The Future of Magic

The future of magic

Chapter 2: family visits

The sun rose over the horizon, bringing light to ponyville and most of Equestria, the princesses have returned back to Canterlot, and any other pony had to go do their daily errands and chores.

Twilight was reading books she had borrowed from Aquaris, leaving a note to tell him both that she had borrowed them and also asking if she could ask some questions at about one o'clock pm.

Most ponies aside from the elements and a handful of them were still concerned about this foreign creature, it was new to them, yes they've seen some weird stuff like the chaos discord's return had caused, and the nightmare moon incident. But they knew that it was written either of them would return from their imprisonments but a new alien from another world was a whole different story.

Aquaris woke up with probably the worst headache in the history of magi's. "By Solaris how much whiskey did I drink last night?" Aquaris sat up and rubbed his head, "I really need to lay off the drinks… wait… oh yeah the ponies and the spell that made me fall… asleep…"

Aquaris wobbled his way upstairs to his shower and quickly took one, after drying off and using his magic to pull any remaining water off he quickly dressed into a pair of blue colored cargo pants a black under shirt with a symbol of a half sun and half-moon. And a magically enchanted jacket, made to keep him cool in the middle of the summer.

He went down stairs for a cup of coffee when he noticed the note on the table; he picked it up and read it.

"Dear Aquaris, Princess Celestia knocked you out for two reasons. 1. Was to see if you weren't dangerous, you would've woken up chained and in the Canterlot dungeons if you were, and 2. We kind of wanted to know how your kind lives, yeah the princess is kinda odd that way but I digress. I also borrowed some books from your study to read in detail about your kind's history and culture. P.s if you possibly can will you head to my library to answer some questions and begin telling me stuff about your kind if the books don't supply enough, Sincerely, Twilight Sparkle."

He flipped over the note to see one from Celestia mentioning something of her guard being all right and sorry for attacking him without even seeing if he was safe.

Aquaris looked at the note in detail, "well I guess I do have something to do today." Aquaris mumbled to himself as he went upstairs to grab his bag, some notepads, and his phoenix feather quill from Solaris's pet phoenix as a gift when Aquaris became Solaris's protégé.

A special inkwell with a near infinite supply of ink only found from squiddles, a rare space squid that is extremely adorable and contains removable ink glands ergo which never runs out of ink. And also his book with blank pages for new alien bio entries.

"There we go… Afina wake up you lazy dragon," Aquaris said as he picked up the sleeping Drake in a generously large basket at the foot of his bed.

"What is it Aquaris… I'm really tired and I don't want to do any chores right now." Afina whined as Aquaris put her down.

"Fine you can rest a bit more but if you need me I'm going out." Aquaris said grabbing his bag and walking to the door leading downstairs. "Don't get lost Aquaris." Afina said curling up in her basket.

Aquaris opened the door to be greeted by the bright sunlight, he got a view of the surroundings, the village was composed of small buildings with brick walls and straw roofs, it reminded him of home aside from the straw roofs and brick walls, it was a metal material designed to look like bricks and the roofs were smooth tiles of a lightweight stone.

He sighed and slung his bag over his shoulder, "I wonder if there are something good to eat for breakfast? We'll see" Aquaris said to himself as he pulled out of his pocket a phone like device, the 'hailer' allowed him to talk with friends, check the time, and take pictures, and is his near fifteen thousand song playlist. 'The clock read 11:02 AM' he set off to the town for some breakfast before heading to Twilights.

In the town square, Aquaris wandered for roughly thirty minutes, none of the ponies helped him and he couldn't blame them, to them he was an alien and vice versa, only he was used to aliens. As he walked along the streets he got the feeling that he was being followed, as he kept walking he decided to pop his earphones into his ears and listen to his tunes from the 'twenty first century'.

As Aquaris kept moving through the town Aquaris came across probably what he believed is the largest gingerbread house possible, he could smell the strong scent of baked goods and pastries and let his nose guide him. He knew it was a shop since both the door was unlocked and there was bell for the door when customers walked in.

"Just a moment, I'll be right there. Aquaris heard the voice from the back say after he pulled his earphones out. A mare with darkish blue fur color and poufy pink mane walked out from the door behind the counter,

"May I help yo-… oh you're that… human was it?" she said a bit nervous, she walked up to the counter and waited for his order of wanted pastries.

"Yes… let's see, I'll take two of those bagels, and also… ah some muffins too please." He said as he pulled out a small silk bag full of his universal credits, he had seen the currency these ponies used and polymorphed the credits into them.

"ok that'll be about fifteen bits." She said putting the requested food into a bag, Aquaris placed the gold coins onto a counter and grabbed his purchase.

"Thank you and have a nice day." She said both in relief that this alien wasn't dangerous and actually paid with bits and not some other currency and just because it was her daily norm to say it.

Aquaris walked outside of the shop to see a dark magenta collored mare, her mane was light pink and it seemed that she was a teacher due to the younger ponies following her, Aquaris shrugged it off and decided to head to his next destination, the town library.

"I still can't believe the pastry shop is literally half way across town, granted it's the same with terra-vale but still… now that I think about it, the shop placement is quite similar to home…" Aquaris said to himself closing his eyes in deep thought not seeing who he was walking into.

He fell onto his back dropping the bag but thankfully it didn't open, when he looked up he saw that it was Applejack. "Sorry about Applejack… didn't see yah, was thinking a bit to much." Aquaris said as he stood up, he brushed his pants off and sighed.

"What's the matter sugar cube?" she asked him as she readjusted her saddle bags.

"Oh nothing, just this town reminds me of my own home, a bit different but so close… either way, what are up to, I need to kill time before one and I have nothing better to do, but explore." Aquaris said as he popped his shoulder joint.

"Well if you don't mind I have an issue of my own, the cart I normally bring apples into town with lost one of its wheel, and I just need some pony to hold it up for me while I fix the axel and put the new wheel on." She said looking past him, "I was going to see if big mac could help but he is nowhere to be found."

"Well it's better than just sitting and doing nothing so why not." He said as he gestured her to lead the way.

Over and about an hour later at the pony Ville library, Twilight was reading through the books she borrowed, and spike was stacking and sorting books (like that wasn't surprising at all.) Twilight finished the chapter on human's historical factors, and now into its scientific chapters, first one was of anatomy. As she read she found that humans like Aquaris, their bone structure is infused with small crystals that channel magic, I different bread had lumps on their shoulder blades with the same infusion, and one classification lacked the crystals, but seemed to have a different variation infused in their muscles and heart while their skeleton was made of more dense and sturdy compounds.

"Wow these humans are so interesting… huh" Twilight said as a pigeon pecked at the window, a small letter on its back, Spike opened the window to let the pigeon in and took the letter. The pigeon flew over to peewee's seed bowl after his burden of paper was gone. Spike handed the letter to Twilight and went back to working on the books he was storing.

Twilight removed the letters seal and read it. {Dear Twilight,we do apologiese for not coming to the summer sun Celebration yesterday, but we had business from the princess and we couldn't have let her down, she has requested us that the matter was solved, so We decided to have a little late summer sun get together, Shinning and cadence will be Arriving when we do, we'll be in ponyville at about one thirty, see you soon, Your mother.}

"wah… spike, can you finish cleaning up, oh no oh no… she said running upstairs and into her room to freshen up completely forgetting that she had invited Aquaris and asked him to arrive thirty minutes before her parents did.

Spike just sighed and put the last book onto the shelf; luckily he had already cleaned up and was finishing with the books. When Twilight came back down Spike was heading out the door, earlier she told him he could go to Rarity's after cleaning up.

Twilight sighed but then here the door open when she walked into the kitchen, she looked at the clock thinking "they couldn't be here already?" her thoughts were put to rest as she heard the voice of Aquaris and not her parents or brother.

She looked at the clock to see it was 1:20 PM. Twilight sighed and looked over the counter, he was wearing a different set of clothes but had a pair of wires connecting from his pocket to his ears, he lips moved as if they were singing but he spoke nothing.

He looked over to Twilight and headed over to her pulling his earphones in the process, "hey Twilight… sorry if I'm late, I had to help out Applejack and was introduced to her big brother… wow for a species with no hands he easily beat me at arm wrestling, also they kind of invited me for lunch." He scratched the back of his head as he laughed a bit.

Twilight looked at the time and saw that the ten minutes she had to get anything done have had passed already,

"Aquaris listen can we do this some other time, I have import-…" twilight stopped as she heard a hoof tapping the front door, she thought fast and magically picked Aquaris up.

"Whoa hey Twilight what's the whoa… ooff…" he was tossed into a closet and had the door closed in his face.

"Sorry Aquaris I'll explain later. Just keep quiet, she whispered into the closet before heading to the front door.

When Twilight opened she was greeted by her parents. "Hello Twilight, we've seen each other since the wedding I've almost forgotten your voice." Twilight's mother jokingly said to Twilight as she hugged her.

"well Armor and Cadence insisted on brining lunch here so it'll be a while, ever since the honeymoon, Armor and Cadence both learned to cook, I see no need since of personal chefs but some skill you learn to do if you visit family is better than nothing, I'm just curious who in Celestia's name they asked for the use of their kitchen." Twilight's dad said after receiving his hug from his daughter and sitting down on one of the couches.

The entire time Aquaris was watching through a special spell he had learned a year ago, he sighed and lied back on the pillows in the closet, he pulled out a puzzle cube which shifted to give him at least four hours' worth of puzzles to solve, He began solving.

About three puzzles and ten minutes later, another knock was heard from the door, Aquaris sat up and re-activated his spell, he saw a white coated colt with a blue main and tail, and he had a stocky build and had a cutie mark similar to Twilight's except in a shield.

"her brother" he said in a whispery tone, next was another alicorn, she was a brighter pink than Aquaris's friend blinx's standards of 'real men wear pink motto', her mane and tail were composed of various colors you would see on valentine's day cards, and her cutie mark was of similar shape and design to his brother-in-law's except the heart was blue and was simple while his brother's was more detailed and was contained in a diamond shape.

Aquaris noticed she too had a tiara and hoof slippers but with light blue diamond studs. "Are all alicorns royal? Then again they can fly and perform magic similar to the rare archon class that the all princes are back home… damn this planet is almost like a mirror." Aquaris thought to himself as he kept looking.

After their greetings to each other, Aquaris was bored; he kept solving puzzles until the door was knocked on again, when Twilight opened the door Aquaris got that feeling that he was being stalked again.

"Hey Twilight, have you happened to see that Aquaris fellow, I want to ask him so many things but he seems to have disappeared." The light teal unicorn known as Lyra heartstring asked to Twilight.

"No Lyra and also my family is here and we have a lot to catch up about so if you don't mind." Twilight closed the door but before it closed Lyra said a dead giveaway.

"oh come on do you have any idea, I've been wanting to meet him all of last night and today, and you met him first and are probably going to ask him a load of questions that I want to ask as well." She said as the door fully closed.

"Who's this Aquaris she spoke of?" Cadence asked as Twilight sat back down, she said after reading the Letter she had received from aunt Celestia after the festival they missed was finished.

"Oh… he just some colt that moved from stallion-grad, he is quite nice and is the pony who owns the house that was built nearby, even has a Dragon companion named Afina." She said only telling half the truth.

"Strange last time I checked that Lyra had this addiction to finding about something she called humans, why would she be so curious on this Aquaris pony she and you mentioned?"

Aquaris began to sweat nervously, he even had the comical anime style large sweat drop on the back of his head, this lie was falling apart faster than a chocobo runs when it's golden and on caffeine. He leaned back onto the back wall and bumped it, not loudly but it did nock another pillow and a stack of sheets on his head, and also a rather dusty book.

The book wasn't a problem, the dust was. Aquaris couldn't prevent breathing in one speck of it, and he was about to sneeze. As he breathed in he sucked up more dust and couldn't hold it. He sneezed, rather loudly too, he swore mentally to himself and thought a way out of this mess; he shrunk himself and hid in the sheets.

Twilight was mentally sweating as Armor approached the closet door, the sneeze had startled them all but Armor's reaction was a bit more Aggressive. When he opened the closet she mentally sighed as Aquaris was gone.

Armor opened the closet door to find the source of the sneeze, but saw something of Interest, Aquaris's hailer. He magically picked it up and closed the closet door, Aquaris grew back and mentally swore again.

Twilight saw the hailer and knew it had to be Aquaris's it was one something she knew she didn't have and two, the device was meant for creatures with fingers to use. Armor studied it but then set it down. "So Twi this Aquaris… what does he does?"

"That was one of the things I was going to ask him myself…" Twilight said as she went to the kitchen to refill the teapot they had on the table between them.

Aquaris was mentally thinking of a way out of this, then it dawned on him, he could teleport. He face palmed and used his magic to open a rift outside near his house; he then focused his energy and teleported outside to his front lawn. He gave a sigh of relief.

"Ok time to say hello, and also get my hailer back." Aquaris straightened his clothes out and began walking up to the library.

When he got to the door, he could hear laughing, he peered through his seer's spell and saw them playing something similar to charades, and he chuckled to himself as he watched not noticing that pinkie was pulling her party cannon into his house.

Aquaris sighed and decided to go for it, "nothing ventured, nothing gained… hopefully nut a bruised gut and black eye." Aquaris knocked and backed up, Twilight opened it and was shocked.

"What are you doing here; my parents believe you're a pony?" Twilight whispered to him, luckily he was out of eyesight from the other ponies.

"Well I'm sorry but I don't have my shape shifting spell adjusted yet, and I'd rather have them know I'm human, also I need my hailer back." Aquaris said in the same quite tone, Twilight sighed and mentally contemplated what would happen.

"Ok… (sigh), I'm so in trouble for this…" she turned around and walked inside.

"Who is it Twilight?" Cadence asked as she bit into one of the apples they brought with them for lunch.

"It's Aquaris, he… is bit different from what I told you he was… he is well… not a pony." Twilight said innocently.

"What is he a changeling?!" Armor said charging his horn with a rather powerful attack.

"No… and please don't hurt him… (Sigh)… Aquaris come in."

Aquaris walked into the house and sighed, "Hello…" Aquaris sighed as he looked up. When he looked up, he saw dropped jaws and wide eyes, except for Twilight.

"What are you? And are you Aquaris?" Cadence asked, shocked that Aquaris wasn't a pony but some tall creature with barely any fur and light tan skin.

"I am, and I am a human… trust me, I would've done the same if I were in Twilight's hooves at the moment". Aquaris said as he scratched the back of his head.

Cadence looked at him in curiosity, she got up and approached him, and Aquaris began sweating especially he got a 'don't you even put a finger on her look'. From Twilight's older brother she looked him up and down, she then noticed his head features.

The necklace was similar to Twilight's cutie mark, but had an extra shape and different color; his hair was teal with a light aqua blue highlight. His hairstyle was similar to Twilight's but the hair behind his head was more split and not brushed but more combed.

His outfit was odd, his cloak was black but had small blue and sea foam green details, his undershirt was also black but the white emblem on it, the shape seemed to be what aunt Celestia and aunt Luna had designed as a flag/ banner for the merged solar/lunar empire, but they never went through with it due to other matters that would change the fate of Equestria for the better.

She noticed one more thing of immense interest, attached to his belt was a small book, a lone string of magic connected his belt and the book.

"Do you mind?" Cadence asked looking at the book and lightly tugging on it with her magic.

"Oh uh… sure be careful though that tome has some incomplete spells, if cast they usually do the opposite of what it is supposed to do." Aquaris warned as the string disappeared and fell into Cadence's magical Grasp.

When she opened it she noticed that the first handful of pages were mostly notes and drawings of various spells and effects, two that caught her eye were the emotion magnate spell and self and target polymorphing spells, the notes next to them was more of a story of how they came to be.

"Entry one, Metamorph was successful at capturing the palace and Promethia for at least an hour before Versian and Armera used that spell to send them flying, after capture and interrogation, he explained he only did it to divert guard attention to the capital so he and his brood could make a new hive with the abandoned crystal mines inside the regions of the elysian woodlands.' All is forgiven with him, currently his brood and himself enjoy the gift of the mines and an extra twenty or so arches of land to use for their hive cluster'."

"Entry two, three weeks after the wedding and Changeling issue, Solaris assigned me the task of learning the abilities of Metamorph and his brood. then figure out how to produce spells out of them, Metamorph arrived an hour after I received the letter and we began conversation over how he can perform self-mutation into other forms/ species."

Cadence kept reading. She sat back down on the couch while Aquaris conversed with Twilight and her parents, who at first were tense of the alien but eased up as he explained himself, Armor also began reading the written entries in the book.

"Entry three... Metamorph explained that he controls his brood like how a democratic empire controls its army, with multiple commanders, in this case 'brood mothers' as he dubbed them. Metamorph demonstrated, that his underlings were better at mutation than he and his brood mothers could, only because they were genderless and only 'pure mated' changelings have genders, going to back to what I said of them being genderless, polymorphism is very picky on how it works, because the person you want to change into is the same gender or sex as your own. It can't work with the opposite gender/sex due to issue of changing reproductive organs being halfway changed, and other structures… also if you're a human using this spell, trying to become stone skin ,sky strider, or Archonian will result in just looking like the person and not having his/hers powers and abilities."

"Umm… Aquaris if may interrupt, but who are these sky striders and Archonian you mentioned in these notes?" Cadence asked before looking back down at the book

"Well… see them as the equivalent to a Pegasus in abilities, while Archonian is like you Celestia and Luna when it comes to abilities. They just don't have wings protruding out of the sides or horns from their foreheads". Aquaris said before continuing, "I myself am a arcanian, basically a unicorn in pony standards minus the horn, stone skins are like earth ponies but have the ability to temporally lift over eight times their weight."

Cadence nodded and went back to reading the entries.

"Entry four, the polymorphing spell is complete, with the added ability to do it to yourself or others, simply picture what form you want you or your target to change into, be warned dead or inanimate objects can't be changed back, but can be enchanted to wear, so the wearer can be polymorphed with an specially applied effect. 'The reason this one is short is because I promised Afina I'd convince Rarerius to make her a dress for her human form"

Cadence and Armor looked up at Aquaris who was telling a story to Twilight and her parents of how his home world was like and noticed the pictures in the book on the next page of him and who she was guessing were Aquaris's friends all looked like various aliens, she also noticed that there was another picture it showed a lone human, female by the looks, she was slender and had a silver dress on, her eyes were reddish and dragon like a small note at the bottom, "Afina Enjoys her human form and the dress really well… and Rarius has no clue that it was her and still doesn't know."

"Entry five… man I'm going to need more tea if I keep writing these at twelve in the morning… I digress, progress on Metamorph's emotional siphon ability is under way, I learned that changeling's absorb emotion like a sponge in water when feeding directly and indirectly off of multiple hosts such with; Armera's love for her fiancé, my parents love for a soon to be son-in-law, my brotherly love for him, and even Solaris's love for his noble prince of a nephew. This sponge ability is with all breeds of changeling not just his own. When the host's emotion is absorbed into the changeling, it converts that emotion into pure energy, which it can use for casting its own arsenal of magic and abilities, in his battle with Solaris. Solaris was over powered by Metamorph, unknowingly Metamorph metaphorically squeezed the sponge dry, the only reason why he won is cause of that, problematically for Meta, his magical defenses were down due to the lack of reserve energy and that's how versian and Armera beat him. 'Side note: tell Solaris that detail of how he lost to Meta.' "

Cadence and Armor looked at each other after that entry. Was it true? Did Chrysalis do the same thing that this Metamorph did; it also explains plenty more how Chrysalis did manage to overpower Aunt Celestia. Also who is this Solaris?

Cadence flipped to a random page and found something of great interest, the page had drawings and a photo bookmarking the page, the page itself was on some magic shield spell, the photo grabbed her attention more.

It showed a few humans, one was Aquaris but the others were a mystery, one of them was in a combination of a white dress and guard armor, her hair was a deep blue she was standing in the center of the group. The other one in the center of the group was wearing a uniform of some sort, his hair style well-kept and was similarly patterned like Cadence's, except it was more on the red and a dark pink. On Aquaris's shoulder was small phoenix and next to his left leg was a dog sized silver dragon.

In the background showed like it was the after party for a wedding, a massive cake meant for at least fifty or more guests stood in the distance, hanging from the ceiling were tapestry with the same symbol on Aquaris's shirt on them, on the back of the picture was some small note.

After two weeks of developing the pictures arrived, when the honey moons over we'll stop by and have lunch. Love yah little brother, Sterling Armera. P.S Versian sends his thanks for discovering that Metamorph was here and how you help beat him in the long run.

Cadence put the picture back and closed it, setting it down in the table in the process. Aquaris noticed this and re-attached his book to his belt.

Aquaris reached for his hailer and turned it on; the sides popped out and became screens.

He sighed as he scrolled through the photo album on his hailer; he then noticed he had received a message on his Hailer. "We'll be in touch soon." Is all what it said?

Aquaris got up and stretched his legs, "if you don't mind I have to go, Afina probably has lunch made and I don't want to interfere any longer with your Family get together Twilight, I'll see you tomorrow." Aquaris walked out his bag following behind him via levitation.

He walked his way down the cobblestone path heading back home; Afina was outside napping in a hammock tied between two posts. A bowl with a small amount of crystals in it sat next to her in the hammock.

"Afina wake up, I'm going to start dinner, your favorite crystal spiced chocobo fillet." Aquaris said as he lightly shook the hammock, she woke up and looked at him.

"Good evening Aquaris, enjoy your Date with Twilight?" Afina said playfully as she pawed his blushing cheek, her forked tongue playfully poked out.

"Afina, how many times do I have to tell you, to stop teasing me about that every time I hang out with anything female aside from you?" Aquaris said as he picked up her bowl and helped her hop out of the hammock.

"mmm… Dozens, maybe more." She said as she stretched her legs and walked beside him as they made their way to the door, Aquaris unlocked the door and went in, Afina right behind him, it was pitch black inside, the curtains pulled over the windows, and the lights off.

Aquaris stepped into the living room area, what came next was a surprise.

"OK three… two… one… SURPRISE!"