Guitar Strings and Dragon Wings

Metal in Equestria -

Nineteen

This morning had been a particularly busy one for Celestia. She had found it nearly impossible to focus with everything going on around her. As with every morning, the first thing she had to do was raise the sun while Luna reciprocated by lowering the moon. Celestia wondered how long that was going to last.

She had been notified that her chariot was ready and her officers were standing by for takeoff. Everypony in the castle was uneasy about letting her go with so few members of the guard, although they were admittedly the best the guard has to offer.

It was another bright and balmy day in her kingdom as she and Luna opened the grand hall doors. There was no time for pleasantries as the rest of the guard was stationed outside. Celestia had asked for this in particular, to address the entire lot of them one more time.

"My Royal Guard," she said, "I am leaving for an undefined period of time. There is an urgent matter I must personally attend to. In my absence, I want you all to take your orders directly from my sister, Princess Luna. Show her the same respect you would show me, and I wish you the best."

Her statement was brief and punctual. She wanted to avoid having the guard worried so she tried to be as ambiguous as possible. Any specifics could throw Canterlot into a great Panic.

The guard took a collective bow as Celestia walked toward the chariot. At the helm were her two fastest Pegasus guards and in the seat she would be sitting in sat her chief magic specialist, an indigo colored unicorn with a deep black mane trimmed to a short length.

Celestia came to a halt before boarding and turned to Luna, who had been by her side all morning. She tried her best to sound as hopeful as possible. "Luna, I know you are capable of doing this."

A single tear curled up in the corner of Luna's left eye. She didn't even know if she would see her sister again.

"I know I can. But can you?"

Celestia placed a hoof on her shoulder. "I guess we'll find out. Now won't we?"

"Just please come back to us… to me in one piece." Her voice was barely audible as they did not want any of the guard to overhear. "Don't believe your premonition. You can succeed. I know it."

Celestia gave a once over to the rest of Canterlot. "Take good care of them Luna."

"I will…" Luna choked. She was finding it extremely difficult to be strong in this situation.

Celestia removed her hoof from Luna. She filed into the chariot and sat next to her chief officer. "Let us be off." She sighed. The two pegasi made a running start and quickly picked up speed. They jumped simultaneously, started flapping their wings, and began to gain altitude. With a wave of her hoof Celestia gave her sister and her guard a final goodbye as Luna tearfully returned the gesture. After a few moments Canterlot started to fade into the distance.

Celestia gave her eye a wipe and steadied her heart. "Nova, I just want something to be made perfectly clear. This conversation never happened. As far as Canterlot is concerned I'm only going to help the newly arrived humans."

The unicorn sitting next to her was covered head to toe in golden armor of the royal family. His helmet had two slits in the back which allowed his mane to be kept strictly behind his head. This armor was specifically reserved for the guard's elite and his title was something he had worked his whole career for, trying to achieve. He was always about business, nothing else.

He turned to meet his Princess with his emerald green eyes, his expression calm and his features masculine.

"Of course, Princess. I always keep things hush-hush." He stated bluntly. His voice sounded experienced but not aged, like his title would suggest.

"Well for one thing," said Celestia, "we aren't coming back from this mission anytime soon. And yes this is an official Royal mission."

"I understand." He said coolly.

"I'm glad." Celestia searched for her next words, trying to place them delicately. "It has come to my attention that multiple dragons will be coming to Equestria soon. Although, I am not certain as to how many, or for what purpose."

"Do you think they'll be hostile?" he asked.

"That's what I'm afraid of. I think they will."

"That's… terrible." He stammered. Nova could feel his heart start to race as he struggled to maintain calm.

"So now you see why I wasn't about to let the entire Royal guard know. Do you know what the consequences would possibly be? Hostile dragons? In Equestria? It would be disastrous, there would be pandemonium." Celestia was becoming visibly flustered just talking about this new threat.

"W-who else knows?" he stuttered.

"Only Princess Luna, so far."

"And I'm assuming we are going to Ponyville to enlist the help of the Elements?" It was common knowledge that almost any major threat Equestria has ever faced was quickly dispatched with the help of the Elements of harmony.

"It won't be so simple, Nova." Celestia shut her eyes to hide any sign of worry.

"But Princess, why not?" There came a silence that lasted for several seconds.

"To be quite honest I'm not sure. Just call it a hunch."

"Okay," said Nova, "I know you better than this. If we're putting everything on the table here then I need to know what you're not telling me." He stomped his hoof down to show emphasis.

Celestia turned and smiled at him. "Nothing gets by you does it."

"Not typically." He retorted.

"Well… if you must know. I had a premonition. That's how I know all this. It happened in one of my dreams a few nights ago."

"And what about the Elements?" he asked impatiently.

"Something 'happened' to them." She wasn't even quite sure herself. "Something rendered them useless."

"So that is why we are going to deal with it personally? Because your premonition said we must?"

"Not exactly. Those humans are in Ponyville. They are the ones we should seek out."

"I understand, Princess." Not wanting to overstep his boundaries, Nova decided to end the conversation there. There was no point in pestering his Princess anymore. He already had all the information he needed.

The chariot returned to silence, save for the sound of beating wings.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jiggs was standing out on Twilight's balcony, enjoying the fresh morning air and what he told himself would be his last cigarette. Applejack had said he could stop by and visit anytime and he made sure he would take her up on that. It had been years since he lived on a farm and now that he was allowed to visit he was going to take every opportunity he could. Firstly, he would have to quit smoking. He knew better than do so around such a sensitive area such as Sweet Apple Acres.

"Yeah maybe this'll be just what I need." He said to no one in particular.

After taking one last drag he flicked the cigarette with his finger and watched it shoot down to the dirt road below, not fully realizing his own strength has increased so greatly. He ran a finger and thumb through the black stubble on his face.

"Should probably shave too." He gave a loud cough due to the buildup in his lungs. His voice was gruff and his speech disheveled. Normally he wasn't the first one to rise in the morning but he had slept unusually well the night prior. It seemed that Equestria was growing on him, or maybe just having someone as intelligent as himself to talk to was nice having around.

Twilight had mentioned to him to stay put at the library or something to that effect. The night prior had been somewhat hectic. According to Pinkie Pie the strange storm, or earthquake it seemed, had occurred because Wallace lost control of his power. When Jiggs and Twilight went to investigate Wallace had passed out cold, with Pinkie Pie close by his side. Needless to say, Twilight had her hoofs full trying to explain to the residents of Ponyville that what had transpired was an accident and nothing to be worried about.

"That guy's nothing but trouble." Jiggs commented. He threw on a black hoodie and zipped up the front, before making his way back into Twilight's treehouse.

Wallace was awake now sitting upright in his sleeping bag, looking down at his ipod. He didn't have on any headphones, instead preferring to listen to some music through the speakers. While the music was playing he noticed a cut on his left hand with a slight drop of blood trickling down. He thought it must've happened the night before, when he had his little "freak-out." It wasn't serious enough to where it would need a bandage, but he thought it might need some attention.

Without even thinking about it the drop of his blood he had his eye on started to lift itself off his hand, suspended in midair.

That's weird. He thought. Was I always able to do that?

The red drop of fluid contorted and twisted into odd shapes as he tried experimenting with his abilities of telekinetic manipulation.

This is freaking sweet.

He pulled the drop into a long shape of a string, then condensed it into a sphere. He repeated this process several times until something odd started to happen. The 'heat' of his own energy surrounding the drop was starting to dry it out and harden it.

"It's coagulating." He noted to himself.

After the small drop had hardened fully he relinquished his grip and the sphere of dried blood fell to the floor.

"Well if that's how that works…" An idea came to him. He held his right hand over the cut on his left. His yellow aura ever so delicately worked its way into his cut. He could feel the blood on the surface in his telekinetic grasp, which in his right hand translated to the feeling of a gentle vibration as if his hand had gone numb. The surface of the cut started to wiggle back and forth in his 'grip' and he could see his plan was starting to succeed. As the red fluid was worked and kneaded it finally hardened in place.

Wallace had made a scab over his cut, and to some degree healed himself.

"Heh-heh…" he let out a little chuckle, which started to build, "…ha-ha. Hahaha…" He couldn't stop laughing. The feeling of success was overwhelming, probably because of the failure that had plagued him his whole life up until this moment.

When Jiggs finally made his way downstairs he could hear Wallace laughing to himself like he had just heard the greatest joke in existence.

"And what exactly is so hysterical?" Jiggs asked him.

Wallace flicked his matted hair out of the way to look at Jiggs as he raised his left hand to show him the cut.

"You're an idiot." Jiggs said. "Where's the pink one?" He looked around the library but didn't see Pinkie Pie anywhere.

"Oh," said Wallace, "While you were outside Highlight came downstairs in a panic, saying something about the 'Princess is coming!' and 'We need to go find Patrick!' and some more crazy shit like that. So she told Cupcake to go around town looking for him, and then she took the little dragon guy with her."

"How long ago was that?"

"Probably fifteen minutes."

"Shouldn't we be helping them? I know she told us to stay but it doesn't feel right, y'kno?" Jiggs asked. He started to rummage around in his bag of toiletries he took from the van.

"Hell no! Highlight made it damn clear to me that we needed to stay here." He went back to surfing through his ipod.

"Fine whatever." Jiggs lamented. "In that case I'm gonna be in the bathroom for a little bit."

"Knock yourself out." Said Wallace.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Fluttershy was up earlier than usual, though for typical reasons. With a plethora of animals to take care of and Packie's wing problem needing immediate attention she decided to get things done as soon as possible. She had left him to sleep on the sofa as she went about her business not wanting to disturb him.

When the first rays of sun hit his face he began to stir. He lurched forward and sat upright, taking a glance out the window. He noticed that his wings didn't hurt as much. Perhaps those bandages had done some good already. Outside he could see some farm animals following Fluttershy, and some animals he wouldn't really think of as being domesticated. There were squirrels, rabbits, chickens, a pig, deer, ferrets, groundhogs, and birds. There were so many birds. What was truly unbelievable is that she seemed to be communicating with them and they even understood and responded accordingly.

"What the fuck…" Packie mumbled to himself, staring in disbelief. "That's just crazy. But at the same time… pretty freaking cool."

He watched as she fed all of them and greeted each animal as if she knew them by name. She genuinely had a gift and Packie recognized it immediately.

Each of her animal friends seemed to say goodbye and her own pets went back to their daily business. She made her way back to her cottage unaware that she was being watched. She had made the realization that the sun was starting to peak its head and Packie would want to leave as soon as possible. As she opened the door she noticed him sitting up and looking out the window. He quickly turned to face her.

"Oh hey, you're up." She said.

He started to rub his eyes, acting as though he had just woken. "Yeah, I see you are as well. We should probably get going right."

"Well yes. We do have a lot to do today."

"Let's get going then." He smirked at her and she smiled in return.

It took only several minutes for each of them to get ready. Packie still had his black and bloodied shirt but considering the condition of his wings he decided against putting it on. The two of them started making their way towards Ponyville, though at a leisurely pace. There was no point in rushing and most likely it would not have been a good idea with Packie's condition.

With the sun beating at their backs they found themselves coming to the outskirts of town.

"So…" said Packie, "you can talk to animals?"

Fluttershy's face turned red. "Oh, you saw that?" She wasn't really embarrassed by him knowing, it was just she didn't know he was watching.

"Well yeah, and it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen!" he exclaimed.

She blushed again. "Oh it wasn't anything, really. I do it all time."

Packie wasn't exactly sure how to respond. "Well it's not really a common thing where I come from."

"You'll find that a lot around here." She smiled at him.

"Good, cuz I don't plan on leaving anytime soon."

Fluttershy suddenly stopped in her tracks, replaying his words in her head. "What do you mean? You don't want to go back?"

Packie gave out a slight laugh. "Well, you certainly are giving me any reasons to leave." He smiled in return this time.

"FLUTTERSHY!"

They both heard the call from behind them and turned in time to see Twilight running at a full gallop. She started to slow down as she approached them. "Oh thank Celestia! I've been looking everywhere for you guys!"