Scholar Arc
Year 18, Month 2, Day 1
Atlas took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself down. He was currently standing in front of a door that lead into one of the academy's classrooms. And not just any classroom either, no this one was filled with students that looked forward to being taught by him. Atlas had never gotten over his stage fright, and the nervousness was starting to creep up on him again.
About a month ago Atlas was approached by the principal of the school, who offered him a teaching position. It took a lot of convincing from the principal, but in the end, Atlas decided to accept the new position. In an interesting turn of events, Doc Brown was happy about the new arrangement, apparently he had also been pestered by the principal about becoming a professor. Which would stop now that Atlas decided to take the position.
One of the main reasons that caused Atlas to cave was the fact that he pretty much learned everything he could from the rune books, and was now stuck with endless experiments to find new runes. Failures exploding in his face got tiresome after the first few hundred times, so teaching was a welcome respite.
With a last encouraging thought, Atlas pushed open the door with his magic, entering the classroom proper. Just like when he was in school all those years ago classes still consisted of about twenty students, all of which were already seated and immediately stopped their conversations once Atlas entered. Acutely aware of twenty pairs of eyes following him, Atlas made his way over to the teacher's desk and set down a small suitcase full of teaching supplies, which he had carried around in his magic up until now.
“Good morning everypony,” Atlas said, “and welcome to your transformation class. My name is Atlas, and I’ll be your homeroom teacher for the coming year.”
As he introduced himself, Atlas swept his gaze over the gathered unicorns before him. Having a room full of young ponies stare back at him, suddenly made him realize how old he already was. Well, old for a human at least. Each and everyone had a smile on their face and determination in their eyes, which was good since Atlas didn’t want any troublemakers in his class.
“Why don’t we start this whole thing off with introductions?” Atlas asked. He always hated it when he had to do stuff like this back when he was in school, so he reveled in the chance to have others do it. “I’m sure most of you know who I am, but just in case anypony doesn’t, let me begin. As I’ve already stated before, my name is Atlas. I graduated at the top of my graduation class thirteen years ago, and have been researching new ways to apply transformation magic in everyday life ever since. Some of you might have one of my inventions at home, like the refrigerator or the rune-based light. Together with my lab partner, I re-discovered the forgotten art of runes and have been researching them pretty much every day. I would like you to know that you will be my first class ever, so if I make any mistakes don’t hesitate to point them out to me.”
Atlas’ introduction was met with approving nods and a few hushed conversations in the back. He didn’t like to think about it, but Atlas was sort of a low-key celebrity now. He’d defeated a dragon and was the first unicorn ever to have a triple affinity. Fortunately for him, he wasn’t being researched by a plethora of lab coat wearing maniacs anymore, so keeping his newer affinities a secret wasn’t difficult.
After Belle passed away, the only one who knew the full truth about Atlas was Crimson.
“Alright, so why don’t we start over here then,” Atlas said as he pointed to the green stallion closest to the door.
“My name is Glinting Malachite and my special talent is enchanting,” he answered in a sort of bored voice.
Atlas looked at him curiously, expecting maybe one or two lines more from him, but it soon became apparent that this was all they were gonna get out of him for now and instead he motioned towards the next pony. As his students introduced themselves one by one, Atlas took notes on where they sat and how they looked. Since learning new names was the bane of his existence, having to learn several classes full of ponies’ names would be close to impossible without keeping track somehow.
The rest of Atlas’ day went by somewhat swimmingly. In the afternoon he had another batch of students, where he had to basically repeat everything he already did with the morning class. They took well to his first lesson putting his mind somewhat at ease, yet still, it had been surprisingly exhausting.
Tired, Atlas rested his head upon his desk in the teacher's lounge. It was strange having free access to this once sacred room, but he was glad that it was outfitted with various couches to relax on.
“Difficult first day?” A voice asked to his right as the chair belonging to his neighbor's desk was pulled back.
“Not exactly difficult, but challenging,” Atlas answered without looking up. “My research up until now was a lot more solitary than this.”
“Ah yes, I can see that as being a problem,” the stallion replied, “you’ll get used to it, though, don’t worry.”
“I hope so…”
“You’re Atlas, right? The new transformation teacher?” The stallion asked casually while arranging some documents on his desk. “My name’s Starswirl, and I teach advanced illusions. I look forward to working with you since our desks are next to each other and all that.”
Atlas perked up at hearing the stallion's name and lifted his head off his desk to take a look. Next to him sat a blue unicorn with a white mane, a look at his flank revealed a cutie mark consisting of a simple swirl decorated with a few turquoise stars. Under his chin, the hair grew a little longer, somewhat resembling a beard. While having a small beard going, especially on older unicorns, was nothing unusual, combined with the name ‘Starswirl’ Atlas had little doubt about who was currently sitting next to him.
“Yeah, I’m Atlas, pleased to meet you,” Altas responded while owlishly looking his new acquaintance up and down. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Only good things I hope,” Starswirl chuckled.
“Yes, of course,” Atlas reassured him.
Truthfully, he’d never heard of Starswirl before now, Atlas would even go so far as to say he momentarily forgot that he was supposed to exist. Everything he knew about Starswirl, he knew from the show, which wasn’t much to be honest. But the glaring detail Atlas remembered, even without looking at his book, was that Starswirl was without a doubt important and powerful. Like Trixie, but for real.
“Hey listen,” Atlas continued, “I have a few questions about illusions I’d like to have answered at some point, would you mind going for a drink sometime to discuss it for a bit?”
While illusion wasn’t exactly high on his priority list, it wouldn’t hurt committing a little time to it, since he had an affinity for it as well. Now that the thought entered his mind, he’d need to study all kinds of magical fields if he wanted to exploit the fact that he had affinities for literally everything. Might as well start now.
“Of course, I always love discussing magic with colleagues,” Starswirl answered with a happy look on his face. “I’m sure I have some free time next week, be sure to remind me about that. I actually wanted to ask a few things about runes as well, and who better to ask, right?”
“Exactly,” Atlas shared a laugh with Starswirl, “I look forward to it.”
Having discussed everything they needed to, both of them returned to their respective work. There were sizable piles of paper on each desk just waiting to be filled out or corrected. With a sigh, Atlas started to look over his notes of the day again, trying to memorize the names of his students.
--------------------------------------------------
The sun was well past the horizon and the moon and stars were out in force illuminating Atlas’ path. He had just finished his first day as a teacher and was on his way home. Or rather, on his way to pay a visit to Brown Diamond. There was no doubt in Atlas’ mind that the kooky old stallion was still busy in his lab, so he decided to make a little detour before heading back to his lonely abode.
Reaching the familiar building he pushed open the door without knocking and entered, closing the door behind him. The first thing he noticed was that the few tidy spots Atlas had created for himself were already overrun by a plethora of knick-knacks. It had barely been a day and the state of the lab had already reached equilibrium apparently.
“Yo Doc!” Atlas called out, “where are you?”
The lights were still on, so he was definitely still around. The lack of an answer either meant that Doc Brown was either absorbed in his work or that he had fallen asleep in some obscure place again. Fortunately, Atlas had gotten pretty good at finding the elusive unicorn during his years as a lab partner. He swept his eyes across the floor, looking for anything that would give the doctor's position away. It didn’t take long to spot the bushy tail sticking out from behind an impressively unstable pile of books.
Rolling his eyes, Atlas made his way over, finding him furiously scribbling runes onto a piece of paper. He was surrounded by similarly filled scrolls, indicating that he had been at it for quite a while, further proven by the fact that there were also a noticeable amount of crumpled up balls among them. At a glance, the arrays he was designing were used to fortify… something. Fortification enchantments were among the easier things to do with runes, Doc having this much trouble with that made little to no sense to Atlas, so he tapped Doc on his shoulder with furrowed brows.
“Hey Doc, what are you up to?” Atlas asked curiously.
“Ahhh!” Brown Diamond jumped at the unexpected contact and whirled around to face Atlas, combat spell at the ready, only to find Atlas’ deadpan stare facing him, complete with raised eyebrow. “Jeez, Atlas, a little warning next time?”
“I did call out when I entered,” Atlas replied. “Not my fault that you forget everything around you when you're absorbed in your work.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Doc Brown sighed. “So, what brings you here? Having fun as a teacher?”
“Just thought I’d come visit… It felt weird to work and not be here the whole day,” Atlas replied. “So, what’s all this about?” He motioned towards the runes.
“Oh! That!” Doc Brown answered startled. “It’s ummm… It’s a… surprise?”
Doc Brown was gathering up all his notes in his magic and generally looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was obvious he didn’t want Atlas to find out what his newest experiment was about. This behavior was neither new or unusual, though, so Atlas decided to let it slide. The only thing he was kind of worried about was the fact that he wouldn’t be around to put out the resulting fire.
“Yeah, sure, let’s go with that…” Atlas said while rolling his eyes.
“I’ll be sure to come and tell you if it was a success,” Doc Brown said. “If I manage to pull this off we’ll be looking at the next stage of rune usage in our society!”
That got Atlas’ attention. “You sure you don’t need any help? I mean I’m pretty sure I could help if it’s that important…”
“Oh, don’t worry, you just focus on teaching the young ones what they need to know,” Doc Brown deflected. “I have things under control here.”
Brown Diamond seemed really nervous for some reason as if he really didn’t want Atlas to find out what he was doing. It was probably something dangerous, and since Atlas stopped him from doing stupid things before he didn’t want him to find out.
“Alright,” Atlas relented with a sigh, “just try to not blow this place up, I’m kind of attached to it.”
“No promises.”
“Sure.” Atlas shook his head, “well, I’ll be going home now, just wanted to check up on you. Good night.”
Atlas turned around and into the direction of the door, already mulling over what little he saw of Doc’s arrays to find out what he was trying to do.
“And seriously!” Atlas called back, “this place better be standing tomorrow!”
Brown is the one who got Starswirl interested in time travel didn't he?
Well that was interesting, i can honestly say that I didn't expect teacher Atlas
"Mass Effect gaming."
"my face is tired"
great chapter it's great that Starswirl has finally appear in the story, I would have though that he was already a court magician, but it's good to see that he is his colleague in the same school as he does. I wonder when he will have his own student Clover the Clever? So what is Atlas' new duties anyway as one of the unicorns that raises the sun anyway? I would have thought that he would have been privy to many magical secrets of the Crystal Kingdom.
8056164
I believe his raising of the sun was a one-time thing. A reward for his defense of the city.
Yay! First canon character! But also, Uh oh! Starswirl!
The fact that we've caught up to Starswirl's generation means we're approaching the Flame of Friendship event and the Celestial/Lunar uprising. Then Discord's Reign.
I'm assuming it's at, or close to the Rise of Nightmare Moon that Atlas goes into "hibernation" and then awakens a thousand years later.
Judging by the fact that Starswirl has a budding beard, it'll be a few years before he takes on Clover as an apprentice.
8056068 You missed my intended point. I suppose I could have been clearer, considering people are downvoting my comment now that I've looked back on it.
Unbeatable characters-or ones that just cannot die-are a risky choice to write, as you've removed one of the bigger sources of tension for them.
Yes, Saitama, Wolverine, and Deadpool all can't be killed by normal means, but they all are badasses. That just means the writers were, as a general rule, damn good and worked in other, often more difficult methods of tension or comedy to make readers forget that, hey, our main character is hardly ever in any significant danger.
So far, Atlas has managed to be relatively interesting despite his immortality, but if written poorly he or the plot could just as easily become uninteresting. That applies to Saitama, Wolverine, and Deadpool as well, by the way.
So, in short, my intended point is that immortal characters can be boring as hell to have star in as the main character due to a lack of tension unless portrayed very well and other sources of conflict amplified.
This is absolutely savage! Well played, I got a hearty chuckle out of it.
8056202
Read on mate, you'll find out that they didn't do this for fun. Though that's not to say they didn't get some entertainment out of it.
As a side note, please don't reply to comments that were posted ages ago. 44 weeks, you're lucky I remembered the context.
8056260 Well, the title of the story IS "Divine Entertainment". I can see how one would think that.
Errr... Platinum came first, mention- wise.
8056200
Agreed: it can be extremely difficult not to make a Mary Sue/Marty Stu out of a character possessing of physical immortality. It would be like playing poker without the chips: what is the point, if you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain?
8056133 lol.
in the words of han solo "i got a bad feeling about this"
8056628 You are correct, but he said first to appear, so he's correct. It through me for a second there too.
8056307
True.
8056860 ... I accept your point, and do not wish to annoy you, but that's the wrong word. You want "threw," not "through."
Wasn't it princess plattum? Plus you should have Atlas rise the moon so later on he can teach Celestia and Luna how to do it.
It's normal that I read Doc Brown's lines in the voice of Christopher Lloyd, right?
I LOVED this. Every second of it, even... well... you know...
Charity Bell's... fate.
Still, I eagerly await more from you. Let's do this.
Your fic shall not be added to my Favorites, because it is too good to be there. Instead, it belongs with the others of its number, in Those That Shake the Foundations of Creation. Congratulations; this is one of ten to receive that prestigious and totally not tiny and fake award.
8059559 cool shit dude, always nice to see someone tearing through the whole story and leaving comments on the way :D
If brown makes something that lets them travel back in time, I'll actually take this story off my favorites.
Then add it back, but still. It's the thought that counts.
I have not yet started reading the story, but I want to mention something I noticed, something that kept me from reading this for a long time.
While the story description sounds interesting, it put me off, since a "version of Equestria that is wholly unfamiliar to him" almost always means a grimdark kind of world on this site. Not something I really like, to be honest.
I only realized now (months later) that it doesn't have a Dark tag. And it's a comedy. Whoops.
Just saying. The description, along with the implication that he doesn't like this new world he lives in, gives that odd sort of impression, and may push away potential readers.
Or I'm just really bad at judging stories like this. Your story is doing great, so I don't think you have to worry about anything.
Anyway, it looks real interesting, and I'm going to start reading now. I'll let you know my thoughts later.
Okay, now that I've read it... yep, definitely one of my favorites of all time.
This is the kind of unique story I want to see more often on this site. It is at least in my top five, if not higher.
I read this on my Kindle, in e-book form, so I got to read it continuously, without seeing any comments or anything similar. As such, I was easily able to make emotional connections with the characters. They were very "real" - a lot more real than in a lot of other stories.
As a result, Belle's death shattered me. She was the character I had gotten "closest to," in a way. Her death was so sudden, and so meaningless of a reason, it actually put me in shock. For the first time reading a story here on Fimfiction, I actually cried.
For a while, I was really mad at you. Livid, even. But it wasn't because "You killed my favorite character off!" No, it was because I read stories here as if I am a part of them. You made your characters too well. You didn't just kill off a character. It felt like you killed a close friend.
Literarily speaking, there was nothing wrong with it. It was actually quite a powerful moment. But even now, I'm invested too much, and still, I have an irrational hate towards the only other person I can blame for the coincidences that led to her death.
Anyway, it is a great story, and I can't wait for more of it. And while I have my own predictions for how things will go, you've taken literary conventions before and crushed them underhoof.
8068629 aww, thanks dude! It always baffles me when someone praises my story so highly. Sure I try to write it as well as possible, but I guess I just know it too objectively to really judge it. Hardest part to write was definitely the graveyard scene...
I'm just gonna assume that references to me :D
Ah well, I have a few more characters I need to kill off, so if you'd excuse me...
8069210
I have to say this has been my favorite story human or otherwise. I give you props for the story. I was wondering bout the chapter being done weekly or something BC I like checked if the next chapter out and I am not telling you to hurry up with no no no on the contrary i want to what you come up with in your own time.
8078423 hi, thanks for reading my story and liking it so much! There's no hard schedule(anymore), but I generally update at the very least twice a month.
8078424
Sweet would you happen to know how many chapter s it will be and when it going to the present when he meets celestia again second time BC of how say that the she did meet him before saying her old friend?
8078461 don't know the exact number, let's just say: "a lot"
8078571
Sweet can't wait for the next chapter.
led
Atlas
Wait... what? Sorry, I may have been half asleep and missed it, but isn't he triple affinity? Did he figure out how to continuously evolve more of them?
Not that I ever really got quite what was going on with the whole 'magic affinity' either. Why the school made such a fuss over a triple when there were ponies who were more common that could do _everything_ apparently, even the combination spells. [/rant]
Didn't you introduce Princess Platinum a few chapters back, or does she not count?
8216416
She was mentioned, not exactly introduced as a character.
8198163
He officially is known to have a triple affinity, but after the testing he gained 2 more.
*manical laughter* I knew it XD
10211049
Yea but we haven't really "met" her yet
10211049
It's pretty easy for princess platinum to slip from our minds. Considering we barely heard of her character, but we know a TON about mr. beard bro over there.