My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic [The Unauthorized Revision]

EPISODE ONE

(Part three)

    Though Lightning felt somewhat refreshed after passing by Cookie Dough's restaurant, the number of unicorns he had come across over the course of the day was starting to wear on him. And despite having yet to meet with the Star Fleet representatives like he was supposed to as part of his mission, Lightning was currently on his way to the Unicornicopian library (which to his surprise was also the site of the observatory as well) because of an invitation for some still-unknown event.

    "Well, considering that part of the mission is to meet new unicorns and learn about the world outside of the palace, you can't say today's been a waste." Krysta said to assure her friend. "And if you think about it, wouldn't a secret event be the perfect time to meet with the Star Fleet representatives? What if you're getting officially inducted, or something!?"

    "That's pretty unlikely..." Lightning sighed at his friend's hopeful scenerio as they finally approached the library. "This looks to be the place. " He said walked up to the front door and turned the knob by holding it between his front hooves and turning it. With practiced ease he ventured inside, only to find everything was all dark. The door closed behind him, engulphing Lightning and Krsta in darkness. Despite that there should have been light coming in through the windows, it was pitch black inside. Krysta focused her magic into her antennae to provide illumination, but it failed to give them any better clue as to what was going on.

    Not wanting to trip and fall on anything, Lightning decided to slowly retrace his steps to find the front door. "This is getting creepy." Krysta shuttered in the otherwise silent darkness.

    Lightning felt the same, and felt paranoid that they weren't alone. His muscles tensed when he sensed movement behind him. He readied to lift his hind legs and buck whatever it was when all at once, the lights went on Lightning found himself surrounded by more than fifty unicorns screaming out "SURPRISE…!"

    He stumbled back from the loss of balance when he aborted his kick attempt—since it was a foal blowing into a paper noise maker standing behind him—and Lightning fell face first to the floor. With a loud yelp, Krysta was tossed off of her spot atop Lightning's head and needed to fly up at full force to avoid crashing to the floor.

    When he lifted himself up, rubbing his now sore nose with his forehoof, Lightning looked around the large library room to see balloons and decorations of different colors and shapes and sizes tied or pinned to the ceiling and walls. Looking up, the white unicorn instinctively shook his head as confetti fell from above, the work of a pair of unicorns emptying a bagful of the paper pieces. As the cheering remained loud and confusing as ever, Lightning noticed a big banner that held by another pair of hovering ponies that read, "Welcome, Lightning Dawn!"

    Stepping forward out of the boistrously singing crowd, a grey-colored unicorn wearing half-moon shaped spectacles approached Lightning. "Are you surprised, Lightning Dawn?" She asked.

    "You could say that, yeah..." Lightning stuttered out at the number of ponies looking toward him with smiles on their faces. "Are all of you the Star Fleet representatives?" The question seemed to be unexpected by the grey unicorn and she adjusted her glasses before answering.

    "It seems you're a bit confused, Lightning Dawn. We're merely the Unicornicopia welcoming committee. Were you not informed about us by the Grand Ruler when he sent you here?"

    "Nnnnno...." Lightning gave a drawn out answer, feeling more awkward as the cheering unicorns soon grew quiet and began to exchange looks with each other.

    Silence took hold another, interrupted only by the sporadic cough.

    Feeling that things had taken for a bad turn, Krysta fluttered back onto her friend's head and tapped her hoof to get his attention. "Lightning..." She hissed in a whisper. "Say something!"

    "R-right." Lightning gulped and looked toward the several pairs of eyes staring back at him. "Um...thank you all for the...welcome...?"

    As soon as he said that, noise erupted once again and the all the unicorns rushed into him like a rising tide that began introducing themselves, offering him some refreshments, or asking him to join a game, or even dance. In fact amidst the cacophony of overlapping voices seemed to be the sound of quickly paced music. "I, uh...I think I'll just have some punch please!" Lightning tried to yell over the dozens of voices talking all at once to each other as well as to him. Just when he thought dealing with one unicorn at a time was tiring...there was nothing that he desired more right now that to escape from the magnified excitment of this crowd.

    ...

    With the help of some crowd control, Lightning managed to get to a seat at a table and found himself dealing with just six other unicorns at a time. As luck would have it, the grey-colored unicorn, who he soon learned was the librarian named Query, was sitting next to him and helping him deal with the many unfamiliar faces asking him all sorts of questions about life at the palace or being the Grand Ruler's apprentice. Despite the more manageable level of chaos around him, Lightning still felt a bit overwhelmed by the attention he was getting. "Krysta…" He whispered and looked about. "Some help would be nice right about now!" Just as he hoped he could depend on his friend, Lightnings hopes were dashed when he spotted Krysta flying about and showing off to a group of her new fans who were more than eager to pay attention to the fairy.

    Lightning scowled at the sight of her huge smile and the sound of her giggling which was loud enough to hear over everyone talking and the music, he realized that the fairy was pretty much lost in her own world, now.

    The fact that he was unable to use magic was luckily not the focus of the other unicorns' questions—or at the very least, they took care not to bring the subject up—for one reason or another. Feeling his throat becoming dry from answering the question of one green-colored unicorn named Prancy about what it felt like to wear boots, Lightning held the glass of red punch between his hooves and took a swig of the sweet liquid.

    Then suddenly, the lights went out once more save for a spotlight that appeared over the stage curtains set up on the right side of the front entrance. "And now everyone…" The voice of an unseen announcer called out. "Get ready for the mystifying magic of… Abra...Kadabra!"

    "A stage magician? Really?" Lightning said quietly to himself. "What am I, five?" Despite his personal feelings, he looked around the room and saw the many excited and happy faces of the other unicorns in attendence. Swallowing his pride, Lightning resigned himself to at the very least fake his enjoyment of the show as small puffs of purple smoke began to appear on stage. With a flash of light and a loud pop, eliciting screams of enjoyment from the younger foals in the audience and easily amused, a purple unicorn wearing the traditional magician's hat and cape-backed tuxedo, appeared on stage. "Thank you! Thank you!" The unicorn's loud voice managed to reach to the far back of the audience, egging on the cheering crowd until they calmed down into a soft murmur.

    "As you all may well know, I am the one, the only, the great! Abra...Kadabra!" A respectful show of applause occured before quieting once more. "Now before I begin with my first fantastic trick...if I may have a volunteer from the audience to help me, please!"

    The magician's call for a "volunteer" was quickly proven to be code for "pre-chosen mark" when the spotlight turned toward Lightning even before AbraKadabra was finished speaking. Lightning looked around and was met with a set of expectant face happily trying to encourage him to move to the stage for the show to proceed. Knowing full well that he was the guest of honor, Lightning had already realized that he didn't have much of a choice. The white pony sighed and took a last swig of his punch before making his way toward the stage to the thunderous applause and cheers of the rest of the unicorns.

    It took a few moments for Lightning to walk down the aisle, shoved up by an unfurled wing or outstretched foreleg at every few tables until he was standing right next to the costumed performer. "Well, Lightning Dawn—how wonderful I am to meet you." said Abra.

    The audience laughed at the wordplay to which Lightning replied "Yeah…charmed…" and earned a slightly louder response, much to the magician's chagrin.

    Abra cleared his throat and hid his irritance from the audience just like a professional would. "The first trick of the night will be the Classic of classics, the Magic Box!" As the audience their awe known, a tall box was rolled in with the help of a blue-colored unicorn mare dressed in a a lacy saddle. Lightning let out a long exhale, expecting this to be a long night...

    Four tricks and fifteen minutes of poorly coordinated banter later, Lightning had managed to escape his forced volunteer status in exchange for a more cooperative volunteer—a certain green unicorn named Prancy. While everyone was preoccupied watching the show Krysta had found herself without her fans and dejectedly followed Lightning deeper into the aisles and shelves of the library.

    Walking into the "My-N" sections, Lightning was unable to spot any subject that looked particularly interesting. A lot of the books were redundant and a few were actually mishelved from other sections but worn-out condition of the books really stuck out to him, not to mention how jumbled and out of order they were. This mess in the organization made Lightning wonder if it would be worth the trouble to fix the area himself, when he spotted Krysta floating off to another part of the library.

    He looked away from the ill-treated selection of books in this section to follow his fairy friend to the next section over. "Where are you off to?"

    "I dunno...browsing, I guess..." Krysta said with a shrug of her shoulders.

    "Want some company?" Lightning offered, to which the fairy shook her head.

    "No thanks. I'll be okay." The fairy replied as she flew off.

    Lightning stopped and watched Krysta disappear around the corner. Now left alone to his own devices in this quiet portion of the library, Lightning could only sigh, and then he turned to gaze out a nearby window. The night had certainly come quickly, but then again considering everything that's happened, it shouldn't have been so surprise that the day was pretty much done. Lightning admired the blanket of the night sky, dotted by glimmering stars, knowing that it was all thank to the Grand Ruler that unicorns could enjoy a wonderful sight even when the sun had set. Lightning's daydreaming was then interrupted when he heard a heavy slam ring out right beside him.

    "Huh?" He glanced down at the item, too surprised to realize that what may have happened to him if it was only four inches to the right from where it fell. It looked to be an ordinary astronomy book.

    "Excuse me, is anyone down there?" A voice called out from an above floor. “I need a little help!”

    Lightning looked upward to try to spot the voice's owner through the break in the ceiling caused by the spiraling flight of stairs. Not only was it dark where he was, but the lights also seemed to be off on the second floor and the subsequent floors above it. Still, he knew he wasn't mistaken about the voice coming from a girl. "Y-yeah?" He replied. "Do you need your book, back? The one that nearly, uh, killed me?"

    "Why yes!” The voice replied, sounding distracted. “Could you bring it up, please?" I'm afraid I can't tear myself away at the moment!”

    Lightning arched a brow when his quip was ignored but nonetheless took the book in his mouth, holding it by the spine. Figuring it would be quicker to simply fly up instead of climbing the stairs, Lightning carefully ascended through the stairwell and after a moment found himself emerging in what seemed to be the observatory on top of the library, which was the size of a single room and much like an attic the roof was relatively low.

    After landing, Lightning searched around the dark area in attempt to find the voice's likely owner when it drew him to turn around and spotted a portion of the domed roof open. Thanks to the moonlight, he recognized that jutting out through the observatory roof was a large telescope and the voice's owner stood behind it, hunching down to peer through the eye piece. "Oh, thank you so much." said the figure, somewhat darkened by standing behind the telescope.

    “Ho're hel-” Lightning began mumbling out then remembered the book being held by the spine between his teeth. Feeling a bit flush in his face, he very quickly lowered his head down to the floor to spit out the now drool-covered book and wiped his mouth with his foreleg. “Sorry, I meant to say 'you're welcome', heh...” As he spoke, the voice's owner stood upright and out of the telescope's shadow.

    He cringed at the state of the book on the floor. “...and, uh...it looks like that I'm also sorry about the mess I made with your b-” Lightning noticed the movement from the corner of his eye and instinctively looked toward the unicorn and found his jaw remaining open mid-sentence, effectively stopping the second part of his apology.

    Her white coat seemed to shine as it was bathed under the moon's light, and from a slight breeze that entered through the open portion of the dome roof, her violet mane—long and wavy—swayed and sparkled like a set of silent wind chimes. As her attention remained transfixed toward the night sky, her eyelashes twinkled ever softly whenever she blinked. Yet somehow, all of that paled in comparison to the brightness in the unicorn's smile while she stared upward, much like how Lightning was doing looking at her.

    “-eautiful...” Lightning finally exhaled, catching her attention when she noticed his presence.

    “Did you say something?” The unicorn asked when she turned away from the open dome and regarded Lightning, who stood there in dumbstruck silence for a moment.

    "I, uh…” Lightning quickly spat out to fill in the silence. When he finally registered her question, he stammered again. “I...don't think I saw you downstairs at the pretty. Party!" Realizing his slip, Lightning's eyes bulged and he snapped his jaw shut, seemingly as a result of a defensive reflex. To his ears, the sound of his gulp was like a battery of fireworks destroying the silence that had settled in.

    "I don't know. I just didn't feel like it.” She answered simply, sounding as though she was completely unaware of the panic that had struck the other unicorn just now. “It's not that I'm antisocial or anything, but I sort of planned this stargazing session way before I got the party invitation, which I only got earlier today...” Her eyes turned toward the sky once more at the mere mention of them.

    He nodded, but then it struck him that his gesture would be unseen while she looked away. In taking a calming breath, Lightning felt some of his confidence return. "Um…if you don't mind me asking, what's your name?"

    “Hmm?” The unicorn looked at him and her eyes grew wide when she realized that she had been distracted. "S-sorry about that! That was so rude of me! My name's Starla. Starla Shine. I guess we can skip the question about what I like?” Tilting her head and letting out an embarrassed laugh, the winged unicorn mare brushed away a maverick strand of her violet mane from her face with a forehoof. “So...what's yours?"

    There was only silence as Lightning found himself lost in Starla's blue eyes. "I'm Lightning.” He said a bit distractedly. With a blink, he somewhat returned to his proper state of mind. “That is, Lightning Dawn. You can call me Lightning, though...but, uh...I can't say that that's my interest...”

    The both of them shared a laugh, much to Lightning's relief.

    Once they had quieted down, Starla found herself wiping a tear from her eye, hoping that she hadn't been laughing as loud as she thought. “Nice to meet you, Lightning…" Starla said with a smile. “I don't feel as guilty for skipping out on the party, now.”

    “Th-that's fine, not like you missed much. I mean, after the first barrage of questions, my being the Grand Ruler's apprentice was pretty much tossed aside as a novelty!” Lightning tried to feign nonchalance, and enjoyed hearing Starla laugh again from the playfully melodramatic wave he did with his hoof

    “Did you meet Artie? Because that's...that's a really good impression!” She said in-between attempts to restrain her laughter.

    Feeling more relaxed, Lightning and Starla were both able to sit down and talk about themselves, eventually turning it into a sort of game where they would ask each other for three clues before guessing about a particular fact. The stakes were high for the most correct guesses, which was being treated to a free meal at Cookie Dough's restaurant at the loser's expense.

    ...

    “...it's because...of your name, right?”

    Starla rolled her eyes at Lightning's guess and imitated a buzzer noise with her voice. “Nope! That's your third and last guess for this round. Way to go for the obvious answer, by the way.”

    “I do what I can.” Lightning shrugged off the other unicorn's snarky remark with his own, receiving a light tap from Starla's hoof against his shoulders as a result.

    She laughed when Lightning pretended that it hurt, and she shook her head at the sight of him rolling around on the floor. “Look out, we've got a regular comedian, over here!”

    Resting on his back, Lightning narrowed his eyes and said in as haughty a way as possible, “I'd prefer it if you called me by my official title of Royal Jester, thank you very much!”

    “Oh, please!” Starla shook her head and groaned at the terrible accent he spoke in and playfully swiped at Lightning again, which he successfully avoided.

    “Alright, so answering time.” Lightning said, rolling onto his stomach and moped with his chin resting on his upturned hoof while lying on the floor across from her. “Why is it that you love to look at stars so much?”

    “Hey there, don't be so quick because of your namesake. You forget that that was the last round?” Starla let her lips take on a mischievous grin and with her magic she manipulated the eraser to erase a line from Lightning's tally, leaving the final score at 3-10 on the blackboard that was set up on a stand.

    “Bah. That 'guess wrong, lose a point' rule wasn't fair...” Lightning observed out loud while looking at his four erased marks on the chalkboard to Starla's one. “Especially since at this point, I'm pretty sure you're a mind reader.” He slouched even more as the eraser came under Starla's control once more and rubbed another of Lightning's points out of existence.

    “Oh, come on!” He glared daggers toward the mare while Starla was more focused on drawing a simple-looking smiley face that was sticking out its tongue on her side of the scoreboard.

    When she was satisfied by her work, Starla looked toward Lightning with the sort of confidence that only winners knew and cherished, allowing it to seep into the tone of her teasing boast. “Well, it's not my fault that you're a terrible guesser. Not to mention the fact that you're a flat and uninteresting character, which makes you just too easy to read.”

    “Hmph. It's better to be certain rather than always gue-wait, what?” Lightning frowned when he realized the snipe in her comment. The two of them stared at each other in tense silence but after a minute passed, Starla's face scrunched up and she couldn't hold back a snort and started to laugh again.

    As hard as he might, Lightning couldn't hold out long against Starla's infective laughter and joined her. Soon enough the two unicorn's found themselves once more in silence. Following her lead, Lightning looked up at the night sky and felt awed by the innumerable twinkling lights.

    “To answer your question...I love to look at the stars because...” Starla took a deep breath in as though the reason was floating about like an invisible scent before letting out a long and satisfied sigh. “...of times like this...when it's quiet and calm...they're just so mystical, don't you think? I'm sure only the Grand Ruler could say how long they've been up there...I'm always wondering what sort of secrets they hold...what kinds of stories they would tell if they could talk. What sorts of advice they'd give whenever there's something I'm not sure about...”

    Her horn glowed and from a nearby bookshelf Lightning watched a notebook float and place itself on the floor in front of him. He blinked when he felt Starla lie on the floor next to him, brushing her folded foreleg against his as they were so close to each other. Lightning quietly gulped and turned his attention to the notebook as the pages were magically turned.

    There were sketches of the different constellations she found interesting and gave pet names to. He quietly listened to the reasons she gave for the names, recognizing at a glance a few of the constellations from the royal astronomy books—which were vastly superior in detail than most of the books in wider circulation—that he read during his studies at the palace. What was unavailable in those books however were the local folk myths that Starla began to recite from memory, given to the most important of the star groupings that recounted the battle between the Grand Ruler and the evil sorcerer a thousand years ago. He was most intrigued by what she said about those and paid particular attention at this point.

    "Lately I've been trying to discover more constellations or something new." Starla said with a sigh. “Still no luck, I'm afraid...”

    "Well what's out there tonight?" asked Lighting. Starla took to her feet and walked over to glance through her telescope. At first she listed off the same old stars, using both the official and her personalized names, but then...

    "Wait a minute! What's that…?" She spotted a strange sort of light. She leaned away from the ocular piece for a moment, rubbed her eye then looked back into the telescope. “That's not a comet...or even a meteor...” She said with caution obvious in her voice. “It's moving way too fast...”

    Lightning walked over to the dome opening and scanned the night sky without the benefit of a telescope, but could soon see what Starla was talking about with his own eyes. "Whatever it is…” He spoke out and felt his muscles tense at the approaching object getting larger and larger in view. “...I think it's coming right this way!"

    A roar of flames as the object fell from the sky overwhelmed their hearing. The flash and explosions of light as it tore through the upper atmospheres nearly blinded them. Without thinking Lightning clenched his eyes shut and leaped onto Starla, throwing her to the floor and kept her under him to cover her from the rain of debris that began shooting into the observatory, squealing and shrieking like fireworks.

    Her terrified screams were mute compared to the monstrous explosion of sound that shook the earth and everything built atop it for minutes without end. Lightning clenched his teeth, holding Starla tight while ignoring the pelting stings of debris against his hide and the blunt force of books hitting his back and sides.

    Those minutes, that felt like hours, were punctuated by streaks of lightning arcing across the sky, followed by the roar and boom of thunder that seemed insignificant compared to the crash just moments ago. "Are you alright?" Lightning grunted out, doing the best he could to ignore the pain.

    "Y-yeah!" Starla shouted in reply. Lightning winced from the scream so close into his ear and rolled off of the other unicorn. “S-sorry! I mean, yeah.” She gulped and moderated her voice, getting to her hooves. “Come on, we have to see if everyone else is ok!”

    “S-sure!” Lightning groaned and hobbled behind Starla as she bounded down the stairs.

    ...

    Before they reached the first floor, Lightning and Starla could hear the other unicorns screaming down below and they dashed the rest of the way down to see what was going on.

    "Lightning!" He heard Krysta call out to him and the fairy leaped onto her friend's head. "What's going on?" She exclaimed as Lightning did his best to follow after Starla toward the front of the library.

    What they found caused all three of them to gasp in horror. Several parts of the walls were completely shot through, while several fires had broken out but were being tended to a number of unicorns floating buckets of water in from the outside as well as dumping their drinks or padding some out using the table cloths or other heavy materials.

    Lightning spotted the grey-colored librarian and rushed over to her. "It cannot be..." Query gasped out, looking like she was hit by shock.  "Are the rumors true? Can he-?"

    With that, the front door and several window panes burst open, letting strong gusts of wind to screech and holler and groan, causing all sorts of glass from the windows to the punch bowls to shatter. Everyone was running about in panic as a large flash of lightning arced across the sky, followed by the crackle and boom of a thunderous roar.

    And then, emerging out from beneath the stage where the magic show took place just an hour ago, was a figure dressed in dark robes; its head and face covered by a dark hood. Only its eyes—red and ominous—cast a stare toward the unicorns and suddenly they were all too frozen in fear to move, much less scream.

    Lightning could barely speak as he just stood there, gawking at the huge and looming figure as it silently oppressed everyone with its mere presence. Lightning's body trembled. His breaths had become a series of hushed, quivering gasps for air. The words of the histories flashed before Lightning's eyes.

    Images...dreams...memories...causing Lightning to unknowingly whisper out in a trembling voice, "T...t...t-t...Titan!"

    At the sound of Its name, the figure turned immediately toward Lightning and the sight of its red glowing eyes chilled Lightning's blood and made his bones feel brittle, leaving him feeling only despair. The mass of robes sped across the floor space and halted in front of the white unicorn, dwarfing him at twice his height.

    As Lightning was caught in its gaze, the moonlight had disappeared. The licks of the orange and red flames that crackled and snapped all around him were now silenced; suffocated and drained of their heat.

    It felt as though Darkness itself had enveloped his body, and wrapped its slithering cold grip around Lightning's neck like a living noose to wring out not simply his life but his very hopes and dreams.

    His body felt heavy. His thoughts cloudy. Lightning felt sleep beckon to him.

    An awful, permanent, sleep.