Pony's Fury

-Chapter Roman Numeral Four-

“Rainbow Dash, please calm down.”

“Calm down? CALM DOWN? HOW THE HAY AM I SUPPOSED TO CALM DOWN?” the human with the multi-colored hair shouted as she jumped up into the air as per her usual way whenever arguing with someone to gain the height advantage, and quickly fell flat on her face, into the muddy floor of the cave Twilight’s mirror had brought them to.

Off to side, Sunset Shimmer grit her teeth as she watched the former pegasus just freeze. Although her eyes were level with Twilight’s feet, Sunset could tell from the wide-eyed expression that she wasn’t looking at anything anymore, at least nothing physical. All her attention was on a horrible future that probably went along the lines of ‘I can’t fly’ or ‘I’ll never fly again’ and ‘I’m stuck like this’. Sunset understood that because, it was the same line of thought she had experienced upon trying to go back to Equestria the first time she had been on a human world and found the gate closed behind her.

Tears started to fall down Rainbow’s face, and Twilight simply reached down, then lifted her out of the mud to hug her, obviously not caring about the stains it would bring to her human clothing. A few second later, Rainbow broke down and began to wail at her situation while Twilight patted her back without an ounce of irritation from behind shouted at earlier.

“What’re we supposta do now?” Applejack’s hollow voice asked. She looked perhaps a step behind the pegasus in the morale department, with the lost expression on her face that seemed to actually be weighing her down as she slightly slumped.

For a second, Sunset glanced over to her princess, and found the demi-goddess staring back at her in worry while she held the shivering girl that was crying out in emotional pain. From the looks of things, she didn’t seem to be much better off than Applejack, and since Twilight had led the expedition to this land called Alera, the ex-unicorn knew that the guilt would be hitting her pretty hard once her friends had settled down and Twilight took a second to think about herself. But right now, she needed just as much reassurance as the others, and logically, Sunset was the one to go to.

After all, Sunset had survived in a world of humans before. Buck, she had thrived! It might have just been the microcosm of high school, but she had clawed her way to the top of that little mountain without a single thing but the clothes on her back, the money she could extort, and an abandoned warehouse she had chanced upon with a second floor employee lounge that housed an intact couch and a rat population that stayed downstairs.

This time she had three good friends that wouldn’t run off to college, a fortune in gems, a society with a complete lack of social security numbers, and the proof that magic still existed on this world. “Don’t worry girls, everything’s going to be just fine.”

Ringing bells made Sunset open her eyes, and she readjusted herself while splashing a little of the tub’s water before sighing in contentment, raising her feet a bit, and wiggling her toes. The giant copper tub that filled a good bit of the First Lord’s personal bathing room was equal to the one she and the girls had at their own home, which had been one of the reasons why she bought it. The way it kept in the heat when it came to the metal to warm her body felt absolutely divine, and when Twilight or Dash joined her to creating streams of water and turn the thing into a powered hot tub…Sunset moaned at the memories.

“Hey now girl, I ain’t even started yet,” Applejack told her before the bigger girl’s arms released Sunset’s waist. Sunset just sank further into the bath until she was up to her chin, the leaned her head back against her Applejack’s stomach.

Then she smiled up at the massive woman’s face while it was partially obscured by her mountainous mammaries and spoke. “Well you know how I like my baths. Good thing we’ve got this place and not somewhere else. Can’t believe that idiot Miles agreed to let us use the old man’s private bath though.”

“You made all them good points,” Applejack said. “Nobody can see us goin’ around the place all the time without makin’ everyone suspicious. Course it means that half of us are cooped up here half the day, and…um, Sunset…you mind telling me something?”

Still firmly in the grip of her bathing ecstasy, Sunset reached up and touched the point of her Applejack’s nose with her finger. “Anything for you, beautiful,” she said before sending a bit of pleasure through the farmer’s body. Although Sunset didn’t have wood magic to inspire lust like Applejack could, the slave rings were a pretty good second.

Applejack cleared her throat and blushed. “Um, yeah…about…something,” she went on before quickly shaking her head. “Ah was wonderin, you noticing anything…odd about this place?”

For a moment, Sunset thought about continuing to tease her big human with sparks of pleasure, but then she noticed a slightly worried look in Applejack’s eyes. Concern quashed her playfulness in an instant. A second later, Luna had steeled the woman’s resolve to keep her sexual fantasies in the back of her mind, and her face became serious. “Define odd.”

“Ah dunno,” Applejack mumbled. “It’s like…well, whenever I’m inside a building, Mac is a bit more…in his environment ya know. So bein’ underground like this should make him jump for joy, but…he’s all…twitchy.”

Less than a second later, Sunset completely sobered, and she moved away from Applejack to sit on the other side of the tub. “Our girls are reacting to something down here,” she replied while thinking of her own elemental spirits. “Celestia is on edge, and Luna’s being kind of…well, she’s always overprotective, but I’ve had to stop her from going total defensive twice now. It’s worse the deeper we go.”

Applejack nodded. “Ah noticed,” she mumbled while looking around. “What’s um…what’s in the bottom basement of this place anyway?”

“I asked Tavi about that the first day,” Sunset told her. “He said it’s the First Lord’s meditation chamber. It’s where he goes to watch over Alera.”

Seeing that Applejack wasn’t quite getting it, Sunset took a second to put things into context. “Well, you know how Princess Celestia has that telescope at Canterlot that can pretty much look at all of Equestria? The First Lord’s meditation chamber is this world’s equivalent. He apparently has stone from all over Alera built into the floor and made into a mural along the walls.”

Only then did Applejack nod and reply. “Which is still linked to where it comes from, so he can check up on everybody, everywhere. Probably has some other stuff like that around too, like an underground stream or somethin fer the water and such. But that still don’t explain why Mac and Bloom would be all…anxious.”

Sunset sighed, and nodded. For a minute, she almost wished Luna and Celestia could communicate beyond their basic rush of emotions and mental images that they managed to convey, like Twilight’s Fluttershy and Dash’s water elemental could. Although she and her girls could still talk in a fashion, it was…difficult. Despite their looks and understanding of Sunset’s verbal language, Luna and Celestia were still very alien to her in so many ways. Aside from body language when they manifested, Luna could implant images in her mind sometimes, and Celestia’s magic allowed her to convey how passionate she was about things. Usually, the two of them worked together to get their point across.

“In that much I don’t have an answer,” Sunset replied as she turned up her hands in a shrug of defeat. “I’m the analytical genius of the family. You want the emotional stuff, go talk to Twilight. She’s the Princess of Friendship.”

Applejack smirked back at her. “Okay Ms Genius. How about we try analyzin’ the situation we’re in now?”

For a moment, Sunset thought of telling her that the downstairs creeped her out too much to go looking, but she quickly found another option when inspiration struck up. “Well I’m naked and soaking wet,” the metallic pyromancer said as she put on a predatory smile and started to approach her slave, “with a big, beautiful, talented woman that can fill my body with the most flexible things I’ve ever had inside of me. So after examining the situation…I’d say it’s time for her to fuck me.”

As she came nose to nose with the giant woman, Applejack gulped and licked her lips. “Well um…t-that’s some mighty fine…analyzin’ there.”

“Anal-izing?” Sunset asked as she chuckled. “Oh AJ, I didn’t know you were so kinky. We haven’t tried anything like that since Twilight experimented with a domination fetish on me.” Which rather turned the purple alicorn off, in Sunset’s rather disappointed memory. But she could understand, considering the circumstances.

Applejack’s eyes managed to go even wider. “Um, Ah think Ah’ll stick to the basics, thanks.”

Sunset kissed her lover on the lips. “Okay, just some boring old banging then,” the redhead replied before she came down on Applejack’s lap with a sigh. “You earth girls, so traditional. Crows, even when we’re in a whole new local…I think you’ve actually regressed in your ways.”

“Pfft, says the girl that’s more horny now than she ever was before.”

As he made his way down the street with his…strangely unappealing companions, despite their obvious beautify and flexible forms, Max was starting to think that he should have woken the boy from Calderon up and taken him as a ‘page’ to fill in any questions that the more physically capable young man might have had via a hastily delivered letter from such and such that the First Lord needed to read immediately.

Rainbow was…well, Rainbow was still pretty okay. The cute little boyish girl didn’t have the figure of her other three friends, but made up for that with her enthusiasm and playful nature. It was kind of an oddity that the least desirable of the four physically was the girl Max could actually see himself getting into a real relationship with…had she been up for that sort of thing, and didn’t do her terrifying sort of flying all the time.

The sight of it still kind of made the young man uneasy. It wasn’t a deeply buried jealousy or anything. Sure, being the bastard son of a High Lord meant Max could use all six elements, but they were not in equal amounts. His flight control was…pitiful at best. Especially when he compared it to Rainbow’s ability to fly slowly. Flying fast was easy enough, anyone with the power over the wind could rocket ahead at a full aerial sprint before the crashed into something. Flying slowly took skill and restraint…which was kind of odd considering it was Rainbow Dash that Max was looking at. But it wasn’t her restraint that made him uneasy, it was the way she was just hovering a foot off the ground. The same way she always seemed to hover a foot or two off the ground. Crows, the girl flew more than she walked!

Even the most basic student of crafting knew just how much of a monster that made Rainbow Dash. It was also the reason why when she told people to stop riding her about her odd hair that first time at the Academy, everyone in the school shut their mouths in unison, and never spoke about it again.

For wind furies, the ground was their antithesis, their opposite. The closer someone was to the ground, the harder it was for them to fly. Most Citizens strong enough to become Knights Aries and fly in full armor as well as engage Alera’s enemies in battle couldn’t do what she did for more than an hour or two. It was one of the reasons why people muttered about how she could be equal to a High Lord in her area of expertise. And having grown up around his father, unlike most bastard offspring, Max knew that the comparison was somewhat accurate.

Somewhat, because he had never actually seen his father do what Rainbow did.

“So,” the slightly more desirable physically but also more annoying girl thanks to her personality said as she turned around with a lot of tiny squares of paper in her hands, bringing up the horrible memories of the time Max had asked for a tutoring session before his first crating exam…and got it. Just it. Nothing else, and…she hadn’t even noticed his attempts at seduction!

“What’re you wanting us to review?” Twilight finished asking as she completely ignored her equally impossible companion.

“Um…all of it?” he said, getting a raised eyebrow from Twilight. “I-I took a class, but…it was a long time ago, and only lasted three months…and there were these pretty girls.”

She took a look at Rainbow for a second, who snickered for some reason while Twilight rolled her eyes. “Oh crow feathers…he’s like an alicorn version of you, with a penis.”

Rainbow waved her off. “Pfft, and your wings,” she said before looking to Max. “Offers still open to teach you by the way.”

For a second, Max looked between the two girls while trying to figure out just what they had been talking about, but he just gave up. “Can you please just give me the gist of it? I don’t want it to take me three minutes to respond to every question.”

Twilight groaned, and then put her bits of paper away. “Okay well…you at least know that…furies are the beings that inhabit the elements, right?”

“Yes,” Max deadpanned. “Thanks to months of study, I am familiar with that idea.”

“There's been debate among fury crafters since the dawn of Aleran history as to the nature of those beings. That's what the various theories try to describe. There are a number of different ideas about how much of the furies are truly intrinsic to their nature, and how much is something that we cause them to become through a human’s prolonged presence,” Twilight began. “Understand?”

Max smiled, and then swiped his head from side to side. “Not in the least.”

In response, Twilight slumped, and sighed. “Okay, let’s try this,” she began again. “Humans command furies with thei-our thoughts. That's what Imposed Anthropomorphic Theory states. Maybe part of our thoughts also shape how our furies appear to us. Maybe a wind fury on its own doesn't look like anything much at all. But when a crafter encounters it, maybe that crafter, somewhere in his head, believes that it should look like a horse, or an eagle or whatever. So when that fury manifests in a visible form, that's what it looks like.”

That bit Max remembered from the class. “We might give them form without realizing, right?”

Twilight brightened in that way that made someone with her level of fury craft seem much too cute. “Right! That's the predominant view in the cities and among most Citizens. But other scholars support the Natural Anthropomorphic Theory. They insist that since the furies are each associated with some specific portion of their element like a mountain, a stream, a forest, whatever-that each has its own unique identity, talents, and personality!”

“Which is why a lot of folks in the country name their furies?” Max guessed.

“Right! See, you know more about this than you thought,” Twilight went on happily. “Now, that’s why the city folk tend to sneer at the idea, mot of they regard it as just superstition. However, it’s a proven fact that country furies that have a form are stronger than city furies, and each has their own special talent! Some earth furies can build stronger walls than others, while others can do more artistic construction!”

Rainbow let out a breath. “You make it sound like they each have a cutie mark or something Twilight.”

The confusing comment made Max frown, but Twilight just looked over to her with one of those knowing smiles intelligent kids like her got from time to time. “That’s a very interesting observation Rainbow.”

Max cleared his throat. “Uh, what’s a…cutie mark.”

“Oh…that’s um,” Twilight fumbled while Rainbow fidgeted with something under her tunic, and then lifted it to show Max her ass, stopping the boy cold. It was probably just dumb luck the part of the street thy were on was completely empty.

“It’s this, see? My special talent.”

Despite the fact that the girl he might possibly be able to forge a real connection with was showing him her naked butt, Max found himself drawn in by the symbol on the side of her rear. While someone else might have mistaken it for a colorful tattoo, Max had see plenty of markings, Legion and otherwise, during two tours on the Shield Wall that protected Alera from the Ice Men. Just looking at the thing, Max could tell there was something…different about it. It was too good to be simple ink, as seemed to shine with…it wasn’t light, but…brightness?

“Rainbow! Put your pants back on!”

Dash groaned and did as instructed while Twilight cleared her throat, ending the moment. “Yes well anyway… The other theory is known as-”

“Um,” Max interrupted.

“Do you have a question relating to furies, are you going to ask me about Rainbow’s special sigil, which I am refusing to talk about,” she said. Then, before Max could go on, Twilight also added. “I’m also not showing you mine. You saw it when you were in the house anyway. It was the big star on the purple banner, surrounded by five smaller ones.”

When Max let out a dejected sigh, Twilight continued on with her lecture. “Natural theorists say that the furies of increasingly domesticated lands tend to break down. They lose their specific identities as they get passed down from generation to generation and as the natural landscape becomes more and more settled and tamed. They're still present, but instead of being there in their natural form, the furies have been broken down into countless tiny bits that a crafter calls together when he wants to get something done. Because of this, they aren't as strong. It’s like…having a slave that’s been beaten so badly they can barely do the work. But…they don’t act up like the more spirited ones,” she finished with a sad tone about her.

Max grunted. “Makes some sense,” he said as he was unable to force the bitterness out of his voice. “My old man had some things to say when I named one of my furies. Insisted that it was childish nonsense. Told me that he had to break me of the habit before it ruined me. It was harder to do things, his way, but he wouldn't hear of anything else.”

For a moment, both the girls stood and glared at him. Rainbow had an angry scowl, but Twilight’s was more weighing. Then she looked over to Rainbow and shook her head before mouthing two words, and the girl with the odder hair let out a sigh and nodded before she brightened back up a little.

Not wanting to get into whatever they were silently going on about, and praying it wasn’t about his family issues, Max cleared his throat. “So…which is it?”

“It’s neither and both at the same time,” Twilight told him with a sly smile.

“Oh.” Max nodded, then what she said ran through his mind and he frowned. “That makes…wait, what?”

Once again, Twilight got a gleeful look on her face and practically skipped backwards in front of Max as they reached the citadel’s grounds. “I know! I mean, it’s so obvious I just don’t see why someone hasn’t thought of it before, but when I turned in my paper they were all ‘well I haven’t seen it so it must not be’ and ‘durrrr that’s stupid’ and ‘you’re a witch!’.”

Max let out a sigh, once again wishing he had brought Tavi instead. “Come on. We’ll be lucky to get there two minutes before everyone else shows up, and I need to change.”

“Just where in the heck are we going anyway?” Rainbow asked.

The Aleran teen turned to look at the floating one. “First Lord’s private reception chambers. It’s about as big as one of the Academy's lecture halls. But between the Board of Speakers, their wives, assistants, and their wives, and all the Royal Guard, there’s going to be about seventy people,” he explained. “Basically, it’s just going to be a big fancy party where a lot of important people talk about nothing while eating the First Lord’s food.”

Rainbow chuckled. “Ah okay. Fancy parties. We’ve done one of them before, remember Twilight?”

The other girl groaned. “Please don’t remind me about that,” she said before letting out a sigh. “At least there’s no way it could be as bad as the Gala.”

“Ugh…ah! AHHHHHH! P-Please, n-no more!”

“You sure?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Okay, let me just clean up here.”

Applejack shuttered on the floor of the bathing room as Sunset went down between the larger woman’s legs one last time. She ran tongue run over the soaked folds of the earth crafter’s sex, but it would be a minor tickle compared to when the girl who held her leash wanted to make Applejack feel good. Still, the giant farmer did react a little. Her legs kicked in the water of the tub that Sunset continued to soak in.

“Oh Applejack, how is it you taste so sweet?” she asked while lapping up the larger girl’s fluids while avoiding anyplace that would cause too much stimulation.

The other girl cleared her throat. “Clean livin. Plus, all them apples from the back yard.”

Sunset finished her work, and kissed the bare area around her slave’s sex a few times. They would need to do another quick wash-up even though things looked pretty cleaned off. After that and a quick rinsing of the bath, no one would know what the two girls had done.

“Sunset, you mind if Ah ask you somethin’ personal?”

Curiosity entered her mind, and the girl crawled up along Applejack’s body to look at her larger lover face to face. “Go right ahead AJ.”

“Ah know you love me an all. Ah mean, we all got this group thing going on, but…mind if Ah ask…why?”

The oddity of the question threw Sunset off for a second, and she wrapped her fingers on Applejack’s collarbone in thought. Then, she looked around the First Lord’s bath chambers while trying to come up with a proper answer. She knew what she wanted to say, it was just...hard to put into words.

“You’re…steady,” she figured. “Rainbow’s energetic, and Twilight’s smart but crazy, but you…you’re my rock.” Then she frowned. “Wow that sounds corny.” Or the ultimate form of affection from that weird sister of Pinkie’s but…best to keep that in my head.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “You like me cause Ah’m predictable?”

Sunset backed u a bit, then lowered body onto AJ’s. “Well...yes. I mean, we’re here in a strange new world, new kind of magic, new level of political intrigue not even I’m sure how to deal with…is it at all surprising I’d fall in love with the one thing that’s the same as it has been since before we came here? Plus with you, and all the rest of the girls…we can be ourselves. I mean, let’s face it, even though we’re ninety-nine-point-nine percent human, we’ll never be one of these people. We’ll never be able to tell them who we really are. That’s…crows, that’s why we all ended up together.”

“Now hold on a second,” Applejack began as she pushed herself up and Sunset started to worry the smaller girl with her tone. From the sound of things, she didn’t seem to take it as a compliment. “What about…everything else?”

For a moment, Sunset looked Applejack over, and then turned her attention back to the woman’s eyes. “Well…honestly…I am kind of a little into humans,” she admitted. “I mean, five years does tend to get rid of that icky alien opinion when you’re surrounded by them and your breasts are huge, your arms are strong, you’ve got gorgeous hair, a cute face, and your plot is just so squeezable I-”

Applejack’s eyes widened, and her face reddened. “N-Not that! Ah’m not…well, Ah think yer gorgeous too, but…Ah, um…oh horse apples! Ah’m talking about personality wise.”

“Oh,” Sunset replied as everything came together in her mind. “Well, I love your courage, and your steadfastness, even if it does turn to bullheadedness sometimes. You have principles you stick to, and I love…well, if you didn’t pick it up the first time mule brain. I love your honesty. I love how I can be me in front of you, and you want me to be me…at least now anyway.”

She dropped back on top of the larger woman again, and kissed Applejack on the lips. “You told me what you thought of me from day one, and that may have pissed me off at the time…or um…made me break down in tears later when Twilight put in a room at her castle-”

Applejack blanched. “W-What?”

“But now…I like it,” she went on, purposely ignoring the other girl’s uneasiness before she could dig deeper. “You’re not too nice like Twilight, or completely oblivious like Rainbow is until just about the very last second. You’re my perfect center.”

The two mares turned women shared another kiss, and Sunset’s ears twitched as…something reached them. Although, it sounded rather muted. “Do you hear something?”

Applejack frowned for a second. “Yeah…sounds like it’s commin’ from the other side of the main door. People…talking?”

“Talking loudly if we can hear it from in here. I thought we got rid of that little thing the First Lord was keeping around here with that forged note,” Sunset mumbled as she remembered the First Lady…or whatever the Alaren’s called Gaius’s wife and unused baby machine. The woman didn’t appear very smart for what she was supposed to be, and wouldn’t be attending some dumb… “Oh it’s that stupid banquet…thing that’s being held tonight. I remember Miles telling Max about it now.”

The frown on Applejack’s face deepened. “Banquet? Um…ain’t that in the room we‘re supposed to use to leave? Goin’ out the back and all around to the first basement?”

“No…that was…” Sunset paused for a few seconds. “Crows you’re right. We can’t use the main exit. Guards will see us,” she mumbled. “Okay well, as long as we don’t do anything, we can just wait around until…”

A strange feeling in the water around her made Sunset look down. She frowned at the liquid that was flowing around on its own, and watched as it climbed the walls of the tub to begin taking a shape she was a little familiar with while also drawing in the steam in the surrounding air to get the extra moisture.

Unlike the real pony, the elemental spirit named Fluttershy had a horn as well as wings, and was more than twice the size of her Equestrian base that the model for her body looked like. Still, she possessed a light pinkish hue to her hair, and even spoke with the same gentle voice despite being anywhere from a few inches to ten feet tall, depending on how big she needed to be at the moment. Her adjustable size was just another little thing about how stupid humans were when it came to their own magic. To them, a spirit’s size was set in stone, and because of their close-mindedness, that was how things were. But she knew that her girls could vary in height considerably, depending on the available resources.

However, her presence was odd. The even Celestia never did never did much without Sunset telling her to, and she was the most volatile of all the elemental spirits.

“F-Fluttershy…what’re you doing here?” Applejack managed before Sunset could.

The gargantuan pony looked down at them for a moment. “Oh, Mommy wants me to help her with some rude men she’s talking with right now at the fancy party.”

Sunset sighed at Fluttershy’s reference to Twilight, another reason why she didn’t want Luna and Celestia ever gaining the ability of speech. If a blazing version of the pony she considered her own mother ever started acting like that…well, Sunset knew she could bare it, but it didn’t mean she wanted to.

Celestia and Luna weren’t her kids. They were the physical manifestation of her magic, elemental spirits given personality and form by Sunset’s experiences she shared with them. They learned what she taught them, did as they were told as long as she kept a firm hand, and even showed her how to use her magic properly when she could figure out what they were saying.

The two former ponies looked at each other for a moment. “Should we um…do something?”

“Oh no,” Applejack replied before she practically melted into the empty tub and took cover. “Ah learned my lesson the first time. We got ourselves a nice little bunker, and we’re gonna use it.”

Sunset decided to yield to experience, and sat down in the tub as she watched the giant water pony walk up to the door and open it without splashing around, a process that thankfully no longer caused Sunset to wonder just how a being that was made of water could turn solid. It wasn’t her pony, it wasn’t her problem.

A few seconds after the water elemental disappeared into the First Lord’s bedroom, Sunset’s ears twitched as she heard Fluttershy’s voice. “Um excuse me, old lady? Could you get out of the way please? Mommy wants me on the other side of the door for when she gives me mycue.”

“That is not a good idea child.”

Sunset frowned at the new voice. “Um, did you hear-”

“Enope,” Applejack said as she crossed her arms and gave Sunset a glare. “Got Mah bunker, gonna stay right here.”

“Mommy says to wait outside in the hall. So I’m going into the hall.”

“Child, as interesting as I find your…mother, there are certain rules-”

“Mommy wants me, SO GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

The sound of a rather loud crash quickly followed, and Applejack looked up at the ceiling with a frown. “Alright, roof’s not gonna collapse in on us. Now we can go.”

Max sat in the First Lord’s chair as the night continued to deteriorate. Things had started off nice enough. The introduction party had been one of the better ones that Max had been forced to attend since the deception of him being the First Lord began. Most of the people just wanted go on about themselves, so he barely even needed to talk. But after everyone had drank a little wine and said hello, the men split into two groups and took their places in the seating that looked an awful lot like the raised positioning of the Senate. However, there was a stark lack of people in the middle seats, and most of the people were just sitting where the seating arrangements became to curve around the half-bowl of the room.

Then the opening statements were made, and when Max had been called to talk, he introduced Twilight to the crowd and said she had sent a missive with a very interesting theory involving the nature of fury crafting that he thought should be addressed at the debate tonight. That way, Max would barely need to talk at all.

However…

“You are Wrong. Wrong! WRONG!”

“She’s a witch!”

“Crucify the blasphemer!”

…things weren’t going like he had hoped they would.

For the supposedly most intelligent crafters in the Realm, they sounded an awful lot like children.

“Oh for the love of,” Twilight grumbled. “My theory not only validates both sides of your arguments, but brings everything to a whole new level of thought! If you’d just-”

“YOUNG LADY!” the main speaker Crocus Brutus spoke up. “We are the most learned scholars of the realm!”

“And Citizens!” one of the men on the other side of the room added.

“And you’re just a stupid ugly girl!” yet another man spoke up, who didn’t have any dates from the look of things.

The main speaker cleared his throat. “Ahem! Yes, well, as entertaining as your thoughts are. There isn’t a single ounce of evidence proving-”

“Oh you want proof?” Twilight asked in that sly way she had talked to Rainbow Dash outside in the street, if a bit louder. “Well in that case…” She looked to the door and smiled. “”You’re going to love-”

Twilight’s words were cut off when the large metal doors turned bright red and suddenly burst outward in a burst of intense heat and white flame before Max saw a figure crash into the middle of the floor while the door finished melting into a pile of bubbling red slag from the advanced fire fury crafting.

“HA! How do you like that you bitch?” Sunset’s voice called from beyond the pile of quickly cooling metal before she stepped into view, covered in nothing at all.

The entire room froze, and then an odd clopping sound came through the open doorway before a horse water fury with a horn and wings that obviously belonged to one of the girls came in via the door and run up to Twilight. “I’m sorry I’m late Mommy!” she said before raising a hoof at the prone figure’s general direction. “That mean old lady wouldn’t let me through the door!”

Max’s eye twitched at the sound. Experience told him that water furies could replicate sounds. He even had a lion, the only fury in his power that took a normal form, that could roar loud enough to make his eardrums ring. But… “Did that thing just talk?”

A second later, all the glasses in the room started trembling, and the water in them shot out to form another misshaped horse made from the collected water, wine, and whatever else the scholars had been drinking. Unlike the first, the second looked a little rougher, and lacked a horn. “Fluttershy? What’s going on?”

As if his eyes couldn’t believe what he was seeing, or his ears what he was hearing, much like Max was doing at the moment, one of the speakers reached out to touch the newly formed water fury. A quick brush of the man’s fingers against it’s liquid coat, and the multicolored horse with wings whirled on him. “HEY! Get your hands off me you dirty ape!” she shouted in a voice that sounded exactly like Rainbow Dash, sending the man stumbling backwards.

“It-it can talk.”

“It can talk!”

“It can TALK!”

Rainbow Dash stepped out of her alcove and groaned. “Wonder, get down from there!”

“Hmm? Oh, sure thing Mom,” the fury replied before Rainbow Dash groaned and told the new talking fury not to call her that.

Then, a slight groan came from the center of the room, and the figure that had been thrown into the reception room by the fire craft that had melted a door strong enough to keep out rampaging Canim…picked itself up.

Max blinked at the sight. The figure in question was a woman, but…she wasn’t human, only shaped like one. She had a body made from a clay that looked almost the color of human skin, and her tunic seemed to be composed of clouds, while her wooden sandals had a few small flowers sprouting from them. Tiny embers of red fire ran through her gray hair that was a contrast to her youthful face.

“You children are really getting on my…” the creature stopped, and turned to look around at the assembled people, showing a pair of steel eyes, and a tongue made of water that rested in her open mouth. “Well that’s just great.”

Beside max, Twilight recovered from the shock of everything, and was practically jumping up and down in place from the way her feet moved about. “Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! You…you’re a sapient elemental spirit, but you look like a human!” she said before looking the fury up and down as she got closer to it. “But, wait…that means a human presence gave you shape and form so…huh, maybe my Universal Elemental Theory needs to some work, and…is that fire? And water? And…are you’re eyes made of metal? Does that mean you’re an amalgam? How does that work? Is it something like a harmonious combination that lets usually opposing forces work in tandem and feed off one another, or can all the elements actually be used to fuel each other, which is actually possible even with opposing ones because I know plenty of was that the chemical composition for water could be used to fuel fire rather than snuff it out, but everyone here argues that the opposing natures of such things cancel each other out, which is just stupid! I mean, just because you’re close to the ground doesn’t mean the air is any weaker!

“Um…excuse me,” the fury spoke while Twilight continued to ramble.

“Well, okay, if you go underground the air would get a little stale, but that has nothing to do with being surrounded by rock, it has to do with air flow. With proper ventilation, there can be plenty of fresh air, but these people still say that proper wind crafting can’t be done!”

The furry took a step back. “W-Well actually if air is pulled in from outside, then it would still be-wait, never mind that!” she exclaimed.

Twilight let out a gasp. “Oh right! I’m sorry, I completely forgot my manners!” she exclaimed. “This is a first contact situation! Well, we have already met furies, but you’re the first one we didn’t need to show how to take a sapient form and talk with our unconscious desires. There’s procedures for this! Protocols! I have to make proper introductions!”

The girl stepped back and cleared her throat before extending her hand. “My name is-”

“Twilight Sparkle, I know,” the youthful-looking fury the talking horse had called a mean old lady said before she let out a sigh and looked around the room at the stunned guards, speakers, and pair of naked girls standing in the doorway that had been destroyed. “I am Alera. And if you'd just me a moment..."

Then the multi-element fury attacked everyone in the room with a storm of lightning from her hands.