As the spell finished, we found ourselves inside a castle of indescribable grandeur made of materials such as marble and gold. There were stained-glass windows depicting great feats made by the six mares accompanying us, and the place just radiated with importance, just like the royal palace of Lemuria did.
“Follow me,” Twilight said, and the rest of us followed her to a throne room, where a white pony who looked almost like a horse sat in a throne, with the same wings and horn Twilight had, also sporting a mane and tail of pastel colors that looked to be made more out of energy than hairs.
“That’s Celestia!” Karen whispered to me. “Kneel to show respect!”
She and I did just that, while Celestia looked us over.
“Ah, Karen,” she said warmly. “You’ve returned. And I see you brought Twilight and her friends with you. And…” Her gaze finally landed on me, and she nodded. “Yes, this is the one I spoke of. Now I can send you home. Luna and Discord will also be required for this, though.”
“Already taken care of, Tia dear!” a goofy-sounding voice said as a navy blue pony similar to Celestia and a creature that looked like a strange amalgamation of animal parts appeared in the room. “I’ve brought Luna, and we can send those two on their way back to their world!”
“Bye!” Pinkie said as the mares stepped back and the two Alicorns and the being I presumed to be Discord surrounded us.
“See ya!” Rainbow Dash said with a wave. “Kick that Alex guy’s butt!”
A hole in spacetime opened above us, crackling with energy, creating a strong wind that disturbed nothing but my attire and Karen’s.
We started to float up towards it, waving farewell to the ponies below, when suddenly, Alex’s voice boomed in the room, sounding as haughty as ever.
“So, you’ve regained your memories, have you, Felix?” his voice asked. “It took you longer than I expected, but I’m still not ready for you. Isaac still has a small sliver of the Mars Star’s power in him and—”
“Felix! Help! Save us!” Jenna’s voice suddenly cut in.
“Jenna!” I exclaimed. “I’m on my way!”
“Shut up, girl!” Alex’s voice snapped. “Anyway, Felix. I’m not ready for you just yet, so I’m going to have to stop you from returning. I must say, the way you’ve decided to return home uses a powerful force, indeed, but though I’m not all-powerful yet, I’m now more powerful than even the Wise One! Sorry, but you’re staying there, old friend.”
Suddenly, the sound of incredibly powerful Psynergy could be heard from the other side of the portal, and even the non-Adepts could hear and feel the intensity of its power.
“What is that pressure? And what is that noise?” the blue Alicorn, who I presumed was the “Luna” Discord spoke of, demanded.
“Oh? You can actually detect my power despite not being Adepts?” Alex chuckled. “Well, I guess I am using a little more than I’ve ever used before, so I guess non-Adepts can detect Psynergy at this intensity. Interesting. Well, then! I shall use this magnitude more often to strike fear into non-Adepts!”
The portal’s spinning started to slow, and Karen and I stopped rising into the air.
“Alex, when I’m human again and I get my hands on you…” Karen snapped, straining to reach the portal with her scythe, which was only inches out of her weapon’s reach.
“Oh? The girl from Prox!” Alex said, sounding genuinely surprised, “So that’s where you ended up, hmm? Seriously, I never expected to find anyone else besides Felix because though I’ve thrown so many Adepts into the void to practice for what I did to Felix, I never expected to find two Adepts in the same dimension because there are practically infinite planes of existence! Who knows? You might get even more lucky and find a Jupiter and Mercury Adept and have a full team! I seriously doubt that, though. Been fun chatting with you, it really has, but I’ve got work to do on finishing up taking the power of Mars from Isaac, so I bid you farewell.”
“The gate’s closing!” I exclaimed as it started to shrink.
“Twilight! Quickly! Aid us!” Luna urged.
Twilight quickly dashed over to join the circle and added her own magic to the mix, causing the gate to resume opening.
“Oh, so you had another, did you?” Alex’s voice chuckled. “Sorry, but that still won’t be enough! You’d need an army of beings with that much power to overwhelm my Psynergy! Have at you, foolish insects!”
Suddenly, bolts of Luna and Sol Psynergy shot out from the portal, striking all four members of the circle, but they held firm.
“Oh, that pain was supposed to just throw you off for a sliver of a second,” Alex’s voice giggled. “And it worked! Goodbye, Felix. I’ll deal with you when I finish with Isaac.”
Suddenly, the gate vanished, and Karen and I fell to the floor, slamming into it hard.
“Jenna…” I whispered as my heart ached. “I heard her. She’s alive, and I was so close to saving her. I’m a failure as an older brother if I can’t protect my sister. Especially when her husband is incapable of helping, either, making me also a failure as a brother in-law.”
Tears started to flow from my eyes as I tried to hold back sobs. “Alex… How could you do this? I know you betrayed your own clan to try to get the Golden Sun’s power for yourself, but you never once actually hurt any of us. You used us like pawns, but you never actually hurt us. And now you’ve become so power hungry that no one is safe from you anymore…”
“”I am sorry that we could not return you to your home,” Luna said, lowering her head sadly. “That other voice, that was your sister, was it not?”
“Yes,” I choked out. “She’s married now, and even has a son, but I’ve looked out for her for so long. I made sure the man she married, Isaac, was the perfect man for her. I’ve even kept tabs on my nephew, Matthew. I’ve failed them all.”
“Oh, come now, Felix!” Discord said, placing a paw under my chin to force me to look up and meet his eyes. “You haven’t lost yet, so cheer up! You still have a chance! You can beat him when he comes here!”
I shook my head. “No, by that point, his power will be virtually limitless, and he’ll be virtually immortal,” I sighed before looking down again. “I needed to stop him before he gains that power, and he’ll probably have it by tomorrow.”
Karen had been watching me the whole time, eyes wide in shock from seeing me, her hero, so broken, but she finally had enough and slapped me.
“Felix! Get ahold of yourself!” she snapped. “You’re the true leader of the Warriors of Vale! Isaac may have been given all the credit because of how the Valeans viewed you, but my people, the Proxians, never forgot who really saved the day! You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for! Together, we’ll stop Alex, and we’ll get home!”
Shaking myself, I wiped the tears from my eyes and nodded firmly. “You’re right, Karen,” I replied. “We can do this. And who knows? Maybe more Adepts have ended up in this world!”
Celestia suddenly piped up. “Five years ago, I felt three disturbances that resulted in ponies falling from the sky, but they didn’t really feel like ponies. I’m sure you were one of them, Karen, so there must be two more out there somewhere.”
Then she added, “I shall assist you two in your search for more like yourself. I shall put the guards to work on locating ponies with abilities that seem impossible for a pony, and if any are found, I shall have them be escorted to Ponyville to meet with the two of you so you can check to see if their powers are similar to your own.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” I replied with a bow. Turning to Twilight and the others, I said, “Let’s get back. I think Karen and I need to discuss something with Twilight.”
Right as I started to reach out with my Psynergy for the Teleport Lapis, Discord shook his head. “One of us can send you back, Felix. Don’t strain your reserves.”
“Wait, how did you know I was preparing my Psynergy?” I asked in surprise.
“I felt the feeling of what makes you not feel like a pony increase,” he explained. “Plus, it felt like a much watered-down version of what that Alex was using.”
Celestia and Luna nodded in agreement, and Celestia suddenly lit up her horn, resulting in the eight of us vanishing.
Once back in Ponyville, we split up, with Twilight’s five friends returning home, and Karen and I following her into the castle.
“So, what was it you needed to talk to me about?” Twilight asked once we were alone.
“You noticed how Karen’s scythe always has some part of it sticking to her, right?” I asked. Karen cringed when she heard the question.
“Yes, that is strange,” Twilight replied.
“That’s because it’s cursed,” I said before turning to Karen and adding, “Isn’t it, Karen?”
Karen sighed and nodded. “All of my equipment is crafted from Dark Matter, and anything made from it is cursed so anyone who equips it can’t remove it without the aid of a healer at a sanctum in our world. It makes bathing a pain, but I can manage it. Plus, everything made from it is quite strong.” She paused before continuing, “Anyway, there’s something else that curses do: they sometimes make the wearer or wielder immobile in battle, but I have a Cleric’s Ring, which blocks that. I tried using magic to use my Necro Scythe, and I was able to pick it up for a little bit, completely detaching it from me, but I stink at magic, so I lost my grip very quickly, resulting in me dropping it and it sticking to me again.”
“But, you’re a unicorn!” Twilight exclaimed. “How can magic be so hard for you?”
“It just is,” Karen huffed. “My magic is like another curse, because I can’t do jack squat with it.”
“I can teach you how to use magic,” Twilight suggested. “My Special Talent is magic, so we should be able to get the basics down in no time.”
“If you say so,” Karen sighed before Twilight teleported the three of us to an almost completely empty room with a few books and pillows, but little else.
“Okay, try lifting this book, first,” Twilight said, placing a hoof on a book in front of her.
Karen nodded, squeezed her eyes shut in concentration, and her horn started to take on a red glow, enveloping the book with it, lifting it a few inches off the ground before her horn suddenly winked out and I could sense Mars Psynergy building up in her, instead.
“I don’t get it,” Twilight muttered. “It looked like you had it, but you suddenly didn’t!”
“I think I know what went wrong,” I said before turning to Karen. “Karen, you're using the wrong thing, you switched to Psynergy!”
“Huh?” she gasped, opening her eyes in shock. “When did that happen?”
“I guess magic uses the mind, just like Psynergy does,” I said before looking to Twilight, who nodded in confirmation. “You’re so used to using your mind for Psynergy that when you try to use magic, your instincts reach for Psynergy, instead.”
“Oh!” Twilight exclaimed. “it’s like having multiple kinds of magic that are independent from each other! It’s hard to use both at once, or even one if you’re more accustomed to the other!”
“It’d be easier if I had a means to seal her Psynergy so she could practice the basics of magic,” I sighed, “But Venus has no spells for that, and none of my djinn can do that, either.”
“Luckily, I came prepared!” Karen said cheerfully. “Felix, let’s swap djinn. Sear blocks Psynergy, so use him on me, and I’ll be able to practice magic without my mind being able to jump to Psynergy.”
“Wait, you’re quite resourceful for a Proxian,” I observed before covering my mouth, wishing I hadn’t said that.
“You’re actually right,” Karen giggled. “I’m not as strong as Saturos, Menardi, Agatio and Karst were, but I’ve been told that I’m at least twenty times as clever as all four of them put together ever were!”
“Well, they weren’t very smart, but all of them together times twenty does sound quite intelligent,” I remarked. Normally, Proxian battle Adepts were brutes: mostly muscle and powerful Psynergy, but very little critical thinking. That’s why Saturos and Menardi relied on Alex and I so much to get through the first two Lighthouses. They were completely stumped by even the simplest of puzzles, and Agatio and Karst had to wait for my group to solve Jupiter Lighthouse’s puzzles before they could make it to the aerie themselves.
“Anyway, let’s swap djinn, shall we?” Karen said. “I really need to at least be able to wield my scythe more efficiently. And maybe if I levitate all of my armor off of me to bathe, I can actually get a proper bath for once!”
I nodded, and I gave her Meld in exchange for the Mars djinni, Sear, with an orange ball of light passing from me to her, and a red one passing from her to me.
“Okay, then,” I said before shouting, “Sear, come forth!”
The Mars djinni answered my call and placed a Psynergy seal on Karen.
“Okay, your Psynergy is locked, now,” I told her as she placed Meld on standby to return to being fully Mars-based.
“It should last a few minutes,” Karen replied before turning to Twilight. “Now, in that time, can you teach me how to levitate and manipulate multiple objects? That’s the only magic I care about right now.”
“Okay,” Twilight replied with a nod. “Now, try lifting the book again.”
Karen nodded, then focused again, red energy enveloping her horn, wrapping the book in the same aura, lifting it a few feet off the ground and holding it there.
“Okay, try adding a pillow to the mix without dropping the book,” Twilight instructed.
Karen nodded again, and she grit her teeth before raising the pillow off the ground, only losing her grip on the book for a couple seconds.
“Now, try adding that scythe of yours to the set,” Twilight requested.
“Got it,” Karen replied before the aura enveloped the scythe stuck to her back, lifting it into the air and moving it in front of her.
Suddenly, the seal faded, and Karen started to sweat from trying to stay focused on magic.
“The seal’s gone!” the Mars Adept exclaimed. “It’s getting harder!”
Suddenly, I thought of something incredible and said, “I’ve got an idea: try reaching out to the Psynergy while still reaching out to the magic. This may help your mind separate the two!”
Karen nodded grimly, and the light from her horn started to flicker as I felt her start to be filled with the power of Mars Psynergy.
Suddenly, her horn shone brightly, just like when she was under the seal, but the Psynergy was still in her.
“Try using a Mars spell!” I suggested.
She nodded, then cried, “Cool Aura!”
A refreshing wave of healing energy washed over everyone in the room, and Karen dropped the book and pillow while still keeping her grip on the scythe.
“I did it!” she cheered. “I can do it now!”
Twilight smiled and said, “Well, if you’d like, we could move on to higher levels of magic.”
Karen put a hoof to her chin in thought for a moment before shaking her head. “Nah. I’m good. All I really wanted to do was actually be able to carry my stuff so I could wield my scythe properly and take off all my armor to take a bath. I’ll have to keep levitating all of my stuff the whole time, but I’m sure I can handle it.”
“Okay, then,” Twilight replied, sighing a little in disappointment.
“Later, Felix!” the Mars Adept said as she headed for the door and suddenly returned Meld to me while Sear returned to her. “I’m gonna take a nice, long bath! By the way, if you hear me yelp, it’ll probably be because I lost my grip on a piece of equipment and it beaned me on the head or something while trying to reattach itself to me.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” Twilight muttered before holding the door shut with her magic and speaking firmly to Karen. “If your equipment really acts like that, I’m going to assist you with them while you bathe. I’ll hold onto them until you’re finished. Now, let’s go get you cleaned up.”
Karen sighed but nodded before following Twilight through the door.
Now alone, I looked out the window and saw the sun was setting. After using the Teleport Lapis again, I was back in my guest room, and I could hear Twilight groaning from some kind of strain while Karen was singing happily in the room next door.
I stepped out into the hall to find Twilight levitating all of Karen’s equipment, covered in sweat and straining to keep them in place.
I sighed and said, “Need some help?”
“Yes, please,” Twilight said through clenched teeth. “These things really want to go back to their owner!”
Nodding, I said “Grip,” and the large hand appeared, moving forward and grabbing about half of the equipment out of Twilight’s magic grip and pulling them towards me. I grit my teeth as well when the equipment started fighting back, straining to be released from my spell.
“I’ve had to help with this before,” I told her. “Garet was decked out in a lot of cursed equipment, and whenever we stayed at an inn, him taking a bath was a chore for the rest of us because all of his cursed equipment acted like this. However, there were seven of us to hang onto his stuff, and he wasn’t completely decked out in cursed stuff, unlike Karen. I didn’t even know you could make boots out of Dark Matter.”
“What’s Dark Matter?” Twilight asked, breathing lighter now that she only had to deal with half the load.
“A very strong metal that can be made into incredible equipment,” I replied, straining a little as the cursed equipment continued to resist. “But, it’s also twisted in nature, so anything made from it is automatically cursed. A Cleric’s Ring can null the effects of a curse that make the equipped fighter sometimes immobilized, but it has no effect on making cursed equipment removable. Special powers that only healers in sanctums have enable it to be permanently removed, but really, she likes her equipment, and she’s okay with all this stuff.”
After just sitting there for quite a while, I finally heard the singing stop, and Karen suddenly poked her head out of the room.
“Okay, you can give me my armor back, now,” she said happily. “I haven’t felt this clean in years!”
“Um, shouldn’t we clean the inside of your armor, first?” Twilight asked, now soaked in sweat, as was I.
“Nah, I just use my Mars Psynergy to sterilize them with fire,” Karen replied. “Give me one of them at a time, and I’ll do just that.”
I nodded to Twilight, who floated a set of pony-shaped, but still Proxian-styled black armor over to Karen, who caught it in her own magic. Like all Proxian armor, it left the shoulders bare to expose the spikes and scales for intimidation, and because their arm and shoulder scales were already nearly impenetrable and don’t require armor. It also had the red symbol of their clan, which was an ancient symbol simply meaning “fire”.
Karen channeled a small amount of Mars Psynergy before simply saying, “Flare,” causing a fire to spread through the armor.
The process was repeated for every piece of equipment, and then Karen finally put her travelling dress back on and said, “Ah, much better! I used to have to use rocks to hold down my stuff so I could bathe in rivers and ponds, but I never could find rocks big enough for all of them, so I’d inevitably not be able to fully clean some parts of me, leaving me still a bit smelly.”
“But, why would that bother you so much?” I asked. “Last time I was in Prox, they were still in poverty, resorting to boiling weeds just to have vegetation in their diets. And that was a few years after the Golden Sun event! They were rationing their water so much that they generally didn’t have enough to bathe with!”
“Well, we’ve recovered a lot since then, Felix,” Karen replied, too happy from finally being fully clean for the first time in years to care about the negative implications of my remark. “We’re still not liked very much by the rest of the world, but a few islands, such as Kalt Island, trade with us, and we can afford to not ration our water to that extent anymore.”
“Oh,” I said in surprise. “I guess I should’ve checked in on you more often.”
“All water under the bridge, Felix,” Karen said with a huge smile before trotting away. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
I nodded to both Karen and Twilight and returned to my room, promptly leaping into bed and drifting off to sleep.