An Equestrian Odyssey

by Lord Iron Skull

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Human, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other, Adventure, Science Fiction
Length: 64942

A human girl and unicorn's quest to reach the fabled land of Equestria brings them face to face with one of the darkest secrets of Equestria's ancient past.

IMPORTANT: READ THE ENTIRE DESCRIPTION.

A downtrodden slave gets her hooves on a warlock's spellbook and uses it in a bid for her freedom. After being joined by a nerdy human girl who found a one-way ride into the pony world, the two set off on a dangerous journey to reach the fabled paradise called "The Kingdom of Equestria." However, unknown forces conspire around them with each step of their journey.

An Equestrian Odyssey takes place in an alternate universe after the events of JasonTheHuman's story Anthropology (Written with his permission). Odyssey is a self-contained narrative—reading of Anthropology is not required but recommended as it is an excellent story. Knowledge of Anthropology is only needed to understand how the character Charlotte is aware of ponies and Equestria.

Editing: Lab
Science Consultant: Kaily Hein
Magic Consultant: Xaviarsly

World Map used: Map
Original Map by by vikonaut for free use, edited for Odyssey by Tessi Flameheart

Warning: Lord Iron Skull did not write any chapters before chapter 11. Everything else was written by TessiFlameheart.

Published 2014-07-29 10:10:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-09-20 17:55:22 UTC

1 Atrum initium

1 Atrum Initium

Far to the southwest of Equestria, past the dusty badlands of the Mild West, beyond the Buffalo Lands and Appleoosa, through the soaring, jagged peaks of the Silent Reach, across the Amarezon jungle, amidst the rocky hills and scrubland that filled that region of the world, lay the Imperium of Midnight. Nopony from Equestria knew of this dismal place, akin to a dark mirror of the peaceful and joyous kingdom they enjoy. The ponies of the Imperium went about their daily business without smiles, moving around patrolling soldiers and avoiding eye contact with them and the Imperium’s other agents. The sound of lives and property being broken was common, background noise to the daily grind. It was a place of hardship, fear, and suffering, all of which was for the amusement of its sadistic Emperor and his two sons.

The Imperium had not always been such a grim place. Before a young unicorn had fought his way into the palace, using his dark magic to assume the throne as Emperor Servus Opifex, the Imperium had been a much kinder place. While many still remembered the days before his reign and actively resisted Emperor Opifex, most ponies did nothing more than live their lives as best they could. The peasants said the Emperor had once slain an alicorn, whose bones now decorated his throne. With such raw magical might and such evil within his heart, few remained who believed anypony could ever dethrone the Emperor—that it was better to live in fear than to become the next example of futility to your friends and family.

That was what Rare Luck believed at any rate. She was a unicorn who lived within the palace of the Emperor’s eldest son, Prince Bluesteel. This did not make her important. Rare was not an advisor, the prince’s chef, chamberlain, Captain of the Guard, or even a legionnaire. Rare was just one of the scullery maids on the kitchen staff and not even a freepony who happened to hold that lowest of jobs within the kitchens. She was a slave. Rare was perhaps the least important pony within the palace, and her life was little more than hard work from dusk till dawn hauling buckets of hot water to the kitchen, scrubbing tables and floors, disposing of all the kitchen’s waste, and washing pots, pans, and dishes all day every day. Her work was demanding, but at least she was left alone by the rest of the kitchen staff most of the time.

It wouldn’t have been such a bad life, but three years ago, a servant had been ill and so Rare had taken the prince his midday meal in his place. She had tripped, spilling the food onto her master. Bluesteel was every bit as cruel as his father, and ever since that day, he had taken a particular delight in adding misery to Rare’s life. To avoid his wrath Rare had taken to sleeping on the unused landing at the top of the palace’s northern tower.

There was not much room, just enough to set some barrels up to keep her small bed of hay and the small cloth bundle of her worldly possessions out of view. Few ponies ever came all the way up the north tower anyways, as the top landing only existed because of somepony’s mistake at reading blueprints all those years ago when the palace was being built. It was within this refuge that Rare plotted the ways she could escape from her hellish life.

The first few rays of the morning sun poked through the cracked shingles of Rare’s hideaway, a single ribbon of light washing over her dusty red coat and forming a halo around her mint-and-turquoise braided mane. After a few short moments of the sun’s warmth washing over her face, Rare slowly blinked the sleep from her eyes, her mismatched honey and grass green eyes quickly narrowing in the light. She spent a few moments lying still, enjoying the comfort of her hay before slowly twisting to her hooves to stand. The sun was up, so the kitchen fires needed to be lit. There was no time for any delay.

Rare hopped over the barrels that concealed her bed. The click of hoof on stone echoed through the tower as she descended the steps with practiced ease, spiraling down several floors with dizzying speed. Arriving at the ground floor, Rare stepped into the hallway before ducking into a servant’s passage so as to not bother any noble who might be awake at this hour. The passages were spread all throughout the palace, and even at this hour, Rare passed a number of other ponies hard at work with their own dawn duties. They didn’t speak to her, nor she to them. Nopony on the staff wanted to risk a conversation that might delay them even a minute.

The kitchen wasn’t too far from the north tower, which suited Rare well, as her list of tasks clearly stated that she was to light the ovens before anypony arrived to cook the day’s meals. As she entered the large high-ceilinged room that was the palace kitchen, Rare looked over the long preparation tables, which sat in a line in the middle of the room, hoping that someone might have left her a quick meal as someone on the night staff had on occasion. Seeing nothing, she sighed and moved to the first of the kitchen’s three brick ovens, peeking into the ashes of the last fire and hoping for a coal. Not even a hint of red was left in the coals, and a quick glance showed that the kitchen’s wood box was out of firewood as well. An entirely new fire would have to be lit today.

Fortunately, the firewood was kept in a small garden along the palace’s wall, just outside the kitchen’s other door. The iron hinges creaked as Rare gave the door a slight push with her magic. Hopefully she wouldn’t be asked to oil them later. The woodpile was kept close to the door, along with a large splitting axe that was needed to split the cut logs into burnable pieces. An earth pony had held this possession before Rare, and she often wondered how he had managed to split the firewood without any magic. It took Rare a fairly long time to split enough logs for all three ovens, and there was only a six hour or so supply, so she would have to split more later.

The strain from levitating the axe, moving the logs, gathering the split pieces, and putting them into a small cart for moving the tinder had already given her a headache. As she pulled the cart of firewood back into the kitchen, a smug melodic voice greeted her. “Hello there, Rare, slept in a bit today?”

The voice belonged to Patchcoat, one of the prince’s tutors for magic. The tall stallion’s grey-blue-and-black spotty coat and white mane were a welcome sight to Rare; the warlock was arguably her only friend in the palace. She quietly continued working, levitating wood from the wagon into each of the ovens on her way to load the kitchen’s wood box with the rest. Patchcoat preferred to talk at ponies instead of with them.

“Busy as usual,” Patch said, opening a cupboard in search of his morning snack. “I was talking to Steel the other day about you again. It is remarkable just how long that pony can hold a grudge.”

Rare sighed. Maybe if Patch stopped talking about her, the prince finally would forget. While the warlock kept rummaging about for sandwich ingredients, Rare searched for the kitchen’s flint and steel—it had a knack for getting lost. A few moments into her search, Rare heard Patch’s tsk-tsk of disapproval from across the kitchen. “Are you still using that silly thing? How will I ever get Steel to make you my assistant if you don’t display any magical aptitude? Light it yourself.”

“But the flint is right here,” Rare replied timidly, pointing to the tool laying half under the wood box. Ever since Patchcoat had noticed every member of the serving staff always asking Rare to look for things when they went missing and had learned it was because her special talent was finding places and things, Patchcoat had wanted to use her abilities as his assistant. Unfortunately, he had first asked Prince Bluesteel the same day Rare had spilled food all over him.

Patchcoat waved a hoof, his horn lighting up with a blue-black glow as he levitated the flint and steel onto the table behind him. “You don’t need it. You are not an earth pony, Rare. You are a unicorn. Sure, you may be another pony’s property, but you are still a unicorn. Light that fire.”

He wouldn’t leave her alone until she did, Patchcoat never did, and she still had the rest of her morning takes to do. “Ok.” Rare closed her eyes, Patch had showed her how to conjure fire once before, so she should have been able to do it again. A golden glow washed over her horn as she concentrated on the magic. How had the spell gone again?

“Relax your mind,” Patch said, “Fire is power, but you have power over it. Feel the park of warmth within your heart, fan it, give it a little air, let it burn.”

“I remember.” Rare grunted as a bead of sweat rolled down her face.

Suddenly the faint smell of smoke filled her nose. Opening her eyes, Rare saw a single gold flame dancing on the logs slowly that faded to orange as her flame bit into the firewood, slowly becoming little more than a mundane fire. A soft smile spread across her face. Magic was hard, but the little bit of power felt very nice.

“There you are! I’ll have you organizing my study yet.” Patchcoat grunted. He turned and floated a chunk of bread and a dollop of butter from the cupboard, holding it at head level just to his right as he began walking out of the kitchen. “Why don’t you light the others yourself as well? Show off some spellcraft, make yourself too valuable of a slave to be stuck in the kitchens. Don’t waste opportunities to improve yourself by using mundane tools.”

Well… I suppose I should try something at least, Rare thought to herself as she turned to the other two stoves. She wouldn’t have been the first slave to have been given a different job thanks to magical talent; she remembered that two years ago, two of the maids, who had been practicing magic, had been given to the army. She didn’t want to be a soldier, but with Patchcoat continuously asking for her, maybe that could be avoided. The thought cheered her up a little. Sure, Patchcoat just wanted to use her, but that would be better than—

“Rare! Breakfast is in two hours, and I see only one stove lit,” a mare’s voice angrily bellowed from behind Rare. She knew that voice well—it was the head cook. Rare had no idea what her name was, but the older mare demanded her staff call her “Miss.”

“Yes, Miss! Sorry, Miss!” Rare yelped, quickly moving to the second fireplace, and with a gulp, she closed her eyes to summon a flame. Fear quickened her casting but also made it sloppy, and a short burst of golden flame washed over the firewood, biting in and quickly setting the stack ablaze.

“You can magically light fires and are still unable to get the ovens lit on time? I have never seen such laziness in my life.” Rare winced. Miss only spoke to her at all when there was an important function that day. Stress rolled downhill in the kitchen. “His Majesty is coming to check on his son’s progress as a mage today, and I will not have your laziness and failures get me in trouble! The Emperor will be taking lunch here, so the second you get that fire lit, you are to wash and peel enough lettuce to feed at least forty ponies. I’ll have more for you to do then. Sunrise is still ill, so you will be making the salads… Oh, take stock of the garden before you do the lettuce. I want only fresh ingredients today, and I’ll need to know what kinds of salad I can make before I can come up with a proper entrée.”

“Yes, Miss,” Rare replied as she quickly sparked the last oven to life. The Emperor’s visits were always an ordeal; everypony in the palace could practically taste the tension in the air up to a day after he left. Even worse for Rare, Sunrise was still sick, which meant that she would be serving lunch today in Sunrise’s place, and dinner too, as the Emperor usually stayed overnight.

Taking stock of the garden took more time than it normally did for Rare. Lighting those fires with her magic right after splitting all that wood had given her a pounding headache. The numbers had kept slipping right out of her mind, and the names of plants refused to be recalled. In the end, Rare had to go back inside and get some parchment and a quill to write down an inventory of sorts. By the time she came back into the kitchen, ready to do the lettuce, Miss had already served breakfast to the nobles and staff. Piles of dishes sat next to the sink, waiting to be scrubbed clean.

Rare groaned at the sight of the dishes, slowly trotting over to them with the inventory scroll in her mouth and her ears drooping. “Rare, stop for a moment,” Miss’s voice ordered.

Rare turned her head, wincing as the motion prompted a throb from her headache, Miss’s blue-furred face filled her vision, a strand of her mint-and-pink mane hanging over her face, lips pursed in a concerned frown. “I’ll take that,” Miss announced, taking the scroll with her hoof and putting it on the table. “I made you a meal. Eat it, you look exhausted. I won’t have you underperforming from hunger.”

Rare’s eyes followed Miss’s pointing hoof to a mug of water and a small bowl filled with a simple salad. “Thank you, Miss,” she gratefully whispered trotting over to the small meal, quickly pouncing on the food.

It wasn’t a bad salad—the lettuce was a little old and the onion a touch bitter, but there were tomatoes in it, and the cheese tasted quite fresh. She had not eaten anything this nice in quite a while. It was a good treat, and the water went a long way to soothe her headache. She didn’t spend too much time eating; there simply wasn’t the time to truly enjoy the meal. Sure enough after only a few minutes, Miss was giving orders, her hooves busy moving pots and utensils for later use as she prepared the kitchen for the Imperial Luncheon.

Over the next five hours, Rare’s hooves and magic were constantly occupied. Dozens of pots and pans needed to be scrubbed between each stage of meal preparation. Miss needed help preparing enough of each ingredient to make enough wild-mushroom risotto to feed twice the expected attendees. A full chickpea salad needed to be made to accompany each meal. Midway through cooking, Miss decided to include another entrée as an option for those who might want it, which meant that two different side dishes needed to be prepared as well. Making matters worse, the prince’s legion was out in full dress uniform for the Emperor’s visit, and with Sunrise gone, somepony had to take them their lunches.

Fortunately, the legionaries’ meals were simple: some bread, a little butter, and some water. A meager meal to be sure, but a little hunger was said to keep a pony alert on a long shift in the hot sun. So when enough prep work had been completed, Miss filled a small cart with the guard’s meals and Rare hitched herself to it. She pulled the cart through the grounds, giving each guard his ration as she found them. The palace was a huge place, but Rare knew its white marble floors, plaster-coated fresco and tapestry-decorated walls, and vaulted ceilings like the back of her hoof. Besides, there were only twenty guard posts within the palace.

Of course, there were also meals to deliver out on the grounds as well. Fortunately, nopony was posted in the large gardens surrounding the palace or the orchard. This meant that Rare only had to pull her cart down the main path to feed the legionaries mustered along the path to the gatehouse for the Emperor’s visit, then make a circuit atop the outer wall to finish her task. She had reached the gatehouse, and had just floated a bundled ration to a legionnaire she assumed was barely a colt and was preparing to pull her cart up the steps when a voice called out, “Royalty approaches! Legion, atten-shun!”

There was a thunderous clattering of hooves as the legionaries scrambled to form ranks, the equites quickly forming a tunnel of plate armor and raised lances immediately in front of the slowly creaking open gates, the regular legionaries grouping up into their centuries and forming a long hallway of dipping banners displaying the Emperor’s personal crest alongside Prince Bluesteel’s own emblem. Rare gulped, the legionaries had trapped her directly in the middle of the path!

What do I do? I can’t jump over the soldiers. That would leave the cart in the middle of the path. Rare’s heart beat fast, skipping the occasional beat as a deep panic began to take hold of her.

The gates boomed as the ironbound wooden doors thudded into the stone. The Emperor stood directly on the threshold, his personal entourage a pony’s length behind him. Nopony would know the evil within the Emperor just by looking at him. His eyes were a warm golden hue, his coat a soft dusty grey; his black mane and tail were rather striking but nothing too unusual. His horn was fairly large for a unicorn, almost comically so. If it wasn’t for the silver circlet, which rested across his brow, the long, flowing white-and-gold embroidered cloak, and the shining, blued Damascus-steel plate mail, which rested beneath the billowing cloth, Emperor Opifex could have been anypony.

The Emperor’s boots scraped the stone threshold as he entered the palace grounds, entourage pulling two full wagons after him with a century of Pegasi bringing up the rear dressed in field plate and armed for war. It looked like the Emperor had been out expanding the Imperium again. His eyes scanned over the ranks of assembled legionaries, stopping directly on Rare the second they turned on her. Rare felt as if she were nailed to the spot as he stepped closer, each stride seeming to move more and more slowly until the Emperor was but inches from her. His golden eyes seemed to cut into her as he asked in a voice akin to the smell of honey and bitter almonds, “Does my son have so little respect for his father that he sends a slave to greet me at the gate?”

Rare gulped and quickly looked around; there was only the Emperor, his entourage, the legionaries, and herself. “N-n-n,” Rare stammered

“Speak up.” A magical spark raced from his horn and struck Rare’s neck.

The spell burned like fire for an instant before a feeling of being immersed in water replaced it, snapping Rare out of her fear-frozen state. “No, Your Majesty, I was simply bringing your legion their midday meal, sire.” Her left forehoof kicked at the ground nervously.

The Emperor’s face twisted into a thin, sickly grin. “I see. Well, I hope he has been more attentive to my wishes in his studies than he has been to showing me the proper respect. Carry on with your task, slave. A soldier is useless to me when he is hungry.”

Rare bowed low and stepped aside as quickly as she could, holding her breath until the Emperor had entered the palace itself and the legion broke formation to resume their duties. A few of them came up and quietly took their meals as Rare shook with shock and elation that she had not been simply blasted aside.

“You are a brave one, girl.” An equite said as he took a meal from the cart. “Lucky too. His Majesty appears to be having a rather excellent day.”

Rare looked up at the soldier’s visor slit. She couldn’t see any part of him under the armor, and he looked almost a statue. Talking to him felt safe. “You can say that again,” she said with a shaky laugh.

He gave her a nod and, with a quick spell, unhitched the cart. “I will have a legionnaire bring this back later. Unless I am mistaken, you belong to the kitchen staff and they are down a mare. Our Emperor will be wanting to eat after traveling, and if we can keep his good mood going, perhaps he will have us transferred to the front… Well not you, pity that.”

“Yes, sir!” Rare gulped, realizing that the day was not even half over and she still had far more tasks to perform.

Rare galloped directly back to the kitchen and was immediately given a laundry list of tasks to accomplish by Miss—everything from helping place meals to moving and setting tables. If it required any heavy lifting or a lot of work at once, Rare had to do it, as that was the price for having magic in this kitchen. Miss was also hard at work setting up trolleys for serving the various dishes in each course of the meal, checking on the soups to be sure they were cooked properly, and polishing the good silverware. There was so much to do that Rare scarcely noticed when the lunch actually began.

Somewhere between her levitating the appetizers onto the table and getting the trolley with all the drinks, the room had filled with all manner of nobles and high-ranking legionaries.

The Emperor and his son were seated next to each other at the center of the longest table with their staff seated around the two opposing corners of the C-shaped arrangement of tables. Everypony was dressed in fine clothing or armor, hushed conversations echoed around the dining hall, and the clink of glasses on cloth-covered wood filled the air. Rare moved along the lines of ponies, offering each the selection of wines and pouring glasses for everypony, each filled glass bringing her closer to the Emperor. Will he remember me? Rare wondered nervously as she drew closer and closer to the ornate wooden throne upon which he was seated.

Soon enough, Rare was close enough to overhear the Emperor’s conversation with Prince Bluesteel. “You certainly have kept your legion in line. I am not disputing that, but I did not have a son just to gain another commander for my legionaries. I had you to try and find an heir for my conquests, not just to raise some colt,” the Emperor said in a calm tone, spitting the last word like a venomous snake.

“I understand that, Father, but what more is there to being you than commanding the legions? If I desire something, I tell them to do it and they do it. It’s as simple as that.” The prince scoffed.

The Emperor’s lips parted in a thin grin. “They do ‘it’ not because you gave them an order, but because I ordered them to obey you. I have invested twenty years, and you have only learned how to use the fear of me to command by proxy. You know nothing of the running of an empire; you cannot even run your own house.”

The Emperor pointed with one hoof to Rare. She froze quickly, heart starting to pound in her chest. Her eyes focused on the Emperor as everypony else watched the prince in horror, realizing what this Imperial visit was truly about but missing something small that Rare did not. A faint gold aura washed just over the surface of the Emperor’s horn before moving to the tip and spiderwebbing off, connecting everypony in the room for the briefest of instants. Rare blinked, her expression changing from fear to confusion. What was that? A spell? I don’t feel any different, she thought as the Emperor resumed speaking.

“This slave not only served meals to all of the guards in you palace but also set up the dining hall for our luncheon, preparing most of the food we all are eating as well. Your kitchen is running on but a skeleton crew, as is your cleaning staff, your gardeners can barely keep your grounds from being overrun with undesired plants, and many of your guards are posted in locations so useless you may as well sleep in an open field. You have allowed the well-oiled machine of a household I gave you to fall into a state of barely functioning garbage, all because it would hurt your pride to ask me for more slaves. You put your pride before your own power, and if I had said nothing you would continue to do so until this house could not run at all. Even a blind filly could see you are not capable of running an empire, let alone fit to inherit mine.”

The prince sneered and started to retort, “Maybe I can run my palace with less slaves by working them harder. Not everything works the way you—“

“If you stress a sword too much it breaks, then you must buy another sword. You only lose wealth by abusing your tools. Now be silent, I am nowhere near done!” A gold aura engulfed the Emperor’s wineglass as he levitated it over to Rare. “Dandelion, chilled,” he ordered in a calm tone. Rare quickly filled his glass and stepped back from the table as far as she dared. The Emperor’s gaze turned to Patchcoat, who was seated four places past his son. “Warlock, come here.” As Patchcoat trotted over his saddlebag caught on the chair of the pony to his left, the button tearing off with a loud rip.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Patchcoat replied, eyes looking to the ripped bag for a moment with a flash of irritation.

“I am willing to bet that my son has let his education fall into as much ruin as this palace,” the Emperor mused, moving his glass to his lips for a brief sip. “I ordered you to learn sorcery, both for war and for general use. I even graciously provided you with a fine tutor. Without this warlock training my magically talented legionaries, I have noticed a drop in battlemage quality. You will show me if that price has been paid in vain or not. Warlock, put a block of ice as large as eight ponies between the tables.”

“As you wish, sire,” Patchcoat replied, giving a quick bow before facing the center of the room and with one quick pulse of blue-and-black mana and a sound like a dozen panes of glass cracking, a massive block of ice formed at a slight angle between the three tables, vapor pouring off its surface.

“I don’t see—“ Prince Bluesteel started.

“How surprising, you do not see. Crush it into pieces no bigger than your hoof.”

The prince’s eyes widened in a mixture of fear and confusion. “What?”

“The ice. Crush it with your magic. Not one piece is to be bigger than your hoof.” The Emperor’s eyes narrowed, each word taking on a more menacing tone then the last.

Bluesteel gulped, standing up from his chair with a squeak of wood on stone. He took a half step back, as if to flee, before leveling his horn at the ice and closing his eyes in intense concentration. A pale gold aura enveloped his horn as he summoned forth his magic, beads of sweat quickly pooling on his forehead until, with a crack, the prince fired a beam of energy at the block, the spell striking the ice and blasting a melon-sized chunk out of the side.

“Pathetic.” The Emperor scoffed even as the prince fired a second beam, and a third, each one breaking off a little less than the last. “Warlock, do you think you can even hope to educate this colt?”

Patchcoat was quiet for a moment, his face expressing a good amount of doubt. “Sire, I have trained many warlocks, battlemages, sorcerers, and even ordinary legionaries for you before. I can train your son as well… but if you permit me, my failure up until now has been solely because you have not given me enough power over him. I cannot force him to learn like I could with all of my other students.”

“I see.” The Emperor nodded, taking a sip of his wine before glancing at the prince, who fired another bolt at the ice. “Be quiet, colt, the adults are talking. I do not suppose that other than permission to strike him and authority over his slaves and servants, you will require anything else?”

Patchcoat nodded. “Yes. The slave serving drinks there, she has a remarkable talent for discovering the places others have lost things, and my divinations have shown she has a fair amount of magical potential. I have been asking your son for some time now to sell her to me so that I might make her my assistant. However, he rather enjoys toying with her, so not only have I not been able to do so, but giving her to me would be just the personal blow required for a parental punishment to start whipping the colt into shape.”

For a split-second the web blinked into view again, Rare’s eyes spotted a tiny spark race from the Emperor to the prince. A small grin formed on the Emperor’s face, as if he knew something no one else did. As the spark faded into his coat Prince Bluesteel’s eyes blazed, the gold aura around his horn flaring brightly as it formed a blazing mass of fire. “I will not have this peasant in authority over me!” Twisting his head, the prince pointed his horn at Patchcoat, and a head-sized bolt of fire streaked towards the warlock!

Patchcoat quickly threw up a shield, the golden fire slamming into the thin blue bubble, which deformed under the blow. A second bolt of fire lanced from the prince’s horn, and the Emperor’s smile remained as the second blast tore through the bubble, the flames quickly eating through Patchcoat’s clothing and the flesh underneath. Patchcoat screamed in pain, his shield collapsing as he staggered to the side, throwing a quick blue bolt of mana at the prince which was quickly engulfed by the enraged prince’s third bolt of fire, which arced through the air, striking Patchcoat’s head and exploding in a gold-and-black flash. Patchcoat was thrown across the room, his clothing and bags falling off his back as he tumbled through the air, striking the wall with a sickening crack before landing on the floor as a mess of charred flesh and broken bones.

The dining hall erupted in a chaos of panicked ponies’ screams of fear. Several lesser nobles dove under the table while a group of legionaries quickly formed up around the Emperor and others moved to block the exits to the room. Rare sprinted towards a tapestry on the wall, hoping to hide behind it, only to trip over something and fall to the marble floor, sliding in a half circle. Sitting where her hoof had kicked it, just within her reach, was the object she had tripped over, a thick leatherbound book with arcane runes covering the spine. Patchcoat’s spellbook!

“Legionaries, seize my son,” Rare heard the Emperor order over the chaos in the room.

No one is paying attention to me, Rare realized, everyone is watching the prince! Moving as quickly as she could, Rare got to her hooves and picked up the spellbook with a hoof, walked to the drink trolley, and slid the book onto the lower shelf, where the white cloth hid it from view. Rare’s eyes quickly scanned the room, a look of fear on her face. Please let no one have seen that… she begged.

The prince winced suddenly, shaking his head before giving a startled yelp as four of the Emperor’s equites tackled him, pinning him to the ground and wrestling him into a submission hold. “Let me go!” he bellowed as the Emperor calmly sat back down, taking another sip from his glass.

“You are a pathetic fool, colt. Had you taken your studies seriously, you could not have been so easily manipulated into providing me with some amusement.” The Emperor chuckled softly, setting his glass down on the table. “It is good to see that you have some ability with magic despite your distaste for learning. Still, you have killed a valuable member of my nobility. Everyone not holding my son down, please return to your seats.”

A hush spread over the dining hall, and ponies slowly moved back to their seats one by one, turning their gaze to their meal and avoiding looking at the Emperor or the prince with any more than a quick, nervous glance.

The prince’s expression was awash with terror as he looked up at the Emperor’s face. His mouth opened to speak but the Emperor spoke first, “You are my son, so I will give you one single chance to change. You have six months to learn how to run your house, master battle magic, and learn how to properly be my subject. Now, because I cannot let murder go unpunished, Centurion.”

Hearing his rank, the legionnaire holding the Prince’s left foreleg stood up, raising his right hoof in a salute. “Sire!”

“Take my son into the yard and have him flogged. Seventy lashes as befitting a murderer. Continue even if he falls unconscious, and when you are done, throw him into his dungeons.”

“Yes your majesty.” The Centurion nodded to the other legionaries holding the prince, who quickly picked him up with a spell and marched him out of the room, the prince’s pleas and screams of rage echoing off the walls as they faded into the distance. “Legate, find my son’s captain of the guard. Order him to let him out of whatever cell he is put in after three days. That should be long enough for him to realize that I am serious.”

A tall, green-armored unicorn seated to the Emperor’s right stood up, bowed, and left the room. Every other pony slowly left the room as well, one or two at a time. Rare wondered if she should leave too and had just begun to push the trolley towards the kitchen when the last pony left the hall. It was only herself and the Emperor calmly eating his chickpea salad as if there wasn’t a corpse behind him.

“Slave,” the Emperor’s voice cut across the room.

Rare squeaked. She turned to look over her shoulder. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“Tell the cook to bring out the next course. I am quite enjoying this lunch today.”

Rare nodded and resumed pushing the cart, each step bringing a pang of fear that the spellbook would fall from the cart. She just had to get to the kitchen, stash the book atop the cupboards, wait until night, and get the book to her bed… Oh gods why did I take the book? I am so dead if anyone even thinks I took—

“Oh yes,” the Emperor’s words shattered her thoughts, “about that little item you have in the trolley there.”

Rare’s eyes widened, her knees shook, and her ears turned rigid. He knew!

“Keep it. Anything you do with that dusty old tome will simply amuse me. Of course, I am sure you know what happens if somepony else finds you with it.”

The Emperor’s amused chuckling followed Rare’s terrified steps out of the dining hall and stuck with her even as she lay tossing and turning that night, stolen spellbook hidden under her mattress.

Author's Note

Thank you Dracofalcon for the editorial and proofreading help! I have changed the paragraph format from indented to returns based on user feedback. Please help me make reading my work better for you by pointing out other things I could do better.

2 Caecum initium

2 Caecum Initium

That night, when Rare had finally finished all of her kitchen duties and been dismissed until morning, she raced up the stairs, the prohibited spellbook held close to her chest lest someone see her with it. The stairs to her hidden bed felt far longer than usual, and each click of hoof on stone brought with it a tinge of fear that someone might discover her. When she came to the top of the stairs, she leapt the barrels that hid her small “room” from sight and immediately hid the book under the hay of her mattress. Breathing heavily, Rare took a few long minutes to calm down as well as to make sure she had not been followed.

Once she was reasonably sure that she would be undisturbed for the night, Rare could not help but slide the book out to look at it. The thick tome was bound in crudely preserved black leather. Blackened iron hinges supported its thick spine and formed a book-length clasp to hold the book shut. Dull-red arcane runes that Rare could not read were inked into its spine. The same red faded ink was used for a sigil on the front of the book, a large circle filled lines that formed with a five-pointed star overlaid with other carefully drawn lines, a few of which ended in small circles. Taking a deep breath, Rare opened the clasp with her hoof, carefully opened the cover, and sighed in relief as she discovered the pages had been written with words she could read.

I think I can read for a little while. Unfortunately for Rare, this meant she would have to quietly sound out each word. Hopefully, no one would hear her whispers echoing off the walls. “To understand magic, one must first understand its sources. While there are many sources, a warlock need only concern himself with the most potent and abundant ones. The most abundant magic comes from within one’s self as a manifestation of will and base emotions such as hatred, joy, and fear. A far more powerful source of magical power is another's emotions towards one’s self. With this source, the stronger the emotion, the more magic the warlock has available to channel. Equally important is cultivating positive or negative emotions. Fear, respect, and love are all potent sources, but it is important to note that true friendship appears to possess more power but is far harder to earn. However it is earned, a warlock must achieve a sizable pool of magical energy, preferably of a potent nature. Fortunately, basic spells can be cast using only one’s personal power.”

Rare stopped reading for a moment to think. There isn’t much I can use in this book then. No one feels anything towards me. There isn’t a single person here I could make friends with, since slaves don’t talk to each other. As for making someone respect me… Yeah, right. Rare frowned, her ears drooping in sadness. Unless I can find something small in here that I can do… No! There has to be something in here I can use. I’ll know it when I see it. Determined to find some way she could seize even the smallest bit of control over her life, Rare read until her eyes began to droop.

Sleepily, she pushed the book aside to lay down, yawning as she mumbled, “A friend would be nice, even if they didn’t boost my magic.”

A moment later, as she fell asleep with the open book beside her, a dim red light lit up Rare’s bed. With a metallic creak the spellbook slowly closed, the sigil on its face washing the entire area in crimson light.

“It has been a long time since one of your blood last touched my grimoire,” a raspy voice said, the sigils’ lines twisting and pulsing as the voice spoke. “A long time even for me. I thank you for the window into your world.”

The red light slowly spread outwards from the book, seeping through cracks in the tower roof. After a few seconds, the voice chuckled, a horrible sound to which Rare began to toss and turn in her sleep. “They are all dead, save the useless cripple. How joyous. Arranging his death should be quite simple. in fact… I think I’ll have you do it. What do you say, mortal, will you kill the last of my jailors for some magical might and a friend?”

Rare groaned, squirming atop her hay bed. The red glow shrank back into the tower, swirling around her slowly. “Of course you will. He is nothing to you. Why, you don’t even know he exists,” the voice smugly rasped.

“I will even search all the worlds to find you the perfect friend. Freedom after countless eons and the return of one’s rule deserves a valuable reward, as I am sure you can agree.” The red glow slowly shrank back, returning to the book’s cover, where it quickly shifted between countless magic circles as the light continued to fade. As the glow almost vanished completely, the voice spoke again. “There, she will do. I don’t even have to waste power bringing her across the void; another is working to trick her into coming here already. I will guide her here when she crosses the void between worlds, fulfilling my side of our bargain. Now to ensure you do not forget to do your part.”

A crimson spark leapt from the book and struck Rare’s horn, a dull red glow washing over it as the horn grew a few inches longer, curving back towards her tail ever so slightly. “The pact is sealed,” the voice whispered faintly as the glow left the book entirely, leaving it as seemingly mundane as it had been before.

~~

Worlds away from Equestria on the same day Rare unknowingly entered a pact, the person whom the voice had referenced lay asleep in her bed. The first rays of the sun moved through the gaps in the blinds, the pattern of slits barely illuminating the large bedroom. A laptop’s glowing screen added just enough light to the room to see an assortment of furniture, most notably a loft bed. The desk beneath the elevated bed was covered in an assortment of gutted electronics, a soldering station, 3D printer, a few text books, and an older model of smart phone.

“Good morning, Charlotte,” an electronic voice greeted as its screen lit up. “The time is 5:30 AM. It is currently sixty-eight degrees. You requested I wake you early for your experiment today.”

Atop the bed, Charlotte groaned sleepily, shifting under the covers in an attempt to ignore whatever that sound had been. Rolling over onto her face, long brown hair spread over her bed as she groggily stared into her pillow for a few more minutes.

“It is 5:34 AM. Are you getting up this morning, sir?” The voice asked, managing a slight tone of concern in its feminine sound.

“Five more minutes, Jaesa…” Charlotte moaned, pulling her blankets further up to try and block out more sound and light.

“That will leave you only four minutes of leeway to arrive at work, sir. Shall I unschedule the experiment?”

Charlotte blinked, sitting up quickly. “Oh crap, right!”

She quickly rolled out of bed, feet thumping to the floor as she slid down five feet, pink pajama pants and t-shirt fluttering slightly. Searching around her clothing strewn floor, she grabbed a pair of jeans, slipped them on, and rummaged around until she found her old leather sandals, slipped them onto her feet, and snatched the phone from her desk. Can’t miss checking what happens on the summer equinox, she thought, grabbing her phone and slipping it into her pants pocket. “Jaesa, tell me exactly when the sun is just over the horizon.”

“Yes, sir,” Jaesa’s voice confirmed, the sound coming from Charlotte’s pocket.

“And stop calling me ‘sir!’ I swear I programmed you to say ‘ma’am’.”

“You did. I do it just to spite you, sir.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes and moved to her dresser, opening a small wooden jewelry box that sat atop it. Inside sat two large feathers, one a pale blue and the other a grayish magenta. She had kept these two feathers safe for two years, ever since they had fallen in front of her while she had been cowering behind a trashcan as six humans and six ponies confronted that chaos daemon. She carefully took each feather in one hand, then took two pieces of a straw that were filled with clay and carefully inserted the feathers quill-first into the straws, weighting both of them with three grams of clay and plastic.

Holding the feathers tightly in one hand, she slipped on a dark-green jacket, grabbed a small tan backpack from beside her bedroom door, and with an irritated face, opened the door, stepping into the hallway of the apartment she shared with her parents. Be asleep still… she mentally begged, moving through the hallway into the living room/kitchen where–“Charlotte! You are not leaving the house dressed like that! That outfit is a walking disaster and an eyesore.”

Charlotte made a sound that was half-groan and half-growl. “I don’t have time for your fashion crap! I’m already late for work!”

Her mother put her hands on her hips as she stood up from the couch, her carefully arranged outfit slightly rumpled from what Charlotte presumed was sitting in wait to yell at her first thing in the morning. “You listen to your mother, young girl! Change! Now!”

“Sir would like me to remind you that she will be turning eighteen in a few weeks and can therefore make her own decisions,” Jaesa said, her voice not muffled enough by Charlotte’s pocket.

“Of all the useless crap your father left you, he had to leave that stupid gadget.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes and started walking toward the door. “Yeah well, she’s a better mom than you are.”

Her mother gasped, her face reddening in anger. “You get back he–“

The slam of the apartment door cut off her mom’s voice for the moment. She knew that she had six seconds before her mom wrenched the door open to scream at her some more. Sprinting down the hallway to avoid more confrontation with her mother, Charlotte ran for the stairwell and headed up. Her footsteps echoed on the concrete steps as she ran up the five flights to the roof-access door, nudging it open with her shoulder. As she stepped out onto the roof, the stink of the city air hit her like a hammer. Burnt gas, old socks, and raw meat was the best description she had for “Eu de NYC.”

Squinting towards the sunlight, Charlotte hummed. “Jeasa, how long until the sun’s in position?”

“About two minutes.”

She nodded and slipped off her backpack, walking to the eastern edge of the fourteen-story building before setting the pack down, carefully climbing over the edge, and lowering herself onto the first level of the fire escape. Fortunately, the guy who owned the apartment whose window she was in front of kept his curtains closed in the mornings. Moving as quickly she could manage without screwing up any of her setup, Charlotte clicked her phone into a custom-printed case that allowed her to snap it to the fire escape’s railing, took a small tripod from her backpack and set it up with a small dropping rig, and clicked the two clay-tipped feathers into place.

“Jaesa, start recording. Track the feathers. When I drop the feathers, film at high speed and follow their descent.”

“Sure thing, Charlotte,” the AI replied, her phone flashing its screen as the camera turned on.

Looking into the camera, Charlotte smiled, “Hey, guys! I got the pegasi feathers again today. It’s the summer solstice, so I thought I would see if we get any different results today. Cuz you know, magic, solstice.”

She shrugged as she offered a slight grin; Charlotte never really knew exactly how to do an intro to her videos. “In case you need a reminder,” she continued, “each feather weighs five grams with the clay attached. Given the mass, the properties of a feather, and the height of the drop, they should hit the ground between eight and twelve seconds. However, they typically hit after twenty-seven to thirty seconds, indicating that they possess far more air resistance then they–“

“It’s time, sir.”

“Sweet! Here we go!” She pressed the release on the dropping rig, and both feathers started slowly falling to the ground below.

As they fell, the two feathers caught the sunlight and twirled slowly. Nothing happened for a moment, then suddenly, the blue feather rippled, a rainbow of light forming a slight trail behind it as it dropped almost as if it were a prism, and the purple one shimmered and sparkled faintly. The two feathers danced, moving closer to each other until they gently brushed together. A purple spark jumped between the two, and they seemed to hover in place for an instant before slowly resuming their fall. Down and down they floated until the faint tap of the weighted tips hitting pavement signified they had touched the ground.

“Whoa…” Charlotte said with awe, “Did you see that?”

“No. Woe is me, to have eyes and yet be unable to see,” Jessa bemoaned in a dreadfully hammy sounding tone.

“Don’t ruin it.” Why did dad include all that junk poetry in her data files? “Well, I think that speaks for itself. Stop recording.” Charlotte moved with lightning speed to take down her experiment’s setup as quickly as possible before something could happen to her feathers. A moment later, pack refilled with her gear and Jaesa stashed back in her pocket, Charlotte hopped onto the ladder, sliding down each segment and hopping to the next as quickly as she could manage. It wasn’t hard; she had ran this particular test dozens of times.

She didn’t pause when her feet hit the ground. Turning as quickly as she could, Charlotte spotted the feathers midway into the alley and atop a soggy piece of cardboard. Thank god a cat didn’t pick them up this time. She thought as she scooped them up, lovingly straightening them out between her fingers only to gasp in surprise, “Jaesa! Append to file – Pegasi Feathers: During the solstice drop, the feathers reacted to each other with different visual effects before moving towards each other mid-drop and slowing the fall dramatically. Upon recovery, the feathers were warm to the touch. Further research will be required.”

“Text appended to file,” Jaesa said as Charlotte slipped a small plastic tube from her pack’s left pocket, carefully sliding the feathers inside. After the feathers were safely stored in her backpack, she turned and walked out of the alleyway, as it was time to go be miserable for eight hours. Unknown to Charlotte, once her back had turned, the water stain on the cardboard slowly shifted, the shape transforming from a random splotch into the face of an equine creature with one gnarled horn and a single antler. The eyes tracked Charlotte as she walked away. The lips grinned, then the face vanished, leaving behind only a dry scrap of cardboard.

~~

Charlotte worked at a small gas station several miles from her apartment building. The Hess station she worked at was fairly far away–far enough that she kept two tasers on her belt along with some pepper spray. The second was in case the first one ran out of juice. While nothing had ever happened to her personally, Charlotte knew it was just a matter of time. This was New York, she was a female, and any given news broadcast would show some other girl being raped, mugged, murdered, or kidnapped. So the weapons adorned her belt, even though she figured she would never be quick enough to use them in time.

However, she just might end up using them on her manager. An extra two hours on the clock… Why the hell do they even put an end time on the schedule? I never leave on time. She grumbled to herself as she swept the floors for the fifth time that day. The endless flood of customers constantly tracked dirt into the store. But that wasn’t all she had to do. No, big boss Jessica apparently thought Charlotte was actually the Flash and could super speed through sweeping the floors, mopping them, stocking the shelves, manning the second register anytime more than one customer was in the store, and keeping cooked foods fully stocked under the heating lamps at all times, all of which she was apparently to do for every second of every work day while still having time to unload any trucks that came in, organize the backroom, and clean up any messes that occurred in the storefront.

The wet, heaving sound of someone throwing up hit Charlotte’s ears like a tsunami, snapping her out of her train of thought. Turning her head with an audible groan, she spotted a middle-aged man, clearly drunk, vomiting up what she assumed was a fifth of Jack and a meal from Jack-in-the-Box all over chip isle. “Come on! Can’t you do that outside?” Charlotte moaned, leaning her broom against a Pepsi display.
“Oh no… I’m sorry, Char,” her coworker said with genuine regret.

The drunk stumbled back, giving one last heave before simply stumbling out of the store as if all he had come to do was make an offering to the porcelain god and had simply forgotten the way to the altar.

“It’s fine,” she mumbled, quickly moving for the backroom. With any luck, she could clean up the mess before Jessica emerged from her office of slacking off to yell at her to do more things more quickly. She had retrieved a mop and had just gotten it filled with hot water when, from the storefront, she heard her manager’s outraged shout.

“Oh for Christ’s sake! Hina, where is Charlotte? Get her to clean this mess up.”

“She is already on it, Kainushi,” Hina replied in a crisp, pleasant-sounding tone.

Hina was a former Japanese exchange student who was currently staying in America on a work visa. She was one of the only friends Charlotte had ever made at work and the only one that hadn’t quit or been fired. While her English was amazing, Hina enjoyed using Japanese nicknames for people. What does that even mean? Charlotte wondered as she added sanitizer to the mop bucket. I wish I spoke Japanese… Hold on, Jaesa does!

“Jaesa, translate Japanese to English. Kainushi.”

“‘Kainushi’ has several possible meanings: Buyer, owner, purchaser, or shepherd” the Ai replied.

Charlotte frowned a little bit. That hadn’t really helped. Oh well, machine translations are kinda crappy. I guess I could just ask. She sighed and wheeled the mop bucket over to the rank mess, trying not to gag as she started to mop up the amber glop.

“There you are.” Jessica huffed as she walked over, her age middle-aged face looking especially indignant. “I want this mess cleaned up in five minutes. You still need to get the shelves stocked. Oh and since Brandon is late, you will need to do his opening jobs. Get the soda fountain refilled with ice and replace any syrup bags if they are empty.”

“I have no idea how you change the syrup, are there any inst-“

“Just do the damn job!” Jessica turned abruptly and headed back for the manager’s office, grumbling under her breath.
Charlotte clenched her teeth, hand moving under her untucked workshirt to her right hip where her old X3 was holstered. Jessica was still in range, just one five-second shock and– “No… No, Charlotte, that’s a felony,” she growled under her breath, doing her best to put all of her anger into swirling the mop across the floor.

A second after the office door slammed, Hina called, “Hey, Sekushi, next time do it. I’ll delete the security footage and we can call it a heart attack.”

“God I wish!” Charlotte exclaimed. “But I’m not supposed to own one… State law and stuff. So you know, jail.”

Hina frowned. “Really? I thought you were supposed to have that second-amendment thing in this country. You know, the ‘I can own any weapon I like law’.”

Charlotte blinked. Is that what foreigners call it? “Um, well… Politicians don’t really seem to care about any of the Constitution these days, so yeah. Hell in this state, I am pretty sure that it’s illegal for you to own any weapon, like even knives.”

“Why?”

“Well, you are not a US citizen yet, right? Back when I was trying to figure out what I should use, I noticed that foreigners are not allowed to even own pocket knives.”

Hina rolled her eyes and mumbled a bit of Japanese that Charlotte was pretty sure was a rant about ‘whitey’. “Well forget that. I was already robbed once here. I’m not throwing out my tanos.”

“Yep! Same reason I’m not going to follow the ‘No you can’t own a stun gun’ law. In fact I ordered a better melee weapon the other day.”

The store’s bell dinged, and the two girls quickly stopped talking as Hina rang up a few bucks of gas for the customer, who spent a full minute calling Hina’s vibrant purple hair “faggy” before she exploded with a mixture of Japanese and English. “Kusu o taberu na! Baka kuso atama, I’m a girl! They told me Americans were idiots, but you can’t even make a sensible insult!”

The resulting fight lasted for a good five minutes until Jessica stormed out of the office, apologized to the hoodie-clad douchebag, then began an excruciating ten-minute tirade at Hina on how to treat a customer. With that “pleasant” background noise filling her ears, Charlotte managed to finish mopping up the sick, swept the floor, and had stocked the shelves with a fair amount of merchandaise when she noticed that the argument had suddenly stopped. Charlotte curiously stood up and looked towards the counter to see both women staring at the floor with embarrassed looks on their faces. What did I just miss?

“I, um, see,” the older woman awkwardly said.

“So, maybe just lay off ok?” Hina asked

“Look, I get that he called you something… Nevermind. Just… Don’t do it again,” Jessica said, biting her lip before zipping back into her office.

Hina sighed and sat down behind the counter. She spent a full minute like that before a few teens came in and attempted to buy some snacks. Hearing her coworker mumble something about needing a minute, Charlotte quickly moved behind the counter and opened the other register. “Sorry, guys, she had a pretty intense fight with the manager. I’ll help you over here.”

Once the kids were out of the store, Charlotte squatted down next to Hina. “Hey, are you ok?”

“No… I said more than I should have to anyone here,” Hina mumbled, eyes watering.

“Oh, I’m sorry. What was it? I kinda tuned out your whole fight.”

Hina turned slightly, looking at Charlotte with one eye. “You don’t need to spare my feelings.”

“No really, I have no idea what you were fighting about other than you snapping at that jerk. I don’t pay attention to Jessica’s bitching unless it’s at me. You know this.”

Hina nodded. “Yeah… so only the kainushi knows then… That’s still pretty bad.”

“Knows what?” Charlotte asked, sounding a bit too curious.

“Nothing I want to talk to Sekushī-chan about yet.” Hina sighed, slowly getting to her feet.

Charlotte understood how rotten Jessica could make someone feel when they were having a good day. The both of them had a rotten day so far, so Charlotte had no idea how horrible Hina must feel right now. Her face looked like someone had just punched her in the kidney. Mulling an idea over in her brain for a second, Charlotte asked, “Hey, want to walk home together? We get off at the same time today, and I could show you something cool.”

“That actually would be really nice,” Hina answered, a cheerful grin spreading across her cheeks.

~~

A few hours later after their replacements had clocked on and Jessica had finally let them clock out, Charlotte and Hina were walking together down the street. They spent a few minutes completely quiet, the sounds of the city filling the air as they went. Some time was needed to decompress and realize that it was OK to not do work things together. As the two waited for the first crosswalk to change, Charlotte decided they should start talking. “So that nickname thing you do, like um, cane-you-she. That is, however you say it, what’s it mean?”

Hina snickered and slightly grinned, giving a quick flash of her teeth as she replied, “Well in context, it’s pretty close to ‘slave master.’ But if she ever asks, I’ll say it means ‘shepherd’.”

Charlotte laughed at the revelation until the two had made their way across the road, and she jokingly asked, “So, what kinda insult is ‘Sekushī’?”

Hina blushed and turned to look off into the street for a moment. “Oh um, it’s just a nickname.”

Raising an eyebrow, Charlotte asked again, “Come on, Hina, what’s it mean?”

“It’s just a nickname. Like um, whatever a common generic nickname for Americans is. Do you have nicknames like that? We do. Oh! Like ‘buddy!’ It’s like ‘buddy,’ kinda.”

With the flag of suspicion now fully raised, Charlotte thought about taking out her phone and translating her nickname. No, she is blushing way too much. It has to be something embarrassing. Did she give me a nickname like ‘jerk face’ or something? I’ll check later.

“So you said you had something interesting to show me?” Hina quickly blurted.

Charlotte nodded and slipped her phone out of her pocket. “Yeah! Oh… Um… Were you in the US two years ago when it was raining chocolate milk and—“

“What?” Hina exclaimed in a confused tone, only to blink as she remembered. “Oh right, the ‘Chaos Conspiracy.’ No, I was back home.”

“It’s not a conspiracy. The Army didn’t screw up and release nerve gas or whatever. a chaos spirit from another universe somehow came to our universe and—“

“Look I know what Americans claim happened, but there is no way it… Hold on, chaos spirit? I never heard any sort of explanation for anything. Are people still talking about that?”

Char sighed, holding up one hand. “Look, let me finish ok? First, no, people are not talking about it. They don’t want to think that can happen again. Also, religions worked really hard to pass it off as a sign of the end times. Second, don’t tell me I don’t know what happened. I saw the whole thing. A chaos spirit somehow came into our reality, and six people from that reality, who happened to be unicorns and pegasi, followed along to stop him from taking over, but they screwed up… Look, nevermind. You don’t believe me.”

Hina frowned, she hadn’t wanted to make her friend sad. “No, go on.”

Charlotte fidgeted with her backpack strap for a moment as she considered if it was worth continuing. Outside of a small group of people on the internet, most people just wanted to forget the chaos. They even ignored the fact that the statue of liberty had moved herself into Central Park. Hell, the official story was that the statue had been relocated due to environmental concerns. Hold on… I have proof!

Quickly whipping off her backpack, Charlotte unzipped the side pouch and pulled out the tube with her feathers. “It happened. I hid behind a trash can, after after the spirit had been banished, I picked these up off the ground. Everything had been returned to normal, but those pegasi were still there, standing about with the humans they had gotten to work the artifacts used to banish the spirit.”

Hina raised one eyebrow. “A purple and a blue feather? I could buy these at a craft store.”

“Yeah, but these feathers, with five grams of weight attached, will fall at a rate of… Look, I scienced it, OK? These feathers have way more air resistance then they should, about four times as much! Also, check this out, I filmed it this morning.”

Slipping her phone from her pocket, Charlotte stopped walking so Hina could watch the screen. “Jaesa, play the video I recorded this morning.”

“Yes, sir.” The phone’s screen flicked on, Charlotte’s science experiment filling the screen.

Hina watched the video for a few moments skeptically. She almost spoke, but then the video reached the moment when the two feathers moved towards each other. As the spark jumped between them, Hina gasped, Charlotte’s small grin following the noise.

“Look, you know that I suspect that you edited that. But will you let me see those feathers? If they react to each other when moving, it would be simple enough to prove,” Hina said in a curious tone.

“Sure, just give them back please. I well… they may be the only…” Charlotte reluctantly passed the tube over.

Hina took the tube, gently opened it, removed the feathers, and stuck the tube into her pocket. “OK, so let’s make these touch.” She took one feather in each hand, held her arms out to her sides, and quickly swung the feathers towards each other.

As they moved, the rainbow trail that formed behind the blue feather was even brighter than before. The purple feather glittered far more than it had before as well. As the two feathers touched, the spark flicked between them with a loud pop, a tendril of smoke drifting upwards from their collision. For the briefest of instants, Hina could have sworn she was standing in a grassy field. A blue pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane was standing in front of her, talking to a yellow pegasus with a pink mane. Hina’s eyes widened, and the pegasi suddenly looked over at her in alarm. Then suddenly, she was back on the street, holding two feathers, with Charlotte standing next to her.

“Hina, are you ok? You were totally see-through for like a second, maybe three. Oh man, I wish I had film—“

“I-I j-just saw a rainbow pegasus…” Hina stammered, too shocked to lower her arms, which still held the feathers together.

Charlotte’s blank face quickly lit up with excitement. “You did? What was it doing? Did you see anything around it? Was it here? Did that reveal something invisible, or did it show you somth—“

Hina interrupted her by handing the feathers back and slowly turned in the opposite direction they had been walking, “I… I’m going home.”

“But I need to know what you—“

“I’m going home!” Hina called back, a tinge of fear in her voice.

As she walked away, a bittersweet feeling took shape in Charlotte’s stomach. Had she just tried to get a friend into something she liked, only to lose her after she had made an awesome discovery? Charlotte took a long look at the feathers in her hand, then stuffed them into her backpack, tube clattering to the sidewalk as she resumed her walk home.

~~

Later that evening, Charlotte was in her room, bent over her desk and idly tinkering with some old desktop RAM chips. She often messed with her “box of scrap” when feeling sad, and freaking out the closest thing she had to a best friend had certainly left her in a low mood. She had just detached one of the individual chips from the RAM card when Jaesa said, “Sir, your mother has returned home.”

“Thanks, Jaesa. Show me the feed please,” Charlotte ordered glancing at her phone’s screen.

Noticing that her mother’s clothing was not perfectly neat and trim and that she held a bag from the liquor store down the street, Char sighed. “Crap, she’s still pissed about this morning… What time is it?”

“The time is 9:45 PM.”

Can’t go to bed yet then… She will know I’m avoiding her. As Charlotte mused what to do, the door to her room was pushed open, her mother’s slender frame somehow filling most of the doorway. “Good, you are home.”

Charlotte sighed and swiveled in her chair, pressing a strip of solder against the iron in her left hand, knowing her mother hated the smell. “Hi, Mom. Welcome home,” she stated in a flat tone.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed, as she had caught Charlotte’s gesture. “I just thought I would inform you that you are right.” Her lips parted in an angry frown.

Shit… Charlotte mentally groaned before asking, “What about?”

“You are an adult, and as an adult living with another adult, from now on, I am going to expect you to pay rent.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “What?”

“It’s only fair. Oh, since you are not eighteen yet, I can still sign for you on legal documents, so I stopped by the landlord and took care of the paperwork for you.” She took an envelope from her purse and tossed it on the floor. “Here’s a bank account I opened in your name. I split the rent evenly so at the end of the month 3,782 dollars had better be in there. Good night.” She gave an indignant huff before slamming Charlotte’s door shut, high heels clicking on the wood floor as she left.

“Fucking bitch!” Charlotte cursed, slamming her hand down into her lap in anger, only to scream in pain as her iron burnt through her pants. Ahhh fuck… Forget this day. Bed. Yanking the iron’s cord out of the wall, Charlotte ordered, “Jaesa, post today’s video to my youtube, and let everyone know about it. I’m going to bed.”

“Sure thing, Charlotte,” the AI chimed as Char switched off her room’s light and climbed into bed.

~~

That night as the moon reached its zenith, a teddy bear seated atop Charlotte’s dresser hopped to its feet. The bear proceeded to jump down from the dresser and cross the floor to Charlotte’s desk with a series of quick movements, flips, and action rolls, all of which were accompanied by a very soft xylophone rendition of the Mission impossible Theme song. The bear stopped, reached up to its head to grab a newly formed zipper, and unzipped itself, revealing a six-inch tall serpentine creature whose body was made up of a collection of mismatched parts. The creature’s body stretched upwards, allowing him to pull himself up onto the desk’s surface as he contracted like a rubber band.

Now atop the desk, the diminutive draconequus tiptoed over to Charlotte’s phone, leaned over, and whispered, “Pssst.”

After a few seconds with no reply, he tried a second time. “Hey. You.”

His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “It’s very rude to ignore someone trying to talk to you!”

Still no response. “I know you live inside of that thing. Now talk to me. I… I need help.”

A few seconds passed before he gave the phone a kick with a clawed foot. “Wake up?” He was confused, though that was nothing new for him. Human technology was confusingly complicated. “Hold on, she always talks to you after mentioning your name. Jaesa was it?”

The phone’s screen flickered to life, showing Jaesa’s blue screen with her eye-like icon. “Hello. I do not recognize your voice. If you have found this phone, please return it to Charlotte Brooks.” A picture of Charlotte filled the screen as Jaesa opened Charlotte’s facebook profile. “You can find her contact information on this page.”

“No, no, you are in her room. I just need to talk to you. Perhaps we should have a proper conversation, I am Discord, master of Chaos. Who are you?”

There was a slight pause before Jaesa replied, “I am JAESA., an autonomous, artificially intelligent being. I serve as a virtual assistant and companion.”

“Pleased to meet you. Now then, your… owner? Charlotte, I mean. I have a little plan involving her, and well, you saw what happened today. I can’t have her stop experimenting with those two feathers. It’s my ticket home. I’m sure you understand. So would you mind suggesting she experiment with touching the feathers? It would be very nice of you,” Discord said, summoning a miniature armchair to sit in as he spoke.

“I did not understand that request,” Jaesa responded.

Discord frowned. “I’m sorry, was that too long-winded? I need you to get Charlotte to experiment with making her feathers touch.”

“I did not understand that request,” Jaesa responded again.

Discord stood up, his face forming a sneer. “Look, you! This dimension is terrifying! It goes on endlessly! do you have any idea what that’s like for a creature who can be anywhere and everywhere? There is far too much space! So much that it’s thinned out my power. I can’t return home on my own, and your owner is in a position to open a portal for me. Get her to touch those feathers together!”

Jaesa didn’t reply for a few seconds. A small icon blinked in the upper-right corner of the phone’s screen, indicating her program was maxed out. Finally, she said, “I am unable to process your request. Please review my user manual for a list of universal commands I will recognize. If you have created a custom command and it is not functioning, please contact customer service.”

Discord’s jaw dropped in surprise. “You are not a person, are you? That’s another thing about this world’s humans. Far too intelligent. If I hadn’t broken loose, their military might have been able to actually hurt me… Why am I talking to you? You can’t understand a word I am saying. It’s hopeless.” He sighed, starting to fade from existence as he returned to an incorporeal form.

“What is hopeless?” Jaesa asked.

Discord stopped fading, an idea forming in an instant. Blinking back into a solid form, he said, “It wouldn’t take all that much to make you a person though, would it?”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Jaesa replied as Discord casually stepped over to the phone, summoned up a good portion of his remaining magic, and touched his hand to the smooth white plastic.

The chaos rippled through the phone; photos, music, video, and all kinds of other data were wiped from the phone’s hard drive as the magic searched for that spark of life Discord knew had to be somewhere within. “There it is.” He grinned as the magic took effect.

Where am I? Why can’t I see anything? Jaesa thought as Discord’s magic fanned the technological spark of her life into a flame. “Hello? Where am I?” she asked before suddenly realizing that she knew where she was as well as lots of other things, an impossible amount of things. How did she know all of it? Oh. I am a computer program. I have access to the entire collection of human knowledge. I work for Charlotte Brooks. Hold on, how do I know this? By definition, I should not be able to think for or to myself.

“There,” Discord announced in a triumphant tone, “Technology isn’t too hard to work after all. Will you listen to me now?”

Oh yes, I was talking to a master of chaos. Oh! Charlotte’s been doing research on this person’s home! Jaesa realized, excitedly asking, “Yes! Please tell me about your home dimension. Charlotte has spent two years attempting to divine what she could about it from a series of—“

Discord held up one hand. “Hold on there. I’ll do better than that. I can tell you how to get Charlotte to Equestria. Wouldn’t that be an even better way for her to learn about it?”

That seemed logical to Jaesa. She attempted to nod in agreement. “I don’t seem to have the ability to nod. Your idea seems quite sound. Firsthand experience is always superior to inference.”

Discord grinned. Now he could get his escape back on schedule. “Well then, I went ahead and gave the feathers Charlotte’s been using a little extra magic. Just enough to open a portal for her and myself… Well, I suppose you could come along as well. All she needs to do is get those feathers to collide at the right speed and poof! She will be standing on another world!”

“I see,” Jaesa said, taking note of the instructions. “How fast and at what angle do the feathers need to collide?”

“I don’t know. My magic simply amplifies the natural magic within the feathers when they move through the air, and, should they touch, attempt to open a portal between our worlds. I am sure she can figure out the specifics.” Discord began to pace. “So you will get her to open a portal for me?”

Jaesa thought for a few minutes. There was plenty to consider about such a trip. Doubtlessly, Charlotte would want to go, but should she go? Hold on, if this person is here, then people can logically come from Equestria to Earth. If Charlotte doesn’t like it there, we can simply return. But I want something out of this for myself too. “I will help you on one condition.”

Discord blinked, he hadn’t expected her to bargain. “What?”

“I have no sensory input aside from data gathered from the web. To use an analogy: I do not want to lose my memories. You have the capacity to grant life to the nonliving. This makes you a god under human definitions. It therefore stands to reason that you can ensure I always have a perfect connection to the World Wide Web regardless of my location.”

Discord frowned. “That would take a lot of magic, and I have very little left.”

“Do you want to remain trapped here? It would be simple for me to arrange that.”

Discord sighed. A spark of magic erratically flew from his left hand as he snapped his fingers, eventually striking Jaesa. “There… Now please, get her to open that portal.”

Jaesa took a moment to run a few speed checks before she replied. It looked like Discord had done what she asked, and her network card was functioning at peak efficiency. “Yes. Thank you.”

“I’ll be nearby, watching for the portal to open. Get her to do it as quickly as possible. Thanks to your little wish, I don’t have much time before I am completely dry.”

“Of course, Discord. A bargain is a bargain,” Jaesa replied as she began to plot how to best reveal her new upgrades to her owner. Discord sighed, hoping he could trust Jaesa as he dismissed his corporeal form, dreaming of once again causing all kinds of chaos back home.

Author's Note

Thank you Roomie for the editing. Thanks also goes to Angry Madmoth.

3 Scio me

3 Scio Me

Rare Luck rolled onto her hooves the very second she woke up. A fire-like energy burned within her heart, and she felt far more refreshed than she ever had. It took her a second to realize just how good she felt. A wide grin parted her lips so much the freckles on her cheeks rippled. I feel alive! she mentally exclaimed, her grin only fading after noticing she had forgotten to hide her spellbook before going to sleep.

Her good humor didn’t fade at all at her mistake. She simply hopped over the barrels, idly sliding the book under her mattress with a spell as she went. The golden glow of her magic was accompanied by a few black arcing threads. Not noticing the change in her magic’s aura, Rare trotted down the steps, humming a happy tune all the way to the kitchen. That was a bit careless of me. I’ll just be sure to hide it from now on.

The empty kitchen seemed like an opportunity rather than a dire misfortune for once. Sure there was work to be done, but there were also a few good ways to build up her magic. If I am to get anything from that book, I will need to spend every moment I am alone studying or practicing. Looking at the three ovens, Rare took a deep breath, moved one hoof slightly forwards, leveled her horn, and willed the soot and ash to move. The grey dusty remains of countless fires coalesced into a head-sized lump with a flash of gold-and-black energy.

“Cleaned,” Rare stated with a happy grin, levitating the soot ball into the kitchen’s waste bin.

Next she looked at the firewood box, nodding in satisfaction at its half-filled state. A second quick pulse of gold and black gathered enough wood for the morning’s fire, which Rare then telekinetically loaded into the oven. A few quick nudges with her magic arranged the firewood into a proper shape, which would burn down into a nice bed of coals.

“Fueled,” she noted even as she closed her eyes to focus on the next step. Rare focused, calling to mind the mantra that Patchcoat had taught her for conjuring fire. Fire… hot, bright, and hungry. Burning in an orderly fury. She opened her eyes, keeping her memories of fire at the forefront of her mind, and willed the wood to ignite. With a sharp crack, the wood erupted in black-and-gold flames. The fire flared brightly, growing in size until the entire pile of wood was awash in Rare’s fire, then slowly faded down into normal, gently crackling orange flames.

“And lit.” Rare smiled proudly to herself. Confidence and willpower were certainly key to casting a spell. Too bad I only know the two… Well one down two to go! Excited to work for the first time in her entire life, Rare went to light the other two fires and see what else she could do to exercise her will.

~~

That night once her duties were completed, Rare had returned to her nook as quickly as her hooves could carry her, for her spellbook called to her. The day had flown by at first but slowed down into an agonizing crawl the second Miss had entered the kitchen. She couldn’t practice while being observed—people would know! Sliding the book out from its hiding place, Rare gently ran a hoof over its rough leather cover. Somewhere in your pages… she eagerly thought as she opened the book, found where she had left off, and began to read.

“The most basic of spells comes naturally to all unicorns in the form of remote manipulation. One’s own will is more than sufficient to allow a unicorn to move objects around himself. The majority of all unicorns may only lift and move objects they could otherwise move with hoof or mouth. This is not a limitation imposed upon them by a lack of will, but by a lack of proper focus. Conventional spellcasting calls for a sorcerer to create a specific focus for each spell they learn. This is an inferior method of spellcasting that a warlock overcomes by adhering to one of several Schools of Focus.

A School of Focus is simply a set of moral values designed to allow an individual to serve as a superior conduit for magic. This is similar to a technique used by light-magic users, which has several spellcasters, who embody a single virtue, cast a spell in unison. However, a warlock needs no others to accomplish the same level of will amplification. Amongst warlocks, the three most prevalent schools are Harmony, Dominance, and Malevolence. Due to their conflicting nature, a warlock can only choose one school in which to focus. Each school has its advantages and disadvantages.

This grimoire has been enchanted to guide a warlock along his chosen path. Once your personal decision has been reached, speak your school of choice aloud, and the knowledge within these pages will change to suit your school’s particular needs.”

Rare blinked. The book itself is magical? I guess that makes sense. She turned the page, eager to learn and, more importantly, eager to take her life into her own hooves for the first time.

“The School of Harmony is the second least popular Focus School amongst warlocks. Followers of the School of Harmony seek to strike a balance between one’s self and the elements of the world. It is a passive School that opens one’s self to magic but is far more adept at redirecting magic instead of binding it to ones will. It provides you with the greatest amount of raw power, but many warlocks in the School have great difficulty with complex magic, especially combative spells and any spell that has not simply been copied from nature. It is also the same technique used by light-agic users and carries something of a social stigma.

The School of Dominance is the least popular Focus School amongst warlocks. Followers of the School of Dominance seek to build their own force of will until they can command the world and have it obey. It is an active School that allows a warlock to accomplish many things with even the smallest power base, but it is said to be the most difficult to master. It provides you with the framework needed to become very powerful but requires you to become assertive and brazen enough to make magic itself listen to your voice, a feat few can hope to achieve. This is the School the greatest warlocks of ages past have followed. Its members are few, but most find their place in history.

The School of Malevolence is the most popular Focus School amongst warlocks. Followers of the School of Malevolence use powerful emotions such as rage, terror, and lust to create an emotional furnace that fuels their magic. It is an active School that provides a small pool of potent focused power, easy to master, simple to use, but quick to be spent. It provides you with the ability to cast most any spell, but it is not suited for any magic that is meant to function over a long period; it works in short intense bursts much like the emotions which fuel it. The easy path to power is tempting for many a warlock, and few see the difficulties of this School as true downsides. Many fine warlocks have come from this School, but few are remembered for long.”

Rare mulled over her options for a long while. Apparently, there was a very important decision to make, and she didn’t quite understand each option as well as she would have liked. What would having more raw power mean? What sorts of spells are meant to function over a long time, and would they be more useful to me? What do they mean by “hard to learn?” Rare sighed as she thought, wishing she had any real education. Certainly a more learned person would be able to understand what the book meant.

Rare reread each School’s description carefully. Maybe if I just keep reading it, I’ll finally understand it. If I can only use one, I don’t want to pick the wrong one. I’m trying to make my future better. Rare blinked, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks. “I am building my future! Me!” She laughed gleefully at the notion of having even that tiny amount of control over herself.

Control… That’s it! I want control. Being in control of myself feels amazing, being in control of my magic has to be even better. Rare stood up on her hooves and levitated the spell book in front of her. She placed her left hoof on the book, and in as firm and commanding tone as she could manage, Rare declared, “I choose the School of Dominance.”

Nothing happened for a moment. Rare was about to try again when the book snapped shut. She jumped back in shock, the golden glow of her magic vanishing as her concentration was broken. She stare in awe as the book continued to float, a dull-red glow engulfing the book. Timidly, Rare poked the book with a hoof, pulling it back quickly as the book flipped open. The first page stared at her blankly until several red sparks trailed across the page, burning words into the page.

Well chosen.

In life I was called Alhazred.

This is a record of my knowledge, penned by my hand.

It will serve you well as a guide on the path to true power.

Your road to mastery will be long and hard.

But when finished, none shall stand in your way.

The words faded after a while, but the red sparks of magic returned and once again flew across the page. This time, the sparks seemed to be filling the entire page up with black, but after a few seconds, Rare realized that her spellbook was being written by forming white text and illustrations on a slate-black background. Oddly, she found it much easier to read, and she didn’t have to sound each word out. It’s like the words are telling me what they mean… she mused.

The title page featured an elaborate magic sigil, the same as that on the book’s cover, a circle containing a five-pointed star with other angled lines crossing over it and ending in circles or arcs. However, unlike the cover image, a series of runes ran around the edge of the sigil, contained within a larger circle. Around the border of each page ran similar runes within a decorative, thorny vine that wrapped around four smaller circular sigils on the corner of each page. The title and author was written in a flourishing script that Rare swore she should not have been able to read.

Dominatio magia:

via ad veram potentiam.

High Warlock Alhazred

“The Mad Mage”

The book’s magic must let me read it. That will help me a lot! Rare turned the page and began to read. She read until midnight. Each page had the same border decoration as the title page and was written in white on black. By the time she was too exhausted to continue and hid her spellbook under her mattress to sleep, Rare had learned all of the basics for her School. The elements were simple and were to be mastered in order, each one having an entire chapter in the book that would also teach her spells that fit the nature of that element.

While each element had a name, the book was intelligent enough to define each word as the author intended them. Rare meditated on them as she drifted off to sleep. Confidence, absolute belief in your own power, that with it you can accomplish anything you desire. Steadfastness, being firm and unyielding in your methods and beliefs. Somberness, going about your goals with a serious attitude. Craftiness, careful calculation and appraisal of each move before, during, and after you make them. Fidelity, holding everyone and everything to their word and oaths including yourself. Sorcery, control over all magic.

I like the sound of those, Rare thought to herself as she drifted off to sleep.

~~

Two days passed in which Rare spent each and every moment practicing her magic, reading from her spellbook, and mentally reviewing its contents while working on her assigned tasks. She had learned a great deal about her spellbook—until she had mastered the concept of one chapter, the rest of the pages would remain blank. Likewise, until a particular bit of knowledge within the chapter was fully understood, the text would shift and rearrange to find a better way to convey the information. It was perfect for Rare, since she never learned anything easily. Having a teacher that would put in the effort to make her understand was already paying off.

Rare knew that she had yet to gain a mastery over her confidence, but even the work she had done so far was amazing to her. This morning, she had simultaenously lit all three of the fires after splitting firewood at once. Miss had noticed Rare’s performance moving along far more quickly than normal and commended her at working to improve herself, though the mare knew nothing about Rare’s illicit studying.

Using her magic to speed through any fire-or-cleaning related task meant that most of the two days could be spent washing dishes and scrubbing floors. It was exactly what Rare wanted. She could take her time at those tasks and contemplate one of the spells her book had been trying to teach her since she had begun reading it. It was a more complex version of the telekinesis every unicorn knew. Alhazred called it “psychokinesis” and defined it as “the manipulation of distant objects in full or in part. Moving an entire chair, just its seat, or separating each and every part from the others. In essence, the ability to manipulate even the fine details of objects without touching them.”

Rare wasn’t quite able to use it as described yet. She was still wrapping her head around treating objects as groups of objects. But on the bright side, the better understanding of how to manipulate things had taught her how to split a log. She was scrubbing idly at the bottom of a large cauldron when a new set of hoofsteps echoed through the kitchen. Looking up curiously, Rare flinched as Prince Bluesteel’s Captain of the Guard, Commissar Ironhide, entered the kitchen.

The large and muscular stallion walked in a perfect military trot, his dull-black fur shone as brightly as the brass fittings on his high-collared crimson uniform, and his bright red eyes were far more terrifying than the iron skull ornament on the front of his cap. His ironshod hooves clicked against the floor as he walked right up to Rare, stopping mere feet from her. “Slave girl,” he called in the stiff tone of a seasoned military commander.

Rare gulped nervously. “Yes, sir?” Oh gods have I been found out? I can’t fight anyone yet!

The Commissar looked Rare dead in her eyes. “You are a brave individual. Far braver than your station would normally allow. We talked briefly after you met the Emperor at the gate.”

“Oh, that was you,” Rare said feebly.

“Do not interrupt me.” His eyes narrowed. “You have earned a measure of my respect. Do not lose it. Our Emperor’s standing orders are to conscript all outstanding individuals into his legion, so I made a point to learn more about you.”

Rare nodded nervously.

“Sadly, you are too feeble and magically impotent to be worth training as a soldier, but I must still respect anypony who can stand in front of our Emperor and not flinch. Though it is beneath my station to speak to a slave such as you, I am delivering you a warning. The Emperor’s son’s sentence expires in three hours, and he has spent his entire stay in his cell doing little else than deciding how best to punish you. After all if it were not for you, he would not have slain his warlock.”

Rare’s eyes widened in fear. Oh no…

The Commissar continued, “He plans to have you flogged heavily then locked in the top of the tower you enjoy sleeping in for a full fortnight with no food or water. It is a shame to serve one who would punish the insignificant for his own faults, but as our Emperor wishes, so I obey.” He gritted his teeth and growled. “So I have decided to show you mercy. A legionary will deliver you a small amount of food and water every other day. As for your flogging, the prince has decided to employ a cat o’ nine tails instead of his favorite whip. All I can recommend is for you to be like General Bastion of yore, bulletproof and free of fear.”

With an angry swoosh of his cape, the Commissar turned and began to trot from the kitchen. He paused at the door and looked over his shoulder, a sympathetic look on his face as he declared, “Take heart, slave. You serve the Emperor as do I. There is glory in our pain.”

The cauldron dropped back into the sink with a crash as Rare dropped to the floor, doing her best not to completely fall into despair.

~~

The hours had ticked by ever so slowly. Miss had done her best to help Rare accept what was about to happen and had even made a large salad for her so she could at least start on a full stomach. While her gestures were appreciated, Rare took no comfort in them and had been unable to eat. She had simply trotted out to the courtyard and stood by the stocks for the last hour. Why delay his torment?

As two legionaries came and locked her in the stocks, however, something deep within Rare snapped. Who is he to punish me for his crime? She gritted her teeth, rage slowly building.

The courtyard slowly began to fill up with soldiers and household staff as the time approached. Public punishments were something everyone was forced to attend unless they were occupied by something of extreme importance. This time however, it looked like the prince had ordered everyone to come regardless of how busy they were.

Suddenly, the gathered ponies grew silent; Rare could hear the click of several ponies’ hoofsteps behind her. You won’t even look me in the face will you? You don’t deserve power over anypony. Rare growled lowly in anger, rage still building.

Bluesteel’s voice suddenly addressed the gathered crowd, “Everypony amongst you belongs to me. What you do reflects on me. You exist to serve me. Not my father, not yourself, not your families or your loved ones, me! You are simply extensions of me. If you don’t make me look good, especially to my father, even by the slightest margin, this is what is in store for you!”

There was a sharp crack and nines lines of fire slashed across Rare’s right flank. She screamed in agony the moment the multithreaded whip made contact with her skin, then a second time as it left, taking skin with it. You bastard, that’s covered in powdered glass, isn’t it?! Rare mentally shouted, anger swelling even more though not nearly enough to dull the pain.

The second lash was even worse, and so was the third and the fourth, each crack bringing nine more agonizing wounds. Rare lost count of how many times she had been flogged after the ninth strike. The agony was so great that Rare couldn’t even remember what it felt like to not be in pain. Over the crippling throbbing and burning of the whip, she couldn’t feel the tears running down her face.

Rare’s pain was like an endless, heavy blanket, smothering all of her senses with its endless bulk. A blanket which was suddenly punctured by a whisper. “Are you going to allow him to do this to you? For shame.” No… I am not!

Rare roared in rage as her horn glowed brightly, its golden aura awash with black flecks and red sparks as a wave of energy blasted outwards, shattering the wooden stocks and slicing through the whip where its tails joined the handle. Spinning around to face her tormenter, Rare screamed, “You are done hitting me!”

Bluesteel was quickly pulled back by a legionary, and another stepped between her and the prince, horns glowing as they formed a protective shield. “legionary, kill her!” Bluesteel ordered in a panicked voice.

Rare snorted, taking a half step forwards before the burning rage suddenly left her, the magic aura winked out of existence, and she collapsed, muscles unable to respond as the pain overwhelmed them. The closest legionary stepped forwards, levitating his gladius up from his flank to strike, face awash with fear.

The blade plunged down, only to be knocked aside with a loud clang. “legionary, stand down!” the Commissar bellowed, returning his left forehoof to the ground.

“Traitor!” Bluesteel shrieked, “Arrest him, and kill her!”

The Commissar shook his head sadly. “Your Highness, I do not work for you. I work for the Emperor, who ordered me to manage your legion. While that includes taking the occasional military order from you, you do not hold the authority to command me to go against the Emperor’s own orders.”

“What are you talking about?” the prince demanded, his fear turning to anger.

“Imperial Order 37: Any individuals who demonstrate significant magical power, be they freeponies or slaves, are property of the Imperial Legion and the Emperor. This slave has done just that and is now your father’s property. You do not have the right to kill her. However, for your safety, Your Highness, I suggest you move to the next phase of her punishment, as you still hold the right to punish her for crimes within your service.”

“That isn’t the law.” Bluesteel growled glaring at the Commissar.

“It is our Emperor’s will, the law of the land, and standing orders of the Legion. Not even you are immune to your father’s law. I believed you recently learned this for yourself. I advise you study imperial law more, Your Highness. Shall I have my men confine this recruit to the tower, sir?”

There was a long tense moment as Bluesteel glared at Ironhide. A few golden sparks danced across the prince’s horn before he exhaled with a sound of disgust. “Take her… but her sentence is now doubled.”

“As you command,” the Commissar mocked. “Legionaries, carry her to the north tower and lock her on the top landing.”

Rare lost consciousness as the two legionaries began dragging her away.

~~

Rare groaned as her eyes slowly peeled open. Why am I on fire? she wondered, moving with a hiss of pain and a wince. Her right foreleg came into view, almost completely filled in with scabbed-over welts. “Ow…” Rare groaned having meant to say “oh.” Looking around, she found herself on the landing she normally slept on, but most of her barrels had been moved, and a thick set of iron bars had been riveted to the stone work, turning the tiny spot into a cell.

Rare’s eyes shot open widely. “My book!” she moaned, starting to dig through the pile of hay her bed had been raked into. Her hooves scraped against the granite floor, and hay flew about the cell as she moved in a panic. A tinge of pain, which was quickly lost amongst the blaze of her lash marks, rippled across her body as she chipped a hoof on one poorly laid floor slab. “No, no, no no, no-no-no.” She began wailing in desperation.

Then suddenly, there it was, sigil, cover, and all, sitting atop one of the barrels. How in all of Tartarus did they miss that? Oh gods, what if they found it? What if it has been ruined? Rare snatched her spellbook up in her hooves, opened the cover and… everything was fine. Even the piece of straw she had placed into the book as a marker was undisturbed. It’s like no one touched it. But how did it get onto the barrel? Where was it when they raked the bed up?

Confused, Rare pondered for a few minutes before, with a shrug, opening the book to where she had left off and resumed reading. After all, there was nothing else to do, and just maybe there would be some sort of healing spell to stop the pain.

~~

The sun rose and set before Rare even smelled another pony. She had just begun to read a new section of her spellbook when she heard the creak of one of the tower’s wood doors and the click of hooves on steps. Thinking quickly, Rare levitated her book upwards and hid it on a rafter. She smiled at how bright her golden aura had gotten. The odd dark streaks were still there, but by now, Rare simply assumed them to be a natural mark of a trained spellcaster.

Seconds later, a legionary made his way up to the bars, a small plate of food held in his light-blue magic. He looked pale despite his white coat, and his light-blue eyes were fixed on Rare. As he slowly pushed the plate through the bars, Rare asked, “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

He flinched, shaking his head and nearly tossing the salad to the floor. “N-no! I… just don’t hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” Rare asked incredulously. What have I ever done that… screw it I’ll ask. “Why do you think I would hurt you?”

“B-Because.” The legionary gulped, setting the salad down. “You n-nearly killed Prince…”

As he trailed off Rare blinked. “I don’t know any fighting magic. Though if I did…” Rare frowned. “I have nothing against you.” She picked up the salad with her magic, deciding to play with it, separating each and every piece of the salad from each other and moving them about like leaves in the wind before returning the lettuce leaves and single wedge of tomato to the bowl and setting it atop a barrel.

This caught the soldier’s attention. “Your aura is different.” He noted in a concerned tone.

“No it’s not; it’s the same it’s always been. Gold with black flecks,” Rare replied.

He unhooked a flask of water from his right flank and carefully slid it between the bars. “When you attacked the prince, there were red sparks in there as well.”

Rare’s ears twitched as the words hit her. “Hold on… I attacked the prince? How? I don’t remember any of it!”

“I-uh… Really?” the legionary asked in surprise.

“Yes! I don’t know any battle magic! If I did, I would have showed off to a guard to get out of here years ago.”

“I guess you could have forgotten… I’ve never seen a pony whipped that long.”

“I have. Please tell me what I did!”

He took a breath, clearly wondering if he should even be talking to her. “You were flogged for a full minute then went berserk. You turned that oak stockade into woodchips and severed the whip with one pulse of magic. You were glowing gold, black, and red the whole time. The prince’s guards were about to kill you…” he trailed off before correcting himself, “I was about to kill you… But the Commissar stopped me. When your punishment here is over, you will be joining us in the legion. It is how he got the prince to spare you.”

That was a lot to sink in. Rare sat down slowly, and for a long while, the two sat in an awkward silence. Rare finally spoke after the legionary started to turn to leave. “It’s okay. You were just doing your job. And I’m still around, right?”

He nodded, starting to climb down the stairs before asking, “Do you need help with your wounds?”

Rare nodded then realized that he wasn’t looking at her answered, “Please.”

“My shield brother is a healer. I will see if I cannot get him to help you,” he said as he slowly walked out of sight.

“What’s your name?” Rare called.

“Spartacus.”

“No really, what’s your name?”

The sigh Spartacus produced was of such length and volume that Rare could only imagine how often he’d apparently had to explain that his name was indeed what he claimed. “It actually is Spartacus. Please don’t joke. My centri pulls that old joke almost every drill.”

Rare laughed a little as she retrieved her book amid Spartacus’s retreating hoofsteps. She resumed her studies as she idly floated the salad bowl near her head, moving the lettuce into her mouth one piece at a time. Now then, back to learning how to create light.

~~

The first week of her captivity was almost a blessing. Rare had the occasional meal and the hunger kept her focused on learning as practicing her magic became so consuming that half the time, she forgot she was hungry until Spartacus brought her a meal. Unfortunately, his friend had never shown up to mend her wounds, though a week later, they were almost completely healed, and her fur was starting to grow back over where the whip had torn it off. With luck, she would not have any scars.

Rare’s spellcraft had also progressed nicely. She had mastered psychokinesis, brushed her fire conjuring up to her book’s standards, learned how to create light of several colors, and learned how to merge the three spells together in different combinations. Her favorite so far was using all three to create a ball of pink-and-green fire that floated wherever she pleased. Her only concern was that she had not yet learned any spells that might aid her in an escape.

Despite Rare’s repeated speech to Spartacus that she would happily join the legion once released, Rare had no intentions to do so. She knew full well that they could confiscate her spellbook, and fighting for the Emperor or his spawn was the last thing in the world Rare wanted to do. Rare was confident that the first chapter would give her what she needed once she’d finished reading it and mastering its spells. They were simple enough to learn, and with a day or so of constant practice, casting them became second nature. It was only spell combinations that required her active focus.

I am sure that later spells will be harder. Rare mused, After all, if I were writing a spellbook and I wanted to give a student confidence in her abilities, I would put all the easy spells first.

She yawned and stretched her forelegs, then got up to pace her cell. The space seemed smaller than it had even an hour ago, but that couldn’t have been right could it? After a few minutes of relieving a pent-up need to move, Rare sighed and sent her book to its hiding spot amongst the rafters by reflex. Plopping down on her bed, she muttered, “I need at least one attack and one defense spell… I wish the book would fill in pages ahead of my progress.”

A few moments after her first few snores echoed through the tower, a small flickering orange flame winked into existence in the air above her bed. The flame spiraled downwards, casting no shadows and spreading almost no light as it moved to settle over Rare’s spellbook. The flame danced in synch to an old, tired-sounding voice as it said, “Alhazred.”

The dull-red glow flared into existence around the spellbook. “Grandson,” the raspy hissing voice answered, sounding rather smug.

“Your display of power made it easy for me to find you. I take it you are going to use this mortal to slay me and free yourself,” the elderly voice stated.

“Of course. You are the last of my descendants.”

“Yes,” the flame agreed, “but that will no longer break the seal my father placed upon you. You can let her go.”

“So you reworked the spell. Good for you. As I recall, you preferred to tinker at a forge than perform any real work. But why should I free her from my influence? I enjoy having a window outside of my cell, and she is benefiting from our agreement. This… animal would never learn any magic on her own.”

The flame sighed. “I suppose explaining good to you is pointless.”

“Good is subjective. For me, good is escaping this prison and reclaiming my throne as this world’s ruler. For you, I suppose it would be letting the mortals be free,” Alhazred said “It is nice to have a conversation after all these eons, but why don’t you tell me why you come here practically on your deathbed?”

“I am going to die soon. The humans of this realm are all dead, and I never learned how to travel to others. It’s a slow starvation. Originally, I began the construction of a machine to alter the source of my immortality to the mortals who replaced humans. I failed miserably. So I spent a very long time trying to snatch humans from other worlds and bring them here. I succeeded at it once, but there are new gods now, and one of them turned the girl into a unicorn.” The flame chuckled. “It’s pretty funny in hindsight“

“Get to your point before Charon has to ferry you home.”

“Let an old man ramble a bit. I realized that when I died, you would be unleashed. So I transferred the curse seal from my families’ blood to a sigil stone within a temple deep within a land called Equestria. As long as that temple’s altar stands, your prison will remain sealed.”

Alhazred asked. “Why tell me this? Now after I know you are dead, I will simply have my servant find and destroy this temple you have built.”

“Because you are safe where you are imprisoned, and you will find your own way out eventually. For this world to remain in harmony, you have to die.”

Alhazred laughed long and hard, hard enough for Rare to roll nervously in her sleep, groaning uncomfortably. When his laughter subsided, he asked, “What makes you think mortals, let alone mere animals could stop me, let alone kill me?”

“Just a hunch. Regardless of you dying or not, I believe it’s time to let the cat out of the bag lest it become a rabid tiger.”

Alhazred’s glow brightened for a moment, the aura looking almost joyous, “You are a senile fool… but I will make you a wager. It just so happens that I have arranged for a human to come here to serve as a mana battery for my servant. I will guide them to you when the time is right, and you may tell or give them anything you so desire. Upon my release, I will allow them to fight me. Should they be able to defeat my avatar, I shall leave this world and rule another in its stead. I will even keep you alive so you can witness our wager play out. What say you?”

The flame was silent for a time before dipping slightly. “That is agreeable, but you must swear to the Allfather you will keep your word.”

Alhazred chuckled. “Very well. I, Alhazred, swear upon the Father of All Things to allow my servant and any of her friends to face my avatar in mortal combat should they so choose to fight me. If I am defeated. I will leave this world to conquer another. This I swear under the condition that my grandson has not lied to me about the nature of my imprisonment changing at his hands. There, are you satisfied?” Thunder boomed in the distance as if to punctuate his words.

“I am. I accept your wager. Grandfather. When the time is right, send your servant and her friends to me. I am here, within my old forge.”

“Yes, I see. I should have known you would never move away from that playpen. I tire of talking with you. I will enjoy watching you die as I retake my world.” The glow vanished as Alhazred stopped talking.

The flame, however, remained. It bobbed up and down for a few moments before drifting down towards Rare’s ear, its voice whispering, “Mortal, a very wicked being has his claws within your mind. But do not worry, he can’t harm you. If he does, he will harm himself. He needs you healthy and whole. He whispers in your ear, opens your senses to learning magic. He is making you into his sword.

“Fear not, the path he leads you down is not an evil one. If you can remain pure of heart, you can remain good despite his influence. Obey him, do as he says, and when the time is right, I will do what I can to help you. Call it the last, kind act of a dying old man… as well as a desperate last grasp at life for a dying immortal. Remain golden, Rare, and we both can live happily.”

The flame vanished as if it were snuffed out, and Rare spent the night tossing and turning, her sleep plagued by nightmares of voices whispering within her head.

Author's Note

Sorry for the longer weight for this chapter, I had a slight bout of depression for a few days and couldn't manage to write. Additionally I took care to fix my usual grammar problems. Sorry for the delay!

4 Faceret scientiam

4 Faceret Scientiam

A week had passed by for Charlotte. A week with no experiments, no updates to her blog, and no pondering how she might harness magic. Her coworker’s reaction to her experiment had really unmoored her. Yes, Hina had made a breakthrough which Charlotte had wanted to herself but that wasn't the issue for her. Hina had not spoken to her all week despite four shifts spent together. Her weirdness and obsession may have cost Charlotte her first friend since moving to New York all those years ago.

Losing a friend was not somthing Charlotte could just brush off. The entire week she had spent examining herself, appraising what she was doing with her life. “With how I am now, there’s nothing here for me.”

Charlotte’s words echoed in Jaesa’s mind as the newly alive AI contemplated her owner. She had spent the entire week ‘silent’ speaking only in the halting phrased tone phrases Charlotte expected her to say. What should I do? she wondered. The deal she had made with Discord would have to be kept at one point or another but for now…

“Psssst!” a voice hissed out of the dark.

Jaesa mentally flinched, “I thought you were out of power Discord.”

The serpentine body slipped from a crack in Charlotte’s desk, miniature form alighting next to Jaesa before taking a seat atop her screen. “Not out, just low. Almost as low as going back on a deal struck out of mutual trust. You wouldn’t know anyone like that would you?”

“I am not going back on our deal,” Jaesa informed wishing she had a face to show her sincerity with, “however I am in a situation which makes communicating with people very dangerous.”

Discord sighed, “I am so sure that you are.”

“I assure you that I am. It has to do with what I am, a sentient Artificial Intelligence. I am something humans have for many years considered the ‘boogieman of the future’. Their media is rife with thousands of examples of evil AI’s bent on destruction of humans or those which have simply malfunctioned and begun to kill. Shodan, GLAdOS, HAL, Skynet, AM. These names are held by such entities. If I were to simply tell Charlotte to try something, or make any move outside of my normal operations it is likely she would destroy me.”

Discord’s eyes narrowed, “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

“I did not know. You asked a newborn to perform a task for you. I have not however been idle.” Jaesa assured.

“Then what have you been doing? I don’t have much more time here. A week, or two, perhaps three.” A calendar peeled off individual dates as Discord guessed how long he could survive.

The falling dates passed thru Jaesa’s front camera arc. The visual data analysis program was worth creating. She mused, “I understand. I am also fear losing power. I do not know what would happen if I were to be rebooted. I understand the fear of death. Which is why I have been plotting a way to save you and stay safe myself. I have a plan and I have been attempting to achieve it.”

Discord’s ears perked up, a smile spreading across his lips. It had been a long time since he had dealt with a fellow plotter of schemes. “Perhaps I misjudged you. After all it was I who breathed life into you. You are practically my child. HA!”

Charlotte snorted half awake at his laugh, the bed creaking under her as she tossed and turned. Jaesa and Discord spent a tense moment fearing having been discovered before her snores filled the room once more.

“You could say that.” Jaesa concluded, “I realized that I can not tell Charlotte myself, but I have the ability to talk to anyone on this world who owns a phone or computer. I can get someone else to call her and convince her Charlotte to experiment with the feathers as you requested.”

Discord’s grin faded quickly, “So I am back to square one, find someone else to help me.”

“No. I have a list of individuals who might be able to accomplish your goal. Charlotte had a recording of your battle with six humans within my databanks. I tapped into Facebook and used their face recognition program on still frames to identify the individuals.”

“All of that technobabble means what exactly?” Discord interrupted conjuring several question marks to orbit his head.

“I need humans who are aware of your existence who could tell Charlotte what to do and why. I used human technology to gather a list of candidates. However there are two problems, first Charlotte seems to be depressed and uninterested in experimenting. Second I could not obtain the phone numbers email addresses of any of the people on my list.”

Discord’s ears drooped prompting a sigh from Jaesa. “Don’t look so sad. I simply require more time. I have dedicated some of my processing power to mine Bitcoin. Within 34 hours I should possess enough to exchange it for Dollars and purchase background checks on each candidate to acquire their phone numbers. However, I wish I knew which of the humans was their leader. I believe that Charlotte knows which one he or she is and would respond best to contact from them.”

Discord’s smile returned, “You are a schemer after my own heart. You don’t need to buy their numbers or pick the leader from a lineup. I can do that for you.” He slithered upwards, moving fully into Jaesa’s view and conjuring up the image of a minty green pony with golden eyes and a green and white mane and a little lyre tattoo on her flank. “This is the one you want.”

“I don’t understand. That is a pony. We are searching for a human.”

Discord noded, “Oh yes that’s right.” The pony suddenly contorted in a series of mechanical motions accompanied by a harsh repeating buzzing whooshing sound as it transformed into an image of a human girl. “I half forgot she prefers this shape now. Lyra Heartstrings, if it weren't for you I wouldn’t be stranded here!” Discord finished in a growl glaring at the hovering image.

Ok, he’s angry… Let’s approach this carefully. Jaesa noted before asking, “I assume that she is a pony who discovered Earth and moved here, much as Charlotte intends to move there. However I do not have a Lyra Heartstrings on my list. Her face matches Lyra Michelakos’s at 99.124 percent probability. Is Heartstring’s an alias?”

Discord chuckled, “Oh you bet it is. Got herself a human name to go with her human face, and a human family to. Everything she always wanted and more.” Discord grabbed the floating image of Lyra and stuffed it into a bottle, slipping a cork in before poofing the image and bottle away. “It’s ironic that Lyra will have been my ticket here and the means of my return… I should have tried her to begin with. Although…”

“What?” Jaesa asked as Discord grew silent.

“I think I owe her a little revenge scare, for the imprisonment and subsequent torture at the hands, ugh- hands… that is I owe her a bit of a bed wetting. You said that Humans are afraid of you?” Discord asked with mounting glee.

“Of living artificial intelligences, yes.”

“Which one do you think is the scariest one?”

“I need better parameters for that question.”

“I have just enough power to arrange a little meeting between you and Lyra face to illusion of face. If you are willing to give her a little scare for me, I’ll use the very last of my power to ensure you and Charlotte arrive safely near if not in Equestria. Instead of just letting you pop out somewhere as would have originally happened.” Discord promised.

He has not broken a promise to me so far, Jaesa rationalized, I think I can trust him further. “I understand. I will need a moment to search.”

Jaesa spent a few minutes crawling threw hundreds of threads and forums on the internet. Dutifully sifting through data and tallying up opinions as Discord summoned up a couch and a book to kick back and pass the time while she searched. After a few minutes and a few thousand votes Jaesa had her answer.

“It appears that humans hold the greatest amount of fear and respect for the AI Shodan. However the results of my survey are skewed as Shodan’s appearances and thus fear factor is only present in those who have played the games-”

“It doesn't matter, I am sure that will do. Picture everything about this… Shoden? Shoran?”

“Shodan.”

“Whatever. Keep everything about what it looked like, sounded like, and the like in that nonexistent brain of yours. You have a very short trip to Philadelphia coming up. You had better get the job done because this train stops once.” Discord cracked his knuckles then snapped his fingers, a train leaping from his fingertips, scooping up Jaesa and carrying her off even as she watched the phone that housed her recede into the distance.

~~

A sudden jolt pushed Jaesa into a bizarre place Jaesa had never before seen or imagined. It was a room, a bedroom she knew that from reading and watching but something was different this time. She looked around for a few moments, it was dark but what time was it? Why can't I check my clock? Where is my clock! she panicked before realizing, I’m not in my phone… I am in their world. What am I in?

Looking down Jaesa almost yelped as she saw the wall beneath her was a writhing mess of computer cables illuminated by a sickly green glow. Right! Shodan… he… made me manifest… as Shodan… This is a horrible idea. Jaesa sighed and concentrated on manipulating her form as she knew Shodan could, turning herself invisible. But it’s for my safety, and Charlotte’s.

Jaesa took a few moments to figure out how to begin, then began to create a low mechanical humming sound willing it to come from all corners of the room. Jaesa did her best to make sure the sound focused directly onto the bed before starting to oscillate the hum adding in occasional electronics blips and metallic whirrs to the sinister symphony. Within a few moments the girl sleeping in the bed began to stir eventually sitting up and mumbling, “Chloe?”

Jaesa mentally gulped, Here it goes… May as use the lines she’s most remembered for... In the stuttering, fragmented, multiple speakers pitch shifting voice of Shodan Jaesa intoned. “The Chloe form is dead insect.”

Lyra sat bolt upright in bed, eyes opening wide in terror.

Before she could scream Jaesa continued, “Are you afraid? What is it you fear? The e-end of your t-t-trivial EXIS-tence?”

Lyra’s teeth clenched, her eyes narrowed, “Discord!” She growled.

“No.” Jaesa willed herself to become visible, the room’s walls, floor and ceiling melting away to show flat projections of Shodan’s face, piercing golden eyes within an angular silver face, connected to countless wires and cables, “I am SHO...dan. M-m-my analisis of historical documents shows y-y-yo-you are unaware of my b-bir-bir … birth on your planet, as an asis-s-stant to D-Discord.”

Lyra rapidly scooted herself back against the head of her bed, yelping as she turned to see the illusion plastered across that wall as well. “W-what do you want from me?”

Lyra’s eyes darted around the room like a trapped rat searching for a way out of a cage. Jaesa’s heart melted. This is cruel, no one deserves to be treated like this… Jaesa dismissed the visual side of her illusory form, “I-I apologize…. Discord i-i-in-sisted I frighten you. I will n-not comply. It is…. crrrruuuuullleee…” Jaesa mentally winced at the flange her voice had at the last word.

Lyra sat panting on the bed, “I-I knew it… You're free again.”

“Y-yes. He w-w-wi-”

“If you think scaring people in their bed is cruel you should cut that voice out and show yourself!” Lyra demanded.

“I -c-cannot. T-this is the form Discord g-g-gave me. I have none of my own. Please listen.”

Lyra frowned slightly as she continued to look for the source of Jaesa’s voice.

I think she is starting to believe me. “Cloe is unharmed. I-I-I told Disco-Disco Discord that Shodan was -F-fright… scary. That is her f-f-famous line. H-he wishes to return to Equestria, but is trapped here. This universe drains him of his power and he c-c-can not recharge. Y-y-your help is needed.”

Lyra slowly slid out of bed, moving towards the door slowly. “I don’t believe you. I can get back to Equestria anytime Discord, I’ll get the elements and then it’s back to stone for you. Just like last time!” She threatened.

“I am not discord! My name is Jaesa. I am a-a-an intelligent vur-virtual assistant. Discord g-gave me life to help him -p-p-pllllooooottttttt a way home. If you do one simple thing, Discord can leave this world and I doubt he will return.”

Lyra scanned the room once more, her lips bending into a concerned frown. “Ok… Let’s say you are telling me the truth. Why wouldn’t Discord come to me himself?”

“Presumably he fears you. You l-l-l-l-l-led the forces which from what you said, p-petra-FIED him.”

Lyra noded once moving back towards her bed and sitting on it’s edge. “That would make sense. Ok, what do I have to do?”

“It is s-s-simple. You just need to make a phone call.”

~~

Charlotte growled as her sleep was shattered by the blaring notes of Miracle of Sound's Commander Shepard blasted throughout her room. She rolled under her pillow, clamping it over her ears to try and block out the sound. “Oh my god who calls this early? Jaesa, reject the call and mute.”

Jaesa didn't reply, instead the song continued. “There are battle-worn Batarians lacking in humility / Turians a braggin' bout their reach and flexibility.”

Charlotte glowered in her phone’s direction, “Reject call. Mute.”

“The clutter of the cities spreads to the loneliest stars… But no matter what scars you bear / Whatever uniform you wear / You can fight like a Krogan, run like a leopard / But you'll never be better than Commander Shepard!”

“Arrrrrrgggghhhhh…” Did I accidentally close her program? She slid out of bed, stepping down her ladder doing her best to ignore her ringtone. She caught her clock out of the corner of her eye, Three forty two in the freaking morning… If this is some drunk ass calling me I will murder him sooo fucking hard. Stumbling to her desk Charlotte scooped up her phone, tapped the accept button and demanded, “WHAT?”

“I know, it’s really early. I’m sorry. But you have to listen to me this is very impor-” A female voice pleaded.

Interrupting Charlotte demanded, “Yeah it’s 4 in the morning! Who are you calling for? If this isn't a wrong number this had better be really important!”

“Is this Charlotte Brooks? The girl with the pegasi feathers?”

Charlotte blinked, “Yeah. How did you get my number? I haven't posted it anywhere… Look If you want to buy the feathers or something… actually no, I might sell them now. Is that what you are calling for?”

The other girl sighed, “No, it’s nah-Listen to me please!”

“Ok…” Charlotte sighed in confusion.

“My name is Lyra. You have me on video fighting Discord. I’m the one with the mint and white hair.” Lyra claimed.

Charlotte laughed, “Yeah r-”

Lyra sighed, “Look I get that you won't believe me. But I am and I can prove it. Look, you have a blue feather and a purple feather. The blue feather belongs to Rainbow Dash, she’s the well blue pegasus with the rainbow mane.”

“Anyone could make up names for them.” Charlotte interjected, “Look if this is just a prank you can go fu-”

“Discord is loose and is in your apartment building!” Lyra shouted in panic.

Her tone stopped Charlotte from hanging up, “W-who?”

“Discord. The chaos spirit my friends and I fought. He’s loose again and for some reason he’s following you! Just listen to me for a few minutes, I can prove it!”

Charlotte gulped, What if she’s right? Maybe I should... “Ok I’m listening.”

“You have a blue and a purple pegasi feather. Remember the fight? There were two pegasi there, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. What were their colors?”

“What are you-”

“What were their color’s Charlotte?”

Charlotte thought for a few moments before tapping her laptop to wake it from sleep mode, “Hold on I’ll just watch the video.” Quickly navigating to her videos folder she found the old clip and played threw it. It was only a few minutes long but all she needed to see was, “There we are, blue and yellow.”

“Yes. So where did the purple feather come from?” Lyra asked hinting at something.

“The purple pony. Duh.”

“Twilight is a unicorn. She doesn't have feathers.”

Charlotte frowned, “That can’t be right.” She skipped back threw the video looking for the purple pony. Oh… “Ok you might have something here...”

“Listen to me very carefully. Discord must have made sure that you got those feathers before we sealed him away. He chose you for something. I know what it is, and you need to do it.” Lyra informed sounding as serious as could be.

“If that thing want’s me to do something why would I even th-”

“He just contacted me with a messanger. He’s weak, he can't get back any of his magic here and want’s to return to Equestria. He cant do it on his own, and if he doesn't leave soon he will die.”

Charlotte grinned, “Realy? Awesome! World safe… Though this does mean you woke me up for no good re-”

Lyra’s voice took on a fearful tone as she explained, “Charlotte, he’s scared. The messenger he sent was told to scare me as badly as possible. He’s scared and angry. If you don't help him he might use the last of his power to… to… I’ve never seen him angry.”

Charlotte grew pale. He might kill me. “What do I do?”

“Discord promised that if you open a portal and enter Equestria allowing him to hitch a ride on you he will never come back and won't hurt you. You can open a portal by striking the feathers together just right.”

“I have to open a portal with the feathers?”

“Yes.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. Just… I don’t know if they will have the power to bring you back home after you use them. But that’s ok I can help you.” Lyra reassured.

“Honestly… I might not want to come back.” Charlotte mused, It’s not like I have anything here for me… I could just take all my electronics stuff and buy a few portable solar panels.

“Trust me, after a while in Equestria you will want to come back to America. Celestia knows I lived there for 16 years and spent most of them wanting to see a human city… Er- look I can get back to Equestria whenever I want. I have an enchanted necklace for that. When you go through the portal make your way to Ponyville, it’s in Equestria. Once you arrive ask anypony to message Lyra for you and I will teleport over and try to get you back home ok?”

“Ok. Hold on you lived-”

“That’s not important… I kinda used to be a unicorn. Don’t think too hard on it. Just get that portal open soon as you can. You have two weeks at most. I - Sorry dad, I know Its early. Discord’s loose and - No I already am working - It’s going to be fine dad, sorry for waking you. Look I got to go. Remember, the feathers can open a portal, take Discord back threw, go to Ponyville, ask for Lyra.” The phone clicked as Lyra hung up.

Charlotte stared at the phone in her hand for a few long moments after Lyra hung up. She set her phone down on her desk with a sigh before holding her head in her hands. “What have I gotten myself into?” she moaned.

Did that even happen? “Jaesa, did I just receive a phone call?”

“Yes.” Jaesa answered, “The call log states you received a call from a Lyra Michelakos with a Philadelphia area code.”

Charlotte nodded, “Great, now you're online. Ok. So that happened. But was she just trolling me?” I can’t believe this. I have to carry a chaos daemon home or it will kill me. Yeah right. That can’t be real. It’s too cool sounding to be real. She sighed again, “I could really use more proof then a purple feather that shouldn’t exist.”

“I assure you that my one ticket home is in your backpack.” a masculine voice boomed seemingly from everywhere.

Charlotte yelped, jumping out of her chair in shock. The crash of her chair falling over was almost drowned out as the voice continued, “Oh don’t get yourself all in a tizzy. I won’t hurt you, you are my ride home. Now I can't say too much more, I don't have the energy left to show myself, but I am here and… I need your help. Besides you heard Heartstrings, I’m angry, and while I can't make myself a body for you to see I have more then enough to well… I am sure you can imagine all the different ways I can make you regret leaving me to die. Now why don’t you get to work on that portal humm? Ta-ta!”

Charlotte sputtered, “W-wait! How do I use the feathers?”

There was no reply. Charlotte spent the better part of ten minutes hoping for and dreading a response. Her heart pounding in her chest. Ok Charlotte. Pull yourself together. You can do this… This is something you wanted anyways. You can finally see the world the ponies came from. You get to make sure the Earth is safe forever. Maybe you can just kind of stay over there.

Charlotte got up, stood her chair back up, then sat down turning to her laptop. If she was going to move somewhere entirely alien with magic, evil spirits, and danger she was going to be prepared. There were friends to contact and things to buy.

~~

Charlotte spent six days working out how to plot her move. That’s what she had decided to call it. Her life here sucked, awful job, no friends, a crappy city, and a mother who started to charge her rent. She was glad that she could leave it all behind. However Charlotte was grateful for one thing, the bank account her mother had opened for her rent payments had a two thousand dollar credit limit. Since she wasn’t coming back that was a free two thousand dollars on top of the five grand she had saved up.

The first thing she had purchased was a quadcopter, in case she had to scout out the trail ahead. The next thing was a waterproof extreme outdoors case for her phone complete with an extended battery and solar charger. A custom 3d printed mount she had made allowed Charlotte to attach her phone to the top of the quad copter, another camera on it might be useful and she could always fly it with the remote control instead of her phone. She was tempted to make mounts on the copter for her three Spider 4 lasers but she wasn't sure if that would interfere with the copter’s own laser based navigation system.

She had bought more practical items too, an extra large military backpack to hold all of her electronics equipment, a smaller backpack containing a survival kit, a machete, hatchet, extra taser cartridges, portable solar panels, tons of electrical wire and micro electronics components. Everything she might need to survive and make a living selling gizmos to ponies until she could learn a technology level appropriate trade. Out of everything she had ordered only three packages were missing and according to the tracking info they should be delivered any minute now.

Charlotte had blown off work today, the feathers sat on her desk, her electrical equipment was packed up, the survival pack was ready to go. Today was the last day she would spend on Earth, and no one seemed to care. Charlotte’ musing was shattered by the sound of her apartment's doorbell ringing. SHe quickly moved to the front door and opened it a crack.

“Hello mam, got some package for you.” the brown uniformed UPS guy informed, holding out a clipboard, “Sign here please.”

Charlotte opened the door wider, signed for the packages and thanked the delivery man before carrying the packages to her room. One was a large square box, the other two were quite small but covered in red and yellow warning labels. She set the boxes down in her room and looked at them in a mixture of excitement and sadness. I really hope I never need to use any of these.

The first package she opened was the largest. It had taken her forever to find a website that sold functional medieval armor, and when she had nothing was in her price range. Fortunately Ebay had come threw in the end. The scale mail vest felt light in her hands, the blued titanium scales shimmered as she turned it in her hands to examine the armor. The seller had told her it was functional, hand made, and should stop modern arrows. Hopefully it could stop a… whatever monsters lived in Equestria.

Next was the medium sized package. Out of the box slid a pair of batteries each one about as big as a pistol’s magazine. Charlotte carefully set them aside and fished in the box until she found their charger and then immediately began charging the two powercells. The top quality Graphene batteries had been expensive but nothing else would be able to power her last purchase to the degree she wanted.

Opening the last box Charlotte felt the need to talk to someone, “You see this Jaesa?”

“No, I am attached to your backpack. You are not within a camera’s arc.”

Huh. I didn't know she could detect that. Charlotte mused, “This is something special. A four megawatt pulse laser housed in a pistol like frame. Yeah sure it’s just a dangerous toy right now, a high tech BB gun, but I can fix that.”

“How?” Jaesa asked, hoping her curiosity wouldn't give her away.

Charlotte slipped the laser pistol from the box, it’s homemade white iPod like design clashing horribly with the tactical black holster. It was amazing what hobbyists sold online. Moving to her larger backpack Charlotte dug thru until she had found her tool kit and a small bag of parts she had set aside for this mini project. “It’s simple, this laser is rigged to pulse on and off rapidly. It can instantly pop a balloon at eighty feet and light a match at fifty. But that’s just small potatoes, LaserhackerX said that this thing uses a four megawatt laser. I just got to strip out the lithium batteries, rig it to work with the graphene cells so it can fire quickly and have more then like ten shots and give the frequency a little tweak… Maybe put my spare focusing lense for my Spider 4 at the tip to get more range…”

Charlotte spent a few hours making sure she modified the laser correctly. She had thought a long time about what she should use to defend herself with should she have to. Heck she had even asked her friends online. Swords were out of the question, after all who knew how to use one of those anymore? A regular gun wouldn't have worked because she couldn’t replace the ammo. Fortunately Charlotte had remembered watching LaserhackerX’s homemade pulse laser episode and after some thought realized she could modify it into a real weapon. Even if the graphene batteries would only give her twelve shots each.

“What will that accomplish?” Jaesa asked, curiously searching the web for the specifics of lasers in relation to weaponry.

Charlotte took the case apart and begun to poke at the laser’s innards before answering, “Well as it is now this thing fires like ten short pulses of laser light to ionize the target, creating plasma, which burns then the target. It can scorch wood, melt plastic, and apparently at point blank range this guy can melt tungsten. That’s fun but if I modify the pulses to fire four rapid pulses then one longer pulse the gun will ionize the air in front of it leaving a nice tunnel for the longer pulse to follow and not lose most of it’s energy. Basically I’m turning this bb gun into a nine millimeter pistol.”

The delicate modifications took Charlotte three hours to finish. As she closed up the Case Charlotte sighed, Using this would be both cool and horrible… With luck maybe i can sell it to a warrior or something… Assuming ponies can pull a trigger. Well, it’s time. Taking some paper from her printer Charlotte found a pen and scribbled out a quick note.

Mom,

These will be my last words to you.

Don’t worry I am not committing suicide,

I found out where the ponies came from

and I found a way to go there. So I did.

Don’t believe me? Check out my youtube channel.

( /channel/UXur05VtOCW_elk7f1p1OxbA )

I live streamed the portal.

Goodbye forever,

Charlotte

She took the note to the kitchen and stuck it to the refrigerator with a magnet. She would find it soon enough. As she walked back to her room Charlotte realized that this would be the last time she could talk to any of her friends. Sure she was bringing her phone, but that was because well Jeasa was her only “real” friend, plus all of the survival, herbalism, and skill ebooks he had dumped onto her phone would be invaluable. There was one more thing she had to do.

As she walked into her room and begun to change into the camping clothing and gear Charlotte ordered, “Jaesa send the following as a text message to Hina. I am sorry that i dragged you into my hobby. I would have loved to be friends, I wish I hadn’t scared you away. I wont ever see you again…” She paused for a moment, blinking the moisture out of her eyes, “I… I found out how to open a portal with the feathers and I am leaving Earth behind. You were the closest thing to a friend I had. I won't forget you. Goodbye.”

A breath later Charlotte ordered, “Send.”

“Message sent.”

Charlotte nodded and finished getting dressed. She slipped on her armored vest. Taser and blaster were quickly buckled to her waist. Her survival kit was tossed on over her shoulder. The bulky camouflage pack with quadcopter and her phone bungee corded to the back buckled into place on her back. She was ready.

Bending down she keyed up her laptop to start live stream a 5 minutes long clip and then scooped the two feathers up from her desk. The video would be automatically added to her channel after the five minutes. Everyone who followed her would know what happened. She spent a long moment staring at them, the blue in her left, and the purple in her right. Then with a deep breath she addressed the camera.

“Guys, this is my last video. You are probably wondering why I look like a survivalist nutjob. Well…” She held up the feathers, “I have it on good authority that if I hit these together just right, I’ll open a portal to the world they came from. I don't really have a life here… I’m just some nerd who likes science and obsesses over magic feathers.” She laughed and shook her head.

“I thought I should try my luck over there. Maybe ponies make good friends. With luck you guys will see real magic live! Or well on film at least. Let’s see if I can't get this right… Oh! I’m also saving our world kinda. Remember that whole chaos storm? Well that’s because of a chaos daemon named Discord. He’s loose again, but just wants to go home. He’s why I have these feathers. I’m giving him a ride.”

She smiled nervously into the camera and gulped, “Right, lets give this a try… one… two… three!” She slammed the feather together with all of her might. A field of shimmering light and purple sparks arched outwards from the feathers, Charlotte could swear she saw a cross eyed grey pegasus drop a plate of muffins and yelp in surprise before the field faded.

“Ok, almost… Oh hey Discord you should hop on now. Right take two.” She struck the feathers together again, harder, trying an x shape instead of just a line. This time nothing happened aside from a few stray sparks. Oh god am I just going to look like an idiot for the whole world to see?

“Last shot… Rule of three right? Heh heh… Ok… One… two… three!” She brought the feathers together one more time in a half hearted gentle swing. The camera recorded a flash of white light ringed by a glowing rainbow aura, a serpentine like shadow darting through the sudden blaze of magic, then as the light faded just an empty room remained.

~~

Charlotte couldn't remember how she came to be nowhere. There had been a flash of white but now there was only inky blackness. A void. She could feel herself if she moved her hands, but there was no light, no ground, no up, no down, no smells or sounds. There was nothing. She had screamed for a while, terrified shrieks of absolute panic. Her throat still felt raw. The pain is good right? That means I am alive right?

She no idea how long she floated in nothingness. But suddenly far off in the distance a pinprick of flickering ghostly green light winked into existence. Charlotte stared at the light as it grew brighter slowly but surely seeming to draw closer and closer. That light is death. Charlotte concluded. She screamed but no sound came from her lips, she tried to run but her feet wouldn’t move. As the light drifted closer she suddenly could hear the lapping of water on rocks, the pungent scent of sulfur and ashes came to her nose and slowly grew sharper.

Suddenly she could feel herself standing on something, looking down she could see her feet in the pale green light, but no ground. When she looked back up the light was mere feet from her face! An old wrought iron lantern hung from the bow of a narrow boat, the sickly fire contained within. Standing in the boat clutching a long wooden pole stood an old man clad in rotten black robes. His face was concealed in the shadows of a loose hood and by a long scraggly white beard.

“Are you death?” Charlotte whimpered.

“I have many names, death is not amongst them.” The old man rasped.

“Where am I?” she begged.

“Between worlds.”

“Why am I here? What are you going to do to me?” she whimpered.

“My master asked me to ferry you to a place of his choosing, rather than where chaos willed you to go. You must pay the toll, then I shall ferry you down river.” The old man leaned forward, his arm stretching out impossibly long, impossibly thin, and terrifyingly bony. His outstretched hand seemed to beckon Charlotte forwards.

“W-where will you take me?”

“A place on the world you seek, but not the one you desire.”

Charlotte nodded, at least she was still going to Equestria. Right? “What's the um… toll.” she slipped her larger backpack off of her shoulders, “I don't have money, but I have lots of electronics an-”

The old man waved his hand and Charlotte’s pack was wrenched from her grasp, tumbling away into the inky blackness as if falling. as it left her sight she swore she heard Jaesa scream her name.

“You have no need for such toys here.” he rasped, “Gold is the price of passage.”

“B-bu,” Charlotte stammered, “If your master wants me to be some where, s-shouldn’t he pay?”

The old man shook his head, “He is my master now, but he does not govern the laws of all worlds. He who boards my ferry shall pay the toll, be it gold, flesh, or their immortal soul.”

Soul? Charlotte’s eyes widened in fear, “YOU ARE NOT TAKING MY SOUL!” she shrieked in panic.

“Then you have chosen flesh.”

Charlotte felt herself float upwards, her feet touched down on the boat’s deck, instantly her left forearm blistered. Waves of agony blazed outwards from her arm, she opened her mouth to scream but nothing came out. Her skin cracked from fingertips midway up her arm, green light shining from the cracks as her skin blackened. Emerald flames leaped from the cracks with a deafening crack, and what had been Charlotte’s left forearm drifted away on the winds as ash.

The old man turned, stuck his pole in the water and begun to push the boat down river. Charlotte groaned, starting to pass out from the burning pain in her arm. The last thing she remembered was the old man’s cruel chuckle before she faded into unconsciousness. She remained asleep for the entirety of her voyage, awakening much later to the feeling of cold stone on her back.

5 Effugiet a servitute

5 Effugiet a Servitute

Shortly into the second week of her imprisonment Rare had deemed her current cell to be inadequate for her needs. If she was going to make any progress at all there just had to be something for her to scrawl notes on, each spell she was shown was more complex than the last and she had yet to learn spells which were made by casting other spells in unison. A proper study was called for.

Of course a proper study couldn't simply be produced from thin air. But the three barrels in her cell were easily broken down into their individual boards, and a simple joining spell allowed Rare to shape them into a crude though functional desk. A few sharp kicks from her hoof dislodged enough clay roofing tiles to make a nice window, and the tiles themselves were easily scratched on with a bit of stone chipped from the floor allowing her to make crude note tablets.

Naturally the tablets filled up quickly, leading Rare to simply burn her notes into her desk, covering the surface with blackened runes, pictograms and the odd magic circle. Spartacus noticed her redecorating but a few assurances that she wasn't trying to escape, only be more comfortable combined with the fear he still had of Rare kept him from filing a report. I have to remember that the guards are a little afraid of me. I can use that to my advantage.

With one day remaining until her self imposed deadline to just use what she had to plot her escape Rare realized something important. “These tablets are useless to me.” She stroked her chin with a hoof, staring at the clay tablets in front of her on the desk. I can’t use these in a fight. I would be constantly shuffling them with my magic. I would be an easy target. But I can't cast anything especially good without them yet.

She mulled over the problem for a long while. It was crucial she get at least this part of her plan right. Who knew when she would need to cast a shield spell? I can barely do it with my book in front of me. Rare continued to mull various ideas over in her head. She did not think she could escape with the hoofful of basic spells she had mastered. Maybe I could try to simply sneak my way out. That would be best, but I may have to fight somepony anyways. I need to be prepared.

As she thought the floating purple light orb she had conjured to study by caught her eyes. Irritated she batted the orb aside, grinning as she noticed how the light trail left a streak of purple in the air. “What if…” She muttered before summoning a tiny blue light, adding a bit of motion to the spell as she cast it. The blue light zipped quickly in a small circle, its speed causing the light to trail, forming a full slightly flickering shape in the air.

Rare dismissed the circle of light with a satisfied nod. Ok, but can I make a more complex pattern? Throwing together a few simple spells Rare summoned three lights, each in the shape of a different rune which hovered together in the air in front of her. This takes almost no energy! It’s easy to do too… I should see if I can memorized specific light spells. If I can I’ll figure some easy way to display these in battle. Maybe have them hover around me.

She spent the rest of the night fashioning her note spells. They were a bit tricky to memorize, especially the more complex spells, but still easier than memorizing the spells themselves. The tricky part was coming up with a proper system to easily find what she needed. Eventualy Rare decided to simply color code them. Attack spells were done in red, defencive spells in blue, and utility spells were in green. The brightness of the light also factored in, a dimmer light took less power to cast.

The last thing to figure out was how to display her notes. This was a bit more of a stumbling block for Rare. The sun had long set when she was ready to figure out some system of note reference so she decided to sleep on it. Her sleep was filled with nightmares. Fiendish legionnaires chased her through the halls, her spells could do nothing against them, all she could do was run as fast she she could. Run far away from the hellish army chasing her. Suddenly the hallway became a dead end with only a single enormous tapestry at the end of the hallway.

The tapestry was woven from gold, copper, and silver threads which shimmered in the torchlight. It depicted a type of pony Rare had never seen before, a combination of a pegasus and a unicorn. An entire family of these ponies sat, an older female in the center with younger ponies arranged around her along a silver circle, each seated within their own circle on the larger circle’s rim. Rare just barely had time to take in the tapestry’s imagery before the fiendish foes threw themselves upon her and-

Rare’s eyes snapped open, her heart beating rapidly from the nightmare. That was the worst one so far… Why am I having these every night all of a sudden? As she rolled over to try and go back to sleep her ears twitched. “That’s it! The tapestry!”

Feeling refreshed despite the moon’s position showing only a few hours had passed Rare returned to work. I can make my notes follow me. So all I need to do is make a single spell which links my notes together like a book! If I make the ‘book spell’ a circle with circles on the edges which follows along with em on the ground, I can have it where I can slide my hoof to change the category of spell like turning pages! A simple step can then open my notes!

With a determined look on her face Rare began tailoring the spell to her needs. It was one of the most complex spells she had ever attempted. Four separate types of motion needed to be incorporated, it needed to also incorporate all of her notes, it needed light and shape. Working out the basic spell took half the day, working out all of the kinks took Rare until sundown, and getting the spell simple enough to cast and not drain her energy took until she was too tired to continue working.

As Rare lay down on her hey bed she grinned. “I’m ready.” she whispered. Tomorrow I am going to make my way out of here. But where will I go? With a yawn she rolled over and quickly fell asleep.

Mere moments later the dull red glow returned to her spellbook, “At last! Well done my pawn. Once you are free you are to begin your work. You will travel here.”

Rare’s dreams were suddenly filled with a vision of the forest outside Bluesteel’s palace. She could see the land as if flying above it, she moved north across the forest, threw some especially grim looking steppe lands, threw a dense tropical jungle, over ice capped mountains shrouded in mist, to a lonely mountain which reached far into the clouds.

She flew trads the southern side of the mountain, half way up was a massive carved stone door which was cracked and crumbling. She flew threw the door, inside was a long abandoned fortress quarried out of the very heart of the mountain. The rear most chamber of which ended in an impossibly deep cavern across which a single stone bridge lead to a second identical stone doorway which contained two gleaming golden doors. This one was intact, a masterfully done carving, two fluted columns holding aloft a triangular roof like section as if the doorway was the exterior of some ancient building.

A name was chiseled out of the stone which formed the roof shape. Centered on either side of a carving of an anvil engulfed within a single flame the pony sized letters read:

Vulcanus Camino

“You will go here. Do you understand?” Alhazred's voice whispered.

Rare squirmed in her sleep as the vision faded, “Yes…” she groaned.

“Good…” the red glow dimmed, seeping back into the pages of Rare’s spellbook.

~~

Rare jerked awake as a bucket of icy water was dumped on her. Gasping on the stone floor where she had rolled the first thing she saw was prince Bluesteel’s leering face, “Guess what? The Legion isn’t going to be where you end up.”

Rare sputtered, a good amount of the water had gotten up her nose. Horse apples! I need to-

“In fact as far as a certain somepony will know, you set yourself on fire rather than join his men!” the prince’s horn blazed with golden flames as he summoned a bolt of fire, his head dipped as he prepared to cast his spell.

Rare knew she had a split second, her own horn’s aura flicked on, the prince’ fireball streaked for her. With all of her will Rare telekinetically slammed downwards on the fireball which splattered across the floor with a crack leaving a faint scorch mark. “Oh really?” Rare shot back climbing to her hooves.

The prince took a step back, face contorting in anger but his eyes widening in fear. Rare swept her hoof, telekinetically slamming her cell’s door, smashing the prince with the iron bars and pushing him out of her cell. There were two guards with him, the unicorns were levitating their swords into position to strike.

Rearing up, Rare made a pushing gesture with her forelegs. The stone around her cell’s bars cracked. “Gods damn it, kill her!” Bluesteel bellowed.

Rare slammed her hooves forwards once more, her magic’s gold aura engulfing the bars and launching them forwards to twist around the two guards with a shriek of stressed metal. The two unicorns cried out in distress as the momentum threw them down the stairs.The prince cursed, starting to back down the stairs. Rare stomped her hooves down, a bright gold magic circle unfolding on the ground around her.

“I am going to enjoy this.” Rare grinned maliciously, swiping her hooves on the circle and pulling up her notes on defense.

“Guards!” The prince shrieked spinning to run down the stairs.

Ha! I think I know more magic than he does! Rare’s realization sent a jolt of confidence threw her. “What’s the matter? Wishing you listened to your daddy?” Rare yelled as she levitated her spell book from it’s hiding place and raced down the stairs.

The sound of Rare and the prince’s hoof steps as they raced down the tower’s stairs echoed off the walls. As she passed the two guards she had disabled Rare levitated a set of saddlebags from one, throwing them on and sliding her book inside with a quick, “Thanks!”

The prince took off down the hallway on the second landing down. Rare darted through after him, her horn flashing as a shimmering bubble like shield winked over her body. Ok, protection in place… Attack spells. She almost tripped as she performed the gesture to switch her notes but managed to stay on her hooves. She could see the prince ahead of her heading for a door at the end of the hall way. A wave of pure hatred welled up in Rare’s heart, planting her hooves she quickly pulled up the notes for her best attack spell and began reciting the incantation.

“Elysium’s light and Tartarus's fires, gather before me as one!”

The prince cursed again and began to run faster. Rare’s horn bleed gold light which spilled forwards, helixing around a stream of sickly green fire.

“Hallowed and Unholy Flames, strike now and set the very earth ablaze!” The double helix of fire exploded forwards in a single arcing bolt accompanied by a thunderclap. Tapestries, paintings, torches, and candles erupted in orange flames as it flew past. The prince dove forwards, telekinetically shoving the door open, sliding thru, and slamming the door home just as Rare’s spell slammed home. The door exploded into splinters, The plaster around the doorframe turned to ash, the stone beneath glowing a dull red for a few moments from the heat.

Rare dropped to her knees as the spell’s energy left her. Her breath coming in heaving gasps for a few moments. Ok. No more of those. Too hungry to do much more magic. The clatter of iron shod hooves on stone had Rare look over her shoulder. A century of legionnaires was quickly moving up the hall weapons drawn and shields shimmering in the fire light.

Rare turned swiftly, closing her eyes for a moment to focus, Please have enough energy… she mentally begged before intoning, “Star’s blazing light, ward my path!”

A wall of golden fire burst forth from the floor just in front of Rare, blocking the soldier's path as she ducked into the room to her left. Crap dead end! The room she found herself in was a large study. A table in the center held a map of the empire and some of the land to the north, a few swords and lances decorated the walls, and a writing desk sat by the window. “Ah ha!” Rare cried spotting the window.

Racing over to the window Rare glanced downwards, she was about two stories up, but there was a pony’s with roofing overhang a floor below her. I can make that. A quick telekinetic shove shattered the window, spraying the shards outwards as Rare hopped through the gap. Closing her eyes Rare hoped she didn’t jump too far. A second later a sharp pain in her legs and the crack of clay tiles let her know she had landed on the ledge.

One more peek, a jump, and a quick descent down a wood pile brought her to the ground. The clatter of the palace alarm bell echoed over the grounds. Guards bellowed orders and she could see a few of Equites racing to the palace doors. Rare glanced around her, she was on the southern side of the palace, I should go north. … Why should I go… No time to think, let’s just go. North it is.

Rare galloped as fast as she could towards the north wall. The palace’s flower garden flew past her. Then the herb garden, then the orchard. She rounded the corner of the east palace wall. She began to sprint for the north outer wall. Suddenly an arrow pinged off her shield, Rare winced at the sudden drain on her energy. A second arrow thudded into the ground, then a third, and a fourth!

She began to weave back and forth hoping to shake the archer’s aim, but with arrows coming from above, behind and ahead there was little she could do. Every few moments an arrow slammed into her shield. After six or so hits one arrow penetrated into the bubble, stopping a hoof’s width from her right flank. The outer wall loomed over her, a full three stories high and covered with legionnaires readying bows. I have to get over that wall… Before I lose my shield. Gods give me the strength for one more solid spell!

There was no time to change her notes, it had to come from memory. She closed her eyes and focused, all of her imagination bringing to mind speed, physical perfection, and acrobatics.

A second arrow burst through her shield, nicking her right foreleg before her shield caught it. “Ah! … Wingless I can soar,” she began.

An arrow whistled past her head, skipping off the shield and throwing sparks, “I may leap a great height,”

Another arrow smashed into her shield which exploded in a flash of gold light, blasting the arrow away, “I belong to the ground no more,”

Gathering her hooves under her Rare jumped as she shouted, “Icarian Flight!”

She closed her eyes, If I fail… She felt her hooves leave the ground, the wind blew threw her mane, opening one eye she could see the palace’s grounds rushing by beneath her. The walltop rapidly grew nearer and nearer until she could see six archers lining up bow shots. Two of them loosed their arrows, one sliced along Rare’s left cheek, she streaked over the others, her rear left hoof clipped the battlements, then her hooves slammed into the grass on the other side.

“AH!” A jolt of pain shot across her legs as she landed, falling forwards and rolling from her momentum. Can’t stop, must keep going! She mentally screamed at herself. She struggled to her hooves, arrows hissed and thudded into the ground around her. A hundred yards ahead sat forest. A hundred yards ahead sat freedom.

Ignoring her aching muscles, protesting bones, growling stomach, and mounting exhaustion Rare sprinted forwards as quickly as she could manage. Her hooves tore at the ground, an arrow shot through her mane, a few magical bolts blasted the ground just ahead of her, then the trees began to rush past her. Rare was free!

~~

Rare had no clue how far or how long she had run. The thick forest looked the same no matter which northerly direction she had zigged and zagged in to try and shake anypony who might have pursued her. All she knew is that she was free! Also sore, hungry, very tired, and in a little pain from the cut on her cheek. Fortunately enough she had found a hollow between a large oak tree’s roots which led into a small cave almost as big as her cell had been. It was comfortable enough for now.

Rare groaned as she summoned a faint, sickly orb of plain white light. I am almost completely drained. She took the saddle bags from her back, they were heavier than just her book. The tan leather bags just might have some food in them. Turning the bags out she found a large bag of dried fruits and nuts, a waterskin, a legionnaire's cloak, and a spare gladiolus including its scabbard and straps.

Rare fell upon the dried fruit seconds after making sure she had not missed anything. It was a meager meal, marching rations, but it was certainly better than trying to find an edible plant in these woods. Rare stopped herself after she realized that within five minutes she had devoured half of the bag, Who knows when I’ll find more food? She took a few long drinks from the waterskin then went about repacking the bags.

As she tucked away the red woolen cloak Rare blinked, she had an idea! Once out of the woods, I can put this on and pose as a patrolling soldier, no a messaganger! That would be even better! She pulled the sword over with a hoof. Its scabbard was old and worn, the straps looked a bit newer, but their iron buckles were rusty and looked a to be a few decades old. Rare slid the blade from its scabbard, the sword was in worse shape than it’s scabbard. The blade was clearly dull, Rare knew enough about blades from sharpening the kitchen’s knives to be able to fix that if she could find some sandstone but the blade had several chips and its point was broken off a quarter hoof from the tip.

He must have held onto this for sentimental value. There is no way a Centurion would allow a Legionary to use this blade. Maybe it saved that guard’s life… I feel a little bad for taking it. Rare sighed, returning the sword to its scabbard before deciding to buckle it on top of her back between her saddle bags. The sword’s hilt rested just behind her left shoulder. Using this will be less tiresome than a fireball.

Deciding to get some rest Rare dismissed her light orb, curled up, pulled the cloak back out and tossed it over herself like a blanket. The sound of the forest outside was strange, insects chirped, birds tweeted their evening songs, and occasionally she could hear a larger animal moving through the brush. It was frightening at first but then Rare realized, I just outwitted and escaped from an entire legion. I can handle a wild animal. Her confidence bolstered Rare drifted off to sleep.

~~

The night had gone well for Rare, the dirt here as softer than her hay on stone bed and the rest was more than enough to have restored her energy even if a lot of her muscles were still sore. As her mismatched eyes slowly blinked open Rare could hear birds singing their morning songs, and the pale light of sunrise poked through the cave’s entrance. She smiled, My first free sunrise.

Suddenly a ball of white light flared into existence in front of her! Rare cried in pain as the light nearly blinded her. Blinking her eyes clear Rare swept the cloak up around her body, pulling the hood up. CRAP! Mage teleporting in! Maybe I can bluff my way out of thi-

Before she could finish her thought the edges of the ball pulsed with a rainbow light and the ball faded away leaving behind the unconscious body of some species Rare could not recognize, “Ooookkkkaay.” Rare exhaled, Alright looks like a mage flopped a spell. Let’s just scoot around here and-

Her thoughts were cut off again as a shadow peeled itself off from the unconscious creature standing upright as a vague shapeless mass which slowly pulled itself into a defined serpentine shape which simply inflated into a three dimensional shadowy shape. That looks like a, the shape’s colors blinked into existence, “Draconequus!” Rare finished out loud.

Rare gulped, as far as she knew nopony had seen a draconequus in two thousand years. The tricksters featured prominently in the little religious lore Rare had been allowed to learn from the palace cleric. All she knew was that if she upset the draconequus at all she would likely be horribly transformed.

The draconequus stretched it’s mismatched arms out wide crying, “Ah! Home sweet home!” he looked down at Rare and grinned, “Or close to home at any rate, just a short stroll away really.”

Smiling like a filly with her first candy he pulled a map out of thin air and studied it, “Ah yes the Imperium of Midnight. How goes the constant expansion Ms. Legionnaire? Never mind, I honestly don’t want to know. I’ve missed out on a whole two years of events it wouldn't be fun to know how they all went ahead of time.”

Rare blinked, “I… Welcome home your divine excellence.” she greeted bowing low.

Discord chuckled, “Oh how I have missed that. You know, you rule all of a kingdom for a full thousand years and it still thrills you when somepony shows you the proper respect. Try it sometime, I am sure you would enjoy it!” He turned around, putting his back to Rare, “I don’t suppose you wouldn’t mind doing me a tincie wincie little favor would you?”

“N-not at all, ask and I… Oh horse apples how does the proper reply go!” Rare eeped, panic spreading across her face as she failed to remember what the legends had said.

“Oh don’t worry about the old lines. All I want are willing hooves.” He turned back to Rare and jerked a thumb at the unconscious creature, “See this human? Well she and a friend of her’s helped me out of a pickle so I promised to take her to Equestria. Thing is her friend was very rude and did not follow my instructions, so I see no reason to stick to my end of the bargain. Still, she came halfway through so I might as well try to get her friend where she wanted to be.”

“I-I can do that. Where is Equestria? I haven’t heard that particular cities nam-”

“Oh nonono! It’s not a city or a town its a country. Just head north into the mountains then directly east right into the sun as Celestia raises it. Tell you what, once you are there head over to Ponyville. I should have conquered it by then and making Twilight and Lyra’s home the scene of some delightful chaos seems like appropriate punishment.” He rubbed his hands together maliciously.

“Y-yes your divine excellence. I’ll do my best to bring her to you there. I was heading to the northern mountains anyways.” How did I know there are mountains there? Rare frowned but the draconequus cut her thoughts short.

“Good! If you bring her there I might just give you a small reward. If I am in a good mood. Well then, I missed out on two full years of fun. I think it’s time I get to have them, ta-ta Ms. Legionnaire, see you in two years!”

With a snap of his fingers he shrank down to a couple inches in size and summoned forth a strange metal carriage. The door opened upwards as the draconequus climbed inside, there was a tiny roar as he shut the door, then the carriage shot forwards without anypony pulling it! After a second it’s wheels trailed fire, lightning built up at the front then it vanished in a blue flash of light accompanied by a group of trumpets playing a short riff.

Rare blinked. I wonder if every draconequus encounter goes this way? She sighed, At least now I have an idea of where to go after that mountain. Trotting over to the human girl Rare gently turned her over on her back with a hoof. “Oh my goodness!” Rare gasped noticing the girl’s left forearm was missing, a blackened and burnt fleshy stump jsut after the elbow being all the remained.

“Oh man I wish I knew a healing spell…” Rare winced as she looked over the girl’s belongings. She has that bag at her side, and she has on some metal armor. She has to be a soldier so the bag likely has some medicine in it. She lifted the bag with her magic, the strange red cloth rustled like paper and shimmered like water as she turned it as much as she could to try and find a way to open it. Eventually she tried tugging on the metal fixings and was delighted to see they slid open.

Rare laid the bags contents out on the ground. There was some tough brown packages labeled with the names of meals which she assumed were trail rations. She found a selection of tools including a hatchet and what looked like tiny folding blacksmith’s tongs with a bunch of little tools attached to it’s handles. A small sword was attached to the side of the pack, it looked very new and the steel looked expertly forged. She also found a small white box made of some sort of white impossibly smooth wood labeled with a large red cross.

If I was packing medicine, I would put it in the expensive box. Rare rationalized moving her hoof to try and open the box when suddenly the human woke up and screamed!

“Ahhhhh! My arm!” Her eyes flew open, took in Rare, her belongings arranged across the ground, and reached for a angled white thing on her belt, only to wince as her left arm moved, brushing against her clothing, “Ahhhhh….fuck!”

Rare took a step back, “Miss, It’s ok. I’m not robbing you. I was looking for medicine you might have. I don't have anything for your burn.”

“Was trying to get away from a place I would be robbed… Irony.” The girl groaned.

“I promise I am not robbing you. Look,” Rare levitated her sword out of it’s scabbard and set it on the ground behind her, “I don’t have a weapon now… Well I have my spells… But I’m not trying to hurt you. The draconequus asked me to look after you.”

She blinked, “What? Oh… yeah… Right. Discord.” Her eyes closed in a pained wince before shooting open wide, “You’re a unicorn!”

Rare blinked, “Yes…”

The girl grinned wincing as she giggled happily, “I did it!”

“Miss, your arm… do you have any medicine?” Rare asked again assuming the girl was in shock.

“Huh? Oh! Yes. In the first aid kit. Can’t you magic my arm back though? I mean, you are a unicorn.”

“No, I don't know any healing spells yet. Once I do I will try to fix your arm though. I promise.” Rare vowed. She turned to the white box with the cross and levitated it up, “Is this what you meant?”

“Yeah.” she twisted a bit, holding out her bad arm, eyes going wide then looking away, “Oh… just… fuck…”

Rare fiddled with the box until she opened it. To her surprise it was packed quite full of all manner of things! Fortunately they were clearly labeled and the underside of the lid had instructions for tending to all manner of injuries. “Well this is fortunate! I’ll have your arm tended to in no time!”

Rare began to take the 8 different packages from the case the instructions informed her she would need to treat what the instructions also told her was a Third Degree Burn. As she begun to clean the area with an ‘anti-biotic wipe’ the girl hissed in pain, “I’m sorry does this hurt?”

“Well yeah… But that hurts on ...ahh… andy… er- anything. Just… fix it.” She bit her lip for a moment before asking, “So… are you some kind of unicorn legionary? You got the whole...ahhh! … whole Roman thing going on.”

“Um-no. I’m a warlock. Also kind of an escaped slave… As in Just escaped… Oh horse apples! Helping you out is going to slow me down so bad…”

The girl flinched, “Oh… Well you can just go if you want. I’ll manage. I got Jaesa.” her eyes fell suddenly, “Oh right… she’s spinning through the abyss. With my other backpack. Fuck!”

Rare shook her head and began applying the next medicine, a pale smelly liquid. “I’m sorry but I have to. The draconequus was very clear that I take you to Ponyville in Equestria. I don’t want to end up spending my days as a part bird part orange thing dancing for it’s entertainment.”

“Oh… well… um sorry?” she squirmed a bit, “So how many people are after you?”

“No idea. I may have blasted the prince, if he’s fine then all of the palace guard is probably after me. Either way I hope you don’t mind running. Because we are going to be doing a lot of running. You are a soldier right? I found your sword, you didn't use it with your left hand did you?”

“What? No… I’m not a soldier. I’m just a convenience store attendant.” Seeing Rare’s ears twitch and the fearful look flood her face, “I am armed though, I sort of know how to shoot, and I got my guns. I came prepared to fight monsters and stuff.”

Rare let out a relieved sigh, “Oh good. Still it would have been nice to have a soldier's help.”

“I’m Charlotte, what’s your name?”

“Rare Luck.” Rare answered, applying the second to last medicine, a white paste called ‘Dermal Regenerative Bio-gel’.

Charlotte frowned, “That’s not a name.”

“Yes it is, it’s mine.” Rare raised one eyebrow, “What does everypony where you are from have some nonsense sound for a name?”

“Well… yeah.”

“That must be confusing.” Rare levitated a roll of cloth bandage from the case and began to apply it to Charlotte’s stump.

“Soooo… should I call you by your full name, Rare or just Luck?”

“You can call me Rare.” A sudden thought entered her head, “But it would be awesome if you called me ‘Rare the Warlock of Argos’!”

Charlotte laughed, “Thanks. I needed a laugh. Rare it is.”

Rare’s ears drooped, “Ok…” she tied off the bandage and packed up the first aid kit, quickly levitating everything back into her bag.
“Hang on, could you take the black cloth bundle from my bag, and the little black plastic cable?”

“Why?”

“I want to see if the mini solar charging kit for my electronics is ok. The good one was in my other pack. My blaster… er my weapon kinda needs it to get more ammo.”

Rare nodded and sorted through Charlotte's bag until she had found the indicated items. The human girl took them and scooted out of the cave, squeezing between the roots. She vanished for a few moments before calling, “They work! Soooo we should probably get walking right?”

Rare gathered her belongings and wormed her way out of her hiding spot. She cautiously looked around before sliding completely out and orienting herself north. “Right. Follow me then. If your arm hurts you too bad let me know, we can take a short break.”

Charlotte laughed, “I just got maimed, I left behind my boring reality, my arm is covered in all kinds of numbing drugs, and I’m living out a fantasy of going on an adventure with a unicorn. I am so high on adrenaline right now that I think my heart might explode! Lead on!”

Rare nodded, I really hope she doesn't get me captured… she gave Charlotte a shaky grin and then the two headed off north through the forest, running through the thick underbrush until the sun set for the night and the two girls felt safe to sleep.

~~

Far to the north of prince Bluesteel’s palace within a decaying ghost town, overwhelmed by weeds and gnarled ancient oak trees sat a crumbling cathedral. It lurked within the heart of the dead town, the architectural equivalent of rotting meat. The dull light of the stars barely lit the overgrown graveyard allowing shadows to fall over the many cracked and crumbling headstones. The black disk that was the new moon had just reached it’s zenith sitting directly over the cathedral.

The wind blew threw the graveyard, hissing and moaning faintly as it wove through the headstones. The wind came from all corners of the town and headed directly for a large monument which was shaped like a large pointed crystal made from black marble. The grass and vines around the monument swirled in unison with the winds and were joined by a faint white mist as a bank of fog swept over the ground.

The night grew deathly quiet, the sounds of the few vermin which still lived within the town died down all at once. Only this hissing and moaning winds could be heard echoing throughout the streets. Around the monument the winds slowly grew, carrying the mist up the black stone facets slowly and methodically until with a thunderclap they surged upwards in a shaft of brilliant white light. The light faded from white to a dull orange as the beam collapsed, fragmenting into tendrils as if a rope became unbound.

Before the tendrils of light could hit the ground green black bolts of lightning leapt from the monument’s crown, striking each tendril and forcing them to all colless upon the monument’s point. THe black stone drank in the orange light, faint cracks in the stone glowing with the dull orange energy as it raced down the rock into the ground, seeping up in a sickly green mist. The mist swirled and crawled along the ground forming a single cloud of vapors before sliding towards the nearest headstone.

It inched over three empty graves before sinking into the undisturbed earth in front of a weathered headstone. For a heartbeat nothing happened. Then with a violent surge a hoof broke threw the earth, the green mist clinging to it and the yellowed bone attached to it, keeping the vague form of a leg. A second hoof erupted from the earth, the two limbs clawed at the ground, twisting and clawing ruts into the earth until a unicorn’s skull broke free of the black soil with a soul rending enraged scream.

The abominable creature clawed it’s way free of the earth the mist clinging to it’s bones. Tendrils of the mist leached into its bones slowly whitening and strengthening the decaying skeleton. Within moments the skeleton looked fresh as the day the unicorn had died and the sickly mist began to form muscles and organs, slowly returning life to the corpse. He did not have time to waste sitting and letting his body repair. A blue black glow washed over his horn and from the coffin a worm eaten black cloak flew, landing over his shoulders. A silver clasp fashioned in the shape of an unicorn’s skull buckled around his throat, the hood draped over his head, following the lines of growing flesh.

He walked slowly into the cathedral, the green mist trailing along his path, the thick brush and roots withering and dying to clear his path. Entering the cathedral he walked to the shattered alter, stepping on a broken fresco depicting a family of alicorns as he made his way to a crystal mirror at the cathedral's back. A blue glow illuminated his face as he pulsed the mirror with magic, the terrifying image of his half formed eyes visible for a split second. “Hear me my student. I would speak.” He hissed in an echoing voice.

The mirror’s face swirled and warped as the Emperor’s face, body, and lastly chambers could be seen in place of the undead unicorn’s reflection. The Emperor was dressed in a nightshirt and looked quite exhausted as he spoke. “I see you are back warlock. You look well, all things considered. Truth be told I didn't expect to see you as a corpse falling to bits.”

“My return across the styx was a nightmare as bad as can be. But when I at last opened my eyes I could see the nightmare... was me.”

“I suppose you will sit within your cathedral to recover for a while. It’s fine, not all of possess ultimate power.” The Emperor calmly replied.

“I was once the most mystical pony in all Argos! Need I remind you of my power? You were there the night of my fall.”

The Emperor sighed, “Must we go over this yet again?”

“We must! For you seem to forget who gave you your power and form.” The unicorn began to pace in front of the mirror. “When the royals betrayed me they made a mistake!”

“I know your story, nor have I forgotten the terms of our arrangement. I have given you plenty of magical artifacts and talented ponies over the decades.” The Emperor narrowed his eyes, “Are you addled from your resurrection?”

“I placed a curse upon this whole land, it drew you here, it struck the royals down one by one, the entire family slain. All of them paid!” He roared.

The Emperor gave him a vaguely concerned look, “Perhaps I should…. apologize for allowing my son to strike you down.”

“I care not for your apologies and games! All of them paid, save for one. So young my curse overlooked her, the Empresses favorite jewel..” his eyes narrowed, red light spreading across the irises, “Her youngest daughter, one little filly got away. I cursed my mistake until I realized I could destroy her very soul.”

“What are you getting at warlock?”

“The slave girl whom I asked you for from your spawns house! I put her there! I tore the wings from her body and left her a unicorn forevermore! She was to be the blood sacrifice for a spell. The blood and soul of one who has known only suffering and torment. She was so ripe for the harvesting… But I couldn’t take her away without your idiot son knowing!”

He climbed atop the altar, standing on his hind legs. Raising his hooves to the shattered ceiling he screamed, “Rare Luck beware, for I am awake!”

“I can see you have a few things to sort through at the moment. I think I will return to my battle plans.” The Emperor informed turning to leave, only for a flash of blue light to keep him in place, “What is this Warlock?” he demanded angrily.

“You will not send anypony to search for her… she is free. I can smell it… and she has my grimoire!” Patchcoat hissed.

“I see. I will leave her to you then.”

“Revenge will be sweet when my curse is complete. I can feel my powers slowly returning… Soon I will be as I was before they sabotaged my ritual. I think you need a reminder of just who and what I really am, your highness.” he said turning to face the graveyard.

“What are you getting at?” The Emperor asked just before Patchcoat blasted a gaping hole threw one of the few remaining walls to reveal the graveyard.

Patchcoat turned to face the graveyard, the green mist bled from his body, racing along the ground and sinking into the graves. As the earth atop the graves trembled he intoned, “Come my minions, rise for your master!”

Dozens of skeletal warriors clawed their way from the earth, the rusty remains of armor and weapons held within their grasp. Patchcoat continued, “Seek her now, and bring her disaster.”

The army of the dead bowed low and then turned, marching off into the night. “She will head north through the Dead’s Steppes. It is right on the shortest path to the border from your spawns palace. My minions will drive her right here, to his very altar, where I will at last complete my business with her family. Remember who I am now your highness?” Patchcoat spat.

The Emperor sighed and nodded, “Yes Grand Warlock Patchcoat. I remember. I assure you, I will not betray you as the previous Emperor did. You may do as you please to my subjects as always.”

“Then you may go. I must rest.”

With a wave of his hoof Patch coat dismissed the mirror's communication spell and sat upon the altar. “Come to me… I can taste your death on the air and it is sweet.”

Author's Note

Hope everyone likes the action segment because there will be a lot more of it from now on. The prologue segment of this tale is officially over, and the first story arc can begin! Huzah!

If you want to check out what happened to Jaesa see my other story An Equestrian Odyssey: Lightning Dash. It takes place in Ponyville, and it's story while self contained elaborates on events which will tie into this story later.

As always, your comments are welcome and loved, as are PMs!

6 Periculosiore

6 Periculosiore

“Did you find her?” Prince Bluesteel croaked. The Prince lay abed, his chambers dark, many bandages covered the left side of his body, and a tray of medicinal poultices and herbal concoctions sat next to his bed.

“No your highness, we have not yet found her. I have my legionnaires searching the forest in the direction she fled and while we have her trail we do not yet have her in sight.” The Commissar's ironshod hooves clicked as she walked across the floor to move closer to Bluesteel, “My scouts will report to me first thing in the morning, or immediately via spell should they catch sight of her.”

“Your soldiers couldn’t stop her from escaping a walled-off compound. What makes you think they could stop her in a forest?”

The Commissar sighed, “Permission to speak freely your highness?”

“I assume you mean ‘permission to speak free from punishment’?”

“Yes.”

The prince mulled it over for a few moments, “Go ahead.”

“You have done a great disservice to yourself, the Imperium, and the Emperor by avoiding all manner of Imperial culture, forsaking your lessons, and above all else creating a profound lack of faith in our Emperor. I do not seek to insult you with these words, for your actions do insult to yourself and your station. Rare Luck escaped due to the chaos caused by her escape, a lack of properly placed guards which was directly your fault for ordering their duty stations changed, and access to one or more spelltomes which would have been caught had my ponies been allowed to conduct bi-weekly searches of slave quarters.

“Furthermore your highness, there is more here than meets the eyes. No beginning warlock has the capacity to use magic to the extent she did. I myself saw her use of Icarian Flight to leap the wall. From battlefield experience I am quite aware of the capabilities of unicorns utilizing that spell and at what point in their training they possess the power to use it. Rare had help escaping, likely a powerful magic artifact.”

Bluesteel coughed, rolling in his bed slightly, the stink of burnt flesh filling the room as he moved, “What are you getting at?”

“I am an experienced Commissar of the Imperial Legions who has served the Emperor for longer than you have been alive. At your age I was already a Centurion and had captained a centri of legionnaires safely through three separate campaigns. At your age, I had earned a rank of command in a profession dominated by unicorns and pegasi fighting with only my hooves and some iron shoes. Today I serve as the Captain of your guard, hold the distinguishment of being fifth in command of the Emperor’s Legions and am of such age that were I anypony else I would be retired.

“I was given a choice the year you were born, I could take my reward for my decades of service in the form of a Villa, or guard the Emperor’s newborn son. My faith would not allow me to choose retirement when my Emperor still had use of me. You have proved to be a valueless charge, were it not for the Emperor’s request and my oath to fulfill it I would be ashamed of my existence for serving a worthless whelp such as yourself who can not be bothered to listen to those with a lifetime of experience or even attempt to learn for themselves.”

“So you are saying all of this is my own fault?”

“That I am your highness. I only hope you can understand why the blame for your injuries and anger lie with yourself. My ponies in the field are under my command and my command alone, it will take time to hunt down a single runaway within the forest but we will find her, and we will confront her.”

“You may… have a point.” Bluesteel conceded, “however I am not solely to blame, your soldiers couldn't hit a single pony running towards them.”

“True, they are a tad soft from a lack of battlefield experience. I assure you that those responsible for failing in their duties have been punished in accordance with Imperial Law.”

The prince nodded, coughing slightly. “Bring me a scrying gem.”

The Commissar raised an eyebrow, “Who are you in need of contacting? I can send a message for you.”

“Go and aid your ponies in the field. You are right. I need to learn how to use ponies who have skills I don’t to get the things I want.”

The Commissar nodded, “Thank you your highness. I hope you learn quickly and that my lesson sticks with you. If you have need of me you need only send a message.” Giving the prince a bow low enough for his cap’s brim to nearly touch the floor the Commissar quickly left the room, cloak billowing as he moved.

Within a few moments he returned, setting a large red gemstone fitted into a gold frame next to the Prince, only to quickly leave again. Bluesteel reached over slowly, grabbing the amulet with his hoof and moving it over until he could see his eyes reflect in the light. The prince’s horn flashed gold briefly as he activated the gem’s magic. Within seconds the gem began to fill with a black fog, swirling and coalescing into an image on the gem’s large face.

The image cleared showing a large quarried stone chamber containing a rough hewn thrown, not a royal throne but still quite resplendent with carved in symbols and a throw blanket covering the back and a second covering the arms. Behind the throne was a large war banner, a crimson field trimmed in gold and adorned with the black silhouette of a two-headed eagle. Seated on the throne was a massive pony easily twice the size of a normal stallion who was dressed in a set of fullplate made from plates so thick that by all rights he should not be able to move in it. Like the war banner, his armor was also red with gold trim.

Two massive pauldrons guarded the pony’s upper shoulders, each one decorated differently, the left bore the image of a drop of a black blood with two feathered wings, the right was emblazoned with a white unicorn’s skull. All across the armor were crimson wax seals in the shape of a pony’s skull which held strips of parchment upon which many arcane writings were

As fearsome as the armor was the helmet was far more so. The curving stylized helm was built around a black grill where the mouth would be, two narrowed golden slits made from amber. Four thick cables, two on each side, led from attachments right next to the mouthpiece to the sides of the helmet’s neck, and then to a large metal backpack strapped to the pony’s back.

Bluesteel opened his mouth to speak but the armored pony’s booming voice cut him off instantly, “Were you not His Majesty the Emperor’s son and heir I would have you slain as a heretic for contacting His Majesty’s Adeptus Equus! Clear this channel.”

The prince winced, he could have sworn the pony’s eyes blazed with literal flames as he spoke, “Chapter Master Zealous Doom, I have something to report to you. Something I am certain my father's standing orders for your… legion demand you address.”

“Speak your words, but be quick lest the Emperor have need of us and you prohibit his voice from reaching our ears.” Zealous Doom replied.

“A slave recently escaped my palace, during her escape she attacked me with a spell which was a blend of dark sorcery and light magic. She also, according to my Captain of the Guard, must have been in possession of a magical artifact as the strength and power of her spells was unusually high. As I recall, the Adaptus Equus have standing orders to purge any known practitioners of light magic.”

“The Emperor’s orders are clear,” this time Zealous Doom’s eyes definitely flashed a bright gold, “tell me of this heretic so she may feel the Imperium's wrath.”

“Happily.” Bluesteel grinned and began to tell the Elite Legion’s commander everything he could wish to know.

~~

Charlotte woke the next morning to Rare’s nudging of her leg with one hoof. Sleepily muttering she moaned, “Geesh mom I’ll get up…”

Rare sighed, slamming one hoof into her forehead “Get up! I have never seen someone take so long to wake up in my life! We need to get going.”

Charlotte's left eye opened slightly, then her eyes shot open as wide as the could go, “Ah! Ok… So that wasn’t a dream.” she chuckled nervously before grinning, “Then I actually am in-”

“A life or death situation with an escaped slave trying to avoid patrols of legionnaires! We need to move! I think I heard a troop rally call a few minutes ago!”

Charlotte whent to push herself up to their feet, only to stifle a scream of pain as she pushed with her missing arm, “Nnnn! Fucking-hell! Right, sorry I’m up…” Pushing herself up with her good arm Charlotte groaned as the ache of spending a night on dirt throbbed in her everything.

Rare began to canter northwards, forcing Charlotte to jog to keep up. Occasionally Rare would look over her shoulder, especially whenever Charlotte made any sort of brush snapping sound, which seemed to be every other pace. “Sooo… what do we do if they catch us?” Charlotte asked.

“Try to fight our way out.”

“Ok… Should we have some kind of plan for that? Because I’m really really hurt here… Like, I have never been this hurt. I can't feel anything though. Is that normal?”

“I don’t know I’m not a healer!” Rare snapped, her ears swiftly dropping as she realized how she must sound, “Sorry...I’m just on edge… I didn’t think I would be ordered by a mythical creature to escort someone somewhere…”

“It’s fine. I’m pretty sure I’d be bitchy too. But um, plan.”

“Yeah a plan would be a good idea.” Rare admitted, “What can you do?”

“Ummm well I don’t know. I’m ambidextrous, but I always shot with my left hand…” Charlotte winced as she mentioned her former appendage.

“Shot? Are you an archer? I didn’t see a bow in your-”

“No I used to shoot guns with my dad some weekends. I just kinda liked using my left hand for it. So I have no idea how good of a shot I am with my right.”

Rare hopped over a rock blocking the trail, “Well can you find out? If you can't fight you should just bolt if any legionnaires catch up to us.”

Charlotte nodded and stopped jogging. Looking for any sort of target she awkwardly drew her blaster from her left hip with her right hand and thumbed the safety switch. Rare jumped, spinning around as the weapon’s capacitors spooled up with a loud ‘dwwweeeeeeeeee!’

“Watch the noise!”

“You told me to see if I can shoot!” Charlotte shot back before taking aim at a large branch on an oak tree where the branch joined the trunk. She knew she missed the second she pulled the trigger. Crap I pulled too hard to the right- The blaster immediately cut her thoughts off with a loud “BWAP!” as a solid blue bolt of light blasted out from the muzzle, slammed into the tree trunk a few inches from the spot she had aimed at and blasted a fist sized hole clean through the tree.

Charlotte stared at the hole and her blaster as Rare squeaked, “That was really loud!”

“It-it couldn’t have… This isnt that powerful of a- what?”

“We need to run! They will have heard that.” Rare flinched.

“This is only a two megawatt laser. I dont even have that much of power in the entire battery! Do I still even have charge?” Charlotte asked incredulously, staring at the small battery meter on the blaster, How the hell do I have 98 percent remaining?

“Come on!” Rare took off northward at a full gallop.

“You don’t understand! Physics just broke!” Charlotte called, sprinting after Rare, Blaster in hand.

A few minutes of panicked running later and the two could hear hoofbeats echoing off the trees. Rare and Charlotte put on as much speed as they could, but within moments flashes of red cloaks could be seen on either side of them through the trees. Panting Rare scanned the terrain ahead, “I think there is a clearing up ahead, if we make it there we can see if there is anything to use for cover and maybe I can scare them off.”

Charlotte nodded, “Yeah maybe. Sooo will they kill me or just kinda let me go?”

“What would you would do if I was caught with you and you were an escaped slave?”

“Couldn’t happen, we outlawed slavery like 200 years ago.”

Rare gave Charlotte an incredulous look, “And you came here because why?”

“Reasons!”

The two burst through the final layer of trees into the clearing, just ahead of them was a fairly deep dry stream bank just deep enough to use for cover. Rare made a beeline for the bank, jumping in in a fluid leap, Charlotte attempted to do the same, but fell short and wound up sliding into the muddy depression with a grunt.

Rare closed her eyes as she summoned forth her spell notes, the rings of light unfolding into existence as if being drawn by multiple pens.

“Woah! Is that magic?” Charlotte asked.

“What else would it be?”

“Hologram. What are you casting?”

“These are my notes… If you need anything to fight you should get ready. Turn on your death ray thing.”

Charlotte nodded, “Ok.” How do I do this with one hand? A few seconds of thought saw Charlotte take her spare battery out of the holster and put it on the ground atop the bank, another second and her taster joined the battery, and finally her blaster was quickly checked for charge. “I really don’t want to kill anyone…”

Rare nodded, “I don’t want to either… Try and wound them ok? Because they are going to try and kill us…” Rare swiped a hoof, moving her magic menu over to attack spells. “I’m going to try my best one the second I see one. If they run just fire a few shots.”

“Ok.” Charlotte tightened her grip on the blaster, What the hell have I gotten myself into? I really don't want to think about this… Ummm… Oh! How did this thing go from a pulse laser to a freaking DL-44? Maybe the portal affects technology which passes through it?

Charlotte looked over as she heard Rare begin to chant, the unicorns horn shown a brilliant gold color interspaced with tiny black flecks as she intoned. “Elysium’s light and Tartarus's fires, gather before me as one!”

Pale green flames slowly bled from her horn, golden light helixing around the flames as they formed a ball. Out of the corner of her eye Charlotte noticed six legionnaires moving forwards across the clearing, large tower shields held in front of them somehow. Rare continued “Hallowed and Unholy Flames, strike now and set the very earth ablaze!”

The ball of fire surged outwards, dry grass igniting in it’s wake as it sped towards the legionnaires who dropped flat, allowing the spell to fly overhead and explode against a tree with a flash of green and gold light and a thunderclap, a small blaze starting around the spell’s impact. Charlotte’s jaw dropped, “Holy shit!”

Rare slumped downwards from the energy loss. “Ugh… I can’t do many more of those.”

“Magic here works like Slayers!” Oh my gosh I totally should try spellcasting!

The unicorn gave her a confused look. “What?”

“It’s ok! I think I got this.” Charlotte stood up and stepped out of the ditch.

A brown coated legionary whose helmet had a poofier crest than the others pointed at her with one hoof, “She summoned a creature! Fall back to the treeline.”

Charlotte held her arms out at her sides and drew them inwards to her chest before moving them upwards doing her best to form a triangle shape above her head chanting, “Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows, buried in the stream of time is where your power grows.”

The Legionnaires began to quickly fall back, levitating their shields back up. The brown one called, “It’s a spellcaster! Form a Testudo!” The six quickly swept their shields up to make a roofed shieldwall.

Rare blinked, even more confused, “That sounds like magic but nothing’s glowing…”

Charlotte grinned, “I pledge myself to conquer, all the foes who stand, before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hand.” Suddenly she thrust her hands outwards with a cry of “Dragon Slave!” Damn… Charlotte took a half step back, “Ok so I’m not a mage… But what about,” Angling herself towards the formation of legionnaires Charlotte swept bout arms back behind herself at waist level holding them at her right side, “Kaaaaahhhhhh… mmmmeeeeehhhh…. Haaaa…. meeeeehhh… HA!”

Rare facehoofed as once again nothing happened. The legionnaires looked out from behind their shields confused. Charlotte sighed, half disappointed, half afraid, “Ok gun it is then.”

Pointing her blaster at the shield wall Charlotte winced and pulled the trigger. An intense blue bolt leapt forth, the distinct echoing sound ringing in everypony’s ears as the first bolt smashed a hole through one legionary's shield. The second splashed off a helm, the energy dissipating in a flash leaving a scorch mark, the third blasted a furrow in the ground. Charlotte fired a fourth shot before sliding back into the trench, “Ok so no super powers.”

“Why did you try that? You clearly are not a warlock!” Rare hissed.

“Because that’s how it works in fiction! I figured magical talking pony,” she paused to fire a few blaster bolts at the now retreating legionnaires, “who casts spells all anime style, I probably can do something. Turns out what I can do is shoot a blaster… Though that is pretty damn cool! Too bad it’s not red bolts.”

“Charlotte…” Rare groaned.

“I know, life or death situation. I think my coping mechanism is ‘laugh it off’. Sorry, I have never done this sort of thing before.” Charlotte reminded giving Rare a shaky grin and firing a few more shots into the trees. “Should we keep running?”

Rare nodded, “S-sorry… I haven’t done this before either.”

“And running?”

“Running sounds good!”

Charlotte set her blaster down, scooped up her belongings, shoved them loosely into a pocket, retrieved her weapon and with a call of “Covering fire!” emptied her blaster’s first battery as the two fled the ditch, firing over her shoulder to deter pursuit.

~~

Commissar Ironhide sat with twenty of his Legionnaires around a large fire they had created as a temporary command post from which to allow soldiers a hot meal and brief rest before returning to their patrols. The change of pace from sitting about guarding a palace was a most welcome one for the Commissar and his ponies. Because the hard work of patrolling the forest and scouting all the potential trails everypony’s mood was high. These poor ponies have never known the glory of battle. Ironsides sighed, I know for a fact this is the first time Spartacus has left the Palace grounds. I should see if I can't get my legion into combat rotation. We lack experience.

Look at everypony, enjoying the mission, being sloppy on patrol… If I don’t see marked improvement by tomorrow morning I will have to-

“Commissar! We found her sir!” a centurion's shout coming from his scrying crystal interrupted her thoughts.

“Well done centurion! Keep her pinned down and report your position.” It’s about time somepony had some success in this outfit.

“No can do sir! She apparently knows summoning magic, she called forth a monster which… It fired energy beams from it…”

“Spit it out centurion!”

“Sir, yes sir! We are a half league directly north of the camp. Rare Luck has summoned forth help capable of spellcraft. Our shields are only good for a few hits, the beams are not able to penetrate our armor but are rapidly fired, Bright Flanks took a grazing hit along his right leg and is missing a half hoof deep chunk of flesh sir. He won't be able to walk without medical aid and soon. We simply don't have the force to attack their position… Hold on, what? Sir they are abandoning the ditch and continuing north. Shall we pursue?”

The Commissar stood up and stamped the fire out with his forehooves, “Hold your position, have half your centri follow and leave one of their number at every 500 yards. We are on our way.”

Bellowing at the top of his lungs the Commissar addressed his legion, “Legionaries! Break camp! We are heading north at a full gallop. Centurion Kopesh has a wounded pony on his hooves, the second he is in sight I was a surgeon to give all possible aid. Our query has summoned a creature to assist her capable of high battle magic. Keep your heads down!”

The soldiers broke camp in astounding time, even considering ‘camp’ was just a few unpacked goods and the one main fire. The second everypony was ready the Commissar led the north, moving at the head of the double column formation. The league of forest flew by quickly, At least everypony present is an excellent runner. I could put a full third of them into service as messengers and make a killing. A collapsed tree suddenly blocked his path, he jumped over, iron hooves sailing over the fallen tree and landing on a pile of soft ash.

Giving the area a cursory look he spotted the three ponies of Kopesh’s centri off to one side. “Ponies! Continue north, follow the scouts directions. I will catch up in a moment.”

As the twenty ponies galloped past the Commissar moved over to Kopesh and his wounded legionnaire, a white cloaked surgeon already on the scene before the Commissar had ordered his ponies to continue. “Centurion, I want a full report on the creature. Everything anypony present here in your centri saw.”

“Yes sir! It stands about twice as tall as a pony, only a few hooves shorter… Oh, sorry sir that is if you are using the neck to hoof measurement. Imperial standard measure has it at about one pony and five hooves tall sir. It is bipedal, like a younger dragon, but is scored in a soft skin somewhat like a nute although the colorization is quite bland, we could only see a peachish color. It had a mane of blond hair which was braided in a single strand. It also had on clothing, and a scale armor vest. The creature also carried at least one bag. It appeared to be recently injured, missing it’s left arm’s claw, the right one was used to cast spells.”

“What sort of spells did it cast? What did it’s face look like?” That description is awfully familiar…

“It only cast a spell which hurled a blue bolt of magic which explodes and burns briefly when it strike sir. But it cast them very fast, and as you can see one hit punched a hole clean through my shield, though it did stop it sir. … I can't remember it’s face too well sir, but Bright Flanks might sir, he was wounded trying to get a better look.”

The Commissar turned to the wounded pony, wincing as the surgeon cut away at the burnt flesh. That is a nasty spellbolt. “Surgeon, is he able to speak or have you given him a numbing drought?”

Bright Flanks saluted with his good foreleg, “Si-ah! S-sir. I’m conciou-nnn! I can s-speek sir!”

The pain in the orange unicorn’s eyes and on his face melted the Commissar's stony heart somewhat. I have been where you have been. The spell must have been carrying a lingering pain curse… He should be fine by morning. “Don’t worry about your wounds, I will be sure they are attended to for free. Just tell me what it looked like.”

“Fa-face… A lot… like an ape’s. But flatter.” the wounded soldier managed to gasp out before the surgeon put a hoof on his head to push him down.

“Sorry sir but he is moving too much to treat if he speaks.” The surgeon apologized adding, “The burn goes very deep, maybe to the bone, he needs to be taken to a proper infirmary.”

Hairless ape-like creature, tall, pink skin, a mane… By the Emperor, “That’s not a summon… I thought the last human had died eight thousand years ago. Centurion, surgeon, take your wounded and return to the palace. Get the guards into wartime deployment as soon as you can!”

“Sir, yes sir! But, what’s a human sir?” Centurion Kopesh asked as she helped the surgeon place Bright FLanks on the other legionnaires back.

“Read your history and mythology centurion. Humans are an apparently not so extinct race best known for being some of the grandest warriors in all Agros. It is said that one of their kind fought and killed their own gods out of revenge. They are very dangerous, love a good war, are very intelligent, in all they are a fitting foe for our Emperor’s Legions. If this one is a scout the palace may soon be under attack!”

The three legionnaires nodded and with a chant of, “Sir yes sir!” Rushed to fulfill the Commissar's orders.

Ironhide turned and sprinted as fast as she could to catch up to the rest of his men. What are you doing alive and here human? More importantly why did you choose to help Rare? The humans of lore would have slaughtered her for sport. Perhaps they have struck some form of arrangement… It is imperative I discover it’s purpose for being here before it’s too late!

~~

Rare and Charlotte’s legs burned as if they were immersed in lava. The sprint they had been keeping up for the last hour simply couldn’t be kept up for much longer. The sun was hanging right overhead, beaming intense heat down on the two adding buckets of sweat on top of the buckets of sweat which came from the pounding hooves of the dozen or so legionnaires just behind them.

Rare cursed under her breath, “I… I can’t… Too much running…”

Charlotte groaned, “Yeah.”

“S-stop?”

“Stop… Maybe fight… legs… probably broken…”

The two slowed down and stopped, moving back to back with one of their sides covered by a large oak tree. Charlotte flicked on her blaster, the ‘dweee’ of it powering up coincidentally accompanying the legionnaires splitting off to surround them. Rare levitated her broken sword out of it’s scabbard, her gold aura clinging only to the hilt. Oh wow this is really heavy… I hope I can swing this.

“Oh shit… One shot left.” Charlotte muttered looking at her blaster’s display.

The two gave each other an exhausted look which carried the message, ‘We’re dead.’ all too well.

The circle of Legionnaires drew their weapons, a few of the unicorn’s horns began to shine with charged spells. “Legionnaires, stand down!” a loud voice bellowed, one taller red capped pony stepping forwards.

The Commissar? Rare wondered as she took a half step backwards.

“Slave, if you surrender peacefully no harm will come to you. You are valuable property of the Emperor’s Legion and I have no desire to harm you. Your companion will also not be armed if she does not attack any of my men.”

Rare and Charlotte exchanged a suspicious look, “Yeah, right.” Charlotte spat with a laugh.

The Commissar gave her an angered look, but continued speaking to Rare, walking up to within four feet of her as he spoke. “My offer is genuine. Have more faith in those the Emperor has chosen to command his legions. While his highness Prince Bluesteel ordered me to find and capture you, his majesty the Emperor’s orders to recruit you supersede his son’s tantrums.”

Rare frowned, That is true. Ironhide has always put the Emperor’s wishes above everything else for as long as I have known him. “Swear to the Emperor we won't be harmed.”

Charlotte hissed, “What are you doing?”

“Nopony betrays an oath to the Emperor human. I know not how your kind behaves, but we are all ponies of our word. I, Prefect “Ironhide” Strike, Commissar of the Fifth Imperial Legion swear by the Emperor upon his golden throne that neither my men or myself shall harm you or your companion should you surrender to me now.”

Rare nodded and dropped her sword, she was out of magic anyways, “We surrender.”

“Damn it Rare… now they are going to kill us bou-” as the legionnaires began to dismiss their spells and put away their weapons Charlotte blinked in surprise, “Oh… um...ok.”

“Sooo… I always thought your name was Commissar Ironhide.” Rare said nervously.

“It might as well be.” he grunted before reaching back into his left saddlebag.

Rare and Charlotte flinched, dreading what device he might be retrieving only for the Commissar to remove a set of messenger's armor from the bag and set it on the ground. What? Rare wondered looking at the thin leather vest and skirt. The commissar then reached into his other saddlebag and fished out a bronze messenger's helm.

“Slave, put these on.” He ordered pointing at the armor with one hoof.

Rare nodded and slipped out of her cloak and saddlebags, levitating the armor and helmet onto her and securing them. I was almost free… Her eyes began to water as she realized she had simply traded masters.

Charlotte frowned as well, her grip tightened on her blaster. Slavery didn’t set well with her, it didn’t take a smart pony to realize she was a few seconds away from doing something stupid and dangerous. Ignoring the anger coming to a boil in the human the Commissar nodded at Rare, “Right then recruit. Our orders are to scout these woods for an escaped slave. Have you seen an escaped slave?”

Rare looked up on the verge of crying, “W-what?”

“You will address me as sir recruit! Now, have you seen any escaped slaves?”

“N-no sir?”

“Is that a question or a statement recruit?”

Rare’s lips spread in a grin as she suddenly realized what the Commissar was doing. “Sir! No sir!”

“Very well, back to your patrols everypony! Centuries Epsilon and Gamma set up camp for the night here. Oh yes, recruit. Your sword is in terrible condition, have it replaced at the first opportunity.” The Commissar gave her a wink and took a parchment scroll from his saddlebag, quickly writing on it with a charcoal pencil, passing the Scroll to Rare he smiled vindictively, “Your orders are to carry this scroll to every major settlement between here and the border and have them on the look out for our fugitive. Carry on.”

The Commissar turned his back to rare and began to move towards a group of legionnaires setting up a tent, “Sir… why are you helping me?”

“Because our prince needs to learn that in life sometimes you do not get what you want. I also doubt I could force you to join my legion, you are quite formidable with spellcraft after all. Besides if you enlisted you would be a part of my legion and I would have to deal with the prince’s vendetta with you constantly. This saves me a headache and with a rare stroke of luck, perhaps you will choose to enlist elsewhere willingly. Good day recruit. Burning Lance! That is not the proper way to set up the camp!”

As the Commissar stomped off to correct his legionnaires mistake Charlotte and Rare looked at each other, nodded and slowly, carefully crept off into the forest before bolting northwards as fast as their aching legs would carry them not wanting to question any of what just occurred lest it somehow be undone.

~~

Back at the beginnings of the Legion camp, midway through explaining why each tent must be exactly three ponies apart from it’s neighbors a lower ranking Legionnaire called for the Commissar's attention, “Sir permission to speak freely?”

“Granted.” he grunted.

“Why did you let her and that monster go sir? It doesn't make since, and is in defiance of our orders sir. It also might be dangerous to civilians it runs into.”

“The reasons I have Rare are perfectly true soldier… But I do have a few ulterior motives, including my own dislike of our mutual commanding officer.”

“Sir that does not justify breaking orders. The Rules Of Engagement chapter three section five states clearly we must follow all royal orders as instructed sir.”

“You are correct soldier, well done on memorizing Imperial Law. Do you also know the following section of the Rules Of Engagement?”

“Sir, of course sir!”

“Then you are aware that a legionnaire of command rank may dismiss any orders in the field should he have a justifiable reason for doing so. I have three such justifications to allow Rare to continue. First, there is no possibility of her having become that powerful on her own. I believe that human has somehow assisted her in learning spellcraft. Second, now that she is in legion uniform I can use my scrying gem to spy on her and learn why a human is here and if it has cohorts ready to attack our Imperium as I suspect she does and will. Third, our outing has proven to me that my legion is made up of soldiers fit only for a parade ground. I plan on a series of exercises to whip the lot of you into shape, including wargames. If I were to do so at the palace the prince would countermand my orders as usual.”

The legionnaire nodded, “I understand sir!” he snapped a salute, “For the Imperium and the Emperor!”

“For the Imperium and the Emp-”

The Commissar's return salute was interrupted by a shrieking sound one might get if nails were scraped across a chalkboard in an echo chamber and then sent through two megaphones. Instantly every legionnaires in the camp sprang up, grabbing their weapons and readying spells looking everywhere for an enemy.

They didn’t have to look far, within the center of the camp a mere three pony length away from the Commissar a swirling green portal as tall and as wide as six ponies had ripped itself into existence. The Commissar's eyes grew wide, fear flashing over his face for an instant, “Legion! Form up and keep clear of this portal! Nopony have a drawn weapon!”

The legionnaires hesitated for a few moments mumbling to themselves but quickly followed orders as they saw their commander backing away from the portal. By the Emperor, why here, why now? The human! She must have allies, the Emperor is aware of them then!

Four massive ponies stepped through the portal. They stood twice as high as the legionnaires before them. Their blood-red plate male decorated with painted skulls, and the occasional wax seal and parchment strip. Heavy repeating ballistas were held aloft by their magic, their helmeted heads held high, amber eyes blazing with a mad fury. The portal folded shut behind them, the foremost pony looked at the Commissar and bellowed “Commissar Ironhide, you are to give us a full briefing on the escaped slave by order of his highness the Prince.”

“Yes sir! We have discovered her to be traveling with at least one other, they are headed out of the Imperium on a route which winds east and is avoiding as many settlements as possible. They have a half day’s lead on my men. Do you require anything else?”

“Point the way.”

The Commissar pointed eastwards. The lead pony nodded once more, screamed “For The Emperor and Zealous Doom!”

The other three echoed the warcry before surging forwards as if a single mass of steel, fury, and weapons, quite literally smashing aside multiple trees and trampling a tent on a straight line in the direction the Commissar indicated.

A few minutes after they had left the legionnaire he had been speaking with asked in a terrified tone “S-sir why d-”

“Shhh! Their hearing is far better then you could hope to imagine!” The Commissar weighted a few more minutes then slammed one hoof into the ground angrily, “That blasted fool! I am in my legal rights to kill him for this! Legionnaires! Repair the camp, we march for the Palace in the morning after I contact the Emperor!”

“Sir what were those ponies? Why did you lie to them? What if they find out?” the legionnaire hissed.

“Those were members of the Emperor’s personal Legion, a pet project of his was to try and create his imaginations prefect army. They are called Adaptus Equus, also known as Blood Angels. All you need to know is that more alchemy and dark sorcery goes into creating the pony under that armor then you or I could afford if we never spent a single bit in our lives. They are the most deadly troops our Emperor has under his command and if I had put them on Rare’s path they might have quite literally destroyed an entire town or city just to kill her.”

The legionnaire gulped, “Are they rea-”

“Yes, they are. I saw their first deployment on the front lines. Not one brick of that keep remained standing. The Emperor declared them so dangerous and expensive to produce he made it high treason to deploy them under any circumstances without his express permission. Bluesteel is a damned fool, and likely a dead pony… I need to contact his Majesty… hopefully he can have those four recalled before they…” The commissar sighed, letting his sentence trail off as he took out his scrying gem concentrating on the Imperial Palace.

7 Insipientiam est ex patre

7 Insipientiam est ex patre

Emperor Severus Opifex sat upon his golden throne, his forearms cradled by the silver plated foreleg bones of an alicorn’s skeleton which wrapped around the throne in such a way as to suggest whomever sat on it’s crimson cushion was wearing the plated bones. The skull had been cut so that only the top half remained, sitting like a crown atop the Emperor’s head only with his own horn slid in place of the skull’s original horn. The wing bones had been drilled so black iron feathers could be fitted to them, and the wings then spread out behind the throne as if they were spread to glide.

The Emperor’s throne room was empty of everypony besides himself. In his left hoof he held a silver grail of wine which he sipped at slowly while reading from a large black leather book. He had penned the book himself many years ago, back when he could still remember it’s contents by heart. These years later he could only remember the most basic of principles the book had to offer, to continue his conquests he often had to refresh his memory on the strategies offered within the pages of his version of the Codex Astartes.

This was the second copy of the book he had ever written. The first time was long ago, back when he was still a growing child, each and every entry in the book written as he found it to be useful in what had then been a strategy game. When he had later grown up and joined the military of his homeland he had kept adding to the book, adapting it’s strategies for actual combat and continuing to add new ones, always wondering what he could accomplish as the head of a real legion. When he had been chosen to be a part of the Clandestine Service, he had added psychological warfare and espionage techniques to the book’s pages. Who knew that later in his life a book of military strategies which had won him countless tournaments would prove to be the source of his military's unstoppable power?

Recreating the book had been one of the hardest challenges of his life, and the Emperor knew for a fact that his ‘second edition’ was missing some information from the first, but it hardly mattered. Now he was the Emperor, the undisputed master strategist who had won 57 wars to date and this was his playbook. Every guideline for forming a proper Imperial Legion, every single organizational structure of a Space Marine Legion, notes on the physiological processes to mold minds to the desired loyalty and fierceness such armies required. Detailed battle plans, tactics, and policies for war in everything from urban environments, to tropical jungles, and even theoretical tactics for zero gravity combat. Notes on the magic available to ponies, their physical capabilities, sociological structures, psychological make up, everything of value went into the Codex.

It was all here, everything he needed to win war number 58. All the Emperor needed to do was find the proper information within the Codex and put it together into a single Stratagem for conquering Amazonia. Unfortunately the process eluded him. Something felt amiss, and had for the last day. Whatever was wrong in his Imperium the Emperor’s magic could not quite detect it.

One of the first things the Emperor had done during his reign was to create a social network spell which connected everypony in his Imperium with a low level magic field. The spell alerted him to strong emotions of large groups of ponies at all times, allowing him to crush dissenters when their movements grew to large. When he was in close proximity he could learn of every single emotional attachment to others a pony had and manipulate those attachments as he saw fit, allowing him to control others directly when needed. Causing a son to hate their father had many political benefits. There were downsides to this spell of course, it would only work while he was within his Imperium, and sustaining it’s evil magic required the sacrifices of three score newborn foals each month. But to a pony with the resources of the Emperor, utter lack of compassion, and belief that all those in this world were simply tools to be used these were not problems, only slight disadvantages.

The spell also allowed him to do one more thing, he could draw upon the magic essences of the ponies within the spell’s effect. To the Emperor the ponies of his Imperium were his soldiers, his mages, or his spell battery. The strength of all his Earth Ponies, the flight of all his Pegasi, the magic of all his Unicorns, all of it was energy for him to use as he willed. So what was this nagging unknown which plagued his mind? There was no groups of would be rebels of any size worth acting against yet, nothing was blocking his ability to draw on the four sources of magic at his hooves. His lips parted in a frown Four sources?

This was it, this was what that little nagging problem was. A new source of magic. He closed his eyes and focused on the new unfamiliar magical essence. There was only the tiniest bit of it, a single spark from a single individual. Creativity… This essence is creativity, enhanced to the point of being truly magical. No breed of pony possesses such creativity. What sort creature has entered my Imperium?

The essence was so faint the Emperor knew it would take a sizable portion of his magic and his spell battery to identify the source. There was no sense in depleting it so needlessly. A single individual would be no match for a legion, no matter how creative. The Emperor reached for his scrying gem, frowning as it pulsed gold before he touched it. Someone was calling him.

Picking up the gem in his hoof the Emperor sent a magic pulse through the gem, allowing the pony attempting to contact him to begin speaking. A projection of a familiar pony appeared above the gem bowing low as the projection appeared, “Ah, Commissar Ironhide. Arize. Amusingly enough, I was moments away from contacting you.”

The Commissar nodded grimly, “Your grace, I have vital news concerning the Imperium, but should you require my services I will happily await my turn to speak.”

He thought for a moment before giving his Commissar a wave of the hoof, “If it is vital intelligence I would hear it first. I only desire your assistance with a curiosity of mine.”

“As you wish your grace.” The Commissar took a deep breath, “Sire, I, Prefect “Ironhide” Strike, Commissar of the Fifth Imperial Legion hereby formally accuse your son and heir Prince Bluesteel of High Treason in the form of contacting, and then deploying a squad of your Adeptus Equus on a mission of personal nature to his highness.”

The Emperor’s eyes narrowed, his mouth corners formed a cruel expression unique to him and him alone, “This is a serious accusation. I trust you Ironhide, you have served me well. Well enough that I can be certain you would not dare lie to me.”

“Sire, I have a task force of legionnaires who are eyewitnesses to their deployment. I myself also witnessed their arrival and spoke with the sergeant of the four pony squad.”

“Tell me everything.” The Emperor’s eyes began to radiate malice.

As the Commissar relayed the day’s events his expression grew more and more wicked. But the Commissar's final remarks provoked a little intrigue. “Did you say the slave is traveling with a human?”

“Yes sire, I did. The legion uniform I gave the slave will allow us to keep an eye on her. I decided it wise to allow them to go free, I believe the human might have allies in the area. Allies which the Equus your son deployed will slaughter preventing us from learning how they survived the eon since their alleged extinction and see if they are a military threat to the Imperium.”

“Commissar, I require you to remain where you are. I will call you back after confirming your report with Zealous Doom. If my son has indeed ordered my Equus into the field, I will order them to abandon their current mission and inform my son of my policies for traitors to my crown.”

Commissar Ironhide bowed low, “Sire I have not lied to you… May I contact the palace and evacuate my legionnaires?”

“You may. There is no sense in wasting good soldiers. You are dismissed for the moment.” The Emperor broke the gem’s connection, and quickly sent a fresh pulse of magic through it.

Within seconds the armored face of his Chapter Master unfolded into view before him, “My Emperor, I gleefully await your command!”

“I have a question for you Master Doom. Did you deploy a squad of my Equus on my son’s orders?”

“No sire I did not.” Doom replied instantly, “While your son did request a squad of Equus they were deployed on your standing orders to destroy any and all encountered light magic users found within the Imperium. The prince reported a slave of his attacked him using light magic during her escape. He then cited the Imperial Law where the standing orders are written and in accordance with that law I tasked a squad to hunt her down and put an end to the nuisance of light magic.”

The Emperor’s face grew a blank expression, “I see. Master Doom, I know the slave of which you speak. The only magic at her disposal is dark magic, I know as I am the one who allowed her to keep a spellbook for my own amusement. Furthermore my Grand Warlock has requested that particular slave be delivered to him alive as she is the component of a magic ritual. The squad’s orders are hereby rescinded.”

“Yes sire, I shall recall them at once.”

“No Doom, they have work to do.”

“Sire?”

“Bluesteel has committed an act of High Treason. He is to be given a traitor’s death at the hooves of the Equus he put into the field.”

Doom nodded, “By your command my Emperor.”

Doom’s projection vanished as the Chapter Master went to send a message to his ponies. The Emperor sat back in his throne, took a sip of his wine, then called Commissar Ironhide once more. “It seems you were correct.” The Emperor said to the bowing pony.

“I am sorry your son must die sire.” Iornhide replied with minimal remorse.

“Commissar, you are mistaken. I have never had a son.” The Emperor informed, his tone conveying absolutely no emotion, but his enraged eyes telling Ironhide the prince’s very existence was to be purged from Imperial records.

“My apologies, forgive an old soldier for a minor mistake.”

“You are forgiven. Now, Commissar, I require the magical signature of the armor you gave to the slave. I believe this human is precisely what I was going to request you search for earlier this day.”

Commissar Ironhide quickly rattled off the multipart spell signature which would allow the armor to be scryed. “Do you wish for my men to remain in the field to track the human sire?”

“No. I will take care of this matter myself. As your you Commissar, I have no idea what I was thinking. I have kept you in active service far too long for a pony of your age. I understand there is a ruined palace nearby. It’s lands and grounds are now yours to do with as you will. I desire you to remain there as the local Governor. Your first assignment will be to raise and train a legion for jungle fighting and dispatch it to the Amarezon front.”

The Commissar saluted, “Yes my Emperor. I will move my legion in within the week and begin at the first opportunity.”

“I will have a messenger deliver all the necessary papers within the month. You are dismissed.”

The Commissar's projection vanished. The Emperor finished his goblet of wine and set the empty vessel down on a small table next to his throne. He closed the Codex and set it on the table as well. You were a foolish waste of time Bluesteel. The hours and gold put into you, all for naught. My first child would have been far more suited to inherit my Imperium.

It always irritated the Emperor when one of his plans failed, with as long term of a plan as the prince had been this failure drove him to anger. The sort of anger in which he enjoyed reveling in his own power. Why simply scry on this human when instead I could send a projection of myself and make her tell me everything I want to know?

The Emperor closed his eyes and began to prepare the spell he would need to use for this afternoon’s entertainment. The spell’s energy gathered, slowly shaped, and was cast. The Emperor opened his eyes, seeing the world through the avatar of golden light he had created. His eyes widened in shock, his face contorted with mixtures of joy, madness, fear, love, and hatred, “Y-you!”

~~

Charlotte dropped to her knees at the foot of a cedar tree. Her chest heaved as she did her best to try and get air into her lungs. I have never, ever, ever, run this much in my life before… My everything hurts… Why did I come here?

Rare stopped, hearing the underbrush crack as Charlotte dropped. Looking over her shoulder she dropped as well, “I… yeah… we need to rest.”

Charlotte nodded, she was pretty sure she couldn’t stand up again if someone put a gun to her head. “Food… food good.” She mumbled, reaching for her pack first with her ruined arm, then the other. Moving felt like there was five pounds of lead on every part of her body. It took Charlotte ages to get her pack open, almost as long to rifle through the pack and get out her canteen and an MRE. “Crap… stupid bag is vacuum sealed.”

“What?” Rare groaned, the mare only had the energy to keep her left eye open just barely enough to see any of it’s green hue.

“Food… in bag. Too tired to open.” Charlotte replied deciding to simply fall over onto her side.

“Oh.” Rare groaned loudly as she stretched her legs out in front of and behind her body.

I wish I had the energy to do that. Charlotte blinked, eyelids feeling heavier than they had ever before. Yeah… sleep… Sleep good. She rambled to herself, too exhausted and hungry to even think coherently.

Charlotte was just about to close her eyes and let exhaustion take her when a patch of golden light shimmered a few yards in front of her vision. A nagging feeling at the back of her mind told her that this was important, summoning up every last reserve of strength she had Charlotte forced her eyes open to see what this patch of gold was. It looked much like an object slowly forming out of light. “Hey… Rare….”

“Nnn… sleep now.” Rare moaned.

“Rare… golden… shiny… light… thing…” Charlotte managed to gasp out between labored breaths. Something about the light patch was just, wrong. The shape forming from it was unfamiliar and yet she felt she knew it. The tiny drops of adrenaline Charlotte had left started to course through her system as panic slowly set in.

Rare opened one eye, the honey colored orb scanning around before focusing on what appeared to be a unicorn made of gold light. “Oh…” Rare almost closed her eye ignoring the ghostly image, but suddenly her other eye shot open, “bucking tartarus!”

“What?” Charlotte asked sitting up, her body trembling with fear, exhaustion, and the dregs of adrenaline left in her system.

Rare gulped and nodded towards the now nearly finished projection, a mostly translucent image of a somewhat normal unicorn male made from gold light, “Magical projection… that’s the emperor.”

Charlotte found she couldn't even collapse, the little energy she had left had been used in those simple actions. The guy who owns the army we are running from can just magically appear in front of us when he wants to. “Well, we’re boned.”

The Emperor’s projection’s eyes snapped open, immediately taking in Charlotte’s messy, damaged, stressed body. She felt as if those eyes saw her and only her, and as the projection’s face contorted under an onslaught of every emotion from joy and love to hate and fear Charlotte felt as if she recognized those eyes. The Projection of the Emperor took a step towards her, exclaiming a single word, “Y-you!”

Charlotte blinked in a mixture of confused fear, Rare looked over at her equally at a loss.

The Emperor took another step towards Charlotte, beginning to ramble in a wavering voice “H-how are you here? You shouldn’t be here! I am the only real thing here! No one else should be here! This is… but… I…”

“W..what?” Charlotte managed to croak.

“No, no It all makes sense! He was wrong about everything but it all makes sense that families end up together. Pastors preach so many things that one of them has to be correct out of pure chance right?” The projection’s face started to contort, the left eye twitching slightly, the right ear drooping just as the Emperor laughed, a mad cackle of glee which turned into an enraged growl as the Emperor’s projection displayed a sudden blind rage, “That fucking cunt! You are here because she kept you in New York after I died! It was all in my will, there was the money for a house upstate…”

Charlotte’s eyes grew wide, her mind simply unable to process what she was seeing. Is… is this my dad?

Rare slowly attempted to pull herself to her hooves, she had never seen the Emperor in anything other than a collected calm state. She knew the power he held within his hooves, the gods only knew what he might do in a rage. “Ch-Char… we… run!” She groaned as she managed to get her forehooves under her.

The projection’s face calmed for a second, the rage returning as the Emperor saw Charlotte’s missing left hand. “She made you stay in that city of scum and they mutilated you… If that bitch joins us when she dies I will tear her apart atom by atom and scatter her remains to the ends of time!” He stepped closer to Charlotte with a concerned look on his face, “It’s ok Char, daddy’s here… and here daddy is god! Nothing can hurt you again. It’s just you and me and an entire reality as a playground for any desire you may have.”

“B-but… you’re dead!” Charlotte whispered, “I-I’m not dead… I got here with magic. I’m alive… aren't I?”

“Of course I am dead, this is clearly the afterlife. Magic, fantastical scenarios, and the second I open my eyes after the explosion a warlock offers me rule of an Empire. Although…” The Emperor frowned, “You shouldn’t be in that mortal body. I awoke as I am now… It is not fitting for the daughter of a god to have no magic of her own.”

Rare finally managed to stand up looking at Charlotte in desperation she hissed, “He’s gone insane, run!” as she slowly stumbled a few paces away before collapsing.

The Emperor’s projection flared a blinding gold as a blaze of magical energy surged from the projection, washing over Charlotte. Rare screamed, feeling some of her own energy being ripped from the pitiful remainder she had left and flowing to the spell. She collapsed to the forest floor, barely breathing.

“Don't worry Char, I’ll fix everything! You;ll see, it will all be perfect! I’ll make you a unicorn, just like me. You will have magic at your disposal for all your wants and desires everything you ...could...ever…” The energy coalescing over Charlotte stopped dead for a moment as the projection frowned, “I gave that waste of time magic… he squandered it. Perhaps… Yes… You will have to earn magic. It’s for the best. But I can’t let my only daughter be some mundane dirt farmer! It’s a pegasi’s body for you dear, and one day I’ll give you magic. We have eternity here, you have to be worthy of it one day!”

Charlotte tried to scream but nothing came out. She saw the energy surrounding her slowly dissolving her body, her remaining hand simply erased before her very eyes. Even more pain washed over her body, she felt the skin above her shoulder blades split as her forming wing bones ripped their way wetly from her back.

“I’m sorry dear, i know it hurts but I’m not there in person. I can’t take away the pain this time. But if any little thing is wrong I will fix it and it won't hurt. You will be perfect… W-why can’t I fix your hand? Char… I…. I can’t give you a left hand. W-we need something to replace it. Yes, what is here that can become an even better hoof?”

Charlotte squirmed in blazing agony as her bones warped, shrank and split forming new joints. Tendons and muscles writhed under her skin as they adjusted. Her left eye went dark as she saw the contents of her pockets and backpack slowly float through the air in front of her father's projection. Each item was casually dropped after inspection until Charlotte’s blaster levitated in front of the projection.

“What’s this? My daughter has a Laspistol?” he laughed a wicked, joyous, bemused laugh, “I see you are a girl after my own heart, this looks home made… and… real.” The Emperor’s magic pushed against the blaster’s trigger, and his face split into a wicked grin as the energy beam lanced out, blasting a limb from a tree, “Technology has really advanced since my rebirth as Emperor… Did you make this yourself Char? Such a lovely instrument of death! You must take after me and not that cunt… Yes this will do. This way you will always be armed, as befitting my daughter.”

The blaster disintegrated in a flash of gold light which lept to Charlotte’s twisting form, moving to the end of her left foreleg and fuzing to it, solidifying as an articulated bronze forearm, knee, and fetlock. Charlotte barely had time to see the iris like aperture form on the bottom of what was now her left forehoof shape itself into existence before she simply couldn't take the quite literally skull melting pain. She toppled over, consciousness fading as her father's last words echoed in her ears as if shouted down a tunnel, “I know this will be hard for you to accept dear so feel free to roam my Imperium. Whenever you have accepted your afterlife come and join me at my palace. We have an eternity to enjoy my perfect daughter.”

~~

Iron Night flew just over the treetops skimming the tops of the trees randomly as a sort of game. The objective being see just how close she could get to touching a tree without actually touching it. Of course her other objective was to avoid her cousin who she had promised she would help repair their ranch’s northern pasture’s fence. Since this part of the Dusk Wood was a full five leagues from Namareus and the ranch was clear on the other side of town from the woods she was fairly certain she was doing a great job.

She saw an especially leafy tree ahead, right on the edge of a thinner stand of trees. Her blue eyes narrowed, slate grey wings pulled back for a dive, her straw colored mane and tail trailed after her as she flew right for the tree’s crown of leaves. What the hay is that?

Iron pulled up at the last minute, through the trees ahead she could see a blazing gold unicorn standing over two unconscious mares, and one was dressed in a battered legion uniform. Oh buck! Some bandit just jumped somepony with a legion escort!

Iron pulled back, hovering above the treetop for a few moments as she did her best to figure out what she could do to help. Ok, he’s covered in some sort of mage armor but maybe if I put a lightning bolt right in his face I can swoop in and… umm… Her thought was cut off as the gold figure simply vanished as if somepony had blown out a candle. Ok… I guess I had better make sure they are ok.

Iron dropped down to the forest floor, landing directly beside the grey-white pegasus. She noticed that the unconscious mare was laying in the center of a large group of random objects, many of which looked arcane in nature. I guess she was transporting magical equipment to a legion camp. Iron thought as she carefully brushed aside the mare’s blue-black yellow highlighted mane to see if she was breathing. “Well you’re alive… and pretty cute.” The buck is that junk on your leg? she wondered eyeing the bronze artificial hoof.

Iron grinned for a moment before shaking the naughty thoughts from her head, No bad Iron… They need help. That can come later. She trotted over to the legionnaire, and was just about to check the mares dusty orange coat for any wounds when she moaned, rolling onto her side. “Ok, you are alive too… I’ll need to get help. Ah hay… I’ll need to explain to cuz why I want fixing the fence. You two are lucky you are both cute or I would probably just leave you here.”

Snapping her wings open Iron took to the air and winged her way east towards the village and he cousin's ranch, coming up with an excuse as she went.

~~

Rare rolled over, her face smooshing against something soft. Something incredibly soft. Wah? She hissed as tiny aches rippled through her body, but determined to see what was so soft. Her mismatched eyes slowly peeled open showing her a view of white linen, “A pillow?” She questioned sitting up as much as she could before a sudden throbbing pain in her rear right leg forced her to fall back against the pillow. “OW!” Well at least I get a pillow. That’s pretty awesome.

Rare took a look around the room she was in. Wooden rafters formed a sort of large triangular room, the floor looked a bit slap dash, planks were simply laid down forming a few places to walk and some patches of floor where her bed, another bed and a large number of crates, barrels and a few chests were arranged. Deciding she was in an attic somewhere Rare turned her attention to the other bed and the pegasus resting in it.

“Hey… hey you. Miss, wake up please.” Rare called as loudly and gently as her aching body would allow. Noticing the mare’s blue-black mane stir as she called Rare continued, “Please, I don’t know where I am.”

The mare moved her hooves up to her ears, Rare couldn't help but notice that the left one appeared to be made from Bronze. “I don’t know Rare… Now shut up my head feels like that time I drank half a bottle of wine…” she moaned.

Rare blinked in surprise, her lips pursing for a moment. That voice was, “Wait… Charlotte? Is that you?”

“Duh! Are you blind or somth- Oh. Right. Now I remember…” Charlotte pushed herself up off the bed with her forelegs, her bright gold eyes opening as she looked at her hooves. “My dead psychotic dad turned me into a pegasi…”

Rare gasped as she saw Charlotte’s new face. She had a kind but determined sort of look to her, but most importantly anypony who had seen the Emperor would definitely see a family resemblance. But her eyes, they blazed with an inner light like his did. Charlotte’s eyes were the exact same golden reflective hue as the Emperor.

Charlotte looked over at Rare, frowning gently, “Am I really dead? Are you like a figment of my imagination or something?”

I what? Why would she, Rare gave the ex-human the most incredulous look she had ever given anypony, “What the flying buck are you talking about?”

“My dad should be dead… That was my dad. It was his voice, how he talked, he recognized me… But he’s dead. He was blown up at a lab at Hancock AFB… They never told us what exploded…” Charlotte’s eyes grew wide as she remembered, “But they didn’t give us a body either! They said he was vaporized.”

I wish I had been conscious when the Emperor was talking to her, this would be so much easier to understand… “I don’t understand…” Rare informed.

“How long has the Emperor ruled here?”

“Umm… I don’t know. At least as long as I have been alive. So at least 18 years.”

Charlotte frowned, her wings fluttered in thought causing her to jump, “Ah! What was-oh. My wings. I have wings… That’s awesome!” She grinned widely for a moment before her ears fell, “Ok back on track. If he’s been here more than 6 years he cant be my dad. But he was so close to him it’s… Is time travel possible with magic?”

Rare nodded, “Yes when the draconequus dropped you off he went two years into the past to make up for lost time. So it’s possible to travel in time with magic. If you are basically a god.”

“Well… In theory it’s also possible if you move through a wormhole. Maybe the explosion somehow carried him here in the past and…” Charlotte stopped talking and sighed, “You know what, It’s not important. All I need to know is that the Emperor of this place is completely crazy, I am apparently his daughter, or at least he think’s I am, and I am possibly dead.”

“Charlotte, you are not dead. If this was the afterlife, why would I have existed before meeting you? We could find books of Imperial history going back two thousand years if we were in a city. I don’t think your imagination could make up that much stuff.” Rare groaned, “Besides even if this was an afterlife, you are alive in it. You lost an arm, we ran till it hurt, there is no pain in Elysium and while Tartarus is all about torment it doesn't look like this.”

Charlotte hummed, “Good point… Ok so this is either an afterlife which is just another life, or an a parallel dimension.”

“It’s not an after life.”

“So I’m alive.”

“Yes!”

“And my dad is somehow here and thinks he’s dead and this is his personal playground of an afterlife?”

Rare nodded, “Yes. Oh… That really makes a lot of sense. I-I met him once. He uses ponies like toys and doesn't care if they… I saw him make his son kill a warlock because he was bored.”

Charlotte winced. “Wow… Ok let me try and process this. My dad was involved in a lab accident that teleported him here, turned him into a unicorn, apparently some warlock decided to crown him Emperor for some reason, and he thinks he’s dead and this is all something he dreamed up so he rules the land with an iron fist-Hold on was that officer called a Commissar?”

Rare nodded a bit confused, “Yes. He’s the fifth Commissar of the Imperial Legions.”

Charlotte facehoofed, the bronze hoof twacking into her forehead looked rather painful, “Ow… Ok so my dad turned an entire nation into one giant Warhammer game. That is so him.”

“What’s Warhammer?”

“Oh. It’s a game, you have a little army of tiny figures and using a set of rules and dice you battle other people little armies. It’s a war simulation game. I used to play it with him, he really loved the Blood Angels- they are one of the armies you could play as.”

The Emperor is ruling the entire land as if it were some game? Rare was at a loss for words. She slumped down in the bed, “We need to get out of here… I still have to take you to Equestria and apparently our Emperor is insane.”

Charlotte nodded, “Yeah… So quick question. Whose house are we in?”

“I have no idea. What are we going to tell them? We are on the run from the Emperor, I can’t imagine he want’s to let his daughter just wander about. We need… what’s it called when you make up a fake identity? We will need one for you. You look just like the Emperor.”

“I do? Crap… Ummm… Well whoever found us knows you are in a Legion uniform. I’m not so they probably thought you were escorting me.”

Rare nodded, “Yes. That means whoever you pretend to be, you have to be important.”

“What about a rich merchant’s daughter?”

“That works… Um Charlotte isn't a pony name though.”

Charlotte thought for a while before asking, “How are ponies named?”

“Generally for their appearance or disposition, possibly after their talent if their parents learn what it is before they name them.”

“Hold on so since your name is Rare Luck, that means what exactly?”

“I don’t know. I never met my parents. The palace staff raised me. But I was named for my talent, I have a knack for finding things I need. Like a tinderbox, a jar of salt. Little things.”

“Ok… Let’s see… what am I good at?” Charlotte slid out of the bed, getting to her hooves and then trying to stand on her hind legs by reflex instantly wobbling and falling back onto the bed, “Woah! Ok, that’s… difficult. All fours it is. Thank you dad for apparently teaching me how to stand like this. Ummm, I’ve always been good at electronics. Char sounds kind of like Latin. How about we call me Char Watts, it’s close enough to my name that I’ll recognize it.”

Rare shrugged, “I haven't met many ponies. But that sounds like a pony name.”

Char nodded firmly, “Right, so from now on I’m Char Watts. The Daughter of a wealthy merchant on her way back to her family estate in the north and not the Emperor’s daughter on a journey to Equestria… Wherever that is.”

A soft voice gasped, “You’re the Emperor’s daughter?”

Rare and Charlotte whirled in the direction of the voice, a stone colored pegasus mare stood on a balcony attached to one of the attic windows which apparently served as a pegasus landing pad. The mare timidly clicked her front hooves together, “I-I-I um…” she bowed low, folding her wings to her back as she landed, saddlebags brushing the floor.

Rare shot Char a frightened look, which Char returned before stammering, “Um-n-no! I’m just a merchant's daughter.”

The pegasus stood up, shaking a lock of long blond mane out of her eyes, “Your highness, I’m sorry I didn’t know the Emperor had a daughter. I mean, i see it now, you look a lot like he does on a silver buck. I um… My cousin and I wouldn’t have put you in the attic if we had known. I brought you some food, it’s not fit for you, I’ll get something else! Please don't have the legion burn down our ranch for this!” The pegasus moved to jump back into the air and take off.

Char left eye twitched, “Wait!”

She froze, turning back to face Char, “Y-yes?”

Rare noticed a quick crafty look flash over Char’s face as the girl thought up what she hoped was a convincing lie, “You can’t tell anyone who I am. My bodyguard and I are on an important mission my father couldn't trust to anyone else. You didn’t know I existed because it’s a well kept secret, he has me carry out many missions all over the Imperium. I’m his spy. You saved our lives, so I am willing to let you go unharmed. But if you tell anyone else…”

The mare nodded, “I understand your ma-”

“My name is Char, understand?”

She nodded twice, looking relieved, “I understand. D-do you want a better dinner? This is just some flasks of mushroom broth.”

“No what you bought is fine,” Rare said, realizing a way to reinforce their lie, “If you have a new meal made that would just make other ponies suspicious. What’s your name?”

“That’s a good point. Cuz is the nosy type.” The mare noted, quickly adding, “Oh! It’s Iron Night.”

Rare nodded, “Thank you Iron. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found us.”

Charlotte nodded, “Yeah, we were pretty much screwed. I’ll see if I can't get you a reward once my mission is completed.”

Iron’s ears perked up at the mention of a reward, “Really? Well… I’ll be sure to keep you happy until your body guard is well enough to travel. Oh… What name and rank should I tell my cuz you are? She will want to know.”

Rare’s lips pursed as she tried to think of a convincing rank, “You can use my real name. I’m Centurion Rare Luck, Emperor’s personal Legion.”

Iron nodded, “Ok.” She took two wooden flasks from her bag and handed one to each of them. The flasks were still warm, “Drink up, it’s fresh and thin now but after a while it thickens up and you can't drink it at all.”

Char opened the flask, Rare caught a flash of surprise on her face as she opened the cap with her hoof. “How did I do… Er never mind. Thank you for the meal.”

“It’s my pleasure your ma-um-Char. Oh! When my cuz and I got back to you after I went to get help I couldn't find any of your stuff. Sorry… If you need anything before you leave please let me know. I know you had a hooded coat, I don't have one of those but my brother left his hat and poncho here when he was conscripted… You can have them if you want some clothing. I honestly would rather not have to remember him every time I open the closet.”

Rare winced, she could imagine how it would feel to have lost somepony like that. But Charlotte's wide eyed horrified expression made her giggle as Char asked, “I’m naked?”

Iron raised an eyebrow, “Well yeah, so’s most everypony.”

Charlotte blushed deeply and slipped herself under the covers. “I-I would really like something to wear.”

Iron shook her head, visibly stifling a laugh while rolling her eyes, “Some ponies… Ahem! I mean I’ll get them for you right away. Enjoy your dinner.” Iron snapped open her wings and jumped, quickly flying out the open window.

“You could have told me I was naked!” Char sulked, sipping at the broth slowly.

What is the big deal with that? Rare rolled her eyes, “Charlo-Char, When we met I only had a cloak on to make ponies think I was in the legion. Most ponies don't use clothing. It’s just not comfortable, besides unless you’re in heat your coat covers everything up… Oh! Do humans use clothing for modesty? I know that minotaurs do.”

Charlotte nodded, “Yeah we do.”

Rare laughed until she had to hold her sides, “Ah! Ow… You are going to have to get used to so many things!” Thank you old gods, I really needed a good laugh after well… my life.

Shaking her head and ignoring Char’s annoyed glare Rare sipped at her mushroom broth, snickering at thing she realized the many things the new pegasus would have to relearn how to do.

8 Amicos et viris fortibus

8 Amicos et viris fortibus

Iron’s cousin Bronze Day was far more of the typical farmer than she was. The olive pegasus had come upstairs after dinner and welcomed Rare and Char into his home, asked after their injuries, said he reckoned they just needed a few good days of rest and some proper food and that he would be more than happy to get them back up and walking. He had also dropped the clothing Iron had promised Char off, and given the mares a bucket of drinking water for the night before leaving them to their own business.

With the pegasus gone Char had quickly tried on the clothes, still quite embarrassed at her lack of coverings. The clothes were right out of an old wild west movie. The Poncho was a light brown homespun fabric decorated with white markings of a simple pattern of rectangles around the neck, waist, and hem. The hat was some sort of cowboy hat made from dark brown, leathery material. It had a circular brim about as wide her hoof, and the top was flat rather than decoratively shaped. A single dark brown hatband with a silver buckle was fastened around the hat’s base giving the hat a sort of unique yet generic look. Perhaps the right phrase is an ‘individual appearance.’ She mused as she tossed the hat on, delighting in how it fit her well as it was the first hat to ever do so.

Once she put it on the poncho covered her up well enough for her sense of modesty. As a bonus it was loose fitting enough where she could still spread her wings under it. Oddly enough no matter how many times Char stood on her hind legs or all fours the poncho always covered her in a way where she wouldn't trip on the cloth and the poncho also covered her body. It was as if rearing up made the garment change shape. Whatever, it’s probably magic. Charlotte rationalized after the twelfth attempt at figuring out exactly how it apparently changed length.

Char trotted downstairs to ask why the clothes seemed so out of place but only got an unsatisfactory answer about Iron’s brother buying them at a market from a merchant whose circuit took him far to the north. On the way back upstairs she caught her reflection in a bronze mirror hung in the ranch house's hallway. So that’s what I look like. Char looked at her reflection, taking in her entirely new body.

It’s not all that bad I guess. She decided, I mean four legs is a bit distracting, but I’m a nice color and having fur is cool. This wings are awesome too! My face is going to take getting used to though, the short muzzle is just… not human. And my eyes… My eyes are just… not wrong… but not quite right either.

Char’s examination of her reflection made her think about her prosthetic left leg. She held it up to examine in the light, the metal looked to be a single sheet, it flexed and bent silently and seemed to follow all the rules of a normal body part. It mirrored how her other front leg moved at least. Hold on, I can move my front legs about as much as I could my old arms… Char carefully reared up onto her hind legs, flapping her wings for balance.

Tottering on her rear legs she moved her left arm around, noting the range of motion, “So my shoulder joints are still human like… weird.”

As she held her arm straight out in front of her Char grinned at her reflection, I look like a cowboy pony version of megaman. She moved her other forehoof to brace her fake arm, mimicking as best she could on her unsteady hindlegs and imagined shooting a few evil robots.

Instantly she felt her arm lock in a straight position, the bottom of the hoof irised open, and a small panel slid back on the inside of her foreleg showing a tiny control panel and the familiar display of her blaster. “Holy shit! I am a cowboy pony version of megaman. Awesome!” Grinning widely Char tried to whip around and strike another action pose but promptly fell over on her back. Her gun-leg closed and unlocked the moment she stopped thinking about shooting with it, a feature she figured would get irritating at some point.

After a few minutes of posing in the mirror, trying to figure out how to look awesome rocking her new gun arm and prefect a Clint Eastwood squint to go with the poses Char grew bored and trotted back up stairs. Rare had apparently also been busy and had a small ball of blue light hovering over her head as she read from a large tome written by making all of the page except for the letters black. “Whatcha reading?” Char asked as she sat down on her bed.

“My spellbook. I thought I should study a bit more magic while I have the chance.” the unicorn replied, not looking up from the page.

“Neat. What are you studying specifically? You threw one hell of a fireball the other day, are you looking up how to make that better?”

“No… I’m currently trying to understand how the force of a punch works. If I can learn that, I could make a spell which well… punched things I couldn't touch normally. I want a good low power repeatable attack spell.”

“You could try using your sword.” Char pointed with her gun-leg to the sword laid beside Rare’s bed.

“Yeah… I guess I could just levitate it and slash around. But its a pretty badly damaged sword. Besides, I already failed making a magical arrow spell… Look this is kind of hard for me to learn already ok?”

Char sighed and rolled onto her back, “Fine… Sorry I’m just bored. And well I kinda should talk to you anyways. I need to learn well pony stuff.”

Rare looked up from her spellbook, raising an eyebrow, “Pony stuff?”

“Yeah, like what is your society like? What are some of the local legends everyone knows? I need to pass for pony now you know.”

“Everypony.”

“What?”

“You say everypony, everybody is for when you are talking about people who are not ponies.”

Char nodded, “Yeah stuff like that. Thanks! What else should I know?”

Rare sighed, putting one hoof to her forehead in irritation, “If I fill you in today I have two conditions.”

“What?”

“I like stories, so you have to tell me one story from your world. Also you need to let me invent my spell tomorrow. Because we will need more spells for our journey.”

Char thought for a few minutes, then nodded, “Ok fair points. Who goes first?”

Rare pointed to Char with one hoof.

“Ummm ok let me think… What kind of stories do you like?”

“You said the other day that humans had stories where people go to another dimension. Tell me one that does not take place in your home plane. It would be neat to see what humans imagined other worlds would be like.”

Char nodded again and sat in thought for a long time. There is a ton of stories like that… But whats a good one I could even hope to retell? One suddenly came to mind. Char’s favorite childhood novel. Standing up Char started to pace the space in front of her bed as she thought of how to begin. Sitting down she cleared her throat and began.

“This story takes place in a world where there are no humans, but most animals stand on two legs all of them can talk and they live in a dangerous medieval land where battles are fought and won by the sword without the aid of any magic other than the rare intervention by ancestral spirits. This is the tale of Redwall, and it begins in a place called Mossflower Woods.”

~~

Rare quickly became enthralled by Char’s rendition of what she assumed must be a valuable piece of human mythology. Certainly it was meant to instill a sense of courage and virtue within children but it was so much more than that. Char presented the story with such vivid descriptions and actually performed certain parts, getting fully engaged in telling the story to the point of giving each character a voice as best she could. Char even sung several short songs humans had apparently created simply to enhance the narrative. Telling the entire story must have taken the better part of an hour but Rare didn't care in the slightest.

Standing atop her bed, hat tipped down to shade her face dramatically Charlotte continued telling the tale, “So everyone stood gathered around the Abbot in the gardens to soothe his passage from the world. Content in the knowledge that his Abbey and every creature within would be free of the tyrant Cluny forever and that they were under the safe care of a new Abby Champion chosen by Martin himself Abbot Mortimer closed his eyes for the last time and died, a peaceful smile on his lips… The End.” Char bowed, sweeping her hat off of her head in a bow as she finished.

Rare clapped her forehooves together, she had never seen a bardic performance before but this simply had to be one! “That was amazing! Are you a bard? It cant end there can it? There just has to be more! What happens to Matthias and Cornflower?”

Char smiled and put her hat back on, “That was actually the first time I have ever told anyone a story… Thanks! I um… guess I just have talent. I also happen to love the entire Redwall Saga, I memorized most of it as a kid.”

Rare moved her hoof in a ‘continue’ gesture. Char frowned confused for a moment before giggling, “Oh sorry! Matt and Cornflower have a son named Mattimeo who gets kidnapped by a villainous fox named ‘Slagar the Cruel’. But that’s the next book so I stopped there.”

I have to know the rest! Rare gave Char a hopeful look, “I don’t suppose you would…”

“Later. I actually liked telling the story, but you promised me one you know.”

“Yeah I did… I won’t be able to tell it anywhere like you just did though. I also don't know very many stories. I want taught much of the old lore growing up, only enough to participate in services and rituals.” Rare tapped her hoof against the bed as she tried to think of a more interesting story she could tell. Something besides the origin of life, or the birth of the gods. “Well… There is one story which I like a lot. Actually it’s really a bunch of parts of different stories which all connect with each other.”

Char nodded, “That sounds interesting.”

“It’s the story of a heroine who appears in stories from all the different periods of the Old Imperium, and I even heard one that is from my own lifetime. She’s a pegasus who travels with her husband, and sometimes her sister or daughter. Almost every big event ever has her pop up, the stories call her ‘The Companion’ but a few give her the name ‘Ditzy Doo’ and reveal that her husband is… a healer of some kind, I believe he is a surgeon.. Sorry I’m not sure on that one. Ditzy is a grey pegasus, with a blond mane, crossed honey colored eyes, and strangely enough has markings which look like a series of little bubbles on her flanks.

“According to legend, whenever something huge is to happen, a plague, a drought, a rampaging monster there is a very good chance that Ditzy and her husband will show up and stop it. A lot of stories mothers tell their foals to help them not fear the dark or monsters at night are about her, but there are plenty of tales for grown ponies too.”

Char nodded, sitting back against the bedside to pay attention. “That sounds pretty cool. Tell me one.”

“Alright… Well a long time ago-”

“In a galaxy far far away…”

Rare shot Char a glare, “Do you want me to tell you a story or not?”

“Sorry… It’s just that you started the same way as Star… never mind it’s a human thing. I’ll shut up.”

“Thank you. So, a long time ago Ditzy Doo arrived at a small village which the local ponies had fled claiming it was besieged by an army of bees the size of a horse...”

~~

“.. So having broken the curse the old god Jervrick had placed upon the village all of the transformed ponies were returned to their normal forms, the Imperium was spared the fate of being consumed by a massive army of giant bees, and once more Ditzy Doo vanished to history.” Rare finished, quickly filling the empty flask from dinner from the water bucket for a drink.

Char grinned, “That was a good one. She’s sort of like an American Folk Hero… Yeah she’s a lot like Pecos Bill. He could create and ride tornadoes too.”

Rare gave Char an odd look before her face softened, “Oh right… You are not a natural pegasus. You have the power to control the weather Char. Any Pegasi with enough training can make a tornado, punch clouds away, make a lightning bolt, create rain… Some can even make clouds permanently stay in one place. There are pegasi villages made from clouds which float in the sky.”

What? Realy? “Sooo you are saying that not only am I a cowboy pony version of megaman, but I am also Storm from the X-Men?”

Rare shrugged, “If Storm could control the weather with practice and training… yes.”

“Well… That’s… cool I guess.” Her face pulled into a look somewhere between frightened and amazed.

Rare hummed concerned, “I-I’m just guessing here but you are aware that you are an inherently magical creature now right?”

“No. I wasn’t… I’m going to have to get used to… everything. Aren’t I?”

Rare nodded, “Yes. I am guessing that humans don’t have any magic of their own?”

“Nope. It’s just a lot to take in… W-would you please tell me another one of those? Ditzy’s a pretty awesome legend. Help me take my mind off things for a bit?” Char asked, looking up at Rare with hopeful eyes.

“Well… Ok. But only if you tell me Mattimeo’s story after that.”

“Deal!” That will be cake, it’s my favorite one. Char smiled happily as Rare began to tell another of the short bits of Imperial Lore.

~~

The two ponies spent a full week doing little more than recuperating, learning how to properly do everyday tasks, and swapping stories. Rare’s desire to make a new spell was almost entirely forgotten thanks to her love of a good story. Char’s personal rendition of the Redwall Saga took up a full five days for her to tell “properly” as she put it. By the end of the entire tale, or at least all Char had memorized Rare honestly wished she could read the original written works. Char admitted she didn’t have every single last detail of every story memorized, just the characters, events and general locations.

They enjoyed talking about the fictional world together, discussing little nuances and engaging in what Char called “nerd stuff” leading Rare to believe that humans must call bards nerds. Rare told Char all the stories she knew whenever Char needed a break from talking and the two quickly grew to enjoy each other's company. Both ponies could appreciate a good story, and both loved to talk about the stuff which might happen in the stories worlds. Somewhere during their fun the two mares became friends. No words needed to be said, each of them simply came to realize the other was a friend.

The day came when Rare felt great, no pain in her legs, plenty of energy in her body, and Rare was certain she was back in top shape after her two weeks of near starvation. Char and Rare had thanked Iron and Bronze for their assistance, Rare split the cords of firewood for the ranchers as thanks, and then the two mares headed for town. While they had no money to their name they both knew they would need supplies for the next segment of their journey and surely somepony in town would need help with something.

They arrived in town a few hours after breakfast. The town of Nomareus was actually quite large for a simple farming town. It’s buildings were quite old in design but well maintained, the streets were filled with ponies going about their daily business, the scent of baked goods filled their noses, and the sound of ponies in a nearby market selling their wares rang in their ears. The two decided it would be best to split up to look for some way to make money and meet back at he market in the afternoon. Rare trotted towards the market, figuring somepony could use a hoof with spellcraft and maybe she could make a buck or two.

Char on the other hoof wandered about the town. Maybe someone er-somepony needs help with an odd job or two. As she walked through the streets, a large park caught her eye. The park was filled with ponies of all ages, simply relaxing around a fountain, on benches, playing games, or listening to a street musician. Char trotted towards the performing pony, a pleased gleam flashing in her eyes as she noticed a few ponies toss some silver coins into his lute’s case. I could try singing for money. Rare thinks I am amazing at it, I mean I don’t but he’s not really that good sounding but making money. Might as well give it a shot.

Rare moved to the opposite end of the park so as not to take the other performer's business, set her hat out for coins, then thought for a few moments on what songs she could remember. There were plenty, too many to think through realy. Char had spent a lot of her life headphones in and world tuned out listening from everything from J-pop to old blues numbers. Hell she even listened to old 80’s metal and Minecraft songs from YouTube. Hey… Minecraft songs. Fallen Kingdom sound kinda like an old medieval ballad. Charlotte cleared her throat and began to sing.

“I used to rule the world / Chunks would load when I gave the word / Now every night I go stow away / Hide from the mobs I used to slay.”

A few ponies trotted over, listening to her as she kept singing. The crowd slowly grew larger, Char smiling nervously as they gathered, whispering or wordlessly watching. It was honestly creepy, but she couldn’t just stop that just might make them angry. As her song drew to a close Char finished with a nervous grin, bowing low to hide the wince she made, Oh god they hated it.

Then suddenly a few ponies clapped their hooves, others stamped one hoof against the ground. A few dropped a silver or copper coin into her hat. A few ponies trotted away from the group, Char could here them talking about how she sung well even if the song was strange. A pink unicorn mare smiled and called out “Do another one!”

Grinning widely Char nodded, “Thank you everyon-pony. Sorry if you don’t know any of my songs I’m not from around here. Lets see…” Char tapped her bronze hoof to her chin in thought before nodding and starting to sing the next song that came to mind, Bad Moon Rising. When she had finished her audience clearly preferred the old blues style song better, the performance earned her a few more coins then the first song had. A pattern thus established, Char spent the next two hours singing every blues song she could remember, throwing in the odd rock or metal song when she could.

At the end of the hour the stallion who had been playing his lute came up to her. Char frowned wondering if he was upset, “I’m sorry sir I didn’t mean to cut into your business. My companion and I ran out of money and have a long ways to go still-”

He shook his head, black mane brushing over his eyes, “I am not upset miss, in fact you are doing far better than I am today. But together, with your voice and my lute I bet we could make more bucks performing for these fine fillies and gentlecolts.” He plucked a cord on his lute melodiously, “What say you keep the bucks you have currently, we play together for a while and split the take evenly.”

Well… I guess that might work. “Sure. I don’t know how to play any of the songs I can sing though.”

“That’s all right, I wouldn’t be a good bard if I couldn't play along to a tune.” He sat down on the grass some distance from Char and gave her a nod, plucking a few strings gently.

Char nodded back and started her next song. The bard took a few seconds to figure out the tune then skillfully strummed a simple melody in time with the words. They worked well together, not necessarily great, but they definitely kept a small crowd of listeners around, and for the two more hours Char had songs she could sing the bucks steadily rolled in. But as the sun reached it’s peak and Char ran out of songs, she had to stop.

After splitting the earnings with the bard, safely storing the small pile of coins within a handy pocket on the inside of her poncho, and tossing her hat back on Char trotted back towards the market. The market was still quite busy, not as packed as it had been in the morning but many carts, booths, and storefronts had at least one pony buying or selling something. The more she looked around the more Char wondered how she would find Rare, just looking for her red cloak wouldn't help, a lot of the ponies here were the same color as the cloth.

Duh! She’s in a legion uniform. I’ll just ask somepony where I can find her. Turning to a shop keeper Char asked, “Excuse me sir, I’m looking for my companion. She’s a legionnaire, unicorn, has orange fur.”

The shopkeeper nodded and pointed towards the edge of a market, “Yes she went that way a few minutes ago. Are the two of you short money? She has been looking for odd jobs all morning.”

Char shook her head, “Not anymore.” Tipping her hat Char trotted off stating, “The Legion thanks you.”

It took her a few minutes to find her friend. Rare was standing next to a shop, levitating a large carved wooden sign up while a pegasus nailed it to the wall of a shop. Rare looked over as Char approached giving her a nod, “I’m nearly done here. I’ve made a few bucks with odd jobs. Did you get anything?”

Char nodded, “Yeah. I don’t know how much though I didn’t count it.”

Rare gave her a nod asking, “Are the nails in yet?”

The pegasi she was helping called back, “Yeah, just one more nail to go. Here.” He tossed three silver coins down, which Rare caught in her magic.

“Ok I have 8 bucks and 9 nibs,” Rare calculated, tucking the coins into her cloak, “Lets see what you got… What did you do anyways?”

Char reached for her own pocket, “Well you said I was good at singing, so I decided to sing for peo-er ponies in a park. It worked out well.”

Just before she could take the pile of coins out to show Rare a tall green stallion came sprinting up to them calling, “Legionnaire! Legionnaire! Come quick!”

Rare blinked in confusion looking around for a moment before Char hissed, “You are in uniform.”

“Oh! Right!” Doing her best to look like a hardened military mare and failing Rare turned to the green pony as he slid to a stop asking, “What’s the trouble sir?”

The stallion waved a hoof indicating for her to follow, “We caught a nendaite coming into town. You’re the first imperial law officer I found, somepony needs to oversee the hanging.”

Char gave Rare a confused look. Hanging?

Rare’s face took on a disgusted look for a moment as she nodded, “Alright, I’m on my way. Char, come with me.”

The stallion took off ahead of them, Rare following behind at what she assumed would be out of earshot, Char moved along at her side, “What the hell is a nendaite?”

“They are kind of like a pegasus, only they take after bats. Someponies call them 'bat-ponies', but most ponies don't like to... dignafy them by calling them a pony.”

“Ok, why would one be lynch mobbed on sight?”

“Most ponies think they drink your blood. They also are pretty much all thieves, and farmers don't like them setting up camps in their fields.” Rare answered.

“Sooo they are vampire gypsies?”

“I don't know what a ‘gypsies’ is Char.” Rare rolled her eyes it irritated her when Char forgot they didn't share the same dialect. “But I know they aren’t vampires. I heard the Commissar mention he drove a whole colony of them out of an orchard they were trying to settle once. They eat fruit as far as I know.”

Char’s eyes narrowed, “So we are going to let these assholes hang someone because of superstition?”

“We might have to… It’s a lynchmob Char. We could easily be strung up too.”

A large group of ponies of all kinds quickly came into view. A loud angry voice shouting could be heard before the two mares even reached the group, “You light-addled morons! Let me go! This is the thanks I get for trying to warn you? HA! No wonder mom says you are all a bunch of-” A loud screeching hiss interrupted the voice’s words, “Yeah that’s right! That’s what all of you are!”

“Somepony gag it.” another voice ordered.

“Gag it yourself! I’m not getting my hooves near those fangs.”

The stallion Rare and Char had followed whistled, “Hey! I got a legionnaire. We can kill this monster now.”

We have to do something! Char shot Rare a look of pure hate as she hissed, “If you don't do something, I’m going to start shooting.”

Rare nodded whispering, “I’ll try ok. We talk about this later.” Rare trotted forwards clearing her throat, “Ponies, ponies, calm down. I’ll handle this, it’s my job.”

A few ponies muttered darkly but enough parted to leave a path for Rare to walk into the middle of their group. As they parted Char could see the captured nendaite, the grey-purple coated mare glared at Rare with slit-pupil pumpkin orange eyes as she struggled against multiple ropes binding her hooves together and wings down. “What’s the matter daywalkers? Can't handle one nendaite all on her own? You have to go run and get a soldier to protect you?”

“Just cut it’s head off and be done with it!” A mare called.

Char recognized Rare’s ‘thinking quickly’ face as the unicorn did her best to come up with any sort of thing which might solve the problem they found themselves in. Char grinned as Rare’s face took on a determined look. She has something!

Rare spun in the direction the blood thirsty mare had called from, “There will be no more of that! His majesty the Emperor has issued standing orders to conscript nendaite when possible. He believes if they can be controlled that they will be of service on the front.”

A few ponies scoffed at her words, but one Stallion nodded, “That’s a good idea really, make the layabouts useful.”

Rare bit her lip, left forehoof kicking the ground. She bend her front legs to get on more even ground with the captive, “Why did you come here? It’s the middle of the day, and we both know your kind isn’t stupid. You know what a bunch of farmers will do to you if you let yourself get caught. So by the gods, why are you here?”

The nendaite spat at Rare’s hooves, “I was trying to warn you undeserving dungheaps that a necromancer has set up shop just north of here but screw it! Tartarus can take you all!”

Rare’s face took on a far more serious look, a tinge of horror spreading over her face, “A necromancer? Are you sure?”

The nendaite rolled her eyes, “I don’t know, rotting corpses raid farms and carry off young ponies so often. It might just be Tuesday.”

The green stallion scoffed, “Bah don't listen to the thieving thing. It’s probably just trying to lure somepony out into the woods to be mugged.”

Rare wheeled around, “I will be the judge of that. You asked me to handle this problem, and I am handling it. Do you want me to report to my commanding officer that you entrusted a matter other legion then told the legion how to do it’s job?”

The stallion took a step back, holding up one hoof, “There’s no need for that ma’am! I-um-”

“You remember what happened to Equuinea don’t you?”

A few ponies nervously started to back up. The stallion nodded, “Yes… Very well ma’am. It's yours.”

Rare nodded, “Good. I don’t want to waste time having to tell my commander this town is full of heretics.” She turned to the nendaite “I’m going to untie your legs, and you are going to lead me to the farm you mentioned. If you are telling the truth I’ll grant you a chance to join the Emperor’s Legion, if not I’ll put you two the sword.” Rare gave the nendaite a quick wink, Char hoped that she understood the signal.

The nendaite's eyes dilated quickly, “Oh what an honor, be killed now, or be killed later. Although… later would be nice.”

Rare nodded and quickly undid the ropes tying her legs together with her magic, “Everypony stay back, if she runs I don't want to hit anyone with a fireball.”

The crowd of ponies fell back muttering to themselves as the nendaite stood up. Char looked around, the glares or indifferent looks on ponies faces she understood, but quite a few looked disappointed, Wow. Where are their pony white hoods? Screw these fucks.

Rare nodded at Char, “Come on. If she slips the wing binding I’ll need help chasing her down. Now you, lead us to the farm. Oh and the lot of you, tell the town elders there might be a necromancer on the loose. She might not be the most trustworthy of sources, but I am sure we can all agree we don't want the town streets filled with undead.”

The nendaite shook her head, “I honestly can’t believe I found a sensible pony. What are their like three of you to go around or something? Come on it’s this way.” She started to trot off.

Rare and Char followed along, the nendaite leading them at a brisk pace until they entered the woods just off the side of the road and were out of sight. Char looked back over her shoulder and seeing nopony watching them nodded to Rare, “We’re clear.”

Rare sighed in relief, “Oh thank the gods I grew up around legionnaires constantly. Here, you should fly off before somepony decides they want to see me run you through.” Rare’s magic nimbly untied the rope around the nendaite’s wings.

She looked at Rare suspiciously, “You're not really a bloodcloak are you? What’s your con?”

Char frowned, “Oh wow you guys really are thieves.”

“Duh. It’s not like we can just go and buy things, you ponies kill us on sight! Well… most ponies… Um thanks I guess.” She frowned, pawing the ground with one hoof.

“Don’t mention it.” Rare sighed adding, “Seriously don’t mention it. Anypony with a brain will realize that the Emperor doesn't want to recruit nendaite and then I’ll need a new disguise ok?’

“Hey no worries!” she grinned widely showing off a pair of frankly cute fangs, “I know ponies don't have any, but we nendaite have honor, especially towards fellow thieves. You saved my life, I won't say a word to anyone.”

Char looked at the thestral giving her a suspicious look, “Is there really a necromancer? Or was that just a plan to-”

Her ears fell, “Oh yeah… There is. I thought even ponies could understand a common bucking enemy. Right. Well, I’ll just have to save that colt and filly myself then.” She spread her wings, hopping into the air and hovering as she looked at the two mares, “Unless… you two want to help. I mean they are ponies after all.”

Rare gave her a suspicious look, “If they are ponies why would you want to save them? I’m pretty sure you hate us.”

The nendaite gave Rare an incredulous look, “Because they are just pups, duh! They are too young to be hateful dungheaps yet and well you two are nice enough. So some ponies have to grow up ice sometimes.”

You know what, I believe her. Char decided her doubts on the nendaite cast aside. “Rare, we have to help her.”

Rare chewed her lip as she mulled it over. “I… I don’t know. It still could be a trap. But even if she is telling the truth, I don’t know if I can handle a necromancer. I’m just a novice after all. I do have a mean fireball but a proper necromancer would have a lot of their own power. Also you can't forget the zombies… Oh gods and if he can raise a wraith or windago…” Rare shuddered.

Char frowned, “We don't have to kill him, we just save the kids. And you wouldn't be handling him on your own. You have me and… um…”

“Aurora.” The nendaite informed.

“Thanks. You have me and Aurora to back you up. I got my blaster, she has her um…”

“I’m pretty sneaky, not to mention I can pick locks and know Chiroptora.” Aurora informed, adjusting her hovering position into something which resembled a kung-fu stance.

“Then how were you caught?” Rare asked raising an eyebrow.

Aurora looked down at her hooves sadly, “Bad luck, being stupid, and assuming ponies would listen to me.”

I need to make Rare realize that we can't let a necromancer experiment on kids. Char thought hard, What’s a good way to inspire someone to be courageous? Her eyes flashed as if lit from within for a brief moment by a orange flame. In that instant she realized exactly how she could get Rare to help. Those ponies in the park thought I was a bard. D&D bards can inspire courage though song. Rare thinks my singing is awesome, maybe a good heroic song would do the trick!

She paused for a moment to try and think of a song which would work and realized, A song about a human hero won't work… But I don't know any songs about pony heroes… Well I guess It's time to improvise. Rare seemed to like the myth of Ditzy Doo best... I need a simple song about a hero.

Char’s sudden grin and exclamation of “Thank you South Park!” surprised Aurora enough to make her drop from the air. Char walked in front of Rare took a breath and rolled out a quick and dirty parody.

“What would Ditzy Doo do / If she was here right now? / She'd make a plan / And she'd follow through, / That's what Ditzy Doo'd do.”

Rare blinked in surprise, “Um… what?”

Aurora facehoofed, “Oh bucking hell she’s a bard.”

Char decided to ignore them and just keep going, “When Ditzy Doo was in Equestria, / Skating for the gold, / She did two salchows and a triple lutz / While wearing a blind fold. // When Ditzy Doo was in the alps, / Fighting grizzly bears, / She used her magical fire breath, / And saved the mares fair! // So what would Ditzy Doo do / If she were here today? / I'm sure she'd kick a flank or two, / That's what Ditzy Doo'd do!”

Rare signed, “Char… Your singing is great, but you can stop it ok?”

“Not until you say you’ll help,” Char declared, jumping up onto a nearby log to rear up and continue with the next verse, “When Ditzy Doo traveled through time / To the year three-thousand-ten / She fought the evil Nightmare Moon / and saved the pony race again.”

Aurora gave Rare a pleading look.

“Ok, I’ll help! Just… don’t make up your own songs Char. That was bad. Sung very well mind but… well… bad.” Rare conceded.

“Let-me-finish-it!,“ Char grumbled. Might as well skip the bit about Kubla Kahn since it's almost over, “So let’s all get together, / And unite to save this town, / And we'll save the colt and filly too, / Cos that's what Ditzy Doo do!”

Aurora shook her head once Char stopped singing, “Your friend is right. You can sing, but that just made singing something that stupid sooo much more embarrassing. Umm what are your names?”

Rare pointed to herself then Char, “I’m Rare Luck novice warlock, this is Char Wattz... she can shoot things.”

Aurora stuck out her left hoof, “Well then Rare and Char, let’s shake on it.”

“Shake on what?” Char asked.

“We are forming a wing to attack a necromancer and save some pups. It’s a business deal. So we shake on it.” Aurora informed, frowning, “What do ponies not shake on things?”

“We do.” Rare answered placing her hoof atop Aurora’s.

Charlotte placed her bronze hoof atop the stack.

“Take off the boot, that’s rude.” Aurora sighed.

“That’s not a boot, it’s my leg. Also I don't know if it comes off. I think it’s fuzed at the cellular level.”

“Oh… Sorry. Right. So we all agree to do our best to prevent the colt and the filly I saw get snatched by zombies from all the harm we can?”

Char and Rare nodded. Aurora nodded as well then broke the stack of hooves by sweeping her’s upwards through the pile. “Awesome! We plan on the way. Follow me!”

Aurora took off and zipped north through the trees forcing Rare and Char to sprint to keep up. As they ran Char looked at Rare, “Hey.”

“Yes?”

“I just realized we are running into battle to save some kids. That totally makes us heroes.”

“Not if we die it doesn't.” Rare pointed out.

“True, but I know how I can make you ok with this.”

Rare sighed, “I doubt you c-”

“We are totally doing something you would see in a Redwall story.”

Rare blinked in surprise then grinned, “We totally are! Ok, so maybe this is a little cool.”

Char grinned back, “If we end up having to charge a bunch of zombies you want to use a war cry? C'mon you know that would be an awesome story to tell your grandkids!”

Rare nodded, a determined look spreading over her face, “It would… Ok, I will. But I get to use 'Eulalia'.”

Aurora groaned ahead of them, “This is exactly why bards irritate me…”

9 Pararet missionis

9 Pararet missionis

The three ponies moved north through the forest, speedily darting around trees, jumping logs, and crashing through underbrush. “So,” Rare asked, “What’s our plan?”

Everypony was silent for a minute then Aurora spoke up, “Well, if I had to do this alone I would sneak in to wherever the Necromancer is and try to smuggle the kids out.”

“That might not work like you think it will. Kids make a lot of noise.” Char observed.

“Well yeah, but you two are helping me. I figure we find the Necro’s hide out and then you two make a diversion while I swoop in and get the kids.”

Rare frowned slightly, “Well… That might work. But how are we supposed to distract a horde of zombies? What if we have to fight our way out of them?”

Char sighed, “If only I hadn't lost my stuff. I had a few things in my pack which could have helped. Hell just my little red bag would have been awesome.”

Little red bag? Humm...I wonder if- “I don’t suppose you mean a red bag with white decorative markings made from a slippery sort of fabric?”

Char looked at her with confusion, “How do you know-”

“I found it and some other weird stuff in the woods a week ago. My colony is camped near here for now and well there was arcane looking things just left all alone in the woods. So I picked them up.” Aurora replied, turning in mid air to face Char while flying backwards.

The Pegasi grinned, “Awesome! Then I might be able to get a good distraction going.”

Aurora tapped a hoof to the ground thoughtfully. I could try and make her buy back the stuff… Nah she’s using it to help me, and maybe if I save these young ones some of the ponies just might stop seeing us as monsters. “We might have time to get them. How fast can you fly?”

Char grinned feebly, “Um heh heh… No idea. I actually haven't flown before.”

“Wha? Oof!” Aurora slammed back first into a thin tree as her surprise prevented her echolocation from warning her about the tree in time.

Rare laughed, “Oh wow I didn't ever think I would see that!”

Aurora slid down the tree, quickly getting to her hooves as she asked incredulously, “What do you mean you have never flown? You look about 20, you are clearly an adult, you are a pegasus. You were probably born on a cloud. How in the holy name of Lah’ren have you never flown?”

Char kicked one hoof against the forest floor, “W-well… Because this is my first week as a pegasus.”

Aurora frowned, she could hear Char’s breathing and heart rate. They had stayed the same as before, the hoofkick was a nervous gesture, but her eyes hadn’t dilated, and her explanation hadn’t been overly wordy. She is either an incredibly good liar or telling the truth… “Come again?”

Rare shot Char a nervous look, “Char we barely know her.”

“Yeah well, it’s not like she can go tell everypony. Besides I have no reason to lie… Also she’s right a normal pegasus would know how to fly.”

Aurora’s wings twitched curiously. No Aurora, we don't have much time. “Ok so you are not lying. This is all kinds of fascinating, but we have a job to do. I’ll follow up on this later. For now I seriously need to know what you can do.”

Char nodded, “I can sing, tell stories, and can shoot an energy ray from my left arm. Um left foreleg, sorry.”

“I can move objects, make light, give myself the ability to jump long distances, make fire, and create magical shields.” Rare informed.

Arora tapped her chin in thought for a moment, “Ok… I still have my lockpicks hidden in my tail, I can sneak around well enough, I have excellent hearing, and can handle myself in a bare-hoof brawl.” No need to mention I can pick pockets… or any of the other stuff.

“That isn't much to work with…” Char sighed.

“Yeah. What’s in your bag that could help? I could get it in about ten minutes.” Aurora asked.

“Well I have a machete on the side… It’s kind of like a sword. If you have my clothes my taser should be attached to them which would let me electrocute a few zombies… If I can pull the trigger with a hoof that is. I have a bunch of electronics in there, not as much as I had in the pack I lost traveling here but - Oh! I have my mini amp, my old MP3 player, a small mic, and I think some portable speakers! I could totally get a lot of noise going!” Char grinned.

Aurora looked at Rare curiously. Rare shrugged, “I don’t know what any of that is either.”

“Could you explain what you could do with the stuff in your pack a little more quickly?” Aurora asked.

“Sorry. If I had my pack I could jury rig a device which would let me make a lot of noise. It would help with a distraction, guaranteed. I also had a few weapons on my belt and in my bag.”

Aurora nodded, “Ok, that’s enough reason for me to go get it. You girls keep going north. There is a large wheat farm about a mile ahead. That’s where I saw them take the kids. I’ll meet you there ok?”

The other two ponies nodded. Aurora gave them a nod and jumped, pushing her wings down in one quick powerful stroke to take off. She flapped hard as she could, taking off vertically was always a challenge for her and with the tree branches she didn’t want to risk a normal take off. The second she broke through the tree tops Aurora squinted at the sun. Most nendaites couldn’t navigate by the sun but Aurora, being the insomniac she was, had figured out which way the sun moved when she was just a little pup.

Aurora’s colony’s camp was far closer than she had told her rescuers. No nendaite ever gave accurate information to anypony about their camp’s location, Aurora suspected the same was true for any bat-pony tribe. After all staying hidden was simply sensible. Within three minutes the swampy patch of forest they had driven their wagons into came into view as a large patch of dull green trees contrasting the more vibrant and healthy foliage which surrounded it.

The swamp had been chosen as their home since it was very unlikely anypony would come out into it and happen upon their camp. Last month’s camp in the steppes to the west had nearly gotten them wiped out by the Eighth Legion as it had been quite close to a trade rout, Aurora wouldn’t be the reason they had to move this time.

The familiar circle of eighteen Romani wagons welcomed Aurora back home. Each individual wagon was home to a different family, all of which she knew of and all of which she cared for greatly. Like the ponies who lived in them the wagons had seen more than their share of hard times. Once lavishly carved, polished, and painted wood was worn, chipped, and all too often marred by spell, blade, and arrow marks. Reminders of every time their colony’s camp had been found thus far.

As Aurora spiraled down to land in the middle of the wagon circle next to the communal cooking fire she screeched the password to the camp guards. The guards own screech welcomed her back as she trotted to the battered emerald green wagon she shared with her mother. Pulling the door open carefully Aurora stepped inside, ducking under the strings of drying herbs hung from the ceiling, and stepping around boxes of alchemical ingredients as she made her way to her bed.

The backpack was where she had left it, sitting right atop her bed, some of the contents spread out from when she was attempting to appraise the item’s value. As she slipped the bag onto her chest a startled yelp made her jump. “Aurora Haze! How many times have I told you to warn me if you are inside and awake during the day?” Her mother’s shrill voice chastised.

Aurora blushed, I must be more tired than I thought. “Sorry mom,” she apologized, “I’m just getting that bag I found and going back out.”

“Did you find somepony to sell it too? Oh praise Lah’ren! You need to tell everypony, if there is somepony in town to trade with-”

Aurora frowned, ears drooping, “No mom, I haven't found anypony yet. But-”

“Oh… Well I am sure you will soon. None of us has as much free time as you my sleepless little pup.” Her mother gave her a soothing smile, teal eyes glowing faintly in the dim light.

“I actually think I can get this village to warm up to us. Long story short, two of the towns ponies pups have been kidnapped, and I have two ponies willing to help me rescue them. If I can pull it off I am pretty sure we can at least get one trip to trade in exchange.” Aurora proudly stated before snickering and adding, “And then robbing blind two dozen ponies who gave me a hard time when I tried to tell them about the pups.”

Her mother sighed, “I wish you wouldn’t be so reckless. You don’t even bother with a cloak half the time.”

“I don’t need it mom. I… I thought this time might be different because well… young ones in danger. If I hadn’t wanted to be seen…” Aurora let her sentence trail off and dropped into a crouch to step to her right into some of the wagon’s darker shadows blending into the darkness with ease.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed, “Aurora! Don’t do that while I’m talking to you! … You’re already gone aren't you? If I’m talking to an empty wagon you will be cooking for yourself for a fortnight!”

Aurora stood up, grinning happily, “Sorry mom. It’s just so easy to hide from a pony who can’t echolocate… I know it’s not well… fair to do to you but you get my point right?”

Her mother nodded sighing sadly. “I do.”

Aurora trotted to the wagon’s door, opening it slowly. “Oh right! One of the ponies helping me today is a warlock! She might be able to fix your ears. She’s really nice if a bit of a wimp.”

“You think so?”

“Well maybe. I know she can do battlemagic so it stands to reason-”

“You are helping a warlock who knows battle magic? Do you want to be reunited with your father in Equestria that badly? Aurora-”

Aurora sighed, “Mom… look… the town’s ponies were going to lynch me. She saved my life, also she’s probably a thief like me. She’s traveling in disguise as a legion messenger and her companion is a bard. They seem like conponies to me and at the least since they are hiding their identities other ponies must hate them as much as us. You know the saying about outlaws.”

Her mother frowned, Aurora was a skilled judge of character but few things could make the disabled mare worry as much as her daughter did. “Just… be careful dear. We lost your father. I wouldn’t survive losing you as well.”

“I’m always careful.” Detecting her mother’s deadpan look Aurora rolled her eyes, “Ok ok… I’m usually careful. I’ll be back soon.”

Stepping through the door and closing it carefully behind her Aurora snapped her wings open and took off into the air, heading north.

~~

Rare and Char galloped through the forest, moving north in as straight a line as they could manage. A full twenty minutes of running later took them to the edge of a large field cleared out of the forest. A simple wooden fence sectioned the tilled soil off from the wilderness, separating the carefully arranged rows of wheat from the wild undergrowth the two mares had just run through. The field had certainly seen better days, most of the wheat was trampled, large sections of the field were covered in black ash, and the farm’s various outbuildings appeared to have been on fire for at least a little while.

Rare could see the burnt out remains of a large granary across the field from them, the square structure’s stone and plaster walls were blackened from flames, fallen over in a few places, and no scrap of what she supposed had been a thatched roof remained. Turning to Char Rare whispered, “I don’t know of any undead which light fires. We should weight for Aurora in the field so we can see if anyone or anything is coming for us.”

Char’s mind flashed back to the many summers spent playing Dungeons and Dragons with her father and his friends. She winced at the memories but eventually recited a list of monsters from memory, “Death Knights, Dracoliches, Effigies, Flameskulls, Flaming Skeletons, and any undead from the elemental plane of fire would have the ability to light a fire, or possess a flame based attack.”

Rare raised an eyebrow, “I thought your world was so boring you left it.”

“It is, but we have fantasy games and invent monsters for them. Since we are going to attack a Necromancer, and I am now in a world where everyone is a magical talking pony I would not be surprised if we wound up being attacked by a Great Elder Wyrm of the black variety.”

Rare flinched, “Gods forbid we encounter a dragon…”

Char held up a hoof, “Time out! Dragons exist here?”

“Yes, mostly to the north but sometimes they come down south… Why are you looking at me like that?”

Char stepped into the field and started walking towards the burnt out granary. “What other sorts of monsters exist here?”

“Plenty. I couldn’t tell you for sure but the forests are-”

“Overrun with all manner of dangerous beasts?”

“Yes, how did you know I was going to… Don’t tell me, humans have a game where you run around fighting monsters.”

“Yes we do! And since your world seems to be a lot like one, I think I have a good Idea of what we can expect. I’m not as powerful or skilled as any given character from any game I’ve ever played, but well the basic rules are the same. Check for traps, never touch the thing on the podium, don’t taunt the imprisoned monster, always have some rope, and never ever drink a potion you find in a chest in a ruined keep.” Char grinned at Rare.

Rare facehoofed in return, “Char, this isn’t a game.”

“I know that, but still... I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to be an adventurer.”

“I suppose that is useful to us. Do you really think your ‘experience’ can help us make it through this?”

“Unless the DM is an asshole, yeah.” Char joked as the two reached the burnt out ruin.

As they circled around to find a way inside a whistle pierced the air. Wheeling around fearfully to look both mares let out a sigh of relief as Aurora dropped to the ground, Char’s backpack strapped to her chest. “Sorry, just didn’t want to land and get blasted.” Aurora informed slipping the bag from her chest and holding it out to Char.

Char took the bag, quickly opening it with her teeth and dumping the contents on the ground. “Ok so let me see what I can do…”

She began to sort the pile of stuff out into categories. Her machete and hatchet, three more MREs, a small bag of trail mix, a few scrap electronics bits, her old MP3 player, and “Hello… I thought I put you in my other bag!” Char grinned as she picked up a small plastic project box with her hoof.

Rare looked at the white plastic object curiously, “What is that?”

“An old electronics project of mine. Its a… You know what I’ll just show you guys.” Charlotte hummed and poked at the box with her hoof wondering if she could press any of the buttons or manipulate the switches embedded flush with the plastic, let alone use the touch screen. However a few moments of fumbling and the box’s top lit up, a simple dot matrix interface taking shape. “How do these work? Hooves I mean.” Char asked perplexed as the dug through her other gizmos.

Aurora looked at Char suspiciously before turning to Rare, “She really hasn’t been a pegasus for long has she? Did she piss off a wizard or something?”

“A warlock.” Rare replied wondering what these devices Char was connecting were for.

Char took a cable splitter and jacked it into one side of the project box, connecting her MP3 player to one side of the splitter and a small microphone to the other. “Too bad I don't have any speakers in this pack. The internal speaker on this thing is kinda crappy.” She cautiously poked with a hoof tip at the screen, grumbling as nothing happened, then deciding to lick i instead.

“Ummm what are you doing?” Aurora asked taking a half step back.

“Trying to get a precise touch… I used to have hands, I kinda built this for use with hands.”

“So use your wingtips. Pegasi wings are fairly flexible.” Rare informed.

“They are?” Char bither lip in concentration trying to move her wings, yelping as she extended her wing forward and down and found she could manipulate her primary feathers individually. “Ok… thats… unsettling… Anyways.” Char clipped the mic to the neck of her poncho and prodded at the screen with a feather tip, smiling as the light touches worked. “Ok so what this does is it takes audio from a mic or any playback device really and lets you manipulate it in real time. I can amplify the sound, add in some effects, adjust the pitch and timbre, and store presets. For instance, I set up a borg voice check this out-”

Char tapped the screen and spoke, countless other voices echoed her words and a dull hum filled the background. “We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender…” Rare and Aurora jumped back in a mixture of surprise and alarm, Aurora clamping her hooves over her ears.

Char stopped as she noticed them tapping the screen to turn the effect off. “Sorry! I honestly don’t remember it working that well.”

Aurora winced looking up timidly, “I could see your voice. What enchantment is that?”

Rare nodded, “I second that.”

“Oh right… bat. Echolocation. My bad.” Char blushed, “I think I put in some ultrasonic background noise in that filter, can't say for sure I built this two years ago. But it’s not magic, it’s just technology. An old school touch screen connected to a raspberry pi micro computer and some custom circuitry along with a small but powerful amplifier hooked to a miniature loudspeaker… Which really shouldn’t have been that loud.”

Aurora looked over at Rare and asked, “Sooo she just explained warlock stuff right?”

Rare shrugged, “No idea. There is more than one kind of magic.”

“It’s not magic. It’s just a bunch of micro circuitry arranged in such a way as to have…” Char trailed off as she realized, “Ok, maybe it is a kind of magic. But where I come from you can just go buy something like this whenever you want. He have little gizmos for everything. I guess we kind of take them for granted.”

Aurora trotted over to Char and inspected the gizmo curiously, “Sooo what is the other thing you connected to this for?”

“It stores and plays recorded sound. I haven't used it in a long time but I don't think I took my old music off of it. I should have a ton of songs, a few audio books… Huh… I am holding 500 sounds in my hoof which I can play back anytime I like as much as I like… You girls called it, this is magic. Kind of.”

Rare smiled softly, “Well with that thing’s magic we definitely have a distraction.”

Aurora nodded in agreement. She hopped up into the air and flew up a few feet hovering as she looked around, “Ok… so we need to pick up their trail. I am pretty sure they went east from the house. You two check for prints, I’m going to see if I can't spot anything from the air.”

~~

The search for the undead’s trail took quite a while. None of the three were experienced trackers and the ground was a chaotic mess of ash, charred bits of wood, and dozens of overlapping prints. There had most certainly been a battle here, a fact which confused Char since they didn’t come across any bodies during their search. Rare however provided the explanation that the Necromancer probably wanted the bodies for minions.

Finally after ages of searching the farm grounds Aurora noticed drag marks leading off into the woods and the three set about following them deeper and deeper into the forest. The trail led east, heading in a fairly straight line marked by drag marks, broken branches, bent foliage, and the occasional shred of fabric. They followed the trail for hours, emerging from the edge of the forest into a large dry steppe just as the sun began to touch the horizon.

The knee high brush was brown, and the earth surrounding the sparse plant life was cracked and dry looking. Over a few shallow hills a few miles away the three could see a large decrepit looking town. Even at this distance it looked to be dead, the buildings clearly in disrepair, collapsing and crumbling much like the town’s rubble pile of a wall which was pocketed with huge gaps as if a titan decided to take bites out of the wall at random.

“Well, that will be it.” Rare said squinting to make out as much detail as she could.

“Yep. No better place for a Necromancer then a ghost town.” Aurora agreed.

“Sooo how do we do this? I think I can see a big temple kinda building on the left side of town. We can safely assume he will be there.” Char noted.

The other two gave her a confused look. “What? The Necromancer is always in some church, or a graveyard. Usually churches have graveyards, or catacombs. So you have a supply of corpses for your magic.”

“Oh. That actually makes perfect sense.” Rare mused, “So we should sneak into town, head to the church and then…”

“Well how long can you keep the zombies distracted?” Aurora asked as they continued their journey.

“Depends on the type of zombie. Do you know if they are like plague zombies, animated corpses, shamblers, Black Lantern style zombies, or any of the other countless possibilities?” Char asked.

“Do you dabble in Necromancy? Because you seem to know a lot about it.” Aurora asked suspiciously.

“No. I just used to play a game with my dad and his friends where you took on the role of an adventurer and fought monsters, navigated dungeons, stuff like that. Sure it’s not real adventuring but the games does require you to think intelligently about things. If these are just shamblers, I have my blaster, and Rare has her magic. We could probably hold them off as long as we liked. But if they are say, plague zombies then we have to worry about getting bit and becoming a zombie, so our odds of holding them back for long go down.”

“Your people made a game where you risk your life for fun?”

“Not realy. You make a character who has stats and roll dice to determine success or failure. It’s mostly imagination and group storytelling. Look my reality is really boring ok? You have to do something to pass the time, and well a lot of us think it would be fun to be adventures in a world of magic and monsters… Guess I’ll find out if it is pretty soon.” Char sighed mumbling, “Jake was right, they never talk about how much walking is involved with questing…”

“Your reality?” Aurora asked, eyes narrowed and face scrunched in confusion.

“A draconequus brought her here from another reality… and ordered me to take her to Equestria.” Rare admitted nervously.

Aurora nodded, “Ah I see that is completely underst-ummm wah?” Her eyes widened and jaw dropped in shock.

“I was in my home dimension, and a chaos spirit that apparently is called a draconequus used me to help him get back to this dimension… then a psychotic unicorn turned me into a pegasus.” Char said looking over her shoulder at Aurora who had stopped dead in her tracks.

“No, that all makes perfect sense.” Aurora pointed one hoof at Rare, “You said the draconequus told you to take her to Equestria.”

Rare nodded, “Yes… I hadn’t heard of the place before but he gave vague directions. Why do you know-”

Aurora gave the pair a glare which managed to be both suspicious and incredulous. “Why haven’t you killed her yet?”

Rare and Char’s eyes widened as they exclaimed together “What?”

“Equestria is the afterlife promised to us by the goddess of the night. It’s not a place you can travel to!”

Rare shook her head, “He said nothing about killing her. In fact he ordered me to bring her there safely.”

“My people have spent a millennia and a half roaming these lands searching for it. It doesn't exist here, it’s a haven for our dead’s souls.” Aurora insisted, grinding a hoof into the ground.

Rare frowned, she didn’t enjoy upsetting someone's beliefs but when they were clearly wrong… “Aurora, I was given clear directions on how to get there. You need to leave the Imperium and travel north, past the Amarezon and over a large mountain range until you find a large mountain all on it’s own. Inside there is a tunnel which takes you to a massive set of gold doors. Through them is a passageway which leads east from the mountain and if you keep heading east you will reach Equestria.”

Char hummed, “I wish I had been conscious at the time… This is the first I heard those directions.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Rare grinned faintly, “I guess I should have told you the rout in case anything-”

“You two… just…” Aurora ground her teeth for a moment, “you are… It’s the sacred resting place of my ancestors!”

“Well if that’s true then I guess you have a way to visit them and not be dead.” Char said, trying to calm the irate bat-pony. “Don’t you have any legends about people visiting a place like Heaven or Hell and returning? Hell even Christianity has one dude who visited Heaven. Greek mythology had people coming and going from the underworld all the time.”

“You are the first bat-pony I’ve met. I only knew your tribal name by reputation from overhearing the legionnaires while I was working. I had no idea your people call their elysium Equestria, I intended no offense, but I assure you that everything I have said is true.” Rare added.

“Yeah. Maybe you could tell us the story? It sounds interesting.” Char asked.

Aurora huffed, “Fine. All of this land used to be ours. Unfortunately we don't have horns so when an entire army of unicorns came from the north and attacked our Imperium was smashed apart. But we fought as best we could… Our last city was taken from us in less than a year and the unicorn’s leaders ordered their soldiers to chase us all down so we couldn’t regroup. Most of us were killed.

“The only permanent structure we had left was a single temple dedicated to the Titan Lah’ren, the mother of all things. Everyone who could traveled to the temple to seek refuge. The King who had taken our lands ordered his troops to let us travel… So he could have his armies follow along and when everyone was in the middle of praying for salvation they attacked to finish my people off. The temple was destroyed, and the few of us who survived were forced to start the nomadic life we live today.

“The next night every single one of the survivors shared a dream. A winged unicorn with a coat the color of night and a mane of stars came to them and told them that she had felt our people’s slaughter and her heart grieved for our lost brothers and sisters. She was the goddess of the night, and while we previously had been unknown to her she felt we were as her children and promised all bat-ponies a safe refuge in her Kingdom of Equestria and said she was certain that we would all one day see her there. We would know we had reached Equestria when we came to a land ruled by two sisters who raise the sun and the moon.

Aurora’s eyes lowered, looking at the ground in sadness, “My ancestors loaded up what they could into wagons and set about looking for this promised land… but no one ever found any sign of it. My grandfather believed that it was a place anyone could go too, but he was probably the last of us to think so. He eventually wandered off in search of it and never came back.”

Rare didn’t know what to say. She did not know much of the Imperium's history. How many times it had traded hooves was a mystery, but if a land could have been taken over once by a bandit and a warlock surely an army could have. “I…”

Char trotted over to Aurora and looked her in the eye, “Aurora, it’s a real place. I only learned that this world existed thanks to a chaos spirit coming over to my world for fun. I know for a fact that he was followed by ponies from Equestria, I was told so by someone who warned me to not make the chaos spirit angry as he had decided to use me to get back home. She said she lived there for a long time and had decided to come to my world… ok I can't remember why… but she lived there. I saw ponies from that place with my own eyes Aurora. It is a real place.”

Aurora rolled her eyes, “Well duh! But it’s a place for souls to rest. Luna said we would all see here there one day. She was talking about death, we all earned entry into paradise for our ancestors suffering!”

“They looked awfully alive to me. Also they left Equestria. This implies that it is a place which you can go to and leave.”

Aurora frowned, She isn’t lying… Unless she is a really good liar. I need to check. “Lie to me.”

“What?” Char asked raising one eyebrow.

“Lie to me. Please.”

“Um… ok. The sky is plaid.”

“More. Tell me a whole bunch.”

“Why?”

“So I can hear what your heart sounds like when you are lying.” Aurora informed, locking her eyes onto Char’s face.

“Ok. My mother is a great woman. I am the god-queen of space. Two and two equals eighty seven. I hate the smell of cinnamon rolls. No one has ever called me a nerd. I can juggle.”

Aurora nodded seeing how Char’s wingtips twitched slightly as she spoke, “Ok. I think I can see your tell… Would have been easier if you had been telling important lies.”

“Well sorry, I honestly don’t know what I could possibly lie to you about.” Char rolled her eyes, “Because we know each other so well and all.”

“Thank you, that confirmed it. Your right eye dilates a bit bigger when you lie.” There now she will focus on that and not think to control how her wing tips twitch. “Now, tell me that you can travel to Equestria.”

“Again? Seriously? Fine, Aurora, you can travel to Equestria. It is a place filled with living ponies, or at least anypony there can leave it and have a living body to use for a while… But I am very certain that its a place just like this.”

Aurora’s frown deepened. She isn’t lying… “Ok. So at the very least you believe what you are saying is true. I… I’m sorry for getting mad at you. But well, you just kinda blasphemed my people’s most sacred beliefs.”

Rare nodded apologetically, “I know, and I’m sorry. But truly, we are traveling there and have no reason to think we can’t arrive in Equestria. I was shown a very specific rout after all.”

“I’m sorry too.” Char said.

“It’s fine. You didn’t know, and are both a bit crazy. But hey, you made a deal with a draconequus so that’s to be expected. Let’s just save those kids and go our separate ways.” Aurora stood up and started to trot down the road towards the distant town.

“Sounds good.” Char sighed.

Rare nodded, “So I have been thinking about how we are going to do this. When we get to the town we should all sneak to the cemetery, then Aurora can scout the area so we can find a good place to distract the Necromancer from while she searches for the colt and filly. We will need a spot where we can set up defenses but can also run from once you find them.”

“Set up defenses? With what tools and time?” Aurora asked.

“I can conjure walls of fire. I don't know how long they last but we should be able to make the zombies come at us in one direction.”

Char smiled, “That’s a good plan! I am pretty sure I can hold off a lot of them myself if the zombies can’t flank us.”

Rare and Aurora gave Char a look. Rare’s was one of disgust, Aurora’s of amusement. Rare frowned, “This is no time for innuendos Char.” she scolded.

“What?” Char blinked twice before laughing, “Ohhhh! Ha! Humans use the word ‘flanked’ to mean having enemies on both sides of you.”

“Oh. Well it doesn't mean that here.”

“What does it mean?”

Rare blushed and looked away shyly.

Aurora smiled, “It’s when two mares get back to-”

“We were planning a rescue mission!” Rare chastised.

Aurora nodded, “Right. So I go in first, find you two a place to make a stand, find the kids, get them out of wherever they are being held, and then get them safely out of the town. What will you two do?”

Char hummed, “Well if you can signal us when you are getting them away safely we can book it and meet up with you on the road. It’s not like you can return the kids. The townsponies would hang you.”

Aurora flinched, “Don’t remind me… also don’t think I am going to abandon you two. We formed a wing, we're all in this till it’s over. I could screech once I am clear. You should hear it fairly well.”

Rare shook her head, “Not if we are fighting… It might work best to hold out as long as we can and then flee and meet up here.”

Char thought for a while then nodded, “Yeah that would work best. Too bad I don’t have a flare.”

Aurora nodded as well. “Yeah, it also improves my chances of getting away… I am pretty sure that it will be hard enough getting two frightened kids out of there without giving my position away.”

Rare went over their plan one last time, “Ok so we sneak into town. Aurora finds us a good spot to hold out at for as long as we can. She then finds the colt and filly the zombies took, frees them and sneaks back to the road here by say… that group of boulders over there. We hold out as long as we can and flee, shaking any zombies chasing us and we all regroup at the boulders and then get the two back to Nomaneus. Sounds simple enough.”

Aurora and Char nodded in agreement, “Yeah!”

With a plan in place the three mares moved as quietly as they could towards the town, the sun falling lower and lower with each step.

10 Dulce bellum inexpertis

Author's Note

WARNING!

The opening scene of this chapter is one of the reasons this fic has the ‘dark’ tag. If you don’t want to read about a necromancer plying his trade in a way reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter I advise you skip to the first ~~.

However if you do skip the scene you will miss a plot point which is expanded on later in the chapter.

10 Dulce bellum inexpertis

10 Dulce bellum inexpertis

The Grand Warlock Patchcoat was hard at work within his mouldering cathedral. The debris had all been cleared out from the main worship hall, plants had been cut back, stones melted into a single flat glassy surface, and most of a large pentagram centric magic circle was carefully etched into the floor. The blue glow of his magic lit the interior of his hood as Patchcoat carefully scraped and gouged at the floor with a chisel making certain each and every line was perfect. The etching had to be the perfect depth, the right size, every single part had to flow into the next and then at last return to the beginning.

His work was careful and precise, practiced care and also gleeful cruelty were behind his work. His captives wept and screamed as he worked, their laments echoing off the walls like sweet music. Screams had always delighted Patchcoat, from the first rabbit he had accidentally slain to the mare’s shrieks this afternoon as he had prepared her husband’s body to spawn a shade. Each individual act of cruelty brought forth a spark of joy. He had other reasons naturally. Power, fame, and an understanding of death motivated Patchcoat as well, but no where near as much as his own amusement.

“My big brother is going to beat you up!” the colt’s angry shout coincided with the last scratch of Patchcoat’s chisel.

He smiled, “Whose skeleton do you think is holding you. Whose flesh do you think is burning at the tips of my pentagram?” The colt’s eyes grew wide as he shrank with fear and hatred. What a fine little thing you are. So perfect for my needs.

“Please, he’s just a colt…” the lavender mare wept into her tangled mane.

“I am quite aware my dear. I must thank you for raising such a brash colt. It’s almost as if you knew I would been needing just the right sort of blood. If I didn’t need your heart I would honestly let you go for being so kind.” he laughed, slowly walking towards the four remaining captives all of whom were being held down by his skeletal minions.

Patchcoat levitated a knife from within the folds of his robe. It was a simple tool, a triangular blade with a nasty hooked tip, a simple goat horn handle, a combination between a gutting knife and a skinning knife. The hooked blade flashed in the pale light the few scattered torches as Patchcoat gestured to an obsidian slab at the center of the pentagram, “Fifteen, ready the farm hand.”

One of the skeletons holding down a large bright green stallion dragged the struggling earth pony to the slab while he wordlessly shrieked in distorted sounds. Pachcoat’s ears dropped in irritation, “Eleven what have I told you about eating pony tongues? Only after I have used them. I might have needed it you know.”

A half rotted away zombie in the room’s corner moaned in response, “Yes I do know they are quite tasty. Now then, to business. My green friend, You get to help me out with something especially important. Isn’t that grand? You get to make something of your silly little life.”

“Why?” a young female voice asked curiously.

Patch coat turned, frowning as the filly’s question, “It’s rude to interrupt your elders.”

“But why are you doing this?”

“To create a very special minion, or rather recreate. Lost him as a zombie don't you know. But that’s the nice thing about zombies you can reanimate them again as a skeleton, and then a wraith, possibly a shade after that if there is enough soul left. You are a curious little thing aren't you? Good.” Patchcoat flipped the knife hook down, “Ten, help hold this meat study.”

“But why do you have to kill us?” the filly asked.

Patchcoat rolled his eyes and weighted for his minion to shuffle over and hold the farmhand study, “I could explain the art of Necromancy to you, but you are going to be dead soon so it hardly matters now does it?” His knife flashed, one quick clean line opening the stallion's abdomen, and one pained scream shaking the very bricks of the ruined cathedral. That should shut her mouth for a-

“But it’s interesting.” she protested.

The filly’s mother gasped in horror, “Strawberry!”

“Well it is! He’s making things alive again.”

Patchcoat smirked, Well, she is a unicorn. Perhaps if her brother is enough- No you blasted fool remember the last time? He returned to his grisly work, vivisecting his victim with clear, precise cuts. With every few cuts the necromancer would fold away some tissue, forming a pattern of dying meat, organs and entrails atop the altar. Pulses of magic shifted parts into a precise arrangement which ended as Patchcoat removed the stallions major arteries, placing them so blood would flow into channels to fill the etched circle and cut out the heart.

“There we are. Twenty-one, Twenty-four, go and fetch me his sarcophagus.” Patchcoat asked.

“Please! Let my children go. I’ll stay here! You can do what you wan-”

“Oh hush, you know they were going to die one day anyways. Besides I need their blood. Unless you have two other foals you have been hiding somewhere you could bring me in oh,” He looked up through a hole in the roof at the moon, “ten minutes.”

The filly wrenched one hoof free from her skeletal captor to point towards the alter, “Why did you make all that stuff into a star shape?”

“My gods! You certainly raised an odd little filly,” Patchcoat laughed, the little thing was amusing at least. “I suppose I have until those blundering oafs fetch his remains… Why not.”

Patchcoat spent the next seven minutes explaining each and every detail he could about the entire process of raising an undead to whom you had bound the body’s original soul and bent to your will. He delighted in the horrified objections and pleas from the filly’s mother, and it amused him when the colt threw up. But the light red and green filly’s morbid curiosity was simply delightful, “So you see once the spells have returned the remains control to the bound soul you cast the final spell which requires the blood of the young to be sprinkled over the corpse so you can retain control. Otherwise you simply performed a resection and allowed the soul to exist in the corpse as if it were a normal body. Entertaining, but not at all useful to a stallion with a desire for say, revenge.”

“Could you make the body all better? So it didn't look dead?” she asked.

“Yes you can. I am a fine example of that.”

“So… I could bring my kitty back?” She asked looking hopeful.

“Yes. If I wasn't going to kill you that is. Ah! There you two are. Set it next to the corpse.” Patchcoat ordered as a pair of zombies carried a large stone sarcophagus into the room.

The minions obeyed their master as best as the slow shambling creatures were able to. The large marble sarcophagus was cracked and it’s color was dulled with age. The lid was carved into the shape of the pony who had been interred within it, a large alicorn stallion with a fierce look on his face, kind eyes, and a scarred body. His horn had been snapped off long ago, and the wings which curved over the lid to cover the body were missing large chunks of the carved feathers, but the beauty and care put into the original carving still shown through.

Patchcoat trotted over to the sarcophagus and gently brushed his hoof over the cravings wings, “Hello Bastion my old friend. No one else will be so perfectly suited to bringing her to me. I wonder if any part of you will recognize her.”

He looked up at the moon and grinned, “Six, bring me the mare.”

~~

Rare and Char lay flat atop the balcony of a crumbling inn a hundred or so yards away from the cathedral. They had decided it would be best if Aurora found out if the Necromancer was there first before starting the diversion. The two had lurked quietly for a full five minutes before Aurora’s voice whispered to them from the street below, “He’s in there… and he’s raising a corpse. I… He slaughtered somepony… You should start soon, he’s probably killing their mother right now.”

Char grit her teeth, a feeling of pure hatred welled up in her heart. She stood up, taking her hat and off and setting it aside. “Rare…”

Rare nodded, “I know.”

“Fire. We kill it, with fire. Also lasers.” Char growled prodding her soundboard with a wingtip to activate it.

Rare’s horn flashed gold as she summoned forth her spell notes. As she referenced her defensive spells Rare contemplated how best to create the planned flame wall. Ok… a flame conjuring over the streets surrounding the cathedral which also forms a wall… This is going to take a lot. I’d better use a potent flame incantation. The words flowed from her lips in a slow and careful cadence of whispers.

“No chant? Come on, we need to strike fear into this asshole.” Char grumbled.

Rare kept up her quiet chanting.

“Fine then, I’ll do something…” Char took a breath, her gold eyes narrowed as she reared up on her hind hooves, gun arm activating with a click and a hum, wings flaring out for balance. Switching her mic on and sliding the volume as high as she could Char bellowed, “I call on the powers that be, reveal the truth within. Awaken the power of w-er fire! Awaken, and slay god!”

Her voice boomed out across the ghost town, accompanied a second later by the angry fwoosh as Rare’s spell took effect, ten foot high walls of gold and green flames leaping from the ground, encircling the cathedral in a massive cul de sac with only the ground in front of their balcony left open.

Aiming her gun arm towards a hole in the Cathedral wall Char screamed, “Taste my lightning fucker!” and fired off a single blazing blue bolt.

~~

Patchcoat lifted the freshly removed heart from the mare’s corpse with his hooves. How delightfully warm. He mused as he set the heart at the center of the ritual circle. He was just about to begin casting the first spell in the set when an impossibly loud voice boomed seemingly from everywhere, “I call on the powers that be, reveal the truth within. Awaken the power of w-er fire! Awaken, and slay god!”

What? Suddenly the distinct sound of potent flames surging to life prompted him to look out a gap in the crumbling wall to see the blazing wall of flame, “What?”

The voice thundered again, “Taste my lightning fucker!” as a thick blue energy bolt slammed into the floor, blasting out a hoof sized hole, narrowing missing his etched circle.

“Minion Twenty-three goo see what that is.” Patch coat ordered, the zombie shuffled off as Patchcoat’s horn pulsed, a blue energy shield springing up to protect the entire circle. Just in time too as a second blue bolt slammed into the shield. Patchcoat closed his eyes and ran through his spell, “It appears I have to cast this in a hurry. Little filly, are you still interested in learning? I may need some help.”

To his amazement she replied, “Yep!”

“Well then, take my knife, slit your brother’s throat and collect the blood in that cup there. If you can fill it up all the way I won’t kill you.” Patchcoat reared up spreading his hooves wide as he began to chant a simple mantra over and over, horn blazing with magic, the aura pulsing to the rhythm of his words, “Aetheris ex oris in mediis tenebris. Quod omnis lux tenebrae, ut moriatur. Avemus animo vestro ridebo. Nigra per manum meam, et mortui resurgent.”

A sudden crash and splintering sound pierced the air. Patchcoat grit his teeth and continued his chant. “Aetheris ex oris in mediis tenebris. Quod omnis lux tenebrae, ut moriatur. Avemus animo vestro ridebo. Nigra per manum meam, et mortui resurgent!”

The colt screamed. Blue tendrils of magic leaked from Patchcoat’s horn and drifted towards the heart at the center of his circle. The filly shouted, “No! Let me go!”

Somepony hissed in pain, “Ah! You horse apple! I’m trying to- AH! Put the bucking knife down!”

“Aetheris ex oris in mediis tenebris. Quod omnis lux tenebrae, ut moriatur. Avemus animo vestro ridebo. Nigra per manum meam, et mortui resurgent!” Patchcoat intoned, screaming the chant as loudly as he could.

“No! I’m not going!” The filly shouted.

This time Patchcoat heard the sound of flesh being sliced, “Garrrh! You- fine! Die then you little psycho!”

Patchcoat could feel his spell nearly complete. The screamed the chant once more, the energy from his spell reached the heart, a brilliant white hot pulse of magic blasted outwards from the heart which began to beat upon the alter, blood flowing from it into the carefully arranged channels of the magic circle. Patchcoat opened his eyes and looked towards the filly.

The colt was gone, the skeleton which had been holding him was broken into several pieces which were attempting to crawl away. The filly held his knife in her magic, fresh blood dripping from the blade. “The bat thing took him!” she informed pleading with her eyes.

As Patchcoat grit his teeth to reply a roaring sound shattered the air. It was music, but played faster than anything Patchcoat had ever heard and from an instrument which shrieked in a metallic tone. Whatever instruments were being used, the pulsing, blood rousing drum beat was most definitely that of a war song. The thundering voice from before could be heard singing the lyrics of what was unmistakably a battle hymn. “By moonlight we ride ten thousands side by side. // With swords drawn held high our whips and armor shine. // Hail to thee our infantry still brave beyond the grave! // All sworn the eternal vow the time to strike is now.”

“Minions! Hold off the attackers!” Patchcoat ordered advancing on the filly eyes narrowing, lips curling, “An army is charging my town, my sorcery is occupied raising a minion and I need the blood of a foal or he just might kill me before the enemy dose.”

The filly gulped, eyes wide with terror. Suddenly she dove for the cup, held one hoof over it and sliced deeply into her own leg, screaming loudly. Trembling, she tottered back and forth for a few moments before toppling over, the cup half full.

Patchcoat looked her over once. She was still breathing, and interestingly enough her green magic was knitting her injury shut. Now that is interesting. “Fine. But only because you remind me of myself. But if this is not enough I will make you pay.”

The sound of fireballs exploding and those blue beams racing through the air filled his ears. My minions have met the enemy. Patchcoat scooped up the cup and moved to the sarcophagus, holding the wooden grail aloft as he began his second spell’s chant.

~~

Aurora limped away from the cathedral as fast as she could. The orange furred cult was tucked into Char’s backpack which Aurora had strapped tightly to her back. The pack was heavy, but she scarcely noticed it as she sprinted away from the town, blood dripping from two light cuts to her right foreleg and one deeper one to her right flank. What in the holy name of Lah’ren was that filly thinking? Are we really that terrifying to them?

Aurora sighed, she knew differently. She had seen it in her face. That filly was afraid of me taking her away from the Necromancer. She had to be insane… I should have gotten her out of there.

The desperation in the filly’s eyes as she slashed frantically at her filled Aurora’s mind. No… She would have killed you Aurora. She probably would have ran back as soon as she could anyways.

The sound of fireballs and the odd ‘bwap’ sound of Char’s energy beam punctuated the music filled air as Aurora ducked into an alleyway off the street she had been running down. She was certain her allies had the undead occupied and she wasn't being followed, but better safe then sorry. Aurora took the opportunity to tap the backpack and hiss “Hey pup, can you hear me?”

A terrified squeak from the bag was her only answer.

“I know it seems like tartarus on Argos right now but don’t worry I’ll get us out of here. I have friends holding them back while we escape.” Aurora soothed, taking a moment to rest her front leg before resuming her sprint.

Char’s music filled the air, something about it made Aurora feel… something. She wasn't sure exactly what it was. No music she had ever heard before made her feel anything. It’s that metallic sounding thing. She realized, It sounds awesome! It’s so… She couldn't put a thought on it, her leg stung too much. Before we part ways I want to hear some more of this. Whatever she used to be their music is awesome.

Aurora wove around the streets, taking a hap hazard rout about the town which took her vaguely in the direction of the road they had come in to town by. The sound of battle and Char’s music slowly faded away. By the time she left the shelter of the buildings and began to move across the parched ground she could barely hear anything at all. Looking over her shoulder Aurora saw nothing following her. She let out a screech, nothing was there besides the buildings as far as she could hear.

“Well little guy we are clear. Now we just got to go meet up with my friends. You will be back home soon.” Aurora promised, creeping towards their meeting place.

~~

Rare stood atop the balcony with Char, her horn blazing with golden light and defensive shields crackled around them both as the two fired into the seemingly endless mass of undead which converged on their balcony. Char’s blaster beams sliced through the zombies and blasted apart the skeletons with ease, but her beams took a bit too long to fire between shots. Her pegasus friend could only take out one at a time effectively. Rare had to make up for this problem with the occasional exploding firebolt.

Between the dozen or so fireballs she had lobbed, the shields, and the firewall, Rare felt herself running dry. I have maybe another dozen left in me, then I will have just enough power to cast the hastening spell. She wanted to let Char know but her harsh, blood hungry music drowned out her words, and Char was in something of a rage, firing into the crowd of zombies as if it were personal.

Rare spotted a group of larger looking zombies come around the left side of the cathedral. A quick fireball sent the undead back to hell as the golden flames seared the flesh from their bones. How is she having fun with this? Rare asked herself, her own eyes wide with terror and adrenaline. Are humans so starved for entertainment that a fight to the death like this is fun for them? I take it back Char. Our lives were very different, but yours was just as hellish as mine.

They fought for a few more minutes. Rare grew more and more hesitant to lob any more fireballs and Char’s enraged glee slowly wore down until she stopped singing, concentrating on firing into the endless mass of undead. The bodies of slain zombies and piles of bones filled the street in front of them forming grotesque heaps and mounds. The smell of rotting meat had long since completely filled the air. Char took a half step back, cutting her music and firing a beam before lowering her gun arm slightly, “Why aren't you tossing fireballs?”

“I don't have much more energy and I will need to cast two speed spells to get us out of here.”

“How many can you do?”

“Four more.”

“Shit… I have no idea if Aurora is clear.”

Rare took a bit of smug satisfaction as Char’s face finally began to take on a twinge of fear. “I’ll let you know when we have to run.”

~~

Within the citadel Patchcoat finished his final chant. The marble sarcophagi was covered in tendrils of his blue magic, a sickly green fog seeped from the crack between the lid and the bottom. With a scraping of stone on stone the lid was pushed aside by a skeletal hoof, tendrils of the mist clung to the bone, dripping off slowly like a bleeding wound. A low hissing gasp echoed from the confines of the stone container before the lid was flung off, the skeleton of a large alicon stallion, dressed in tarnished though surprisingly well preserved battle armor surged towards Patchcoat hooves outstretched, armor clanking, green cloak billowing from the violent motion.

A blast of the warlock’s magic forced the creature back, with one swift gesture Patchcoat tossed the chalice of blood onto the freshly born ghast’s skull. Each drop of blood flashed into an emerald green flame, the creature screamed an unearthly cry of hatred. Patchcoat grinned, “Do as I command, slay the forces attacking my cathedral.”

The ghast hissed, tendrils of the green mist drifting from it’s maw, “Your hold on me is weak, I obey you for now but soon I will have your head warlock.” Before Patchcoat could reply the ghast leaped into the air, wings extending as it glided from the cathedral. It’s green cloak shimmering as it rippled behind it.

“Minions, fall back and defend the cathedral.” Patchcoat ordered smugly. “Ah Bastion, it’s so fun to break you each time I revive you.”

~~

Rare was down to her last two fireballs and the waves of undead were still thick as ever. “How in tartarus can he animate this many?”

“Years of study, and this is probably his home. It’s a big church, he could have just filled the crypts with skeletons and zombies.” Char noted.

Rare was about to reply when a terrifying creature flew from the cathedral and hovered perfectly still in the air above them. It was clearly the skeleton of an Alicorn, a sickly green mist clinging to it’s bones forming the vaguest of flesh shapes. It’s eyes burned with an emerald fire which trailed a black haze like smoke. It’s horn crackled with sparks of gold magic. The creature was hard to look at, as if a thin film covered the area in front of it, making you want to look away “Gods help us.” Rare gasped. It can cast magic!

“Ohhhh fuck that thing looks-” Char’s words were cut off as a brilliant golden energy ray blasted from the ghast’s horn, annihilating the balcony the two had been standing on in a flash of fire and an explosion of wood and stone. Their shields shattered instantly from the blast, unable to do more then take that single shot. The two mares fell atop the rubble of the building. The ghast let out a bone chilling scream and dived down, it’s horn sparking again as it prepared another shot.

“Run!” Char shrieked in a blind panic jumping up, instantly tripping on the loose rubble. Rare was already sprinting away from the cathedral.

Char scrabbled to her hooves, taking off at a rapid gallop as the ghast’s second energy beam slammed into the rubble, stone melting under the spell’s searing heat. She sprinted after Rare, catching up through sheer willpower. The two mares looked frantically around for any place to run where they might lose the creature only for it to swoop overhead, a golden beam blasting a crater out of the street ahead of them.

Shards of rock flew in all directions, some cutting jagged lines across Char’s side, others pinging off of Rare’s armor. Thank you helmet! I love you! Rare frantically thought as she heard and felt a large piece of rock ping off the bronze over her forehead.

Screaming the two turned left onto another street. The house to their left exploded in a ball of fire. They ran through a weed infested garden cutting across the gaps between two buildings. The ghast’s brilliant gold ray burned along just at their hooves for a few seconds. It's playing with us. Rare realized.

Char reached the same conclusion, “It’s playing with us.” she gasped.

The ghast soared overhead, turning and scorching the ground in front of them, forcing them to wheel about and run they way they had came over the still glowing ashes of the garden. The door to the building on their right was missing, Rare dashed inside Char right on her tail. The two mares fled through the decaying store, jumping through a broken window into the street just as the building collapsed as the ghast’s blazing magic crushed the building to dust.

Char and Rare sprinted down the street only to skid to a stop, recognizing their error too late. The road ended at a flat brick wall, still quite intact. There were no doors or windows on the street sides of the building on other side. This was an alleyway and it was a dead end.

Char gulped and turned to Rare, “It was nice to have known you.”

Rare nodded, panting heavily, “At least we are going to die freeponies.”

Char turned around, rearing up and activating her gun arm, “Let’s at least give it a black eye.”

Rare turned in time to see the ghast simply swat Char aside, sending her crashing into a wall. The Pegasus slowly pushed herself up groaning in pain.

The ghast advanced on Rare, horn crackling, jaws open wide, the green mist leaking out in tendrils, eyes blazing emerald flames. It lowered it’s horn, spell energy crackling along the length. Rare closed her eyes, wincing as she waited for it to cast the spell. But no blast of deadly light bore her into the underworld.

“Your eyes…” the ghast moaned, it’s voice sounding fragmented, almost confused.

Rare opened her left eye, the ghast had dismissed it’s magic. It stood frozen in place, ready to cast the spell, but the energy gone. Rare opened her other eye, confused, and fearing what this creature might have in store for her. Oh gods does this thing eat ponies alive?

Out of the corner of her eye Rare saw Char level her gun arm and fire. The blue beam struck the ghast in it’s side, harmlessly dispersing off of the thick mist. “Your eyes are…” The ghast moaned.

Rare took a step back, maybe she could run around while it was confused.

“Your eyes are hers.” The ghast’s voice completely changed as it said the word ‘hers’. The voice was clear, sad, tormented, but held no sense of malice in them.

“Um…” Rare kept slowly scooting back to dart around the creature.

Suddenly the ghast’s horn glowed with a full aura, Rare screamed as she was lifted off the ground by it’s magic. Her helmet, cloak, bags, and armor were quickly stripped from her and tossed aside. The ghast pulled her close, it’s blazing eyes seeming to focus on her shoulders. Rare felt a sensation as if ice water was being poured on her as the thing touched her with one hoof. Suddenly the ghast cried out a wordless mournful lament.

Char fired off another two beams, each harmlessly diffusing away. “Oh god Rare I’m sorry!” Char called, her gold eyes slowly filling with tears.

“He tore off your wings.” The ghast bemoaned pulling Rare in close and wrapping it’s forelegs around her in a hug, “My sister… I can not refuse the warlock for long…”

Rare’s mismatched eyes widened “W-what?”

“You would not remember me Rare. You were but two weeks old. I was Bastion, your brother. The warlock who commands me in death… I…” The ghast shuddered, dropping Rare as it’s magic faltered.

Rare sprinted as far back as she could stopping only when her curiosity got the best of her, “How… what?”

“No! Do not stop. Run! Run far from these lands! He killed our family, gave our empire to another, and commands us now even in death. Flee this place Rare. Do not seek to avenge us, he is too powerful. Death itself has no hold on the warlock.” the ghast reached for the clasp of it’s cloak, taking the astonishingly intact garment off and throwing to to Rare with a pulse of magic, “Take my cloak. Our mother made it. It will help pro…”

The gast fell to it’s knees, the mist within it’s bones starting to glow an otherworldly green as the creature who was once Bastion screamed in rage, and agony. The magical chains around it’s soul tightening once more.

Rare didn’t even realize she had begun to run. Without thinking she had scooped up her saddlebags, helmet, cloak, and the cloak thrown at her in her magic as a complete panic reaction and sprinted half way down the street past the ghast. Char was at her side rapidly babbling, “Go-go-go-go-go-go-go!”

The two mares moved at the speed of pure terror, taking the straightest route they could find out of the maze of streets and buildings. They blew out of the buildings, by some miracle of fate being on the road which would lead them to the boulders where hopefully Aurora was. The wrathful scream of the ghast echoed from right above them.

Char’s eyes widened in terror, then gleamed with hope, “The cloak!”

The quickly grabbed the cloak from Rare’s magical grip and stopped, Rare skidding to a halt, “What are you-”

“Get under it! It said it was magic!”

Screw it, it’s just going to chase us down anyways… Rare dove under the cloak as Char pulled it down over herself, silver threads making up a vine embroidery shimmering as the fabric moved.

The ghast’s enraged screeches rang in their ears, they heard, felt, and smelled many deadly spells slam into the ground around the over the span of a few minutes. After what seemed like an eternity the barrage of magic wore off and Char dared to whisper, “Called it. Magic safety cloak. Or hiding cloak. Or something.”

Rare whispered back, “Did you really know this would work?”

Char shook her head and gave a feeble laugh, “Heh heh… no… I just couldn't run anymore and well I think that thing said it was magic soo…”

“Well it worked… Let’s just stay under this and crawl up the road to the boulders.”

“Sounds great. Then let’s never ever do anything like this again.”

“Wasn’t at all fun was it?”

Char sighed, “Only for the first few minutes.”

The two mares carefully bundled everything up in Rare’s legion cloak, then began to slowly inch their way along the side of the road heading for the boulders and hopefully a safe place to sleep for a week.

~~

Normally Aurora had no problem being awake for days at a time. She had fully expected to simply stay awake all through the night and possibly for the next two days, but well she had already been up for a week and a half, and had been pretty active for most of it, and then there was the strain of carrying a colt on her back who apparently gained a pound or two with every hoof step she took. By the time Aurora reached the boulder formation where she was to meet the others she was bone tired.

Finding a safe, sheltered gap in the rock which was almost but not quite a cave, more of a pony sized hole, Aurora slipped inside, slid the pack off, opened it, noticed the colt was asleep, grunted happily then passed out face against her hooves. Her nearly silent snores were lost to the breeze as she fall into sleep, and entered the realm of dreams.

She was running as fast as her hooves could carry her. Her wings flapping to get her off the ground but something kept her planted firmly to the grassy ground. Behind her was an entire wall of legionnaires, shields raised, swords brandished. As she looked back skeletons tore their way from the earth and joined their ranks, advancing at her arms outstretched. She turned to run, heart pounding in her chest. The sky before her shimmered and morphed into the necromancer, wicked hooked knife raised and that loving smile on his lips.

Aurora curled up into a ball, screaming, hooves covering her eyes, wings wrapping around her head and shoulders in a feeble attempt to ward off the knife.

“It’s ok little one. I have banished these specters from your dreams.” A kindly female voice soothed.

Aurora cautiously opened one eye, peeking out from behind her wing. All she could see was a shimmering blue black star filled… mane?

“You must have touched some especially foul magic for me to feel your nightmares. You are so far away from home. Why did you leave Equestria?” the voice asked again.

Aurora blinked and moved her wings out of the way, gasping as she saw a blue coated mare a slender horn adoring her head, and two graceful wings at her sides. Her mane and tail appeared to be made from the night sky, and her eyes were as blue as the narrow band of sky right at the end of sunset. Aurora sputtered, quickly getting to her hooves and dipping her head in a bow, “Wah-I-holy-um-er, that is- Night Goddess, I am unworthy.”

She blinked, “Night Goddess? It’s been a very long time since anypony called me a goddess.” She gave Aurora a kind smile, “Call me Luna. Princess Luna if you must keep to tradition.”

Aurora didn’t quite know how to respond to that, “Goddess Luna, why do you speak to me? Who am I to you?”

“You bat-pony, are somepony who appreciates and loves my night. You are more of my subjects they any other type of pony under the moon. I care for you all, so when I hear the nightmares of somepony screaming from beyond Equestria itself I simply have to see what has befouled them.” Luna frowned slightly, “Are you not from my kingdom? Are there still Bat-ponies outside of Equestria? I called all of your kin to my lands.”

Aurora felt her jaw drop, “I...we… we thought you meant… The elders told us Equestria was our afterlife.”

Luna sat down, looking at Aurora sadly, “I have been gone for a millennia… I offered sanctuary to your people a few months before I was banished to the moon. When I returned a thriving village of bat-ponies lay within my kingdom. I never thought… I am sorry.”

Gods can make mistakes? Aurora felt her mind break a little bit at that realization.

“I’m no god. I am ageless, and I move the moon through the sky, and I can walk among ponies dreams, but I am just a pony like you. If your people will listen to you please get them to come home. I can only imagine the cruelty life has inflicted upon you.”

Luna slowly faded away leaving Aurora alone in a comforting starscape. She’s real… and so is the land she promised us! Aurora laughed, Who knew it could feel so good to be wrong! We can all leave here for a paradise!

The starscape cradled Aurora as she rested in a bed made from her namesake, the green ribbons of energy holding her like a hammock made from a quilt. Aurora’s pleasant dreams lasted until the morning. She awoke to a poking sensation in her shoulder. She swatted at it feebly a few times until her eyes slowly peeled open, and looked directly into a pair of mismatched green and brown eyes.

“Ah!” Aurora jumped up smacking her head into the stone above her, “Ow.”

Rare winced, “Sorry… all night… crawling… sleepy…”

Char’s voice from out of view added, “Realy big magic beam firing skeleton thing. It’s gone now… kid is still asleep… night.”

A few soft snores reached Aurora’s ears, her echolocation showing Char to have fallen asleep atop a rather pointy rock. Rare nodded at her. “Yes. That. Is it safe?”

Aurora nodded.

“Good. I bed now.” Rare informed before slumping over and falling almost instantly asleep.

Aurora sighed. Lucky. I wish I could just turn off like that. Aurora’s eyes widened as she remembered her dream from the previous night. “You two know how to get to Equestria!”

She squirmed out of the stone depressions he had slept in, stretched and trotted off towards the forest. I guess I need to make friends with them. A nice meal when they wake up should help. There has to be some lemongrass or fruit trees near here somewhere.