Equestria: A Flux Tale

by Star Sage

Impossible Things

“This is actually bigger than when he arrived. When he popped in, he was the size of a bug, and I was afraid he’d be lost before I could get down to Ponyville. Luckily, halfway there, I received a message from Twilight all about how he’d been found by two recently moved in music ponies, and I was able to approach him the next day,” explained Celestia, all three of them now standing over you.

It was actually rather intimidating. The Princess on her own was powerful, a power you could sense, but add Solaris, who seemed even more imposing, and worse, another human, your first time seeing one at this size, and you almost wished you could curl in on yourself again. You couldn’t though. The time for that had come and gone, and so you just gap at your other self, who went from being a few inches taller than you, to exponentially more.

“I attempted to use a growth spell I’d learned from one of my subjects to return him to the size you’d said he’d be. It failed, which is odd, as Twilight touching him with her magic made grow to this current height,” she continued, and Solaris nodded.

“Interesting. Has there been anything else unusual about him?” asks the sun god.

“Perhaps. You mentioned before that his magic was strange, but not much more than a powerful unicorn’s. This one, on the other hoof has not only defeated both a squad of Wonder and Shadow Bolts, at the same time no less, but also cast some fairly advanced spells,” answered Celestia.

“Wait? You beat the Wonderbolts? I’ve never been able to beat them,” says your other self, leaning down to get a closer look at you. Smiling, thinking you had something up on him, you float off the ‘bench’ of clouds, only to be surprised when he reels backwards, falling over himself in shock.

“You can FLY?! But…but…but that’s not how our powers work!” he says incredulously, and you decide to show him what else you can do, sticking your tongue out at him, even as you summon the power from within you once more, shaping it with a simple thought, and then spinning in the air, an outline of something mimicking your motions appearing around you, before becoming a solid body around you, the Veritech Fighter.

“I can fly,” you tell him through the speakers, and his head just lolls to the side for a moment, your talent at this causing a reboot error in his brain. Once the process is finished though, he leaps to his feet, and then walks over towards you.

“Incredible. This is Jack Archer’s paint scheme, and YF-1R, right?” he asks, tapping his finger against the unit, and creating a banging noise inside.

“Right on both counts,” you tell him.

“Hmm, an interesting choice. Why not Rick Hunter, or Skull 1? Or heck, Max seemed to be the best pilot of the ones we….listen to me, I’m geeking out about an anime series. I haven’t done that in years,” he says, holding his head as he smiles, shaking it from side to side as if trying to force his though trains back on track.

“I can imagine…um, can you make everypony smaller again, Celestia? It’s kind of weird trying to hold a conversation with a monitor,” you ask, the head of the unit turning to face her. She just smiles, doing the orb thing again as you banish the mech, soon coming to a stop right in front of yourself, who still stares at you, and begins to poke and prod at your body as soon as you’re at his level. Of course, you bat away his hand.

“Stop that, it’s not nice to touch someone without their permission. Didn’t our mother teach you anything?” you demand with a smile, and the other you just stares blankly, before smiling back.

“Indeed she did. Still, you’re tiny…but you can fly. Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to be able to fly?” he asks.

“Since third grade, when we had to go on that plane,” you answer, and after a moment, he nods.

“Well, yes, but I mean since I got here. I can do all these things, make stuff that no pony can compete with. Heal the injured as if brand new sometimes. But I can’t fly. Heck, I can’t even walk on clouds, as we found out. Luckily Blitz is as fast as Dash, and grabbed me before I hit the ground,” he explained, and you remember the events of Sonic Rainboom. Looking down though, you notice once again that he’s standing on a cloud now, though rather than verbalize the question, you just point towards his feet.

“This isn’t a normal cloud. In point of fact, it doesn’t exist in either reality, just sort of an in between place where leylines cross over each other. It looks like clouds to us, but in reality, it’s pure magical energy,” he explains, pulling off a little piece of it, and then squeezing it in the palm of his hand. When he opens it, there’s nothing in his palm but a lot of sparkles, that he then throws away, while starting to walk around you, looking you up and down.

“Hmm, she mentioned spells. What ones can you cast?” he asks.

“Well, there’s the flight thing. I’ve been told that’s a spell,” you say, and he shakes his head.

“I figured as much, it had to be, but I meant what spells besides that one,” he clarifies.

“Um, let’s see, a hangover cure spell,” you say, remembering your first known use of magic.

“No, any of us can do that, what else?” he asks, rather rudely, but you ignore it.

“After that, I did the item making thing, but since you can do that too, I’ll skip to today. In order; Spirit Gun, Magic Missile, Special Beam Cannon, and then Ultima,” you list, counting them on your fingers, making sure you aren’t forgetting one, but then shaking your head at that notion.

“Hmm…which Final Fantasy?” he asks.

“The best one,” you tell him, and he just nods. He’s got to be thinking of the same one, as it was your favorite of the series.

“Interesting. I’ve never heard of any of ourselves doing tricks like that,” he tells you.

“It was no trick, that last spell released enough energy that Luna and I thought it might destroy Equestria if left unchecked,” explained Celestia, getting a bit of a wide eyed look from Solaris, who turned towards you again with a slightly darker expression, obviously thinking about the threat to his subjects if such a thing happened in his world.

“I should think it would. It’s a does max damage at most levels, hits all enemies, and is quite a sight,” your other self says.

“Well, I cast it at a bottle on a fence. I did that with all four actually, and it scared the crap out of me. Mind, then I cast a shrink spell that ended with my friends…it ended with Pinkie Pie throwing a party in my tummy,” you say, and your other self smacks you.

“Never say that,” is all he tells you, and then you both chuckle a bit, the two sun deities looking at you like you’d gone crazy, only make you two laugh harder, before calming down.

“Still, that’s incredible. None of us are tiny, and though our fields can be expanded, it’s not that much,” he says, scratching at his chin, making you raise an eyebrow.

“Fields?” you ask.

“Oh, oh right, I never explained that. We got off on the crying…what do you know about your powers?” he asked.

“That they’re kick butt stuff, and I can heal hang overs and fly. The Professor, a pony named DawnChaser who’s purple with an orange mane, says I’m some kind of magical energy converter. Sort of like MegaMan I guess,” you say, remembering something about that’s how the Blue Bomber’s weapon copying ability worked.

“Hmm, DawnChaser, probably a male version of TwilightPursuit. Anyway, he’s only partially correct. What you’re doing, it’s not magic,” he explains, and you look at him funny.

“No seriously, it’s not magic. I don’t know which one of us first figured this out, but what we do with our powers, according to the ponies is impossible with magic as they know it. It’s something like magic, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also way different,” he began.

“What we do is Phenomena Fluctuation. We alter probabilities on a massive scale. It allows us to cause things to happen, the closer to what really is, the easier it is to do. The includes item making, because they have the potential to exist, our armor and weapons, they can be made. Heck, once you’ve made them, their possibility increases. Just think about how it felt to make the armor and sword for the first time,” he says.

You do, remembering that little star of magical light inside you, and you consider for a moment how it was so much easier this time. Heck, the sword was really easy the second time anyway, and now you could even summon the veritech without much effort at all, just a few drops of power and you had a ride.

“That fits with the data. How do we do that?” you ask.

“Heh, that’s the fun part. We exude a field, that does it. I don’t know if we had it before we came to Equestria, but just never got to use it, or if it’s a result of whatever brought us here. If you want my opinion, it’s the former, considering we all seem to appear in different ways. I was a lightning strike for instance, but I’ve heard of ones of us that appear in bubbles of rainbow light, one that grew out of a flower, and then one that just sort of walked out of thin air,” he says, counting on his fingers as he lists them off.

“Neat. I wonder if I did any flashy thing like that, and no one noticed,” you say idly, and Celestia nods.

“You appeared with a single flash of light,” she tells you.

“Um…how do you know that?” you ask.

“I told you, I was aware of your arrival the instant it happened. Not that I’d been expecting it, your appearance is not always assured, though sometimes your people do visit our world,” she tells you.

“So I’m not in every reality?” you ask.

“No, no we’re not. Not that anyone is. I know a few who are like us, they arrive in more than one without really knowing why. Heh, none of them have powers like ours though…and none of our other selves have power like yours,” he says, looking you up and down.

“Heh, so, there are other humans in Equestria. Any in your reality?” you ask.

“As long as I’ve been here, no, but some of them try to hide, unsure if they’d be accepted. Others get turned into ponies, or griffins, or even dogs, and just blend in well enough to get by. Some know the show, others are ignorant of it,” he tells you, and you look up at that. You’d been avoiding mentioning the unreality of where you are to anypony, and here he’d just blab it in front of Celestia. She doesn’t seem to react though, and not wanting to push your luck, you decide to ask another question.

“So, ten years there. Anypony special in your life?” you ask him, smirking at him with one side of your face, and he looks at you for a moment, before smiling back.

“No, I’m afraid I’m not one of those of us who gets into that kind of life. I do live with somepony, but it’s nothing like that. We’re war buddies, and I needed a place to crash and then…I guess I just got used to being there,” he explains.

“War buddies? There’s war in Equestria?”

“Sometimes, yeah. My first taste of it was an attack on the palace by some griffon general who’d managed to assemble several flocks of her people together. I was at the palace at the time to-oh frell me,” said the other you, and you suddenly felt violently ill again, just as you had when you entered the cloud. It was like, for a moment, the world just rippled, but you could feel that ripple as it passed through your body, its movement making your stomach heave, and forcing you to swallow several times to keep everything down.

“Wh.wha.wha..what was that?” you gasp out between gulps of air, your other self and the two deities looking around none of them seemingly as effected as you by what had happened.

“That was leylines parting. This place is fading, so I have to go over the rest of this fast. Find something that makes you happy. Art, games, knowledge, and stick with it, it’s the only thing that keeps us sane. Never listen to the Professor or the Doctor when they want you to do something without either of the Prince…esses there to tell you it’s okay The latter can end up with you lost in time and space, and the former sometimes results in holes in said continuum,” he says, talking quickly, barely pausing for a breath.

“And if you have any questions, ask Celestia, she can contact me, or one of us at least, who’s been here longer. We’ll help you. Just never look into that mirror of h-“ he cuts off abruptly, and you see Solaris leap for him, even as the two lose their color, becoming shimmering bits of light, that then just sort of wash out, becoming faded and dull. At that same moment, you find yourself falling, the clouds beneath your feet parting, and dropping you into the open air.

You barely have time to cry out before you land heavily on Celestia’s back, the sun goddess not even seeming to make any effort to catch you, just flaring her wings out so you collapse into her soft hair, before her wings flap once, and you shoot off into the night sky, unable to talk with no wind in your lungs.

So you just lay there, enjoying the ride back to the castle. Beneath you flows a peaceful forest, even the fires you’d seen earlier seemed to have been banked, allowing the land to bask only in the soft glow of Luna’s moon, with you trying to take in every detail you can before it finally gives way to the city again, and you and Celestia land on the balcony outside your room.

Upon landing, she tilts herself onto the side, her wing forming a crude slide that you use to dismount the goddess, and then just stand there, your hands shoved into your pockets, your mind reeling around and around, trying to assemble a complete thought, and finding every time that the chain just won’t stay together.

“I’m sorry this was cut short like it was. Normally they last a little longer than that, though hopefully that mea-oh….” She trails off as she finds your arms around her neck, and with a peaceful expression, she wraps her wings around you, as you just hug her as hard as Pinkie Pie ever could.

“Thank you…..just…..thank you,” you sigh out into her chest, and you stay there, basking in her warmth for a time. Finally though, her wings part, and you figure it’s time to let go, stepping away and straightening your shirt a bit.

“You’re very welcome. And your other self was right, if you want, I can contact him again. Hopefully the leylines cross once more soon, and you’ll get to speak to him in person,” she tells you, and you smile at her.

“It’s a date, my good goddess. Though, I suppose, it’s been a day and then some, so I should get to bed,” you tell her, feeling suddenly like your body was shutting down. She just smiles at you warmly one last time, nods, and then leaps off your balcony, coming to a stop on the one below, as she returns to full size. Her hooves clack loudly against the stone, and she waves one at you, before moving out of sight, going into her own chambers for the night.

Walking to the door to your room, you open it, and look around. The lights were off, with only the moon and starlight coming in through the window allowing you to see. Everything about you was soft curves, gentle slopes. Nothing was hard edged or rough, instead, it was warm, and inviting.

Still smiling you begin to take off the clothing you’d been wearing, letting it fall to the floor from your body, and then finding you’re so tired that you can’t pick it up again. That felt strange, as you’d been fine last night, and that was after a hard day too. Still, perhaps it was more that you just went through your meeting, maybe it was all the crying, or maybe it was just that you’d been eating less, but you felt really tired.

Tossing off the shirt, pulling at the shoes, and finally just stepping out of the pants, you stand there in front of a fluffy bed, the most lovely thing you’d ever seen before in your life. Stepping forward, you pull at the sheets, finding them to be soft as the night before, making you idly wonder in the back of your mind who’d washed them, as you hadn’t even made your bed the other day.

Such wonderings vanish from your mind as your head touches down on the soft, cloudlike pillow. Your eyes flutter, as you stare at the room in the soft light, and then, with a deep sigh, releasing everything you’d been feeling, you shut them against the night, and finally fall asleep, the room filling with the sound of human snoring.

Comments

[Star Sage]

1264829

Heh, and now it's three.

[CPT]

Nice

[Tadpole]

1265048

Great! Please keep updating 'em as fast as possible.

[Star Sage]

1265523

Thanks

[Star Sage]

1265528

Heh, you want me to get carpule tunnel syndrome then?

[Tri-PonyTrouble]

“I can fly,” you tell him through the speakers, and his head just lolls to the side for a moment, your talent at this causing a reboot error in his brain.

[Star Sage]

1292704

Well, you did just do something a man with impossible powers thinks is impossible.