//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2: Exercise and Crystals 
// Story: Epsilon's peak 
// by StoryWeaver 
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"Throughout time there have always been six beings that we would call gods among us. These spirits have fought and warred since before time began, and will continue until Dnomray, the coming of creation, and Noragra, the coming of destruction."

-Book of The Four Scales, page 206, passage 42




Chapter Two


The mind is a very remarkable thing. It manages sensory input from the outside and inside world, decides whether it is important enough to store away for later, and throws away the trash. It can do all this while running a body of several quadrillion cells, each specialized to a specific task, such as our heart to pump blood, our muscles to keep us moving, and it does it without our self awareness even noticing.

That's not to say that I wasn't bored as hell!

I mean, c'mon, I'm in a totally white room, with no windows, and I'm stuck in a bed with nothing to do but stare at a wall and think.

And thinking usually leads to very bad things for me, overreactions, remembering things I shouldn't.

Oh, and noticing for the very first time that I had a bracelet on my hoof...

It was made up of eight links, each a different material and a different engraving on each, one link was jade and had a pencil on it. to the left of it was a ruby link that had the engraving scratched out. The next link was black onyx with no engravings, a pearl link with the engraving of a sun on it. Beyond that was a link of bloodstone with a ruby crescent moon in it.

Bang!

I jumped as the door slammed, and a rather cranky looking purple unicorn mare walked stiffly into the room, slamming the door shut with purple magic from her horn.

"Who are you!?" She demanded of me. 

I had absolutely no idea what to say. 

"Well!? Who in Equestria are you?!" Her left eye twitched visibly, and a few hairs from her purple streaked mane popped outta place.

my thoughts saddened, and I whispered, "You wouldn't want to know."

Apparently she didn't hear the pain just under the surface, "I do want to know, and now!"

Something finally snapped in me, the grief of that whole week turned into anger, "I don't know! I have been taken from my life, beaten to a pulp," A nearby plant imploded with a CRACK, making the pony jump, " stabbed through in almost any place you could imagine, had the bones in my body snap more times than I can count, impacted the ground at 50 miles per hour twice in a row and I have no idea who the hell I really am inside!" " I felt the electricity build in my back, making my mane stand on end, but my anger drove it further, the electricity spreading throughout my body, "I have had to destroy a country to save the love of my life, and I will never get to see the only one I have ever loved again because I'm STUCK IN THIS EQUESTRIA!!" screamed lashing out at anything in sight, the mare disappeared in a flash of purple light, but I didn't care. My blind rage urged me to let the electricity that had built up in me lash forth.

A flash suddenly blinded me and I heard her voice. It was My love! I began running toward her voice, my anger flowing away, the electricity in my back flowed away, it's power source cut off. I rounded the corner and came face to face with a very angry navy blue furred alicorn. We both went sprawling.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" Her voice boomed out, louder than a concert speaker. I still recognized it. I had mistaken this equine for my one true love. Everything hit me at once, and I broke down crying, sobs wracking my body.

"WELL? WHAT REASON DOST THOU HAVE TO ATTACK MINE SISTER'S STUDENT?" The alicorn's voice boomed forth.

There was a bright white flash, and Celestia was behind the incredibly loud pony, "Luna! What have I told you about using the Canterlot voice?" I continued to sob, "Far Reach has had a hard enough time as it is recovering from the week he came here.

"But-..!" The alicorn whined.

"No buts Luna. You've done enough."

As the two sisters argued, the purple mare from earlier peeked out from behind Celestia. When she looked at me, confusion showed on her face. Then, she tenderly walked forward to me.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

I made an effort to sober up, taking a deep shaky breath and staring forward, sorting my emotions into their proper places.

"Are you alright?" She asked, concern shadowing her fear.

"I'm alright, Ms...?"

"Sparkle," she replied, "Twilight Sparkle, and your name would be?"

"I'm Far Reach, sorry for my outburst, I've-"

I was then interrupted by Luna, "outburst!? Twas no outburst! Twas an attack on my sister's student!" 

"Luna..." Celestia's voice arched dangerously, cowing Luna

I got up and turned to the dark alicorn, my face a studious boogery red-eyed mess, "I am sorry that we got off on the wrong foot Miss-"

"Princess Luna if thou pleaseth," she corrected, her expression rather haughty and displeased.

"Very well, Princess Luna it shall be," I then turned to Celestia, "I am very sorry for causing so much havoc. My emotions tend to be rather wild if I let them get away from me, and with what I can do it certainly isn't a good thing."

Celestia spoke up "Try to keep them under control Far Reach. Now go get cleaned up. Twilight, please watch over Far Reach for me, and keep him out of trouble." Celestia turned to me, "You are hereby released from this hospital, and put under the care of my Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle." Celestia then turned to her sister, "Luna, I have something to discuss with you, " The white alicorn glanced at me, "In private," 

Luna nodded, and both stepped onto a balcony and left with a flap of their wings.

"She's right, I'd better get cleaned up..." I went trotted through the halls to a  nearby bathroom, the purple unicorn following silently. The hospital was eerily quiet, maybe they had evacuated this win or something after the explosions (implosions?). Inside the restroom was the usual amenities, though they were modified for pony use. The toilet was much lower and longer for the pony frame. The faucet had a pair of sliders instead of knobs for hot and cold. (I shudder to think what would have happened had it been any different.) once I cleaned my face and mane of all the mucus and grime that had somehow accumulated, and relieved myself of various fluids, I stepped out to find the purple mare sitting across the hall in one of the hard seat stationed periodically along the wall.

I was about to walk back to the room I had been assigned to, to fix it up from the mess I had made, but Twilught tapped my shoulder, "I'm sorry that we got off on the wrong foot earlier Far, I wasn't in my right mind."

"And I'm sorry for venting on you earlier Ms. Sparkle. I didn't mean a thing in it," I smiled, not feeling the kindness that should have accompanied it.

She snorted, seeing right through my lie, "Don't say things you don't mean Far," 

I drooped somewhat, "I wish I could mean it, the week before I got here was...stressful,"

"Well," Twilight saddened a bit, then smiled, considerably happier, "It'll always get better when you have friends to go to Far!"

"Please call me Reach. Far never felt right to me, unless you say my full name, but then it sounds too formal.

Twilight smiled softly, "Alright then Reach." Just then my stomach gave a rather loud rumble, and Twilight giggled, "Let's get you some food. I've heard that hospital food is horrible."

I smiled for the first time in a long while, "That would be splendid my dear Sparkle," 

Twilight blushed, "you sound like Luna," I wasn't sure whether to take that as a compliment or not, "but much more gentlemanly." Never mind then!

Twilight led me out of the eerily deserted hospital. (Maybe these Canterlot ponies just didn't get sick here? It seems possible given that they have magic.) She led me out the sliding glass door, but before I had even gone five feet I was being swarmed by technicolor ponies and pegasi with cameras, pushing me away from the purple mare. They all began to shout their questions at once, which melded together into a chaotic mishmash of half heard words and blinding flashes of light.

"You've been called the Fallen Star but what is your real name?", "Is it true that you came from another world?", "How did you get to be falling from the sky?"

What in the fudge kind of questions were these!? I tried to get through to Twilight, but the crowd kept hounding me, shifting to surround me every time I moved, pushing the purple pony further every time. Twilight tried to get through to me too, and finally in the end she teleported both of us out of the crowd of paparazzi.

"Run!" She cried, and galloped off. Me being rather new at this, I was understandably hesitant to start running so early, but the crowd of ravenous reporters behind me gave ample motivation to learn, and quickly. Surprisingly my face didn't hit the paved cobblestone road. I was actually making a pretty good pace and catching up to Twilight. Which now that I think on it was pretty easy. I mean, I'm twice her size after all.

"Wow am I popular! But hey! It's better than being chased by an army of mercenaries who are solely bent on killing you, eh?" I shouted to Twilight.

"Less chatting," she panted, "more running,"

After several failed attempts to lose them we ended up at a dead end in an alley. The cliché in that certainly wasn't funny anymore. We spun around, eying the growing throng of rabid newsponies bearing down on us.

I put my head next to Twilight's, "If you have a plan to get away from them, I suggest using it now!,"

"Give me a moment," The unicorn surprisingly started to focus and a few moments later we were on top of the building that had just a few moments ago formed the wall we had pressed ourselves against, out of the sight of those who had chased us. We both lay there breathing heavily, exhausted from all the running we just did in the last half hour or so. 

"W-we better get moving," Twilight groaned, "We may be away from the earth ponies, *pant* but the pegasi will easily spot us out here in the open."

"Agreed, let's get moving." I paused, thinking for a moment, "You're staying somewhere right? Why don't we hole up there?"

Twilight facehoofed (facefoot?) "That's at the castle. On the other side of the city."

I groaned. Looks like sneaking it would have to be...I needed practice anyways, "Which way is the castle?"

Twilight gestured with her hoof off in the distance, "That way," wait, she said castle right?

I heard a shout in the distance. Ask later, run now.

"Let's hope I can still roof run in this body, else we're both gonna get screwed." I began running toward the ledge of the flat roof and entered into roof run mode.

there's a flag pole there, would it support me? I'll have to compensate for my grown weight, maybe I can go on my hind legs for a time? Not likely, maybe I can use it as a one time spring board to launch off of. 

I heard the flag pole snapping before I even finished the thought. Sailing through the air, I landed with a flourish on my hind legs, and started running again on all fours.

I noticed that Twilight had teleported ahead of me to the next building. A hop and a skip fixed that. A balcony here. Some unsupervised construction there. I hit the roof running. Who knew you could adapt so well to a new body?

Actually it has to do with evolution, the human brain evolved from an apes, and all the way back to four legged creatures. After all, only 2% of the human genome is ever used in our lives, the rest is dormant stuff, instincts that won't be used, such as how to walk and run with four legs, how to fly with wings, that kind if stuff.

Cool right? What's cooler is that my mind is able to adapt the freerunning techniques of my two legged self so smoothly into that instinct that it's already secondhand (hoof?) Though I won't be able to grab onto ledges anymore without the benefit of hands.

How do you know how to freerun, You ask? That girl has powers beyond anything you can imagine, including imparting skills unto others. She gave me freerunning and a hyperactive learning curve exceeding anything on earth. Need to learn a language? Give me an hour and a multilingual dictionary. Sadly that ability is finicky, I have to be calm to learn it, and what I'm learning has to be intellectual in nature to learn. But I can adapt known knowledge just fine.

I was interrupted from my thoughts as I came to a stop outside the town, doing a front flip off the last building and landing in a cart of hay.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Twilight appeared just in front of me in a flash.

"Improvisation works really well my dear sparkle," I grinned mischievously at the purple mare, "I'll tell you once we get to your place, where exactly is it anyways?" I looked in the direction of the town, looking for buildings that might belong to the purple mare. 

"Ahem," Twilight caught my attention and gestured up the slope with her hoof. What I saw up there made my eyebrows shoot up in surprise, there was a huge castle of white marble and shining gold. My god was it beautiful, if a bit chaotic.

"Say hello to Canterlot Castle otherwise known as Canterlot Proper. Home to the Princesses of the Sun and the Moon, Our ruling monarchy, Celestia and Luna, also the temporary lodging for me, my friends, and now you for the time being."

"Impressive amount of titles. Reminds me of myself," Twilight arched an eyebrow. I sighed, "I am Far Reach, Creator, Guardian Master, Story Weaver, and maker of The Storeroom, a pocket dimension where I can store literally anything,"

"Oh, reminds me of a spell I use to make a temporary slip-space to store things,"

I looked at Twilight with a hint of chagrin, "Now that's uncool. I thought that was something special."

Twilight smiled, "Nobody else can do it except The Princesses. Care to give me a demonstration of this Storeroom?"

"Let's get walking, and I'll explain,"

"Okay."

I thought for a moment then began to speak, "I actually made the storeroom from nothing, a pocket dimension within the universe I used to reside in, I doubt I could access it now but that place had the most amazing of artifacts,"

Twilight perked up, curiosity writ on her face, "Oh! I've never heard of that kind of magic before! How do you do it? Does it drain your magic at all?" Somehow a notepad and quill materialized in front of her without my noticing.

"Woah there cowgirl. slow down, I can't keep up." I paused, thinking about what had happened the other times I had made something. I parted my lips as my explanation began.

"It isn't easy, Creating something. You have to have an intense focus about every aspect of what your making. If it's alive, you have to then give it a full backstory or else something may go wrong, and often does in my case. The only exception being the storeroom, which I left intentionally blank to fill in later."

I paused for a moment to let Twilight scribble it down, then she questioned, "Can you give me one example of what goes wrong?"

"It doesn't necessarily go wrong, the power just fills in everything based on your current emotions, let's say you want to make another pony. You would have to-"

Twilight interrupted, "can you demonstrate this spell?"

"It isn't a spell. It's a power, and I'm not sure of the effects it would have in my current state, I was changed when I came to this world, and my power may have changed with it." I DID implode a fake plant by accident, "So it may be especially dangerous if I Create something right now."

Twilight gave me a pout, "But how will you ever know if it works? Science demands that you test this!" I instantly broke out into roaring laughter when she mentioned science. Twilight merely tilted her head in confusion, "What's so funny?"

I couldn't reply for a few seconds, I was too busy savoring the few moments of laughter that joke had afforded. When I calmed down a few seconds later I explained the inadvertent joke she had made. "Where I come from, magic and science are two completely different things! Magic is a thing of fantasy for a lot of people."

"But you have this power!" She protested.

"I know, A week before I came here I didn't have that, and didn't even know that magic really existed, though I wished it was." I replied, giving a knowing smile to Twilight.

"Oh, uh, okay!" Twilight then looked at her notepad, flipping through the many notes she had made. "How does it feel when you 'activate' this power?"

"An electric shock goes down my spine, sorta like an adrenaline spike maybe? I'm not sure." I paused, not sure how to describe the feeling of my creating.

"So it has nothing to do with your horn?"

"not at all, Twi." I paused, "Is it alright if I call you Twi?"

"Sure, go ahead. But," Twilight looked at me sternly, "about that demonstration." I groaned inwardly.

I will never hear the end of this..."Alright, alright! I'll do it, What do you want me to make?"

She thought for a moment before replying, "make a crystal," 

"Alright then," I focused for a moment, bringing the long transparent multifaceted stone into my mind's eye and envisioning it front of me. I started to let the energy build in my spine, and I let it go. With a pop, in front of me appeared a crystal of blackest night. Which just floated there with a magic if it's own.

"Wait, I envisioned it as clear..." I was right! Something DID change!

Twilight looked at it with first curiosity, then recognition, then horror. She started to back away quickly from it as if it were something evil. She tried pulling me away but the crystal seemed to like me, and drifted within hooves (I'll never get to used to pony phrasing) reach.

"Reach, get away from it!"

"A black magic floating crystal that likes me. I grant that it's a bit creepy but I think it's kinda cute. I dunno what you're so worried about." I touched the crystal with a hoof.

I really shouldn't have done that, pain flared up inside my chest and I staggered. My vision blurred.

My love was there, running towards me, but she passed me by, running instead towards another. My anger flared up as my heart began to break.

"Reach!"

Before my anger got out of hand Twilight tackled me to the ground, breaking the illusion. My anger faded quickly. I shuddered and gasped, "Th-thank you Twilight,"

"Just don't touch it, and don't make anything else."

"Wh-what happened?"

"That is a crystal which subjects you to your worst fear. It's dark magic, made with negative emotions like hate and fear."

"Well that's great, you know what I said about filling in things based on emotions? Whelp, now you know how just how badly messed up I am. This is why I have to use my power in such a strict and complicated manner, else it makes something evil. It happened the first time I made something and I brought the worst abomination possible into the world because I had no idea what I was doing. Be thankful no one else has this power."

Twilight looked at me with a mixture of awe and shock. She had just learned a good chunk of my past after all, and it ain't pretty in the slightest, "how did you-..how do you survive without going insane?"

"I don't, because I already am. You saw how I blew up so spectacularly on you, I was about to bring a worse abomination than my first into the world, that's how deep my rage was."

Twilight stepped back, almost as if I were a ticking time bomb, and for all intensive purposes I was, still am really.

"So please, though I have supreme control over what I do and think," I paused, relishing the reference I was about to make beforehand, "please don't make me angry 'cuz you won't like me when I'm angry." Ah, that guy certainly was no Jolly Green Giant. 

Twilight just nodded, "Alright then, I'll be careful." We both fell silent for about a minute as we trotted up the mountainside, then Twilight suddenly remembered something, "Oh, Reach, before we get to the castle, I need to tell you something."

"Shoot away sparkler" I replied with a smirk.

"Please don't call me that."

"Very well, what is it you wanted to say?"

"I have some friends that are staying here as well," We passed a set of guards. When they looked at me they scowled, but when they turned to Twilight they instantly straightened and saluted. Letting us pass onto the drawbridge of the castle.

"And-" before I could finish A huge cannon went off, sending me jumping taller than the top of the castle walls in about half a second. Crashing down upside down, my horn stuck in the ground, rendering my legs into useless flailing stumps as I tried vainly to right myself.

"Oopsy daisy, my bad jumping comet pony!" Holy crap what is that pink thing in my face? A pony?! How could anything be that preposterously fast? 

I groaned, "Have I ever told you how I got to hate surprises?"

"I'm so sorry Reach." Twilight gasped, "I'll help you up." 

"Bite me."