The Future of Magic

The future of magic
Chapter 12: Terra
A month after the events of chapter eleven
Aquaris filled his back pack with various items, his compacted staff… a pair of light stones, a few bottles of wound sealing potions, his hailer, both his and Twilight’s oral cleanser sphere, a few more various items, and his horology kit.
“I’m assuming you’re going plant hunting?” Afina asked as she walked in tiredly, “I also see you made me some tea? Thank you…” Afina sat on the rooms couch and grabbed the cup; she sniffed in the scent of the tea and took a sip. “Hmm… Aquaris, is this your special herbal brew, it smells sweet but it doesn’t taste that good…”
“Yeah… it is meant to keep the mind clear, and keeps you energized… I took some because it’s going to be an all-nighter added a bit of day-bloom to it…” Afina looked back at the tea and drank the rest down, with each gulping sound Aquaris’s smirk grew wider, after finishing the tea Afina set the cup down and gave a cute burp.
“three… two… one” Aquaris thought before he heard a soft thump, Afina had passed out and was lightly snoring, “but I did at add a hint of moon flower oil to that one…” he commented as he walked over to the couch and looked over to see Afina already fast asleep, he tucked her in and put her plush in her grasp before throwing his bag over his shoulder and heading out of the room, using his magic to shut off the light.
On the other side of the door Aquaris slipped his goggles on and proceeded down the hall to Twilight’s room, whom of which when he got there was waiting her human form, she her own bag, but also had a new outfit provided from rarity as with three other ones.
“Hey Aquaris… I’m so nervous, you can’t tell right now but I am so excited… that tea you gave me calmed me down, I can’t even get hyper… are you sure that it provides energy?”
“It keeps one mellow too… day-bloom has the effect where it is both an energizer and a chemical which calms the drinker… allows one to keep focused on the task at hand.” He held out a hand which gladly took and let her lead the way to the gate chamber.
“You don’t seem nervous.”
“Again the tea… but also I’m not, I know what to expect, I know this is going to work, the only way a gate can be broken is if the gate structure is compromised… and the gate is incredibly accurate, I believe we’ll end up on either Terra’s public gate or the private one in the palace.” Aquaris replied before they entered the gate chamber.
Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Armor were all waiting for them, Aquaris took a deep breath and walked up to the gate; he pulled out his cipher and pressed on the screen. Before every ponies eyes the cube unfolded, then again, and again until there where about 30 squares, out of each one came triangular segments, each connecting the plates till the entire thing was a large disk with the runes. He placed the cipher on the pedestal in front of the gate and pressed on the screen in the center.
The disk began to bend into a dome like shape as orange strands of energy ran down the pedestal’s side to its base and down the trio of inch wide inch deep channels along the floors to the gate.
As the strands touched the gate, they solidified into cables of a copper-ish material; odd yellowish energy ran along these cables from the gate to the pedestal until the screen glowed a dull green.
“Is it working Aquaris?” Twilight asked as she walked up next to him,
“Yeah… now let’s see here…” Aquaris pulled out a slip of paper and unrolled it. On it was about ten symbols that went with the ones on the disc; Aquaris pressed the symbols on the cipher, which resulted in the corresponding ones on the gate to light up. “Will you do the honors Twi?” Aquaris gestured at the now glowing green screen which had converted into a dome.
Twilight hesitantly put her hand on the sphere, and pushed on it. It sank into the plate and stopped glowing as the gate came to life. The gate made a light whirring noise as it charged up with energy. Gusts of wind came from nowhere as the air in the gate began to flash with light, seconds later the gate seemed to create a geyser of glowing light blue water which stopped before Twilight and Aquaris; it reseeded fast back into the gate and created a similarly glowing, wall of water.
“Whoa… was the geyser really necessary?” Cadence asked while starring at the gate.
“Yeah… opening a rip in the space time continuum, causes a lot of heat if contained, the geysers created are actually particles at an incredibly high temperature that immediately cool when reaching a distance of Ten feet… if anything were to come in contact with this what appeared to be water geyser. It would result in instant and painful particle disintegration.” Aquaris replied as he pointed at the remnants of a chandelier that was caught in the geyser. “It is safe after the geyser reseeds back into the gate, but it is best to wait ten seconds before walking through just to be sure.”
“Aquaris… how do you know how get back here?” Celestia asked as she trotted up to them both
“I have the gate code for this one… just one symbol different, rather convenient if I do say so myself…” he looked back at the gate and took a deep and relaxed sigh before stepping forward towards the gate. “It’ll take a few hours, I need to grab a few things from home… if we’re late then Blinx has probably thrown a party for my return and to welcome Twilight to Terra.”
Celestia nodded as Aquaris kept walking forward, he turned back to see Twilight still standing behind the pedestal. Aquaris noticed she was shaking lightly. Aquaris came up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.
She looked up at him, Aquaris could tell she was scared, he looked over her shoulder at Armor, he was watching Aquaris’s moves, Aquaris just rolled his eyes and sighed, and he put his other arm on her shoulder and pulled her in for a kiss. Twilight was surprised at first, but after a moment closed her eyes and held him tightly.
Behind Twilight, Cadence was holding onto Armor’s tail as he ran in place towards Aquaris. “Shining honey please calm down…” Cadence commented with his tail still in her mouth. “You two might want to go through before he gets free of my hold.”
Aquaris nodded to her and gave a brief two fingered salute before he and Twilight ran through the gate. The gate closed behind them just before Armor slipped free of Cadence’s hold, he then crashed into the wall behind the gate.
“Aquaris is in some serious trouble when he gets back…” Cadence commented with a worried expression.
“He’s dead is what he is…” Armor spoke in an irritated yet quite tone as he wobbled his way over to Cadence.
“Oh come on shiny… don’t you want your sister to find her special some pony… even if he is not actually a pony?”
“How long Have they’ve been together? And I know you know because you know nearly every ponies relationship.” Armor groaned as he stretched his neck and popped it.
“At least a month… she really loves him as he does her… give him a chance shining” Cadence gave Armor the puppy dog eyes, he couldn’t resist for long
“Ok fine… I’ll give Aquaris a .chance… but only because you trust him, but if hurts her, or even makes her upset, he is in trouble.” He replied hesitantly
“Thank you Shiny… now come on, you have new recruits to train in the morning… and my knight needs all the rest he can get… good night aunties” Cadence and Armor went off out of the gate room.
Luna walked up to Celestia and looked towards the gate. “Today is the start of a new era… doesn’t it Tia?”
“Yes Lulu, yes it dose… you did slip that gem in Aquaris’s bag right?”
“Yes… we’ll be able to see what they see and hear what they hear… but, you have to sleep and I have my royal duties… goodnight Tia.”
Luna trotted off leaving Celestia alone in the gate chamber.
Terra… location unknown
Aquaris opened his eyes when a gust of cold air hit him; he sat up and shook his head, regaining his senses. He looked around to see that he didn’t end up in the palace, but in a clearing of a forest.
He sighed lightly then realized where Twilight was. “Twi?” he said as he sat up, rubbing his head. “TWI!?”
“I’m here Aquaris… ow… what happened you said the gate was going to drop us in the palace or another public one?” Twilight asked as Aquaris got up and saw her hanging by one of her boots from a tree.
“I don’t know the gates not supposed to send people to a random location… huh?” Aquaris reached into his pocket and pulled out his hailer. “Sweet Solaris… four hundred messages… all from Blinx, I’ll check those later… let’s see here GPS activating, and… ok so good news were on Terra and we are close to Terravle… bad news is that we are about ten miles aeay form and we’re in the darkest forest known to mankind, where both the laws of nature and magic cease to apply… Ever-night forest.”
Aquaris put his hailer back into his pocket and climbed the tree Twilight was hanging from and began to loosen her boot laces that were caught on the branch.
“How much trouble are we in exactly?”
“Well the forest is able to make one lose track of their position… and it is infested by countless amounts of dangerous creatures, both known and unknown…”
“Like? oofff… could’ve warned me when you were about to drop me.” Twilight said as she lied on the ground, staring up at him with and irritated glare.
“Sorry… but creatures we’d be up against would be; Omni wolves, Chimera, Viper-mouths of varying types, snatchers, and blazers… and then some.” Aquaris replied as he used his fingers to count them off.
“If we move fast enough we might be able to get out of here within two, three hours at least.” Aquaris climbed down from the tree, and reached into his bag, pulling out his staff and his canteen. “Keep close and be silent.”
With that the two made their way into the forest, eastward… towards what both hoped was Terravale.
About two and a half hours later
“Face it Aquaris, we are lost… and I swear I have seen that boulder for the tenth time!” Twilight said pointing at said boulder.
“We are not lost… okay maybe we are… my hailer’s GPS doesn’t work too well in here so we are basically running blind… I’ll go get a vantage point, be right back.” Aquaris climbed one of the trees next to him and made his way above the canopy.
Aquaris gave a sigh as a chilling breeze hit his face, he scanned the seemingly endless forest, looking for lights from Terravale… or even a tree that stuck out amongst the others. He squinted his eyes and activated his night vision. He smiled when he saw the lights of terravale in the distance.
“Hey Twilight, if we keep heading this way, we might make it before sunrise… Twilight?” Aquaris jumped down to find her pinned by what appeared to be a wolf. Aquaris fell forward as something tackled him... His concerns grew more as he heard a machine like growl, he turned his head to see a wolf with glowing eyes, and its entire body composed of metal. Behind it were more wolves composed of many other materials, one was composed of only rock, one was made of gears which were still moving, and the last of the small group was composed of varying gemstones.
It growled as it flipped Aquaris over onto his back and bared its fangs. As it was about to attack and potentially kill him, he looked over to see Twilight getting attacked by another one, this one was made out of bones. Aquaris looked forward and uttered something under his breath. The wolf was pulled Away from Aquaris and onto a tree Aquaris magnetized, the clockwork wolf followed suite shortly afterwards, the others aside from the bone one following their leader fly back.
The bone wolf lifted his head in enough time to see a pulse of magic hit its face and caused it to explode… shards of varying bones flew everywhere… the body itself falling apart without its head.
Aquaris ran up to Twilight and helped her up, her arm was covered in blood but not bleeding from the bone wolf’s bite. He looked over at the wolves who were attempting to pull their metal brethren off the tree’s trunk. Without hesitation he picked up Twilight bridle style and ran the direction they needed to go.
He looked down at Twilight who was out cold; he noticed her clothes were shredded basically. Still roughly intact but no simple stitching will fix it. He increased his pace looking foreward and making sure not to fall.
Eventually the amount of tree’s lessened as he finally made it out of the forest… as he was about twenty feet out he fell to his knees… completely exhausted. He grunted as he got up again and slowly walked to the town in front of him. It was still dark… the only light coming from street lamps. He turned the corner and gave a sigh of relief at a hill with a massive tree before him. It was a massive redwood tree, at least thirty feet tall a mahogany door at its base, a handful of windows here and there around the trunk, he slowly treaded up to it and kicked a rock near the door. A small drawer on it opened with a key inside it
“Twi… wake up.” Aquaris said after opening and closing the door behind him. Twilight opened her eyes to the sight of a dark library, seconds later lamps scattered around it turned on, illuminating the place, making it seem like it was lit with candles.
She then realized Aquaris was carrying her, she sighed lightly and rubbed her head against his chest, Aquaris lowered her onto a coach and grabbed a small chair and began to examine her arm. His eyes glowed teal as he examined the damage under her skin. He got up and opened a cabinet nearby, inside were various colored bottles, he pulled a yellow-green bottle out and grabbed a roll of bandaging.
He set the bottle and bandage on the coffee table and pulled out a bottle of wound sealant. “This going to hurt Twilight.” He popped the cork off the yellow bottle and let it hover over the wound, he unraveled the bandage and had it under her arm, ready to cover the wound, and finally he used his magic to also open the bottle of wound sealant.
Twilight cringed as the yellow bottles contents were poured onto the wound, a small bit of steam coming from the wound, the wound sealant was then poured, Twilight cried out in pain as the chemical stung as they closed the cut, Aquaris then began to wrap the bandaging around her fore arm.
“Thank you Aquaris… those wolves came out of nowhere… I managed to stop one but that bone one came up behind me… Twilight said as Aquaris finished wrapping her arm up.
“The sealant will take about a week to fully heal the cut… you go ahead and have a lie down… Ill wake you when I get back.”
“Where are you going?” Twilight asked as she rubbed the bandaging with her uninjured arm.
“To get the others, like I said I’ll be back.” he kissed her before grabbing his bag and heading out the door. Twilight sat sighed before deciding to look around the place. Aside from the large bookshelves lining the walls, each filled with books of both fiction and non-fiction. She also noticed a smaller shelf filled with plastic cases, some of them missing. Then there was Aquaris’s computer.
There wasn’t really much except a wireless mouse and two projectors that created the screen and keyboard. She sat at the chair in front of it and examined the projector. Aquaris taught her how to use one of these things so she proceeded to turn it on. It took less than a second for the computer’s screen and keyboard to activate. The screen displayed two users, Afina and Aquaris.
She opened Aquaris’s which caused the background to change, to a picture of A breathe taking ocean view. She looked over the screen, seeing varying applications, one that caught her eye was a folder for ‘Blitz’s Air-rivals application’ another one that also caught her attention was a report on anomalous objects.
She opened the document to find twenty pages of notes of how identify, contain, and study various objects. An example of an object was also in this document, it reads as follows.
The item is classified as a passive class level one object; the item in question has the appearance of a yellow rubber duck, with normal dimensions of an average rubber duck. The anomalous properties of said duck are its abilities to move to different locations in a confined area in a time window of nine milliseconds. The speed of movement seems to change with distance, always making to its destination before ten milliseconds. The movement only happens when there is an observer watching the duck, when he or she blinks the duck moves to a seemingly random location within a range of fifty feet of its original location… testing shows that it cannot move through solid material and could only escape it’s testing area if there was an opening big enough for it.
Notes: Afina had temporarily lost the duck after she proceeded to play with it when she was taking a bath. She proclaimed that she dunked it under the bubbles, breaking line of sight and causing it to move to the top shelf of the upstairs linen closet. “I had to buy her a non-anomalous rubber duck because of this, after recovery”
Twilight turned her head in confusion and noticed a small box on the side of the desk, she opened the box to find the rubber duck, she pulled it out of the box and squeaked it, nothing wrong there. But when she blinked, it was out of her hand and now sitting on a nearby book shelf.
Twilight blinked again which resulted on it sitting on a light fixture above her, she smiled and pulled it off the light fixture and re-inserted it into the box, sealing it up and placing it where it was she looked back at the screen, she closed the document and kept browsing her search stopped at a photo of Aquaris’s family when he was much younger.
On his left were his parents. Both their crests reminding her of her parents cutie marks, on his right was a women a bit taller than him, and on her shoulders was a younger Afina she clicked to the next picture of a Aquaris at his current age with all his friends. The next was an adorable picture of Afina curled up and asleep in a basket of sleeping kittens, the mother cat not too happy about it.
Twilight giggled a bit and looked away from the computer, towards the bookshelves. She walked over to them and looked over the contents, each book sorted by subject then alphabetically, she noticed pulled one out of history a opened it up, it mostly told of the founding of Terra and the events afterwards. She placed it back before turning to find a picture of Aquaris and his friends, but aside from Aquaris who was wearing a circlet; his friends were wearing platinum amulets each with a symbol of their crests carved into it.
She kept staring at it for about ten minutes until she heard the door open, six Terrans walked in, each with their luggage, Aquaris in the lead.
“I thought I said you should take a nap?” Aquaris said in joking tone as he walked up next her.
“I got curious and decided to browse.” Aquaris didn’t answer but lightly hugged her. Before being separated by a floating human.
“Huh, I didn’t know you got yourself a girlfriend Aquaris… being the bookworm you are and all.” He said in a teasing tone, his hair was shortly cut and colored similarly to RD’s mane, but the most key feature were his eye color, they slowly went through the spectrum. And protruding from his back was a pair of semi-clear light blue wings.
“I guess introductions are in order.” Aquaris said in a comedic sigh.
Ten minutes and one pot of brewed coffee later
Everyone sat on the couches around the coffee table with a built in heating element. Each of them holding a cup of coffee, and each of them conversing with each other, Twilight one the other hand was in deep thought, wondering what exactly they were waiting for, Aquaris had said that Terra had a massive network of high speed trains that hover over a magnetic rail, so why didn’t they take that to Promethia?
“And so I said to her that if she wanted to order a trio of golden chocobo’s then he would have to pay for the resources necessary to breed em. Y’all know how expensive it is breed them as is, three of them would be worth a pretty penny.” Jackie said as he placed his empty mug on the table, “you know what she said to me, that as Royalty she should get them for free. That is Shtako even Solaris paid the fee’s for both a black one and a gold one.”
“You know how princess Mephala is, thinking she is better than everyone except her uncles... I don’t say this often because I am a gentle man… but she is a bitch.” Blitz chuckled lightly at Rarius’s commente before sipping his coffee. “Aquaris you still haven’t answered my question from earlier, how’d you meet Twilight?”
“Well… it’s complicated but in summary, the confederacy dropped me via a pod to the surface of the world we are heading to tonight, she was one of the first few pon- people I met when I was there.” Aquaris replied with a nervous chuckle. Rarius looked at him with a slight disapproving frown, but turned his head when someone knocked on the door.
“WHO IS IT!?” Blinx yelled as he walked to the door with a bounce to hid step. He opened the door looking straight forward to see nobody.
“Down here.” Blinx looked down to see a boy up to his chest in height. He looked like he was as old as some of the young teens in Terravale.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed kid? Speaking of which who are you?”
“The names Cloud fire, and I’m the reason you’re getting to Promethian palace, he said as he pulled two things from his shirt, one was a crest of a double headed wrench with a depiction of fire surrounding it, and the other was a seal of the royal pilots.
Everyone except Twilight was jaw dropped, A KID as a royal pilot?
“Yes, yes amazing and all… c’mon were burning nightlight, my coursair has shadow wing sails and it’s going to be impossible to fly it after day break.” He gestured everyone to follow him out. After moment of hesitation they followed, grabbing their rightful bags in the process.
Twilight simply followed remaining quite as they got outside, until she saw the massive bronze colored machine in front of them, it was massive, taking up an area bigger than two house lots. On the side facing towards Aquaris’s home was painted version of Cloud fire’s crest.
(if you ever watched john carter imagine the smaller airships but shrunk down to equal the size of an average passenger plane)
Cloud fire was checking one of the many ore like wings along the side, using a wrench to tighten a loose bolt. “So explain to me how, you got to be a royal pilot?” Aquaris asked as his friends climbed up a boarding ramp onto the ship.
“Well… when I was younger around six, my parents abandoned me, I was living on the streets, keeping alive by earning some money from odd jobs around Promethia city… I was arrested for theft because someone was too cheap to lose his money and said I stole about a hundred credits from him when in reality, he paid me those. After about two days of imprisonment someone bailed me out and offered me a job as a research assistant… I accepted, come to find out I was hired by the most brilliant mind in all of Terra… Professor J virel.” He hopped down and checked another wing and began to adjust the bolt.
“Makes sense why I haven’t seen you, I have heard a lot about the professor but never met him…”
“He is a busy man; he mostly hired me to be messenger boy, delivering his findings or items of Interest to Solaris… one day, the corsair I was in, was caught in a ion storm that formed from ever- night forest, the pilot was knocked out and no one aside from me took the helm.” He paused as a rouge nut popped out of a wing joint.
“mostly with adrenaline guiding me I managed to fly it out of the storm… we managed to land in the shipyard for it to be repaired, also at that Time Solaris was there inspecting a new ship model… he thanked me for the service I’ve done and was surprised to find that I flew out of an ion storm.”
“Then he offered you a job as royal corsair pilot?” Aquaris finished as Cloud nodded before hopping down and heading up the ramp to the cockpit.
Aquaris and Twilight followed up the ramp and into the cockpit, while the others were out on the deck. Cloud Fire slipped headphones on and started up the ship, Twilight watched out the window as the wings glowed a dull grey and rose up, behind them the corsair’s reactor came to life generating immense power.
Lights along the deck lit up as the ship began to rise into the air, Cloud flipped a few switches which turned on spotlights in the front. Twilight was speechless as she contemplated how this heavy machine could fly.
“Don’t worry Twilight… it is as confusing to you as it is for me to contemplate how only two pegasus carriage pullers is needed to pull a carriage three times their combined weight.” Aquaris commented as he rubbed her shoulder.
“What was that… something about carriages?” cloud said as he looked away from his piloting console.
“Nothing kid… talking to Twilight.” Aquaris replied as Cloud turned back to the console. “What is your on mind anyway? You were quite when my friends arrived.”
“Well… when your friends arrived, I noticed a lot of similarities between them and my friends… granted there were some differences.” Twilght responded as she leaned against the window.
“Is that really a problem Twi? Look at how similar we are.” Aquaris leaned in and kissed her. He broke it every few seconds to say their similarities, “we’re both smart… willing to learn… willing to experiment.”
“Oh you… and your right, similarities are good… especially with us”
“Hey love birds! I may be a pilot and quite mature… but I’m still a young teen, so keep it in your pants.” Cloud fire commented before turning back to his console. Aquaris and Twilight blushed lightly before Aquaris pulled away.
“Now that’s what I call a cock-block…” both of them turned to see Blitz leaning against the doorway to the cockpit he chuckled as he walked in. “given the suggestive words I was hearing made me believe your experiments involved a little cherry popping.”
“NO… Blitz don’t you have something better to do?” Aquaris said towards him irritated, his face red as a tomato.
“Not really… also Aquaris and Twilight sitting in a tree F.U.C.K.I.N.G” Blitz said in a laugh as he spread his wing and jumped out the doorway to fly along the corsair.
Twilight sighed and looked at Aquaris who was still blushing but not as brightly. He took deep rhythmic breathes to calm down. “How long till we get there Cloud?”
“Bout twenty minutes… also do you want me to speed up so we lose your friend?”
“Wouldn’t matter, Blitz can go supper sonic if he wanted, and the ‘sonic Spectrum’ as dubs it would cause damage to the corsair. So no… just keep true at this speed.” Aquaris replied as Cloud went back to his counsel. Speeding up the corsair any way in the process
Somewhere deep in unknown space
Commander Scorn stood next to the helm officer of his new ship, the Confederacy Devourer, or as Scorn dubbed it, ‘The reckoning’. The ship itself was larger than even a commanding class Star destroyer on its bow were three large prongs tipped with crystals emanating with immense power.
“Commander… we are waiting for you to initiate the weapons test… the council wants to see where all this money went.” General Malcom said through the communication device floating next to Scorn.
“As you wish General… Lieutenant prepare to fire the main weapon!”
“Yes sir… charging graviton vortex, energy sponges at zero capacity, failsafe active, and secondary energy storage ready… Target locked, you may fire when ready sir.” A red button on the console in front of Scorn lit up and began to flash.
In front of the ship was no planet, or a moon, or a large asteroid… but a sun… Scorn smiled as he pressed the button.
Terra Promethean palace
Prince Nocturne awoke in a jolt of panic; he was in a cold sweet and was heavily panting… his heart nearly pounding out of his chest. “What in my brother’s name just happened?” Nocturne got up and wobbled his way to his balcony doors, flinging them open with his magic he looked up at the night sky. Something was wrong.
Of all the stars in the sky… one caught his attention… The star was missing.
DUN DUN DUUUUUUNN!!! Chapter twelve done and in semi record time… compared to the rest… enjoy my readers R&R at your leisure and as always… Ciao! (Disclaimer… I am not French but I like the word)