> Pandemic: Stirrings in the World of Human Magi
>  by Corascal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Decimum Concilium Magia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

One week after the counter-spell was cast

A light enters into an expanse from a doorway, emanating from a shining crystal hovering in mid-air, surrounded by a golden aura. The light reveals only a hunched figure in a gold-trimmed scarlet shroud that steadily plods forward, a similar glow emanating from the front of its head. The light is dim, revealing only the floor before it, and its advanced age is evident in the slow pace and stiff movements. Yet it moves with utter confidence, as it moves forward in a ceremonial stride. When the light reveals the image of a pair of alicorns, one representing the Sun, the other the Moon, the figure stops, and looks at the image for a moment. If an Equestrian pony were to look upon the mosaic, they would think they were looking upon the image of the diarchy of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. But they wouldn’t be aware that the age of the image predated even their reign, and weren’t even meant to be representative of any particular pair of alicorns. The figure looks up, and the crystal rises into the air, entering into an object above it.

An opulent chandelier decorated with gold, silver, and glittering gems of every color of the rainbow, shone to life, and its multitude of lights revealed a windowless, cavernous chamber. It hung, suspended over the open, central space of the chamber by a black chain. Around this space was an orderly forest of mottled, marble pillars holding the expansive stony ceiling above the tiled floor. Shimmering rainbow cracks of light spread out from the anchor point of the chandelier like a spider-web, connecting to each column before snaking down each of them to placeholders holding even more crystals, filling the room with every color in the rainbow.

In the central space, a ring of eight thrones is arranged, each with a lower seat beside them. Flags of many colors and patterns are draped over the backs of the thrones. In the midst of these seats, an intricate mosaic is laid out, revealing a human man and woman dressed in ancient garbs accepting the gift of an orb of multi-colored light from the pair of alicorns in the foreground. About them, various human figures demonstrate magic of all kinds upon the seven hills in the background.

The figure spends a brief moment admiring the beauty about him, then straightens himself out, allowing his shroud to fall to his shoulders, allowing a golden robe to peek through, and revealing a bald human head with a heavily wrinkled face and bushy white beard, but also a pair of sharp, wise blue eyes that were exuding a golden aura. He spread out his arms, and then cried out in a loud voice in Latin:

“Magi! Disaster has fallen upon the world! The future is uncertain! Come forward, reveal yourselves to one another, and claim your thrones! Do not hold back your secrets and guide all from ignorance to enlightenment!”

When his voice finished echoing, eight groups of figures moved forward from all around the edge of the chamber toward the center. Three individuals comprised each group, one in the front wearing ceremonial garb reflective of their homeland, one wearing modern business attire, one dressed in subdued, but still ceremonial attire, complete with accompanying armament.

The only exception is the pair approaching directly from the old man’s rear, a mature woman in a suit and tie, and a large man dressed in Roman armor and armed with a pair of shotguns and a pair of spears on his back. The old man moves to the throne nearest to him, with the flag of Italy laid upon its back, as the woman positions herself before the smaller seat next to the throne, and the guard on his opposite side, standing at attention. The other groups mirror the same movements, taking their places before the thrones.

The old man speaks once more: “I am Matteo Tiberius Cavallo! Head of the Cavallo Family and all its Branch Families and Host of this Council!”

As the first of the Core Families, any and every Council held would be hosted by the Cavallo family in the Sanctum Magia. Also, one of the traditions at these councils was that only the family heads would be introduced as well as be permitted to speak openly and address the assembly. Their advisors would be allowed to whisper details into the ears of the family heads, but none would be allowed to openly speak, except in the event that a family head was physically unable to. Bodyguards were obligated to stay silent, but considering the amount of intelligence-gathering each family performs on one another, and since the ones assigned to these gatherings were usually the best fighters each family had to offer, none of the bodyguards were expected to need introduction.

Clockwise from him, a small woman with long, braided black hair and dressed in full plate armor adorned with fleur-de-lis’s announced herself in French: “I am Marguerite Poirier! Head of the ancient Poirier Family and all its Branch Families! It is my honor to represent them at this auspicious council!”

Each of the members present had long had the necessary translation spells for their interactions with one another, so the change in language wasn’t jarring for any of them.

It continued to the next one, a clean-shaven man dressed in a navy blue Spanish military coat announced himself in his native tongue: “I am Fernando Cristobal Gonzalez Castro of the proud Castro Family and its many Branch Families! There are few things that please me more than to have the honor of speaking on their behalf on this magnificent Council!”

Another established precedent from prior Councils that each family head would try to have the grandest announcement of their name in order to show up the other members.

The next family head was a tall man dressed in formal white attire and top hat fit for the Victorian Era. He introduced himself: “I am Augustine, Third of the Name, and the Honourable Head of the Wellingsford Family and all Branch Families under its purview! It is my distinct privilege and honour to represent their interests at this gathering!”

Each family was positioned the way they were in the order of their founding as officially recorded in the official archives of the Cavallo Family, who are generally recognized as the first family of human magi in the world. However, many suspected that a similar society of magi existed in the Orient, but there was yet to be any confirmation from any expedition sent there.

The next head was a large and beautiful woman with icy gray eyes and flowing blond hair, and dressed like a medieval princess with a flowing black dress with scarlet trim and a golden cross around her neck. She declared, “I am Teresa Gottschalk! I am Master of the Gottschalk Family and all Branch Families it protects! I am proud to be able to serve and defend my family at this important conference!”

Each of the Core Families had a number of vassals known as Branch Families related to them by blood and who had pledged fealty to them in exchange for sharing their own research into magic while aiding the Core Family in its own desired projects. Each Branch Family was closely monitored, as any of them could turn their backs and run away to either realign themselves with another Core Family or become an unaffiliated Outlier. The German Gottschalks themselves were once a branch of the Poiriers, but broke away during the Protestant Reformation.

Sixth in rotation was a robust man with a long, bushy brown beard and dressed in a long gray coat trimmed with silver edges. Speaking in a Zurich accent of German, he spoke: “I am Adalheid Ruch of the esteemed Ruch Family and its prosperous Branch Families! I genuinely hope to be of help to all Magi for the benefit of all!”

Each of the Core Families’ power and influence in relation to the others was largely tied to their respective homelands. While often immune to short-term economic and political fluctuations, the overall status of a Core family’s homeland can have long-term impacts on the morale of their respective factions. As a result, although the Ruchs headed the smallest faction, the wealth and neutrality of Switzerland allowed them to build connections and wealth that rivaled or surpassed each of the larger Families.

Second-to-last was a mature man dressed in a dark blue aristocratic shirt and pants with a large maroon cloak over his shoulders. He stated in Russian, “I am Evgani Ruslan Rasputin! Patriarch of the Rasputin Family and its Branch Families! I attend this Council bearing their pride and their hope in my heart, and will not allow either to wither away!”

Most Core Families’ actions go unnoticed in historical records, but random members may sometimes find themselves in just such instances. A distant member who became an Outlier and a monk gained the ear of the Tsar’s wife in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and was later assassinated, but not before several prior attempts all failed.

Finally, it came to the group to the right of Matteo Cavallo, the head of which was a young man with a ready smirk in his mouth and a confident gaze in his eyes, dressed in dark blue and a tricorner hat like a gentleman who had walked out of colonial America. He said, “I am Marius Springer. I am the Head of the Springer Family and Sponsor of its Branch Families. It is a pleasure doing business with all of you.”

Although the Springers were easily the youngest of the Core Families, their ascendancy to Core status was just as easily the fastest. Formed in the aftermath of the American Revolution by breaking away from the Wellingsfords, they were initially derided as another Outlier. However, their style of association with Branch Families, modeled after the freedom of the American system, allowed them to quietly gather Outliers and already-affiliated Branch Families and play the other Core Families against one another in the Family Affairs. It was such a successful method, and tied with America’s growing significance on the world stage, their base was soon strong enough to allow them to face the other Core Families on equal footing, and successfully become acknowledged – grudgingly – as a Core Family.

Matteo Cavallo spoke again: “All Magi here have themselves known! Sit down, and let the Tenth Council of Magic commence!”

All of the family heads seated themselves on their respective thrones, and the advisors beside them, while the bodyguards remained at attention. Matteo looked out at the assembled Magi, and while he could see that they were all maintaining quiet respect for the ceremony of the occasion, some of the younger members were hiding their anticipation to get the proceedings moving along rather well.

“Now that all ceremony has been concluded, I can see the eagerness of you all to, as you younger generations would say, ‘get down to business.’” Cavallo stated.

“I hardly think the situation before us requires any manner of introduction, Mr. Cavallo,” a voice spoke up to his right. It was Marius Springer. “We all noticed the transformation magic present in the most recent strain of influenza to sweep the world, but the fact that it transformed its victims into the same kind of ponies that are claimed by ancient record to have brought the gift of magic to this world was most surprising. And now we have a global population of more than 300 million of these sentient equines running around, irrevocably revealing the existence of magic to the entire world.”

“A rather concise, if crude, summary of these events,” Augustine Wellingsford III said. “However, it also leaves out the fact that it has been confirmed that the manufacturer of this pandemic was, in fact, a pony from Equestria, the same world from which the equine emissaries to Rome first came.”

“Let us also not forget another thing,” Marguerite Poirier added. “The perpetrator, Sunset Shimmer, was acting alone. Furthermore, the counterspell that stopped the transformations was actually created and performed by another Equestrian, one Twilight Sparkle, who is apparently royalty with her title of Princess of Friendship, in tandem with the ponies of Equestria themselves. She is noted to also be a close friend, if not advisor, to the current rulers of their land, Princesses Celestia and Luna. In light of this, I don’t believe we will need to fear any manner of state-level hostilities, at least from their end.”

“That is hardly the point of this council, Miss Poirier,” Teresa Gottschalk pointed out. “While foreign relations are important, the existence of the other world is now an open fact for the global populace. Those details can be handled by our countries’ governments. The point of each of the nine councils that took place before was to gather together and examine how tectonic shifts in global affairs would impact us and how we will adjust ourselves to respond accordingly. We don’t gather to talk about everyone else. We gather to talk about us, and how we will be affected.”

“That is very true, Mistress Gottschalk,” Evgani Rasputin interjected. “While the homelands of some have been impacted to a greater degree than others-” he said as he waved his hand at Marius Springer, “-this particular crisis poses a unique threat to our livelihoods. Namely, our secrecy.”

“We also may not have very long before we are discovered,” Marius Springer declared. The other heads visibly turned to him.

“What do you mean by that?” Fernando Castro asked.

“Two things that I believe you have each neglected to fully consider. One detail that is soon going to be making the rounds in the academic world is an archaeological discovery by one Sarah Tanner in Lazy Pines, Colorado, or Ground Zero for the ETS epidemic. She found that the ancient Anasazi people of North America actually made contact with the same people of ponies a little over seven hundred years ago. The second is that the FBI confirmed that a Hopi reservation in nearby Arizona was actually immune to the plague, and a doctor working at Ground Zero was confirmed to be not only immune, but also of Hopi ancestry. This is significant as the Hopi are believed to be descended from the Anasazi.”

“Do you think the Equestrian emissaries told the men they were working with about the Roman Contact?” asked Adalheid Ruch.

“My sources say they absolutely did,” Springer replied. “And I don’t think we need to think very hard about the implications of that.”

All of the Magi went quiet for a brief moment. Being Magi, they themselves were largely immune to all but the most brutal illnesses, and thus were able to emerge largely unscathed from the epidemic. But as they all knew, the ability to use magic is genetic, the only reason they were all able to use it was because they were all descendants of those exposed to magic in the first place during the Roman Contact almost two thousand years ago. Thus, non-magical members who had been adopted by or married into each of the factions were vulnerable, and a noticeable handful of their number had been affected by the pandemic. While the plague had been finished off only in the last week, if someone noticed a pattern of immunity among the magic-using families, everything could be exposed.

“Because of these events,” Marius Springer continued. “I believe that, whatever we do after the conclusion of this council, we must prepare for this inevitability: that the existence of human magic will be revealed to the world.”

After a brief moment, Matteo Cavallo responded. “I have lived a long time, and I have hosted the four prior Magic Councils where the previous heads of your family have all clamored about the inevitable exposure of magic to the world. I berated them as hyperbolic fools each time they did so. Now, it seems I owe those men and that woman a most profound apology. I believe all of us at one point or another have considered the possibility at least at one point in our lives. But we pushed it aside for how patently absurd that we would fail to keep our little corner of the world hidden from society. But now, with this latest occurrence, it seems that time has closed.”

An outside observer might expect people so steeped in tradition and arcane arts to express outrage or shock at such an announcement. But Magi were, if nothing else, very thorough people when it came to planning. Each and every family head had entered the chamber already considering the possibility of disclosure, and the Americans had always been the most vocal about preparing for it. Now that it had been acknowledged by the single most senior member of the entire hidden world of magic, the issue had now been upgraded from an uncomfortable thought to an imperative agenda.

“Now that it seems we are all quite resigned to this incoming future,” Augustine III said. “The question is now no longer how we will be affected by this crisis, but how we shall prepare for the inevitable storm before us.”

“There are already two ways this can happen,” Marguerite stated. “First, we wait for the storm. We simply gather our assets and keep a close eye on them, then plan out, prepare, and practice for different contingencies. The second is that we step forward and meet the storm head-on. We take stock, prepare our lines, practice with select individuals to gauge possible responses, then decide what we reveal, when and how we do it.”

“There are pros and cons to both plans,” Fernando Castro pointed out. “The first allows us to continue operating as we always have, while preparing for whichever way we are revealed, and it accounts for how disclosure, however inevitable, may still be some time away. But it also hinders our ability to take control of the disclosure event once it occurs. The second allows us to take control of the disclosure event, and determine the pace, setting, and overall message and contents of the event. But the drawback is that we are forced to set a deadline and disrupt all operations we are already undertaking in order to prepare for disclosure, and that’s not taking into account the possibility that we will be forced into a disclosure situation while we are still in the middle of preparing for it, wreaking havoc on whatever preparations already made.

“Furthermore,” he continued. “Once disclosure happens, there are several things which will happen no matter the response: Suspicions of conspiracy from the masses and the elites. Investigations and scrutiny from government agencies. The intervention of the Church to establish purview over our practices. Demands to access into our research from every organization of note on the Earth.”

“Those are all negative effects we’ve all known for some time. But this time, there is also one major benefit we can gain from the current state of affairs,” Springer noted, with a smirk on his face.

“What might that be?” Fernando asked.

“Access to Equestria’s libraries and their research on magic.”

An audible gasp could be heard from a few of the magi present. While it was true that they had been researching magic for almost two thousand years, the limited access to magic and the even more limited number of magic-capable individuals stifled the potentials of their research by a great deal. The Cavallos, for example, had been pursuing immortality since the Roman Contact, where they learned that immortal creatures did exist. The current head of the Cavallo family, Matteo, was the height of their accomplishments, as he had successfully lived for over six centuries. Unfortunately, he wasn’t immortal; it was actually a miracle he hadn’t gone senile already, and many believed he wouldn’t last another ten years at most.

Inwardly, most of the magi were practically drooling at the thought of being able to access an entire world of magic and destroy all barriers to their research in the process.

“That brings up yet another interesting question, doesn’t it?” Adalheid Ruch spoke up.

“Do tell us, Master Ruch,” Springer beckoned.

“How will the Equestrian ponies respond to our existence?” Ruch asked. All of the magi were left quiet as they contemplated this thought. He continued. “We don’t know all that much about Equestria. But we do have detailed reports about those native Equestrians who have crossed over into our world. And not just Twilight Sparkle, but also her apprentice Starlight Glimmer, her five friends Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie, along with one Star Singer, who apparently was once friends with the rogue Sunset Shimmer and has a limited ability to predict the future. From what I’ve read on their, admittedly hastily-assembled profiles and recorded statements, Equestria as a whole is a generally peaceful society that is largely averse to violence and seeks nonviolent solutions however and whenever possible that don’t conflict with their ideals.”

“Is there a point to this, we know all of this already,” Teresa Gottschalk responded.

“The point is, how do we as magi compare to them? We utilize deception, espionage, sabotage, and even outright conflict on rare occasions to achieve our goals. We are naturally arrogant, suspicious, callous, obsessive, spiteful, and even destructive. Ponykind is reluctant to execute even a hardened, unrepentant criminal for the sake of even the faintest hope of redemption. Otherwise, they are locked away forever, or probably even banished. Our pasts are drenched in the blood of innocent souls who were unlucky enough to either be subjects of horrible experiments or simply for catching a passing glimpse at a hint of magic. I doubt that Equestria would go to war against us. But it would be well within their nature to simply bar our entrance from Equestria and its magic altogether. And because they control the portal and hold all of the necessary research, we would be able to do nothing against them.

And just like that, the greatest frustration and worst nightmare of every human magi was brought to the fore – the knowledge of the existence of greater magic out there, but sitting too far out to ever be grasped.

“I tell you all now: while we may be resigned to our inevitable exposure to the world, our access to the wealth of magical knowledge lying in Equestria beyond that portal – which leads into their capital city of *ahem* Canterlot mind you – is anything but certain. We can negotiate our continued existence with our own governments, they would be fools to pass up the opportunity. But Equestria can afford to put us at arms’ length, deny us their permission to study their magic, and even drive a wedge between us and much of the world. Whatever we do, we must tread around the Equestrians with the most caution, and hope and pray to God some Outlier doesn’t destroy our efforts by doing something beyond the pale.”

It was a truly sobering thought, one that thoroughly tamped down on the passions that had just been running wild, as the heads finally began openly turning to their advisors and whispering with them. When Matteo Cavallo stood up, everyone’s attention returned to him.

“You young ones always seek to do everything as quickly as possible,” Matteo Cavallo stated. “And I must admit, the thought of what is to come has my blood rushing like it hasn’t since the French Revolution. I believe we need little more debate among ourselves. Confer with your advisors, and let us have a vote on what we shall do. Shall we stand our ground and wait for the storm to bear its fury, or shall we go out and unleash it ourselves?”

The other magi spoke with their advisors briefly once more, then rose as one, and made their decision.
> Cavalcare la Tempesta
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

One Week into ETS Pandemic

As Fabriella knocked on the door of the Cavallo family estate outside of Naples, Enzo Sciarra reflected on how she shared everything about herself with him except for the exact reason as to why she had run away from this place, her childhood home, in the first place.

Enzo Sciarra considered himself the luckiest man in the world to have been able to meet the love of his life, Fabriella Ritti. He was an aspiring painter who was finally carving out his niche in the art world. She was a runaway rich girl who had taken up a reporting gig for a major Roman newspaper. He wasn’t a particularly ugly man, but no one aside from his mother would call him handsome. She was a drop-dead world-class beauty. Meeting her was like living a fairy tale, as he reflected each and every day.

Which was why, for months and even years on end, he did just about everything he could to make certain that she wasn’t just stringing him along or that he wasn’t dreaming. He asked every question he could conceive of that was relevant to them.

Do you like waking up early or staying up late? (She liked both, and bemoaned the fact that she was unable to do both the same day – or was it night?)

What kind of books do you like to read? (Pastoral and slice-of-life. Don’t even get her started if you said to her face you liked to read fantasy)

Did you ever have a boyfriend before? (Several. None of whom she liked)

Have you ever kissed another man before? (Her father – but he doesn’t count)

Do you like girls instead? (He had no idea human eyes could grow that wide after he asked that question)

Each time, she would answer the question honestly and in a straightforward fashion. After everything he and she had done in the fourteen months they’d been seeing each other, their relationship was always at its rockiest whenever he insinuated that she had some ulterior motive for sticking around with him. After all, one reason he loved painting so much was because it allowed to make dreams come to life. But spending time with her felt like living inside of a dream, and he was torn between letting the dream last as long as possible and finding out the truth behind it. But she had made every effort to assuage his fears and doubts regarding her.

Except for tell him why she ran away from home at the tender age of 16. She had given stories about her childhood, but he noticed that it always seemed as though she was omitting key details from all of her stories. She also never spoke about the time that led up to her finally running away. He had always felt that the truth behind the girl named Fabriella Ritti lay at her old home, and whatever secrets she held were there.

The door cracked opened to reveal a broad man who towered head, shoulders and chest above himself. He was also dressed to the nines in the most impeccable butler uniform he had ever seen. In fact, he would have thought the man to be some manner of foreign hire from Britain if he didn’t address Fabriella in a clear northern accent of Italian.

“Lady Fabriella!” he said with joyful surprise, a smile creeping onto his features.

“Signore Giovanni!” Fabriella cried, leaping forward to embrace him, which he enthusiastically returned. After a moment, the two kissed one another on both cheeks in familial affection.

“It is so good to see you home again, il mia piccola,” Giovanni rumbled.

“And you too, Gio,” Fabriella croaked.

It was then the man remembered that there was a man right there. Giovanni straightened himself and stepped forward, effortlessly intimidating the poor artist. “And who are you, to be accompanying the lady back home?”

Enzo looked to Fabriella for help, but all she did was nervously pantomime to introduce himself to the giant before him. Gulping, he looked up at the man, who gazed upon him with a pair of eyes that held deep suspicion for him and a calculating mind that was closely examining every last image of him it saw. It also didn’t help him that he was still in the midst of dealing with the flu, so standing out in the sun didn’t help things much.

“H-Hello Signore. M-My name is Enzo S-Sciarra. I have been keeping company with Signora Fabriella for more than a year as a- a- good friend.”

“A good friend?” Giovanni inquired, as his eyes continued to bore a hole through Enzo’s soul.

“Nothing m-more,” Enzo stammered, with a nervous smile plastered across his face.

A soul-destroying moment later, Fabriella finally came to the rescue: “Thank you, Gio, but he really has been one of my best friends, and he’s actually the reason I came back.”

That caught the butler’s attention, as he turned his gaze back to Fabriella. “what on Earth could have possibly happened to you to convince to come back here after everything that happened?”

“I’m not the one with a problem, per se. It’s actually Enzo here. He’s been infected by the new influenza breakout.”

The man stood back, a look of understanding dawning on his face. “Ah. So he’s been affected by that personally.”

Enzo could only watch in confusion as he failed to understand whatever significance the statement held.

“Yes, Gio,” Fabriella replied, sounding gravely serious. “I only came back because I want Grande Bisnonno to show me what the Hell is up with this flu and what’s it’s going to do to Enzo.”

The man looked back at Enzo, then leveled his gaze at the both of them. “Follow me,” he said, turning to open the door for them. The confusion as to the actions of the two of them caused him to quickly reflect on how he’d gotten here.

It started when the latest influenza strain rolled into town. A few people got sick, but nobody was making a big deal out of it, all except for Fabriella. Ever since it arrived, she quieted down a lot, walked around like she was on thin ice, and looked around like something was going to leap out and stab her through the throat. The day that he came down with the flu was the day that she outright panicked. She then told him then and there that they needed to see her great-great-great grandfather, the head of her family, immediately. He was given next to no time to pack a change of clothes and some art supplies, and she then yanked him to her car and slammed on the pedal as they drove south toward Naples. When he asked why she was in such a panic, all she told him was that she would tell him when they got there.

The possibilities as to why she was so freaked out were numerous as he sorted them through his mind. The first thought was that her family was part of the mafia, which would explain her uneasiness regarding her family and home, but not for why her paranoia was only manifesting now. The second was that she was involved with a secret scientific project, which would account for her wariness regarding the flu, but this wasn’t the first flu season they had endured together. Other possibilities included government activity, aliens, and even demons. Each was more outlandish than the last, and were mentally dispelled.

His thoughts about outlandishness came back in full force as he and Fabriella were escorted inside the mansion by the monster of a servant. Just inside the entrance was an opulent foyer with rich, mahogany wood paneling along the walls, granite-tiled flooring, half a dozen doorways on the ground floor with elaborate patterns of carving, a pair of curving, red-carpeted staircases leading up the next floor, with golden railings. He looked up at the ceiling to see an immense fresco worthy of the Renaissance Masters of a sword-wielding man in imperial Roman garb astride a magnificent, rearing white horse.

As he admired the fresco, he noticed Fabriella and Giovanni stop and he caught himself before he slammed into the butler’s back. He was confused at first, but then he looked down to see they were all standing on a large circle of obsidian with a golden engraving of a ‘C,’ and above it was set a Latin phrase: “Scientia sit potentia.” He then noticed the butler turn toward him, and fix his superhuman gaze upon him again.

“Before we go any further, Signor Sciarra,” the man intoned. “I will have you swear on everything that you hold dear that nothing you witness beyond this point will be repeated to any of your prior acquaintances, be they friend or family. Ignore this warning, and their memories will be erased, and your life will be extinguished. So then, do you swear to keep the secret of the Family Affairs?”

At those words, Enzo’s stomach sank into his €40 shoes and his heart clawed into his throat. For some reason, he also thought the room itself was shaking ever so slightly from the imperiousness of the servant’s gaze. Looking at Fabriella, all he saw on her face was a gentle smile and an apologetic look in her eyes. He closed his eyes, took a shuddering breath, and turned back to the butler to open his eyes with a steel look to meet the manservant’s. “For Fabriella’s sake, I swear,” he declared.

For a moment, he swore there was a hint of pride in the butler’s professional demeanor. Then the man lifted up his right leg, and as it reached the apex, Enzo noticed a red aura seem to surround his foot. Before he could question Giovanni what he was doing, the servant stomped on the floor, and the red aura spread over the circle like a shockwave before disappearing. In the next moment, Enzo suddenly felt as if he was sinking, and soon realized he was as heard stone scrape against stone and he saw the floor begin to rise up around him.

W-What the Hell is going on?!? He panicked mentally, as a slab slid into place above their heads when they’d sunk low enough. Just as it closed, rings embedded in the wall glowed to life in the dark, filling the eerie shaft with an ominous blue light. Looking at the butler, he saw the man’s usual professionalism, but with more than a subtle hint of enjoyment at his confusion. Looking to Fabriella, he saw her face morph itself to portray her feelings of anger, sadness, and guilt. But she had no fear, and there was no question that she knew what was going on. But he was still too stupefied to openly ask what was going on, so he remained silent.

An entire minute later, the moving stopped, and at the moment that the lights formed an outline of a doorway in the rock, with a circle of glowing crystal in the center. Giovanni stepped forward and reached out to press his hand against the rock, the same red aura from earlier surrounding his palm and emanating onto the circle. The doorway then swung itself open, and Giovanni stepped through. Fabriella and Enzo followed. Enzo gasped at what he saw.

He saw an underground grotto, one that covered an expanse greater than that of an airplane hanger. He stood at the beginning of a series of stone pathways that intersected and crossed the entirety of the large pool of water. They connected a pattern of Roman-style stone structures that jutted up from the water. In the center was a large building that appeared to hold a distinct resemblance to the Colosseum in Rome. And Enzo could hear crashing, rumbling, explosions and even gunfire from it.

“Follow me, the both of you,” Giovanni rumbled. “The Master is likely in the midst of his annual sparring match and I’m sure that you remember, Lady Fabriella, that he doesn’t like being interrupted.

Annual sparring match? Enzo wondered.

“Really?” Fabriella asked. “But Grande Bisnonno only goes up against the strongest possible opponent who’s willing to fight him, and last I checked, none of the other Families are willing to send one of their own to risk life and limb against him for a simple sparring match, so it’s always been the head family bodyguard who’s sparred against him. You are still the head family bodyguard, right?”

“Correct, my Lady,” he replied in an even tone. “But being away for twelve years has left you out of the news regarding recent events.”

“So he found someone new to fight?” Fabriella asked.

“He did. In fact, the man he’s fighting right now is an Outlier magus who tried to assassinate him only three years ago.”

“WHAT?!” Fabriella and Enzo cried.

“You mean someone tried to kill her great-great-grandfather and no one told her?!?” Enzo cried.

“You mean someone was stupid enough to actually try?!?” Fabriella guffawed.

Enzo did a double take at the statement, and then at the past few as well. Apparently, the family head that Fabriella had brought him to meet was her great-great-grandfather, meaning that he had to at least be closing on 100 years. And yet, because of whatever freaky things they were doing down here, he also seemed to be such a strong figure that Fabriella seemed to consider trying to kill him to be something of a very difficult if not impossible endeavor.

Giovanni’s voice grew cold. “He came very unexpectedly one night. Managed to breach security without all of us being any the wiser. He actually attacked the Master right there in the family colosseum while he was training. Since he was training, no one else was in the Grotto, so none of us saw what happened, but when we all felt an explosion go off under our feet, we all immediately rushed underground to give aid to the Master. We arrived at the colosseum to find the interior destroyed, as well as the Master facing down a man in black. The assassin had a gun aimed at the Master, but he was so tired he could barely stand. The Master had won, but what shocked us was that he was actually bleeding from several wounds.”

Fabriella was amazed and shocked at the short story that Giovanni spun, while Enzo was left in utter disbelief that stories like that could even be true. Such tales belonged in the annals of popular fiction, folklore, and ancient mythology; and most certainly not in the real world. Looking around, he could see a number of things that didn’t belong in the real world, from a Bond-worthy underground lair to actual freaking sea serpents in the water that nearly caused Enzo to make a dump in his pants.

Giovanni continued. “You may not know this, Fabriella, but the last time the Master had even been wounded in a fight was when he hunted down and annihilated the Socialist sympathizers with the Cavallo Family network back in 1919. The last time he had been wounded in a duel was in 1808 against Franz Poirier, head of the Poirier family at the time and a full-throated supporter of Emperor Bonaparte.”

“But Grande Bisnonno has been building his magical knowledge and strength for centuries! Who could possibly be strong enough to fight him?”

Wait, magic??!?! Enzo screamed in his head.

And then as if on cue, all of the sounds of battle from the colosseum ceased, but they continued toward the entrance.

“I still don’t know the man’s name,” Giovanni said. “I believe the Master knows, but refuses to say. Based on what I know from what the Master’s told me, there are a substantial number that could beat him in a contest of raw magical power. He is also a very intelligent magus, he is very conservative with his own magic, utilizing it almost exclusively for evasive and defensive measures, while relying on strategy and enchanted weaponry for offensive attacks.”

“So, um” Enzo spoke up, drawing the attention of the other two for the first time in a while. “So, what you’re saying is that it isn’t that he’s strong but that he’s smart, hard to hit, and is well-armed?”

After a moment where the three processed the fact that Enzo had made a clear insight into a subject he had just been introduced to that day, Giovanni replied, “Yes, that’s right. Since then, from what sources have told us, he has since been fingered as the suspect behind more than five dozen assassinations over the next year. Another hundred or so dead as collateral. 37 of those dead were magi. However, the moniker he is known by comes from those few who fought him and lived, aside from the Master.”

“What is he called?” Fabriella asked, sounding increasingly nervous.

The double doors of the front entrance to the colosseum opened. The three of them stopped when they saw who was walking out in long, fluid strides. He was dressed all in black from his long coat to his boots, pants, and shirt, with a hood that cast a shadow over his face. His weapons inside his coat clicked and clinked together as he moved forward. All of this would have made for a more intimidating sight if his outfit didn’t look like it had ravaged by wolves and then dragged across a continent. But the black lightning that sparked dangerously around the figure were still more than enough to make the three step aside to let him pass.

For Enzo, watching this machine of death walk by made him feel as though the man was walking over his grave. But when the figure glanced at him, he suddenly stopped. Enzo’s mind froze as he saw the man’s green eyes fix him with a peculiar look he didn’t expect. It was one that held no malice or arrogance. Rather, it was one filled with curiosity, and even abject pity.

“I didn’t expect to find a normal man down here,” he said in American-accented Italian with a voice as clear and smooth as a vale brook, surprising Enzo. “But then again, you won’t ever be normal again.” He then turned and continued on his way towards where the three had previously come, leaving Enzo baffled at what he said, and the other two surprised that he even spoke to him.

“You should feel honored, young man,” boomed a powerful voice from the arena. The three turned to see a bald and bearded man of clearly advanced age come toward them. He was only wearing the lower half of a ripped robe, revealing a chiseled chest and powerful arms, as well as a series of scratches and lacerations across his torso, as well as a glancing gunshot wound on his right shoulder. Still, he looked leagues better than the man who walked out before him.

“The Nightmare Reaper doesn’t like talking under most circumstances,” the man said, as he walked towards the group. “He says it distracts him from listening to his surroundings.”

Enzo could see the man’s golden aura as it faded away, but the sheer presence he exuded was still easily felt. The Nightmare Reaper made him feel like a sheep before a wolf, while this man, who was most certainly Giovanni’s Master and Fabriella’s Grande Bisnonno, made him feel like an ant before a storm. Enzo was beginning to wonder how much his lifespan had been shortened by being subjected to the soul-destroying gazes of three different men over the course of only ten minutes. Once the man had reached them, he turned first to Giovanni.

“Head Guard Magro,” he addressed Giovanni. “Can you explain to me why you didn’t tell me the child who cost me my great-grandson and her magically-infected escort were coming today?”

The child who cost him his great-grandson? Enzo looked to Fabriella, whose face was wracked with sorrow and guilt. Does that mean her father is dead? And he blames her? And wait– he said I was magically-infected?!

“The Lady returned unannounced, Master,” Giovanni explained. “She has come solely to you so that you may give aid to her sickened friend.”

The man *hmmphed* at Giovanni’s words. He walked over to Fabriella, whose head was lowered in despondency. “Look at me, Fabriella Teresa Ritti Cavallo,” the man ordered.

Fabriella raised her head, tears streaking down her cheeks, but her eyes determinedly meeting his. “You are very bold and presumptuous to return to my home after what your stupidity and arrogance have done to my great-grandson,” the man stated. “And worse, you ran away from it all, to avoid doing your due diligence for what you have done. And now you come back with this in tow to beg at my feet for my help? What manner of fool must you be to stoop so low?”

“The manner of fool who would do anything and everything in her power to help the man she fell in love with,” she answered, her voice almost breaking.

Enzo felt as though his brain was about ready to black out so that he could process everything that was happening, including what the butler had just said. But it was forced to stay awake, so that he could stand with the woman that he realized he did indeed love.

Fabriella got on her knees and she clutched at the man’s robe as she continued to beg to him for aid. “I will do anything you ask of me, Matteo Tiberius Cavallo. I don’t care what pain you inflict on me. But a sickness threaded with a potent curse has swept the world that no science could hope to reverse and it has ensnared my love. All I ask in return for whatever you do to me, to save my Enzo Sciarra from whatever he’s been afflicted with. Please.”

For a moment, there was quiet. Giovanni watched the pair with hidden hope and Enzo with open fear, while Fabriella wept and Matteo glared.

Then, Matteo sighed, and addressed his descendant. “You are lucky that I was in such a good mood just before you arrived. And your friend inadvertently brought my favorite sparring partner to speak. For that alone, I will help him however I can.” Fabriella looked up at him with joy.

“But,” he continued. “You will be severely disciplined. And you will make no complaints about what the family decides to do with you in the end. Am I understood?”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“Good.” He turned to Enzo. “So, you are now aware of magic, right, boy?”

Enzo gulped. “Y-Y-Yessir. S-Signor Giovanni already told me I can expect amnesia or death for exposing it, so I’d rather keep my memories and my life, thank you very much.”

“Excellent,” Matteo stated. He then walked toward the exit, Giovanni behind him. “Now come along, the both of you. There is much to be discussed.”

Enzo looked to Fabriella, who was still laid upon the ground of the stone bridge they were upon that itself sat upon the water of a massive grotto through which swam creatures out of myth and legend.

But all Enzo could see was the most beautiful woman in the world, to whom he offered his hand to help her get up. She smiled back at him, and gave him hers in return. He helped her to her feet, and they walked back to the stone elevator hand in hand.
> Les Affaires Familiales
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nineteen Days after ETS Pandemic Begins

Marguerite Poirier’s late grandmother’s study was a large room with thick Persian carpets, floor-to-ceiling dark-wood bookshelves along the walls, a floor globe tucked in the corner that glinted with recent polish, an old stone fireplace, and a pair of elderly electric lamps that would help fill the room in a warm glow in the evenings and nights. Marguerite’s three favorite features were the trio of hand-carved chairs with lion paws for feet and velvet feather-cushioned seats, the immense desk, and the large sunlight-flooding window behind it, that could open up to a balcony that gave a magnificent view of the Poirier estate, filled with meadows, forests, and a short path to the warm Mediterranean Sea.

Marguerite Poirier had worked very hard to be named the successor of her grandmother’s estate and stature as head of the Poirier Magic Family, which made this study hers.

When she turned seven, as was tradition for most Magi Families, she was given instruction on the process of not only breaking the First Lock on her magic, but also on how to convert a chosen body part into a magic focus to cast spells. She distinguished herself by converting all ten of her fingers, thus enduring months of painful circulation and concentration of magic that would force most mages to settle for two to four fingers. Since then, she endured long nights in order to study the centuries of the accumulated wisdom of human magi as well as early mornings in order to practice whatever magic she was able to perform.

But scattered all over the desk in front of her were reminders to the sprawled-out and groaning young lady of seventeen as to the myriad reasons why scientists, with their theoretical and/or technical knowledge, rarely made for practical politicians.

Give her enough chalk and a few blackboards, and she could explain in complete detail how a ley line operates and is maintained, using the one her own house sat on and her family maintained as an example of what kind of influences age, geography, climate, human population and general mood could have on a ley line. But tell her to mediate between the bickering Gossier and Merle branch families situated in Breton on who had more right to more power coming from the same ley line that fueled both families’ magic for generations, like the spread of files and papers under her left arm were stating, she would instantly draw a blank.

Under her right arm were a series of missives from French Caledonia requesting more resources in order to deal with aquatic chimeras that had escaped into the Pacific Ocean over two years ago. To her left were a series of reports detailing discovered intrusions into the De Verley branch family estate in French Guiana, namely stolen research regarding alchemical manipulation of stem cells.Mixed in with those reports were messages from a deep agent in Siberia investigating the Rasputin-branched Yakovlev family’s experiments at the site of the infamous Tunguska Event of 1908. To her right were more reports regarding the status of ongoing priority experiments and research, the finances of the various branches as a whole, etc.

But as she lifted her head up, she could only glower at what was dominating the front and center of her massive, centuries-old, hand-carved, wooden, crystal-topped desk. Sitting there was an unorganized pile of files, papers, documents, and portfolios that painstakingly detailed everything that the Poirier family had been able to gather regarding the global headache that had swept the world known as ‘Equine Transformation Syndrome.’ Analysis showed that the largest numbers of those affected were in America and China, while Russia was suspected to have been similarly impacted. Europe took less of a hit, as did both Latin America and Africa, while Australia had suffered the least fallout.

What perturbed her the most was how much they really didn’t know about how the spell worked. The Springers had told everyone that they had detected the wide-reaching spell a week before its effects had become known to the public. Dissecting the magic itself, however, proved to be a far more strenuous task, as the underground human magic society quickly learned that it was far and out the most advanced spell they had ever come across. When everyone learned about the presence of the Equestrian ponies – Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer and the like – they were relieved that none of the human factions had been responsible, but apprehensive in that the truth about magic had been revealed.

While the human magi were grateful that the Princess of Friendship (there were more than a few double takes at that piece of information) had revealed a broad explanation of how the ETS pandemic had worked, they were vexed in how they were unable to glean further information without risking exposure. This was due to the multitude of government officials and ordinary people transformed into ponies who were now more susceptible to noticing magic than ever. This meant they were unable to get their hands on the firsthand research notes and equations that had been used to devise both the original spell and the counterspell. Essentially, what they were left with in order to dissect the spell was the equivalent of a middle-school textbook diagram of a jet engine, which is useful for explaining the concept, but practically useless for building one.

The transformation spell was a source of perpetual fascination for Marguerite Poirier, but simultaneously frustrated her to no end. And it certainly didn’t help the poor girl that she had personal stakes in this affair.

She heard a knock at the door to her office.

She shot up in her seat like a spring to glare at the door with blazing eyes. “I TOLD YOU I’M BUSY MAURICE!” she pitched the pen she’d been using to write down her thoughts in her notebook across the room into the door, making a very unsatisfying *thunk* against the wood before hitting the floor in a muffled *thud*. “IF I NEED YOUR HELP, I’LL CALL FOR YOU!”

“Marguerite,” a soft female voice emanated from behind the door. “We know you’ve been stressed for a while now. That’s why your father and I would like to help you. So, could you let us in, please?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Alright. Just a moment.” Marguerite relaxed herself slightly, and pushed herself out and up from her desk and chair. She smoothed the wrinkles in her white blouse and blue jacket, straightened out her navy blue maxi skirt and neatened her ponytail. Then she crossed the room in shiny black buckle shoes and long white socks with nervous steps to the door. After sucking in a couple deep breaths to calm herself, she laid her hand upon the knob and turned it to open the door.

She remembered looking up at her mother’s rich and smooth brown hair that swayed like long grass in a gentle breeze, long and delicate arms tipped in the fingers of a violinist, a thin form and legs like a birch tree, and a fair and gentle face set with emerald eyes and that smiled like the crescent moon. Her father was a large, ruggedly handsome man like the finest of French farmers, with unruly pitch black hair, a muscled and broad body from his neck to his fingers and his toes, a pair of rich hazel eyes amidst a façade that could switch from resembling a mountainside to a saint or vice versa depending on his mood.

Now, however, she looked down at a pair of ponies, that all at once looked nothing like how they used to but still resembled them so much it hurt. Her mother, Apolline, was now a unicorn mare that somehow kept the same dainty figure, accompanied by a bright white coat and rich blue hair that flowed like water down her neck with a Stradivarius violin decorating her haunches, and a pair of amethyst eyes set in a delicate face. Her father, Legrand, was now a stocky and broad-shouldered dark gray stallion with a cornucopia on his flanks, a short mane of black hair that sprung from his head and a pair of bright blue eyes.

Although magi weren’t transformed by the plague due to their general immunity to sickness, Apolline had the dual misfortune of being born with a mutation that prevented her from unlocking her magic and being the victim of a magical poison from an unknown perpetrator only two weeks ago, rendering her vulnerable to the plague. Legrand on the other hand was an ordinary man who had fallen in love with her mother, and after soap opera levels of drama, succeeded in marrying into the family.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence, as Marguerite reminded herself that these two ponies were indeed her mother and father, and as her parents reconciled themselves to the fact that their daughter was now taller than they were much sooner than they were expecting. When it passed, Marguerite simply stood to the side and opened the door wider for the two of them to walk in, their hooves clopping softly on the old carpet. After guiding the door shut, Marguerite brought herself to where her parents had seated themselves on two of the room’s three free chairs with all four hooves on the seat as if they had been doing it all their lives. Brushing off that uneasy observation, Marguerite stood by the third chair.

“Would you like me to ask Maurice to come bring us some coffee and pastries?” she asked her parents nervously. “Or if you like, perhaps wine and some cheese?”

“Thank you, but not now, Marguerite,” Apolline waved her hoof casually. “We were actually rather concerned about you.”

“Why would you need to be?” she smiled graciously. “I mean, sure there’s been a lot of things happening and I’ve had to work my butt off with Maurice to deal with it all, but I think I’m handling it well enough.”

“Frankly, I don’t think you are,” Legrand rumbled.

She turned to him. “What makes you say that?”

Despite his reduced size, his eyes were just as intimidating to the girl as ever. “First of all, aren’t you the one who told me how you knew whenever things weren’t right just by the way I was talking and smiling?”

“Oh,” she let her smile fade.

He continued, “Second, it’s not what you’re doing that has us worried. We’ve always been very proud of everything you’ve done because you do them so well.”

“Then why did you come to talk to me?” Marguerite asked confusedly.

“Because you haven’t been coming to talk to us lately,” her mother answered.

Marguerite was taken slightly aback as she realized that she indeed hadn’t done so.

Her mother continued. “You never hesitated to come to us whenever you had a problem before. When you were going through the facilitation for your magic, you always came to me when you couldn’t bear the pain.”

“When Rupert Beauregard came over the first time,” her father relayed, drudging up both unwanted and beloved memories in Marguerite’s mind. “You came to me to learn how to deal with him.”

“We could go on for a long time with this,” her mother stepped down from her chair and came up to Marguerite. “Our point is that we know from experience when something is going wrong in your life.” She punctuated her point by laying a hoof on Marguerite’s lap, causing the girl to shrink back just the smallest bit.

Her father spoke again. “We know we haven’t been around much over the past month, with your mother’s orchestra schedule and my field work.” He got down from his seat and came forward as well. “But as soon as your grandmother passed and you were named the family head, you didn’t come to us to talk about anything. And when we started transforming into ponies, the most you did was check up on us and avoid talking about anything that worried you.” He set his own hoof down next to her mother’s. “Please. We know you’re going through some tough times. Help us help you.”

Marguerite just looked at her mother and father look up at her imploringly with the all-too-real cartoon equine faces that had replaced the ones that she had been looking up at since her infancy. She couldn’t help but reflect upon how ridiculous this scene appeared to be, but there was no denying the lurch in her heart, as she realized how much she had hurt them in spite of her efforts to do otherwise. She could only bow her head.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “It’s just that I felt like I’d been thrown in the deep end of the swimming pool when grandmother died and she named me head in her will, and then the both of you were tossed in as well when you were infected. I just didn’t want to drag you down with me.”

“We know, and we appreciate that,” her mother smiled angelically as she tilted Marguerite’s face up to hers. “But we love you too much to just let you go so soon. And even after we let you go, we’re still never going to stop worrying about you.”

“We know you’re under a lot of stress,” her father stood on his hind legs and rested his forelegs like arms on her shoulders, drawing Marguerite’s attention. “But that’s why we want to help you. So just tell us what’s bothering you, and we’ll help as much as we can.”

Marguerite was comforted by what they said, and gave a small smile, that exuded her relief, and a hint of discomfort. “Thanks, both of you. But, um, I’m still not quite used to you being ponies, so could you maybe stop climbing all over me?”

“Oh, sorry,” the two pony parents apologized simultaneously, as they unlatched themselves from their human daughter, and then returning to their seats.

Marguerite steadied herself once again, and then addressed her parents, but didn’t face them. “Now, the reason I avoided talking to you so much is because I feel so much like I failed the both of you. I failed to prevent you from being infected and I failed to decipher this curse in time to undo it. And I’ve seen the research - this spell changes a person in both body and mind.” She saw her two parents glance uncomfortably at that. “I was scared that, if I stayed and talked to you, you wouldn’t be the same Mama and Papa I’ve always loved, and that scared me. A lot.”

She looked up at the both of them and smiled wide. “But, I’m glad that I was wrong. Your still just as touchy and overprotective as you ever were.”

Her parents smiled at that. “Thank you for that,” her mother said, a hoof on her heart.

“That was very good to hear,” her father intoned.

Marguerite nodded, but then let her smile fade away. “Unfortunately, I’ve got other worries on my mind. Worries that could affect the entire Poirier family forever.”

“I’m guessing that you’re not the only magi whose worrying herself ragged over-” she gestured to her body, “all this.”

“Yes,” Marguerite replied, slipping back into her role as the Poirier family head. “I think it goes without saying, but this spell has literally spread over the entire world. Not only will there be a permanent population of hundreds of millions of ponies that will irrevocably reshape the global political, economic, and social spheres, but the secret of magic is pretty much out of the bag.”

“You mean the Families have been discovered?” her father asked.

Marguerite shook her head. “No, and thank God for that. I mean, thanks to all the ponies, the world now knows that magic is real. For now, what this means is that all magi will have to become a lot more discreet regarding how and where we use our magic because the public is going to be a lot more susceptible to it. But that’s not the best part by a long shot.”

Her father tilted his head in curiosity. “What’s that?”

Marguerite stood up from her chair and walked over behind her desk, and opened a drawer in the middle, where she pulled out a small, flat sheet of pure gold, before returning to her seat. Her parents looked on in disbelief at the metal she had brought out, for while they were long used to the sight of magic, neither were still used to the casual displays of wealth that were inherent in the politics of the Family Affairs. Ignoring their stares, Marguerite simply pressed right index finger to the center of the top of the gold plate, and allowed a sky blue aura to encompass her finger. A golden aura emerged where she pressed her digit and spread over the gold sheet, causing the metal to indent itself in the form of words.

Marguerite looked at the Latin script and read it along in her native French so that her parents could understand it:

“Addressed to the Esteemed Head of the Most Ancient and Privileged Family of the Poiriers, Marguerite Jeanne Poirier.

“This is your Most Noble Invitation to the Concurrence of the Tenth Magic Council in the Sanctum Magia at the Time of Noon on XX/XX/XXXX for the Sake of Representing the Collected Interests and Knowledge of your Lineage. You are Encouraged to Arrive the Day Prior so as to Become Familiar with your Accommodations and Prepare Yourself for Mutual Dialogue.

“May Fate and Good Fortune smile upon You.

“Crafted and Issued by the Most Eminent Head of the First Ancient and Privileged Family of the Cavallos, Matteo Tiberius Cavallo.”

When she was finished reading, she turned off her magic, the glow fading from her finger, and the aura around the golden tablet ceased as well, causing it to revert to its original state. After a moment of silence, her father spoke up: “Well, he sure sounds high and mighty.”

Marguerite sighed. “Because he IS high and mighty. The head of the Cavallo Family is over six hundred years old and the most powerful magi in the world. But enough about him. The important part is that a new Magic Council is about to be held, the most important political gathering in the entire magic society, and I’m supposed to represent the Poirier Family when I’ve only been head for less than a month.”

Legrand replied, “I had a thought. Since this is the Tenth Magic Council, and I’ve been lacking in an education on the history of magic, what were the other nine about? And why have them in the first place?”

It was Apolline who responded. “Since the whole of magic society is bound together by a set of written and unwritten rules, sometimes events happen of such magnitude that the rules require revisiting and, if need be, revising. Also, since it’s the heads of the most powerful Families of the time who gather to make such decisions, they are also held very rarely so as to avoid trouble with the other Families or even the Outliers.”

Legrand nodded, understanding the reasoning, and then his wife continued. “The first Council was held in 1348 during the Black Death that swept Europe. The Second took place in 1453, after the Ottomans seized Constantinople and ended the Byzantine Empire. The Third in 1523, during the Protestant Reformation. Fourth in 1648, after the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War. Fifth in 1815, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Sixth was in 1919 after the conclusion of World War I, and the Seventh in 1945 after World War II ended. The Eighth was convened in 1963 after the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly brought about World War III, while the Ninth was held in 1992, after the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved.”

“Okay,” Legrand said uncomfortably. “I guess there’s a lot of history I missed, but I don’t think you needed to be that thorough.”

Apolline huffed. “That was just an overview of the Councils that actually happened. They almost decided to hold the Tenth Council in 2001 after 9/11 or in 2017 during the Right-Wing Resurgence, but after holding four councils in one century, they decided to hold off until something more serious happened.”

“Like the pony flu,” Legrand stated.

“Yes, like the pony flu,” Marguerite moaned. “But here’s what’s really important about the Magic Councils. They are the only time when all the Family Heads gather in one place. It’s more than just a gathering, it’s a political battleground. It’s where old and new members of the Family Affairs get to officially acquaint themselves with one another, and get a measure on who they’re up against. Alliances and rivalries are born at this Council, fortunes are made and broken, and the entire balance of power among the Families can be completely upended in that time.”

Her father and mother paused as they contemplated what they had just been told. It was Apolline who spoke up. “You shouldn’t fret too much over it. You’ve always risen up to the challenge before, what’s so different this time?”

Marguerite’s fingers clenched tighter on the gold tablet, and would have caused impressions if the tablet hadn’t been magically enhanced. She opened her mouth to speak, but then a knock was heard on the door.

“Might I come in, Madame?” came the voice of Maurice.

Marguerite relaxed her grip, and responded. “Yes. Come in.”

The door opened to reveal Maurice Depinay, a tall and thin man always dressed in a gray business suit with a black button down shirt and white necktie and brown loafers, with a serene, slightly wrinkled face below salt-and-pepper hair and gray eyes. He was the modern image of a distinguished gentleman, and he was a close friend and advisor to Marguerite’s grandmother.

“So, uh, what brings you, Maurice?” Marguerite stammered.

“I was just checking in on your parents when I found they weren’t in their rooms,” he replied, as he stood next to Marguerite. “Considering how often they talk about you whenever I happen to be around them in the years I’ve known them, I believed that they would come here to look for you, since you’ve become the Poirier family head and this was Angeline’s old study and office.”

“Say, Maurice,” Legrand spoke up, hesitantly, getting Maurice’s surprised attention. “Maybe you can help us out here with our daughter.”

“Oh?” Maurice pondered, raising an eyebrow. “You’re asking me of all people for help?”

“Don’t get started with that,” Apolline intervened. “Marguerite is worried about the new Magic Council being held in a few days. This doesn’t particularly fall within our experience as her mother and father. But you’ve been at her grandmother’s side since before even the Ninth Council.”

“Ah,” Maurice realized, as he relaxed his stance and placed his hands on his hips. “I see what you mean. So, Marguerite,” he addressed the girl.

She looked up at him. “Yes?”

He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled warmly – something to which her father’s mouth twisted in reaction. “Allow me to tell you with the utmost confidence that you’re overthinking this.”

Marguerite blanked for a moment. “Huh?”

The man snickered. “I remember serving as your grandmother’s advisor at the Ninth Council over thirty years ago. She may have been much older at the time than you are now and had more experience, but she worried herself ragged over this just as much you are now. But do you want to know what she learned there?”

“No, what?” Marguerite asked.

He held up both hands in a shrug as he walked to her opposite side, her gaze following. “That the other Family Heads are people, just like you. They all go with their hopes and worries and expectations, preparing to do verbal battle with veritable monsters and superhumans. What they find when they arrive is just a bunch of old people reliving their glory days, middle-aged men and women enduring mid-life crises, and a few young bloods wet behind the ears who are pounding their chests to try showing they mean business.”

Marguerite stared up at Maurice as she digested his words, before speaking. “So what you’re saying is that the whole thing is just pomp and circumstance?”

Maurice just smirked, and patted her on the head, with Legrand gritting his teeth at the sight of it. “Oh make no mistake, there are real consequences to any missteps made at the Magic Council. But your mother is absolutely right about you. You’ve always risen to the challenge, and that is one of the best traits you inherited from your grandmother, and the main reason she chose you to succeed her.”

“You really think so?” Marguerite asked in wonder.

He placed his hand on his heart, and knelt down. “I am your senior advisor, Madame Poirier. And, to put it in a rather cliché manner, allow me to respond with, ‘I know so.’”

Marguerite instantly felt lighter after hearing him say that, and she smiled. Though a quick look behind the man showed her ponified father glaring murderously at the old man.

“Thank you, Maurice,” she said. Then, to settle things before they got out of hand, she got up and walked to her desk, where she put the invitation back in the drawer.

“Thank you all for helping me. Although, I could use some lunch right now. Anyone else up for that?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” her father said with more than a little false cheer as well asrelief, as he got down from his seat, his wife following suit.

“It’s wonderful,” Apolline said. “We haven’t had lunch as a family in a while.”

Maurice headed over to the door. “Unfortunately for me, I’ve already had lunch and I have other work to attend to, so I won’t be joining you.” He opened the door, and turned and waved at the others. “Enjoy your mealtime. I will see you later when I need you.” He walked out, but left the door open for them.

“If I never see him again, it’ll be too soon,” Marguerite heard her father grumble.

“Don’t do this again now, honey,” his wife nudged him. “Don’t let him spoil your mood.”

“Sorry, dear,” he replied.

Marguerite headed over and opened the door for the two of them.

“You know,” her mother said. “You don’t have to open every door for me, Marguerite. I can play the violin with my hooves and horn, so I can certainly open a door.”

“I know,” Marguerite said. “I just wanted to.”

With a grin on all of their faces, the three family members walked out the door, and Marguerite closed it behind them.
> El Sueño De Los Magos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nineteen Days Into ETS Pandemic

For many, dreams are strange, random, uncontrollable visions able to grant joy and terror in measures that were previously unimaginable. For those few able to acquire it, one of the greatest pleasures that could ever be attained in this world is the ability to have lucid dreams. In such a dream, one would be able to do anything and everything they can imagine, from flying and breathing water to reliving time with loved ones or designing the perfect soulmate.

For Fernando Cristobal Gonzalez Castro, the ability to dream lucidly served the additional purpose of aiding him in research by allowing him to organize everything he learned, preserve it, and even utilize it in mental thought experiments.

For now, however, he simply relaxed in a perfect mental recreation of his favorite armchair while viewing a projection of one of his most cherished childhood memories.

It was his twelfth birthday party, something that isn’t very important as far as birthdays go, but his family was rich, so every occasion for partying was reason enough to make it memorable. But for all of the fancy decorations, famous guests, and mountains of delicious food, it was much like every other birthday party he had had before and since.

Instead, he remembered Dorothea, the girl he’d been crushing on for two years. Not for the first time, he got to talk to her, but for the first time, he got to dance with her. He had hated his dancing lessons and instructors before, but he forgave and thanked them all in his heart for being able to confidently hold her close and sweep her off her feet.

The best moment of all, however, was when he was able to bring her alone to his home’s gardens, where there was a shallow pond. Bringing her to the water’s edge, he summoned his magic, which manifested as an orange glow in the palms of his hands. Dorothea was surprised, as she was from a family that had no knowledge of magic, and then was more surprised as he took hold of her again, and the glow from his hands spread over their bodies.

All at once, they both felt light as a feather.

So light, that when Fernando brought the two of them onto the water, they stood upon the surface as surely as if it were a solid floor. The light of the full moon in a starry sky, the glow of the fireflies in the summer night, the chirping of the crickets in the dewy grass, and the gentle music that wafted from inside the mansion, all of it came together to give Dorothea and Fernando the most romantic moment of their lives.

A moment that climaxed in the pair’s kiss when they finished their dance upon the water. The first of many from friendship to courtship to marriage.

Fernando had many pleasant and wonderful memories, from the first time he used magic to the birth of his first children, a pair of twins. The viewing of memories when he entered his mindscape during his dreams had served very well in ensuring that he always woke up in a good mood. This was especially useful when he knew he would be waking up to a particularly stressful day. But thankfully, he never got tired of revisiting this memory, for it was far and out his most precious.

Then the projector suddenly shifted of its own volition to the image of a different girl. She looked almost the same as Dorothea, but not quite, as if-

“Sir,” came a voice, as he felt his world be shaken and himself be suddenly ripped out from it.

He groaned and stirred as his mind was forced into consciousness. He felt a little disoriented, and took a moment to resettle himself in reality.

“Señor Castro,” the voice beckoned again.

Turning, he saw a sun-kissed, baby-faced young man bedecked in a simple gray business suit and vest who stood a head shorter than he did. He hadn’t known the man for long, but his earnest and gentle brown eyes were a continual reminder of the man’s uncle, Osvaldo, who had been his head bodyguard and dear friend for over twenty years. Now with him having passed two years ago, this man served Fernando in his place.

“What is it, Zeferino Norales?” he asked politely, but tersely.

“We are ten minutes out from the Iraheta Branch Family Compound,” Zeferino replied. “I’m just letting you know, Señor.” The man then walked up front to the cockpit.

Soon after, an attendant came by, offering him a mug. He could distinctly recognize the rich, bitter and savory scent of professionally brewed Colombian coffee beans, and graciously accepted the drink, before lifting it to his lips and taking a sip. The caffeine helped to wake him up, and the well-loved warmth and taste of his favorite beverage soothed his nerves.

As he continued to nurse his drink, his gaze turned outside, where he watched the mountainous and green landscape of Mexico pass by below him, and his thoughts began to wander.

For a man like himself, there were many things the land offered to focus his mind upon. He could take in the rich natural landscape and biodiversity in the land below, from blazing deserts in the north and green valleys hidden in the central mountains to exotic flowers and powerful eagles. He could revel in the rich culture of the Mexican people, or even their long and storied history, of which his own family was secretly and intimately involved. He could wonder at how Mexico was handling the ETS Pandemic, with numerous conflicting reports from official and unofficial sources claiming populations from a few hundred thousand to a few million. It was difficult to get a read on the situation in Mexico with the drug wars and rampant corruption throwing all data on the ETS Pandemic in the country for a loop.

However, his mind wandered to the same thoughts that it always did whenever business forced him to personally travel to this godforsaken land.

The image of a young girl, dressed in a flowing little sunflower yellow sundress with a straw sunhat, with soft and supple baby flesh that was beginning to become familiar with the Sun.

The memory of a girl with a beaming smile and ringing, infectious laughter, whose greatest love was to dance and romp through verdant meadows with her loving mother and doting father.

The name of Estrella, and the nickname of “la Sol”.

The grief of finding her corpse, and the rage it induced, driving him to slaughter the drug gang that kidnapped, violated and killed her.

Even as the plane’s wheels touched down on the landing strip, no matter how many times he understood in his head that the land itself and the people as a whole were not responsible for his beloved daughter’s death, he could never bring himself in his heart to disassociate the country from the wretched deed.

He forced these thoughts back down into the recesses of his mind as he disembarked from the aircraft, putting on a pair of sunglasses to shield his eyes from the blazing morning sun.

“Welcome to Mexico, Señor Castro!”

Fernando’s attention was drawn to a spritely young woman in a flowing sky blue dress. He immediately recognized her, and his mood brightened.

“Nina Ruvalcaba! So good to see you, Señorita!” he exclaimed as he approached her. Clasping her doll-like hand, he raised it to his lips and gently kissed it.

“I swear,” he began as he let go of her hand. “I cannot fathom why suitors aren’t fighting each other for you.”

Nina shrugged. “Men feel insecure when they meet an intelligent woman, and not to brag, but I think I’m a very smart cookie, as my abuela says.”

Fernando guffawed. “Preposterous! You are only the fourth-most beautiful woman in the world, and marrying such brilliant women is all the rage among bachelors this season!”

Nina raised an eyebrow, but her good humor remained in her lips and eyes. “I doubt there is ever a season for marrying a certain type of woman, and what right do you have to say I’m fourth?”

“I married the first and sired the next two with her,” he replied.

“Didn’t you have three dau-” Her smile faded. “Oh, right. And why did you skip your mother and sister?” she replied.

“My mother is in heaven and beyond compare, and my sister has abandoned the family to make common cause with an Outlier criminal.”

Sighing in resignation, she turned to the Hummer that had brought her here. “Come on, Señor Castro. Papa has been waiting for you.”

“Hmm? Your father?” he wondered. “What about Señor Iraheta? He should have been here to greet me.”

“He had to leave just earlier today, along with his wife. Something about a dire emergency.”

“I see.”

As he followed Nina into the Hummer, he took note of is surroundings, to see if anything stood out to him.

The airfield his plane had landed at was a simple paved stretch of asphalt with lights, markings, accompanied by a lookout tower, a fuel depot, and a hanger, something much like you would see at any other rural airstrip. The only real difference was that this airstrip sat at the foot of a mountain, upon the side of which was a large, Spanish colonial-style mansion, surrounded by modern walls and watchtowers. It was to there that the driver was delivering Fernando Castro and his bodyguard.

While a tactical mind would note the disadvantages of a fortress being on the side, rather than the top, of a mountain, one would also note that it was also the only such mountain for several miles, and the mansion had been built on the side that faced away from them. On top of that, patrolling vehicles indicated that each of the mountain’s sides were well covered by security, so the compound truly was a fine example of a modern fortress, which served the Iraheta Branch Family, and their masters, the Castros, very well.

Castro’s first surprise came when they drove through the farms that surrounded the complex. He was surprised to find all of them being tilled and plowed by ponies.

“What are these ponies doing here?” Fernando asked Nina.

Nina explained. “They’re from one of the nearby cities. The ETS Pandemic had just begun to take affect and start transforming people when the counterspell was cast. There were more among their community to be transformed, but once the drug cartel tried to crack down on them again, they finally decided they had had enough and fought back. Unfortunately, they don’t know enough magic to be able to stand up to all of the guns that the gangs had, so they were forced to flee. My father had wanted some ponies for study so as to dissect their magic, so he was able to convince Señor Iraheta to take them in.”

“How… pragmatic.” Fernando said. Looking around outside, he noticed a quintet of foals running beside the car, and because the car was moving comparatively slowly, they were actually keeping up. He had rarely ever seen a more amusing sight, and let out a chuckle at the children’s antics. When they began to close in on the compound, they turned away, and took their race elsewhere, much to his disappointment.

Soon after, they were waved through the gates of the compound, and the Hummer drove up the stone driveway in front of the mansion. Once parked in front of the massive front door, the driver came out and opened Fernando’s door. The man stepped out to a cool breeze wafting over his face, as he entered the building before him.

Once he had stepped beyond the doorway, he immediately crossed the open limestone floor like he owned the place (which he did, in a very indirect way) to a door on the right and walked through it. Having been to this house for family business six times before and having a clear memory, he quickly navigated the fake Spanish house to the very rear of its façade, leaving Zeferino and poor Nina behind to play catch up.

After a brisk minute of walking past butlers, maids, the occasional Iraheta family member, oil paintings, potted plants, desert-themed paint schemes, and more pottery than a child could hope to break in one day, Fernando, Zeferino and Nina finally reached a living room, one with a few armchairs, a sofa, a pair of bookshelves, and a large, man-sized stone fireplace. The three stopped on the flagstones before the unlit fireplace.

Fernando gestured Nina toward the fireplace. Obliging him, she stepped into the fireless pit. After taking a deep breath, a glow manifested from where her heart was located, and a glow manifested around a mark on the back wall of the fireplace. It was shaped as a tower, and on it was a shield divided in four parts, with the Sun and Moon in the top left corner, a golden cross in the top right, a book in the bottom right, and a sword in the bottom left.

Then, Nina recited the Castro family motto: “El sueño de todos los magos es mantener toda la magia (The dream of all magi is to hold all magic).”

Once that was concluded, immediately the glow from the seal extended to the entire back wall of the fireplace, and it split open to reveal a long passageway, along which crystals embedded in the walls gave off a glow in the dark to light the way.

Once it was open all the way, the three walked into the passage and proceeded toward the end of the tunnel.

“I’ve never gotten over the feeling I’m entering the lair of a Bond villain whenever I enter the family sanctuary,” Nina said, with a slight giggle in her voice.

“Your parents have told you why the families have such extensive underground fortresses, correct?” Fernando questioned.

After a moment of contemplation, Nina shook her head.

Fernando sighed in exasperation. “Please tell me that you were taught why, Zeferino.”

Zeferino allowed a small puff in his chest. “My uncle told me that the families made them for security, as they would allow the families to escape authorities easily, while protecting all of their expensive and delicate experiments without having to move them until they had a new space. Magic also makes creating these spaces a lot cheaper than non-magical means would have been, so they could afford making their entrances as well-hidden and elaborate as possible.”

“But why still have those fancy mansions on top if all the real action was happening here?” Nina asked, as the light showed them coming to a turn.

“Because it’s easy to accumulate wealth when you’re a magi,” Fernando responded. “And it would be strange if you were wealthy and didn’t have an expensive house to show it off with. On top of that, if people ever decided to come for us, they would take all of their energy on the mansion, and without magic, they would never be able to find the entrances to our sanctuaries.”

As they rounded the corner, he turned to her. “Nina, if you didn’t know this already, why didn’t you ask before?”

Nina just nervously giggled and wrapped her hands together before replying, “I was a little too busy helping Papa with his experiments to be given a lot of history lessons. I’ve always liked to… live in the moment, you know?”

Fernando didn’t press further, but felt no need to, as the trio came to a second doorway, this one sealed in pulsing crystal. Nina repeated the same as she had with the first entrance, and it slid up to reveal a massive tower in the center of an immense cavern, along the walls of which were a series of floors which formed rings around the central tower, all of them connected by walkways. All about them were various individuals running about with packages, clipboards, and random accoutrements.

One man briskly walking past suddenly noticed the trio and turned himself around to greet them.

“Ah! Dr. Ruvalcaba! I hadn’t seen you in a while! And who are these two gentlemen?” he asked.

“Hi, Señor Escalera. This is Señor Fernando Castro, and his head bodyguard Zeferino Norales.”

Escalera’s eyes widened. “Castro? As in-”

“Yes, that Castro. He’s here to see my father. Know where he is?”

With a look of shock still evident in his face, he simply pointed to one of the pits across from them and said, “Doctor Ruvalcaba in Hole 6, over there. He’s running tests on some of the criminal ponies we’ve gathered for data to integrate into our next batch of chimeras.”

Nina nodded. “Thank you.”

Dr. Escalera nodded in turn and walked away to a stairway that led him to the next floor up.

The ground level of the sanctuary was, fortunately, only one level below them, where there were six open spaces, each divided by a high granite wall. These were the six “Holes”.

Nina led the trio forward on the path that lay in front of them. Their left side was devoid of activity, but in the pit to their right they could see a shield duel going on between two magi that looked like they were brother and sister. The two faced off against one another and each formed an energy barrier for protection, while slugging attacks at one another. The brother lashed out at his sister’s shield with a whip made of wind, visible only for the teal glow of his magic, while she returned fire with blasts of bright blue flames.

Fernando could see that the two held some promise with the skills they were showing in spite of only being young adults. However, the obvious weaknesses in their techniques and the strain they clearly exhibited in their duel showed that they were no prodigies. There were already six magi their age that came to mind for him that could individually wipe the floor with the both of them. Two of those were already family heads.

Unfortunately, he had to keep up with Zeferino and Nina, so he couldn’t stick around to watch the two continue to duke it out, and the noise cancellation spells along the top of the pit prevented the sounds of the conflict from reaching them.

After a few minutes of walking, the three of them came to Hole 6, where they noticed a gray-haired, beer-bellied man in a stereotypical white lab coat over a Led Zeppelin T-shirt with khakis and loafers standing on the overhead observation deck for the pit. Once they reached the platform he turned around to look at them, revealing a puffy face and beady brown eyes. The eyes of Doctor Manuel Ravulcaba widened in shock.

“S-señor Castro!” he stammered. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you tell me he was coming, Nina? This is one of those things you tell your dear old father! You don’t want me to have a heart attack, now do you?”

“It’s funny that you’re the one who’s worried about getting a heart attack, considering what you forced Nina to do,” Zeferino bristled.

Fernando spared a quick glance to his bodyguard, as he was impressed that the man had caught on to the same details he had.

“That is of no concern to you!” Dr. Ravulcaba spat as he stepped up and got as close to the bodyguard as he dared, behind whom Nina had hidden herself. “No magic can be attained without pain! We all risk life and limb using magic, and every magi puts their child through the same pain to do it!”

Fernando grabs the doctor and throws him back to the platform. The man falls on his back and slides before stopping right before his head would hit the railing on the platform’s edge.

“I did not fly across an ocean to this godforsaken mountain to lecture you about how a magi’s child ought to be raised, no matter how much you should have learned,” Fernando stalked forward onto the platform.

Once he did, the sounds of the pit reached him.

A cacophony of unnatural screeching and roaring, as well as all-too human screams of pain and cries of terror.

Looking inside the pit, he saw an assortment of around two dozen stallion ponies in the pit, consisting of members of each tribe. Fighting them were six creatures that looked like a macabre amalgamation of various animals, from felines and canines to birds and bugs. Over half of the ponies were dead, but four of the chimeras had been killed as well.

Fernando almost felt pity for the former drug soldiers, even as the image of his Estrella returned to his mind.

“O-oh, I see you’ve taken an interest in my studies,” Dr. Ruvalcaba said, getting back to his feet. He tried to re-summon a semblance of his pride. “In case you have any ethical concerns, each of the ponies down there is a former member of the drug cartels, and it’s quite fascinating, watching the behavior of deviant ponies like these, who have bucked the global trend of harmony and maint-”

“Shut up,” Fernando commanded.

Dr. Ruvalcaba did so. At the same time, Zeferino cautiously walked onto the deck, as Nina stood fearfully behind him.

Fernando Castro burned his gaze into Ruvalcaba’s soul. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you about hypocrisy or ethics. I’m here because I learned that you have been selling out family secrets.”

Manuel paled. The man’s mouth began flapping like a flag on a windy day, but the sounds that came out were nothing but gibberish nonsense.

“You may have neglected to teach your daughter many things in spite of everything you put her through, I don’t think I need to tell you the price that Judas and all of his followers pay when they’re caught.” Fernando grabbed the pathetic and crying man with both hands, and his arms glowed as he poured his magic into them to give him the strength to lift the man off his feet and dangle him over the edge of the platform, where the battle began to pause as each of them noticed the commotion above them.

The chimeras instinctively recognized Castro’s magic, as all chimeras produced by Castro branch families are able to, and each of them began salivating at the prospect of new food.

The ponies saw how the chimeras were acting, and noticed that someone new had arrived, and looked ready to kill the man who had been their tormentor for the last few days. They looked up in hate, but refrained from saying anything out of fear that the chimeras would attack them again.

“I came to personally see you off to the place where Hell is frozen,” Fernando rumbled. “I only want two more things from you, and they will determine whether I’m the one who kills you, or your experiments down below.”

Manuel, still struggling helplessly, summoned his magic, and with a burst of neon green light from his eyes signaling his magic, tried to telekinetically grip and push away Castro.

If Castro had been on the same skill level as the two magi from earlier, Ruvalcaba’s gambit might have worked. But Castro was an experienced duelist and fighter who had more than seen his fair share of death and killing intent. While he maintained the strength in his arms, he simultaneously activated his own telekinesis and broke Ruvalcaba’s hold. After he did that, he used an electricity spell to shock both of the man’s eyes, causing him to shriek and blinding him while also cutting off his magic.

Unperturbed by this, Castro said, “I want to know two things. Who did you sell us out to, and why.”

Whimpering from the pain, Ruvalcaba caved like the coward he always was. “Basil Caesar.”

Fernando stilled. “An Outlier. You sold out the entire Castro Extended Family for a damn pauper?!!?”

“El sueño de todos los magos es mantener toda la magia!” Ruvalcaba squealed.

A rage built inside of Fernando at the use of the family motto.

“He’s made revelations about human magic that will shake the world to its foundations!” Ruvalcaba exclaimed. “The ETS Pandemic has helped him fill in the gaps of his discoveries. He’s on the cusp of uncovering the truth about the Three Locks!”

Fernando gasped, as did Zeferino. As all magi knew, the magic that humans used was a bastardization of the magic that was used by the ponies at the Roman Contact. Ever since, the magic potential of human magi had been limited by the phenomenon of the Three Locks.

The First blocked access by humans to the thaumic field. It couldn’t be broken, but it could be circumvented with the genetic code from the original holders at the Roman Contact and their descendants. The Second limited the overall amount of magic one human could channel and wield at once. This mostly translated to weaker magic overall, and very few magi grew powerful to feel the effects of the Second Lock actively limiting their power. It didn’t stop a magi from improving, but it did make such a task far more difficult. The Third and final Lock prevented metaphysical magic, or that magic which produced purely supernatural effects. These included magic of the mind or soul, and had been posited to extend also to higher sciences as well, such as alternate dimensions, or transformation of inorganic material to organic.

All of this had long stirred in the depths of Fernando’s mind, but the thought of it being finally undone had only been vaguely revisited when the first signs of the ETS Pandemic appeared on the horizon. And when the truth about the ponies came full force, it was then that the idea began being taken seriously.

Human magi were quick to find that ponies, nor even any sentient creature of their world in general, were not limited by any of the Three Locks. This meant that ponies were capable of magic that were straight up beyond the ability of even the most powerful human magi, such as the instant transfiguration of objects. However, human magi were also greatly underwhelmed, as for every one use of magic the ponies employed in their daily lives (according to what they knew from the Equestrian ponies), the magi could think of a dozen or more applications of magic that they didn’t even think of.

For all of what was going through Fernando Castro’s mind, it still left him unmoved as to his decision on Ruvalcaba’s fate: “No matter what all magi may dream, Basil Caesar can never be trusted with them. And for that, you die.”

He threw him to the chimeras, and he screamed all the way to its waiting jaws.

Fernando turned away, and he saw Nina burying her head in Zeferino’s chest. He was gently rubbing her back, and quietly singing an English nursery rhyme of all things to her:


“Row, row, row your boat,



Gently down the stream.



Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,



Life is but a dream.”

> Dryadhill Manor
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four Days Post-ETS Pandemic

“Master Augustine, the Quimbley family has just arrived,” Michael Bradley, the head butler, grabbed his attention from the doorway to the sitting room.

“Thank you Michael. Please go and welcome our guests and make sure they… wipe off any mud or dust before coming in,” Augustine replied, relieved that he can finally resolve the trouble currently occupying his time, but still annoyed that he even had this problem to deal with in the first place.

Michael, whose dwarfish stature, tanned skin and wild black hair made him stand apart from the stereotypical butler, bowed his head and walked towards the foyer to greet the Quimbleys.

Augustine huffed, grasped his cane, got up from his seat and turned his attention back to the other half of his current problem. “And there is a man who knows more about cleaning up people’s messes than you ever will, Edward.”

“Augustine, please. You have been hard enough on him already. It does him no good for you to keep disparaging him like that,” Wanda Dorothea Wellingsford interjected from the seat at his right hand, daintily sipping an iced coffee before rising herself.

“Mom, please. Dad has just been relishing how much he gets to tell me ‘I told you so,’ so please stop making excuses for him,” Edward Peter Wellingsford resignedly replied, as he sank into his seat as much as possible.

“And that also means no more excuses on your part or retorts to your mother from here on out,” his father snapped as he and his wife moved to the doorway. “And get yourself over here and stand up straight. Our guests and your future have arrived and I will not suffer you lying about like an animal, even if you have become a pony.”

Edward groaned as he brushed a long lock of silver hair out of his gray eyes with a steel-grey foreleg. Then, he got off of his blank haunches and stepped to the floor, his hooves softly thumping on the carpet. He refrained from looking up at his father, partly because of the shame he had put him through but also because his father was now even higher in respect to him than he had since he had been a small child. Even to the tip of his horn, he didn’t reach his father’s waist. He then followed his two human parents as they walked to the foyer to greet the Quimbleys.

Once again, the man of the house resisted the urge to rub his temples and sigh in exasperation. For Augustine Nelson Wellingsford the Third, maintaining the perfect image of the quintessential modern English country gentleman was both a chore and a delight.

On the one hand, overseeing the Wellingsford estate required constant vigilance. While his family had been involved in textiles for centuries, even before the Industrial Revolution, he also owned extensive stock in various other industries, from long-standing shipping companies to brand-new technology firms. Keeping track of both the old family business and the new stocks was a constant drain on his mind. On top of that, the main family itself owned three different mansions on two different continents, and overseeing the unity and well-being of such a far-flung family was merely annoying at best and nerve-wracking at worst.

On the other hand, it made associating with the world beyond his estate much simpler and more enjoyable. When he socialized with the remnants of British aristocracy who still appreciated old traditions, he had found that he enjoyed horse-riding, and discussion of classical literature and architecture. If he made the acquaintance of more modern businessmen, he could regale them on many of the intricacies of the British financial system as to how it has evolved over his family’s history, and his debates with some of them on the merits of modern art in contrast with everything else were on the verge of being legendary.

He would love to live his entire life only as the quintessential modern English country gentleman, but his familial duty as the eldest son of Augustine Archibald Wellingsford the Second dictated that he continue the research and legacy of the Wellingsford family of magi as its head.

He had never wanted the role, then or now, but he knew that there was no better choice: his brother, Randal, was possessed of a brilliant mind saddled with questionable sanity and morals, even by magi’s standards; his first sister, Alexandra, had run away to Lithuania of all places to marry the head of one of the Rasputin branch families; and his other sister, Selena, was the kindest and most innocent person he had ever known, and anyone with those traits who became a family head would be eaten alive in the Family Affairs.

Both Augustine’s father and grandfather had remarked that, ever since the late 18th century, it was almost a family tradition that each generation would produce one near-perfect heir at the cost of rearing a host of more eclectic and chaotic characters. They called it a tradition because they could never settle on whether to call it a blessing, a curse, or the strangest string of coincidences in history.

Unfortunately for Augustine the Third, he had only three children so far, and while Anne was too young to judge, being an infant, the other two were definitely not looking to become the next family head in his eyes. The elder of the two, Micah, was a dangerous mixture of one-part computer and magic genius, one-part adrenaline junky, and one-part egomaniac. This translated into a self-described “international freedom fighter” that gallivanted across the world into every political and magical hot spot on earth that fought every possible enemy for the sake of “truth and justice.” His only saving graces were his impossible luck and his hold of just enough common sense to not flaunt magic everywhere he went.

He was fortunate his other son had smaller ambitions than global adventuring, but he was thoroughly vexed that they consisted of trying to get in the pants of every single female he took a fancy to.

He heard his butler as he and his family entered the foyer. “Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Quimbley, and th-”

“WHERE IS THAT BLOODY BASTARD?!? LET ME GO! I WILL RIP HIS FUCKING HEAD OFF!!!”

Looking across the room to the doorway were the simultaneously expected and unusual consequences of his son’s thoughtless libido.

“LET GO OF ME JEEVES! I WANT TO SMASH THAT PONY DEAD!”

What was expected was the mother and father accompanying their daughter to meet with him, with the mother and the butler holding the father back from venting his righteous indignation upon Edward for extramarital coitus with his daughter, who was nervously standing off to the side behind the chaos.

What wasn’t expected was the fact that the father was a huffing and roaring blood-red bodied and black-maned pegasus, the mother was an earth pony with a sunflower yellow coat and a multi-shaded purple mane, and the daughter was another pegasus with golden fur and a scarlet mane.

“Edward, stay with your mother,” Augustine said to Edward, who meekly complied.

Augustine then strode forward to confront the furiously flapping father, stopping in front of him to intimidate him with his height. “Welcome to Dryadhill Manor.”

“And a bloody good day to you, asshole,” snapped the pegasus, as he tried to fly up to eye level with Augustine, only for the butler on his legs and his wife on his tail to keep him too low. “And you can help me by letting me give your fucking son a good beating around the ears!”

“Ponies don’t curse or swear, honey!” his wife replied, the strain evident in her voice.

“I’ll curse and swear all I like!” he retorted. “And no dream pony or you is going to stop me!”

*CRACK!*

Everyone shut up, the wife so shocked that she let go of her husband’s tail and he froze in midair, just long enough for Michael to bring him back to the ground.

Everyone’s attention was drawn to Augustine, who had just stabbed his cane into a marble tile with enough force to break it into five jagged pieces. “Mr. Quimbley. I understand that you’re upset with my son. I am upset with him as well. But he is still my son and I will not tolerate threats against him. So please control yourself, so I do not have to do it for you.”

Mr. Quimbley swallowed, suddenly apprehensive of the graying gentleman in front of him.

Augustine looked down at the marble tile he broke, before looking back at the pegasus stallion. “Do you know how much history you are standing inside of, Mr. Quimbley? For example, these tiles we are standing on were laid here in the late nineteenth century, and the marble used to make them were specially imported from Italy as a gift to celebrate 800 years of our family’s history. This is a proud legacy that I want to pass on to my children. Which means that when something goes wrong in my family’s affairs that threatens it-”

A maroon glow encompassed his hand, enveloping and traveling down the cane to the broken tile, pulling them together and fusing them into one piece.

“-I fix it.”

All three ponies in front of him all gave interesting reactions. The father was stammering and pantomiming at both Augustine and the tiles. The mother backed away into the butler as if trying to flee a monster. But the daughter was oddly silent, sharing curious and even guilty glances toward Edward.

Augustine straightened himself and dusted off some nonexistent dust from his gray suit. “Now I believe a proper introduction is in order. I am Augustine Wellingsford the Third. Behind me is my beloved and beautiful wife, Wanda, and my son, Edward, with whom I am sure your daughter is intimately familiar with.”

To Augustine’s satisfaction, his wife looked sufficiently preened, and his son had the decency to look at least a little ashamed, especially once Mr. Quimbley leveled a withering glare in his direction.

Mr. Quimbley then straightened himself out. “Nice to meet you,” he politely growled. “You probably already know, but my name is Derek Quimbley, this is my wife Katrina- sorry, Amethyst Dollop, and this is my daughter Irene.”

Augustine walked in front of the golden pony, and looked down derisively at her. “So you’re the one that turned my son into an equine.”

“HEY!” Augustine was interrupted by the girl’s parents, who both rushed in front of their daughter to stand between her and Augustine. “You leave her alone. He’s only like that because he decided to seduce and rut my little girl. So back off.”

Augustine nodded, and stepped back. He then motioned toward the sitting room. “Now that this unpleasant meeting is over, please come with us. We have a great deal to discuss.”

He walked back to the sitting room, first the shocked Quimbleys and then his family behind him. His wife shot him a look that held a mixture of surprise, disapproval, and resignation, which years of marriage roughly translated to him into Did you have to show them that now? He gave her a look of strength and resolution, one which he hoped translated in her mind as It had to be done, and better now than later.

Once everyone was seated, the two families sitting opposite one another, Augustine addressed them. “Now I am sure that you have many questions as to my actions earlier. But first, let me answer some of the more obvious questions you must have. What you saw was indeed magic, it is indeed similar to unicorn magic, and both myself and my family are all magic-users, what we call magi. Does that answer some of your questions?”

This time, the pony wife, Amethyst Dollop, responded, after gulping. “Yeah. I guess I just can’t believe that there have been humans using magic this entire time, just like in Harry Potter.”

Augustine’s wife, Wanda, snorted at that. “Do not remind me of those ridiculous books. Nevermind some of the utterly incredulous names that people and places are given in that world, I mean who in their right mind would name their school after warts on hogs? And let’s not forget that the life of that boy, Harry Potter is simply unbelievable by every metric. But the way those books portray magic-”

Augustine put his hand on Wanda’s, cutting her off. “Dearest, I understand your… vitriol towards those works, but we do have more serious business to attend to.”

He turned back to the ponies, the father of which giving a slight look of sympathy to him. “Now, do you have any other questions you wish to ask?”

The daughter, Irene, tenderly raised her hoof, like in a classroom. “Uh- um. May I-”

Augustine nodded. “You may.”

She lowered her hoof. “Why don’t you show everyone your magic?”

Augustine paused. He had not been expecting to have that question asked yet, with others pertaining to why and how they have magic first. But considering what he had seen of how she looked at Edward, it was entirely possible that he had already revealed those details to her – another thing he would have to lambast the boy for.

“Why do you ask?”

Irene hesitated for a moment, but after sharing a look from Edward, she spoke. “Because why hide such an important part of who you are? There is so much that ponies can do with magic. We can grow food, push clouds, build houses, and so much more that I can’t think of.” 

She gets off the couch and walks in front of Augustine. “If you’ve had this magic, and your family has had it for so long, why didn’t you help the people around you? You could have cured diseases, ended wars, hunger, and helped so many people. ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ You had the power to help the world, but you did nothing to help it! All you do with it is sit around in your giant mansion fixing floor tiles! WHAT’S THE POINT OF HAVING MAGIC IF YOU NEVER USE IT FOR ANYTHING USEFUL?”

All were stunned at the little pony’s stunning exclamation, complete with an accusatory hoof pointed at him. Wanda was scandalized, Irene’s parents wore a mixture of shock of pride, and Edward was a thin mask of glee, with a hint of concern.

Augustine was stone-faced, and silent for an instant. “What has your transformation done to you, to make you forget the fallen nature of humanity?” he murmured.

He rose from his chair, towering over the pony, causing her to shrink back in fear. “You want to know why we didn’t show the world our magic? Ask your mother, why do the wizards of Harry Potter hide from the Muggles? For humans fear that which they do not know, and then endeavor to subjugate or destroy it, and the Muggles are many more than the wizards are. That is the one thing about magic that those stories get right.”

Then his glove glowed once more and crawled down his cane. Then it radiated out from the tip of the cane, startling the ponies as it spreads over the floor, underneath the furniture, around the fixtures, and even up the wall and across the ceiling, until the whole room is enveloped in a maroon glow. 

Irene stumbles back to her parents and huddles with them both on the couch as they look around fearfully at the magic being used. “W-What are you doing?” Mr. Quimbley asks, the fear evident in his voice.

“Making a point, which is something I would rather do with words than actions.” Augustine then cuts off the magic, and the glow disappears. “This house you stand in is more than a residence – it is a fortress. From the moment you stepped on these grounds I had a thousand and one means at my disposal to end your lives, from swallowing you inside the earth to sending in a pack of chimeras to rip you apart. And even without the ley lines that run through the land beneath the estate, my magic is capable of allowing me to easily handle the three of you times ten.”

Amethyst, still protectively huddled with her family, asked him, “What is the point of all of this? Do you honestly think we would attack you? Ponies would never do such a thing!”

“Perhaps,” Augustine replied, stooping to the pony family’s eye level. “But this is no longer the world you’re familiar with. The moment my son impregnated your daughter, all of you were drawn into a magic underworld that has existed outside of the normal world’s knowledge for over one and a half thousand years. If you have the blood of a magi or are related to someone who does, then you are a member of the longest-lasting, most far-flung and bloodiest Family Affair in human history. As of now, the moment anyone a part of this world learns of your relationship with my family, however illicit, they will find you, and they will either use you to gain leverage over us, or kill you to get back at us.”

The three ponies in front of him were now quivering, even the once seemingly indomitable Mr. Quimbley. “You’re a monster.”

Before Augustine could respond, he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. Turning, he saw Wanda standing there, a look of disappointment on her face as she looked down at him. Sighing, Augustine got up and allowed his wife to take his place in front of the pony family.

Putting on a sympathetic and graceful smile, she expressed her thoughts to them. “I am sorry for my husband’s rudeness. He really doesn’t like it when outsiders become involved in the Family Affairs and he really does want the best for you, he just gets a little too enthusiastic in ‘laying down the law for newcomers,’ as he sometimes puts it. And being a part of this world isn’t all bad.”

While the ponies were somewhat calmer with Wanda talking to them, but they were still quite fearful. Irene was the first to gather enough courage to speak. “What’s so good about being thrown into a magical real-life Game of Thrones?”

Wanda simply smirked. “Well, the magic for one thing.” She then lifted both of her hands and snapped her fingers twice. 

At that moment, a pedestal opened up in the middle of the room, right next to Wanda. On top of it lay a turquoise crystal ball. Walking over, Wanda then placed her hand on the orb, and it flashed bright enough to blind all for a second. After the light faded, suddenly everyone saw that they seemed to be sitting upon the deck of a massive steamship, sailing towards a massive red and orange sunset. Any fear the ponies had was washed away by wonder at the magic they had just witnessed, and the scene they beheld.

“It’s… so beautiful,” Amethyst Dollop breathed out, as she got off the out of place couch and walked toward the railing.

“You got that right,” Irene concurred, as she joined her mother.

Derek tapped his hoof on the ground, feeling the muffled thud of a rug rather than the tap from a hardwood deck. “Can you show anything else on that orb?”

Wanda beamed. “Oh, yes.”

The scene flashed again. 

This time, the scene was in the clearing of a dense forest, with tall trees all around with woodland creatures threading through the dense foliage on the ground and through the branches.

The scene flashed again.

The scene became a meadow, with fields of flowers of every shape and shade as far as the eye can see under an azure blue sky.

The scene flashed again.

Now they were all sitting above Earth during night, the lights of all the cities of Europe making a constellation of human activity below them.

Augustine saw the amazement of the pony family as they saw each of the scenes, at how they marveled at the level of detail that each one came with. He looked over at Wanda, who smiled broadly at him. He could not help but return the grin.

She is right, of course, he silently mused. Magic is more than a simple struggle of power. It is wonder incarnate.

Soon after, the scene disappeared, bringing everyone back to the old sitting room. The Quimbleys groaned in disappointment as Wanda allowed the pedestal to disappear back into the floor.

Wanda smiled warmly once more. “I can see you all loved that, right?”

“Yes,” Derek replied, gathering back with his wife and daughter. “We did very much.”

Wanda *hmphed* as she shot a look of triumph back at her stodgy husband. “Magic is a wonderful gift. But it is one that cannot be shared, as only those with the magi’s blood are able to use it. And many who do possess the gift abuse it in many ways, from greedily seizing more power in one way or another, or performing grotesque experiments that go beyond the pale. It is not only that we fear what the rest of the world will do to us should we be revealed, it is also that we fear what these people will do once they perceive they can operate in the open.”

The three pony family looked to one another with grim and serious faces, the thought settling in their minds. Augustine saw his wife look to him, signaling that he continue.

“The reason we have ultimately brought you here is simple. We brought you here not only to alert you to the reality of your current situation, but also to extend to you the Wellingsford family’s protection.”

Derek Quimbley’s eyes narrowed. “What is this protection? What do you want from us?”

Augustine leaned forward. “Your family, the Quimbleys, will officially be brought under the affiliation of the Wellingsford Family as a Branch Family. What you and your family would do is work toward the greater good of the Wellingsford Family faction in the Family Affairs. You would do so by experimenting with magic, overseeing projects, and then reporting and delivering the information and results of said projects to the Wellingsford Family as part of the greater well of the Wellingsford Family’s knowledge.”

Derek’s skepticism shows further on his face, and he turns to his wife as they silently communicate their thoughts to each other. Turning back he asks, “What’s the catch?”

Augustine leans back in his seat. “The catch is that your becoming a Branch Family is an oath sealed by blood.”

Amethyst Dollop immediately recoiled. “You mean you need our blood to write a contract?!?”

Wanda burst out laughing at her hysteria. “No. My husband is just saying in a needlessly complicated way that Edward and Irene need to get married.”

This time Derek overreacted. “THAT’S EVEN WORSE!”

“Is it really that bad?” Augustine asked. “The two of them have already consummated their relationship, this way any more impropriety can be forgiven and swept under the rug.”

“I will not let my daughter be married off to some player who won’t stay faithful to my girl for more than two minutes!” Derek responded.

“No.”

All were surprised to hear Edward speak up for a change. “What do you mean, no?” Derek asked incredulously.

Edward then stepped down from his seat, where he had been practically invisible during the entire discussion. Stepping in front of the Quimbleys’ couch, he then kneels forward on all fours and bows his head. “Mr. and Mrs. Quimbley. I am sorry for all the pain and trouble I have put you through. I am sorry for besmirching your family’s good name. Above all, I am sorry for taking away your daughter’s dignity. I know that marrying her is not my idea or hers, but I swear to everything that is good and holy, that if I do marry Irene Quimbley, I will do everything within my power to make her the happiest pony in the world.”

After a brief few seconds, Derek Quimbley got onto the floor and tilted Edward’s face up towards him. He saw repentance, as well as determination. He sighed. “I still don’t trust you. But I will be keeping an eye on you. If you break my little filly-er, girl’s heart, I will kill you. Got that?”

A firm nod.

Derek then turned to Irene, and motioned her to come. She came and stood before the two stallions. “Irene, I know a lot has happened lately, and you’ve been caught up in a lot of it, but it’s also somewhat your fault. Nevertheless, this is ultimately your choice. Do you want to marry Edward Wellingsford? Be completely straight with us, I will accept nothing less.”

Irene looked at Edward, who gave her much the same look as he had given her father, with an addition of caring. She closed her eyes in obvious contemplation. Then they opened and she gave her answer:

"Yes.”

Augustine was glad that the initial family drama was over. The Quimbleys would be accepted as a Branch Family, and their place as the first all-pony Branch Family would confer upon them a unique, if not special status in the extended family. But now that their admission was but a foregone conclusion, now came the really hard part:

Negotiating the terms of their contract.
> Blut und Eisen
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

5 Days After the Counterspell

“Why do we hate ponies so much?” Hubbard Geissen mused from his seat upon the abandoned orphanage entrance steps.

His fellow skinhead, whose name was Ottokar Koetz, raised an eyebrow as he finished taking another drag of his cigarette, before blowing out smoke into the cloudy night air with a single puff. “What the f*** are you smoking? ‘Cause it sure ain’t tobacco.”

“Marijuana, but that was hours ago,” Hubbard replied. “But I mean, just think about it. Why do we hate ponies? What makes them so different that we hate them so much?”

“Because they are not human,” Ottokar inhaled again.

“But the Jews and the niggers aren’t either,” Hubbard replied. “And they at least have all of the same parts as we do.”

“Human beings don’t invade other people’s homelands and steal their money, women, homes and lives,” Ottokar crushed the cigarette under his shoe. “The niggers breed like rabbits and push our race to extinction, the Jews steal our money, enslave us to their companies, and then feed us pretty lies to keep us deluded. We hate ponies because they do all of these things, and then they go another step further by stealing our human forms and mind-controlling the victims. We hate them because they pose the greatest threat the Aryan race has ever faced.”

“Wow, that’s deep,” Hubbard looked up at him in awe. “I thought it was because we were trying to resist the cuteness overload that was threatening our collective manhood by committing violent actions upon them in order to convince ourselves that we were all big, strong men and not girly faggots.”

Ottokar looked at him in disbelief. “Are you sure you haven’t smoked in the last few hours? And that it was weed, and not meth?”

Hubbard looked offended. “Hey, I may not know the difference between a Turk and a Jap, but I know the difference between weed and meth. I’m not that stupid.”

Ottokar smirked. “Have you really already forgotten the Brandenburg Incident?”

Hubbard paled. “How do you know?”

Ottokar broke out a smile worthy of the Cheshire Cat. “Oh, I-”

For a brief moment, a lavender glow surrounded both their heads. Hubbard briefly wondered if the drugs had really gone to his head, while Ottokar was about to panic.

“Oh SH-”

*crack* *crack*

Their heads violently twisted backwards, and they were unable to think anymore. Their bodies fell limp, but the glows remained, as their bodies descended quietly to the ground so as to reduce noise.

Another glow of the same shade could be found across the street, but only from behind a slightly open door, where a grey-eyed blond amazon stood, with the glow wrapped around her first two right-hand fingers. 

Once she saw that no disturbance had been made, she cut off the magic and brought the hand next to her enchanted emerald earring, snapping her fingers twice. After a few seconds of silence, she heard four sets of double snaps. After concealing her figure in an invisibility cloak, she then opened the door, rushing across the street in a blur as her magic strengthened her muscles and pushed the air around her to increase her speed. Within a moment, she was on the steps in front of the doors to the prison-like orphanage.

<Milady Gottschalk,> a female voice whispered in her ear. <I’ve taken another sounding of the building. We’ve gotten all of the initial targets, but there are three on the second floor we didn’t originally account for. I don’t think they saw their comrades get killed, but they just came across one of the bodies. They’re trying to escape, but they’re headed your way.>

The woman grunted as she opened the door and walked inside. “I hate dealing with rats. There’s no dignity in the work.”

Hearing footsteps coming from the next floor up beyond the stairs in a nearby hallway, Teresa Gottschalk removed her cloak, revealing a slender and flexible suit of darkly silver armor. She then connected her magic to the cloak, and it hardened and folded itself into a large, round buckler shield, just as she unsheathed a four-foot hand-and-a-half sword with her other hand. Then as the armor about her collar shifted to cover her head - only her long hair allowed to spill out from it - and a transparent plate in front allowing her to see as well with it off, the image of a modern knight in shining armor was complete.

Not long after, Teresa came into the hallway, coming towards the stairs, she heard the three men she’d been alerted of reach the top and begin descending when they spotted her. Shocked at the sight, and with the adrenaline of seeing one of their friends dead by unknown means, they immediately yelled and began firing their Carbine and Kalashnikovs at her. 

Teresa merely sighed as the bullets bounced and ricocheted off her armor like pebbles. She knew that the armor was overkill for dealing with a few Third Reich-admiring amateurs armed with outdated submachine guns, but she had been hoping to receive a more novel reaction to her appearance than what she was receiving. Disappointed, she simply put out a magical burst of speed and bashed all three men into the concrete wall with her shield. When their bodies settled on the ground, the crushed bodies gave no indication of life, and she descended the stairs, sheathing her sword.

“Looks like we couldn’t break in quietly,” she heard a male voice nearby as she reached the bottom. 

Looking over, she saw a tall and broad brown-headed man in a billowing, shimmering cloak, with a handsomely rugged face set with blue eyes and an easy smile. Coming behind him was a short-haired blond woman with grey eyes wearing a magical exoskeleton that made her taller and broader than she was.

“These three were closer to your position when they came towards me, Chlodwig,” Teresa addressed the man. “The fact that I had to make noise to kill them lies partially on your head. And again, please, save your illusions for the enemy’s face, not yours.”

Chlodwig shrugged. “Whatever you say, my lady.”

“Are their weapons at least still intact?” asked the woman, as she came to the stairs, walking toward the bodies.

Teresa nodded. “Yes, Viveka. You are free to use them however you like.”

“Thank you,” Viveka replied, as she took each of their guns and ammo and attached them to the back of her exoskeleton.

“Milady,” came a soft voice from behind. Teresa saw a redheaded older woman with green eyes dressed in loose, dark purple robes. 

“I have found the entrance to the underground laboratory. Zelig will have it open by the time the rest of us arrive.”

“Very good, Gaelle,” Teresa placed a hand on her shoulder as she walked past. “We’re all wasting time. Let’s go and get our bastard.”

All three magi responded at once. “Yes, milady.” “Roger.” “Will do.”

The four of them, with Gaelle providing directions, soon went down to the basement, where they found a gangly man with grey hair, orange eyes and a navy-blue ensemble from his coat’s collar to his boots. He was bent over a bed-sized square panel covered in intricate designs that alternated between glowing golden and dark blue, the latter being the same color as the aura that emanated from the man’s hands, as they weaved through the air above it, drawing mystical symbols and magical equations as quick as he could. By the time they were beside him, the panel glowed completely dark blue and sank into the floor in segments to become a steep staircase.

“Follow me people,” Teresa walked down, each of the four magi behind her.

The steps extended far down into blackness, in much the same way as the entrance to the hidden fortress of a magi family’s would. With only green lights on the sides to guide them, Teresa and her aides trod forward, each of them ready for any traps they may find. Teresa also saw, as she moved on, that the lights were simple glow-in-the-dark fixtures, some of them already growing dim or even winked out. They were not the crystal lights used by magi families that could glow for decades on end without recharging, and even longer before needing replacement. 

Finally, after some two minutes of a nerve-wracking descent down the stairs, they reached a steel door at the bottom. Upon reaching it, Teresa turned to Zelig and motioned toward the door. After extending his magic to the metal portal, he nodded his head. Nodding back, Teresa grasped the wheel in the center of the door and pulled it open.

Stepping into the black room inside, each of the five magi activated light spells, brightening the room in shades of lavender, navy blue, forest green, orange, and electric yellow. They found themselves in in front of three concrete tunnels branching off in different directions. Two tunnels turned sharp corners out of sight, while the last one ended with a massive doorway big enough to comfortably allow two trucks in side by side.

“Gaelle,” Teresa whispered. “Take a sounding.” 

Gaelle nodded and bent down to put her ear to the ground, closing her eyes to focus. Concentrating magic in her ear, she then engulfed her hand in a forest green aura and slapped it on the ground, dispersing it around her. After a few seconds, she released the magic, opened her eyes and stood up. “There are rooms beyond the corners of the two opposite tunnels, but I cannot tell how big they are, or whether there is anything inside. But judging from how the tunnels both wrap around the room in front of us, I imagine it must be some sort of hub for everything going on down here.”

“And now it’s where we will confront the Nazi-fraternizing Outlier,” Teresa stated. “It’s all too obvious he is waiting for us. Can you tell me anything more?”

“Sorry, milady,” Gaelle said, her face downcast. “I would be able to tell you more, but whoever built this place has probably taken into account indirect magical detection spells like my soundings, so I can’t tell you more.”

Teresa simply sighed, then turned to face all of her allies. “The situation we’re all facing is far from ideal. We don’t know our adversary’s numbers, specialties, special surprises, or even his general purposes and goals. But this doesn’t change the fact that he must be neutralized. I pray that God have mercy upon their souls, for we shall give them none. Am I clear?”

All four of the magi before her uttered not one word, but all showed their determination in their firm but relaxed postures, hard-set faces, and readied magic emanating from their arms, legs and, in Chlodwig’s case, his eyes. It was exactly the sort of sight Teresa loved to see in her comrades before battle. She smiled like a reaper before the harvest. “Very good.”

She turned back to the door. “Now then, Für die Ehre Gottes!”** 

“Für die Ehre Gottes!” her brothers- and sisters-in-arms cried.

At that moment, the door began shrieking its metal cries as it slid up to open the way for Teresa and her aides. They immediately began striding forward, soon passing beneath the door and into the wide space beyond it. 

The room was lit by a vast web of glowing silver crystal conduits that crawled over the floor, walls and ceiling of the expanse, as well as the two rows of pillars that held it up. The walls to both sides of them had two lines of doors, one on top, the other on the bottom, with a larger door set in the center of each wall. Catwalks spanned across the upper parts of the expanse, connecting the pillars with one another and with the second level of doors. The only other feature of the place was a massive black banner showing a golden sigil of a stylized crown inset with the symbol of the All-Seeing Eye, surrounded by a ring of three keys.

Three figures were standing in the center of the room. The right and left figures wore gender-concealing grey hooded robes, with featureless masks on their faces, the left one wore a gold mask, the right a silver. In the center was a rotund man in a billowing laboratory white coat over a black suit and gray pants, with his arms crossed behind his back. His bald head had a puffy face with a scraggly salt and pepper beard growing from his double chin, and a pair of muddy brown eyes behind wire-rimmed round glasses.

Teresa growled as she laid eyes on the man. “Why am I not surprised to find you here, Traitor?”

The man smiled. “Because you are a very difficult woman to surprise, Fräulein Gottschalk. And please, my name is Ritter Hirsch, not Traitor, or Fat-man, or Stupid, Idiot, Motherf***er or every other colorful name you’ve bestowed upon me over all these years.”

“I already grow weary of this banter,” Teresa stated. I have but one question before I split you from head to groin.” She pointed her sword at the banner. “Whose sigil is that?”

“You like it?” Ritter beamed. “It is the flag of the organization I joined when I left your family’s service so long ago. We care little for the Family Affairs, and we have but one goal: to break the Three Locks and unlock humanity’s full magical potential. Once humanity has magic, we will then help them to grow in their newfound talents, and guide humanity to its ultimate golden age! For this reason, our esteemed order is named The Culmination, and we invite all the magi of the world to join us!”

Teresa was unimpressed, and drew her sword. “You are truly a fool if you think that some Outlier organization can accomplish it any better than the Families can.”

Ritter smiled dangerously. “And I think you’re blind to the truth of your situation.” He then pulled out his left hand and snapped his fingers.

At that moment, the two large doors on the walls began to groan as they split open. Immediately, strange animal noises began to emanate from beyond them, from roars and screeches to scratching and buzzing. 

“Of course he has chimeras,” Teresa muttered

The first chimera to fly out from the left door – literally – had massive eagle-like wings and an avian torso and talons, while it had a bear’s head, and a long, snapping snake for a tail. The flyer from the opposite door looked like little more than a man-sized dragonfly with an extra pair of wings and a nasty stinger on the tip of its tail. The next ones out were far simpler, with one being a bear-sized wolf with spines in its fur, and the other was a lion with bone plates covering its body.

The last two that followed, however, were what finally made Teresa and her followers gasp in horror. The left creature had cheetah-like front legs and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, the other had a turtle-like shell and a horn sprouting from its forehead, and both had very equine-like bodies and legs.

These two chimeras had been made from ponies – transformed humans. And from the animal looks in their eyes, the people that had once inhabited the bodies were long gone.

Teresa had had enough. She activated both of her sword’s enchantments, and soon the air in the room became electrified and arcs of electricity began sparking to life all along the blade. She swung her sword high, and the energy about it began to writhe about it like sharp ribbons in a strong breeze.

A shield sprang up around Ritter.

“KILL THEM ALL!” And she swung the sword forward and in an instant a bolt of lightning crossed the gap and struck the shield with a thunderous *BOOM*.

In that instant, the four magi accompanying her sprang into action, with Gaelle and Zelig attacking the chimeras on the left while Chlodwig and Viveka taking the right. For the first few moments, the magi had the advantage. The chimeras, for all of their magical origins and control by handler magi, were still animals, and a lightning strike so close by panicked them, causing them to run and fly back to their enclosures, only to find they had been closed.

The moment the bolt was sent, Teresa shot forward in a burst of magic-enhanced speed, closing almost a quarter of the distance in a few moments. Ritter’s shield had somehow held against Teresa’s lightning strike, but she was confident she could still break it. But Ritter’s two companions were also speeding right toward her, their robes flapping like flags, as they closed the gap between them and her very quickly. Teresa then activated her sword’s first enchantment, wrapping it in a blanket of whirling wind and swinging it down like a hammer to launch it forward in a powerful gust. The two assailants coming at her immediately stopped and planted their feet in the ground, breaking up concrete as they swiftly stopped themselves, but the brief wind was strong enough that it tore off their robes.

Teresa instantly saw the very female figures that the robes had hidden, and also some details that truly surprised her. The woman on the left had ridiculously long, sharp claws growing from her fingers, and spikes on her arms and legs. The woman on the right had transformed parts of all four of her limbs – and parts of her torso it seemed – into a nightmarish amalgamation of various minerals and metals with a mixture of flesh.

And both of their heads looked very akin to those of the ponies.


--


To Teresa’s left, Zelig and Gaelle engaged their three chimeras. After the lightning strike, Ritter reasserted control over the chimeras, and directed them to attack the nearest enemy magi. Zelig held back from engaging the chimeras at close range, using the distance to take his time drawing a pair of magic circles in the air. Gaelle ran straight up to the chimeras, using her magic to rip pieces of the crystal conduit right out of the ground and reshape them into a vicious barbed spear. 

The massive wolf was first to reach Gaelle, leaping forward with claws out and jaws wide open to rip her to pieces. She easily saw it coming and leaped aside, slashing her spear across its foreleg as it sped past. But as her attention was focused on the wolf, she missed the pony chimera that slammed into her torso, tackling her and locking its jaws onto her torso, the blow knocking her spear out of her hands. For the woman who had been an enthusiastic horse-rider in her youth, the nightmarish sight was almost enough to help the blazing pain to push her over the edge into unconsciousness.

The bear-headed and snake-tailed eagle flew past both the wolf and Gaelle to attack Zelig, who just finished his first rune began to begin firing a continuous barrage of knife-like icicles at the flying creature, forcing it to pass by him and circle around. Zelig continued to follow the bird with his ice, but unlike Gaelle, he noticed the other chimera coming at him – the massive wolf which had decided to ignore Gaelle and attack him. He finished his other magic circle with his remaining hand and a stream of fire poured out onto the beast, setting it ablaze as it stumbled back in panic and pain, the flames dooming it to a slow and painful death.


--


On the opposite side of the room, Viveka and Chlodwig battled their trio of artificial monsters. Chlodwig charged in front, using his illusions to make himself appear three times larger and start swiping at the chimeras. The creatures were briefly fooled by the trick, as each of them backed away from the man’s swings. This left them wide open for Viveka’s attack, as she telekinetically pulled out five guns she had looted from the Neo-Nazis to fire a swarm of bullets upon the creatures. The armored lion and the turtle-pony curled up and absorbed the blows, but the mutant dragonfly was torn to pieces in the gunfire.

The turtle-pony, being made from a unicorn, instinctually charged magic in its horn, firing at Viveka. Chlodwig, having seen the initial buildup, dispersed his illusion and leaped in front of his partner, hastily raising an energy shield to protect them. The shield was only half-formed when the beam struck, easily breaking through and blasting Chlodwig into Viveka, shorting out her magical grip on the firearms and stopping her shooting.


--


While Teresa was shocked that her two opponents appeared to be partially-transformed victims of ETS, she didn’t allow herself to dwell on it, considering the two of them instantly leaped forward as one to murder her. Teresa decided to stand her ground, holding her shield forward, and activating her sword’s second enchantment, and soon the sword grew red-hot like a poker in a fireplace. 

The right one reached her first, lashing out with a leaping kick aimed at her head. Teresa slashed at the limb and struck metal, knocking the leg aside. The blow spun the attacker’s body, who used the momentum to swing her other leg at Teresa’s chest, which she blocked with her shield. The other attacker struck at that moment, thrusting her hand out and striking Teresa’s armor underneath her shield arm. The strike failed to scratch the armor, but the brute strength behind it knocked Teresa back a pace and ruined her follow-up sword strike at the right-hand attacker’s body, who sprang off of her shield and narrowly avoided the swing. 

The two attackers leaped back as Teresa carried her swing at the left-hand attacker and brought the shield to try to slam it into the other. As Teresa looked for an instant on how to attack the pair of fighters, she suddenly felt something slam into her back and knock her forward. Unable to stop herself from falling forward, she tucked herself and rolled forward, her hot blade sparking against the floor as she simultaneously spun herself around to face where the attack had come from.

She was once again surprised, not because it was Ritter Hirsch from whom the attack had come from, but because of the wand wrapped in a golden aura held in his outstretched hand. In the brief time she saw it, her mind racing at a million miles an hour as a battle-hardened mind does in a life-or-death struggle, she noticed more specifically the spirals around the piece from handle to tip, and instantly deduced its material: unicorn horn.


--


Gaelle’s mind worked sluggishly against the pain to keep herself awake, even as she tried to dislodge the jaws of the Pony from Hell. She tried to get her hands on it and to kick her feet to knock it off, but the creature was very good at using it hooves to keep her pinned. She tried to use telekinesis to choke it to death, but anti-telekinetic enchantments embedded in the creature’s body kept her from getting a magical grip on it.

It was while she using her magic that her pain-addled brain remembered that she still had a spear. Looking to her side and finding it, she grasped it in her magic and shot it straight through the demon pony. Its jaws remained tight on her body in its death, but its limbs ceased to hold hers down, and she was finally able to wrench its jaws off of her. With that done, she telekinetically forced the blood in her body to stop leaving it.

Looking over at Zelig, she saw the older battle magi bringing both his ice and his fire to bear on the flying chimera, which was finally brought down when Zelig’s fire clipped the snake head and the beast’s panicked reaction brought it into the path of the ice that speared through its heart. With the monsters dealt with, Zelig turned to Gaelle, and without any warning, thrust an icicle in her mouth pressed his fire rune to her wound. Gaelle reflected on how much she wanted to kill him the first time he had done this to her.


--


The armored lion was quick to notice when the guns stopped shooting, and was even quicker to react, charging forward to ravage the two magi that had dared attack it. With Chlodwig temporarily out of commission, Viveka rolled him off of herself and cast her magic on the ruby set into the chest-piece of her exoskeleton. The contraption instantly unlatched itself from Viveka and unfolded itself to stand on four spiderlike legs and four arms, with two arms serving as little more than needle-like swords and the other two picking up a pair of rifles. The lion was unintimidated and attacked the golem, which leaped atop the animal and rode it like a bucking bronco for several seconds while it stabbed and shot at its joints and head. Then the lion tried to roll over to crush the machine, but it revealed its unarmored belly, which the golem took advantage of to thrust its blades into and fill it with bullets. The lion died quickly.

While her golem fought the lion, Viveka got into the strangest shootout in her life, as she used a Soviet AK-47 and an American carbine in battle against a turtle-shell-wearing unicorn pony blasting magical energy from its horn. She kept running about trying to get a good angle to shoot the chimera pony at while the animal tried to both shoot her and ensure that it didn’t get shot anywhere but on its shell.

Then, suddenly, Viveka stopped firing, simply dropping her guns. The chimera seemed confused at the sudden change in behavior, but then decided to just shoot her and charged another blast. Then it felt a tap on its shell. The creature turned in a panic to see who was attacking it. Then Chlodwig, whose illusions had allowed himself to remain undetected while it was distracted by Viveka, put a bullet through its head, killing it. He gave Viveka a thumbs-up, and she returned it.


--


Ritter Hirsch fired another beam of magic at Teresa. Although it was far more magic than she had ever seen him put out before, she was more than ready for it, and blocked the blast with her shield. There was a not inconsiderable amount of power behind the blast, but personal experience informed Teresa that she had been hit much worse before. Then, once the blast ended, she saw that the two assistants to Hirsch were charging forward again, the left one had covered herself in an orange aura and was changing her spikes to plate-like armor, while the other one had wrapped its arms in a teal aura and were adding long, sharp metal spikes above its wrists.

Teresa turned off her heat enchantment on her sword, and switched to her air enchantment and swung her sword about, wrapping yet another windstorm around her blade. The two fighters switched themselves from right to left and from left to right, spaced themselves apart and came at Teresa from opposite sides. But as they closed in, Teresa activated the heat enchantment, and slammed her sword against her shield, sending a shockwave of electricity around her that struck both of her opponents, and knocked them both down. The fully organic fighter was left unconscious and twitching from the electricity, but the metallic one was clearly not moving in spite of it, and Teresa suspected that she was dead.

“DAMN YOU!” 

Another burst of magical energy struck Teresa’s hastily raised shield, almost knocking her over.

“DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU DAMN YOU!” 

For every time Ritter Hirsch repeated the words, he fired another blast of magic at Teresa from the unicorn horn wand.  But each blast was weaker than the last, and Teresa easily regained her footing.

Looking to her left and right, she saw that each of her aides had finished their battles, with Gaelle easily being the worst off with Zelig having seared a gaping wound closed.

“DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!”

He fired yet another burst, but this time Teresa dodged it, slinging her sword to shoot an arc of lightning that struck the wand, obliterating both it and charring most of the arm that held it.

“AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!”

Ritter clutched at his arm as he cried out in pain, falling to his knees and then the floor. Teresa strode forward with all the regality and furor of a Teutonic goddess of old, with lightning and wind swirling about her spotless magical armor and sword and her hair spread out by the unleashed forces of nature to reveal their full radiance. Soon, she stood above the cowering magi, and looked down upon him in judgment and contempt.

He looked up at her with tears in his eyes as he continued to whimper. “P-p-please, Your Grace. H-have m-m-mercy on me.”

She sneered at him. “Never.”

Then she smacked him in the face her shield. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

Teresa sighed, as she directed her magic to remove her helmet, which then folded itself into her suit. She turned to her allies. “Are you all well?”

Gaelle grunted as leaned against Zelig. “I will live, but I would respectfully request for time to recuperate, milady.”

Chlodwig simply shrugged, the dispelling of his illusion magic revealing a scruffy-haired dwarf. “Had a moment where I wasn’t sure of myself, but that was the worst of it.”

Viveka’s golem latched itself back onto her. “No injuries or major lasting damage to Herman.”

Zelig simply grunted.

Teresa smiled at them. “Very well done, all of you. Our mission is complete. But it is very clear there is much work to be done.”

She turned and strode over toward the massive black and gold banner. “Not only do we have to do the usual duties of cleaning up our mess to hide it from the normal authorities, taking control of the magi’s workshop, research and ley lines as well as interrogate him for any other secrets he has, we also need to investigate this, Culmination.”

She stopped as she looked at the flag in disgust. “This organization has already begun experimenting with pony magic, and this research has already produced results. What we have faced here are likely just the earliest prototypes of this work, and they likely have far more competent and dangerous magi than this Traitor working for them.”

She swiped her sword at the banner and the lightning it slung set it ablaze. “This organization aims to be the next Illuminati, if not surpass them outright, and we must assume they have the resources to fulfill this ambition.”

She turned back to her comrades with all the theatricality due the Head of a Core Family, just as the flames reached the sigil. “When I meet at the Decimum Concilium Magia in two days, I will share everything we learn with the other Families.”

The bulk of the banner tore from its top and fell to the floor behind Teresa in a smoldering heap. “As of now, we are war with The Culmination, and we will not be finished until they are annihilated.”
> Le Jeux de la Vie and Der Unterschied im Unseren Magics
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Four Days After Counterspell

The wall behind Derek Truman was made from enchanted crystal that allowed for a view over the whole of the Swiss Alps. The American businessman was upon one of four raised observation platforms that overlooked a massive cavern lined with marble and granite that made up the bottommost layer of the massive “underground” stronghold of the Ruch magi family. He had been in this place once before, and while he had come out of it that time smelling like roses, the time he had spent there was some of the tensest he had ever experienced. 

After all, his in-laws lived here.

“I do believe things are rather rough for you,” the woman seated straight up across from him, Liese Ruch, placed a disk with its white face up next to three of Derek’s, allowing her to flip them from black to white. 

Rubbing his hand on his chin, Derek knew his position in this game of Othello was bad. The board was around halfway filled, and his mother-in-law was clearly winning, with her flipped chips closely intertwined with his, along with controlling one of the corners, leaving him with few options to make big moves. It would take a long-term strategy centering around the adjacent corner in front of him in order to turn this game around.

But even as he laid down his tile black side up to flip a white tile at its diagonal, he knew she wasn’t talking about the board game. “Ma’am, we’ve all been doing just fine. Connecticut barely got touched by ETS, so a lot of the infrastructure is still intact, and the plague has gotten a lot more people to buying insurance on anything and everything we can think of, so the company’s doing very well.”

The sound of metallic footsteps heralded the arrival of one of the Ruch’s vaunted golems, this one bearing a more human appearance to facilitate its duties as a butler, one of which being the preparation and serving of the tea it brought along, setting it down on the opposite end of the table from the Othello board.

The older woman – whose wrinkle-free face made her appear decades younger despite a full head of steel gray hair – gave a dignified snort as she grasped one of the teacups to lift to her lips, not bothering for milk or sugar. “Does this ‘we’ include your family?” She sipped her beverage gingerly. Her next disk flipped two of Derek’s.

Derek could only sigh, shifting in his cushioned chair. “Well, yes and no. That’s a lot more complicated.” His next disk flipped two of Liese’s.

“I think this is rather simple, actually,” Liese set down her disk along the edge, flipping five of Derek’s. “You and Perle remain human, and now Cachet and Prescott are ponies, who must decide for themselves whether they shall remain this way.”

“And that is where the complications begin,” Derek replied with a sigh, weighing his next move in his mind. It was increasingly looking like she was going to win at this rate, his only chance being her making a mistake. 

“While the final decision as to their fate lies in their hands – or hooves, in this case – I am still Scott’s father and Cachet’s husband, so anything I say or do, or even don’t say or do will affect what they decide in the end. Remain changed, or return to humanity?”

He laid a piece along the edge, flipping over two of Liese’s disks. This position, he hoped, would sow doubt and confusion in her mind, to decide between either shoring up her position at the corner she already possesses, or to move for the other corner. After the move he took a sip of the bitter brew, then placed three sugar cubes in the drink to better suit it to his palate.

Liese huffed, taking another sip of her tea. “I believe you are deluding yourself as to how much power you hold over their decision-making in this case.” An emerald glow emanated from her pinky, and at the same time a tile levitated into the air and was laid but a square away from the currently contested corner, flipping one of Derek’s. “I adopted and raised that girl for thirteen years before she struck out on her own, and her willfulness has always been her defining trait. And if I’m right about what I’ve seen about Prescott, he takes more after her than you.”

Derek saw how she moved without hesitation, and quickly placed his disk in its planned position, and flipped four of her disks. “And I’m the one who married Cachet, and I have been raising Scott since his birth. And I know the consequences of their potential situations better than you do.”

“Really?” Liese sipped nonchalantly, as her magic maneuvered another tile along a different edge, flipping two disks and probing Derek’s position elsewhere. “Tell me then, what do you know that I don’t?”

Derek places a piece along the edge as well, flipping five of hers. “Well, let’s think in terms of pros and cons. If they return to being human, the pros are that, of course, they return to their friends and family back home the same as they were before, who have all gotten out of this unscathed and unchanged. They will still be considered normal, and that will help them in adjusting to the changes in the world. The only con I can think of is that they would have to give up magic.”

Liese placed another piece along the same edge, flipping one of Derek’s. He continued. “If they chose to remain ponies, the pros would of course be that they get to experience something new and amazing in their lives, and they get to explore magic. It also gets to allow the two of them to better relate to you and your family.”

Liese smiled, even as Derek placed another tile and flipped a pair of Liese’s, inching closer to a different corner. “On the other hand, if they stayed, we would face a lot of difficult situations and decisions. We would have to adapt our lifestyle to accommodate for being different species. We might face pressure to change from our friends and family and coworkers, and with that will come hostility and even rejection. There’s next to no ponies in the community we live in, so they would have a lot fewer people to better relate to, and if we wanted to live near other ponies, we would have to pull up stakes and move, which is a hassle and a half in even the best of times. And who knows what else we would have to endure?”

Liese let him finish speaking, continually drinking more tea. After he finished his last line, she responded. “And now, you are deluding yourself not only as to what you can and cannot do for your wife and child, but also as to the entire point of their final decision.” 

She then placed a tile in the corner, flipping three of Derek’s pieces in the process, and destroying any hope the man had for victory in this game. “I may not fully understand the magic behind the plague, but it changed your wife and son’s minds as well as their bodies. They now subconsciously think being a pony is normal, even if they are consciously aware of how they have been changed. And that is without even taking the visions they received into account. What did their visions show them, anyway? Did they tell you?”

Liese had control of not only the center of the board but also two opposite corners, which meant her victory was ensured. At this point, Derek no longer cared for victory, and was resigned to continue playing until the end. His next disk flipped two of his opponent’s. “Scott told me that he was playing in a field nearby a town with other children, colts and fillies, earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns. Later, he was called home to help prepare the house for unexpected guests from out of town. After the family arrived, he made friends with one of the foals that came to stay, and they played. At the end of it, a white… alicorn, was it? She asked him what he had learned. And he said that the most important things in life were friends and family.”

Liese took another sip, her cup getting low. The next tile she put down flipped five of Derek’s. “That’s rather standard, from what I’ve heard regarding these visions. And what of Cachet?”

Derek allowed himself a smirk while he placed a tile that flipped two of Liese’s. “In her vision, she was building new tools for a local shop, and then she noticed a commotion outside where a pair of wagons had crashed into each other, and their drivers were arguing. She helped settle the argument, and then fixed the wagons. After each of the disputed parties awarded her with items from their carts, she returned to her job, and in the evening, she went to the local bar and enjoyed a good time.”

“And this is the part where the white alicorn appeared, correct?” Liese’s next chip flipped three of Derek’s. Her tea was getting low, so she poured some more for herself.

Derek’s smirk became more pronounced, and a giggle threatened to burst out. “Yeah. And would you forgive me if I gave you an exact quote of what she said?”

Liese’s mouth twisted in a very odd way, that seemed to embody both aristocratic disgust and elderly nostalgia. “I know what language comes out of my girl’s mouth. An unfortunate side effect from the years under her sire.”

His next disk flipped over only one of Liese’s. “She said, ‘Shut up. I’ve had it up to here with your stupid sunshine and rainbows crap. Fuck you, and your fucking priorities. Now get the fuck out of my head you fucking milk white horny ass.’”

For a moment, it seemed as though Liese couldn’t decide what to express about what she was feeling. In the end, she just sighed. “No matter how hard I tried, that girl never did lose the taste of salt. I can only hope that she hasn’t passed it on to her children.”

Derek’s smirk turned to a warm, yet awkward smile. “You can rest assured that Cachet has… refrained from using that kind of language in front of the children.”

Liese raised an eyebrow.


--


Meanwhile, in the identical observation deck opposite to Liese’s and Derek’s, Adalheid Ruch and Cachet Truman were enjoying some father-daughter bonding.

“OW! SON OF A BITCH THAT HURT!”

The lime green unicorn clutched at her wild black mane, furious that her adopted father had successfully ripped out yet another chunk of hair from it, despite her best efforts to prevent it.

Her bearded human parent just kept smiling as he sighed. “I will keep telling you that you need to focus better until you get it right.”

Cachet responded with a murderous glare highly uncharacteristic of her largely pacifistic species. “AND HOW THE FUCK IS RIPPING OUT MY MANE SUPPOSED TO HELP ME FOCUS BETTER? HUH?!”

“If you don’t want me to pull out more hair, then you need to cast your telekinetic anti-magic barrier, and for that you need better focus,” he explained gently, as he continued relaxing in his chair, reading his leather-bound book. The title on the cover was The Archidoxes of Magic, and below it the author’s name: Paracelsus.

Gritting her teeth in frustration and anger, Cachet lit her horn and tried to cast her levitation spell on her adopted father and lift him up to maybe toss him around a bit. But just like before, her spell failed to grasp him, as his barrier made her magic slip right off of him, frustrating her even more. 

Then she saw his left eye glow lavender, and then she scrambled, looking back at the notes laid out in front of her, trying to remember the runes-

“YIPE!”

Then a lavender glow enveloped her tail and yanked her into the air, dangling her so that her flailing forehooves were only a few inches away from the ground.

“PUT ME DOWN YOU MOTHERF-”

The glow disappeared, and she landed square on her muzzle. “AUGH! WOULD YOU CUT IT OUT ALREADY! WHAT’S YOUR FUCKING DEAL, MAN?”

Adalheid Ruch could only sigh, finally deciding to put down his book and get off his chair to sit on the floor to talk to his ponified girl. “I’m sorry, my sweet. I know I’m being rough, but I don’t have a lot of time to teach you the magic you need to know before you leave again.”

The young mare looked up at him unhappily. “I didn’t ask for a literal crash course in magic.”

Adalheid chuckled. “I said something very similar to my father when he started teaching me magic. You’re lucky you didn’t have to go through facilitation in order to use magic.”

Her face became deadpan. “I had to become a completely different species to get to use magic. I think that’s a little more stressful than facilitation.”

“Hmph. You went through the process in only a few days. It took me a few months of constant pain to be able to use the magic I have now. And I didn’t a cute new huggable body out of it.”

He then suddenly snatched her with both hands, pulling her into his embrace.

“Hey! Let me-”

Then he started to tickle her belly despite her squirming.

“Noho! No-heh! Stop it! Stop it! Ha! Hahaha! Stop it, please! HAHAAHAHHA! STOP!”

Then one of her rear hooves bucked him in the gut, making him let go and double over in coughs and sputters.

She gasped, and immediately tried to help him. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hit anything serious?”

He held up a hand, still catching his breath, and got back up from his knees to his feet and returned to his chair. His daughter propped herself up on his knees and looked up at him worryingly, a stark contrast to how she had been looking at him just moments ago. “Are you okay, Papa?”

The man smiled wearily. “Yes, I’m fine.” He reached his hand out to her face to caress it, and she leaned into it, smiling sweetly as she enjoyed the feeling of his fingers in her fur. He continued, “You have always been such a sweet little girl, deep down, even when I first found you back in Bern.”

Cachet moaned in comfort. “I was such a brat, then. Still am, sometimes.”

“You’ve been a bad girl, then,” he joked, as he withdrew his hand. “It’s the children’s job to be bratty, not their mother. Even so, you had lived a hard life and then suddenly thrust into the lap of luxury. My lap, especially.”

The pony chuckled at this, and then climbed into it, sitting so that she was eye level with him. “It’s a comfy lap. Well, it was a lot comfier when I was younger.”

“You were a lot smaller when you were younger,” Adalheid huffed, the mass of his pony daughter weighing heavily on his body. He lightly pushed on her, and she thankfully took the hint to get off of him, allowing him to stand up. He then strode over to the edge of the observation platform, looking down into the arena. Cachet joined him, and looked down where her two children were playing.

In the arena, Perle and Prescott were playing a game of soccer with two of the Ruch family servants, a butler and maid named Johannes and Hilda. Both pairs were accompanied by nine golems to fill out the rest of the positions for both teams, the Truman children’s side in green, and the servants’ side in gray. Perle, being human, was of course taller than Prescott, and thus served as their team’s goalie, while Prescott served as one of the forwards to attack the other side, while the butler and maid took those respective positions for their team. 

For a moment, Cachet wondered how they were able to make an actual soccer field, complete with grass and lines, in such a short time. Then she remembered that the arena floor was covered by a vast, enchanted crystal mesh that could be manipulated to imitate almost any material and environment. Looking to the side of the arena, to the control pillar, she found Ecke Opitz, the head bodyguard of the Ruch family, manipulating the controls for the field.

Turning back to the field, she watched the sky blue form of her earth pony son weave his way through the other team’s golems before being confronted by the much taller and longer-legged human maid Hilda. The two maneuvered the ball between each other, trying to get control of it to pass to their automated teammates, which moved an reacted in a very human way to the procession of the game.

“I see my golems are still up to par,” Cachet said with pride.

Adalheid beamed as well. “We’ve managed to get by, but we’ve yet to find anyone with a talent for making golems like you did. At least you left behind your notes for us to follow when it came time to make more, we would have lost a lot of time trying to just replicate your instruction. Lotte is still annoyed that a ‘muggle’ is superior in the creation of golems than she is.”

Cachet smirked. “Heh. She can go shit bricks. Even the robots I make are better than anything she can make.”

Adalheid’s smile vanished. “You may want to take back those words, considering one fact that your sister discovered, while she was researching with a few ponies connected with our family over the last two days.”

Cachet looked back at him, concerned. “What did she find out?”

Adalheid looked to her. “She was working with the ponies to experiment with some of the magical theories that the Families have been coming up with over the centuries that the Locks have prevented from being tested out. It was during one of these sessions that one of the unicorns present noticed something odd. After some testing, they were able to confirm that the unicorn was completely unable to detect any of the magic that Lotte cast.”

Cachet’s eyes widened in shock. “Really? The unicorn couldn’t detect any of her magic? What about other humans? Other ponies?”

Adalheid shook his head. “They checked, thoroughly. Unicorn, pegasus, earth pony. Golems, telekinesis, ley lines. No matter the kind of pony, no matter the nature of magic, so long as a human cast that magic, a pony cannot detect it, unless they directly see it being cast or in effect. We don’t know about the alicorns, but we suspect that it will be the same with them.”

“How is that possible?” Cachet wondered. “I know that it takes really elaborate spellcasting to prevent one magi from detecting the magic of another magi, so I can’t imagine what it would take to hide the magic of an entire species from another. Are there any leads on this?”

“None,” Adalheid replied. “We have theories, from the 1900 years of the evolution of human magic to something specific about the thaumic field of this universe, or even something to do with the Roman Contact itself, but that’s all we have. Theories.”

Cachet was quiet, as she processed this thought. “Well, it looks like you guys can keep on hiding for a little while longer, until you’re finally ready.”

“And that includes those who would wish us all ill, Cachet,” Adalheid spoke gravely, kneeling down to look her in the eyes. “You may have lived under my roof for more than ten years, but there are things I haven’t told you about this world.”

“I always kind of suspected as much,” Cachet said. “You’re only human after all. Somebody’s probably done something shady with magic at some point in time.”

He grasped her head and gazed into her eyes with his own, darkened orbs. “But you have not seen any of it. I have. Inhuman experiments and dark spells that twist men body and soul. Indescribable abominations and eldritch horrors that haunt the deep places of the world. The Families’ desire to keep our existence secret has prevented these things from seeing the light of day. But there are forces at work that will become emboldened like never before, because of the arrival of the ponies. They will- no – they see a golden opportunity in front of them. They will seize it. And one day, one of them will ignite the greatest nightmare of the Families – a war of magic. Do you understand what I am saying?”

Cachet, stunned to silence, could only nod. Adalheid then drew her into a hug. “I must be hard on you, because hard times have come upon us, my sweet. Your husband may be the man of your family, but your magic makes you their true protector.” He then held her out in front of himself, and looked her in the eye. “Promise me, here and now, that you will do everything in your power to protect your family. This means learning everything you can about magic, everything you can about those who are researching magic, and anything that can do harm to you with magic. Do you swear, Cachet? Do you swear upon everything you hold dear?”

Cachet looked back down into the arena, and saw her son Prescott kick the ball past the butler into the net, getting a well-earned third goal that had him and his sister, Perle, cheering. Cachet looked back to her father. “I swear.”

Adalheid nodded gravely. He then patted her shoulder and stood up. “Very good. Now, where were we? Right. We were working on your focus.”