//------------------------------// // 11. Ultimatums // Story: Zombies to Ponies in Ten Seconds Flat // by 8r0ny //------------------------------// “And that is our tale.” I finished up finally. Either our worlds were more similar than I thought or the ponies decided it wasn't polite to interrupt except when completely necessary. I tried to keep it as close to us as possible, only explaining things relevant to the story. The internet was of course quite a concept and phones and computers were outside of their realm of imagination. “What about when you went through the portal?” Twilight questioned. “I can see you have been here for at least a week.” “This is true.” I replied. “We have been here a few days. As for what happened it’s not as interesting as you think.” “Well we heard y’alls story up to this point, might as well finish it up.” AJ said shifting on her cushion. “Fair enough.” I relented. “I went through the portal first and the others took forever due to the difference in time. I explored a cave and found some crystals that light up when touched, chopped down some branches and drew a square in the dirt. Nyjill arrived and we pondered about time and stuff. Then the wagon came so we hid it behind the portal so when Camden and Cody arrived they freaked out a little. We set up camp, I made shapes with my Arcane Staff of Light Bringing, we were bothered by the wildlife for a little but Zecora was secretly helping us, met Zecora whilst running from a hydra, saw Applebloom and you know the rest.” “Wait, what the heck is an Arcade Staff of Light Bargaining?” RD butchered. “Arcane Staff of Light Bringing.” I corrected. “And it's just a fun name. Really I took my Stick of Awesomeness, aka a walking stick I found, and one of the crystals I found in the cave and made the Staff of Light Bringing. At some point it started to make shapes on the ground out of light and I found I can control what shapes appear and where. Thus the Staff was again upgraded to an Arcane Staff of Light Bringing.” “Can you show us?” Twilight said already getting excited. Sheesh, calm your tits Purple. “Sure.” I said standing up. “I’ll get it from my tent. In the meantime, Nyjill will keep you entertained with his stand up act.” And with that I left to get my staff. “I love stand up!” Pinkie exclamed. “Uhh, well...I mean I have a few jokes.” Nyjill stuttered. “How about- no they don't know what airplane food is...how about- no that won’t do either. I got it! What do you call-” “I’m back.” I announced cutting Nyjill off. “Sorry Nyjill, you’ll have to bore us another time. Anywho, here it is.” To emphasize my point I struck a pose and focused on making a circle inside of another circle. Not to difficult but still cool. Thankfully it worked and I didn't make a fool of myself...again. “The default is a circle of light under the staff but if I really focus I can get any shape anywhere.” I said as Twilight and Celestia lit up their horns. I assumed they were doing some sort of magical test or something. “I made a bat shape appear in the sky at one point.” I said smugly.” “You picking up what I am Twilight?” Celestia asked. “If you’re getting him focusing mana energy using the staff then yes.” She replied. “You said your planet has no magic right?” “Well not that I know of.” I said letting the circles fade. “There are magicians and stuff back on Earth but that's mostly slight of hand and not real magical stuffs.” “Can all of you use this staff?” Celestia asked looking at my friends. “Nope, just Shawn.” Cody said. “He’s the statistical outlier.” Nyjill added. “Yey, I’ve always wanted to be a statistic.” I said with mock enthusiasm. “Even if in this case I’m the exception.” “Well I don't know what to tell you other than you can use magic.” Celestia said plainly. “Come again?” I said surprised. “Like real magic? How?” “Well the staff is acting as a focal point.” Twilight explained. I could tell this would be a long lecture but if I get magic for listening, I’d say that’s a fair trade. “You yourself don't have much mana but since your focal point isn't within your body you are drawing most of the mana you need from Equis. You’re using just enough of your mana to wipe the magical signature from Equis mana. With practice you can increase your mana reserve and also control how much you draw from your surroundings.” “That's great and all but how do I do magic?” I asked. All this info was cool and all but I wanted to learn magic magic. “Well when a unicorn performs a spell they are weaving a complex array in their heads. With extremely complex spells a unicorn may draw out some of the spell array on the ground to relieve the mental load. So if you can imagine the spells array and use your staff to draw it on the ground you should be able to use magic.” “That sounds complicated but totally worth it.” I said starting slowly. “Teach me a simple spell so I can test it!” “Well I can draw out the simplest one I know and you can copy it.” Twilight said using her magic to draw out a pattern on the ground. “One of the first spells foals learn to do is summon a ball of magical light that burns mana. The more power you put into it the brighter it gets.” She finished up drawing the array. It was basically a circle with a few shapes around it, not to hard indeed. “Try and copy that exactly.” She said pointing to the array. “If you miss even one symbol it will fail.” “No pressure.” I said studying the array on the ground. “Square, triangle, that thing…, another thing. Ok, here I go.” With that I brought it all up at once...and completely failed. It was too much detail and I just made a circle. Everyone looked at me expectantly so I tried to add more to the circle. And to my surprise it worked. By adding one shape at a time I was able to eventually complete the array thus summoning a ball of light attached to the end of my staff about the brightness of a 20 watt bulb. “I did a thing!” I said excitedly. “Except it's more like a embering torch than a floating ball of light.” “To make it brighter just channel more magic into it.” Twilight said. “And to move it just will it to move where you want it.” With that in mind I made it float off my staff and in the middle of the group. Now to amp up the brightness… “How to I channel power?” I asked sheepishly. “Well you’re obviously giving it some power, so find that flow of energy and expand it.” Twilight replied. Easier said than done. I closed my eyes and went on a little internal journey. I addressed all my senses and tried to see if I felt anything outside of them. Sure enough there was a tiny trickle...coming out of me. No, I was not pissing myself, it was like there was something squirting energy out my body into the crystal. The weird part is I could feel the energy go from the crystal to the magic array, I could feel every little detail. As I was doing this tour of myself I vaguely heard my name being called like someone was trying to get my attention. But it wasn't urgent so I figured I’d do what I was supposed to do in the first place. So I found my trickle and put more in it...it's a new experience, how the hell should I explain it! Anyhow, now that that is over I withdrew my sences from myself and focused on the world around me again. “I'm back from my soul searching journey.” I said opening my eyes, only to squint at the bright ball of light in front of me. “Holy crap, that's much brighter than I expected.” I did a quick internal walk and turned down the magic back to a trickle. “Not bad for a first try huh?” “It was ok I guess.” Celestia said. “I’ve seen foals make brighter balls but I’m sure you weren’t really trying.” “Hey, I’ll have you know I was not trying.” I said defiantly. “It was a trickle and I merely turned it into the flow of a faucet. Don't make me go Niagara Falls on you.” Twilight cocked her head at the name of the mysterious falls but chided me anyways. “Don't put too much power into it, your mana reserves are still small and unused. If you were to expend all that mana quickly you would pass out and wake up a few hours later with a terrible headache.” “Hey just like a hangover.” Nyjill said jokingly. “Basically” Celestia replied. “Unimportant, what was really impressive was the fact that the array you drew on the ground is gone but the ball is still here. That means you felt the magic all the way to the array and stored it in your mana memory. So next time you want to make a ball of light you just need to call on your mana memory to recreate the array. The more complex the spell the longer it will take to memorize but that's basically how spells work.” Twilight explained. “You mean I don't have to memorize all the shapes?” I asked excitedly. “This is so much better than I thought.” “Well it’s not memorizing in the sense you’re used to.” She said then pausing. Probably trying to think of an easy way to explain it. “It’s still memory but like your memory it takes time to perfect spells. Also the more spells you memorize the easier it will get and the more you can remember. Mana is like it's own self that lives within you.” Ok, not super simple but I can understand it. “So right now the mana-Shawn is infantile and I need to mature him in order to do more complex spells?” I asked hoping I wasn’t completely off. “Well...essentially, sure.” Twilight said. Guess she didn't want to explain it to me again. “This is all well and good but I have a proposition for you all. The residents of this world can not know about this situation.” Celestia said somewhat ominously. “So I can't throw them a ‘Welcome to Equis hope your species moves here!’ party?” Pinkie asked. “That depends on their decision. If your group stays here in the Everfree until you can return home I will put up a barrier to keep outsiders from discovering you and also to keep you in the area.” “How are we to fulfill our mission if we are detained to the Everfree?” I asked. “I mean if we had free rein over the entire Everfree we could totally live here but we were kinda hoping to integrate with the populous. We have technology and ideas that would greatly benefit your world!” “My second proposal,” Celestia continued. “Is that you take on the form of a species that already lives on this planet. Thus letting you integrate with the populous like you said. However you must keep your origins secret, I am trusting you all to do this if you choose this proposal.” “I noticed you said a resident of this planet and not pony. Care to explain?” Camden said skeptically. “Very observant I see.” Celestia praised. “The spell takes your traits and compares it with all known species. Seeing as you are all sentient, the chance of the spell picking an ant or bird are slim. Once the spell has chosen a species it will transform you into that species. There is a counter spell so don't worry yourselves about that. Your DNA and internal systems will remain mostly untouched so you needn't worry about gender swaps either.” “Careful Nyjill.” I teased. “Think masculine thoughts.” “I will return tomorrow for your answer to the proposal. It’s a big decision and I’m sure you’ll want to-” “We’ll do the spell.” Cody said suddenly, looking at all of us. “I know you guys want to do this, why postpone it?” “He’s right.” I said also looking around for objections. “We really want to interact with ponies and whatnot.” “Well, if you are certain.” Celestia said looking for any objections. Third time's the charm after all. Seeing none she continued. “Alright, who wants to go first?”