//------------------------------// // According to the reports... // Story: Living Elements of Harmony: Neo Elements // by Intellect Stretcher //------------------------------// “We have received word that the Elements of Harmony are now on their way here, General Mars,” The silver legion soldier respectfully, calmly lowered her head and horn to address her superior. “And they should arrive in Canterlot within the next seven to eight hours.” “Ah, that’s good to hear!” Red Star happily said, refusing any effort of being formal with her subordinate. “We also have the reports and developments you asked for.” The soldier uses a conjuration spell and summons a file full of papers, and gives it to Red. “Good work, Lieutenant! I thought these would’ve been lost after all these years. Report back to me with anymore developments; you may go now.” “Right,” the silver unicorn uses a teleport spell to leave the General’s personal study, making the obnoxious sound the red mare dislikes so much. “Ugh that noise,” she openly complained, “If only other unicorns knew how to silence their teleport magic.” She sighs, tosses the file onto her desk, and then absently starts using magic to lock her door, sound proofing the whole room, and shutting the window with the curtains, making the room sealed off to anypony else. Finding peace in the pure privacy, she arrives at her office desk and sits down to look the folder. She opens the file and pulls out everything in it, which all happen to be about one previous event in particular… Her mood completely changes as she skims through more and more. As she finishes reading a few of the pages, she settles all of them in a stack on the side of the desk. She starts quietly talking to herself. “It’s been twelve years now since that thing, that power, came out of Twilight Sparkle during her training… twelve years…” She stands up from her seat and leans with her fore hooves on the desk. She takes a moment to think about what she has read, then she abruptly, angrily slams her right hoof onto her desk. She used so much force that several chips of wood around her target flew off haphazardly on impact, some of them hitting the mare’s face. Her sudden action was then followed by a yell, “AND IN ALL THAT TIME ALL WE EVER DID WAS SIT AROUND WAITING AND SLOWLY FORGETTING!” Her loud shout echoed in her throat as well as in the room, having no real place to go. Grinding her teeth she continues, “CELESTIA DAMN IT ALL! HOW COULD WE HAVE BEEN SO CARELESS? HOW COULD, I! HAVE BEEN SO CARELESS?!” She punches her desk again at the same spot, this time with enough force for her hoof to be buried deeper into the wood and for even more splinters and chips to fly off in all directions. “HOW IS IT THAT IT DIDN’T COME TO US TO THINK OF PREPARING FOR THIS? EVEN IF WE HAD NO LEADS WE STILL HAD TO HAVE SOMETHING! THAT THING! THAT GODDESS FORSAKEN THING! IT COULD’VE DESTROYED ALL OF EQUESTRIA WITH NOTHING TO STOP IT! IT WAS MORE POWERFUL THAN ANYTHING I COULD’VE EVER IMAGINE; IT WAS FAR MORE POWERFUL THAN EVEN THE PRINCESSES! AND MAYBE EVEN THE ELEMENTS OF HARMONY!” One more time, Red Star punches the desk, but this time she supports her hoof with magic to give herself some unusual strength. Her hoof blows through her desk and she knocks out one of the desk drawers from its place, spilling its contents everywhere. Out of all the papers that spilled out there was one that caught the red mare’s attention. Landing face up on the floor in front of her was a picture of herself with a certain lavender filly. The picture depicts the red mare giving her previous student a playful nuggy and the filly in return seemed to be having fun with her teacher as they both hardly fine a reason to not smile. Ignoring the growing, stinging pain in her bleeding arm, Red Star immediately stopped and calmed down in sight of the old photo. Then she sat back down on her chair and levitated the picture to get a better look at it. She can feel her cheeks being lifted by her smile and chuckles leave her lips the longer she stares at the photo. She remembers all the time she spent while teaching the little filly about magic; she even remembers when that picture was taken. Lost in memories, Red thought out loud, “…. Oh Twilight Sparkle, you were so small and adorable… what a great and eager student you turned out to be… and me hehe, you could say I was, and still am, pretty cute too…” As her mind wandered so did her head, and at some point she found herself staring at the destroyed desk. Focusing back she leaves the picture levitating next to her head. Then she looks at the reports that still lay on the other, undamaged side of the desk. “It could’ve very easily killed everypony, and yet it didn’t,” she says, her jaw and hooves tremble as she thinks back to the event. Then she turned her head to look at the photo, “… Maybe, that entity meant no harm. I mean after all it did spare Twilight’s life, it didn’t seem to have been hostile… and it even stopped me from dying in the force of my own magic…” She sighs and then she continues the solitary conversation. “Something must be up; there’s no way we couldn’t have at least develop something to protect ourselves with over these years.” She flips through the pages until she reaches a particular documented report. “Oh it’s a report from my little lieutenant herself… oh I see… according to whatever my team and I could figure out, the entity…” she abruptly stops when she senses some pony’s magical energy coming from the door of her office, despite her magic field. At first Red Star was far too surprised for words, but then she realized there are still three ponies that are strong enough to still be able to be sensed even through Red’s magic. Before giving the pony behind the door a chance to knock, Red Star called out, “Give me a second!” Then she made her left hoof glow with a red aura before wafting it above the broken desk and over her injured right arm. The magic caused the propelled chunks of wood to re-attach to the desk and all the blown papers were put back inside the drawer. Not just that but Red’s wounded arm stopped bleeding and was rapidly restored back to health. While everything around her repaired itself, Red shut off the magic field she put around her office and dropped the photo in the drawer as it was closing back inside the desk. “The door is open!” she called as she used her red aura to lastly unhinge the locks on the door. The door slowly creaked wide open. Out of it came in the radiant niece of the sun goddess. Princess Cadence. She carried a look of apprehension with her as she slowly made her way to the front of Red’s desk. Red gave the first greeting, “Oh it’s you Princess, what an unexpected surprise. How’s it going?” “It could be better to be honest, Maroon Mars,” Cadence’s tone is as anxious as her expression. “How much information do we have on the entity?” “Huh? Oh right! Well, I just started looking over the reports, and there’s already something we know that is of use… in fact it’s just as I suspected…” “Oh good, what do we know?” “Eh well about that…” Red’s eyes were shifting from one direction to another. Something is worrying her. Cadence noticed this and said, “It’s alright, I’ll know if somepony is close. You don’t have to worry about any eavesdroppers.” “That’s not what’s bugging me,” Red immediately interjected, “It’s just that… I’am worried right now that… never mind. Just forget it…” “If there’s something troubling you…” “No, it’s nothing. Can we just move on?” Cadence noticed that Red seems ill at ease, but it be better to not get too caught up in that right now. “Alright. Well anyways what is it that you’ve figured out?” Cadence moved the subject along. “See for yourself,” Red Star levitated the folder over to the princess. Then she started looking and reading them. “You know when the entity vanished into nowhere on the day it revealed itself, I thought it simply died because it just couldn’t survive without a host, even with its immense power.” Red began to explain while Cadence followed along, reading the documents. “But now it’s clear that the entity, by an unknown means, went back inside the Element of Magic and kept itself dormant throughout this whole time, living silently within Twilight Sparkle. Being one with the Element of Harmony.” “H-how could that be?” a dread feeling went down Cadence’s spine. “We don’t know. We think it’s because since it already had origins with the Element of Magic it was able to match its essence with it for a long time while hiding inside, keeping us from sensing it. How it did that is a complete mystery. However now it has grown so strong that it can’t do that anymore, so now we can sense its power.” “What does that mean for Twilight?” “… I don’t know… All I know for sure is that that entity won’t be able to stay inside Twilight for long. Its power will have unpredictable effect on not only Twilight but the rest of the Elements of Harmony if it does. It MUST be removed. There’s a chance it will voluntarily remove itself, but I’am prepared if we have to use force…” “Now Mars," the princess called out in distress, "you know that is a last resort. You can't just do that. After all we brought them over here thinking they’re on a vacation as thanks for their services…” Cadence’s voice started losing life mid-sentence as she realizes what she was implying. A long dead pause lingered. “I hate having to do this," Red resumed at last, "lying to them in such a gross manner. Even if we are offering them all these things like a real celebration, our intentions are insulting. And I know you feel the same way about this too. In fact I was surprised when Shining Armor, your husband, Twilight’s brother, agreed to such secrecy.” For a second Cadence refused to make eye contact with Red Star, “… Is that what’s been upsetting you?” she finally asked. “N-no… I-it’s just that, well, I haven’t seen Twilight, an old dear friend and student, in so long. I wanted our reunion to be of our own free will and not for a mission to save Equestria!” “I understand, believe me I do, but there was no other choice. We couldn’t risk anypony else finding out about this. Besides it’s still a vacation-” “At least until something happens to her!” Red let out her words faster than she could catch them. Surprised by her own outburst Red didn’t know what else to say, and neither did the princess. Another awkward silence lingered. At least until Red broke it. “I’m sorry…” her tone seemed unrecognizably apologetic. “It’s alright,” Cadence calmly responded, “if that is all you and your research team have come up with, then I thank you for informing me and I thank you for your time...” she slowly turned around and started walking to the door. “Wait,” Red said timorously. Cadence stopped immediately as if she was barked at, but she kept her body facing the door. “There’s something else you need to know. You know that we are one of the few who are strong enough to sense such things like power or essence from a far distance whenever we want to, right? Well, we can both sense that entity right now as we speak… without even trying to…” “What are you saying?” Compelled by sudden interest, Cadence turned her body to face the red mare once again. “I’m saying that this entity radiates probably the most powerful energy that has ever been felt in Equestria. Anyone who is well versed in magic, whether it’s a pony or another sentient race, can sense this power…” Red noticed the Princess’s eyes becoming wide like saucers, but she continues, “… Twilight might just attract some… unwanted attention…” “Are you saying that we should expect some sort of invasion!?” Fear and unease went through the pink alicorn’s manner of speaking. “Oh no, not just anyone can feel this. That power can still only able to be sensed by a select few who are very strong or well-rounded with their magical surroundings… oh wait that’s still a lot…” Red didn’t realize until the end of her sentence that her attempt to calm the princess wasn’t really helping. “Are we going to have to fight for the Elements of Harmony?” The broadest question for the situation to handle just hesitantly rolled of the tongue of the very panicky princess. “Uh I-don’t, think, so… I-maybe, uh…” Red Star wasn’t sure how to put things lightly; she couldn’t just lie to Cadence either. Gaining confidence, Red continues, “look, you really shouldn’t worry about this. There haven’t been any sudden appearances of unknown ponies, well at least to my knowledge. Also I highly doubt those who even bother coming here to investigate this power would be much trouble for us to handle.” “Well… I suppose you’re right,” the Princess’s tone is surprisingly brought back to normal, “I apologize if I seemed a little too worried for a second.” “Aww, come on princess, you don’t have to apologize for something like this. To be honest you actually acted much less distressed than I did when this was brought to my attention, hehe.” “Oh right. You know you didn’t have to punch your des-” Cadence covered her mouth at once and stopped herself from saying anymore. “Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” The Princess didn’t answer. She just bore a goofy smile and made her eyes wander. “Wait! You mean you were listening to me when I-” Before Red Star could finish, the Princess quickly, but gently placed her right hoof on Red’s lips to silence her. Then she said in a playful tone, “No need to discuss anything else. I should probably get going and leave you to your work. Don’t you think?” Before the red mare could respond, Cadence went ahead and used a silent teleport and left. Red Star simply stood there being surprised at the Princess’s sudden changes in mood. “Bah! Despite everything that’s happening you still find a reason to smile. I can’t ever understand how you do that, to be honest.” Her thoughts move on to another problem, “Oh damn, she heard everything I was saying! Great. Hope she doesn’t tell Celest and Luna. Ugh what am I saying, of course she won’t.” Quickly getting past that, she drops herself on her chair and leans further down the chair. It wasn’t long until her eyes ventured to look at the desk drawer where the picture rests. “Hmm, I wonder what it is she’s been up to lately. Probably playing with some experiments… Ooh wait, I wonder what the other Elements of Harmony are like…!” Red’s face broke into a smile, “Haha! Now I can’t wait to meet all of Twilight’s friends!” her tone roared with goofy excitement as she jumped off her seat. But then Red Star questioned her own sudden actions as fast as they happened. This is not at all like her to be acting so happy so quickly. “Ah! What the?” remaining still for the most part Red tries to quickly think of what is causing this to happen. It didn’t take her long to find the cause of this. “UGH! Tell me you didn’t, when did you- of course, when you touched my lips! Damn it Cadence! You didn’t have to drug me with a lethal dose of your lovey-dovey magic!” With her annoyance and frustration stricken by sudden happiness, Red bolts out of her office and starts to gallop through the hallways. “This isn’t funny! I have important things to look into; I have no time for this!” It wasn’t long before she made it to her living quarters. She gives one last yell before the effects of Cadence’s magic consumes her into a full ardent demeanor. “As soon as this happy curse wears off, I’ll get back at you, Cadence!!”