//------------------------------// // Ch7, Shila // Story: CSR Philadelphi // by shysage //------------------------------// Fall Star led us around, then back out the door, and we were walking back up the ramp that was the Unicorn horn shape around the outer side of this strange tower called central, that could be seen from miles away. There may be a better way to say that, but this huge building, called central, it looked like a Unicorn horn! We were going up still, but Fall Star explained. "The magic review deck is the highest level of central that we have access to. Docs that we have cryptically explain that the magical stores are in the floors above, and we have no access to them, no doors or anything. We don't have any idea what the magical stores even are. The magic review deck right below is the closest we can get. Well, the ramp continues most of the way up to the top, but is probably more for observation only. And the view closer to the top is not very good." Fall Star stopped here because we turned and walked through a large doorway with no door, and were soon in the room she referred to as the magic review deck. "I try to check in here at the start and the end of every day. I don't know if there is anything I can even do, but... Well, this is the closest thing to a magical status deck... And that is my department..." Fall Star sighed. I think the magical energy keeping Philadelphi... alive... That probably dwarfed the magical ability of even the strongest Unicorn. I felt... Fall Star felt dwarfed by that too. I hugged her, and I knew she was working hard to avoid crying. I looked around the room briefly; there wasn't much here, mostly open space. And windows lined almost the entire outside wall of this room too, just like the floor below. There was a large, round support pillar or something in the center of this clearly circular room. It had some sort of decoration on the surface, a moth or something, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. The only other object in this room was a large glass orb, or something, easily feet in diameter, resting in the air a short distance above the floor, glowing. It looked green to me. Just as I thought that, Fall Star looked at that orb too, and a look of concern quickly swept across her face. Fall Star walked over to it right away. "This shouldn't be..." Almost as quickly, Fall Star pulled her panel out from her back... worked... "Magical reserves, 6%... That can't be... How..." After saying this slowly, Fall Star looked stunned as she just stared at the large orb. Just then, Terrabelle and Shysage walked in the door behind us. Shysage froze in his tracks, and Terrabelle started talking right away. "Wow, something is wrong... The v-tran took forever to get us up--" Terrabelle was close enough to see the large orb by then, and she gasped. Terrabelle was immediately staring intently into the small screen thing connected to her cap, clearly concentrating, scanning... Terrabelle stopped abruptly, and said quietly "Princess, please touch the orb." Fall Star... Well, she was afraid, I think, maybe terrified. Terrabelle said again, a little louder "Princess... You need to touch the orb to bring up the magical system monitor orbs..." Fall Star didn't move, so I walked over to her and hugged her. She only slowly raised her hoof and touched the orb. "I can't... do... anything..." Fall Star said, slowly louder... But her touching the big orb brought 8 other smaller orbs up, also floating feet above the floor, in a line, beyond the large orb. Terrabelle was quickly... "Princess, magic reserves at 4% and dropping rapidly... Terrabelle was still scanning, studying docs quickly, I think... "Right hand orb is v-tran..." Well, it was mostly red. Terrabelle looked up briefly, then said quietly "Well, no wonder..." But most of the orbs were slowly getting more and more red. Terabelle... "Left hand orb is... the canopy..." I think we all felt a distinct pain in our ears, which I could only clear by popping... "Princess, the canopy... is... failing..." Just then, the floor swayed, forcing us to all re-balance... Shysage said quietly... "Spin is slowing down. I think we are slowly falling... tilting..." Terrabelle, still trying to stay standing up, sighed... "Yes..." Fall Star screamed what she felt... "I... can't... do... anything..." What Spring Star did next... Growing up with my sister Fluttershy(1)... Loud noises scared her, even if she made them herself... She never screamed... But I always knew... When my Sis let out a quiet "eeeppp" I knew she was scared to death(2). Spring Star did that twice. I was quickly crying, loudly. And we could hear many more screams now... in central... from ponies below... The floor under us... Philadelphi... continued to tilt... slowly... Chaos... More screaming... Crying... ...Panic... Shysage said quickly "Summer, the Prowtase(3)..." That meant nothing to me... I didn't move, and kept crying... Soon, none of us would even be able to stand up... none of us would even be alive... Time stood still... I was pretty sure we would all die quickly... My ears hurt more... The next thing I knew, my Shysage was standing right in front of me, as the handsome man he is... Our eyes met, and, in the din of the surrounding chaos, I just couldn't look away from my man. Like a night buried far in the past, Shysage was the only one(4) I could sense... Shysage slowly bent over, took one of my front hooves in his hand, changed me into a people, and helped me stand up. Holding on to the hand he had picked me up with, Shysage led me over to that central piller with the funny inverted sculpture. I looked over at Shysage. He said quietly "I think Philadelphi needs the Shila..." Even before he was done saying that, I had spun up my mark, and had huge wings, a Unicorn horn, that low rumbling... Around us chaos... louder... Still, I was looking only at Shysage. I couldn't do anything else. Everything was a nightmare around us... He walked me carefully right up to that wierd inverted sculpture, and said gently "arms forward..." then he eased me up against that sculpture. It wasn't a moth... It was... me... Philadelphi began pulling Phantom Alicorn magic from my hands even before I touched anything. Slowly, gently, Shysage put his hand on my back, and eased me up against the transfer plate, he called it later. Philadelphi took over, I think. Nothing hurt, but I felt... And, just like the Portal(5), Philadelphi sped my mark up even more... With Shysage slowly rubbing my back, I just stood there... helping... recharging... Philadelphi... I didn't have any trouble standing up straight, but Shysage explained later that, soon after I began the recharge, Philadelphi re-acquired geostationary, leveled out, and the rotation returned. He said the canopy orb was the first one to return to green, then, one at a time, Philadelphi resumed operation of the magical subsystems that made Philadelphi work, that allowed Philadelphi's ponies to live... There was still noise around me, but I could tell... Everypony was crying... slowly quieter... Terrabelle... "Magical stores; 180%... 250%... 330%..." She slowly marked off the replenishment of the magical stores of Philadelphi, far beyond 100%. And, I could not see anything, just the dull gray surface of the transfer plate, just beyond my face. But I felt, I sensed a huge glowing orb taking up most of the space above us, inside this strange structure that was central. There were no windows, but I could clearly see... Electric blue-white streamers running up from me, well from the transfer plate, then scattering, spreading amazingly all over the surface of that orb... The whole orb was... red, to orange... blue, white... slowly glowing brighter... brighter... Time passed so slow for me... Nothing hurt; I was merely a channel anyway... The next thing I knew, Shysage had put both of his hands around my waist, and pulled me slowly away. He asked quietly for me to un-spin my mark, which I did. Then he sat down on the floor, holding me up, and I sat down, then I curled up in his lap, and cried quietly as he hugged me tightly. Eyes shut tight, I only slowly realized that I was not the only one crying... Spring Star, Winter Star, Fall Star and Terrabelle were laying on their bellies facing Shysage and I. We cried quietly together for a while. Winter Star got up as soon as she could, I think. "Better get to work..." she said quietly, then she headed out. I was sure she probably had a huge mess to clean up. Next, I heard Terrabelle... "Princess, can I do a doc about this? I got a bunch of pictures..." Fall Star smiled, then nodded, but was then quickly in thought. Then she spoke softly "Well, I hope we don't need to do that again for a long time. That was just scary... And having you right here at the time..." Terrabelle... "That charge should last 250 generations by my estimate..." she said thoughtfully. Fall Star smiled. "Part of me wants to still be freaked out that we almost fell on Equestria, onto your Ponyville(1)... But really, we brought you here at the perfect time, I guess." Terrabelle was still thinking. "Princess, I think we should add a note to operationals that the magical reserves gauge is clearly non-linear below 20%..." Fall Star smiled. "Terrabelle, I don't know what we would do without you..." Terrabelle blushed, then put her head down. "Just trying to help out, Princess..." Waiting for a lull in talking, Spring Star said quietly "Summer, I think I want to adopt you as my sister..." That made us both cry again. As it began to get dark outside, lights came on in this room. I think we were mostly done crying, and Shysage had me get up, then he got up, and we hugged again right away. Still a people, Shysage led me and Terrabelle over to my imprint thing on the center column. Fall Star and Spring Star followed. Shysage asked quietly "Terrabelle, can you take a picture of that?" He meant the letters above that imprint thing. Shysage knew it meant Prowtase; I guess he recognized the letters. They didn't look like modern Equestrian letters at all. With Terrabelle's cap thing, that picture was quickly taken. Terrabelle then mentioned "I should add that to the doc, too." Shysage wasn't done. "Terrabelle, can you do some sort of query, to find out if Philadelphi has any information on that word?" Terrabelle was deep in thought, before doing anything else. "Well, I can try..." Terrabelle worked at her cap thing a little while. "I don't know..." After a brief delay, Terrabelle said "Oh, wait... This..." Then, after another brief delay, Terrabelle sighed. "Access denied, doc restricted to LS status." Fall Star smiled. "Terrabelle, forward it to my panel. It should be LS1-P1." Terrabelle worked quickly, then said "Done, Princess." Fall Star said "Thank you Terrabelle... Ok, there it is." then "What query did you use?" Terrabelle answered without even thinking. "Language parse should bring it up." It was a little while before Fall Star said anything. She was looking, studying, reading... Then with an air of almost disbelief... "Summer... How did... The Shila? It cross-referenced to that, and... brought up a long time-line, dates when you... Wait... Y.O.E. 0? Summer, how did you..." Wow, that last reference hurt... just like it was yesterday(6)... I was still a people, and I just sat down where I was and cried quietly. Shysage quickly sat behind me and pulled me into his people lap again, hugged me tightly, and we cried together... That was an amazing day for Equestria(1), but hurt so bad for Shysage and I... Wow, I suddenly felt so tired, so emptied... I was sure Spring Star could feel how I felt; she was crying softly, too. Fall Star said quietly "Summer, I'm sorry... I don't have any idea what happened then... But evidently, looking at the timeline, Equestria(1) has leaned heavily on your powers a number of times... That... is amazing..." I couldn't talk, but Shysage said quietly "There have been steep costs at times, Princess..." Fall Star sighed... "I guess I can only imagine..."