Advent of Victory

Useless, if there was a single word to describe the books that I had gotten it would be useless. You would think that a giant ass book with the words bestiary on the front would have a lot of information on all sorts of different animals. You would be wrong if you were looking at the same book I was.

The tome actually didn’t even have over fifty different kinds of beasts in it, and there was no surprise that whatever I was also wasn’t in it. Oh sure it mentions diamonds dogs and all sorts of other canines, and how they were all descended from the same original race though it didn’t actually tell me anything about them. It also mentioned the griffins could be traced back along the same route, but of course that is where its helpfulness ceased.

Whatever said ancestor was they apparently passed down the traits of strength and speed, which the race was known for. Seeing as how the other two ancient races were alicorns and dragons I was pretty certain that this mystery race was what mine was descended from. It did even make a point that the creatures that shared this lineage weren’t very well known for their magic so where did that leave me?

There I was without amazing strength or incredible speed and the only asset I could be certain of was that I definitely had some sort of innate magic. I knew exactly as much as I did about whatever species I was as before I opened this useless book. I had thrown it aside in frustration and turned to the other books that I had procured hoping that they would be more useful. I was sorely mistaken about that.

Both of them were written in some bizarre language that I couldn’t read no matter how long I spent staring at the strange words, and let me tell you, that was a long time. Great, so now I had a useless bestiary and two books on magic that I couldn’t read. They weren’t even worth stealing in the first place. I probably would end up returning these and be a good little law-abiding citizen for once in my life. I wondered what that felt like.

I tossed the two books against the wall where the other had landed and laid back on the comfortable bed that the room held. I hadn’t actually slept in a bed since I arrived in Equestria, and this thing was amazing. I suppose that my soft fur had kept me pretty satisfied as far as cushioning had gone up until now, but now that I actually was back on a mattress the ground just would not cut it anymore.

Deciduous had come in some time after that, and set several paper bags he had procured down on the table that was in the room. To be honest I had expected the room to be a lot smaller than it turned out to be. There were two queen-sized beds that sat against the far wall of the room with a bedside table between them beneath the only window in the room. There was a couch with a coffee table in front of it on the left of the entrance, which seemed slightly odd to me. Why would you have a couch in a hotel room when there was no TV to watch? Maybe I should just chalk that up with unexplainable things like why ponies had doorknobs, which by the way are a pain in the ass to use with paws.

The bathroom was relatively small with only a shower and a strange looking toilet that I wasn’t quite certain how to use. Yes, over the last couple of days I had gotten used to doing my business with a female body, but I was by no means happy with it. God help me if I somehow found myself in heat one day. I don’t think I would allow myself to live through it.

I sighed and got off of the extremely comfortable bed and padded over to the table that Deciduous had just finished setting all of the food on. “What do we have here?” I asked.

“I got some pastries like you asked, but I also bought some other things that I think you might like,” he replied with a grin and began to pull items out of the brown paper bags he had brought in. He pulled out a box of sweet rolls, some cupcakes, a few pieces of fruit, two pre-made salads, and what looked like what I could only assume to be hay fries.

“They didn’t sell any meats though I wouldn’t have expected them to. Some ponies gave me a couple of odd looks when I asked.” He glanced away awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t exactly know what else you eat so I got a variety.”

“Don’t worry about it this stuff looks great,” I said trying to put him at ease before picking up a roll and munching on it. The taste of its buttery goodness pulled me from my woes and sent me straight to a starch filled heaven. “Oh my god this is so fucking good.”

I pretended to not notice his unease at my swearing as I continued to chow down on the roll, and soon was starting on my second. The rolls brought me back to memories of thanksgiving dinners with my family at my grandfather’s ranch. Granny would always make the most delicious rolls and stuffing while my mom would try her hardest not to burn the turkey year after year. She always ended up overcooking it but we pretended not to notice; mom wasn’t exactly what you would call the most competent chef in the family and I of course was no better.

“Hey are you okay?” Deciduous asked, bringing me out of my revere.

I blinked a few times, bringing my self out of my memories, and finished the roll I was eating. “Yea, of course I am why would you ask,” I said putting on the best smile I could.

“Well, you were crying.” At his mention of it I put a paw to my face, and found the fur beneath my eye to be slightly damp.

“Must have gotten something in my eye,” I lied. Of course he knew I was lying, but it was the kind of lie neither party would expose in order to avoid mutual awkwardness. “I think I am going to take a shower, and get all of this dirt off of me.” I quickly grabbed a roll hurried into the bathroom before anything more could be said.

Thankfully the door used a handle instead of a knob with a simple button as the locking mechanism, which I employed as soon as the door was shut. I stood there for a long while, leaning against the door with the complex carbohydrates of the roll in my mouth breaking down into more simple and delicious sugars. I sighed and went back eating my roll as I sat back on my haunches against the door. I was crying again; why was I crying again? I should be better than this. If I was somehow going to win this crazy game that I now found myself in the middle of, and get back home then I couldn’t be breaking down at every little thing that reminded me of home.

I took a few minutes to collect myself and steel my resolve for the no doubt countless trials that were ahead of me, and finished the food that I had brought into the bathroom with me. Oddly enough after eating only three relatively small rolls I found myself somewhat full. I walked to the shower and turned the handle, and allowed the water to start warming as I went to the mirror to examine myself.

I had really let myself get beaten up on the way to Rubyton. There were several dark spots along my fur where dirt had decided to cling, and a few of the wounds I had previously addressed had opened again on the short ride here staining my snow-white fur crimson in a select few places. The fur itself was sticking out periodically at some rough angles every so often and showed that I could use a good brushing. I found the complementary brush that was on the counter near the sink, and chucked it over the shower curtain into the shower itself.

I pulled back the curtain and using a paw determined that the water was warm enough to stand, and jumped in. The feeling of the thin jets of water that rained down on my slowly dampening my fur was a rather odd sensation but not unwelcome. I was quickly enveloped in a warm aura that was both soothing and relaxing. I sighed and sat back in the wash bin, finding the brush I had tossed in and strapped it to my paw like I assumed ponies did. The water aided in straightening my fur with the brush and making sure that it all flowed in the same direction. When finished with my first round of grooming I located the complementary conditioner that the inn was stocked up on, and proceeded to use the entire bottle on my coat to make sure that it was all silky smooth.

When I stepped out of the shower after over half an hour of relaxing and self-grooming I was met with the irresistible urge to fling all of the water off of myself like a dog might. I started the motion, but luckily was able to stop myself before I completely destroyed the bathroom. I grabbed the towel off the rack next to the shower, and proceeded to spend the next ten minutes drying off. It was then that I developed a deep respect for those that chose to grow their hair out long, and kept up with the maintenance of it all. Between everything it had taken me over an hour to shower and dry myself when I was used to only spending ten minutes on the same activity previously. I turned the shower off and hurried out of the bathroom, slightly embarrassed at taking so long.

I found Deciduous in the hotel room reading through one of the magic books that I had gotten from the library as he absentmindedly ate his salad. A few pieces of lettuce had been the unfortunate recipients of his split focus, and littered the floor around his hooves. He noticed that I was finally done with the bathroom and looked up from the book as I came back into the room proper.

“You look a lot better,” he said casually before looking back to the book he was holding. “Why did you get a book on magic anyways?”

“You can read that thing?” I asked, taking a seat next to him on the couch.

“Well yea. Why, can’t you?”

“Not at all,” I said with a sigh. “I can read the bestiary just fine, but whatever language this is in escapes me.” I looked back over the rest of the food that was left. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I felt that I might as well have a cupcake so I helped myself to one. They were every bit as good as the rolls had been.

“They are both Equestrian but these magic books are in high equestrian, which is usually what unicorns use. I never really understood why we still use two different written forms, but only speak one. Something about tradition of the original pony tribes I think.” He also sat back and scratched his chin in thought.

“Tradition is the corpse of wisdom,” I replied without really thinking about it. For some reason that was one of my favorite quotes, and I loved to bring it up whenever the chance arose.

“Umm, sure,” He said in an odd tone. “Anyways, why did you get these books in the first place? If you didn’t notice I am not exactly a unicorn, and I haven’t really seen you doing any magic either.” So here it was, a chance to tell him that I could actually pull off some magic or not. Sure I couldn’t actually show him what I could do since it was apparently extremely subtle, and only affected me so he might not even believe me if I did tell him. In the end I decided against saying such in order to avoid more awkward questions that might arise if I did tell him the truth.

“Haven’t you ever been interested in learning about new things? Where I come from we don’t really have a lot of books and nopony really knows much about magic so I picked up these books while I could. It is a real shame that I can’t read any of it. You wouldn’t mind reading it to me would you?” I asked with the best puppy dog eyes I could pull off. Fun fact, being an actual member of the canine genus makes it a lot easier to pull off puppy dog eyes.

He looked back at me for a few long moments before finally sighing. “Fine, where do you want me to start?” he asked flipping the book to the index.

“Start with the basics of what magic actually is,” I instructed.

He turned the book to page one and started reading from the beginning. “Magic is a force that emanates from and penetrates the world around us. Every creature that lives in the world has some form of innate magic, but those able to express it and use it in the physical world have a greater tie to it than others. Magic tends to orient itself in leylines that run through the world and give off power to their surroundings. Those with a great tie to leylines are able to produce more magical work than others which is a common reason that unicorns are able to perform more magical feats than less magically inclined creatures such as mules or donkeys.”

He turned the page of the book and hummed to himself. “This is actually kind of interesting. Okay so here it goes on to say, other forms of innate magic have been found that do not draw power from leylines or use them to replenish themselves. These different forms of magic are often rare and far between, and use the actual beings own life energy in order to fuel them. It has often been reported that such ways of using magic can be stronger, but have a much higher risk of backlash on the caster.

“Magic as it is used in unicorns, which is what this book is meant to cover, is first drawn out from the environment and leylines through the caster and into the horn. From there it is shaped into the proper spell by the caster until it is in the correct form to complete its task. See chapters eight and nine for a more in depth coverage of how to properly build and release stored magic.

“Magic and spells that they are used for align themselves into a rainbow spectrum with the categories of fire, water, earth, air, dark, and light. Any spell can be categorized as originating from one or more of these categories. The clever combination of categories in either sequence or parallel is what has led to our most complex and powerful spells, which will not be covered in this book.” He stopped for a moment and looked back at me.

“It goes on from here to the actual sections of the book that describe each category and how it can be used. Do you want me to go through all of that?”

“If you don’t mi…” A rumbling outside shook the building that we were sitting in and caused some of the cupcakes that were on the table to fall off. I looked on in horror as they hit the ground and were dashed to pieces by the impact, which ruined their sugary goodness. Deciduous had already tossed aside the book that we were reading and retrieved his sword from where he had put it near the door. Not a second later he was out said door and headed downstairs into the lobby.

I groaned in frustration and followed him out of the room quickly, praying beyond hope that he wasn’t about to do something incredibly stupid. The lobby was packed with panicking ponies that were running back and forth like chickens with their heads cut, and a few that were trying to calm everyone down. I caught a glimpse of Deciduous as he disappeared out the door and into the night that had fallen while we were in the room.

I scurried past the ponies that filled the lobby to the brim and out into the darkness of the streets. There wasn’t a lot that could be seen by the pale moonlight of the waning gibbous above, but the fires certainly helped to clear everything up. I had a low vantage, but the library that I had visited previously was on fire, and burning down very quickly. I caught the sight of a massive black shadow moving just beyond the fire, and Deciduous racing off towards the burning building.

I took off after him, and after rounding a corner had to correct myself. The library wasn’t the only thing that was going up in flames; half of the entire town was burning down including most of Main Street. The building just in front of me collapsed, as the massive back of a reptilian tail smashed through it.

For one perfect moment the fires stopped obscuring the rampaging beast that was laying waste to the pony settlement, and accented its features perfectly. I had thought the snake that I had stared down earlier had been huge, but it had to be a baby compared to this behemoth.

It was completely adorned in black scales that blended in near perfectly into the darkness of the night, and stood sixty feet tall. It held a cabbage stand in its mouth with a screaming mare trapped inside of the booth. Slowly it closed its maw, crunching down on its meal until the sickening snap of bones and wood could clearly be heard over the mass of ponies that were running and screaming. A flash of green brought my gaze back to ground level, and Deciduous who had just taken off running at the massive reptile with that wickedly sharp diamond sword clenched tightly between his teeth.

I took off as fast as I possibly could and tackled the little moron before he could do something incredibly stupid that I would end up regretting. With his focus completely turned to the giant snake it wasn’t too difficult to blindside him and knock him to the ground despite how much stronger I assumed he was than me. It seemed that being slightly bigger than him gave me an advantage in this.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” I screamed down at where I had him pinned.

“I am trying to help. Now get off of me.” He tried to shove me away with his free hoof, but I firmly pushed down on his hoof I had to the ground and his chest. This wasn’t the first time I had wrestled someone to the ground and having digits, no matter how crappy, was coming in handy.

“Didn’t I fucking tell you not to do stupid shit after you just charged at the last snake we came across. This one is like a million times bigger and you are just going to go with the same dumbass plan again. Do you even have a brain?” I yelled in his face hoping that he would get my point. I was rewarded for my efforts with a punch to the face that sent me sprawling. The kid had a really good right hook.

“I can’t just do nothing,” he yelled back at me as he picked himself up off the ground.

“I am sure that the guard can handle it. We shouldn’t get involved.” As if the universe just wanted to prove me wrong the guard that was hassling me earlier came crashing down to earth just a short distance away. He slid through the dirt before coming to a halt, and just continued to lay there. If the bone protruding from his leg was any indication then he was going to be out of the fight for a while.

I looked back to the giant snake which had moved farther into Main Street while I had been bickering with Deciduous, and was now fully visible thanks to the fires. The amount of guards that were trying to fend it off were woefully inadequate. I counted two pegasi that were attempting to beat it with their hooves, and a few unicorn jumping around its base shooting magic at it. Apparently the earth pony guard had been the only one they had, and he was definitely out of the fight.

They seemed well trained from what I could tell; the pegasi would swoop in and assault the monster from behind, and once its attention was turned elsewhere the unicorns would launch a salvo at it. Now that I was looking closer I could see blades attached to the hooves of the pegasi that were attacking the snake, but every time they would score a hit they weren’t able to penetrate much of its hide.

Seeing what the guards were doing the serpent lashed out with its tale as soon as it turned its attention to the pegasi, and struck one of the unicorns sending them through a burning building on the other side of the street. One of the mares flying around its head was stunned by this and caught as the snake snapped down on her wing. She let out a shriek before the snake bit down harder completely severing the wing, and causing her to fall to the ground.

A flash of red sped out of one of the burning buildings and caught the mare just before she would have hit the ground. As the streak sped back into the air and came to a rest I was able to see that it was the pegasus that had saved my ass from a snake earlier. Scarlet held the profusely bleeding pony in her hooves before she rocketed over to two ponies in medical uniforms and deposited the mare with them. Scarlet took once more to the air, and started circling the snake while pelting it with bottles that erupted in fire as soon as they hit.

The fire didn’t seem to be doing anything seeing as how the snake was actually half standing in the corpse of a burning building. The unicorns and one pegasus guard that was left were clearly outmatched here. For whatever reason this snake was a lot smarter than any reptile had the right to be with how it had seen the pattern of their attacks and preempted them. This entire town was about to be leveled, and the look on Deciduous’ face told me that he knew it.

He turned to look back at me for a moment before picking up this sword I had knocked out of his grip and said. “I am going to help fend off this monster. You do whatever you want, and if you can live with yourself knowing you let an entire town of ponies die without lifting a hoof to help then I don’t even want to be associated with you anyways.”

With that he took off at full gallop to where the unicorns were busy futilely fending off the snake. He raced over, and as soon as one of the guards caught sight of him he was directed into position to help. He leaped forwards and struck at the scaled beast with the sword, and cut deep into it before pulling the blade back out with a little bit of trouble. Because of its size that cut couldn’t be more than a minor annoyance, and the snake treated it as such by staring down at Deciduous with what I can only describe as a look of bemusement.

Deciduous jumped back out of the way of its strike, and scored another hit on his face as he did so. He smiled as he swung again at the snake and gashed it, and the unicorn to his left shot a bolt of magic at its face causing it to rear away suddenly. His smile grew wider as the bolt struck, and he jumped around to avoid its tail coming at him. No doubt he thought that they were doing well against the beast, but from where I stood a good distance away I could tell; there was no chance that they would win this fight.