The Legend of Fauna

When Twilight came to, she was in her dorm room, It looked to be about seventeen, judging from the amber sunlight pouring in from the window. and her little brother was reading in the corner at her desk. She sat up, and looked around the room until she noticed he little brother reading at her desk. Spike turned when he noticed the noise and put his manga down to go check on Twilight.

“Oh, hey. Welcome back to the world of the living, sis.” The boy’s Green hair and eyes stared up at her from the side of the bed. He was ten, and would be eleven by November. Last winter, her older brother discovered that the flames Spike produced served as a medium for teleportation unlike anything Mages could do. Even though he was a child, Spike was capable of sending objects almost as big as he was through fire, provided he was careful. It took the entirety of Shining's visit home last December before he could get Spike to send a piece of paper through his magic flames without charring it completely. By some accident or other, they managed to get a watermelon across, which is when they discovered that with the right training, Spike could potentially send whatever he wanted through fire without much effort.

“Oh, uh, hey. Um, if you don't mind me asking, why are you here exactly?” The boy puffed out his chest and pointed to it with a thumb. “As of last week, I'm going to be training under the Queens with you.” The boy stated, full of pride. “Celestia sent us a letter and everything. It was super official looking. She picked me up at the bus stop just outside the school earlier this morning. In the letter she said you would be with her, but when I got there, she said you were asleep for some reason, and man she wasn't kidding. We spent most of the day at that book shop you're always talking about... the uh... Ivory...” Twilight finished the sentence.

“Pages. Ivory Pages Spike, I've told you a thousand times.” He stared blankly back at his sister. “Guess that means you're still the same Twilight that left home. Anyways, we went there until sixteen and then Celestia bought me all this stuff, and guess what! I got the complete boxed set of Devil Summoner!” Ah yes, Devil Summoner. The boy's favorite series of books that came out of the Anya Islands to the far east. Twilight was more partial to the Unearth series that was in the same vein, but the cast of that one was more often reused in every new story even though they all took place in 'separate nether-worlds' as the games and books always liked to point out. The penguin demons were her favorite.

“Well that's cool, I guess. Did she say anything before she left? I imagine she was in the room at one point considering the door was likely locked.” the boy then started to reach for the pocket at the bottom of his shorts. He undid the Velcro and carefully removed a letter from it, then handed it to Twilight. “this is from the Day Queen. She said it's important that you read it.”

The letter was sealed with wax, which was only something the Queens still did in this day and age. Embedded in the seal was the emblem of Fauna, the sun above the moon surrounding a single circle, connected by a line to each object from either side. She pulled the wax off and took out the letter which was written on an odd feeling paper like material that after some playing with, Twilight assumed to actually be made of cloth. After unfolding the letter, a card slid out of it. It was a trap judging by the color, but the entire card was written in some language Twilight had only seen once in her life, and the picture on the card was completely black. It felt heavy, almost like a stone. The handwriting was of an art form that was nearly dead to this day, known as Calligraphy. Celestia and Luna are supposedly the only people who still practice it due to the simple inefficiency of hand written messages.

Dear Twilight. I write this letter to you because there is an important task you must undertake. In a small town to the south, there is a series of murders that's been happening seemingly at random. Each one happens in the middle of the night when an unlucky soul is chanced upon by what we believe to be a group. Nearly 36 years ago if I remember correctly, there was an event known as the raid of Lonely Volcano. If you remember the history, Luna and I stepped into an in house conflict between a group of Sub-humans and Crater City as it was being cyberized.

The sub humans, now known as shape shifters, started to kill in a similar fashion to the murders in Pony Ville to try and stop the cyberization. Shape shifters feed solely on energy given off from emotions, but cannot feed of their own kind, therefore, they must live near standard humans to survive. But as the digital age continued to press forward, the Shape shifters began to die out as the machines made with the pocket dimension started to use the same energy that the Shape shifters fed on. While we sympathized with them, and tried to solve the situation peacefully, our diplomatic approach failed indefinitely.

The so called 'Queen' of the shape shifters formed a rebellion and tried to take over Crater and enslave the people there, but that's where we came in, and the rest you should know. Chrysalis was imprisoned, and shape shifter 'sanctuaries' were put into effect along the corners of every city block so that they could continue to live normally without being persecuted by the general public. After all, the true form of a shape shifter is generally masked. Sometimes, Shape shifters them selves don't know they are what they are.

Chrysalis escaped her prison seventeen years ago after an incident involving a precious magic artifact, and made off with it. At the present moment, her location is unknown, and I have agents out across fauna searching for her unique magic signature, along with the signature that the artifact gives off. Your job is to go to Pony Ville and meet with the other five girls who've been chosen for this assignment, and solve the case. I have good reason to believe these incidents are Chrysalis' doing, and if I am right, you six will be the only ones able to do so.

You may not have realized it, but you are in possession of one of the six magic Artifacts that has the power to counter the one Chrysalis stole. One of my men will be with you and Spike at all times during this mission, and I want you to trust him in absolute faith, but if push comes to shove, A duel will likely be your best option. The Artifact you possess will keep you safe. Inside the letter, I have placed a card I crafted to strengthen your deck.

However, you will only be able to use it when the artifact allows you to. Be safe, and if at all possible, try to get along with your new bodyguard and the other five girls okay? You'll be working with them for a very long time. Your train will be leaving at Nine tomorrow morning. Zephraim will be there waiting for you at Eight forty-five. He will fill you in on the rest of the details. Pack thin clothes, as Pony Ville is a very hot, humid place, very much the opposite of Upper Canterlot.

-Yours truly, Queen Celestia Iscandor.

What. Just. What. “So what’s it say?” she’d forgotten Spike was there. “Well, uh... to be honest, this is way further out of left field than I'd ever expected. I don't even know how to begin to explain this one. Do you know anything about the raid of Crater city in 2980?” He blinked. “What?” Twilight rolled her eyes. She couldn't blame him for it. It was just as out of left field for her as it was for him, and he hadn't even reached a grade in school yet where they even talk about the last century. This was a mission that Celestia would send a royal guard, or a Solar Knight into, not her sixteen year old pupil and her little brother.

“Okay, so... apparently, I have some 'Magic artifact' that's part of a set of six, or seven I guess? And this woman named Chrysalis, who was at the center of that raid, has escaped her prison, and stolen the seventh artifact. I'm supposed to meet five other girls who were assigned to this and we're supposed solve a string of murders in that town we're going to because Celestia has reason to believe that it's Chrysalis behind it.” He nervously started to chew on his left thumb nail. “What the? Hold on a sec. You? Solve a murder and take down a bad guy?” She was riding the same train of thought.

“My thoughts exactly. I'm no impressive fighter! I'm just... really magically inclined... and... the best shot out of the 'normal' people in Canterlot... On second thought, maybe I am a good choice for this.” He wasn't expecting Twilight to react to her own words the way she did. “So... uh, you're okay with this? Like, us going to Pony Ville to try and solve a bunch of murders, and then catch the bad guy?” That was a good question. At the moment, her feelings about the woman were so mixed, she didn't know what to think. One minute she's a mom, another she's a hard ass, then she's a ruler, and after that she's my teacher, but now? Now she's counting on me to do something. What do I feel about this?

“Hey! Come back to Earth, Twilight!” Twilight blinked. “Oh, sorry. Spaced out.” Spike rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I noticed. So, are we gonna need to go get stuff to take with us? Do we have a place to live? What's the deal here? All she told me is that I'm supposed to assist you.” Twilight put an index finger to her lips. “Well, I don't think we'll need anything other than clothes, to be honest. We should probably make a trip to the general store before we go for those though. She says it's hot down there. I don't know about you, but all I ever wear is my school uniform, and it's never more than 80 degrees here, even in the summer.” Spike snickered.

“Yeah, of course you always wear the same thing. Still as routine as ever.” Twilight narrowed her eyes “You know better than anyone else why I like my routines. And this fucks with that in all kinds of ways. I bet you she didn't happen to mention that we'll be living in Pony Ville for six months, now did she?” Spike took a step back. “Six months! What the hell!?” Twilight crossed her arms and put on a smug face.

“Nailed it. Oh ho ho, yeah. This was my 'punishment' for almost killing a guy the other day when I broke that old duel disk.” Spike's eye widened. “Holy crap Twilight! Wait. How are you supposed to duel without a disk?” She looked at her little brother, confused at first, but then she realized she never mentioned anything about her new one.

“Oh, right. She gave me a new one before we dueled today. This one is... special, to say the least. I don't know if you saw our duel, but she fucking flattened me. I didn't even get a chance to hit her, and she dished out over 10000 damage before I finally went down. Over kill is an understatement when it comes to her. And holy shit, was it hot! So, I doubt many people know this, because I sure didn't before I went in, but she Doesn't use a Duel disk when she's serious. And all her magic is like, multiplied or something, and the monsters she uses are like, real. They all had the word Helios in their names, and everything was fire attributed and pyro type. I legitimately think that she raised the air temperature in the stadium by 30 or 40 degrees, It was like being put on the sun.” She picked up her new duel disk that was sitting on the window sill and handed it to Spike, who looked at in confusion.

“Is... this custom? It looks... funky.” That's right. Kibitz gave her this disk earlier today. “Yeah. You know the Kibitz Corporation right?” “Well, duh. K.C. is only the biggest manufacturer of duel disks in the world, let alone Fauna. How could I not? Even people who don't duel own one of these things. I have one.” This wasn't good. Her sarcasm was starting to rub off on her little brother. "So, The founder of K.C. Is actually butler to the royal family now, and Celestia commissioned him to make it. Of course, his son is the owner of the company, but he basically made this by hand from what he told me. Then Celestia got a hold of it. The Disk has this little thing.” Twilight pulled the magic storage device out of the disk. When she did though, she noticed that the lower four rings of runes on it were glowing in an array of colors.

“That's funny. I don't remember the runes glowing. But anyways, this thing can store enough magic to power the entirety of Canterlot. It catches all the excess magic either me or my opponent gives off, and holds it. If I'm ever exhausted of magic, I can just click my thumb to the top of it and replenish with what's stored. You know... now that I think about it, he said something about it being half full by the time I was done dueling today...” Twilight put the device which she had decided to name an MSD back into the disk and checked it's power level. She saw the percentage and her eyes widened. “What?” He didn't know why she looked so surprised.

“This is insane! The MSD, which is what I'm calling it now, by the way, has 8340 GIGA ARC WATTS! It's almost 42 % full! And That's just from today!” Spike had enough of a grasp on the levels of magic energy from the classes he'd been through to know that that was a whole lot of energy. “Holy shit!” Immediately, Twilight back handed the boy. “Don't curse. I shouldn't even curse. It's a bad habit, don't start it. But yeah. The thing is friggen loaded.” Twilight almost cursed under her breath after she finished her sentence. Who did she sound like just a moment ago? Her teacher. She couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but one thing was for sure, she was not ready to become Celestia Iscandor.

“So, question; when you dueled her, you said her monsters were 'like real'” he air quoted the phrase with his fingers. “What do you mean by that?” Twilight didn't really have any way to describe it any other way. Like real is about as close to describing what she saw as she knew the words for. But she could show him. While dueling Celestia, Twilight sensed a sort of... unique spell seeming to surround Celestia. She didn't know whether it was just her raw magical power or the armor she wore that was doing it, but she could attempt to recreate it. She climbed out of bed, realizing that she was wearing her light blue pajamas and... different... underwear. Redheart changed her. Like a baby. That would have to be addressed at another time. Then she sat on the ground, and motioned spike to join her.

“Alright, I've got an Idea. So, during that duel, magic just kinda... 'wafted' around Celestia. That's the only way I can really describe it because it looked about what I imagine a smell would look like. But anyways, I think I can reproduce that effect. Open the extra deck slot and pass me the top card.” the boy tapped the back left side of the disk where the extra deck slot was in normal disks, and took out the level 7 fusion monster he'd never seen before. “Who is this guy? A new card? You know, he kinda looks like you. Isn't that kind of weird?” Twilight took Andromeda from the boy's hand.

“To be honest Spike, I'm not so sure anymore. Out of the blue one day, Celestia just handed him to me without a word. When I asked her about it, she wouldn't talk, but she always had this concerned look on her face when she did. And he does things cards shouldn't do. When I summoned him earlier today, he turned to the crowd and took a bow! And before then, When I dueled that guy yesterday, he didn't do his normal laser attack when I finished him off, but cut the kid open instead! I mean, now that I think about it, had he done his laser, that guy would likely be dead, but I think this card has a soul of it's own.” A soul of it's own? That was unheard of, even in a world where souls could be trapped in objects. Mass produced cards were only used by children who hadn't earned their marks. People never had the same cards either. When a person dies, their soul cards evaporate with them. If the cards are gone, the person has no chance of survival. But card's with souls inside them? Even black magic didn't know how to do that.

“What? No way. That's just crazy. Cards don't do that! Cards can't do that! And besides, if she gave it to you, It has to be mass produced, other wise, where in the hell did she get it?” His logic wasn't wrong. But the card itself was just flat out different. And it was specific to her. It fit her deck exactly, and even made it better. “Look kid, I know this doesn't make sense, but this is the 2000 year old immortal sun goddess we're dealing with here. She can speak and write in a magic language that no one understands but her and her sister, yet is found in every ruin in the country. If anyone is capable of something like that, it's either her or her sister.” Spike couldn't argue that logic either.

“Alright fine. Do the thing. Then well see if it's true.” Twilight focused on recalling the way the magic felt earlier this morning. The golden glow surrounding her monsters and herself, the was it seemed to pulse faster and faster, the more excited the crowd got. The way it seemed to expand and grow when she synchro summoned Caesar. The sheer sound of her heart beat as it began to synchronize with Celestia's magic pulse. The way it smelled, how sweet it made the air taste. And the feeling of a warm blanket wrapping tightly around her skin as the magic wafted around the air. While Twilight was concentrating on remembering exactly what she felt earlier, Spike was beginning to feel the effects.

Twilight was giving off a faint violet glow that felt... alive. It was beating, slower at first, but increasing in speed and sound as it went. The air started to feel warmer the faster the pulse flowed, and a smell started to come from her. Not her usual nasty, 'I don't feel like bathing' smell because Twilight was a pig, but the smell of something sweet. The air tasted sweet. Something he couldn't place, but felt like he's been around his whole life. The room felt like it was a sauna with violet smoke beginning to fill it. But something was wrong. The pulse continued to get stronger and stronger, but Twilight wasn't breathing.

“Twilight? Twilight! Twilight!! Twilight wake up! Stop it! Twilight!!!” He kept shaking her shoulders, but her body didn't respond. He didn't know what to do, when suddenly, he heard a voice. “Fear not. She will be fine.” The voice went away, and the whole room was filled with the violet smoke Twilight was making. But then he felt a change. He realized his heart beat was synchronized with the pulse now, and Twilight's eyes opened, but a bright white light was shining out of them. The light engulfed the room, and Spike couldn't see anything. When he regained his sight, the entire room was completely normal, Twilight was breathing again, and clutching her head in her hands wile rubbing her temples with her thumbs, and neither of the two knew what happened.

“Twilight! Are you okay? What the hell did you do!? The whole room was filled with purple smoke, and, and then everything felt like it was beating! And suddenly there- there was this white light... what exactly did you do?” Twilight only managed to catch the tail end of that sentence. Her head was throbbing, and she felt like she was completely drained of magic. Like she'd tried to Teleport from here to horseshoe bay on the other side of the country and back. She looked up at the card in her hand, but the picture of the sorcerer was gone. The violet, blue, red, and black nebula like background with stars dotting it remained, but the monster who normally stood proudly in front of it was not. She looked up to Spike to try and say something, but noticed a large Indigo cape behind him.

“Wha- Who the hell?” Spike followed her eyes and turned to look, dumb founded, at the cape behind him. He followed the cape up to it's end where large leather shoulder plates stacked atop one another on either side, and long almost sharp indigo blue hair poured out from an Indigo and violet hat. The cape turned to reveal a man of about six and a half to seven feet tall standing in the room. He wore Leather armor connected to a large breast plate that covered his upper torso until it was hidden away by what looked like the rest of the cape. His clothing underneath was indigo blue just like his hair, lined in an almost glowing gold all around. His face was hidden away by a cloth mask, but leaving his dark violet eyes with sharp narrow pupils exposed for all to see. They looked almost identical to her own in color. On his Breast plate was an emblem. A violet six pointed star that Glowed just like his clothing, surrounded by five white six pointed stars in between each point of the major star but the top and bottom left points. Just like her own Mage's mark. The man carried a staff that looked to be made of teal blue crystal that was completely smooth until the top, where it looked to have been cut to form a specific shape. The head crystal of the staff formed a gradient of the teal blue that the shaft was made out of to violet to red. Above that were ten little orbs of white light with teal edges in a shape that resembled a V with a hook to the right side (V-,). The sorcerer then bowed and removed his mask from his nose. His face had a large scar running down from the bottom of his right eye to the top of his upper lip. And then he spoke.

“Good evening, Masters Sparkle. I am Andromeda of the land of Harmonia.” Andromeda spoke. Andromeda was talking. Andromeda was a card. How was Andromeda speaking? But before she could ask questions, he took the words out of her mouth. “I presume that my presence, visage, voice or other wise baffles you children to no end at the moment. As such, I will allow you to question me. However I must warn you, Master Sparkle. There are things you simply mustn't know quite yet, there fore, if I deem a question unanswerable, I must request you drop the subject at hand.” The sorcerer leaned on his staff and sat cross-legged on the floor with the two. The siblings looked at each other in disbelief, then Spike was the first to ask a question.

“So uh... how old are you?” The question wasn't too far off from Twilight's own, so she didn't object. “Ah. My own age. While I may not know the true answer to that question, as time on this planet was reset after the great nightfall, I will say that I was nearly nine hundred and seventy years old at the nightfall. If your calendar lines up to start after the great nightfall, then, I should be about three thousand, nine hundred and eighty six years of age at the present.” Twilight heard the numbers, but couldn't believe them. She didn't care how magic he was, no body lives that long in a natural life span but the Ascended, and he was clearly lacking a pair of wings.

“Wait a second. nine hundred and seventy? Hold the fuck up. People do not live that long. I don't care how magic you are. That's not possible.” The sorcerer let out a calm, sincere laugh. “You doubt my truth, do you master Sparkle? Did you not summon me from a soul card? Were you not arguing with Master Spike whether it was possible for a soul to be contained by a card? If you have been proven true by your own initiative, how can I be proven wrong? Surely if you do not believe me, my siblings will be able to tell you. As for my age, during my time, I did walk the earth for nine hundred and seventy years, whether you believe it or not, this is fact. The 'Ascended' as you call them, were born from a contract I made with the Gods of this earth in exchange for the magic game that had the power to banish evil from this world.” Spike took a turn again to ask a question.

“So by magic game, you mean Duel monsters right?” Twilight was almost irritated by Spike's blind acceptance of the sorcerer's word, but in truth, she couldn't prove him wrong, and she was talking to a man she summoned from a soul card. The fine line of reality was quite invisible at this moment. “Hmm, yes, If that is what you call this game now. In the ancient language of Harmony, the game was called Mesret, meaning 'clash of souls' in your language. If I were to spell it...” The sorcerer poked one of his stars at the end of the staff laying across his lap, and his finger began to glow with the same white light. He pushed against the air and drew three symbols. Twilight immediately recognized them from the runes covering the MSD in her duel disk.

“Hey, I've seen those. Those are the runes that are all over the country. As far as the general public knows, Luna and Celestia are the only people on this earth that know what they mean.” Andromeda rubbed the indigo blue stubble along his chin. “Hmm... Yes, that sounds correct. The two who were chosen by the Gods to receive their power were also given their knowledge as well. Those who received the power, or the Ascended as you mentioned, should not only be able to read the runes of Harmonia, but use their power as well. Now I have a question for you, Master Sparkle. Earlier, you were full to the brim with Magic energy, but now your life is barely being sustained. How is it that you play the magic game, when you clearly lack the proper training to summon myself?” Twilight couldn't tell whether or not he just insulted her. Either way, she decided to answer his question.

“Well, that's kind of simple. This device here-” She took the duel disk from beside Spike, who had dropped it trying to wake Twilight earlier. “allows anyone to play the game. Mage, Terran, Angel, or otherwise. Although, No one can play like Celestia and Luna do as far as I know. They... make the game so... real.” The sorcerer took his hand away from his chin.

“I see. So this device acts as a medium for the ancient magic that was required to play the game long ago. You see, back in my time, the game was rather newly established, and only my siblings and I had strong enough souls to play it. It was truly impossible for anyone to play who did not know the language of the seven gods, as the 'ancient runes' you spoke of are what cause the soul tablets, or 'cards', to arise from the soul. From there, the seven rows of runes were to be carved into the arm, or to something strapped to it, so that the runes could use the life energy of the player to make the game work. Each row of runes contributed to the overall shape of the... um... to describe this, there is a word in my language, but I do not believe you would understand it. Tell me, where do you place 'monsters' in this game?” Twilight turned on the disk, and opened duel mode. The matter wave materialized itself out to the front of the disk.

“Right here.” She said as she pointed to it. “We call it a matter wave because it's made out of solidified light and programmed to read cards.” Andromeda went back to stroking his chin. “Ah, yes. Your matter wave is created using the seven rows of runes from long ago, although, the places were the cards themselves go are... missing. I imagine the device contains them?” Twilight began pointing to the slots on the disk and explaining what they did.

“If your game and mine are the same, then in the largest slot, the deck goes, toward the end of my wrist and the beginning of my hand. To the right of that, at the center of the back of the disk is where you place spells and traps. If It's placed upside down, then it is considered set, and then can be activated later. If it's placed face up, it is considered activated, and as long as it's legal, the disk will act accordingly.  To the left of this slot is the extra deck. Fusion, Synchro and Xyz, or, if you have different names for those, the white, black, and violet, cards are stored here, with a maximum starting size of fifteen face down cards. If a pendulum monster card is destroyed somewhere, It is sent here face up, at which point the limit is however many cards you use and destroy.

To the left of this slot is the graveyard. A destroyed, milled, or discarded card goes here. And to the right of this one is the banished slot. Cards that are removed from play or banished are sent here. The two pendulum zones are at thee edges of the disk's matterwave, and the monster zones are all in between. A long time ago, there were slots for the spells and traps, but now the disk just keeps track of what it's fed and to activate the set ones, you simply tap it's space on the screen. That about covers it, unless you have something I don't know about.” The sorcerer crossed the fingers on each hand and put both of his index fingers to his chin.

“No, that is everything. It seems as if the game has yet to change from when I received it, which means that the promise the gods made after founding it still holds to this day, almost 4000 years later. At this point, you must be wondering why myself was inside the card, I presume.” The girl and boy looked at each other and blinked in unison. “How did you know-What we were thinking?” They looked at each other and blinked again. She finished his sentence, like it were her own. The sorcerer let out a hearty laugh again.

“My, you two are quite the synchronized pair. First, the reason you seem to be able to follow each others thoughts is because when Twilight performed the reading of the ancient runes, whether or not she knew this to be what she was doing, she was not actually performing the magic you know Mages to be capable of. This form of magic can be practiced by all, and occurs when the user focuses their entire being on one task. When they begin doing so, their aura begins to become visible, and pulses with the very blood in their body. Then, the smell, taste, sight, sound, and feeling of their soul begins to radiate from their body. Anyone within the radius of this aura is then synchronized with it, and the strength of the runes are amplified as by the multiple of people within it. In this case, by synchronizing both of your souls, You were able to give me a physical form, if only for the time being. With that being said, I will begin my tale of eons long past. There is much to tell before we begin our mission tomorrow.”

The sorcerer used his staff to raise himself to a standing position with a grunt, and then tapped the upper most star on his staff. He then placed the staff on the ground completely vertical, and the stars began to circle it evenly. A green flash ran through the stars in the opposite direction that they spun, then a golden one in the same direction. Finally, a violet spiral started to spin from each star in to the center of the circle, and the circle flashed white with a blue flame surrounding it. Images started to appear, and Andromeda narrated the events.

“Long ago, This land was once known as Harmonia. The Harmonians were descended from the gods of the fourth plane who were cast out to the third plane, and branded with the name, 'Human'. The six gods of the fourth plane who had cast these three gods out took pity on them, and allowed each to retain one of their powers. The first, Archea, the Father of magic, retained his mastery over sorcery. The second, Sephira, the Mother of flight, retained her wings. The third, Gaia, the mother of Strength, retained her mastery over the body. Together, with set lifespans of 1000 years, the three humans populated the earth, scattering themselves on all of the seven continents. Families rose and were given names and lands to call their own, and the first of those families were the Siblings of Harmonia, Myself, my brothers and Sisters, direct descendants of the gods.

I was born in the 30th year, and as such, shared my parents life span of 1000 years. But as the human races began to grow, the limited gene pool resulted in greatly reduced lifespans over time experiencing what's known as exponential decay, and stabling out around 100, give or take 30 years. I traveled the earth for centuries, and my siblings did the same. However, toward the end, we all returned the land in which we were born. We had each taken suitors and began families of our own, but then, the heavenly body descended. Around the 950th year, the meteor landed in this country, just around the center of the south west of this country. When my siblings and I went to investigate, and what we found was a baby girl that looked to be of human origin cradled in a large black smoldering stone. The eldest of my three sisters, Monarcha took it upon herself to take the child in.

I was... tentative of the child. Previously being gods in the fourth plane, I had decided to seek out my parents and see if they knew anything. My father told me this: 'That child itself will not be the problem, but the meteor she arrived in will be the death of man kind. There is a great darkness surrounding that black object, and even I, cannot discern what havoc it may bring. I suggest you Isolate the object, and never let the child come into contact with it. The results may be... disastrous...' Armed with new knowledge, I went to seek further council from the seven gods themselves. Using the runes I was taught as a child, I went to the fourth plane using a unique spell my father could never perform. Upon my arrival, The seven gods greeted me with open arms, and we struck a contract. If a darkness ever arose that had the ability to end humanity, they would grant my siblings and I power to banish it, in the form of their game. As long as humanity continued to survive the great darknesses which would plague anywhere life sprang in the universe of the third plane, two would be chosen every two thousand years to receive the powers of Divinity, the divine deity, leader of the seven gods.

In the time of the fourth plane, I had been gone for an hour. But in the time of the third plane, 30 years had passed. Umbra, as the child was called, had grown and traveled north to hone the strange skill she possessed, which was outside the three main races. Ten more years went by, and Umbra returned to visit, leaving the family she had started behind in the far north. Upon her visit, the meteor was stolen from the sanctuary I had built to protect it. Being one of my sister's daughters, Umbra gave chase to the thief, and apprehended the meteor. But, as my father had predicted so many years ago, The meteor reacted violently to Umbra's power. It began to consume her, covering her pale flesh in dark black crystal. I was near, and tried to use my power to help her, but the meteor only reacted more to it, seeming to consume the power I was trying to destroy it with.

With no way to protect her, Umbra was consumed and transformed by the meteor. She was turned into a demon. She grew wings like that of a bat, and gained the strength of hundreds in a single arm, and her magical potential was boosted far above my own. The meteor tried to control her mind, but Umbra managed to stave it off long enough to warp to the furthest point in the north and seal herself away. Upon witnessing the event, I gathered my siblings in order to try and free Umbra from that unholy rock. We took to the north, and met with Umbra's family. She had married a Mage from one of the newer generations, and had a daughter with a unique set of eyes, and the darkest black hair known to man. Rather than inheriting the Mage's line, the girl inherited a mix of the powers of the two, and became the first to harness, what I called in the time, the soul arts. Your matter wave is born of the soul arts.

For five years, the eight of us searched the north for umbra, until finally we found her, hidden deep within the earth. She had dug herself a cave, and any life there became... corrupted. The black crystal gave off a sickening energy, which when left unattended, would transform the host into a vile creature. Umbra's husband fell victim to it... When we finally came across Umbra, The meteor had fully consumed her soul, or so we thought. We battled with Umbra until finally, she had us defeated. Battered and beaten, we only expected the end, when Umbra took control of herself one last time, and fled to the far east. From there, she spread her darkness across the world, spawning creatures of unimaginable monstrosity around the world, furiously pursuing what few humans were unaffected by the dark crystal's power to corrupt souls.

Most fled to Harmonia as continent after continent was lost. From there, My siblings and I used the power of the runes to stave off the dark crystal's power, and we were successful. Harmonia was free of the dark influence, and we managed to hold for ten years. But then, Umbra herself came to destroy us. The east coast was taken in a single day, and nearly half of the citizens of Harmonia were turned to beasts. The turning point finally happened when my siblings and I gathered atop Dragon Spine major, and Fought Umbra for the last time. The gods had finally fulfilled their promise, and all but Divinity, bestowed their full power to us. I was given the Power of Yamirix, the god of the Dark, Monarcha was given the power of Mizuli, the god of Water, Ephraim was given the power of Chiaz, the god of earth, Amethyst was given the power of Hikaritz, the god of Light, Valkyriana was given the power of Kazald, the god of Wind, and Optimism, the power of Hokonet, the god of Fire.

By combining our powers, we managed to seal Umbra within the stone slates of the magic game, but not without cost. As we were performing the ritual, Umbra managed to reflect it back on us before we could stop it, and as a result, all seven of us were sealed inside the stone slates. On that day, nearly five sixths of the population was wiped out, and half of that did not manage to survive the onslaught of Umbra's creatures the next day before they all died out. With the darkness away, and one thousand years before the second part of the contract was fulfilled, The survivors separated, repopulated, and the history of the world previous of the great nightfall gave way to time. The magic game was lost without the knowledge of the runes present any more, and all was forgotten.

It was not until a descendant of Umbra's daughter discovered us in your 900th year was the magic game restored. The man went by the name of Starswirl, and he was a master of magic and the soul arts in which Nethera, Umbra's daughter, had founded. Using a spell, He had managed to speak with us. We taught him all that we knew, and the man absorbed everything. Being outside of the original gene pool left him with a far longer life than that of our descendants, and so the man continued to live for nearly 500 years after. He brought our knowledge to your two Queens, and he recognized the marks of Divinity on each of them. The sisters were chosen to receive Divinity's power, but needed the magic game to activate it. He told the Queens how to unlock their power, and invoked the runes to draw the soul cards from them. Upon manifestation of the cards the Queens began the ritual which would invoke Divinity upon them.

From there, after your war was ended, your Queens created technology which would allow us to be converted into your standard cards, so that we might have a chance at limited freedom within the game. However, your queens tried to free all of us with this method. As such, Luna was corrupted in a similar way that Umbra was. My guess is that your queens may have inherited her blood as well somewhere along the lines, and it was just of unfortunate circumstance that Luna was the one who was corrupted. But even as cards, our powers were held intact, and we tried to remove Umbra from Luna, with Celestia's help. During the Duel, Umbra managed to escape through a hole she ripped in the dimension. rather than escaping to the higher plane, she made her way to an adjacent one. In there, a chosen of Divinity was able to free Luna from Umbra's influence after the people of that dimension pleaded with him.

Light Corona then took Luna for his own, and the two returned here, with Umbra sealed away, and locked her deep under the mountain. Unfortunately, Luna would never recover from the things the Umbra's soul did to her body, and the full alien strain of recessive genes were hers to keep. The cost for using our powers to try and free Luna was once again great. The Elements of Harmonia, my siblings and I, are only possible to be used by our direct descendants with at least 10% of our blood within them, due to the necessity of relation to the seven gods' magic. The Iscandor sisters are gifted with high concentration of all my siblings blood by some miracle, and had the ability to wield us. However, that connection was severed when we used our powers to try and stop Umbra from taking control of Luna. From both of the queens, Umbra severed us.” The video the stars had been producing collapsed, and Andromeda lowered his body with his staff, and returned to a sitting position.

“We lost most of our power that we had managed to gain over the thousands of years we've been trapped, and now there are few left who can wield us. Fortunately, our Mark reincarnations had been all born around seventeen years ago, and with the emergence of those that would share our marks, we have returned to the power which we once had, but it was not yet enough. We needed the six of you to be of caliber and strength to use us upon our arrival. You had finally risen to my desired level of ability a few days ago, and that is why you received me. The others have already been sent out to their respective owners, and if fate wishes to reunite us the way it would, we will all meet again within a duel. Tomorrow, you will go to the town where the others wait for us, and I am sure you already know this, but you and I share in the same destiny.”

Andromeda began to remove the armor he was wearing and set it to the side where the siblings heard it land with an impressive weight. He then undid the two cloth links which kept his shirt on, and removed the shirt. He stood and turned his back to the siblings and right there was the mark he and Twilight shared. A violet six pointed star atop a white six pointed star surrounded by five other white six pointed stars in between all the violet points but the top and bottom right. “It's... the same as mine!” Andromeda began to redressed himself.

“Twilight Sparkle, before you were born, on the very day you were conceived, your destiny was bound to mine, and together, we will go forward to a future for you which is far brighter than my own. You bear the mark of the Harmonian of Magic, and the powers of Yamirix, the god of Darkness.” And unknown to her, she had also been chosen by Divinity, but the time for that was not here. “Will you join me in my fight against the true evil, and help put an end to this black horizon?” He had finished dressing and stood in all his armor like an ancient hero. He held out his left hand just in front of her. “While I would have to go whether or not I accepted your offer, I will say yes.” The girl took his hand, and an unusual jolt of magic seemed to surge through her. When she finally stood, she let go. “What in the hell was that!?” she yelped.

“That is the true power of Yamirix. It was sleeping dormant in your body until this day. From today forward, the darkness will be your ally. Your vision will be as clear as day on the blackest night, and your senses will be heightened as the moon rises. Your attention to detail will become much sharper, as you will notice small changes much faster than you used to. Your magic ability will continue to stay normal until a situation arises when you need more power to survive. In that case, the limit on the power of Yamirix within you unlock itself and protect you.” Twilight was shocked. What in the world was happening to her? First the queens show up at the door one day to take her in, and now she was being told she inherited the power of a god? Even worse, the power of Yamirix took effect immediately. The rising moon outside was casting little light on the overcast night, but Twilight could see every detail of the central court yard. Even down to scratches on the stone fountain when she focused. She then turned to spike who was giving her an odd look.

“Hey, what's wrong?” The boy was uncertain whether or not he should answer. “Well... when you used to get mad all the time, your eyes would do this thing where your pupils would become all narrow like mine, but... now they're just kinda stuck like that. You also have this... feeling about you... I don't really know how to describe it, but if you did that thing where you summoned Andromeda again, I feel like it would be different.” Andromeda put both hands on his staff and started to lean on it.

“Master Spike is correct. Your true Aura has been released from it's chains. You possess the eyes of Yamirix, just like myself. However, If the boy is correct, then they only appeared on you when you were angry.” He started to sink along his staff to a sitting position, and pant like he'd been running for a long time. “Are you okay, Andromeda?” Spike was almost surprised to hear genuine concern from Twilight.

“You needn't worry about me. You had run out of magic for quite some time now, and I have been using my own to sustain myself in this form, however, I am quickly degrading.” Twilight Snapped her fingers in a dark violet glow, and the duel disk floated to her hand. She removed the MSD and handed it to Andromeda. “Here, put your thumb on the top of this. If nothing else, this should keep you around for a few hours. If I needed to talk to you again, is there a way other than summoning you like I did?” The sorcerer took the small rune covered device and did as he was told. Upon placing his thumb on the button at the top of the device, the array of color along it's sides began to vanish, until only a portion of the bottom row remained. With that, the sorcerer hopped up to his feet like he'd been recharged.

“My, Master Sparkle, I believe I have more energy now than I have had in eons. How much energy did that device contain?” Judging by the amount of runes left casting their colorful array, Twilight guessed that Andromeda has absorbed all but five to seven percent of the amount in the MSD in the first place. Twilight could barely store 20 Giga Arc Watts herself, as far as she knew, but Andromeda here just absorbed about 8000

“Oh, you know. Just 8300 plus GIGA ARC WATTS! You just ate nearly all of it! How did I even manage to summon a magic sucker like you?” The sorcerer raised an eye brow at the girl. “Master's Sparkle, are you ready to depart tomorrow?” Twilight looked to her empty back pack near the front of the small room. The room was really just a box that was about 9 foot cubed. There was a closet and a bathroom with a shower and a small tub toward the back of the room connected by a hall that separated the rest of the room from it, but outside of that, she had a desk, a chair, a bookshelf, a dresser, a bed and a window sill she used as an inn table. The room was pretty much empty as well, so it didn't look like much. She intended to pack, but they decided to summon Andromeda by accident instead, and nearly 4 hours had passed since he showed them the events of his past.

“To be fair, that was the plan until you showed up. We still need to go get stuff from the store, and I haven't even decided what I'm going to try and bring, since I have like, no summer clothes, and-” The sorcerer stopped her. “For now you will sleep. I have taken much of the time you needed to prepare, and as such, I will prepare for you. As long as you have clothing here, I have the ability to alter it as you need. Amethyst was rather skilled at the art of cloth making, and while I lacked the talent for it, hundreds of years of training made up for the fact.

With the energy you have provided, I will be able to sustain myself until tomorrow afternoon, which is more than enough time for you to sleep, and myself to gather your things. Is there somewhere that I may access data? There was this thing known as the 'intern-net' in which Celestia used to speak fondly of around me, and I have been intrigued ever since then as to what it was.” Twilight reluctantly showed the sorcerer how to access the web. His eyes lit up, and he began furiously reading through document after document about the history of the country leading up to current events.

“Are you even reading? You barely spend five seconds on each page.” Andromeda never removed his eyes from the screen but answered the boy. “When you have been reading as long as I have, large books become hour long readings. The reason I asked for this rather than going through Master Sparkle's book shelf is because I will likely read all of those in a matter of hours anyways. It may take me an hour to read the first three shelves, provided none of them contain pictures, and are completely text covering every inch of the page. If the pages are like these However, I may finish the entire nine shelves in two hours. Either way, It won't take long. But...”

The sorcerer put the disk on the desk and turned to the siblings standing and staring at him in front of her bed. He snapped his fingers in a dark violet glow, and the two collapsed in each of his arms. “Now you must rest. You both have a long day ahead of you.”