> The Legendary Nicholas Flamel. The Pony. > by Koji > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Just a small mistake > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- “What’s that rock doing this time Daedalus?” asked the disgruntled teen. “How should I know? The philosopher’s stone does whatever it wants, and if you would kindly remember, I prefer the name that I had in this century, it’s Nicholas Flamel.” Nicholas was an odd sight, and he preferred it that way. His mismatched black and white eyes were glowing with a strange light and every movement he made produced a whirring sound. Brushing away the long strand of hair that was constantly dropping into his face, Nicholas continued tinkering with a glowing stone in his hands. His shadow seemed to move around of its own accord in the dancing lights. The alchemist looked up from his work with an audible click and regarded his assistant with his coal eye. The boy was an oddity to the alchemist, in all of his five-thousand years, he had never met anyone that puzzled him as much as the child who called himself Kai. Nicholas had found the boy wandering away from a burning village with a look of pride on his face, muttering something about destroying the plague of demons. Nicholas’s shadow liked Kai, and that meant that he was very powerful indeed. The boy never seemed to take off that green scarf of his, but this minor quirk didn’t bother the ancient man. Kai interrupted Nicholas’s train of thought with another loud complaint, “When’s something going to happen? It never takes this long for it to magick us away to somewhere.” “Patience child, things always happen for a reason.” The slightly annoyed immortal stated. “Easy for you to say, you have all of the time in the world. Maybe a little fire would help it along?” Kai snapped and a jet black flame burst into existence on his thumb. He touched the fire to the glowing stone and watched it in horror as the light burst along with the stone, and all went black. “Spike! Why can’t I find this spell? I was just about to use it and the process slipped my mind! Help me find it!” The lavender mare screamed. The small purple dragon, Spike, looked at the mare and calmly said, “Well it isn’t very easy to help you find a spell when you don’t tell me what it does, it’s not like I can read your mind, Twilight.” “That’s it! Spike, you’re a genius!” Twilight galloped over and embraced the confused dragon, “I was trying to do a mind reading spell! I know exactly which book that’s in!”She enthusiastically stated and ran over to one of the many bookshelves. “Well, thanks I guess.” Spike said, still confused. Twilight was in another one of her uncontrollable studying frenzies and Spike didn’t want to be in the middle of it. ‘I’ll just walk over to Rarity’s shop and see if she needs any help.’ Thought the baby dragon as he drifted out of the door of the library towards the Carousel Boutique. Spike barely noticed the large flash coming from inside of the library past the hearts in his eyes at the thought of the beautiful white unicorn. Twilight struggled to get out from the pile of books that had landed on her, considering what had just happened. She had directed a simple mind reading spell at Spike, but at the exact moment that the spell had made contact, there was an explosion of pure magic. Spike couldn’t have put up such a strong barrier on his mind, so the blast was obviously from some other source. Twilight noticed that she still had her eyes closed from when she had been concentrating on the spell. Opening them, she saw something that nopony wouldn’t be surprised at. Standing on a large scorch mark in the middle of the room were two strange ponies. Both of them were noticeably stallions. The pony on the left was about her size, with a black, unkempt mane, a brown coat, and a peculiar green scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. The other pony was about a foot taller than Twilight, and wore a large white cloak. His mane was brown and spiky, with a long strand hanging in front of his face. His coat was a pure white, even more so than Rarity’s, but the oddest thing about him was his eyes. His left iris was the purest black, with a streak of it invading the white. His left eye was just as odd, pure white other than the pupil, and a small black ring defining the iris. “Umm… Hello?” Twilight wanted to facehoof for how nervous she was being. The white stallion responded, “Oh yes, hello. Could you tell me the date and country? My companion and I are a bit…” He seemed to notice Twilight at this moment, “lost.” This last word was said with a large dose of irony in the stallion’s slightly metallic voice. The brown stallion was, by this point, running around the room panicking. Twilight seemed to hear him yelling, “WHYAMIAPONYWHATISTHISWHYAAAAGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!” Though he was running at top speed, Twilight had time to take note of his cutie mark, a black ball of fire. Not wanting any harm to come to her precious books, Twilight’s horn glowed with the magic she used to halt the brown one. “Calm down, I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t have you running around causing harm to my property,” She said with only a lingering twinge of nervousness in her voice, “I want to know what your names are.” The white intruder was the first to reply, “You can call me anything you like, but I prefer Nicholas Flamel or Daedalus. Those are the names I’ve used for the longest period of time. My assistant who you so graciously calmed down’s name is Kai. Now can I ask a question of you? What is this place?” Twilight stared at the stallion for a moment before answering, a twinge of confusion in her voice, “What do you mean what is this place. We’re in Ponyville, a small town in the land of Equestria.” She stopped there and stared in awe at what the white stallion was doing. He had taken off his cloak and removed a panel of his coat to reveal his inside to be a complicated mess of gears, pulleys, and many other odd gizmos. Twilight’s mind struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. “Wha… how can? What are you? What’s happen…” She was choking on her words. ‘Well, what a nice dream this is, I would like to wake up now brain. It has been fun and all, but I like reality better.’ And with that thought she passed out on the wooden floor. “Hey Nick, I told you not to do that in front of other people. Most living things can’t just take off a part of themselves and fiddle with gears and gizmos inside of them. Actually, make that everyone but you can’t do that.” Kai pronounced exasperatedly. Dealing with this immortal gear box got annoying sometimes, when the idiot forgot that being mechanical wasn’t a normal thing. “Oh, sorry. I was just seeing if I needed to adjust anything to make this new body work, and I thought that since she was a pony, she wouldn’t care if I was an automaton.” The immortal alchemist replied, still thinking that nothing was wrong with what he did, he was still as alive as anyone else, just different. > Alchemy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twilight's consciousness wavered back into existence, but she kept her eyes shut. She wanted to be sure that what had happened was just a bad dream. 'There are no mechanical ponies.' She repeated continuously in her mind, but then she heard something that made her hopes null and void. "Kai, get over here, this is a library by what I can see. Find me some books that will tell me exactly where we are and the history behind it. I will not allow myself to not seamlessly integrate into a culture." "Whatever. Why can't you look, Nick?" A whirring of gears could be heard after this statement, followed by the first voice, "I have to calibrate this body, this place threw a lot of the finer functions off, and I can't even use those wings I made when I was known as Daedalus." Twilight groaned. This really was happening, but why in her house? She let a very annoyed groan slip out. Great, now they knew she was awake, so she couldn't spy anymore. Jumping to her hooves, Twilight created a bubble of magic around herself. 'If they're hostile, then at least they won't get to touch me.' Was her only thought when she started looking around the room. Her second thought was, 'Oh look, all of my books are on the floor. How nice.' The tall white stallion, Twilight remembered he liked to be called Nick, was facing her with a concerned look on his face. He had closed the opening in his side, but Twilight knew what he really was. Suddenly, he spoke, "Is that... an alchemical shield! You're an alchemist! You don't look immortal though. Where's your philosopher's stone? Is it that horn on your head. I have to say, that is a very strange fashion choice, and I've seen a lot of strange fashion," along with his flurry of questions, he was coming closer to Twilight, a faint whir the only thing giving away the fact what he was, "You seem too young to have studied alchemy, yes, much too young. How are you doing such advanced alchemy without a philosopher's stone. Nothing around you gives off the right aura to be one." Twilight was amazed at the sight of Nicholas, a simple earth pony, moving through one of her more complicated spells with ease. She stammered something indiscernible as the stallion came closer to her, observing her like she was just an experiment that had gone wrong. Twilight was thinking about what he had just said, 'What is alchemy? What's a philosopher's stone? How did he just pass through my magic?!' The smaller one, Kai, broke her train of thought by yelling something along the lines of, "Nick! I found something that might interest you! Stop staring at the girl, you know that makes people feel uncomfortable. Now get over here and look before I burn it!" That was the last straw for Twilight. "Nobody hurts my books! Especially not strange ponies that I've never met!" The once lavender mare screamed. Her mane and tail had turned into a violent inferno, and her eyes glowed red. Nicholas looked amused at Twilight's transformation. Kai bolted down the stairs looking overjoyed, hurriedly saying, "Awesome, I never thought I would find another alchemist that could control fire like me. Where'd you learn it? Wait, I don't even know your name. What's your name?" Twilight's fire burned out as she looked at the brown stallion in awe. What was he talking about? She finally said something that wasn't out of anger towards the two, "What is alchemy? You keep saying stuff about it, but I've never heard of it. I'm not an alchemist, I'm a unicorn, and I use magic. Also, what is a philosopher's stone? You talked about it like it was important." Kai burst out laughing, speaking in between his loud outbursts, "You, you can't be serious. Magick! That's one of the funniest things I've ever heard! You seriously have never hear of alchemy? Nick, tell me she's not serious!" Nicholas responded to him once his laughter died down, "I actually do think she's serious. Rightly so, no normal alchemist could control the elements that easily. Maybe this world just calls alchemy magic. Are you alright miss..." Twilight cut his sentence off with her response, "Sparkle. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I'm sorry for my... outburst. I'm normally much calmer." Nicholas seemed amused at what she had said, but politely continued, "Well, alchemy is a complicated process, but I don't think I'll have to do much explaining about what it is. You seem to have mastered it as magick. Alchemy is generally known as the ability to transform things into other, more practical things for the task at hand, but it can be used for much more," As he said this, he had picked up a bubble of wood from the floor and turned it into coal, then into a small diamond,"The greater of elemental value, the more cost there id to transform something. That shield of compressed air was very clever, but I believe that you can do better. Short range "teleportation" perhaps? That is just the bending of a massive amount of space for quick travel." Twilight nodded. 'So, my magic is alchemy?' She thought, 'I guess it makes sense. They did say they were from somewhere else, so they would have different names for things.' Nicholas was still talking about alchemy, "Something just needs to have the right properties and you can do anything with it. The philosopher's stone though. If you don't know about it, I'd like to keep it that way. Do other's share your innate ability for alchemy? If so, I would like to meet them. Lead the way." "O...kay... I guess I could take you over to Rarity's place, she's also a unicorn, so she can use magic too," Was Twilight's unsure response, "let's go then... I guess." > Alternate Chaos > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Wait. I still haven’t sorted out how to work this form and have it feel natural.” The sound of flywheels and gears was cloaked by the slightly metallic voice coming from the strange stallion, Nicholas. Twilight kept her observations of him to herself, while also struggling to not yell out, ‘What in the hay do you mean, “This form?!”’ All she knew was that she needed to get away from him. ‘I would love to take an actual look inside of that metal form. The science that must have gone into it!’ The errant thought pushed its way into her head. She pushed it back where it came from. Twilight couldn’t stand being near this pony. There was no reason for it, he seemed perfectly likeable, but his presence reminded her of something dark. Something she had put into the untouched recesses of her memory. Twilight turned to look at him, noticing again his mismatched eyes. That too was trying to pull that darkness into her thoughts. Those eyes didn’t have the depth of a normal creature’s. They seemed to be… Flat, as if they were carved from gemstones, but they also carried a deep wisdom with them, and a feeling of raw, uncontrolled power. The eyes looked straight into hers. “Do I interest you?” Twilight jumped out of her thoughts, hitting the threshold of the library’s door. “Umm… I’m sorry for staring, but… you interest me. In a bad way. Just being near you makes me uncomfortable, but I don’t know why.” Well that was a lie. This metal pony walked through her shield as if it was air, used magic without a horn, and turned wood into a strange metallic substance. Oh yeah, he had also popped up in the middle of her library in a huge flash of light. “If you’re disconcerted by me, then you have no reason to keep me here. I’ll leave. By the way, how can you stand this form? I think I’m going to change to something I’m more familiar with.” What did he mean by that? Nicholas’s eyes had started glowing with an indescribable light. No, his eyes weren’t emitting light, they were pulling it in. Twilight noticed something that she had passed over before. The large white stallion’s cutie mark. It was a symbol to match his eyes. The Yin-Yang shimmered. Nicholas’s whole form seemed to start rapidly blinking in and out of existence, and more light was being pulled towards his eyes. The last of the light fled into those eyes, and Twilight’s vision ceased to function. She was blinded by the onslaught of color. Twilight hadn’t been knocked unconscious; the darkness just seemed to disappear. Where was that stallion? She couldn’t see properly, it was just a blur of colors, with splotches of light drifting across. A coherent shape began to form in front of Twilight. The colors gave the impression of the stallion named Nicholas, but the shape was all wrong. It seemed to stretch out like a snake, but multiple other shapes were attached to it. The imprisoned memories were breaking their cage. Suddenly, Twilight’s vision cleared, and she knew what she was looking at. Or she would have, but Nicholas’s shape was much different from the one of the pure chaos that Twilight had forced herself to forget. While every part of Discord seemed to have been attached at random, as if by a child with a new toy, Nicholas was the opposite. The horns on his head where those of an elk, his head equine in nature, with two matching fangs seamlessly attached. His sinuous body contained a combination of different limbs, but they looked as if they were meant to be there, the foreleg and paw of a lion worked perfectly with the leg and claw of an eagle on the other side, while the wings on his back, one of a bat and one of a griffon, were as magnificent as the wings of a butterfly. His right leg and tail was of a dragon and his left leg a goat’s. All of this was coated in a dual paint of black and white, with a mane of brown. Discord looked as well planned as an accidental nuclear explosion, but the form in front of Twilight was as perfect as Celestia herself. She knew the reason she had for being uncomfortable, and the memories of that chaos had been unlocked. “Ah, perfect. I didn’t think that I would be able to change forms this well. Wait… what exactly did I change to?” Nicholas looked at himself with his unmatched eyes. He seemed to comprehend that this was not the form he wanted. “Hmmm…. Well the wings are there, but why do I have so many different parts? At least this seems to be easier to use than that silly horse body,” He had started jumping in place, then walking in a small circle. “Where is that idiot apprentice?” Twilight looked around. The other pony that was with Nicholas had disappeared. Twilight thought of his fireball Cutie mark and began to panic. She had someone with a special talent for fire loose among her books. Of all the things that could happen, this was The. Worst. Possible. Thing!