//------------------------------// // Shockwave and Awe // Story: LanternFall // by leonidas701 //------------------------------// “Okay, that’s that spell out of the way,” Trixie said, having successfully turned Spike from purple to yellow. “What’s the next one?” She asked, looking over to where Twilight was reading down the list of spells Celestia had sent for her to study. “Let’s see, we just did color-shifting so next is... sound amplification and distortion,” Twilight said. “Looks fairly simple. Here are the instructions.” She handed the list over to her friend. “Okay, what’s the way we’re supposed to test if we’ve learned this one?” “According to this, it’s when we are able to make a glass of water crack, but not shatter, by altering the sound we get from dropping books on the floor. Spike, we won’t need you for this one.” Twilight lifted the spell from her assistant, bring his scales back their original shade. “Thanks,” Spike said as he went to take his pre-afternoon nap snooze. “Wake me up when you need me again.” Once the little dragon had left the room, Trixie turned to face Twilight. “You may have beaten me last time, but I’ll be the one to get this one right first,” She said as she levitated two cups out of the kitchen. “Oh? Remind me again what the score is right now?” Twilight teased as she filled the cups up with water. “Wasn’t it around seventeen to twelve? Well, eighteen to twelve now.” “Yeah, well you just watch me.” Trixie said, taking two heavy books off the shelves and giving one to Twilight. “Three.” “Two.” “One.” “GO!” They said together, both dropping their books and focusing all their concentration on magically attempting to distort the sound. Twilight and Trixie had been studying the spells Celestia had been sending to Twilight together for the past couple of weeks. Twilight had suggested the arrangement at a sleepover she had had a while ago, in between her getting stunned by a pillow and a certain stallion using lighting to set a picnic table ablaze. With the aid of Trixie, Twilight was able to go through the spells twice as quickly as she had before. They had even started keeping count of who could learn each spell the fastest each day. While they were trying to figure out how to make the dull thump of a book loud enough and high enough to crack a glass, they were shocked out of their studies by a sudden loud noise. *KA-BOOM!* “What was that?” Trixie asked as she picked herself up off the floor. “I don’t know,” Twilight said. Twilight shook herself out of her stunned state and quickly looked out her window. She saw a cloud of dust on the skyline, but the view of where it came from was obstructed by all the buildings in town. She went outside and started walking. “Where are you going?” Trixie asked “I’m going to find out what caused that.” “Well, wait for me.” Trixie quickly brushed herself off and joined her friend. As they walked along, getting closer to the impact site, they took notice of all the damage the explosion had caused. There were shop with no windows in them anymore, parts of the ground had long spidery cracks in it, there were even some signposts that had fallen over, and it got worse the closer they came. There were buildings reduced to rubble and ponies bleeding in the streets. “What do you think could’ve caused caused all this?” Trixie asked. “I don’t know,” Twilight said, before suddenly getting a small grin on her face. “I can tell you what Card would say caused it though.” She lowered her voice to Card’s vaguely bored timbre. “Clearly it was caused by a war between the ants and the bees. The threat that they posed each other lead to them rapidly gaining intelligence until they gained the capability to create gunpowder, thus revolutionizing their understanding of war forever. Hives were set ablaze, whole anthills were leveled in one fell swoop.” “Seeing the level of destruction the new weapons were creating,” Trixie interrupted, giggling at the story, “A group of rebels from both sides banded to together to stop the war once and for all. They planned to make a show of force so powerful that both sides would agree to a peace treaty out of fear of mutual annihilation. They built a bomb powerful enough achieve this goal, and planned to set it off in the middle of the border between territories, but they miscalculated. The bomb was indeed powerful enough to stop the war, but it stopped it by completely decimating both species. There were no survivors.” Once this story was done, both mares looked at each other solemnly. They then immediately broke into fits of laughter. “Yeah, he totally would say that,” Twilight said. “Probably do it all completely serious faced too,” Trixie agreed. By the time they had finished their story they had reached the edge of town, but could see that they were still pretty far away from the source of the explosion. Now that they were away from any buildings blocking their line of vision, they could clearly see that the smoke cloud was coming from deep within the Everfree forest. “Of course it’s coming from in there,” Trixie said with a sigh. “You know, we could easily just go back. We don’t have to go in there.” “Well, we’ve already come this far. Might as well see what it is.” Twilight responded as she headed towards the edge of the forest. Trixie rolled her eyes and followed. As they reached the fringes of the forest, they saw that they weren’t the only ones who had the idea of checking out the disturbance. “Well, if you’re fine then I see no point in going into that place,” Rarity said to Rainbow Dash. “Well fine then, why don’t you go back and I’ll just go in.” Rainbow Dash said. “Hey,” Twilight said as she saw her friends. “What’s going on?” Rarity and Rainbow Dash immediately both started talking at once. “I saw he-” “She came t-” “Stop,” Twilight said as she held up a hoof. “Applejack, what happened here?” “Well, Ah was working in the orchard and suddenly Ah heard a huge kaboom, and was blown back clear across the farm. A few of our trees even got uprooted. Ah came here to give whatever did that a piece of mah mind,” Applejack said, “When I got here, Pinkie was already here and so was Fluttershy. Then Rainbow Dash came and Rarity followed. Apparently, Rarity actually saw what did it and thought it was Rainbow Dash making a nasty landing.” “I saw a rainbow fall out of the sky! I thought she might need help,” Rarity said in her defense. “I thought Rainbow Dash was in trouble too...” Fluttershy whispered out. “Yeah, well as you can both see, I’m fine,” Rainbow Dash said, “Now then, I’m going in to see what that was that woke me up!” “And I’m telling you it’s a bad idea!” Rarity responded. “Remember what happened last time you went into the Everfree?” An awkward silence fell over the group as the mares collectivlly remembered the horrible state Rainbow Dash’s unconscious body was in following her attack by the manticores, along with the nasty sight of her purging the venom on Card’s couch. Rainbow Dash broke the silence, going on like the last few seconds hadn’t happened. “You know what, if you’re so worried about me, then come follow me.” And with that, Rainbow Dash turned and went into the Everfree forest. Rarity let out an exasperated sigh and followed her, along with the rest of the mares. As they went into the forest they saw how badly it was effected. Trees were thrown around like snowflakes, grass was blown so far back that the blades had been locked into position facing backwards. The closer they got to the source, the greater the carnage was. Finally, they reached the site. It was a large crater, almost like an oval in the center. Around it were seven smaller craters, though still fairly big, arranged in a pair of rows with one in the middle at the top. “Ugh...” Rainbow Dash said as she began to rapidly blink her eyes. “What’s that red light coming from?” “Red?” Twilight asked. Before she could elaborate, Applejack began yelling. “Pinkie, what are y’all doing?! Get away from there!” Pinkie paid Applejack no attention as she began walking towards the only crater without a symmetrical counterpart. She almost seemed to be in a daze, walking until she reached the holes edge where she raised up one of her front hooves. “Pinkie Pie, that’s dangerous!” Rarity cried out, “You have no idea what kind of- oh.” Rarity was stopped in her warning by a glowing green light rising out of the crater. Slowly it floated over to Pinkie Pie’s hoof, and then lowered itself onto it. The light faded, revealing Pinkie's hoof had gained some decoration in the form of a green ring with an image of a lantern.