Author's Note

Its a blood soaked miracle!

Yes folks tis I, Morgan the Magnificent with another nail biting post.

Just in time too.

Heh again I cut it way to close for comfort. I had actually had this all done for the most part on Monday. But I had not been able to find a suitable close out. I think this worked out well.

I hope you all are doing fantastic on the Monday Evening at 11:30 pm Eastern Standard time.

I will try and have one in the morning next Friday instead of leaving it toward the end of the day like this.

As always, Thanks for reading!

Please post a comment a like, maybe send me some fish, kinda hungry.

Peace!

Dark Magic with Tragic

The rest of the month of March and a good portion of April had left him hiding inside the orphanage. This year was special, something about an every ten year cycle being longer than the last. So Orion and the other colts got to stay locked up.

The fillies, of which there were a fair number, were moved to another orphanage. Many had started their own cycles, or were getting too close for comfort. This was done every year, but this year there had been a lot of fillies in the orphanage. So when they left, only six colts remained. Orion was one of them and as the eldest he was left in charge to take care of them this year.

Chip, the guardstallion, was there. But he was relatively useless when it came to taking care of kids that he often just napped in the corner. He looked like he had put on more weight. The stallion was still perverted, but it seemed to have been tempered by something. Upon investigation, he had learned that Chip Block had actually gotten married to two mares.

How anyone could marry the overweight and pervy stallion was anyone’s guess. But he seemed happy, and apparently his wives were as well. They didn’t want foals yet this year and were waiting for the next three before starting a family. Something about him looking forward to an advancement. He didn’t know he stopped paying attention to him after a while.

Seeing as he was the only responsible colt, no wait he was now officially considered a stallion at sixteen, so he was the only responsible adult in the entire building he had taken on the responsibility of taking care of the colts. That meant all the fun stuff like cooking, cleaning, making sure the little shits washed themselves properly.

The cooking and cleaning was actually no big deal, for years he had been helping Mrs Evergarden with daily chores, so he fell into the role of dad very easily. Thus his routine was set for the next six weeks. It was oddly peaceful.

During that time he just existed, he had wanted for nothing but that. No studies. No experiments in the basement. Just to be. His time in Prance had changed his viewpoint on life and he knew it. He made less snarky remarks, something Mrs Evergarden herself had commented on, well more like worried herself on.

Carrying down a satchel more than stuffed with paperwork, and what looked to be applications for some type of job, Orion placed the overburdened bag on the floor next to the door.

“Hey Mrs E! Your things are at the front door!” He shouted. Somewhere inside the expansive manor turned orphanage he heard what could maybe be taken as an affirmative coming from the library. She really did have a soft voice that didn’t often carry very far. He smiled as he proceeded down the hall.

“Yo Mrs E, your ride will be here in twenty minutes you got all your things?” He spotted her in the library just staring at the wall full of pictures. Pictures that showed the many happy smiling adoptees over the years. She herself was in a good many of them. He leaned against the door, this wasn’t the first time he caught her like this. Anytime she had to leave for any length she was always in this room, staring at these pictures.

“Hmm, wha..oh yes yes I do thank you Orion.” She blushed, in the past he had teased her about this but she had maintained the ritual despite his good natured ribbing. “Just looking at memories like always.” They both chuckled.

“Okay well I got your things down at the foyer. As I am somehow considered an adult yet not an adult till I graduate I will watch out for the kids. Anything you want done around her besides the usual?”

“No. No my dear young stallion I do not need anything done while I am away, thank you.” She smiled, her eyes drifting back to the frames on the wall.

“Okay then. If there is nothing else Chip should be here in a couple of hours, I think I can handle everything till then.” His stomach gurgled, he should have not missed lunch. Seeking to rectify that he pushed off the door support.

“Orion….” She had turned fully back to the pictures, but her voice stopped him in his tracks, he glanced over at his not-mom.

“Uh, yeah?” She was unusually quiet, the melancholy tone of her voice catching his attention.

“Are...are you okay? In the chaos of everypony wanting interviews and to speak to you, I never got the chance to ask. Are you okay?” She had gently pulled a picture frame from the wall, though he could not see what was on it he could guess it might just be him. She hugged it to her chest as she looked at him. Her eyes threatening the water works.

“I’m okay. Tired, a little worn out from everything. Stressed as all hell which is understandable when you consider what happened a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. I’m okay. Just….I…” He was having trouble placating the mare in front of him. Hell he wasn’t buying what he was saying too.

“No...No Mrs Evergarden, I am not okay. I...I killed people.” The admission of both his state of mind and what he had done made her recoil slightly. She had broke down when she first heard what he had been forced to do to save others. She had insisted on seeing a therapist, but like always he stubbornly refused. He didn’t want them getting into his head. Nor did he want to accidentally let slip something that would draw suspicion to himself.

“I figured as much,” she spoke sadly, “you’re not your usual snarky self. In fact I don’t think I have heard you make an ill comment since you returned. I wish you would take our advice and consider seeing Mrs Heart.” It wasn’t just her pressuring him, the Princess and several teachers were also showing concern in him not seeking help.

“Heh, not gonna happen I will live with these scars thank you. I just...I couldn’t figure a better way of doing it, and by the time we got started I was….so fucking angry. I just lost my head and didn’t think about what I was doing till it was done. There. Therapy session over.” He chuckled but she did not.

Before he had realized it, she had buried her face into his abdomen, still with one arm around that picture and the other wrapped tightly around his waist. If she was silent the shuddering of her body would have more than indicated she was crying. She was not. He hugged her back gently, and awkwardly waited for her own grief to be sated.

“Why do you bottle yourself up? Why not just share your grief and pain? Celestia knows you hold more than most ponies. So why? Why not talk to somepony about what happened?” Her muffled speech wasn’t hard to decipher. In that moment, he decided he would be a little bit more honest with her. She deserved at least a little truth.

“Because there are thoughts and memories in my head I would rather not risk sharing.” She looked up at him, confusion clear. “I have thoughts that will get me in more than a little trouble, and a therapist will often pull your deepest thoughts into the light. Ideas that should remain hidden risk exposure.” He held up a hand as he stood back, separating them both with her still clutching at the photo she had taken years ago. “There is the Dr and patient confidentiality agreement. But there is also a law that allows our government to go through personal records, I’d rather they not read mine.”

Mrs Evergarden wiped tears from her eyes. “If that is what you want, I can’t make you. But please, promise me Orion, that if it ever becomes too much to bear, that you seek help. One pony can’t carry a burden like what you are doing without long term repercussions.”

“Yeah.” The look on her face told him be better give more of a confirmation than that. “Okay, okay, I promise if it ever gets too much I will tell someone Jesus.” He stood aside and gestured for her to head to the foyer. “Now please get on outta here. Your family awaits you and I need to finish securing the orphanage. After a quick bite from the kitchen, think I got some fish left…”

She placed his photo back on the wall, did another quick wipe of her eyes, and proceeded past him with a pat on his cheek. Yep, she was mom. Even if they both knew they weren’t gonna say it. He chuckled and headed to the kitchen.

“Have a great month, Not-Mom!”

He chuckled at the memory. One of these days he was gonna slip up and call her mom and he had no idea what might happen after that. Still, would be one mistake he wouldn’t mind making. Outside his grandparents, the best parental figure he had ever had.

He hummed as he threw out the trash. Now what else did he need to do? “Oh right, friggin’ chandeliers. How in the hell do those things collect so much dust?”

Once Mrs Evergarden returned, things got back to normal. Well almost.

She had returned with a new matron, Miss Icy Rose. She totally embodied that name. Young but not fresh out of school she stood tall at six-one, she nearly came up to his chin. With white fur, and two tone light blue mane, she had eyes of rose. Like many ponies in Canterlot, she was a unicorn. Honestly, to Orion, she was attractive. A little on the slender side, she still had a figure many might call a runway model.

And she was a complete and total Ice Queen to him. Right from the start she maintained an aloof manner with him. Neither he nor Mrs Evergarden could quite understand her attitude. She was friendly toward the other kids. Helped them with their homework, cooked them meals, and cleaned the orphanage with no small amount of skill.

The worst however, wasn’t her lack of a heart when it came to him. It was her alertness, even at night she seemed to spring from her room when Orion thought of heading to the basement on one of his late night experimentations. It had taken nearly a week before he had finally figured out how she knew when he came close to his door.

That was the night of the first major argument between the two of them.

He was idly working on his detection spell when he picked up a subtle vibration in his room. Upon a deeper and more focused scan he began to pick up sliver-like threads of magic that were not his own criss crossing his door and window. Tracing those back he found an active spell net heading to her room. Was she keeping an eye on all the kids?

Fine tuning the spell to detect this subtle use of magic he found that his room was the only one being monitored. The spell was active. As in the moment he moved toward the door or window she would be notified. He wanted to storm out and confront her. Instead he had a better idea. Running the calculations in his head he decided to use a similar vibration pattern that shattered the null ring back in the Iron Dog’s den.

Placing his own magic lines gently across her own he didn’t wait to build the vibrations up. The shriek of pain that echoed from Icy’s room woke the entire building up. He grinned, he had shattered the lines and given her a massive headache. At least he hoped for the last.

Soon enough the pounding of hooves could be heard rapidly approaching his room. He thought about pretending to sleep, but he decided leaning back and waiting for her to charge into his room was a better idea. In case she got handsy he could get out of the way quickly if absolutely necessary.

The door slammed open, knocking some of his books off the shelf he had behind it. That annoyed him. There Icy Rose stood, holding her head with the right hand, pointing with her left and glaring at him like he had skinned a baby seal in front of the foals.

“WHAT IN TARTARUS DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!” If her cries of pain weren’t enough, that surely would have woken the entire block from rem sleep. He decided it was time to get back to the tried and true.

“Well, I happened to be laying on my bed as you know, one ought to do before sleeping. Just running some calculations for spells and all that. You know, to keep up practice before school Monday.” He grinned. “What did you think you were doing?”

“Holy hell, did she just growl at me?”

She had indeed growled at him as she stalked into the room. “What spell were you practicing that would give me, of all ponies, a headache!?”

“Oh that would be the spell, I haven’t got a fancy name for it yet, that disrupts intrusive magic lines that shouldn’t be where they might have been. You know something? I may just have to practice that every night and morning. With increasing intensities to really see the limits of what it can do. What’d ya think Miss Rosey?”

He could hear the teeth grinding behind her closed lips. He hadn’t had this kinda fun in awhile. He grinned at her again. Bigger this time.

That was when Mrs Evergarden entered.

“What under Celestia’s Sun is going on in here?” She demanded, but nowhere near the anger level of the Ice Queen had projected moments earlier.

Before said queen of ice could respond he beat her to the punch. “Oh nothing Mrs E. Just getting rid of pesky magic lines that seemed to be all over my room and no one else’s. It was funny. Every time I tried to go to the bathroom, or get a drink of water. Miss Rose here was out the door and watching me. Do you know why she would know when I would leave my room?”

The headmistress of White’s Orphanarium frowned, thought, then the frown deepened as she directed a glare at Icy Rose. “I’m sorry, but why do you know when he gets up for any reason in the night?”

It was at that moment the offended mare’s attitude dwindled to embarrassment, and she looked to the floor. Contented, Orion chose to actually wait this one out rather than egg her on. He wanted to see what kind of excuse she would come up with.

“I am waiting, Miss Rose. Why did you know what Orion was doing in his own room?” The tone had gone from question to suspicion.

“I….I heard that he was a violent trouble maker. That he cared little for his fellow pony. So, in an effort to make sure the foals remained safe, I had a spell I would cast at night to help me keep an eye on him.” That last bit nearly tailed off into a whisper so quiet he couldn’t even hear, and he was only a foot or so away from her.

While she had been putting out the lame lie that he knew it was, he had begun to spread his detection magic out from himself, he was actually getting tired so he had more trouble than he liked. What he found angered him. Like the lines of magic that were in his room, the entire building was covered in them. The decay in the spell seemed to point to them having been cast in the morning.

The worst was the basement itself. It was absolutely covered in them. Every window and doorway. She even managed to flood the dumbwaiter with them as well. These were not connected to her so he sent vibrations along every spell he could reach.

He could not figure out how she had placed these up without him sensing anything before now. Pops in the air sounded out as each line was broken, Icy Rose flinched as each one was dispelled. Mrs Evergarden’s ears twitched at each one.

“What is that?”

“That would be some near hundred more lines all over the orphanage that I am currently breaking. It seems Miss Rose has been a busy little spider.” That earned him a look so filled with hatred it actually made him nervous.

“Holy shit she doesn’t like being called out does she?”

“They were everywhere?” Mrs Evergarden’s eyes were wide with shock. “Why? I get that you were worried,but that many? And for what reason?”

Sheepishly she looked back to her and shrugged. “There was no telling what he might do. I could not accurately predict what trouble he may have caused so I thought to blanket the entire building just in case.”

His senses had finally reached the room he used privately, it was everything he could do to keep his eyes from bulging out of his own head.

Unlike the rest of the manor turned twenty-four hour child care center, the room in which he experimented in had a whole new style of magic inside. It was a recording spell. One tied to a similar crystal like the ones he had in his own room.

Now that he thought about it he should have been looking at the crystals he had placed in various rooms. That would have told him exactly what she had been up to. He would have to look at them later.

Back to his private study, he seized upon the spell's point of focus and crushed it ruthlessly. There was no pop, not even a boom. But he felt the feedback of magic nearly caused him to nearly lose control of his own.

He stared at Icy Rose with incredulity. She had rigged that crystal to blow up. Had he reached for it by hand he would have had to be rushed to the doctor.

Mrs Evergarden didn’t seem to notice his look. Both mares were talking, but not quietly. He refocused on the conversation.

“-you musn't violate the foals' privacy like that, Icy. It set a terrible precedent if they were to find out. It’s bad enough that you were targeting Orion. But at least he can be a little understanding. Do not do this again. Okay?”

The scolded mare hung her head briefly and muttered out an affirmative, all while glaring daggers at him. “Oh, so that's how you want to play it? Okay then. Game on.”

Everyday since that night Orion did a major scan of the building, once in the morning, and again at night before bed. He busted the bitch once more. After that, she seemed to have given up on this weird vendetta she seemed to have with him.

Again, the room in the basement had been heavily laced with magic lines meant for recording. This time the crystal had been in her room. He wasn’t crafty, or skilled enough to disrupt it subtly. So he crushed that one too. Forcing the magic to feed back on itself it shattered and he was satisfied to hear a shriek coming from her.

The good news was she seemed focused on his room and his basement study. Where he had only notes on alchemical reagents for the potion class he was taking. The library had largely been left untouched. But Orion was no fool, and as much as he hated it, he had moved his things from under the floorboard there.

It took him a while to find a suitable home for his things, away from prying eyes and still inside his zone of stay. If he teleported at all, Celestia would know it. He had already run that risk the last week and she popped up at school an hour later, and had him pulled from class to answer questions. He sheepishly told her had woken up late. Since then he had not bothered to attempt to teleport. He didn’t need her dragging his ass out of the shower.

It was rather obvious. No ponies ever went down into the sewers unless they absolutely had to. With a shield spell that was more for air filtration than protection, he had managed to find a location two blocks away using the servicing grate back behind his home. Thankfully, these ponies really cared about their own sewer systems. Instead of finding the mounds of fecal matter and rivers of piss that he had expected, the pathways were rather clear if a bit slippery.

He found what looked to be an abandoned service room, if the massive amount of cobwebs and dust were any indication as well as no equipment whatsoever, and began moving his things down into the sewers. He moved stones around and reinforced them to be able to move on command and hide his tools he had made. Then, he found some discount bare furniture, broke them down and reassembled them inside the room. The last thing he had done was make a magic illusion tied to a crystal, to make the entrance look like a brick wall. It wouldn’t hold up to much else than a casual glance, but he was hopeful.

That entire process took nearly a week, and his studies showed the effects of his lack of sleep. It didn’t matter. Grades could be caught up. Detention could be done for sleeping in class. Hiding his shit was priceless.

‘Sometimes you wish to be somepony else for a change. Or because you have to evade pursuit. Oftentimes one makes the mistake of thinking a light reflection spell will work, in order to hide from your pursuers. Well I am here to tell you dear reader, that doesn’t work.’

Orion shook his head. Often when he read through anything Bearded Star wrote, he found himself thinking of the stallion as an often stuck up pony that only let his mane down when writing his manuals.

During the fiasco that was the Prance trip, he had found this particular book in a run down little book store. The cashier, a tired eyed old mare, didn’t even know how much the book was or it’s value. He snagged it for three copper bits.

Said book was so old, that the name was illegible. The name wasn’t even found in the pages either. Complete unknown when or even what the book was. Inside were only a few pages and they covered something very interesting.

Espionage. How to sabotage magic lines without detection, which he had attempted to do and was terrible at it, and had given Icy Rose an even greater headache and him one as well from the screaming match they got into.

Other instructions included how to use a magic he was not yet comfortable exploring. Dark magic in his book was a danger. Anything done with it had the chance of backfiring, which many spells had that chance, but nothing to the degree of dark magic spells could do. So he steered clear of much of what was in the book. Instead, he found the last chapter interesting. Mostly because it had to do with crafting an enchantment.

‘This little device is designed to make you see, look, sound and feel like the pony you are impersonating. The upside, no pony but close friends and family will notice a difference. Should you study who you're impersonating, maybe not even then. The downside is the spell only lasts a duration of twenty or thirty minutes, so whatever you plan to do with it, do it quickly.’

At first the whole thing seemed rather simple. Then it was not. Then it kept him up the entire weekend. Still nothing. Nearing the end of school, in which he endured Twilight’s weekends to the six libraries, all of which claimed to be the library of Canterlot. Dinners with her family. And Celestia’s fuckin’ tea dates. Still nothing.

He could not figure this spell out. He knew why. The book was based in espionage, which derived its skill and structure from dark magic itself. The events made him hesitant to dabble in a magic skill he had little to no knowledge of. Icy Rose wasn’t the only one to get a headache from the failed experiment. What would happen if he tried unknown magic now?

He decided to put it away, there was always next year. Placing the book, the necklace, and the locks of mane he had ‘borrowed’, he sighed in defeat. He had no idea what he was going to do with figuring it all out, and didn’t want to risk alerting anyone if he failed.

School was out, and he was trapped in Canterlot. Celestia had rejected his request to visit Ponyville for the summer. That had actually bummed him out, as well as Rarity and Applejack. He sent letters to both apologizing about not being able to come down.

So he was stuck, even hanging with Twilight was a chore.

More often than not the filly was stuck in her own summer studies. With her teacher actually being his jailer, he made himself scarce rather than sit in with her lessons. As the first month wore on, he had begun getting bored with the extra training he decided to take on. The gym wasn’t the problem itself, but the lessons in combat had begun to get routine. He had actually fallen asleep watching two mares duke it out on the mat before the instructor came and hit him upside the head telling him to go home.

Being at home was both boring, and hot. Mostly because the crystal that supplied energy to push cool air into the orphanage had shattered a week ago, and it was uncomfortably hot inside his own room.

Speaking of cool air, Icy was acting strangely for the past month. She would leave in the evening and be back before bed time. It happened every three or four days. No rhyme nor reason to it.

He had idly thought about sneaking into her room and doing some snooping, but he suspected that she had some way of knowing if her privacy was invaded, and he was not about to upset the tentative peace. Thus, her activities remained a mystery. Because he certainly wasn’t about to follow her around the city.

Thus, at the end of the fourth week, found Orion in front of ‘Canterlot Torre della Magia e della Ricerca’. A mouth full that basically stated the Tower was for magic research. He idly wondered if they had been petitioned to change the name to something pronounceable. Not likely, tradition and all that crap.

The tower itself was massive at its base, stretching some thirty-five meters in width, it was actually a squat thing, only coming to the height of sixty meters. With those dimensions it would seem like it would be one of the tallest, if not the tallest in Canterlot. However, it ended up looking like a squat rook chess piece, and fell several meters shy of the palace itself.

Dressed in grey stone, there wasn’t much decoration on the outside. Just two large banners with the Equestria nation crest in purple and gold. The deep almost black wooden doors were banded in thick iron straps, it was an imposing if ugly sight. It had been built in the shadow of the mountain itself, nearly flush against it. In fact there were several canted brick bridges of the same drab grey stone heading into tunnels inside the mountain itself.

“Huh, wonder where those go?” He shook his head, dispelling the thoughts. He was here for answers for questions already existing, not to have more likely unanswered questions. Squaring his shoulders he pounded on a subdoor built into the massive door gate on the left.

The door creaked open, and Chip was staring at him from the other side.

“Orion, what in tartarus are you here for? Making a delivery or sumthin’?” He gave a toothy grin, a pervert, but a good dude all around.

“I’m actually here to ask some questions, bud. I was hoping to speak with one of the researchers here if they have the time. You think it’s cool if I come in and ask around?”

“Oh sure sure. Come on in, not like they get much visitors anyway. I hear it, the Princess herself doesn’t come but once a year. Or whenever one of the geezers makes a discovery of some magical sumthin’ or other.” He stepped aside to let the young stallion pass, slamming the small gate closed.

“Well, it seems they live an exciting life don’t they?” His curiosity got the better of him. “Okay I wasn’t going to ask, but where do those bridges in the back of the tower go to?”

“Oh them? They go to the old royal hangers. Where the majority of the ancient airships be parked.” That got a look from his escortee. “What you think them twenty under the palace was all of ‘em? Nah, most of ‘em are locked up in the mountain itself. But you didn’t hear nuffin’ from me. There is some official count, but it's classified. Or sumthin’. I know there is more than fifty of ‘em.”

“More than fifty airships inside the mountain, and twenty under the palace. Just how big is the freakin’ fleet?”

“That is a lot of ships my dude. Change of subject. How are the wifes?” He didn’t want to contemplate just how large the airpower that Equestria once held was.

Chip spat, a surprisingly disgusted look on his face. “They’re fine. Both pregnant. But fine. Damn the two of ‘em.” Orion shook his head in bewilderment.

“Dude I thought you were waiting for a few years?”

“So was I, no one told ‘em I guess. I get back from your orphanage, and those two whorses ‘strus hadn’t finished. Next thing I know, it’s morning and I done bucked them both the entire night. They ain’t even upset or nuffin’. Just shrugged their shoulders and told me to pick up extra hours. Like work is easy to find or sumthin’.”

“Ah, take it this isn’t your normal work then?”

“That’s right. I normally stay away from this place, strange goings on all hours and such. But the pay was too good to pass up, you tell that lady that runs your house that she haft ta get her ‘nother guard next year. Between this and the warehouse near train district, I got not time for anything else.”

“Hah, okay yeah I can imagine you're gonna be busy. More pay is gonna be needed for that growing family. I’ll let her know.” Chip just spit again and waved him inside. Grumbling how life was so unfair.

Orion chuckled and pushed the well oiled doors open. The short walk between the main gate and the end of the foyer was not that long, and inside that was a surprisingly clean lobby. On both sides was a stairwell that traveled up with the curve of the tower. Not much else besides a desk that had a very bored looking stallion in dirty overcoat sitting behind it. Carpets in the same gold and purple, with the same crest of Equestria. They looked like they had been there for centuries. Likely had.

On the walls were several paintings depicting what looked like great moments in history of discoveries that had occurred in the tower over the years. Nothing recent. While clean, the entire lobby reeked of age. And mildew.

Approaching the desk he knocked on the top, because the stallion, an old silver furred gray maned fellow, had fallen asleep.

“Gah!” The stallion glanced around for a moment before settling on Orion. “You could give an old stallion a heart attack doing something like that! What do you want?! Got a delivery? Take it to the dumbwaiter and send it to the appropriate floor and get out.” He glared, blurry and red eyed.

“Actually I am hoping to ask a few questions. I’m a stud-”

“I don’t care. You want to ask questions go and use the directory. Departments are listed. Now leave me alone!” His voice was the sound of tombs in a dry season of the Sahara.

“Okay grandpa, go and suck down some prune juice and apple sauce you old fart.” He ignored the tirade that followed him down the hall, shaking his head at the idea of using a fossil like him to be the attendant of the lobby. He wondered who was older, him or the rugs.

Looking at the directory he found what he was looking for, and groaned. It was on the fourteenth floor. He sighed and trudged up the left staircase. His legs were going to kill him.

By floor eleven he was begging for the sweet release of death. He could have just teleported to the needed floor, but he didn’t want to bring Sauron down upon himself. So trudging the stairs was what he was left with.

The entire journey he saw not a soul. He heard however, plenty. Explosions, yelling, and someone was crying somewhere on the eighth floor. Those cries sounded manic, and spurred him to climb faster.

In his daze he almost went up to the final floor. Realizing his mistake, he sat down and rested. He needed to come back here just to run the stairs. His legs burned and ached, and the small amount of healing he could do eased it only a little. He resolved to keep using the only spell he knew until he felt marginally better.

It was ten minutes before he got back up, walked down two steps and approached the lone door on this floor.

‘Professor White Stripe Tesla Coil.’

Apparently a change in head researchers had occurred, and no one had thought to properly update the plaque, just marked one name out for another. The name had him nervous. He could picture a mad scientist with a giant machine and a corpse, trying to raise it to life, then watch as it terrorized a small Austrian town.

He shuddered and knocked. No answer, only a strange low hum that seemed to vibrate his teeth was the only response.

Despite his own inner small voice telling him it was an absolutely terrible idea and he should leave, he eased the lock door and stepped into a room that belonged in a sci-fi movie.

It was as he feared, he had found Victor Frankenstien’s lab. Dials and bulbs were lit up on, well he wouldn’t call it a computer by any stretch but it looked like a rudimentary circuit board.

In the center of the room was a shallow pit, and inside that pit was a gyro sphere. Only no wires, bolts or metal of any kind held them together. Instead they spun, individually from one another, without support. Inside the rings was a sight that made his blood run cold.

In the very center of the rings is a tiny black circle, the air around it looked like some beveled warping, as if someone was using a fun house mirror or glass and he was seeing it in a circle pattern. His mind screamed for him to run.

“HOW IN THE FUCK IS THERE A BLACKHOLE HERE!?” He was hyperventilating. He near pissed himself in fear

After ten minutes of that, he noticed his end wasn’t nigh, that the world wasn’t being compressed and sucked down a noodle of death. Taking another fearful look is when he saw them. Containment spells. Thousands of them. Powered by massive crystal battery banks. And on the other side, stood a mare in a disheveled lab coat taking notes.

She was tall, as tall as he was and lanky to boot. Her mane was a disheveled copper color, the fur looked like it was iron in color. She wore goggles and had a grim look on her face. It was clear she had yet to see him.

He edged around the room, staying as far away as possible from the containment fields and that world ender they contained. He was about ten feet away when the mare, he could only hope was Professor Tesla Coil, let out an explosive sigh and with a brief glow of her horn, everything began to power down. Thankfully, the rings that created death, first.

“I don’t understand, why won’t it sustain itself?” Her high meliodas voice was a stark contrast to the image she displayed. She sounded like a noble of all things.

As the rest of the machines powered down he coughed politely. “Um good afternoon?”

She shrieked and jumped away, she had picked up a tube and brandished it menacingly overhead.
“Who the buck are you?! A thief? Good luck everything in here is too big or unstable for you to steal!” She did not sound confident.

“Um, no. I am a student at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. I just finished my first year of my advanced classes and I was hoping to get some questions answered. The teachers there are less forthcoming about such advanced inquiries. I was hoping you, or a junior researcher could help me. Please, I’d rather not get beaten to death with a test tube.”

She stared for a long moment, before lowering her improvised weapon, smiling sheepishly.

“I’m sorry, as you can likely tell, I do not get many visitors. Sorry for threatening to beat you with a beaker, to be honest, it wouldn’t have survived after the first hit.” She set it down on the table of which she swept it up from.

He chuckled and quipped, “So instead of a blunt beating I would have been sliced to death, awesome.” He grinned, she grinned, they both ended up chuckling over the gallows humor.

“Haaaaa, okay. What can I help you with…? What is your name?” She stuck out a hand, and Orion walked to embrace it, standing on the raised platform with her.

“Name is Orion Falls. And if I am wildly off target, you’re Professor Coil?”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes I am.” Stopping she looked at him. “Oh my you are a tall one. It is rare that I get to talk to a stallion face to face like this.”

“You think I’m tall? There's a guy down in Ponyville, he has me by eight or so inches, dude is built like a brick house.” He gestured with his free hand of how tall Big Mac really was.

“Really now? I have heard there are some earth ponies that set the record. Anyway, how may I help you Mr Falls?” He groaned and she cocked her head. “What?”

“Please don’t call me Mr Falls, I got enough of that outside this place, Orion is fine.” She nodded and smiled again. “Okay I’ll get to the point. Why is dark magic so hard to influence and control? I have read that it is damn near impossible to use. Why?”

“Well you certainly picked the right place to ask that sort of question.” She sat down on her table, and crossed her arms.

“I would hope so, I was looking for the Dark Magic Department after all. Unless someone switched your plaque?” He grinned and leaned against one of the cabinets. Gently, wary of turning something on he shouldn’t.

“Oh ha ha.” She snarked. “Alright, I don’t know why they don’t inform you of this in class, but dark magic shares a close connection with chaos magic itself. It’s less about numbers, and more about the will one puts into the spell. Equations, mean very little, so it's the intent and words that are needed. It is theorized, not by me mind you, that dark magic is one of the first magics after chaos. I think it was-”

“Hold up, first magics? Like they came about in stages?”

She glared at him. “Do not interrupt me. But yes, they did. They were derived from the original source of magic, chaos. No pony knows why chaos was paramount and first among magic, but through trial and error our race, and a few others that could harness magic, carved out order from the chaos. Now as I was saying, Star Swirl the Bearded was once quoted, ‘Magic is an ever changing creature. It is still very much in flux, and sometimes incantations and equations are less than the sum or our own worth’. We don’t know what he meant by that last bit, but when it comes to dark magic, the message is clear. More will, less invoking.” She nodded.

“That, kinda makes sense? Are you telling me that Dark Magic requires strong will?” He asked puzzled.

“Yes, what you saw here was my will being forced. Oh sure there were numbers being run, but less for the spell itself and more for me. So I know the magical values to input.” She saw the confusion in his eyes and sighed. “This is why it's important to teach them while they are young. Magic has its own will Orion. Normally we unicorns use order to structure the flows how we wish. That works for nearly every branch. But for Light and Dark Magic, it is more intent than a numbers game.”

He had to stop and think, was it really that simple? Was he trying too hard to force the course of magic through numbers? Thinking back on his own lessons, he noted that each variation of magic had its own taste or feel. One could tell the difference with just the feeling or weird taste it left on the tongue when you first began to learn their uses. Fire for instance felt warm, and before he had gotten used to it, a little spicy. It was a strange thing to be able to taste magic like that.

On the other hand, Dark magic vibrated in his head, neither warm nor cold, it left an oily feel on the tongue. It was almost alien to everything else he knew, it was one of the reasons why he stayed away from it. “Are you saying that Dark Magic has its own purpose?”

She shrugged, “Kinda yeah. That's about the best description I have heard yet. It moves on its own. We may have given it a branch separate from chaos, but that doesn’t mean we have tamed it. Many have tried and failed. It takes a focused mind to really control it.” Her horn lit up blue and a shudder passed through him. “Yeah, you might be able to do it, but you won’t be able to do much more than party tricks. Still that is more than most. Out of sixty students from my own class, I was the only one that was capable of bending it to my will. So don’t be too disheartened.”

He stayed there, running through examples she had, and even watching her perform those examples more than a few times. While the words had not been enough he had watched and felt what she did with it. He was impressed. She was far and away superior in magic in general then him. He knew combat magic, she knew how to influence her environment to get what she wanted with almost minimal effort. He lacked her finesse. And it was a humbling experience to say the least.

Afternoon gave way to evening. By the time he walked out of the tower, he had learned more about the basic structure of magic and its effects than he had in the last school year. He walked home in a daze. His head swam with formulas to problems he hadn’t considered.

By the time he had gotten home, he had another headache brewing.

“Orion, have you seen Miss Rose today?”

He was in the library, a habit he had developed when doing casual studying with the new set of eyes that had been around for the past near two months. The new school year was approaching, and he had wanted an advantage over the course curriculum that he had signed up for. Again he was going with Fields and Effects classes. His talk with Tesla Coil had gotten him to think about influencing the local area about him. It might do well in a survival sense. Being able to detect was one thing, but being able to influence the environment to suit his needs might one day save his ass.

The other classes were the standard affair, but he decided to drop Combat Studies 101. Considering that he wasn’t taught much to begin with, and went to the gym after school, it was better than he spent more time looking into other pursuits. So he picked up Defense Against the Dark Arts. He snickered everytime he thought about it. Shame he had no Snape to educate him. Would have been hilarious.

“Naw, I haven’t really seen her today. Or last night now that I think of it...She have an emergency or something?” He didn’t actually care, but looking concerned always scored brownie points.

“Not that she has told me. I haven’t seen her all morning, nor have the other foals. It is very strange.” Mrs Evergarden frowned and lowered her head in thought.

“Heh, maybe she quit?” Wrong question.

“I would hope not Orion. It means I will have to go back to relying on you to keep the colts in line again.” She pondered a bit more before a sudden knock was heard echoing down the hall. “Now who could...I hope it's not what I fear.”

Both walked to the front entrance and he did the gentlemanly thing and opened it for her. Two mares in sharp dressed business suits stood on the other side, one with her fist still raised to knock.

Thinking about it now, he could not understand why they had both mid millennia clothing as well as early nineties garb. It was so bizarre to see both styles and era of clothing side by side. He himself was wearing a blue tunic with a black cotton undershirt. With the gray pants, of which the legs were secured to his cannons with cloth string, he looked the part of some viking in the early years.

He shook his head, he had not heard a damn thing either had said but they were clearly addressing him. Which was odd.

“I’m sorry I zoned out on a fashion question, what did you two say?” He just grinned as the both looked at each other in confusion.

“Ahem, you are Orion Falls, yes?” She had a vaguely Russian accent going on. He was idly wondering if he was gonna be able to get a few mother Russia jokes off before they really got annoyed.

“I am. What can I do for the motherland?” He grinned, already one was frowning.

“We would appreciate it if you would take this situation with the respect it deserves. As you have confirmed that you are in fact Orion Falls, I hereby serve you these papers.”

“Um, come again?” The papers she was holding he was now holding. It was thick with legalese. “I am not sure I understand what is going on. Why am I being served with what looks like…” He stopped. These were papers for espionage, and treason. “Treason and espionage. How...why...what in the fuck?”

“Not my concern Mr Falls. Since it is known you are locked down in the city without the ability to flee, you are hereby remanded to these premises. Any attempt to leave the grounds without escort or permission during this time will see you in a dungeon cell. A lawyer will be provided for you tomorrow when you are brought before court to stand trial.”

A total of ten guards, not in the Royal Guards uniform of Canterlot, took up positions with two at the door, the rest taking up various posts around the building.

“Wait, what trial? The fuck did I even do?” One guard, a stallion wearing a strange uniform with a sun on it restrained him unnecessarily.

The two mares took a step back, and smiled. Actually fucking smilled. “All your questions will be answered in the packet. I would advise you to dress in something other than, villager wear, tomorrow. Have a good day Mr Falls.” With that they both turned and walked to a waiting carriage he had not seen before.

That carriage looked familiar. There was a sun emblem on as well, above it were words he now could place. ‘Dux noster Sol, Non dat ei vitam Fidelium.’

“The Sun is our guide, she gives life to the faithful.” It was the Church of Sol. And in the back seat as the door was opened, sat a smiling Backwater.

“This is insane, they can’t charge you for espionage and treason!”

Twilight was pacing back and forth. She had come in like a storm the moment news got around. Considering this was done to him early in the morning, it meant she was there in only two hours.

Orion was numb. How had they known? How had they found out?

In the packet was laid out a secret that he had thought he and Bloodbeak had kept well hidden. His involvement in the restoration of hope for a dying nation.

There were pictures of him showing how to run the forge, till soil for optimal conditions, even a crystal recording of his interactions with the Iron Dogs, directing how they should account for their own pollution.

The claim was Orion had stolen state secrets and given to a non-aligned country for monetary gain. Under that accusation, was listed two articles.

‘Article Four Section Three; The use of spies to acquire and sell knowledge of a military nature.’

‘Article Nine Section One; Giving aid to a non-allied nation.’

This basically fucked him in the ass with no lube. With a barbed wire bat. He was screwed.

“Yeah they can.” He spoke quietly.

“What do you mean!?” The worried filly practically tore his ears apart, he didn’t even flinch.

“While I didn’t steal any knowledge. I did teach the griffons how to farm properly, how to store grain, and how to mine with the Iron Dog’s assistance.”

Mrs Evergarden kept shaking her head no. Tears streaming down her face.

He was fucked.

“But how did you know how to do all that stuff...why did you? I thought you were on vacation!” Man she was annoying.

“I never actually went on vacation. I...went there to help people, Twilight. They were dying. Every night as I stayed in the castle I could hear some mother cry. Kids were dying daily just in the capital alone.” He had been staring ahead for some time. How could he have screwed up so badly? How had he not noticed?

“Oh Celestia….”

There was the nail in the coffin. At the bottom of his court summons was a small addendum. “As Princess Celestia, Ruler of Equestria and the Sun, Light of the Heavens, has an emotional connection with the accused, She will have no jurisdiction in these matters.”

He was fucked.