MLP: Technology is Magic

A few days after Celestia’s announcement, Luna had announced that she would assume her old role as the Supreme Commander of Equestria’s military and Celestia had publicly given her consent that this was the case. With the threat that the humans posed to Equestria, the political environment had begun to change as fear toward technology had given way to fear toward the humans.

This fear was not ideal in Sophia’s eyes, but it did motivate them to action. She would need to prove later that not all humans were monsters like the ones they captured.

Change was not always easy, and sometimes it required some tough love to make it happen. This was the case when Luna ordered a mock battle between the Royal Guards and Starlight. The lunar princess had known about the unicorn’s training with Nova and Tosh and was impressed with her combat prowess. She once challenged Starlight to a spar in the dreamscape and was surprised when she nearly lost that bout. This was only after a few months of training so Luna had no doubt that she would need to regain her former prowess to defeat her now. She decided to ask Sophia about that when she had the time.

Once the battle began, the guards soon found themselves hopelessly outmatched by one mare who was easily evading their predictable attack patterns where the pegasi tried diving at her from above only for her to teleport above one and buck them into a unicorn guard who looked at the battle above like a deer in headlights.

Starlight’s self-levitation allowed her to stay in the air to play with the winged ponies and took a few out of the air when she froze them in conjured crystal that was solid enough to not shatter when they landed on the floor. Two unfortunate earth ponies were directly below blocks and were flattened. The impact knocked them out. Three unicorn guards tried firing mana beams at Starlight only for her to use another pegasus guard as a meat shield which knocked the guard out of the air which Starlight was nice enough to slow their fall since she could afford to as the guards were not giving her a real challenge.

It was laughable how pathetic the guards were. Starlight read through their training manual and found that the guards didn’t practice coordinating with each other so they recklessly attacked her and hoped that they didn’t hit their comrades. Starlight was slowly getting bored watching them fail at that.

Eventually it was Starlight and one earth pony guardsmare left who gave a bewildered look at the mare. “How are you that strong? It was fifteen against one and we completed the training course at the top of our class.”

Starlight nodded, “This proves my point that the guard manual needs to be redone and all guards need to be retrained. I’ve presented Princess Luna with a detailed report about the flaws in the manual and the changes that your training program desperately needs.”

“And I suppose you’re going to train us?” the mare retorted.

“I’d rather teach ponies who would instruct the next generation of guards. I’m a student of magic, not a soldier.”

“In that case, why don’t you show me?” asked a male voice behind Starlight. She turned around and saw Shining Armor who was dressed in his custom violet and gold armor.

“Sure, you seem like a cut above the others,” Starlight commented before she and Shining proceeded to the center of the training area while the rest of the guards surrounded them.

Shining started with a blast of magic which Starlight easily dodged before she ran around him in an attempt to get behind him. Shining wasn’t having that and aimed a beam ahead of Starlight’s path and struck her. However, the mare vanished in a puff of smoke, revealing that he hit an illusion. Just as he was looking around to find the real Starlight he ended up falling on his plot as his hind legs were bucked from under him. His shock lasted long enough for his mane to be pulled by Starlight’s magic and flipped him on his back and left his belly exposed.

Before Starlight could press her attack, Shining protected his belly with a shield and blocked her attack. Shining got back on his hooves and started using his shields to try and predict Starlight’s next attack angle.

His shield managed to block one of Starlight’s spells which caused his shield to be crystallized. At first Shining thought he could use this against Starlight but he was quickly proven wrong when a second beam caused the crystal shield to shatter explosively, sending him flying back to the ring of spectators.

“Against skilled opponents it’s often wise to consider creative solutions to throw your opponent off guard,” Starlight said. “Our enemies aren’t going to use tactics that we know about so we have to be prepared for anything. Their weapons tore through Princess Luna’s shield and they have far more powerful weapons in their arsenal.”

Shining got back up and scraped his hoof along the floor in challenge. “This spar isn’t over, Starlight.”

“Yes it is,” Starlight confidently stated. Her horn then glowed briefly. Shining then noticed a glowing magic circle under him. The next thing he knew he was encased in a mana crystal. Try as he might, Shining was unable to muster any strength while his body was completely frozen. Once Starlight undid the spell, that was the end of the match.

Starlight walked up to Shining with a smirk on her face. “Congratulations, you just volunteered to be my unicorn combat student. Now I just need an earth pony and a pegasus.”

Things took an interesting turn a few days later when strange phenomena began happening in Equestria such as cotton candy clouds raining chocolate milk, animals with legs many times their body length, trees with overgrown fruit weighing the trees down and other weird happenings.

Sophia found that the area around her was unaffected by the strange phenomena but did feel the chilling presence of the black fluid in the vial she carried. The reaction was stronger than before which meant that the happenings were magical in nature and the fluid was negating the effects around her. It also meant that she had to keep Tosh and Nova near her to protect them.

Sophia decided to head to Canterlot to find out what was happening while the element bearers followed suit.

They arrived at Celestia’s throne room a few hours later so the princesses could explain what was happening. “It seems that a foe that my sister and I once defeated has returned,” Celestia informed. “His name is Discord.”

“Wait, you mean the same Discord who cast Equestria into a technological dark age?” Starlight asked.

“I will admit that one was an accident. It’s not my fault you ponies scare so easily.” came a voice from thin air. It was deep and masculine.

Alarak? Sophia thought. It can’t be! That Protoss died centuries ago.

“I know that voice!” Luna declared. “Discord, show yourself!”

As if by popular demand, the creature revealed himself. In Sophia’s eyes he reminded her of one of Thanatas’ flesh golems, given the mishmash of animal parts. Although his voice sounded like the pragmatic Protoss she met a long time ago, it certainly wasn’t him.

“Oh sweet Luna, finally decided to kick the addiction to void energy? You really shouldn’t touch the stuff. I know I wouldn’t.”

“Discord, we won’t allow you to rule Equestria again!” Celestia shouted.

“Now why would I do that, Tia? You should know that I hate to repeat performances. You two can have your stuffy jobs, I just want to cast this land into glorious chaos.”

“And which brand of chaos is that, Discord?” Sophia asked. “I’ve seen chaos before and it led to many bloody scenes.”

“Oh, if it isn’t Bloody Bunny, blue version. I will say you gave it your best shot to repair the damage I didn’t intend to cause, but your time is over and I suggest you leave this world to its denizens.”

“I suppose you are going to try to make me?”

“How about I send you to another dimension and see if your ship can find you there?” Discord offered. A snapping sound was heard. However, nothing happened. “What?” Three more snaps were heard which led to nothing. Discord then moved within inches of Sophia’s face while repeatedly snapping his lion paw. Aside from the lion paw, Sophia also saw an eagle talon for the other arm as well as a lizard and goat leg with a serpentine body, a pony’s head and two mismatched horns.

“Why is my magic not working on you?” Discord demanded.

“Because your chaos magic is being negated by my vial of black stuff,” Sophia sweetly replied. “This stuff is a kind of force that feeds on madness and since your magic is fueled by your madness…”

Discord attempted to grab the vial away from Sophia but she evaded him easily. The draconequus relied solely on his magic for everything so his physical prowess left much to be desired and he soon found that there was no way he was going to take the vial from her. While Sophia had the vial his chaos magic wouldn’t touch anything in the room.

“Bah! Fine! I will just have my fun elsewhere,” Discord moped.

“Tell me, have you met the other guests on this world?” Sophia asked.

Discord’s frown deepened. “Of course I have!” he snapped. “I was having my fun with those humans until they unleashed those horrid beasts on me. For some reason my magic didn’t affect them either. I was so looking forward to this day but between those creatures and that vial it’s starting to turn into a rather irritating one.”

“It didn’t?!” Sophia was surprised by this so she tried considering a number of possibilities. She came up with one theory and decided to ask him about it. “What things do you know, aside from my vial and those creatures, that are unaffected by your chaos magic?”

Discord thought about that for a moment, “Well, generally anything already chaotic would be resistant to chaos magic because adding chaos to more chaos is redundant. I can affect chaotic things as long as that chaos is part of my handiwork.”

“I’m guessing that those creatures you are referring to are Zerg. It could be that your magic doesn’t affect a race that is pure of essence.”

“Pure of essence?” Twilight asked.

“Consider that galaxies exist that are created by a race that has existed since times unknown. Not all of them, mind you, but some. Whenever they create a galaxy they also observe it and wait for a race to arise from the primordial ooze that fits one of two criteria that they are looking for. One criteria is purity of form, a race of great psionic power. The other is purity of essence, a race with the greatest evolutionary potential. It can also be said to be the most chaotic race to be discovered.

“So these Zerg are creatures of chaos?” Twilight asked.

“In a scientific sense, but not a magical sense. The Zerg are capable of altering themselves on the genetic level through consumption of other species and incorporating the traits they want into their own genetic code.”

“Can we get a translator over here?” Rainbow asked. “Some of us don’t speak egghead.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “Putting it into an example, the ground bound ones eat enough pegasi and they all grow wings.”

“Pff…then we stay in the sky so they can’t get to us.”

“Their flyers can still consume pegasi from the air and give what they collect to the land runners,” Sophia countered.

“As fascinating as this lecture is, I have a countryside to edit,” Discord said, putting on mismatched office worker clothing and pulling out an electric pencil sharpener and sticking a carrot into it. The sharpener was shredding the carrot vigorously as Discord tossed the device on the floor and walked toward the exit of the throne room.

“You are not going anywhere, Discord!” Celestia declared as her horn lit. While the draconequus could normally make her horn go away, he couldn’t do so while the alicorn was within the proximity of the vial. Because of this, he was forced to dodge Celestia’s attacks before Luna started contributing to the assault.

Discord then conjured a bat and slammed one of Celestia’s beams back at the ponies which they dodged. This led to the beam ricocheting all over the throne room until it struck Sophia and sent the vial flying where it landed on the floor, shattering it.

Discord’s grin widened when he noticed this and began cackling. “Hahahaha! Looks like that takes care of your little defense.”

Sophia looked at the black puddle on the floor. Her expression darkened. She then gave an ominous look toward the draconequus. “I really wish you hadn’t done that…”

“And why is that?”

“That liquid was not just for negating your chaos magic, it was also a means to summon the one being I had hoped to not involve in this matter. The spilling of the black liquid was the summoning method. Now we’re gonna have to put up with her.”

“Dare I ask who you are talking about?” Celestia asked.

“My annoying cousin is coming…”

The ponies and the draconequus stared at Sophia for a few moments then looked toward the black puddle. They wondered what was about to happen.

As they stared into the black abyss of the puddle, A violet eyeball with an orange iris stared back.