I stood there, petrified as I stared up at my parents, my mind going blank; I'm sure if someone were too look very closely at my eyes, they'd see tiny crash reports staring back at them. Emergency protocols engaged; subroutine 'flee down the hall' executing. I bear no responsibility for what happened next.
I'm blaming Murphy and his law. Without it, Luke would not have walked down the hall at that exact moment. Without it, I wouldn't have ran face-first into him too quickly for either of us to react. Without that damnable law, I might have retained some shred of dignity.
Before I knew what happened I'd flung my brother several feet down the hall, only to land in a crumpled heap. Meanwhile, I wound up on the floor with my legs uncomfortably splayed, the wind knocked out of my barrel. Mary stepped out of her room a few moments later, apparently drawn by the crashes and clamor, and was unprepared for the sight that greeted her; she stared at the two of us for several long moments, bemused, as my brother and I groaned and took stock of the damage. She said not a word as we gradually regained the use of our limbs, and only turned her head slowly, only to find matching looks of shock and bewilderment staring back at her from the living room. Naturally, when she came to terms with the ridiculous, embarrassing, and nonsensical situation, she did the only rational thing left to her.
She ignored it.
“I'll put on some tea,” she said cheerfully, carefully stepping over me and my brother, past our bewildered parents, and into the safe-haven of the kitchen. She was the smart one.
I turned to my brother, struggling to my hooves and glowering. “This is somehow your fault, I know it,” I grumbled, massaging my aching snout.
“Bite my feathery ass,” he hissed in retaliation, stretching a sore wing.
It was in this manner that my parents saw the 'new me'. Mr. Murphy, I would like to talk to your manager.
***
After the initial... catastrophe, yes, that's a good word – things went relatively smoothly. At least, it was impossible to go downhill from there, so everything else seemed much better by comparison. Mary was kind enough to bring out two ice-packs, and my brother and I looked over our respective bruises while reclining in a pair of beanbags chairs. Our parents had already settled on the couch, looking distinctly uncomfortable and out of sorts. Mom was the first to speak.
“Sorry about that sweetie,” she said, and I grimaced at the nickname. Even so, it was oddly comforting; she still called me 'sweetie' even after seeing me. She still thought of me as her son – at least I had that. “We weren't expecting you to... well, just appear like that. We certainly didn't mean to surprise you like we did.”
“How'd you do that, anyway?” my dad asked with a frown. I turned to my brother, narrowing my eyes – how much had he told them? Luke just shrugged, however, and I sighed. I'd have to give away as little as possible. As far as I knew, my parents still thought this was all an accident – that we'd freakishly turned into ponies one day for no clear reason. I didn't want to break them of that misconception... Not yet.
“How much has Cad- Mary, told you?” I mumbled around the ice pack, my snout still smarting. “Just for a frame of reference.”
Apparently, the answer was 'very little' – she hadn't even performed basic levitation in front of them, and had only mentioned in passing that unicorns could do 'magic' – which they clearly dismissed as a euphemism or a metaphor. “Is that what you are, then?” dad asked hesitantly after I briefly explained what a unicorn was, and roughly what they could do. “A unicorn?” He seemed to be struggling with the concept, and I couldn't blame him; I'd lived through it, and even I found it hard to swallow.
It wasn't going to get easier though, I thought as I weighed my options. “Sort of,” I muttered. “I'm pretty sure I'm part dragon, too...”
Both of them blinked at that, and grew noticably more pale. “Dragon?” Mom asked faintly. At least she hadn't fainted yet.
I nodded, trying to remain patient as I let them take it in. It had to come, sooner or later, and it wasn't their fault I was like this. I took a deep breath and continued, biting the bullet. “Yes, I appear to be some sort of hybrid between unicorn and dragon.” That was, as far as I knew, the truth. Their blank, disbelieving looks, however, spoke volumes – I wasn't going to make any progress like that. I sighed, rubbing the spot between my eyes, and settled on a visual demonstration. “Hang on,” I muttered, spotting the geode beside me, and built up a charge in my horn, and gently started levitating it. They gasped when it started to glow, of course, so I let it fade and fixed them with what I hoped was a patient stare.
They watched in shocked silence as a chunk of quartz floated into the air as if on its own, faintly glowing. As it floated there without any visible means of support, I explained to them the basic concepts of unicorn telekinesis – carefully staying away from the advanced thaumic theories surrounding it and sticking exclusively to what could be known or reasonably inferred from the show.
They hadn't fainted yet – another good sign. Encouraged, I further explained how dragons required crystals and gemstones for sustenance, and carefully placed the crystal into my mouth, between my back molars, and crunched down on it like rock candy. “See? Perfectly safe – no bleeding or anything,” I said, still chewing the grit to a fine powder. 'Perhaps I'll make a slideshow presentation,' I thought dourly as I swallowed. 'Save myself some time.'
I then explained how I apparently had a greater affinity for certain kinds of magic than Mary did, and I that I could teleport. The last, while not an outright lie, was very much a deception; the two statements, though phrased as if one logically followed the other, were not actually related. It was true that Mary and I would certainly specialize in different forms of magic; it did not follow that my specialization granted me any special affinity for teleportation. Even though the deception was necessary, I didn't feel any better about it – especially when they trusted my word without comment.
Mary finally gave me a reprieve, carefully balancing a tray of tea on her back, and stood beside my parents so they could take it. They did so gratefully, and I think we were all glad for the reprieve – it was a lot for them to take in, and it was difficult to decide exactly how much I could tell them.
Mom wiped her mouth with a napkin as she collected herself. “That's... quite a lot to take in,” she said, slowly rotating her cup as if deep in thought. “I hadn't realized... This doesn't sound like any sort of mutation, if you can do all...” She faltered.
I froze, thinking quickly. Of course, she'd realize it wasn't a mutation. After that little display of, well, magic, she had to realize that something else was going on. Mutations didn't give you magic; they gave you cancer. I looked to the others, hoping for support, but neither one seemed willing. Apparently it was up to me to reveal or conceal.
“Someone... changed us,” I finally said. “We're sure of that. We're not sure why he did it, but we believe he is immensely powerful and utterly demented. We've all seen him in our dreams, and I don't know what else he intends to do.” More half truths. I flicked my eyes to the others, desperately wanting support, and they hesitantly nodded.
Once again, my parents had bought it. Mom exchanged a glance with dad as it sank in. She cleared her throat, seeming to work up the nerve to say what was bothering her. “So, you three still plan to leave?” Her voice cracked on the last word. Dad looked grim as well, and gently squeezed her free hand in his.
I fell silent, realizing the problem as I tried to see it from their point of view. I hadn't even considered how much it would hurt our parents if we left like that – suddenly, due to danger, into an unknown situation and dubious circumstances. Mom would have the hardest time, I realized; she was usually depressed a day or two after coming home from visiting her family, as she already missed her. For both sons to leave and completely drop out of communication for time unknown, perhaps never to return...
I gulped. So that was why they came over – or why she did, anyway. This was going to be harder than I thought. “I'm so sorry,” I muttered, blinking away the heat behind my eyes. “We just can't stay... It won't be safe for us here. We have to stay on the move; if he's hunting us down, he'll eventually find us if we stay in one place. I'm not even sure I'll be able to visit; once the government cracks down on people like us, any missing persons will be suspects. The sooner we leave, the better our chances are.”
“So... That's it, then.” She sniffed, looking more forlorn than I'd ever seen her before. “You're all going away into hiding, and we might never see any of you ever again... Is – is that the gist of it?” Her voice had a flat, broken quality to it, and tears coursed silently down her face. I didn't know how to handle that; I couldn't do anything about it, and I couldn't bear it. I couldn't tell her everything would be okay; if we ran into Discord, at least one of us was likely to die – probably me, as I was the biggest threat. I couldn't tell her when we'd be back; it might be years before ponies were recognized as people and granted full Constitutional protection, and that was just in America. Staying put them in danger; leaving would break their hearts. So, I sat there, struggling to find words of encouragement but finding none, an ache steadily growing in my chest. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know-
Luke, ever impulsive, climbed to his hooves. “Alright, since you won't do it,” he muttered, crouching for a moment, then sprang onto the couch with a single beat of his wings. Mom gasped as he landing lightly beside her, only to be cut short as he tried his best to give her a hug. He wrapped a wing around her protectively, and even gave her a brief nuzzle. “It's okay mom,” he said, his cheeks turning crimson as he tried to comfort her. “We're not helpless – we can handle ourselves. We'll fix this, somehow.” Dad joined in a moment later, gently hugging his wife and son.
At least they had Luke, I thought, unable to quell that tinge of bitterness. He didn't have to lie to them; he was, as far as I knew, innocent. He could comfort them without feeling like it was a lie, without having to hide anything. They didn't deserve the pain of the truth... And, well, I didn't deserve them. I flattened my ears, starting to slink away, but... Wouldn't that be just as bad? They had raised me and given me a second chance, even if they didn't realize it. I struggled, pushing the guilt away, and made my way towards them; they were there for me, and I was going to be there for them. I bit the bullet and tried to offer what comfort I could.
Even as I tried, however, physics was not cooperating; I paced awkwardly around the edges, trying to find an opening, but there didn't appear to be one. I couldn't easily hop up like Luke had, and hugging a leg seemed strange and awkward, a halfheated gesture-
My thoughts were cut short as a hand carefully grabbed the nape of my neck and lifted me in among them. “Erp?” was all I could manage in in my confusion; apparently, dad had seen me struggling, and helped. I blushed, but he just smiled and thumped my back, pulling me in so I could properly hug the others. I winced instinctively at the closeness; the better part of me was uncomfortable with any sort of affection like that. It didn't like the vulnerability, and wanted nothing more than to pull away and find someplace cool and dark to forget about the whole mess – perhaps joke about it later, but even that was another layer of armor. A week ago I might have done exactly that. Another part of me, however, told the first part to shut up and deal with it. They needed this, I realized, and like it or not I needed it too. We were a family – it was normal to be close, I told myself. Gradually I relaxed and joined them – being careful of my horn, of course – and eventually managed to get my forelegs partway around them. Something eased inside me – not completely, but it was a comfort. Liquid pride may or may not have been present. I blushed, closing my eyes, resenting the necessity of the deceptions. I'd have to tell them at some point, I realized. It might not be for a long time, it might not be until all the mess was over and the truth came out already, but I'd-
FLASH *whirrr-click*
I froze, shocked and betrayed as I recognized the synthesized sound of a phone's camera flashing, and looked for its source. I couldn't quite believe what I saw; there stood Mary, an impish grin on her face as she held a camera aloft in her forelegs, somehow having managed to snap a picture of us without the use of fingers. “Sorry,” she giggled, “that was too adorable to pass up.” She turned and fled to her room, cackling in a surprisingly villainous manner the whole way there, and locked the door behind her.
I slowly turned to my brother, and a silent pact was formed in that moment. We fell away as one, landing gracelessly on the floor and making our way towards the common enemy. He was the first to the door, and pummeled it furiously with his hooves. I joined him shortly thereafter.
“Mary!” I shouted through the door, “I am SERIOUSLY reconsidering my position on regicide!”
“Hey, I got here first, I get dibs!” Luke growled, now suspended a few feet above the ground as he pressed his forelegs against the door and his hind legs against the far wall.
Mom and dad were no help at all; they simply chuckled from the couch, having no dog in the fight, and watched.
When we finally managed to force our way in, I nabbed the phone and searched for where she could have stored the damning photo. I found it eventually, and immediately deleted it. Just to be sure, I checked for copies. There were indeed a few – apparently Mary had gotten crafty as well, and had been in the process of composing a picture message to send to one of her email accounts. I glowered, but she only pouted and frowned as if I had spoiled her fun. Neither me nor my brother were moved by her crocodile tears, and Luke joined in the glower before promptly hitting the delete button.
“Awww,” she huffed, sitting back and crossing her forelegs over her barrel, “it's not like it was going on facebook or anything – I just, you know, wanted a memento...” I rolled my eyes and grumbled, shaking my head and hoping that her behavior was due to Cadance and her unique association with love, rather than something that applied to mares in general.
***
With that bit of nonsense finally under control, we made our way back out to the kitchen and found our parents already making lunch. They seemed to be in much better spirits, at least. This, however, came with an unfortunate side-effect, one I should have been prepared for. I hadn't accounted for how many terrible puns dad could make about minerals and/or horses when the mood struck him. My only solace was that I was not alone in my suffering.
When we finished lunch – a simple salad, though the omnivores in the group added some bacon bits to their bowls – we went back to planning and packing. I'd had enough of touchy-feelies for one day, and was eager to get back to doing something material and productive. I thought back to my foray into the quarry, and pondered. I still needed access to a reliable source of sapphire. While relatively common in Equestria, I would have to rely on synthesizing the material myself, somehow. I considered that... If I could create raw sapphire out of essentially aluminum and magic (oxygen being freely available, of course), I'd be set. Not only that, it was a potentially lucrative venture. Of course, selling it could be an issue; we'd almost certainly need to work with 'underground' elements, at least until the governmental situation was resolved favorably. Even if I sold it at half the retail value, however, the profit margin would be excellent. Perhaps we could stay for a bit longer, at least until we had turned this half-cocked expedition into a well-funded one...
But first, I needed proof of concept. Alright; to start, I'd need aluminum and a small sample of relatively pure sapphire, right? I nodded – simple enough. A rock hound like myself had access to all sorts of raw minerals, and I already knew of the piece I needed. Unfortunately, the sapphire I had in mind was still at my house.
“Hey guys?” I told the room in general. “I need to pick up some things from my room – I think I'll need them for the trip.” They accepted it willingly enough.
Dad took out his car-keys, already planning out the logistics of a car trip. “I guess we can go now,” he said, considering, “but you'd have to ride in the trunk – I'll drive slow, don't worry. I can back into the garage and you can pop in when the coast is clear.” I blinked, bemused, and pointed at my horn. Still he continued. “In fact, I think it might be better to go at night-”
“Dad?” I interrupted, pointing more emphatically. “I don't think that will be necessary.”
He blinked for a few moments, confused, then it dawned on him. He nodded, chuckling sheepishly. “Right, I forgot... Yeah, that works too.”
I forced a smile and disappeared. It wasn't his fault that his son was a centuries old unicorn mage from another universe.
***
I reappeared a moment later in my room, and took a moment to collect my thoughts. As I looked everything over, I realized it might be the last time I ever saw it. I briefly wondered how the next few years would go. 'Assuming we survive long enough to enjoy it,' came the unbidden afterthought. Perhaps, I thought rancorously as I looked for a particular velvet pouch, the government would find some use for ponies and put them into labor camps. I snarled at the idea. 'Good luck with that,' I thought, imagining all of the various ways I could maim or kill anyone trying to cage myself or my friends. I chuckled darkly at a particularly vicious mental image, savoring it... Then stopped. I'd been away from my family for less than a minute, and I was already contemplating brutal killing? I pushed the thoughts away – after seeing myself at my darkest, I didn't want to go back to how I was before. Even if I had to kill in defense of myself or family, I didn't want to relish the bloodshed; I wanted to put an end to that chapter of my life.
I forced my mind back to the task at hand; I still needed that sapphire. I continued digging for the elusive velvet bag. Some mineral samples and gemstones were too small to easily display; the sapphire, I remembered, was nestled in among several of them, and soon I found the bag and fished it out. It was small – a flake the size of a pea and only a few millimeters thick, and wasn't very pure in the first place, but it would be sufficient for my purposes. After a quick purification – that spell was becoming second nature – I carefully wrapped the tiny sapphire fragment in a paper towel and stowed it.
“And now, aluminum... Where can I get a large amount of aluminum...” That was altogether more tricky. The frame of my bed was painted iron, I was reasonably sure; a quick test with a magnet confirmed that theory. There might have been some aluminum in the recycle bin, but my family wasn't that big on soda – I'd be lucky to find a single can. I considered my options, and shrugged. Later, I might need to find a better source; for the moment I only needed proof-of-concept, and some aluminum foil would be sufficient. I dug a few rolled up balls out of the recycle bin and carried them with me into the backyard, and filled up several buckets with water from the spigot.
I reviewed the steps in my mind, making sure I had everything and knew every part of the process – I would only have one shot, as the sapphire likely wouldn't survive the process if something went wrong.
“Alright,” I muttered to myself, “first thing's first... separate the air into its constituent components, and identify the oxygen.” The spell, I remembered, was simple enough to conceptualize, but somewhat tricky to perform due to air's naturally chaotic nature; even still air naturally trended towards a mixed distribution, destroying any order applied to the system almost as soon as it was created. Fortunately, the water acted as a barrier to prevent exactly that.
Just as I remembered, the larger air bubble separated into two larger ones and a plethora of tiny ones, and I held them below the surface with little effort. I let the latter bubble up to the surface, a waste product, and scrutinized the other two. The larger of the two, I suspected, was nitrogen; I lit a match and let a portion bubble to the surface, causing the match to flicker and die; doing the same with the smaller bubble caused the match to flare up. I nodded, satisfied; the smaller of the two was, as expected, reasonably pure oxygen.
“Alright,” I muttered to myself, “now... Wait. Dammit.” I groaned, shaking my head as I realized my error. The aluminum foil was already used, and besides whatever laminate or other additives, it doubtless had some other impurities from the food it contained. Heating the aluminum to melting point in a limited-oxygen environment would most likely just burn the residues and turn the oxygen into carbon dioxide. With a sigh, I released the bubble of oxygen and turned my attention to the aluminum foil balls, crushing them together in the air and slowly heating them until they were a uniform liquid mass. The remainder of the carbonized food and other impurities burned away in the process, and I manually removed the dross.
“That could have ended badly,” I grumbled, quenching the ball of aluminum in the water and letting it fall to the bottom and repeating the air-separation process. Ready to try again I levitated the solid mass of aluminum into the bubble's center and started heating it back to a molten state, watching it carefully. Soon it accumulated a dull, dust-like layer on its surface, one that cracked and floated like ice floes, in turn exposing more of the molten metal beneath, which likewise grew cloudy and dull... “Good,” I muttered. The molten metal was rapidly forming a layer of aluminum oxide, so I had the right environment to form raw sapphire. Now I just needed to be very, very careful with the next step.
I unwrapped the tiny sapphire from its wrapping and gently levitated it, passing it through the protective layer of water and towards the surface of the molten metal. And now the tricky part... On top of maintaining both the oxygen-bubble and the floating glob of aluminum (the latter also requiring constant heat to maintain the metal's fluid state) I had to weave a two-part spell around the sapphire as it made contact with the molten aluminum. The first was to catalyze the reaction of the aluminum with the oxygen to create the necessary aluminum oxide; the second, to encourage its crystallization around the seed, using the latter as its template for continued growth. In theory, I had done it many times before...
In practice, I nearly ruined it all by dropping the sapphire into the molten aluminum. With a yelp I released the more complex spell and pulled the tiny crystal out of the fluid mass, making sure it hadn't been damaged. I sighed with relief – it was fine. Once I'd calmed down, I tried again – this time making sure to keep the components in place while I wove the more complex spells together.
Finally, it worked; I watched in fascination as the tiny crystal started to grow while the aluminum blob and bubble of oxygen shrank down. Eventually the bubble was too small to continue reacting and the process fizzled out, the remaining aluminum fizzling and cooling against the underside of the much larger, clear sapphire crystal. I lifted the treasure out of the water bath, and examined it. I could see the tiny speck of blue within, the original seed crystal, but it was dwarfed by the clear sapphire surrounding it. Without the iron and titanium impurities, the archetypical blue of the sapphire was not present in the new growth. I wondered briefly if that could be corrected even as I magically scored the crystal and broke it off along the line. A taste confirmed it; it was, indeed, pure and solid sapphire. Exactly what I needed. Satisfied with the results, I carefully wrapped up the remainder and concentrated on Mary's backyard.