Project Everfree

Today was monumental. It was that simple in Celestia's eyes, the first step towards the Equestria they had envisioned.

It was six days into Project Everfree and just as they promised Team B was ready to perform their first tests on some of the theories they had developed.

Everypony was present, all the teams and both Celestia and Luna stood in the room, around a strange chamber that eluded most of their understanding. Using crystals as foci, the team intended to channel magic in such a way that it would destabilize through the crystals and amass within a containment field in the center.

The entire process would be invisible to all but an alicorn's eyes because of their extreme sensitivity to magic, but all present would see a small thunderstorm form in the room, at least assuming that it worked.

“Start charging the stage one relay... now!” called out a stallion in the back. As soon as he gave the order four unicorns began channeling magic into a series of dark blue crystals near the top of the chamber.

Celestia saw the effect immediately, like a prismatic light show inside the crystals. Luna saw it too, though the rest of the crowd waited impatiently.

“Release charge in three... two... one... now!” called out the stallion again. The energy flowed out of the crystals in streams and met in the center of the chamber, where another two unicorns generated a containment field in the center.

Yet again the stallion called out, “Begin charging stage two relays now!”

The team began charging another series of silver crystals near the bottom of the chamber. The same light show occurred as energy flowed into these crystals as well.

“Release charge in three... two... one... now!” came the order again, an energy flowed out of the crystals into the containment field in the center, and with their previous jobs done the other four unicorns focused their attention into reinforcing the containment field as the energy destabilized.

In that moment, something caught Luna's attention and she briefly asked, “Do you see that?”

Celestia focused her attention on the reaction trying to see what her sister had noticed, but she could see nothing out of the ordinary, or at least anything that shouldn't have been there. However, Celestia was overcome by a sense of dread, though she could not figure out why.

It didn't take long for something to happen however. Celestia saw in a short moment what looked like a surge of energy that definitely should not have been there. Unfortunately it only lasted less than a second before everypony's attention was focused elsewhere.

As soon as the energy surged a bolt a black lightning flew from the chamber into a table at the end of the room, resulting in a powerful explosion. Though before they could see nothing, the crowd saw this very clearly. In the following moments there was panic as everypony tried to make sense of the situation. Fortunately nopony was close enough to be caught in the blast.

“Shut it down! Shut it down!” shouted somepony in the panic, and the team quickly attempted to disperse the energy in the containment field, but it wouldn't disperse. Even after the containment field was completely dropped the energy still remained, not dispersing but rather compressing, getting stronger and holding together naturally dispute all calculations indicating that without containment it should have resulted in a violent release and spread out, gradually losing it's effect.

The energy compressed to the point that some of the more gifted unicorns in the room could see something akin to a faint shimmer. Both Celestia and Luna were almost certain the result of this compression would be a massive explosion, and the both wordlessly prepared together to contain it, or if that failed shield the crowd to protect them.

They began preparing to stop the cataclysmic explosion that would occur in moments, but before they could they were blown back by a gale so powerful that even as alicorns they could barely hold their footing. The energy had dispersed upward and before anypony in the room could get their bearings they heard the sound of thunder, followed momentarily by a torrent of rain. One by one, the ponies in the crowd began laughing and cheering, as despite the near catastrophe, it was a success, and they were looking at a rainstorm indoors, a direct result of their work.

Despite the fact that they were in the same room as an explosion only a moment ago, and now they were soaking wet, they were overjoyed and ecstatic, nothing could possibly ruin the moment.

Celestia and Luna however, who knew just how dangerous the test had become looked at each other in relief, and then both broke out into joyous laughter.

For that one moment, they just laughed.

Project Everfree: Log Entry 9

Today's test proved a success, despite minor complications. Although the setup was complex, a series of two focus relays in the form of crystals allowed magical energy to be destabilized before being transferred to a central containment field. Two relays were used, both to amplify the potential for reaction in the energy in different ways, both making it unstable, but each meant to make the magic reactive with that of the other relay, resulting in chaos energy forming in the center. I won't say I understand the complete mechanics of the process but the result, after several incidents, was a heavy thunderstorm the covered the room, as well as most nearby portions of the castle.

The test did result in several complications, the most significant of which being the amount of compression occurring even after the containment field was deactivated. Both Luna and I were certain that the result would be a catastrophic explosion, but it instead dispersed into the desired weather event.

Less notable, at least for Luna and I, was an unidentifiable energy present in the containment field after the release of energy from stage two. The energy surged before violently discharging and resulting in an explosion. Nopony was hurt as the explosion was in a different part of the lab than the audience, but it was still very noticeable. Notably, Luna claims to have notices a sort of spark in the field before the surge, though when she pointed this out to me I could see nothing, though I did get a strange feeling.

Both events are under investigation, though unless something else turns up it will be considered chaos magic living up to it's name. Though chaos magic is a recent theory, having seen Discord in his prime I can say safely that when dealing with chaos energy, nothing is set in stone, and 2+2 can most certainly equal something other than 4. Should this be the case, additional work may need to be done into controlling and stabilizing chaos energy, as well as development of safety and security protocols in the event of serious danger.

Unless proven otherwise, Team A and Team C are not subject to the same or similar problems, though recent reports for both teams, Team A most notably, have indicated that chaos magic may have some potential application in their work. I can see the potential of using chaos magic to make plant's and animals self sufficient, but the problem lies in making sure that nothing else happens. If I've ever had doubts about using chaos magic so liberally it's now.

Today was a success however, and everypony involved in the project is celebrating. I will join them shortly.