Equestrian Wars Side Stories

[InfinityWhale 771]

A number of people had expressed in writing stories for the "Equestrian War" universe of our RP, so I decided to make a thread where we could collect them all.

 

Here is my first offering, titled simply "Rally"

 

 

“Look, I REALLY need to get into this,” Wits End insisted, but the guard wasn’t having any of it.

 

“You don’t have a press pass. I can’t let you in without a press pass,” he said, not unkindly, but firmly.

 

“I can’t get a press pass without having an article published, and I can’t get an article published without fresh information, which I can’t get without going into events, which I can’t get into without a PRESS PASS!” He wanted to pull his mane out, it was so frustrating. He had been at this freelance reporting thing for three weeks, but he couldn’t even get the slightest lead to go off of.

 

He wanted to get into the rally for the same reason everyone did: Princess Luna was causing a stir. At first, it had been subtle: her hoofprint had been subtly connected to a couple of new laws designed to loosen up the laws concerning Canterlot. Lowering fees for moving to a different area of the city, making curfew a bit later, just things like that. But when some people had taken notice, she didn’t just stop there. She became more and more vocal with her efforts, trying to breathe life into a stagnant system of law. Celestia had given no comment, but none really needed to be given: she had crafted the laws with specific intent and the purpose of creating a perfect system of harmony and love among her subjects, and such changes could ruin the whole balance. One the one hoof, it was hard to deny that they had been effective in preventing chaos and keeping order, but at the same time, times were changing, and it was probably time for some of the laws to change with them.

 

It was then that Luna began to talk to other people. She called them “discussions” on things like morality and freedom, but they grew more and more pronounced with each passing day. Where it had been a couple of ponies hanging around and chatting about it, soon there were 30 or 40, then more and more… This rally was supposed to have more than one thousands attendees. If it had gotten this big, Princess Celestia wouldn’t stand for it much longer. It was remarkable that they had lasted this long. It had been a miracle of organization and navigation on a sea of paperwork that had kept it afloat this long, but even with the laws being followed so very perfectly, it was not going to last much longer.

 

Even the Royal Guards had been called out to keep the order. It made Wits suspect that something greater was going to occur tonight. People had been doing strange things, calling themselves Lunites, painting themselves with the symbol of the moon, the only non-press ponies who were allowed into the rally. It was the biggest conflict between the two sister since Luna returned, 5 years ago. And it was bound to make the papers, if only he could write the article!

 

He didn’t want to have to do it, but he didn’t have much of a choice, so he decided to use his magic, as much as the morality of it was grey. So he faced the guard pony blocking his view. The tip of his horn began glowing, and tendrils of magic reached out and touched the guard on a metaphysical level. The guard was doing his best to maintain the stoicism necessary as part of the Royal Guard, and didn’t react. Most ponies knew that magic was intrinsic to ponies, but few realized that all ponies have a magical aura. Unicorns have the most obvious, but pegasi use it to enable flight and make them much lighter than they have any right to be, and Earth ponies have a deep connection with their namesake, that grants them strength, balance, and endurance, as well as a semi-spiritual bond with it. Wits had studied all his life to learn as much as was possible, even into the theoretical, of this “meta-magic”, and it had paid off. No one seemed interesting in learning it, which sort of suited him just fine.

 

There was something strange about this pony’s aura, but it wasn’t important. He played his merry games, locking down all of his powers and rendering him mostly useless. And with the, he aimed a kick at the guard and dashed off into the rally.

 

There were plenty of ponies around, and he managed to slip into the crowd with relative ease. He saw that no one could approach the currently empty stage, and he couldn’t see any of the paparazzi around, which suited him just fine.

 

A picture, he thought. What I need is a picture. So he would have to get closer. A bit more trickery might be necessary, but he could get past that line of guard ponies, if only for a moment. Didn’t he, Wits End, Freelance Reporter, owe it to the people of Equestria to get them the best information possible? So he ducked down and dashed through the crowd, bumping into people every which way. Whenever there was a gap, he dash right into it, moving his way quickly and surely up to the front.

 

At about halfway to that point, the heard a shout: “Hey! Get him!” A quick glance back revealed that the guard, weakened as he was, was following him with a calm face that most likely held a lot anger in check.

 

“Oh, horsefeathers.” And Wits lost all subtlety, blasting through the crowd at sonic rainboom levels of speed, knocking over anyone unlucky enough to be in his way. The guard was very persistent, considering he should barely be able to move at all, but he kept chugging along, going after Wits with a fury.

 

“Stop, criminal!” he shouted, but it sounded almost like he was playing a part, though, acting the way he thought a good guard should do.

 

Now at the line of guards, Wits did the only thing that made sense. Well, made sense to him, anyway. He leaped on another nearby pony then leaped once more, vaulting quite spectacularly over the guards, and then crashed face-first into the ground. The guards were slightly perturbed, but simply cleared the way for the pursuant. Said pony continued charging, then leaped, and landed before Wits with a clearly-faked look of impending justice.

 

At that moment, even more chaos broke loose as Luna flew out onto the stage, followed by a unicorn and two pegasi. There were gasps as people realized that the leading pony was Shining Armor, garbed in Imperial armor.

 

“I’m sorry, Luna,” Shining said. “But I’m under orders. Whether I like them or not” With that, his horn began glowing, and a forcefield appeared around Luna.

 

“We understand,” she said. “But thy acts will not stand.” With that Luna stomped her hoof, and the forcefield shattered, to the cheers of all the ponies in attendance. Wits was snapping pictures like crazy.

 

The two pegasi flew at Luna, but she reared up on her hooves and struck out, knocking them both back. Then, her horn began glowing, and with a burst, all three got knocked off the stage. Then the rioting began. Guards everywhere panicked and began instituting order. And by instituting order, they meant to keep the Lunites from killing them. They did the classic Equestrian tactic: they drew into ranks and began advancing. But even unarmed, the Lunites vastly outnumbered the guards, more than 10 to 1, and they began to swarm them.

 

“Um…” Wits said to the guard, as he unlocked his magic. “I think we’d better get out of here.” The guard looked like he was going to be stern or do something punishment-related to Wits, but then collapsed and gave a deep sigh.

 

“Alright,” he said, and he unfurled his wings, grabbed Wits, and flew off.

 

On the streets, the two ponies walked along. The later had temporarily disposed of his armor, and they were talking casually.

 

“My name is Wits End,” Wits said, somewhat cheerily. He had plenty to write an article on, now, and with the only clear picture of the attack on Luna, he was almost guaranteed to get published in the Equestria Daily, even.

 

“I’m Nightfall,” the somewhat somber guard replied.

 

Off the in the distance, an attractive unicorn was walking along. Wits said a hurried goodbye, then rushed off, but had the weirdest feeling like he’d meet Nightfall again.

 

After all, big things were ahoof.

Edited July 23, 2012 by InfinityWhale