“No problem Twilight!” Spike nodded, keeping a tight grip on the saddle bag as he returned to Dark Moon’s side.
“Since this is just a demonstration duel and apparently your letter is so important, how about we both start with just a thousand life points?” Lightning asked as he stepped into the red circle on the other side of the grid and stepped on his sigil. His side of the grid lit up in a blue that was so light it was almost white, the same colour that White Lightning’s magic had always been before his horn had snapped. “Mares first, of course.” He gestured to her in a mocking version of a bow.
“One thousand points is fine by me.” Twilight agreed, only to become startled when the box in front of her circle lit up with the number ‘1000’ in it.
“No more having to do life points manually.” White Lightning boasted to the crowd, “The DuelRune grid does that for you.”
Twilight was actually impressed as she placed her deck on the square of solid light that had appeared in front of her. It was hard enough to make runes do anything like addition or subtraction without manually putting in the input, yet alone making them remember things. Somehow he was literally getting the runes within the grid itself to change in order to provide the life point counter and while it would mean that you would have to reset the grid for every duel, which meant a little more maintenance, the purple unicorn could quite easily see the benefits and doubted that many people would object.
“Two cards face down.” Twilight informed Lightning, “And I summon the Coltic Guardian, in attack mode!”
The DuelRune grid shone brightly for a moment, then a young Eath pony stallion appeared before her in a swirl of autumn leaves, with a deep, mossy green coat and long, neatly platted, yellow mane and tail, protected by impressive looking silver and green armour and holding a sword between his teeth, over which he glowered at White Lightning.
“Since my Guardian can’t attack this turn, it’s your move.” Twilight continued, gesturing to her former classmate.
“One move is all I need.” White Lightning smirked at her, “Come forth, my might Blue Eyes White Dragon!”
Twilight gulped as her Coltic Guardian was dwarfed by the huge white scaled dragon that appeared in a blaze of light and a crackle of electricity. The mighty dragon seemed to peer down at the opposing creature as if contemplating whether to eat him for lunch. To her Guardian’s credit, he did not do anything more than peer up at it in reply as if considering the best way to strike the beast down.
Though Twilight did not appreciate the difference, the crowd did and while some outside the ring of spectators were terrified of the dragon, those who knew enough about the DuelRune grids to know that before the monsters had always been kind of static and nowhere near this interactive, were impressed.
“Blue Eyes!” Lightning called, over confident grin plastered across his features as his three thousand attack point beast stared down at Twilight’s fourteen hundred attack point Warrior, “Destroy her Guardian and end the game!”
The huge dragon, which was easily the same height as the nearby buildings reared back it’s great head and opened its maw, building up a blast of light and electricity before loosing it to strike the Warrior below who did not stand a chance.
Or would not have done if Twilight had not called out, “I don’t think so!” with a grin as she activated one of her face down cards, “Magic Cylinder! It negates your dragon’s attack and you take the same amount of life point damage as its attack points!”
The beam of light entered one of the two multi-coloured cylinders and exited the other, shooting straight back at the dragon, who let out a furious roar and shattered into a million tiny, shimmering pieces.
White Lightning’s life points hit zero almost instantly.
“I don’t remember that being in your deck.” Lightning commented, his tone neutral though his expression was anything but. Instead an odd mix of curiosity, anger and excitement featured prominently upon his face as Twilight stepped off of the sigil and packed away her deck.
“I might not have played much since you left school, but I’ve kept upgrading my deck.” Twilight replied with a nervous smile before turning to her companion, “Spike, we need to go.”
“But Twilight…”
“Now, Spike.” Twilight’s tone brokered no argument. The dragonet scurried to Twilight’s side as she settled the saddle bag back on her rear. Before he could climb up the unicorn levitated him onto her back and the crowd parted for her again, this time more in awe than anything. Before anyone could say anything about how easily she had won that duel, Twilight galloped away to somewhere a little more private.
“You know,” Spike commented when Twilight finally slowed down, “We could have done the letter there rather than racing away like that.”
“I didn’t want to cause a panic.” Twlight shook her head, using that as the excuse rather than the fact that she had felt awkward being stared at by that many ponies and that White Lightning had creeped her out a bit. It did not help her mood at all that seeing his broken horn reminded her that while her special talent was magic, it could be taken away from her just as easily as Lightning had lost his and she did not know what she would do if she ever lost it. “Now please Spike, take a letter.”
“Fine, fine.” Spike grumbled, pulling out a quill and parchment and putting it to paper. “Ready.”
“Dear Princess Celestia,” Twilight started, smiling slightly as Spike started scribbling it down, rather proud of the young dragonet who had worked so hard to learn how to write. She had been studying under Princess Celestia for as long as the baby dragon had been alive and Spike had been desperate to help her in any way he could. In the end she had caught him copying her written work in a rather sloppy scrawl and had started teaching him in what little spare time she had. “I have been diligently continuing my studies and have found that we may be on the precipice of disaster...”
“Pre-ci…” Spike looked at her in obvious confusion causing her to sigh and remind herself that he was still learning the language. He was a baby dragon after all.
“The edge?” She tried instead, discarding some of the bigger words she had been about to offer in the place of ‘precipice’ and nodding when Spike wrote that down without a problem. “I have found evidence that the Mare in the Moon is in fact the Alicorn Sorceress, Nightmare Moon and that she plans to return during this Summer Sun Celebration to try and bring an eternal night.” Twilight dictated slowly enough for Spike to keep up with her. “Something must be done before this disas… can happen.” She changed what she was going to say midword, reminding herself that Spike wouldn’t be able to spell it, “I await your reply, your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Twi...light...Spar...kle.” Spike finished the letter off with a flourish and a grin.
“Alright, Spike, send it.” Twilight ordered, only to frown when her companion hesitated, “What?”
“Now?” The purple dragon asked even as he rolled up the letter and sealed it with a thin red band. “I mean she’s going to be really busy with the celebration, it’s only a couple of days away.”
“I know, Spike, but that’s the point. If Nightmare Moon is returning, then the Princess has to be warned.” The mare replied, frustrated, “I’ve wasted enough in responding to Lightning’s bait as it was and it’s imperative that she gets that letter right away.”
“Imperative?” Spike asked confused.
“Important!” Twilight exploded in frustration, trying not to take it out on Spike but unable to bottle it up much more when she knew she had taught Spike the meaning of ‘imperative’ last week.
“Alright, but you’re allowed to have fun.” Spike objected, before loosing a small green flame that seemed to burn up the letter. The ashes floated in the air for a moment before becoming sparkles that shimmered as they shot upwards, over the rooftops and headed towards the palace. “And I bet she already knows. I mean its Princess Celestia. She knows everything.”
“Even if she does, at least I’ve sent my letter. I couldn’t just find out that without trying to warn her.” The filly replied, feeling a weight lift off of her shoulders as she trotted towards the library that was home. It had not started that way. Originally it had been her and a few books, but over the course of her studies she had steadily built up her own personal library of research texts and copies of books she had found interesting in the stacks of the school and palace libraries.
She always felt more comfortable amongst the lengthy volumes than she did amongst other ponies and after running into the one pony she had both looked forward to seeing again and dreaded meeting once again she wanted nothing more than to return to her beloved books and hide until she was certain he was gone.
Spike seemed to know what she needed and the moment they were through the door, he cleared a space for her on the desk and pulled a golden box down from its hiding place behind a huge text on dragon care that Twilight had memorised years ago when she had first hatched him.
Twilight herself dumped her bag by the door and flopped down on the cushion next to the rather worn wooden desk, staring at the box for a few moments before seeming to make up her mind and opening it.
Spike knew why she had hesitated before opening the golden box. It contained the fragments of an Ancient Equigyptian artefact that her dam-sire, Treasure Trove, had brought home from one of his many trips abroad. Supposedly it was cursed but neither Twilight nor Spike had seen evidence of such a thing. Inside the golden box with its odd eye like symbol were about fifty pieces of an ancient puzzle that Treasure Trove had said was ‘the ultimate test.’ Twilight had been trying to complete it for about eight years.
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