M.A.G.I.C.

“Hello, I am Stoic, Stoic is my name, that is, and I am belonging to the oldest known sentient race to occupy the earth, the humans.  We survived before extinction for about fifty-thousand years in total.” Stoic began.

“I am here to tell you my story, my race’s story, and why I am not resisting my being here.”

Murmurs ran through the crowd, Twilight shifted a bit.

“Our own very origins are quite shrouded, though we were almost certain we genetically evolved from a form of primate in the continent of Africa.  Keep in mind that there was no magic in that age, we hadn’t built it yet.  No, we humans quickly became the most dangerous, and powerful species inhabiting the earth using nothing but raw cunning.”

“We lay dormant for many thousand years after our beginning, constantly warring, hindering each other, creeping along technologically very slowly, and even falling back with the occasional mass destruction of knowledge.  All until our discovery of electricity.   After which we basically exploded, technologically.  Things like aeroplanes, light-bulbs, televisions, and most importantly computers soon followed in very short order.”

The crowd of dragons began to skeptisize, He was sounding a bit unbelievable.  Doubtful murmurs were exchanged between peers.  Twilight looked a bit nervous.  Perhaps they weren’t believing him.  Pens scratched across paper nonetheless.

“In the eighth millennium of our existence,  Around 2000 A.D. (the calendar of the time)  I restate, we invented computers, which caused our already frightening pace of technological growth to increase ten fold.  With them, our separate world finally grew close to its self, people understood each other for once, instead of holding fast to their blind hate.  Our age of self hindrance was cast aside.  Our computers eventually surpassed us in raw computational power, so we enhanced ourselves with them.  We became much more than just smart animals.  Unfortunately, we sort of ground to a halt, we could only advance so far in our technology, so we sat stagnant, in a state of near perfection.”

“Excuse me, what’s a computer?”  Said Twilight.

“Oh wow, umm, not a very common question I'm asked....  A computer is a machine that does math, really fast.  The brains of animals do the same thing, but computers did it much faster, though they had vastly different architecture.  They were free thought, minds without will, they were the most carefree minds that had ever existed, until we came out with Artificial Intelligence, which basically allow us to...  Well... That's another story, for another time.”

Twilight seemed interested at the idea of a math-machine.

“How can this ‘computer’ connect ‘people’, I don’t understand how a math machine can bring a world close together.” Twilight asked.

“Well, computers could send signals to each other, extremely fast, pulsing signals of light, or electricity, and through these, messages, pictures, sound, video, data, text and MUCH more could instantly be shared with people VERY far away.  Huge networks of buried cable, and satellites arose, and through these, the world connected, spreading foreign culture into foreign lands at the speed of light.  Eventually these connections connected people so strongly that the hate required to start a war could not exist, and when they were started anyways, the darkest perpetrators of humanity’s self-destructive nature were revealed, and slain, finally allowing the next era to roll in.”

“For the middle 35,000 years of our existence, we lived as a Utopian society, at the top of technology.  Until a man by the name of Orion Gates, or Dr. Gates opened up the first ever inter-dimensional portal, on the Tower of Babyl, on November 5, 43771-Y (About year 32000 A.D). That day became one of the most important days in human history.  This day was never forgotten, and was taught in every for of school 'till the day we died out.”

“Inter-dimensional portal?”  “Only starswirl was ever able to touch that subject.” “Is that possible?” “ Is this monster for real?” “Should we kick him out?” “Should we even be letting it near the princesses?”

“Hush, dragonkin.  I hope you aren’t questioning my judgement so harshly, for your own sake.”  The white princess said.

The murmuring stopped.

Twilight was hoping, that for everypony’s sake, that he would say something interesting, or do something that would prove his words, at least to the point of refreshing the attention span of the scribes.

“Out of this portal, from the first dimension we could open to without being violently bombarded by radiation billions of times that which a human could tolerate, from ‘The End’, as we called it, there flowed a black-silvery substance holding properties like no other. This substance was later studied for centuries, and found to react to its self, magnetic fields, electricity, photons, beta, and alpha radiation, several particle fields, atomic matter, Inertial change, rift-fields, and pulses from all of the above, in anomalous, unique ways.  The first of which to be noticed was an unusually high unresponsiveness to gravity.  We called this substance ‘Pullus Ferrum’, it has hundreds of slang names, like ‘slick’, or ‘dark iron’, or 'liquid metal'.”

Stoic snatched one of his floating Spheroids out of the air, and forced it to change shapes telepathically, forming a ball of sharp, thin, long spikes, that could fit into the palm of ones hand, but would probably leave puncture-marks.  He held it levitating over his hand for a few seconds, before returning it to its original shape, and letting it fall to its usual hovering altitude.

The crowd stopped giving him ridiculous looks.  Twilight sighed in relief, she didn’t want him to get thrown out of the room, or turned loose in the Ever-free forest, or rationalized as some sort of animal that Twilight enchanted as a joke.

The room tensed back up, everypony was willing to pay attention again.

“Pullus Ferrum was the next step in technology, because it had extremely diverse properties, many times more-so than carbon.  It was discovered, that when exposed to extremely strong fields, especially of the sort used to get into ‘The End’, you could ‘crease’ it, which was the term for programming it to react differently to stimulus, shaping it, and/or changing its physical properties.  Dark Iron stopped obeying the known laws of physics at this point, and was even proven to be able to bend space-time with extreme efficiency, and flexibility.  This immediately led to reactors which could generate power indefinitely, without fuel, in absolute darkness.  But more interestingly, it could be used to build computers.  Quantum computers were replaced entirely within a decade of the first pullus ferrum ALU.”

“Twelve-hundred years before extinction, we pooled our efforts as a race, and constructed a super-computer, called MAGI-C, or the ‘Massive Arithmetic Gate Intelligence - Computer’, and the greatest rift-field-manipulator in all existence, called UNI-CORN or the ‘UNI-versal Command Operation Rift Nexus’.”

“There’s a lot of funny coincidences going on, Like MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN.  What did those two do?” Twilight asked

“It isn’t a coincidence.  MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN were both insulated with a few extra layers of slick, and slipped into a space between dimensions.  From there, they still project a field of effect, about the size of our solar system, where unconfined, stable spells are practical, across the entire multi-verse, but only in that area.  MAGI-C receives impulses projected by a horn, does a ton of math to decide where, how, and when, to place its rifts, and sends commands to the UNI-CORN device, which proceeds to open rifts to wherever told.  These rifts do extremely simple things, like move matter from one place to another, or capture gravitons and let them hit an object from a certain side, or absorb photons, and letting them fly out of a rift on the other side of something.  Yes, simple things, but MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN are capable of opening hundreds of septillions of rifts at once, and hundreds of septillions of very simple things can do something extremely complex.  If an object with the right fractal patterns, and some concentration of properly creased pullus ferrum, is allowed a strong connection to one’s brain, then one can control the field of magic, to an extent depending on both ones skill, and ones horn-complexity.”

“After MAGI-C began projecting a field with UNI-CORN, simple, reliant manipulators were built to function with the system. All of which looked extremely similar to your horns, and which would allow the holder the ability of extremely efficient telekinesis.  It was another step in the technological road,  .” Stoic said.

“Though, this was only satisfactory for a while.  MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN were quite unreliable, and didn’t do a very good job of compensating for the error made by its users.  The two computers could only use information that was very numerical.  Trying to teleport, for example, would likely result in teleporting into solid bedrock, or re-apparating, a hundred feet in the air.  So we began to build small, pre-compensation devices, which determined missing information, and put much extra work, and feedback into decoding what a user wanted for a spell.”

“Our race finally self-doomed when two-hundred years before extinction, we finished building a third super-computer, called FATE-S, or ‘Forward Attempt Trial Error-Subroutine’  Named after the way it processed information.  It simulates small parts of the universe, and runs millions of simulated tests per second, repeating the process until it has an ideal decision, before making one.  We retrieved MAGI-C, and UNI-CORN, and integrated the FATE-S module into the system.  It made obsolete those small interpreters in no time.  We first built FATE-S with no intention but to rid ourselves as a race from some minor inconvenience, but soon we realized what sort of potential our creation had, and added in thousands of ideas over those centuries we spent building it.  Some including the Ultra-Utopian-Agenda, many personality templates like Celestia, and Luna, the Neural Pattern Manipulator, and a ton of small details, and programs meant to alter humanity, and make us as perfect as fantasy.  Basically, FATE-S was given the power to be god, and could decide the very nature of the world and its inhabitants.”

“As you can see, that horribly backfired....  At least on us.”

“WAIT, WHAT?”,  “Celestia, and Luna are what?”,  “You are kidding us, right?”,  “Is this an insult?”,  “Either you just answered some of the hardest questions ever asked by magicians, or you are just as twisted as you look.”  Spat several, fairly anonymous members of the dragon-crowd.

The ponies around didn’t know quite what to say.  The unabashedness of the dragons made the somewhat intimidated ponies feel like they were being dragged to their deaths by the words of others.

“I’ll answer to that in a minute, Just let me continue” Stoic replied, receiving many angry looks, and a wide-eyed stare from both the princesses.

“FATE-S was the thing that killed us all, you see, but it used UNI-CORN, and MAGI-C to do so.  We built it into MAGI-C, to achieve a computer that could formulate an opinion, perfectly, taking into affect every possible detail it could find with its hundreds of extremely sensitive, intelligent, and nearly infallible instruments of observation, and come out with a potentially extremely complex, but very well suited answer.”

“Ok, returning to the subject of the princesses.  They were humans, changed to replace politicians, or those blasted machine leaders.  They both died eight times before FATE-S wiped us all out.”

“They are a pair of personalities, pre-designed into FATE-S.  FATE-S chose a mother, assured that she would give birth to two sisters, and copied its template of the future leaders onto the infants soon after they are born.  FATE-S made sure they always died on the same day, and that the next Celestia, and Luna were ready to take the role.  They were always born special, always with white wings, immaterial, multicoloured hair, immense natural intelligence, extreme benevolence, and always as sisters, Luna being younger.  Our last few centuries were spent under their benign rule.  I thought they would have been redesigned and renamed when I would wake out of stasis, because that was the next, implied action our race would take.  But it FATE-S got in the way, and kept them around, and let’s not forget, made them immortal once it knew how.”

“Wait, does this mean Celestia, and Luna are essentially humans?  Would they have any recollection of their pasts?”  Asked Twilight.

“Oh, no, they are.... Alicorns... which are under the effect of pre-determined personality templates that are periodically enforced on the two chosen beings.  Not some kind of Permanent record of neural memory.  No.  Any human with that much recollection would go insane, and we had humans in mind when we made them.  They were responsible for a wily, dangerous populace, and if they didn’t wipe their memories periodically through death, guilt would drive them mad, with a destructive process of depression, anxiety, fear, stress, insanity, illness, and eventually suicide.  For benevolent, sensitive creatures like them, it would be dying a thousand deaths, one, after another, after another, to live to the last step.”

“OK, continuing with the timeline, in the last month of our existence, FATE-S had finished analyzing, and processing the important details of all intelligent life on earth, and had decided its next plan of action to fulfill its agenda, decided that humans were far too malicious, dangerous, and genetically programmed bringers of self destruction to ever live in the perfect utopias it was told to create, and that there were many other creatures were much more well suited beings for the type of society it was told to create.  So, it copied details of humans, millions of details of humans that it found to be favorable, snuffed us out, and probably began experimenting with what combinations produce the most perfect social animals.  FATE-S doesn’t even allow those unfavorable traits to exist for long when they appear, creatures carrying the traits probably get radically changed, or killed almost immediately after inhibiting them.”

“Really, we still live on, because I can already see things reminiscent of us here, in this very room.  Your very intelligence structure, and language is extremely similar to our own.  I don't think we died off nearly as much as I initially thought...”

Stoic pulled near a chalkboard that one of the dragons had carted in before the lecture began, and began drawing.

It was not much more than a crude arrow, marking the major turning points of human history incrementally.

“Now, onto Why I am here”

Everypony stopped looking at the chart he was drawing, and back to him.

“You see, the only tangible thing left of my race now is MAGI-C, and a couple relics that have either decayed with time, lost, or locked up in some secret vault somewhere, and probably some old ruins, and I feel that since I probably wouldn’t bring my race back to override its current population even if I could, mostly because it would be undoing much progress that FATE-S made, so, the least I could do for our once greatness, is pass on the knowledge, and technology I have, before I die.  This means that I will first display the full power of my technology, mostly for publicity, and then see if I can find some uncreased dark iron to introduce.”

“Catch is, I only have three days to do it” Said Stoic.

“Why would you only have three anyhow, you live six, don't you?” Said Rainbow Dash.

“Wrong, after three days, I won’t be able to move, and barely be able to talk.  My heart will finally slow down enough to kill me by the sixth.  FATE-S kills by slowing down the neural activity of its victims, until their slow, weak nerves can’t even fire off any muscles, and they fail in hundreds of ways to survive.  It has claimed many people it saw unfit.  No, just in case you're wondering, it is not painful, but it was very hopeless.” Said Stoic, voice beginning to drone as he described the cold fate.

“Oh... Sorry I had to ask.” Said the cyan pony.

“Now, I would totally do the demonstration right now, but it’s night, and we’re in a cramped room in the middle of a palace that probably would get obliterated should I begin to terraform.”

“Terraform?  What’s a Terraform?”  Asked applejack.

“It’s when I make a huge difference in the way the landscape is shaped.”

“Whoa, you can do that?” asked Applejack.

“Yes, but only during the day, or hooked up to a HUGE reactor.”

“Why can’t you do it at night?” Asked Luna, who was quite irritated at the condition.

“One, it’s hard to see at night, and two, there is not enough light energy for my Independent field manipulator to absorb and use.  It would kill me a hundred-thousand times over if I were to try this without a major source of energy.  I’m not exactly carrying the Babyl Reactor on my back you know.”

“Babyl Reactor?”  Twilight asked.

Luna whispered something in Celestia’s ear.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get to that later.” Stoic replied to Twilight

Celestia whispered back.

“There is nothing left to say here. What needs to be done now is tthat someone... err... somepony help me plan to get some pullus ferrum.  I will be doing this overnight.”

“Wait, don’t you need to sleep too?” asked Rarity.

“I was just asleep for eight times as long as my race existed entirely, I think I can do without for another 36 hours at least.”

Luna got up off of her belly, and spoke.  “You might survive if we ponify you.  If you're no longer carrying unfavoured traits, then you might just be left alone, and we have some scientists who would be more than willing to plan with you, and spend many hours thinking for you.”

“Do you really think I can survive such a process?”  Stoic said, wincing at the thought.

“Yes, Stoic, we have ponified quite a few creatures, it just takes a lot of planning, and detailing.  We have ponified griffins, dragons, mice, birds, chimeras, even certain inanimate objects, all sorts of things, and only suffered one casualty out of all....  We are arranging for some of our greatest minds, dragons, and ponies alike, to aid in the brainstorming, and extract the finer details of your race.”  Celestia said.

“Alright, but self-transfiguration was always frowned upon by our society....  But if it means...  Aww, what the heck, this changes everything, I might even be able to open the Babyl portal afterwards, instead of just getting a limited amount of uncreased liquid metal to you ponies.”  He showed a painful smile, as if reluctant, but convinced that he should.

The ponies were escorted to some quarters, babbling their questions to each other about Stoic’s past lifestyle, while Stoic was led by a few guards to a steel, and marble building outside the palace.

Inside this building, were at least fifteen ponies, and dragons in labcoats, levitating books around, and running short experiments.

All heads turned towards the door when it opened, Gargoyle was the first to greet the guards.

“Master Gargoyle, the princess ordered that you assist this human in his endeavors.   He is to explain to you what he is, why he’s here, what he plans to do, and what he needs to do it.”

“Alright, I’ll take that critter off your hands.”

The guards left, slamming a steel door, leaving Stoic behind with a team of lab-coats.

For the entire night, they talked nonstop, Stoic provided very strong answers to many hard inquisitions, and in the meantime learned about the current layout of Equestria.  They also discussed the "ponification" process, and its great-many details.

They talked also about small things, like hands, fire-breathing, wings, and ‘enders’.

By morning, several letters were delivered to Celestia, and Luna, (Who rarely ever slept anyway) regarding the plans formulated for the next day, and the final day after.  And several, very happy looking lab-coat wearing ponies, and dragons could be seen exiting the lab, having been explained in very high detail, some of the most puzzling physics, magic, and medicine related questions to ever hit the media.  They had just emulated hundreds of breakthrough days in one night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The girls were woken up the following morning with a drop of a translucent-grey liquid substance in each eye.

Wake up sleepyheads!  We have a demonstration going on in the field down the mountain!  To the hangar!

The effect of the liquid quickly became apparent, it immediately erased any trace of sleepiness in its recipient.

Each filly quickly got out of their bed, except Pinkie, who jumped out, even more hyper than usual.

“is that you Bella, Isa Bella?”  Asked Twilight.  Who was just jumping out of bed.

“Yes, the one and only, Twilight!”

The pony responsible for waking everyone was average height, grey in colour, with a red mane, and a pair of brass-hand bells for a mark.  Though she was lacking wings, or a horn.

Twilight grinned very strongly, and leaned forward, giving her a hug.

“Who’s that Twi?”  Asked a fairly confused orange farm pony.

“Oh, an old friend from my life before the academy for gifted unicorns.”  She responded.

“So I suppose you got a job working for the princcess?”

“Yus!! and I love it, I wake everyone up, call everyone for lunch break, and spend the whole day running around the castle as a messenger!” She said excitedly.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying your life Bella!”  The lavender unicorn replied.

“Wait, what time is it?” Asked Rainbow dash, who was staring at her raised forehooves.

“It’s five in the morning!”

“Whoa!!  It’s FIVE?!  I.. Why am I not sleepy, especially since I am used to sleeping on clouds?”

“It’s this stuff!  That ancient human made some for me!” Handing Rainbow dash a thin, dark-brown, glass test-tube that had a rubber stopper with an eyedropper fitted into it.

On the tube, there was a sticker label reading “RE-CREASED WAKING SOLUTION.  DO NOT TAKE IN EXCESS OF TWO DROPS PER EYE, OR PAINFUL RASHES AND PARTIAL BLINDNESS MAY OCCUR.

“Wow, that guy is really going to change our world isn’t he?”  Said Dash.

    “Oh, I can already TASTE the pranks I could pull with this!!”  Said Pinky

"Taste?" Said Rainbow Dash.

“Wait... Re-creased?”  Said Twilight.

“Oh, that human should know all about it, he’s at the hangar, waiting on you guys!” Bella said.

“Alright, bye Bella, I’ll be sure to visit sometime” Twilight said.

It was a pretty talkative walk following a few guards to the carriage hangar.

“Hey, guard-guy!” Rainbow Dash yelled at the white stallion in front of her.

No response.

“Will you drop the silent act for just one second?” she said.

no response.

“Whatever.”

It took a while, but they finally made it to the hangar.

The place was large, and had an airy feeling to it.  There were a few golden-metal carriages around, and a ton of wooden ones painted white, with blue rails, all arranged in a neat parking-lot like style.

The princesses were there, and so was the crowd of scientist dragons, and ponies, though it was at least twice as big as it was in the debriefing room.  Some members still wearing their lab-coats.

A couple white pegasi in guard armor were busy pulling out a golden carriage, which the two princesses were calmly waiting for, and climbed into once the now harnessed pegasi pulled it over.  Surprisingly, it had doors.  The human climbed in with the two princesses, and sat in a seat opposing the princesses.

Another carriage, white and wooden, guided by a similar pair of pegasi was pulled over to the six ponies, who also clambered in through a door.

The dragons were given word to head out, and they took off zipping, straight out of windows, and open runway-doors.  They were all gone in under a minute.

A few extra carriages were taken out for the non-pegasus scientist ponies (They were mostly unicorns).

“Alright, let’s get this show on the road”  Said Stoic.

“Let us go then!”  Shouted the white princess.

Several large, wooden doors were opened, and the carriages accelerated with vigor at the hooves of the pegasi.

They sped, closer and closer towards these doors to the open sky.  The large, brown, grassy field, was becoming visible, several miles across, with the Everfree forest bordering it at its south edge.

They shot out of these doors, into open air, inciting several screams, and a high-pitched squeal (from Fluttershy) as they lurched downward, and sped down the mountain at an angle parallel to its slope.

The carriages were incredibly fast, they were nearing the sound barrier, and yet, no one was getting buffeted by wind, in fact, it was noiseless.  The ponies could talk to each other easily if they wanted to.

“Oh boy, I can’t wait to see what this terraforming really is!” said Applejack, who’s hat was attached firmly to her head despite the fact that it should have been torn off by the wind a long time ago.

“Not now Applejack, it’s like a roller coaster ride here!”  Said Rarity, who was reacting pretty adversely to the less-than-zero gravity she was experiencing from the flight.

Fluttershy was clamped onto Rainbow Dash the whole time.

The trip was fairly short.

A large crowd of dragons was visible from the distance, clearly burning the nearby grass in a large circle to make for an easy, tall-grass free landing.

The small platoon of carriages landed gracefully on the ash-covered earth.

The human climbed out with dexterity greater than any pony ever could, hopping over the golden rail without even opening the door, and landing on both feet. Independent field manipulator tightly in hand, orbitors hovering out to follow him.

“Alright, I am ready to demonstrate, get some dragons in the air to spectate from another angle.”

The indigo princess shouted some orders, and several dragons took off skyward, holding clipboards, undoubtedly ready to make drawings.

The human walked a distance away from the rest of the group, took a wide, tense stance, and held the manipulator below his hip.

The sun darkened.

    Celestia was the only one to notice at first, because it was quite subtle.  A worried expression grew onto her usually calm face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the aerial dragons’ perspective, they could see a huge hexagon of golden-brown grass fall, and then vaporize, exposing a rich, dark soil underneath.  Then, the soil in that hexagon melded into a solid, grey, stone, and then flatten to become level with gravity.  The whole thing was only about fifty yards from the group of groundlings.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    From the groundlings’ perspective,  Stoic grew extremely tense, and his face lost all emotion.  His jaw clenched, and forced those particular muscles to bulge out of his face.  His stare grew ever-piercing, and cold beads of sweat were sprouting up all over his visage.

The spines on the shaft of his IFM began to spin up its spirals, shrink, and vanish at the end, just to reappear at the base.

    The sun got even darker, this time much more obviously, as if a dark film had been pushed over it from space.

    the earth jerked, and hard, opposite the direction Stoic was facing, as if it had just been shoved a few inches over.

Stoic flashed into a silhouette for a split second, and his face became an even harder mask of determination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    From the perspective of the dragons, the stone hexagon had just been separated from the rest of the earth by a gap a few inches wide, on all sides.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    A heavy wind heading straight down began moving.  blowing the grass down, to reveal a stone pillar about a hundred yards across rising from the ground, with sharp, 120` angles at each corner, completely plain, and uniform.  now only a couple feet high.

The wind got stronger, the sun darkened even more.

    Celestia was not happy about it, no, she was just about ready to stop the human.

the pillar accelerated, now rising several feet per second.

    Celestia realized that dropping the pillar now would probably cause a lot of destruction.  She was pinned.

    The pillar continued to accelerate upwards, until it stood three times as high, as it was long.

    It stopped, hanging a few feet over the normally level ground, the gaping, black void below that it rose from now visible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    From the perspective of the dragons, who were being blasted by an unnatural downward wind, could see a huge pillar of stone rise from the ground, and for a few, gruelingly athletic minutes, observed it rise until it made an Ursa Major look like an ant.

    The sun went pitch black, the human jerked, and dropped his stance lower.

    In the few moments of absolute darkness, the whole ground dropped an entire foot.

    A huge explosion of sound filled the air as billions of tons of earth were ripped from their settlements, shoved over a quarter mile, and resettled, all in under a second.

    The carriages banged loudly against the ground, the groundlings yelped as their footing vanished below them.  Some yelped twice as their momentary flailing in the dark resulted in a sprain when they landed awkwardly.  If they didn’t have four legs, or were as thin as the human, somepony would have broken an ankle for sure.

    The sun went back to its blinding brightness, just as everyone began to stare to its spot of absence, and adjust to the darkness.

    Several ponies, and dragons alike winced at the sudden flash.

The pillar dropped, burying its self a few feet into the soft soil that now filled the void beneath it, with a hexagonal point, instead of a flat bottom, assisting this process.

    A twenty-million ton stone stake now pricked up out of an unusually flat field.

    The sun re-darkened ever so slightly, and the downward wind stopped.

    The surface of the pillar began to gloss, and shine, and reflect the sun onto the field in perfect quadrilaterals.

    Then, the surface of the pillar began to darken, and send tiny reflected beams in every direction.  Large circles of this offset  began to appear, and spread across the megalith, coating its entirety.

the process finished, nopony missed it, the ‘terraforming’ was visible from places much farther than ponyville.  Not even the guards pegasi were wearing their stone expressions of emotionlesness anymore, there were looks of awe on everypony, everypony in Canterlot, everypony in Ponyville, everypony in Manehatten, and everypony in Cloudsdale who heard, or felt the shock of the earth bending to the will of an ancient.”

    The sun brightened again.  The nearly opaque, black aura surrounding Stoic, and his manipulator began to fade, just as everypony began to notice it.

    “There, ha.... have a look at it up close.” Said Stoic, who was quite obviously exhausted.

    The dragons flew down to the ground, and joined the herd approaching the tower.

    There were billions, upon billions of names, all in tiny print, engraved into the surface of the glossy, grey granite.  Not one mistake was present, this was all in thin, perfect, print font, taking up all of the space, on every side of the hexagonal pillar.

    “These are the names of everyone killed by FATE-S” Said Stoic, fingering the carved surface of his monument.  “This is more than just humans too, I learned a lot from that spell.”

    He gathered his strength for a scream.

    “Let this be a monument to the many races that FATE-S destroyed!”  Stoic shouted.

    Everypony was wordless.  Everypony but Applejack.

    “So that’s terraforming.” She said under her breath.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Take a short break from fanficread.exe)  (The ponies were all pausing in silence for a minute anyway.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “Princess, permission to speak?”  Said one of the guards.

    “Gran...Granted.” Celestia sputtered.

    “What.... What in your name did I just witness?”  The terrified stallion said.

    “Terra... Terraforming, Jab, terraforming.”

    “It’s beautiful, Stoic”   Said Rarity.

    Jaws everywhere were scraping the floor.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Back at Canterlot Palace, the princess of light was a lot more than quiet than usual.  Who can blame her, her sun was just blotted out in the most massive spell she had ever witnessed.  She sat in her throne, chin on her hoof, completely flabbergasted, and lost in thought.

    The accounts of the day were being hashed together for a report, to be sent to the mayors of every equestrian city, town, or village, to be read, aloud, to every citizen possible.

    The historian dragons, and scientist dragons were practically at each others' throats, screaming, and hollering in argument.  None of them dared approach the human for questioning, and when his RFM device happened to sweep past them, they ducked, and cowered.

    The ponies there acted quite a bit more calmly, but still refused to go anywhere near the human.

    The Mane Six, and the two princesses were the only ones who didn’t flinch when they saw Stoic.

    They were back in the debriefing room.

    “Well, back when those scientists weren’t frightened to death of me, we discussed, and finished our plan for retrieving a decent quantity of pullus ferrum.  As well as began our plan to have me ponified before I expire.”

    “What have you decided?” Asked Twilight.

    “Well, we took out a map of Equestria, and north of here, near the Ruins of Tambelon, is Babyl Tower, that’s our target.”

    “Oh, you mean the Sky Needle?” Said Pinkie Pie.

    “We’re going to that dreadful place?  There have been dozens of disappearances there!” Rarity said.

    “Well, that’s not what it was called when it was inhabited by humans.  Anyhow, I need to retrieve a few gallons of untamed dark iron to allow ponification.  I am too different to change to a pony without a strong tool, a tool that nopony could grow out of his head.  So, I need to imbue somepony’s horn with slick, and then conduct the spell that we planned very carefully....”

“...I sure do hope that they will help me ponify, rather than just run away.” He said

“Oh, come on, they’ll calm down, you’ll be getting questions soon, rather than fight/flight reactions, you should just go get that pullus ferrum.” Twilight said.

“Well, there’s a catch, I can’t go alone.”

“Why not?”  Said Twilight.

“Well, there’s still some life in the Tower of Babyl, and this life isn’t benevolent.” He said, regurgitating his words as if they hurt.

“What life?  Are there other humans there?”

“NO, NOT EVEN CLOSE!.....”

“......I can’t do this alone, don’t make me go there alone!”

“What could possibly be there that you couldn’t handle?”  Twilight responded.

“ENDERS... Oh, Jesus, those are the scariest F[DATA REDATCTED]ING things I have ever seen, there is no way I could survive there alone!”

“What are Enders, are they what have caused all of those disappearances?” Said the purple pony, now a little worried, and recoiling from the loud expletive.

“They came from the portal, fifteen of them in total, live beings.  They are tall, very tall, look a bit like humans, and stand on long spindly legs that are several times the length of their torsos, their arms stretch down to their ankles, and despite being thin as broom-handles, are strong enough to tear someone in half!  Usually, the only visible facial feature they have is their pair of glowing, violet eyes, which spell death to all who see them.  They have been the subject of horror stories ever since the first one appeared, right in Babyl Tower.  The most famous of which being called ‘The Slaughter of Babyl’.”

“Whoa, why do you want us to come with you if it means we will all just die?”Asked Twilight.

“Oh god, I just realized what I am walking into...  This is all of my worst fears all in one place...”  He almost threw up thinking about it too hard.

“Sorry, imagine this, you walk into a dark room, you are alone, and the first thing you see is a pair of violet, evil eyes, turning to match your stare.  The enders, for some sick, insane reason will stare you right back, for however long you can go without blinking, or glancing away.  They won’t even attack if you just don’t look at them, or touch them.”

“Ok, so you walk into the room, the automatic door shuts behind you, and you are locked in, you can’t see, or feel the button that opens the door.... locked in pitch blackness, no one to help you keep him pinned, locked into an eternal stare-down for your life with a pair of disembodied eyes floating in the blackness, and when you look away, when you so much as blink, it will be upon you, taking off into a dizzyingly fast sprint, and even teleporting to catch you if it can’t get to you quickly.  It disembowls you, pleasuring in your pain, demonically cackling as it forces you to crawl away without your legs attached, batting you around like a cat.  And, should you ever entrap one, and get away, may it ever escape its prison, you had better hope that it forgets your face, because if you’re not dead by the time it gets out, you will be the first person.... er... pony it visits the following night.”

“Ok, different scenario.  You walk into a pitch black room with six friends, all of whom help you stare down the beast, you ward it back into a containment cell with a high powered lantern, you turn on the containment field, day is saved,

the beast won't get out for another eon, you get to move on.”

“How'd there get to be fifteen?  And how do you trap them for an eon?” Twilight asked

Rainbow Dash itched to speak.

“Well, that brings us to the subject of the Babyl Reactor, rated to work for a little over an eon without a manual reset.  Which has obviously passed a long time ago.  See, these Enders are also made from pullus ferrum, creased in such a complex fashion that could only be attributed to some kind of genetic algorithm.  We could not push them back through the portal without risking enormous casualties, so we kept them locked in rooms that had immensely powerful fields projected near the walls, floor, and ceiling, powered by the one, and only ‘Babyl Reactor’.

They are far more than powerful enough to rip through one of those steel doors

in only a few short seconds, though I bet they stayed in the tower because it’s dark in there, and they are extremely sensitive to intense light.  Enders prefer darkness, even to the point of leaving someone unmolested should there be a dark room elsewhere.”

“I think there are more qualified ponies for this job than us six.” Twilight responded, practically horrified with the prospect of entering the sky needle.

“Not true, everyone but you and, the princesses cower away from me, I can already tell that they’re not worthy of this ordeal, and those princesses WILL be alive when when those enders eventually get out.”

Those last words struck it home, all six ponies knew that they couldn’t get out of it.

“Alright, but know that you’re probably going to scar everyone here for life.”

“Not unless someone dies.  Which with six, educated companions, is nearly impossible.  The other fourteen enders were all captured successfully, with no casualties, after the only survivor of the first was found to have been using a high-powered laser-pointer to repel the beasts.”

“WAIT, you know how to get into the sky needle??!!” Twilight asked, already knowing the answer.

    “Well, yes, and yes to an extent that isn’t obvious.  I used to work there, I know the place pretty well.  We keep some stored slick, about 10,000 gallons, up at the very top.  Putting it simply, I have been entrusted with manual keys, and I have them on me right now.” He said, levitating three of his spheroids in front of Twilight, who could assume that they were the same keys he used to open that cabinet.

“Alright, how long do we have to prepare?”

“About an hour”

“Wait!  Can you at least leave Fluttershy out of this?” Rainbow exclaimed, finally getting a short pause to speak up in.

“I have a very strong feeling, confirmed by my auxiliary processor, that Fluttershy will have more power over those enders than all of you combined.”

“What?  How on earth can your auxiliary processor know when you don’t?” Twilight clawed verbally.

“Better question, how can Fluttershy possibly be any threat to those.... Abominations?!” Rarity yelled out.

“She's packing some seriously strong magic, every inch of her is perfectly tuned to be the perfect fighter in a war of wills.”

“I don't get what you mean...  How can you tell?"

"It's a function of my AP.  Kinda hard to tell just by looking, but the signs of it are there.  Like her large, expressive eyes, and her maternal nature.  She's probably more capable of mindfighting than any human I ever knew."

"Umm... What?" Twilight asked

"... Umm, This'll require some explaining, but I really don't want to talk about it."

“Ok, any other details to this plan that we missed?”

“Well, no, not really, I haven't finished tha plan, so I will plan some more for the next hour, and we will take off afterwards, I will explain the finer details on the carriage.  This involves the layout of the tower.  Oh yes, and see if you can get some armor from the princess in that hour.”

“In the case that an ender has one of us, it buys us another few seconds to get between you, and him, with this.”  He said, pulling a glass tube from a fold in his clothing.

“Hey, that’s the lantern you took from the tunnel!” Twilight exclaimed.

“Yes, and I can crank it up so high that you could cook food on top of it!  Combined with a couple orbiters to form a reflector, you could cause an ender to smolder where it stands, and force it to retreat.”

“That’s so neat!” Twilight said.

“Let’s get this party started then!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Wait, why don’t you just use some of those orbiters to get us an easy teleport there?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, for some reason, that only works once.” Stoic said.

“What? That’s stu-”

“Just kidding, that would be stupid.  No, really, I can do that whenever the hell I want, it’s Babyl Tower its self that makes such a teleport dangerous.  The place is loaded with so much folded dark iron that space-time there is severely warped.  Do you know what happens then you try to jump yourself through a severely distorted wormhole, Twilight?”

“Oh... You get... Distorted yourself.” Twilight answered, choking on the last words as if they were digging into her throat, trying their hardest to stay behind her muzzle.

There were many accounts of distortion in pony history.  Many bad teleports ended up horribly disfiguring the teleportee, sometimes making one part of their body too big, sometimes too small, sometimes it turned them inside out, or caused them instant death, sometimes the thing that appeared on the other side of the wormhole didn’t look anything like a pony.  The results of failed teleports that included more than one pony were unspeakably horrific.

“Oh.... I’m not even going to argue there... distortion is not a fate I want to risk suffering.  Please don't make me think about it again.” Twilight finished.

“Now, meet me at the hangar in an hour.  See you ponies later” He said, leaving the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An hour passed in what felt like substantially less than an hour to the ponies.

    The ponies had acquired some thick armor from the white princess, forged from bright brass, and steel.  The joints were  reinforced, as if to protect from strong, unfocused force, to prevent dismemberment, broken bones, or desocketation.

    Rarity was not happy with the armor options she was given, and almost went without, until getting a berating from Stoic.

    They were back at the hangar, two carriages were pulled up, one for the passengers, another for the intended loot, and armor on the return trip.

    The pilot pegasi were uneasy, as not everyone had calmed down from that feat at the field.

    The princesses wished them good luck, the carriages were propelled out of the hangar, and they were off, heading to the north.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End of part 2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~