan pegasus. “It’s my gear from before I arrived in this world. I felt I should get back into the habit of wearing it. And they're not earrings!” the green-maned pony said defensively. “I just figured my ears were the best place to keep these, since I can’t really tie them on my belt anymore.”

The white unicorn was the first to stop laughing. “What point would the compass serve on your ear though, dude?” Vinyl asked, slightly confused. “Seems like it’d be pretty hard to read it that way.”

“Compass never worked,” the leather-clad pony responded. “Don’t say anything. I know I’ve at least explained this to Spike, but where I come from, there’s a special type of magic that everybody can use. Its main purposes are to...I suppose break items with magical properties down to bare materials such as dusts, crystals, or magical essences, and to use said materials to imbue other items with power, like, I dunno...giving you better reflexes, making you stronger, or just making your ability to channel other magics more powerful for a short time,” he explained. “We called that magic Enchanting. Pretty much everything I have on me now is enchanted. The compass makes me faster, and sometimes my sudden movements - such as attacks - will slow time for everything except me. This disc lets me see the weak-points of my enemys a little easier, and sometimes when I hit one of said points, I get more agile.” After being met with eight stares, Travis sighed. “Lemme put it this way then: MAGIC.” A short silence followed

“Well, since our friend’s here now, what was it you wanted us for, Brandy?” Scootaloo asked, breaking the silence.

“Right, right. We’re staging an assault on Canterlot Castle as soon as that order I sent with Tav is filled, and we need to start planning. I’ve got enough firebombs made up for really anything, so I’m thinking a bombing-run would be good. We can send a few teams in here, here, and here, and we'll send the ground teams through Canterlot city in disguise...”

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“We spent the next few weeks making plans, creating squads, changing our schedules, all that,” Twilight said, keeping her voice calm and serious. “About two days before the assault, Travis approached me on a subject related to the upcoming battle...” Next Chapter: Canterlot Coup Estimated time remaining: 47 Minutes