Luster Dawn, Princess Twilight Sparkle's faithful and talented pupil, had moved to Ponyville in an attempt to learn more about the magic of friendship. After her conversation with Princess Twilight about how her friendships were still in good health after so much time, Luster decided that it could work out if she did at least give the concept a try.

While she was in Ponyville with Twilight, Luster met a few creatures that quickly befriended her. Giving Twilight a hug, Luster left her and her friends, joining with the new creatures that she found. Since that time, she has been happier and she really opened up her eyes up to friendship and the magic that it gives.

Her new friends have helped Luster find a place to live while staying in Ponyville and really helped her feel at home. It wasn't the same as when Luster lived in Canterlot, but this was a very good substitution, she thought.

It has been two weeks since she moved from Canterlot and began living her new life in Ponyville and this is where her story begins.

"...and that is where they reside today."

Luster smiled and closed the book she was reading: The New Autobiography of Celestia and Luna, Former Rulers of Equestria. She set it back on the shelf in her room and looked towards another book. This one was red and worn out, but one that Luster enjoyed reading to no end. This one was titled Mythical Creatures and More: A Pony Guide to the Unknown.

"It's always fascinating to read about other types of creatures," Luster said out loud. Nopony was around her, but that didn't stop her from speaking her thoughts. She flipped the pages open to one where she had previously left off, "alrighty, now let's learn more about Manticores. I wonder what made the original Manticore angry in the first place when Princess Twilight and her friends ran into one."

She began to read through the page, gathering a bunch of important details about Manticores. Luster always loved to learn and always pushed herself hard to get the work that was assigned to her done and done correctly. She made it a mission to please Princess Twilight in everything she could lay her salmon pink colored hooves on; that is how she got to be her star pupil, after all.

While reading, Luster noticed the mail slot on her door shuffle. Mail started to come through the little flap, prompting her to get up and gather them up. Using her magic, she lifted up the mail and approached the table in the kitchen with them, setting them down one by one.

"Flyer," she read, "flyer, ooh, an ad about Pumpkin and Pound Cake's new desert." She stopped and dropped everything when she came to the last item. She could feel her heart racing and started to get slightly excited and worried at the same time. It was a letter from Princess Twilight and Luster jumped to one of two conclusions: Twilight was checking in on her or Twilight was angered by something she could have done.

Setting the letter down, Luster started to pace around the table briefly before getting a glass of water in an attempt to calm herself down.

"Okay, Luster," she told herself, "it's just a letter. How bad could this possibly be? I mean, it's not like you haven't talked to her before, right?" She glanced at the untouched letter and gulped nervously again. "But what if this letter is different? What if she is mad at me? I am trying my hardest at this whole friendship thing, right?"

Approaching the table once more, Luster picked up the letter and opened it on the right side. She pulled out the paper inside and unfolded it nicely, reading it at once.

"Dear Luster Dawn," the letter began, prompting a giggle from Luster, "I hope you are doing well with your studies. I cannot express how happy I really am to know that our conversation inspired you to pursue the magic of friendship. By now, I hope that you have settled yourself in Ponyville. If that is the case, may I recommend that you visit the School of Friendship? That is a great place to get started if you feel that you may end up being lost somewhere along the way. The headmare is a former student of mine as well and I feel that you and her would get along just nicely. As you know, my friends and I have managed to keep in contact and see each other as often as we can for a very long time. Friendship can grow stronger like that if we put in the effort that we think we can do and, when friendships grow stronger, Equestria becomes safer. I know that this is something that you are capable of doing.

"Something else I wish to mention in this letter as well is that I would like for you to write me weekly responses of what you've learned. This is a great way for us to stay connected as well, plus I can always provide any assistance along the way if you feel you may need some. I was in your hooves at one point and know how hard things can get sometimes, so it's always better to have friends by your side to know that things can and will get better. I have sent to you a small capsule that you should use to send your letters to me. You should be getting that in the mail soon.

"I eagerly await to read about what you have learned and cannot wait to see what you do with your new task. Whatever happens, always know that I am proud of you. I see a lot of myself in you, Luster, and I hope that what I see becomes reality. Your teacher, Princess Twilight Sparkle."

Luster blushed a little when she read that last part. She felt flattered that her mentor wrote that she sees much of herself in her. She put the letter away for now and thought about heading to the School of Friendship, but decided against it for now. Right now, it was late and Luster thought that it would be best if she got some sleep. She knew where the school was and decided to follow Twilight's advice and head towards the school in the morning. Classes were done for the semester, so she figured that the headmare should have a bunch of time to see her.

Going back up to her room, Luster prepared herself for bed by grabbing her nightcap. She turned off the lights and laid down in her bed, looking out of the window and up at the moon. She always wondered how hard it must be to raise the sun and moon everyday and often wondered if Twilight was stronger than both Celestia and Luna combined. Twilight rose both sky assets on her own, while Celestia and Luna had to do their respective ones themselves, she thought.

Yawning, Luster shut her eyes and drifted off into a deep sleep relatively quickly.

"Luster Dawn!"

Luster looked around for the origin of the call. She noticed she was now outside and back home in Canterlot. Confused as to how she got here, she tried going to the main tower where Twilight would be, but found that she couldn't move from her current spot. She tried turning her head, but found that even that was becoming more of an impossible task now. She even tried to close her eyes and wish to be someplace else, but couldn't even manage to do that.

An indigo colored cloud appeared in front of her and started to take the shape of a pony. Luster was curious as to what this was and actually was feeling more calm now. When the cloud finally cleared, Luster saw that the pony it had formed was Princess Luna.

"Princess Luna?" Luster said. She was relieved to see somepony Twilight spoke a lot about, but wondered mostly why she was here.

"Precisely, Luster Dawn," answered Luna.

"What are you doing here?" Luster asked. "Is this a dream? I thought Princess Twilight was responsible for performing such a duty."

"She does not understand the Dream Realm like I do, Luster," explained Luna, "besides, I am in the process of transitioning and sharing this role with another pony soon."

"Is that so?"

Luna nodded, "Yes, but we don't have time to discuss that. I have come to you being the bearer of bad news."

"Bad news?" Luster repeated.

"Something called the Basilisk has been spotted near the Silver Shoals area," she advised, "and neither my sister's magic nor my magic is strong enough to dispose of it properly. We fear that the Basilisk will multiply soon and disturb the balance across all of Equestria."

"Why haven't you alerted Twilight of this issue?" Luster thought.

"Without Spike," replied Luna, "getting messages to Princess Twilight has become more of a challenge. I cannot seem to locate her dreams in the Dream Realm, but I did manage to find yours."

"How did you know who I was?"

"Princess Twilight speaks endlessly about you when she visits my sister and I," smiled Luna, "she hasn't done something like that in a very long time."

Luster smiled a bit and felt herself blush. She knew how proud she made Twilight, but to hear her talk about that pride to others made her feel special. Her smile quickly faded when she remembered the task that was given to her.

"What is needed in order to defeat the Basilisk?" She asked Luna.

"That is what we hope Princess Twilight can investigate," Luna responded, "neither my sister nor I know what to do since neither of us have ever seen a creature like this before."

"I promise I won't let you down, Princess Luna," Luster assured.

"I had a feeling you'd say that," Luna smiled in response, disappearing slowly behind her indigo cloud once more.

Knowing what she had to do now, all Luster could do was wait until she woke up.

When Luster finally woke, her first instincts were to check outside her window for the time of day. The moon was still risen, so she knew that Twilight probably hadn't been alerted as of yet. She began to gather a few things, then began embarking towards Canterlot on her own.

"What is a Basilisk anyway?" She said out loud.

She tried to ponder what one could look like and imagined a few different ideas – an altered manticore, a timberwolf that was more ferocious, and even a conjoined parasprite. Her images were practical, but acceptable thoughts nonetheless. Still, without an ideal image of what a Basilisk looked like, Luster made it a mission to reach Princess Twilight as quickly as she could. Without the capsule that Twilight promised her, Luster's next best thing was to teleport to Canterlot now, even if that meant Twilight was asleep.

"Here goes nothing," she sighed, planting her hooves firmly in the ground and focusing her magic to teleport to the castle in Canterlot.

With her aura surrounding her horn, Luster casted the spell and successfully teleported from her new home in Ponyville to just outside the castle in Canterlot. She briefly looked around for any guards and began an attempt to get inside the large, luxurious castle.

A few of the guard ponies were patrolling the area as Luster snuck herself from tree to tree, trying to stay out of sight. After evading a few guards, Luster found herself inside the castle. Using the tall hallways to her advantage, Luster casted a spell that would allow her to walk on the ceilings, far above any of the unicorn guards that were stationed inside the castle and out of sight of the grounded creatures as well. Tiptoeing through the halls on the ceiling, she began to quietly make her way towards the throne room.

I have to make sure nopony sees me, she thought, coming to a full stop when another guard showed themselves in an adjacent hallway.

The only sound that came from Luster were the sounds of her hoofsteps, but with them coming from the ceiling, she figured that the sound of them could pass off as somepony walking on the floor above them.

"Who's there?" Somepony asked, shining a light down the hallway Luster was in.

Luster gasped slightly, covered her mouth, and stopped in her tracks, hoping that the unicorn guard would not lift the light beam upwards closer to her. She shut her eyes and began thinking of what would happen if she got caught and, more importantly to her, what Twilight would think if she caught her doing such a thing. Frozen out of fear, Luster stood in her spot, shivering a bit.

"Mustn't've been anything," the guard sighed, "must be hearing things." He continued walking along his patrol route, leaving Luster behind.

Oh thank Celestia, she thought, sighing out of relief. She continued in her pursuits of the throne room, carefully planting her hooves with each step that she took.

After coming across a stairwell and proceeding upward through it, Luster found herself just outside of the throne room. She looked up and saw a griffon guard overlooking the area, the same one she saw when she and Twilight last spoke inside the throne room. She began thinking about how she would get inside without alerting the guard and took out any obvious maneuvers, such as simply opening the door with her magic. She thought about teleporting inside the throne room as well, but figured that that would result in too much noise being made.

How am I going to get past this guard? She wondered, biting her lip nervously.

She tapped her hoof instinctively while she was thinking, making some noise when it collided with the ceiling. She momentarily forgot about the consequences of doing such a thing until she grabbed the guard's attention.

"Hey!" They shouted. "Hey, you!"

Luster again froze and looked up, noticing that the guard was flying up towards her. Allowing him to get closer to her, Luster teleported at the last second inside the throne room and looked around, trying to find a place to hide for the time being.

The throne room was large, but mainly empty aside from the spires that lined up along the sides of the room. At the far end of this room were the two thrones, the larger one on the right being for Twilight and the one on the left being for her royal ambassador Spike. Luster noticed them but found that they were too far away to rush behind to hide herself, so she instead hid herself around one of the spires, hoping that the griffon guard wouldn't be able to find her. Hearing the doors open up completely, she soon put her hiding spot to the test.

"There's nowhere to go now," he insisted, "might as well come out of hiding now if you don't want to escalate any punishment."

I didn't think of that, Luster thought, looking down towards the ground, how bad could this get if I evade any further?

She heard the griffon approaching her location and started shaking once again when she heard the sounds come to a halt. She closed her eyes and held them tightly shut, waiting to be discovered.

"Found ya," he said, reaching out and holding her in place. When his vision adjusted, he immediately recognized who she was, "Wait, you're Twilight's student. Luster Dawn, right?"

Luster opened her eyes and nodded slowly, "Yeah, a-and I realize how bad this looks for me."

"Why are you sneaking around the castle this late at night anyway?" He asked.

"I have a message for Princess Twilight from Princess Luna," she answered, "and I thought that she would be in here, you know?"

"She does need her sleep too, you know," he boldly responded, "she's a pony like you."

"I-I know," replied Luster, "but I remember her telling me how she used to spend a lot of nights pacing around when she was nervous about something."

"She used to do that?" He questioned. He seemed puzzled by that statement.

Luster nodded, "Yeah, umm..." She tried remembering the name of the guard, but couldn't come up with anything. "What's your name again?"

"Gallus," he said, "I used to be a student of Twilight's, you know, just not here; at the School of Friendship."

"Could you help me reach Twilight?" Luster pondered. She had a feeling that this would not work, but trying wasn't a bad idea either.

Gallus rested a claw under his chin, looking back towards the doors. He knew he couldn't simply lead Luster to Twilight through guarded hallways at this time of night, so he thought of something else instead. He looked towards Luster and tapped the wall behind her.

"I can't bring you to Twilight," he admitted, "but I can get her to come here if your message is that important."

"Thank you, Gallus," Luster said, sighing out of relief.

"Just keep quiet and make sure you stay against this wall and out of sight," Gallus warned, "I'll be back with the princess as soon as I can."

Luster nodded, then did as she was told. She hid herself behind the spire once more and kept close to the wall, watching Gallus exit through the doors again, closing them behind him. Once he was outside the throne room and back inside the hallway, Gallus approached another guard and inquired where Twilight was at the moment.

"She's in the library, Gallus," they responded, "shall I tell her that you asked for her?"

"That's okay," Gallus replied, "but if you could keep watch over my post while I do that, it'll certainly help out greatly."

"Understood."

With somepony to watch over the vacated position now, Gallus started heading for the library. He quickly navigated himself there and opened the doors up once he found it. Inside was Princess Twilight, whom was sitting down comfortably reading another one of her vast collection of books. Noticing the door was opened, Twilight lowered down the book she was reading and glanced upward.

"Ah, Gallus," she smiled, "you're up late."

Gallus chuckled, "The same could be said for you, Your Majesty."

Twilight held her hoof up to Gallus and shook her head, "Please, that's not necessary. I appreciate that you take your role as royal guard very seriously, but I expect the others to be formal, not you. We have history together and other than being called Professor Twilight, I don't see you being so formal now with me."

"As you wish, Professor," Gallus joked.

Twilight giggled and rolled her eyes playfully, "What brings you here this late?"

"You have a, uhh, special visitor," Gallus answered.

"Special visitor?" Twilight repeated, tilting her head slightly. "This late at night?"

Gallus nodded, "I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." He motioned for Twilight to follow him. "If you would, please."

Rising from her seat, Twilight obliged to Gallus' request and began following him through the hallways. Gallus made sure that Twilight was kept calm and that she closely followed him. When he arrived back at the doors to the throne room, he dismissed the covering guard and thanked them for keeping watch momentarily. Looking back, he made sure that nopony else was watching.

"They're inside the throne room?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah," answered Gallus, "and like I said earlier, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."

He opened the door to the throne room and allowed Twilight to enter the throne room first. With Twilight entering, the lights to the room had turned on and the doors shut behind her and Gallus. Moving forward, Gallus stopped slightly ahead of the first spire and motioned for Luster to come out now.

Coming out of the hiding spot, Luster blushed and waved at Twilight. She was just as nervous as she was when she last met Twilight and wondered how she would feel to know that she had just infiltrated the entire royal guard and found her way into the throne room without much trouble. Smiling happily, Twilight approached Luster and hugged her, just like Celestia used to do when they met each time.

"Luster," she beamed, "it's so good to see you. What brings you here this late at night? The sun isn't going to be raised for at least another hour or so."

"Well," Luster replied, "Princess Luna wanted me to deliver a message to you."

"She did?" Twilight asked, pulling her head away and looking down at Luster. She was confused as to why Luna would contact Luster instead of her. "She could have sent a scroll with an urgent notice on it."

"That's the thing," continued Luster, "Princess Luna said that it was urgent and she couldn't reach you in the Dream Realm. She said she found and recognized me from my dream and told me there to reach out to you immediately. Something about how it's been hard to reach you without Spike?"

Twilight rubbed her chin with her hoof. She knew that without Spike, getting letters from the former rulers of Equestria was much more difficult now. She did miss the times when she could get her mail via dragon, but Spike was busy with his own life nowadays and she hasn't seen him as much as she would have liked.

"What was the message?" Twilight said.

"Apparently," Luster responded, "there are sightings of Basilisks in Silver Shoals and neither Princess Celestia's magic nor Princess Luna's magic is strong enough to keep them in check anymore. They fear that the Basilisk will grow and multiply if they are left unchecked. They need your help."

Twilight pondered over what was discussed with her. She tried to devise a plan on how to combat the Basilisk, especially if it was now stronger than Celestia and Luna. She looked to Luster, then smiled.

"Can I ask you something, Princess?" Luster whispered.

"You can ask me anything, Luster," Twilight answered.

"What exactly is a Basilisk?"

Twilight nodded and then teleported a mythical book to her from the library. She flipped it open to the page that contained the creature and held it in front of Luster, explaining what it was.

"A Basilisk is a terrifying creature," Twilight spoke, "it has the head and tail of a cobra, the eyes of a toad, a crest like a crown, and scaly skin covered with the hue of venomous animals. Legend has it that the Basilisk is so venomous that just one glance from it could be deadly and that everywhere it went, it left a trail of poison that would stay for months." She closed the book and sighed slightly, "If Celestia's and Luna's magic is not strong enough to handle them, then my magic would not be that much more of help."

"What are you saying?" Luster wondered.

"We need something stronger than my magic," Twilight stated, "and I think I know what may help."

"What's that?"

Opening another book that she had, Twilight showed Luster what she was referring to, "Long ago, when my friends and I first met, we had to defeat Nightmare Moon with something called the Elements of Harmony."

"I know," Luster smiled, "those were used against a bunch of different enemies – Discord, King Sombra, the Pony of Shadows – but I thought those were destroyed when King Sombra reappeared the second time."

"They did," Twilight said, "but not completely."

"Huh?"

"With the help of this pony," Twilight continued, turning the page to a picture of Star Swirl the Bearded, "I was able to take the fragments of the destroyed elements and make new ones and hide them somewhere in Equestria."

Luster cocked an eyebrow, "Somewhere in Equestria?"

"I know that you'll be able to find them, Luster," Twilight insisted, "especially with the help of your friends."

"But I thought that you said that there were six elements, Princess," Luster replied, "with myself included, there's only five in my group of friends."

Twilight winked, then brought Luster closer with her wing, "Trust me, Luster. You haven't met everypony yet."

Luster blushed, then looked down, "Do you really think I can do this?"

"I know you can do it," Twilight reiterated, raising Luster's head with her wing gently, "now go and do your mission."

"I won't let you down, Princess," Luster responded, using her magic to teleport her home.

Twilight looked up at the moon and used her magic to lower it and raise the sun, "I know you won't. There's much of myself that I see in you."

With the sun overlooking the entire land, the new future of Equestria was beginning to unfold. Twilight knew this and smiled as she watched Gallus leave the throne room.

"We could always handle it, you know," he said.

"I know," Twilight admitted, "but it's time for a new set of creatures to rise. This will only help defend Equestria even more."

To Be Continued...