Now I have to say, the Ponyvillian night is beautiful. There is no light pollution with which to cloud the sky, and all the stars are all glistening and gleaming in their celestial thread. Even what we found out to be my enhanced vision could take away from it all, as it merely let me see more in the darkness, and more in detail. We also learnt I can somewhat fly, very badly, enough that I can elevate myself with wobbly control for around 10 seconds, but can glide and land seeming fast and fluidly well. So that’s good. I guess. Enough to get me atop town hall, which is where we currently are perched. It was here that my host spoke up:
“If our eyes are better, do you think our ears are too? It would make sense considering the metamorphosis they undertook.”
“Well, why don’t we find out!” I said enthusiastically, in her voice, as I was in control of the body, and thus, the voice box. I then proceeded to close my eyes, and focus on what I could hear. The first thing was the wind, but not just that, I could hear the differences in the air movement, speed, direction and place, via only hearing. Then came the crickets that chirped, the grass and leaves that rustled on the various winds, and lastly, the sound of many drums, banging twice in quick succession, followed by a flowing sound, like water pushing through a rapid. The sound was…calming. I felt almost superior, when each beat of the drums made me feel hunger, and each flow of sound gave way to thirst. And I believe Twilight was running calculations in her mind with which to accurately pinpoint where the drumming was coming from.
“THEOS, STOP FOCUSING ON THE DRUMS!” She shouted, most likely in payback for the dragon incident earlier. “That’s the sound of the hearts of the residents of Ponyville!”
“That… actually makes me feel a little sick. But could be extremely useful. Knowing you, you’ve probably got the range down on how far we can hear.” I say, trying to get my mind off the idea that my new ears were made to hunt, other things, but not for their flesh, for their very life force, and how I almost lost myself to the sensation.
“Well, your natural hearing reaches the edge of the Everfree Forest, which is around 500 metres away, before it star degrading, and the sound of the drums stops at about 100 meters flat.. However, this is only when you focus on it, you’re natural hearing is just slightly better than average when there is no focus, and my estimates dictate hearing the…hearts of lifeforms at around 10 meters.” She said in a manner as if trying to figure out this thing on the fly. “But enough of that, let’s see what else you can do!”
“Agreed,” I replied simply, knowing we were both going to be uncomfortable if we kept on the notions of hearts. So I jumped off of Ponyvilles town hall, and I swear it was a light jump, but ended up going ten feet into the air. Without trying. Suffice to say, we both screamed our heads off as the ground came up fast.
“WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR!” cried Twilight from her passenger position, knowing full well that the only pain we did not share was that of the transformation.
“I have no idea! I swear that was a light jump!” I shouted back, actually fearing for my life right now.
“Light…jump?” she sputtered out, “WE JUMPED TEN FEET INTO THE AIR!, AND EVEN THEN, WHY DID YOU JUMP OFF THE TOP OF A LARGE BUILDING!
“I JUST SORTA DID IT ON INSTINCT!” I shouted back, upon which it hit me. Instinct. This body seemed to have a lot of them. So I closed my eyes, and let myself fall to instinct, while my passenger screamed at me to move. A mere meter from the ground, my body snapped round, all four hooves facing the ground, and a glowing red energy formed around my hooves, and the energy dispersed upon impact with the ground, shifting the feedback of suddenly not moving into the air around us, giving us a slight updraft for a second, before the area returned to normal, and we were standing on the pathway of Ponyville, the ground completely undisturbed from our impact with it, and not a single sound was made from our impact with the ground.
“Sweet Celestia (I felt a sudden pang of dread when she said that), please never do that again, or at least, give some warning next time. But that spell you just did. It was. Interesting. You never channeled through our horn. In fact, from what I could gauge, you channeled the magic through our blood. And its effect, from what I could tell, was countering every force, so no forces had any effect.” She said, star struck and giddy with the prospect of new magic to study.
“So basically, I said ‘HELL NAW' to the universe’s physics being a thing, by using said universe’s physics, to make it so the impact on the ground never actually happened?” I inquired
“While I don’t understand part of what you said, by cross referencing I can guess you said with what I know, I guess what you say is pretty accurate. The spell made forces, to counter all forces. Instantly. It even created sound waves to counter sound waves, so there was no sound upon impact! It was amazing!” she cried in joy. It was actually quite heartwarming seeing her like this. “And adorable” I muttered under my breath.
“Let’s keep going shall we?!” she excitedly exclaimed, and I had a feeling that was less of a question, and more of an order. Luckily for her, an order I was more than willing to agree on.
“Yes, let’s,” I stated simply, thinking about what we could do. I started to run, just to get the mind going, and to test to see if we had any more speed to us. We ran at such a speed that everything became a blur. And I could feel the power rippling through our legs. It felt amazing, as it does, to exert power, power that belonged to me, and my host.
“Hey slow down a second.” She stated, to which I complied by stopping completely., and very quickly, considering I was moving at extremely high speeds. “Try to do that force negation spell while running or walking,” she said, almost cryptically, so again, I complied. I then realized as I walked, that there was something missing.
“I can’t hear our hoofsteps,” I called out, to which she replied in affirmative.
“Turn around,” she said. Upon doing so, I noticed that before we began this trial, hoofprints could be seen, bright as day, but after the test, there were no hoofprints with which to speak of. “Its less of a stabilizer spell as we first thought, and more off a stealth spell. In fact, I think the stabilization effect is just a happy coincidence.” She continued.
“So I could go dishonored on some fools?” I stated, in a tone of amusement.
“I don’t know what that is, but I’m going to go with the fact the its probably one of those video games of yours that you talk about,” she stated,” I think I’ve figured out your magic!”
“Oh, cool! Explain away” I happily exclaimed.
“Okay, so my magic, and almost every other unicorns spell casting requires the making of spell matrixes, which are patterns of magical energy, that are like runes in a way. They each are made up of many parts to create purpose, and are then fueled with energy. Some even have multiple levels, and inside the horn is a bunch of magical pathways that can make up one level of a spell. These spells are innate spells, able to be done without to much effort, like levitation. However to do more complex spells, one must harmonize with the worlds ambient magic, in order to create more levels to the spell matrixes.” She takes a moment to think over what she is going to say next, while I sit in the middle is the street, looking stupid, as I am enraptured by her talk, “you, however, throw all that to the wind, and use imagination to completely bypass the need for a spell matrix, which shows a lack of need for a horn to which to channel to, as, if the spell could be activated closer to the desired point, it would be more efficient. And the thing that is closest to every point in the body while still having room to channel magical forces are”
“Veins and arteries!” I shout out, interrupting her speech, which makes her giggle in our head.
“Correct. You use your imagination in place of a spell matrix to give purpose to the magical energy, and then channel it to the desired point. This of course does not mean your limited to not use unicorns spells, seeing as I can still sense a levitation matrix in our mind.” She happily chirps, obviously pleased at her gifting of knowledge to another. I love to learn the theory behind things. It is one reason I love science and computer science so. It’s all about how things work. “However, though this does come with increased flexibility and casting speed, it does come with a cost, and that cost, is the very blood in our veins. You see, the magic needs to actually flow through the blood, meaning that blood cells need to take magic energies inside them instead of oxygen, meaning that when the cell has done its job, it gets destroyed, as the magic energies kill it as soon as they enter it, and is only keep it together through force of will. As soon as the magic’s own ability to keep it together is lost, the cell itself is also lost. This also makes this magic casting type more exhausting in its own way. This is probably why you would need to… drink blood.”
“So, magic is fueled by imagination, and my own blood, one of which is not infinite. So limited magic, that, as long as I think it through, has endless possibilities. Gaigaigit, that song is one thing I’m going to miss.” I snorted in annoyance. I then got the idea to go even faster, by using magic. “I’m going to try something”
“Go ahead,” she said, obviously trying to understand things and eager to see what I attempted. So I thought, deep within my mind, about speed, about going fast, about moving along the ground. I then felt something, a connection to something of great power, deep within the bowels of our being, as it pushed towards our legs, and then fizzled out.
“Huh? What happened?” I inquired confused to the non cooperating magic.
“Maybe you imagined it wrong.” She stated, as though it was the simplest thing in the world. “I mean, you imagined going fast, and while that is the desired outcome, maybe you have to imagine what actually happens to make us go fast?”
“Well, its worth a shot.” I stated back, closing my eyes and starting to focus on that, on imagining the muscles in our legs pounding forwards and backwards like finely tuned pistons, pulling forward to land on the ground, pulling back to drag us forward, and exploding like a cannon behind us. I then felt that surreal connection again, as it moved downwards. I took up a position, hooves slightly forward, body lower to the ground. I could feel the magic flowing down our form, tingling with the cells it was bonding to, sending feelings of utter glee. With a shout and snapping my eyes open, I launched myself forward, moving faster than I have ever moved before, having accelerated in an instant, and yet, I felt in control. As I came to a turn, my mind automatically can up with the instructions. Spread the magic to the ground, tether ourself so we may turn, even at such a high speed. And that’s what it did. The magic responded, the crimson veil around our hooves spread to the ground as I dug into the ground to gain traction to turn, coming to a stop, before slamming myself forward once again.
“This is AMAZING” I whooped for joy, as we started running down a path to what I assumed was that apple farm(Sour Able Acres?) Twilight had told me about a few hours back.
“I’d say the speed we’re moving at equates to around 120 miles per hour” came Twilights voice in my head, which grew quieter as she was unsure of what to think. “That’s double our normal speed we were running earlier!”
it was at this point, we heard a filly’s scream come from the farmyard quickly approaching ahead of us, which sent us cold with the fear inside it, so I tried to make my way as quickly as I could to our new destination, leaping over the fence that cut off the rows upon rows of apple trees from the rest of the world, and ended up landing on top of the barnyard, but not before stopping the speed spell, and putting on the stealth spell(really need better names) in order to safely land on top of the barn without alerting anyone to our presence.
“That sounded like Apple Bloom!” Came the voice of Twilight, frantic in my mind, “I think I heard her come from below us! We have to help her!”
“And I plan to,” I told her as calmly as I could, with both my own panic rising, and hers at an all time high in our chest. “but we can’t panic, we have to do this right, and we have no second chances. I need your help in this seeing as we’re in this together, whether we want to be or not.”
“Alright, your right, no use getting worked up about it. We need to calmly and rationally approach this.” She said, most definitely calmer, but still not completely panic free.
“Extensive video game knowledge, don’t fail me now!” I whisper shouted to myself as I dropped down through a window onto the beams of the barn. From what I could see, there were about four, no wait, five wooden wolf things. One was outside, from what I could hear from its slow and steady heart beat. There was a filly, yellow fur and red mane and tale, with a mark of an apple backed by a tri-coloured shield. And, the main presence in the barn room below was the seeming mixture of a beast between an anthropomorphic pony and one of these wooden wolves. It stood on two legs and was a whopping 7 feet tall. That, and it was speaking, with the biggest mouth I have ever seen on something mammalian, and in real life.
“Alright, listen up you mutts! This here filly is a hostage. You are to make sure she doesn’t escape. She’s my insurance if things go wrong with the elders of this stinking family. I have your brother outside standing watch, so this would be easy for you useless excuses for Timberwolves” said the gruff voice of an obviously aged stallion, yet did not seem to old. He then proceeded to leave.
“We have to go after him!” muttered Twilight in my mind.
“While I’d normally agree, I believe saving this filly in here should be our top priority. If we go after him, he might try to escape and use apple bloom as a hostage to make him untouchable. In the long run, we’ll have to hope the apple family can hold out while we save apple bloom.” I tried to get across, using my gamers mind to properly plan out the task given before me. In my head it was along the lines of the big guy being a main objective, and apple bloom being secondary. One that would help in the main objective if I was to do it. The only problem was, I only had so much time with which to do this, and no retries. Meaning I had to do this flawlessly. “These things have blood right?”
“I suppose you’re right and yes, they do. Wait, what are you planning?” she asked, a hint of fear and suspicion in her voice.
“To suck the blood out of them till they’re unconscious in order to leave this as silently as possible.” I said, aligning myself above the one which was watching the other three, but had no-one watching its back. I then leapt of the beam onto the Timberwolf below, somehow landing on its shoulders before instantly snapping my head and fangs to its neck, causing it to instantly lock up, as its heartrate changed from slow and confident to panicky and erratic, and slowly its eyes closed. The feeling of the blood going down us was so amazing it was hard to stop at unconsciousness, but I managed to pull myself out. In order describe it, one would have to imagine their favourite drink, but mixed in with utter power, that seemed soooo addicting. I could also taste meat in the wolf’s blood. My magic caught and wrapped round the wolf as it fell to the floor unconscious, making its impact with the floor silent. I then proceeded to pick up the wolf and bring it up to the Worden beams above, something I was surprised I could do, even though it was not easy.
“Oof, what has this thing been eating?” I muttered, finally laying it balanced on the beam.
“I honestly don’t know what to say about what I just experienced” I heard twilight say, the disgust and want clear in her emotional control of the body. “I knew we would have to drink blood eventually, else fear the consequences, but I do not believe I was ready. I am really disgusted, yet it felt amazing, heck we feel amazing. Our coat even seems to have more life in it.”
“I know what you mean, and, if its any consolation, we didn’t kill him!” I muttered loudly, and maybe a bit too jovially. It was then that I noticed one of the other wolves had come to investigate the old one. So I reenacted the plan, and it worked to a dot. What’s that saying again? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it? I do believe so. I did not want to drink any more blood, out of fear of losing myself, so I decided for the second to last one to take the stealth spell off and jump on its head. This worked about as well as could be expected, knocking it out, and alerting the last wolf of my presence, who then proceed to turn around and get bucked in the face by my magically engineered cannon: my back hooves, induced with magic to give them the speed spell, just instead of speeding me up, the extra power was exerted on some beasts cranium, which caused it to howl in pain and crash into the barn wall, knocking it out.
The last wolf came in, snarling and growling, and actually looked quite terrifying, seeing as it was taller than me. By quite a bit. So I did the first thing that came to mind. I charged. Now this was actually a stupid idea, because even with the speed I was coming in at, I hadn’t had time to accelerate properly, so it just sorta swatted me to the side, taking a large gash out of mine and Twilights barrel. I heard two shouts of pain in her voice. One of which was my own.
One thing I should say about being cut deep by claw marks, is that it hurts, and I was hissing at the agony. I looked to our barrel, and saw something that horrified me. Three straight marks. Cutting deep. The Timberwolf started walking towards us when an idea came to mind. Mitosis. I started sending my now increased reserves of magic that also just took a major blow into enacting mitosis in that area. Expand the cell, double the chromosomes, split the cell. The crimson haze could be seen seeping from the wounds, as they visibly closed up. However, they would not close in time for the incoming Timberwolf.
As the Timberwolf was only 10 meters away I realized something. I still felt a magic connection to the blood outside of my body, like I could will it to travel there, and eject my minds will onto the now outside blood. Twilight must’ve noticed it too if her words were anything to go by.
“whatever it is you’re thinking of, just do it,” she muttered through the pain of our rapidly regenerating body, which, the regeneration in itself, was also painful. In response to her words, I merely grunted, and imagined vibrating spikes, stabbing through the wolf, overloading its senses, as I thought this, I felt something move away from me, and then watched as what I imagined came true, as the Timberwolf was stabbed by many sanguine needles, each shaking, and instantly falling down.
“Did…did…did you just kill it?” Twilight muttered, growing angry and fearful as the pain died off. I closed my eyes to focus on my ears and check.
“Six heartbeats, including the filly, sooooo nope” I laughed out, the slight stab in my side now a pleasant feeling in my mind. “So what should we do with Apple Bloom?”
“Well, seeing as there are no more wolves all the way to Ponyville, I’d suggest sending her to get the guards, while we try to deal with that….thing.” she said, as her fear and anger subsided, now turning to post battle relief and joy. “You really know what you’re doing don’t you?”
“I blame spending most of my time playing video games or watching them!” I shouted out. “Of course I know what I’m doing.” After getting my well deserved rest, I got up onto our four hooves and went straight to the quivering filly.
“Its alright Apple Bloom, the big bad wolves are gone and there are no more big teeth which are all the better to eat you with,” I say in an as soothing and calming voice I could make Twilight's do, which came out rather well actually. I was, of course, staying out of sight, letting a hoof or two show so she knew I was there, hoping that the darkness of the barn would hide the darker shades. It was hard for me to tell how dark the barn was exactly, considering to me it just looked liked it was all under a mildly blue light.
“A-a-are ya sure T-t-twilight?” she stuttered through the tears. Poor filly, this seems like it was quite traumatic for her. I could hear Twilight concur in our mind as she picked up on that thought.
“Yes, they quite have. Now then, I need you to be a brave little filly, and do something for me,” I started laying out, to which I heard her nod based on the wind currents and Twilight’s calculations. “I want you to run to Ponyville and get the guard, tell them that the Apple family is in danger, I will watch you go to make sure you are not being followed, and then will leave to help the Apples, okay?”
“Ah can do it Twilight.” She said, now feeling more confident at my reassurances.
“Good, now get going, and don’t look back! Gallop like the wind!” I shouted to her, which promptly moved her into action, as she ran out the barn door without looking back. I then proceeded to move out and watch her go, as I had promised.
“You handled that really well, you know, you’re not as talentless as you think you are,” my host said, in a truly honest fashion.
“………………………….Thanks” I merely say, already trying to focus on the task at hand, the stopping of…whatever the hell the thing is. However, being only human, and not confident enough in my skills as a *ahem* “vampony” to fight something the big, and I lacked weaponry in any other way. That’s when I got an idea. A very good idea. There was still a lot of blood on the ground after I was used as a scratching/thwacking post. So I collected it up together, and forged a weapon, by hardening the outside, but keeping the inside charged with magic by keeping it fluid, in order for the weapon to maintain shape and do other things I had yet to think of. By the end of it all, I had, held in my hooves, a black twin headed scythe known as the Caustacyst, a weapon from warframe.
“That looks effective, but I do hope you don’t plan on killing him unless completely necessary,” my host said, impressed by my feat of haemic engineering, but nervous at possible intentions.
“Relax, I don’t plan to, I blunted the normally sharp sides, so it deals more impact than slash based damage, however, the points are still sharp enough to be a puncture weapon” I stated, before laughing out at my own unrealized bad jokes. “Anyhow, we’ve got a big…thingy to hunt!” And thus we rushed off, out of the barn, and across the grasslands to the currently building apple residence, upon arrival, I saw to bodies on the floor, one, an orange coated made with a blond mane and tail was snapped against the fence, with many bruises and cuts along her body, supplying gore. I almost couldn’t see her mark of three apples amongst it all. Another was a sleeping old mare on a rocking chair, just on the porch, green in coat, and grey in mane and tail, a mark of a pie, somehow sleeping through the screams of the big monster and big red stallion, who looked majorly beat up, and had a mark of a green Apple cross-section. The big creature then punched the stallion in side of the face, just below the eye, sending him crashing across the ground. I saw the beast look with malicious intent. I heard my host scream to stop it.
“Hey! Ugly! Listen! Hey! Listen!” I shouted at the beast which caused it to turn around and sneer.
“Go away little pony. My fight is not with you. So if you value your life…” it said, as though the rest was clear.
“Too bad I don’t value my life in the slightest!” I smirked back, standing up on my hind hooves, flapping my wings to take away the pain on our spine and to help me balance, and used some blood to make magic claws with two fingers and one thumb on my forehooves, with which to actually grip my weapon, which I had held via oral methods by this point. At this height, I was around two feet smaller than my foe, so around five feet. He had big claws, big teeth, and what looked like wolverine claws unsheathing on the back of his hands. My guess is that he likes to play with his victims, showing the lack of use earlier.
“Alright, you asked for it!” he shouted as he started charging towards me, one arm in front to guard, the other bending back behind him and away in striking readiness.
“Oooo- I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” my host nervously muttered, so decided to reassure her in the best way possible.
“Not a clue,” I shouted, giddy and nervous for what I was about to do. Which is engage in combat. Ooooo, I’ve waited so long to do things like in video games.
“Wait-WH?!” was all she managed to screech out as I leapt forward, using my wings to glide towards my foe at high speed as to not have to touch the ground and strain this body anymore than it has to be, which of course turned my hosts screeching into screaming.
“OH LUNA! WE’RE GONNA DIE!” was what she shouted out in the short time it took for me and my foe to converge. As he was bringing through his ready strike, I put one hoof on the ground, leapt upwards putting our other hoof on our foes guarding hand, and spring boarding off of it in order to dodge his attack, and then leaned forward over his head, striking the twin heads of my scythe into his stomach area, ending in a bridge position as our rear hooves finished the front flip. This was extremely uncomfortable, painfully so, it was a wonder our spine hadn’t broken. I then saw the red veil of magic come over our forehooves as I started to life the scythe, him still attached, and could feel the strength running through my arms. It seemed to happen unconsciously, as if our body knew by instinct we needed this boost. It was successful and we ended up smashing him face first into the ground.
I proceeded to take the scythe back out of my now face planted for, and backed up a bit, ready to use my weapon induced longer range to my advantage, getting into a ready position with our left hooves forward, fore one up to block, and our right hooves back, the fore one holding the scythe, and my stance lower to the ground, wings still flapping. He then proceeded to get up.
“I think I figured him out,” my host started to explain, which, to be honest, was the boost of hope I needed after seeing him get up after what I just did to him. “He’s very much a brute force type of fighter. His attacks are straight and to the point, and while he may not hit all his attacks on nimbler opponents, he doesn’t need to, as a few good hits will knock them out due to the sheer force behind them. So he is very much slow, but powerful. I’ve got an idea, something I can only do due to your heightened senses.” I could literally feel the smirk she gave off saying this, and suddenly felt sorry for the for we were facing, as what little I had learnt of Twilight, I had learnt that when she felt confident, all shall quake in their little hoovsies at the judgement she brings. After cryptically saying you’ll understand soon enough, I noticed our for was charging straight towards us. However just before he started attacking, I could almost see a phantom of him attacking me as calculations assaulted my mind, telling me where exactly, how fast, how strong and areas of errors entered my mind. I moved out of the way as his attack came by rolling to his left, proceeding to then sweep him on his feet by pulling the scythe through his legs. He, of course, got up again, so I backed up and reassumed my ready position.
“I think it’s time we messed with our for,” I muttered to her, sending her my idea, in tribute to a bazaare anime. “I’ve got you all figured out!” I shouted, as calculations were forced through our brain as Twilight tried as quickly as possible to solve them, allowing me to act upon them. “Like next, you’re going to say ‘Oh really now?’”
“Oh really now?” He replied, a bit slow on the uptake.
“And now you’re going to say ‘How’re you doing that, you stupid brat!'” I continued to taunt, as calculations rammed them self through my mind, taking in heart rate, speech patterns, inflections, tone, and mood, and outputting his thoughts.
“How’re you doing that, you stupid brat!” he replied.
“’Stop that!’”
“Stop that!”
“’Now you’ve just made me mad, punk!’”
“Now you just made me mad, punk!” to which he then exploded in anger, and started rushing towards us, becoming all too predictable in his moves. Meaning that me and Twilight were dodging them flawlessly, and causing quite an annoyance with our weapon, wearing him down and bleeding him out, until my ears took their cue to leave, the sound of 8 or so pegasi, carrying restrictive crossbows, by what Twilight told me. So I decided to dissolve the haemic caustacyst, and my claws, and activate the speed spell, and run away and leave the detaining of the beast which was now left, kneeling in exhaustion, to the trained professionals. I decided to take the long way around to the castle, jumping and flying up to our room.
“Sheesh, with all this blood matting our fur, we will need to take a shower in the morning” I stated, a yawn escaping me.
“I refuse to let you make more work for me in the morning by caking our bed in blood, we are taking a shower now!” she stated firmly.
“But-“
“No buts” she commanded, and this I went off and took an awkward shower, which she also afterwards, regretted slightly. However, we were quickly cleaned up, and both of us said good night to each other, and fell into a deep sleep.