Chapter 5

Keeping a Promise

“It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen in my life” Everypony's attention turned to Rough Hooves.

“You never told me what happened.” I quizzically stated.

“You never asked.” Was his replay.

“Please continue. I would like to know every detail you can give us.” Celestia inquired. Rough nodded to her and started his tale.

“When the Captain left the bridge for engineering, as his XO I took command in his absence.”

“Alright, all sections take stock. I want to know what we have.” I barked with my usual commanding tone. “And no wining! We're all hurt and if we're going to get out of this alive I need information.”

“Yes, sir.” Many of them said in unison. Satisfied I turned to my station and started sorting out which problems needed to be addressed first. I didn't get much farther then looking at my monitor when our sensors officer started yelling.

“Contact! Ships jumping in, two no, three ships.”

“What? Who?”

“Unknown. I'll have to do a high-rez scan to tell, But, that will reveal our position.”

There wasn't much of a choice. We needed to know who they were.

“Do it.”

“Running high-rez scan.”

I moved over to the sensors console to see the results for myself. My blood ran cold when the computer identified them as the same ships that we just escaped from. We were still out of firing range, but they were taking formation as they moved in our direction.

“It's them.”

“What? But, how?” One of the bridge crew asked.

“It's doesn't matter right now. They're here and they're coming for us.”

Many of the crew started to panic at the news. They all knew our ship couldn't handle another attack.

“What do we do?”

“We have to get out of here!”

“Where's the Captain?”

“Abandon ship!”

“The Captain! He'll know what to do!”

“He's always gotten us out of tight spots before.”

Looking at the situation I couldn't see any way to survive this. But, the Captain had managed to pull us out of the fire before. Hitting the InCom for the entire ship I called for him.

“Enemy contacts jumping in, 100 kilometers out. Captain to the bridge!

They were much closer then that, but everypony on board didn't need to know. I didn't want a ship-wide panic on my hooves.

“Alright, the Captain will be here shortly. Let's get everything ready for him to review.”

Everypony nodded and turned to there stations getting their respective position's data ready. Then everything when dark.

“Oh great. Now what?” I groaned as emergency lighting came online along with emergency battery power. Screens flickered back to life.

“Main power offline. This... This can't be right.”

“Report gods damn it!” I would have walked over to see for myself, but didn't want to risk tripping over something in the dim lighting.

“Computers saying that it doesn't have any magic conversion crystals installed. Somepony must of pulled them.”

I called engineering on the InCom. “What's going on down there? Why did you shutdown the reactor?”

I didn't get a reply, nor did I need one. The bridge suddenly lit up, looking to the source of the light I saw the Captain. He had all of the reactor's crystals in his magic. Energy from this horn flowed like ribbons into the crystals and cycled back into his body. His eyes glowed white and his mane flapped to pulses of magic waking around him.

“Captain?”

His head turned to me, his glowing eyes peering into mine. A moment later he started walking towards the front of the bridge. When he reached the view port he phased through the wall and window out into space. No suit, no shield, nothing. I watched in disbelief. He only stopped once there wasn't any ship left to walk on.

He faced the three ships advancing on us, opened his mouth and spoke. I could hear what he was saying even though he was in space. His voice echoed in my head. I couldn't understand what he was say. I think is was a spell, but I've never heard of a unicorn cast using words before.

A light started to take shape above his horn as a rune formed at the tip of his horn between him and the growing sphere of magic. The energy ribbons flowing though the crystals changed their flow from him to the ball quickly growing in size. As it expanded to the size of a pony, the whole ship started to shake making the super structure creak and moan. Then, he fired. It was so bright I had to look away, what I did see was a beam like attack. The whole ship shook violently throwing many of us to the deck. I turned my attention to one of the monitors and used the ship's long range optics to see what was going on. I had never seen anything like it, and it scared me.

His spell rent the battle cruiser in half, I could see its crew violently eject into space. It also struck one of the destroyer escort's main engines crippling its maneuverability. A second shot struck the other destroyer escort square on the nose. Its hull bloated like a balloon its armor trying its hardest to keep together, it vanished in an explosion. Shortly after the destroyer detonated, so did the battle cruiser. Its reactor had gone critical resulting in an explosion engulfed the last ship. All that remained was debris and bodies.

We all sat in silence, each looking to one another for the right words; the right question to start with.

“How did you make it to a station?” Luna asked her chipper voice gone.

“Engineering managed to piece together a power regulator out of spare parts.”

“What happened to Glimmer?” Celestia seemed more interested in my circumstance.

“He walked back in through the wall he went out. Once inside he collapsed to the deck.”

“I woke up on a couch in my ready room.”

“I carried you there.”

“What did he feel like?” Celestia inquired. Rough looked surprise.

“He tingled. Like touching a low voltage wire.” Celestia thoughtfully scratched her chin with a hoof.

“You said that he had the crystals for your reactor, how many of them where there?” Luna's request caught her sisters interest.

“Our reactor ran on four magic amplifying conversion crystals.” I answered knowing Rough wasn't great with tech information. Celestia frowned stating.

“That would only give you the strength of 5 unicorn ponies. Not nearly enough to vaporize a ship.”

“Energy flowing from his horn to the crystals, then back to his body.” Luna repeated and looked to her sister with wide eyes. “Was he cycling the raw power back though his body like a filter?”

“Perhaps, but how did he store enough power to destroy a battle cruiser?” Celestia closed her eyes in deep thought.

“Indeed, that level of power would have killed any non-alicorn.” Luna slowly drank her now cold tea.

“Glimmer.” Rough Hooves got my attention. He had never use my name like that before. He's always called me 'Captain' or my full name.

“Tell'em.” Both Celestia and Luna looked from Rough to me.

“Tell us what?” Luna tilted her head slightly. I gave a wary smile to Luna before my head was turned toward Celestia by her wing. “What are you not telling us?”

With a sigh I began to fill them in on my special talent. "I studied and utilize Runic Magic. Through my studies I have found Runes that enhance not only my physical capabilities, but also my magical prowess."

I lit my horn with a small amount of magic and fed it into the spell lines on my body. They materialize into sight glowing just above my fur starting at the base of my horn. As they spread, Runes wrote themselves into the air along the spell lines. After a short time every Rune scribed to my body glowed. Celestia for the first time since my break down removed her wing from around me. Looking up at her, she seemed shocked by the reveal. Luna seemed surprised as well, yet interested.

“I-I've never seen so many used at once before.” Celestia slowly tucked her wing to her side.

“These are only the major Runes. I have sub sets linked to them for enhanced effects.”

“What like?” Luna asked ears perking up. I scratch my chin for a moment, showing I even had a Rune on the underside of my hoof.

“Take your basic shield spell for example: In its most basic form it blocks everything. If you know what kind of attack is being used, you can change your shield spell to defend against that type. Thus making it more effective and less strenuous.” I paused to take stock. Both Celestia and Luna nodded slightly clearly understand my explanation so far. I turned to my right showing the Rune on my left shoulder pointing to it I continued.

“This is a Shield Rune. I merely need to push magic from my horn into it and a basic shield spell activates surrounding me and anypony close enough in it. A passive Rune then provides me with a display telling me how much strength it has left. It also informs me if I have specialized it to any one effect, this is done by the sub runes.”

I lifted my right hoof up to the Rune on my shoulder and plucked it off. It floated over my hoof now. Waving my horn over it I cast my analysis spell and a display spell so they could see it. Arcane sigils and spell lines that made up the Rune spread out showing how it was put together. Both Princesses looked surprised by the complex network of woven spell power lines.

“By my sister's name! I've never seen anything like it.” Luna stared at it in awe. Celestia's eyes darted about, analyzing it.

“This, like all of my Runes, is designed to run without constant input from the caster. All you have to do is push the desired amount of power into it and you're done. Your horn is now free to cast anything else.”

“That's very interesting Glimmer, but what does this have to do with the question at hoof?” Celestia asked bringing us back on topic. Luna answered for me.

“Sister, these Runes can store magical power. They all have a kind of battery for magic built into them. If you could fill each one, then add that to a single spell. It would be immensely powerful.” Celestia's eye widened with realization.

“The amplified magic wasn't going back into his body, he was storing it in his Runes.” Celestia's expression quickly changed form surprise to confusion. “Glimmer you said that you blacked out in the engine room, then woke up in your ready room?”

“Yes, I don't remember anything in-between.”

“Then how did you do all this unconscious?” All three of them stared at me waiting for an answer. There gaze felt like a weight on my chest.

“Eh heh... Well you see.” Sweat started to dampen my coat and the back of my neck suddenly got really itchy. I dismissed the magic showing my runes and scratched my neck. I didn't know how they would reacted to this, but I had to tell them.

“I made a Virtual Intelligence that activates when I loss consciousness, until I'm in a designated safe zone or regain consciousness.”

“Well sister, what do you think?” Luna gestured towards me.

“I don't know Luna, it's been a long time.” Luna sighed and covered her face with a hoof.

“You need this sister.” Luna looked up at Celestia with big puppy eyes. “If not for you, then, for me? You are starting to ascend me up a wall.”

“Drive.” Celestia corrected her sister. Luna's deadpan expression made Celestia giggle nervously. Clearing her throat she turned to me.

“Glimmer.” I looked up at her.

“Yes?” I was a tad confused by their quick exchange. Celestia extender her wing again and wrapped me in it.

“Would you be interested...” She paused a smiling taking her face. “In becoming my personal student?”

I wasn't expecting this, any of this to ever happen. I was quite content living here and drinking myself into a stupor every night. I never thought about what I would do next. I only thought about what I had lost. With that heavy burden no longer binding me to the past, I was free to look forward and Celestia was providing me an opportunity to do just that, a once-in-a-life-time-opportunity.

If Hot Wire was here she would have pushed me to Celestia telling her, “Yes he will accept your offer”. This reminded me of when Hot Wire would sit and listen to me rant on for hours about magic, smiling at me the whole time. It was one of my passions I enjoyed very much. My heart started to hurt and my head was clouded with the past. I needed to clear my head, I needed time.

Without a word I stepped down off the couch and left the room. Opening the back door I was met by the cool salty wind from the ocean. It filled my lungs and washed gently over my coat as I made my way to a small headstone, Hot Wires headstone. Memories from our short time together raced through my head. This time they felt happy, not longing, and from that a promise echoed in my ears. A promise I had forgotten.

I felt her aura before I hear her hoof steps, Celestia stood a few steps behind me. Though, she said nothing.

“You know, if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have studied magic. When we started courting she bought me books on magic. The first one she gave me was 'Why a Unicorn Should Expand Their Knowledge of Magic' by Princess Twilight Sparkle. I wasn't a big reader, but her style of writing made it fun to learn magic. Soon I was analyzing the magical make up of spells. This made me hunger for more and Hot Wire found more. She told me she loved to watch me spell craft and when I wrote my first Rune, she was ecstatic.”

I dropped to my hunches.

“I made her promise. I made a promise to her and I broke it!”

“What promise?”

“We were talking about our future. About having a family, when she brought up if one of us died. She told me to move on. She made me promise I would move on and yet, HERE I EM!”

I pounded my hooves into the ground.

“But no more!”

Standing I turned to Celestia and looked the goddess square in the eyes.

“Celestia as my witness I will uphold my promise. I accept your offer, I will be your student, Princess Celestia.”

Author's Note

I'd like to thank all of you that are reading my story and giving me a thumbs up. I really appreciate it!

I would also like to ask you to please, please, please, leave a comment on your thought of how this story is going so far. It would really help me out and I'd very much appreciate the input.

Coming up next: Nable Station!

Also, I will be posting links in the Author's notes to my DeviantArt page with picks of the ponies in this story. Please tell me if you think this is a good idea.