My heart skipped a beat, “W-what?”
“I said you can go home Chris, I would just need something specific to your world that doesn’t exist on Equis yet, of course this is a big decision so I would understand taking some time to fully think about it.” Twilight said.
Something that doesn’t exist in this world…. I… might have something like that but… I looked intensely at Twilight, “Can I come back?”
Twilight nodded slowly, slightly shrinking under my stare, “I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to.”
Fluttershy looked at me, fear evident in her eyes, “You… aren’t going to leave us are you?”
I shook my head, “I just want to say goodbye to everyone, properly. I’m finally getting the chance to do so and I won’t pass it up… I would, like for you all to come with me though.”
At this everyone had looks of shock, though those quickly morphed into ones of thought, the first one to speak up, unsurprisingly was Twilight, “I would love to go, explore a new world and learn about all of your technologies!”
“I’ll go anywhere you want me to Chris.” Shy said.
“I’d go but it all sounds boring, no magic or being able to fly, boo.” Rainbow said, lounging in her seat, the excitement and worry of me leaving wearing off.
I chuckled, “I dunno Dash, my world has vehicles that can go SEVERAL times the speed of sound and who knows, maybe opening a portal between us will flood magic into the world and you’ll be able to fly.”
That got her attention pretty quickly, “Several t-times the speed of s-sound?!” She was very excited now, my confirming nod just increased it before she realized how excited she was getting and quickly switched to her cool demeanor, “Yeah, sounds cool, I’ll tag along.”
“And I’d love to see the fashion of your world, it must be so diverse and I can barely begin to imagine what your world’s level of technology has done to influence it!” Rarity said, very openly showing her excitement.
“And I HAVE to be there, I have to throw a proper going away party for you and your first friends!” Pinkie said, bouncing in her seat happily.
“Well if the rest of the girls are going I s’ppose I can too.” Apple Jack said with a simple shrug.
“I mean if Twilight’s going I guess I don’t have much of a choice, some needs to make sure she doesn’t research herself into a coma.” Spike said with a laugh, only to be elbowed by said purple alicorn.
“Can I go too big sis please?” Applebloom asked her big sister.
“I dunno….” AJ said, thinking, clearly worried her sister already missed too much school as is, but she looked at the big pouty eyes that her younger sibling was giving her and sighed, “Fine, but ya gotta get permission from your teacher.” Applebloom smiled happily at her response, knowing she could get her teacher to say yes.
Sweetie Belle looked expectantly at her sister after this and Rarity told her she could, since she didn’t want to leave Sweetie at home alone. Of course Scoots wanted to go if her best friends were going and Rainbow had no objections whatsoever.
I looked over to the main subjects of even why today happened, “So what about you, Bon Bon, Lyra?”
Bon Bon was silent for a minute, thinking, “I’m not sure, the store needs to be looked after…”
Lyra whined, very clearly wanting to go, “Bonnie, we were going to remodel the store anyways, we can use that time to go with them.”
Bon Bon sighed, “Fine I guess we can go.”
Lyra fist pumped and kissed her wife in thanks, causing Bon Bon to groan but smile.
Bee spoke up, “As much as we would love to, we need to head back home soon… we should also check up on Zephyr.” Dipper nodded in agreement. I understood and told them such, thanking them for coming today anyways.
The other royals basically all had the same reason of they had kingdoms to run but they would love to receive pictures if we could take any and of course I obliged, after all cameras aren’t too hard to come across.
After all that was said and done we got to the main reason why today happened, acquiring Bon Bon and Lyra’s shop for my own so I could allow them to expand and have more than enough bits to raise their foal that's on the way. Long story, and a lot of boring details, short I now own Bon Bon and Lyra, i give them a stipend at the end of every month for a good amount and they pay me in candy for taxes, mind you Bon Bon said she’d give me free candy anyways and I declined but we went back and forth long enough that we settled on them donating to a charity of their choice and that pleased everyone.
I stood up and looked over to Twilight, “Hey Twi, you said you needed something from my old home right?” She nodded for confirmation, “Cool I’ll be back in a couple of minutes. Shy, did you keep my clothes from when i first got here?”
“Yes, I put everything that was left here in the attic.” She said.
“Ok good, Yeah I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I said going to the balcony we were on several minutes ago.
I heard scrambling behind me and hooves moving quickly across the floor before a cyan and rainbow mess was in front of me, a bit too close for comfort, causing me to take a large step back.
“Yes Rainbow?” I asked the tomboyish pegasus.
He looked up at me with fire in her eyes, “Are you going to fly to your house?”
I raised an eyebrow, “Yes, that was the plan, why?”
She got a wicked smile, “I want to race you.”
Ok now the eagerness made sense, “Are you sure? I do tend to cheat using my powers.”
Rainbow scoffed, “Please I can beat you regardless.”
I shrugged, “Alright don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She fist pumped, “Yes! Ok, rules are first to Shy’s house and back win.”
“Fair enough but i need to look through the attic though so I’’d say until I find what I’m looking for we aren’t allowed to start heading back to Canterlot.” I added.
“Alright alright, let's just get this started.” She said impatiently, stretching while doing so.
I also took that moment to stretch, several joints popping, ah that felt great, “Hey can someone come and do a countdown for us?” I called out.
“Alright Alright, gimme a hot second.” Applejack said, walking up to us and stopping at the railing of the balcony, “Alright, this is a fair race, no rough housing or trap laying, looking at you Rainbow.” The pegasus stuck her tongue out at the farm pony, “Good, now on ‘go’, 3… 2… 1… GO!”
Rainbow Dash rocketed of the balcony like, well, a rocket speeding towards the edge of Canterlot Mountain.
I just shook my head and walked calmly to the railing on the balcony and climbed it, “She’s way too into this.”
“Well its Rainbow, what do ya expect? Now if I were ya, I’d take this seriously too, she’d never forgive ya if ya didn’t.” AJ said, clearly knowing her competitive friend very well.
I nodded, looked down, it was quite a drop to the courtyard below…. Maybe 90 or 100 feet, should be enough. I looked back at everyone and saluted before jumping into a flip off the building, transitioning into a dive and right before i hit the ground I spread my wings out having them catch the air and sending me straight up several feet above the city and having me go forward at a reasonable speed, nowhere near as fast as me flapping but I wanted to enjoy this little glide before i truly got going.
‘Hey Ixis, make sure that none of my whole, time freezing happens for the race ok?’ I asked the dragon turned mental and magical construct.
+Are you sure about that? You won’t win if I do.+ He explained.
‘Yeah, I want to see what I can do without it.’
+Alright, I understand that, I’ll keep it in check.+
I nodded my thanks and looked at the city below me. It was beautiful honestly, an entire city made of pristine marble and gold accents, or at least this area, I looked far off to the left and saw another district of the city where most of the buildings were composed of midnight blue stone that looked almost like obsidian with silver accents. The city was made to resemble Celestia and Luna, no surprise there, as I got closer to the edge of the city and more towards the mountain there was a large wall protecting a sheer drop off, the only holes in the walls allowing the train to come and go.
Once I was far enough from the city’s wall I gave a powerful flap, gaining speed and closing distance to the rainbow dot in the horizon quickly, with one more flap I got close enough to Rainbow to be able to talk to her, “Hey skittles! Going a bit slow aren’t ya?!”
Rainbow jerk for a second, clearly surprised by me just showing up out of nowhere, “Woah, dude, you surprised me and it took you long enough to catch up!”
I laughed, “Sorry I was just enjoy the view of Canterlot!”
“Figured a newbie flyer like you would be caught up in the sights! Well now that you’re here and ready to take this seriously I can too!” She said with a grin and a laugh.
“You know it! Now get out of my way slowpoke!” I said flapping again, gaining even more speed, the trees below me blurring and I could hear rainbow shouting from behind me before she sped past me. I barely caught her saying ‘Who’s slow now huh?’
I smirked, well guess I better give her a proper show, I dove down towards the trees at an angle to gain even more speed, the trees now just blending into one mass of green, I kept this speed for a bit, staying close to the trees so I could land at the house sooner, but Rainbow was still a good distance way despite me going at least… I actually have no idea how fast I was going.
+I would say, close to…. 250 miles maybe more.+ Ixis said.
‘Thanks miss speedometer.’
I actually never realized how far Ponyville was from Canterlot but it’s quite far, and Rainbow was still getting further away, I grunted and pushed myself harder, gaining more and more speed until one of my wings clipped a tree that was a bit taller than the rest. That quick clip send me tumbling into the Everfree and crashing through several trees until I slammed into the ground, luckily I only suffered a few scrapes, thank you dragon durability.
I groaned as I stood up and was getting ready to take off before someone rhyming caught my attention.
“Christopher is that you? It has been far too long, so please be true.” It was Zecora, I haven’t seen her… in years.
“Hey Zecora, and yeah It’s me.” I greeted the zebra.
“Oh it is good to see you my friend, but what has brought you to such an end?” She said gesturing to the debris and hole in the ground.
“Oh, racing Rainbow Dash, one of my wings clipped the trees up top and down I went.” I explained.
Zecora looked me up and down, “It is not just wings, but also horns and a tail I see, this is most intriguing to me.”
“I… yeah, It’s a loooooong story, I’ll tell you about it later, I promise, I need to catch up with you all anyways.” I said stretching once more. “But I have a race to get back to, it was good seeing you again, be careful out here, but I don’t need to tell you that.” I gave the zebra a hug, which she happily returned. I gave her a smile before stepping back a few feet and flying straight up out of the trees and zooming off towards Ponyville once more.
Damn I spent way too much time down there, I can’t even see Rainbow… but I could see Ponyville, I sighed, oh well there’s still the second half of the race. I flew for about 2 more minutes before I landed outside of my home, Rainbow already there, standing with her hands on her hips and a cocky grin plastered on her face.
“What took you so long?” She asked.
“Wing clipped a tree went spiraling into the forest, saw Zecora.” I said.
She suppressed a laugh, “Well are you ok dude? I know how bad clipping your wing on something can be.”
“Yeah I’m good, super durable and all that. Anyways, give me a couple of minutes to find what I need.” I said as I opened the door to my house only to hear a small bang go off, which made me instinctually put my wings up in front of me as a shield, I felt several hard things impact and bounce off them and once it was done I unfolded my wings from in front of me to see dozens of sharpened carrots on the ground and an angry bunny standing in front of me.
“Angel… the fuck dude?” I asked the bunny, he shrugged and thumped his foot on the ground several times, “Yeah I know you need to protect the house while we’re gone but don’t you think sharpened carrots are a bit much?” He shook his head and thumped his foot on the ground again, “Alright fair point but what if the CMC stop by or a friend or something, can we change it to like I dunno something that's softer and still would be able to deter people?” He took a second to think about it and then nodded and thumped his foot again. “Yeah, we’ll be back soon don’t worry.” At that the bunny hopped away to a separate room in the house.
Rainbow looked at me like I sprouted a second head, “You can understand that demon bunny?”
“Yeah, it took a bit but Shy helped me out with it. And he’s not that bad when he gets used to you.” I said defending him.
Rainbow snorted, “Whatever you say, so where’s the attic?”
“I… actually don’t know… Hey Angel, where’s the attic?” I called out, only to get faint thumps in response.
“What did he say?”
“He either said ask your spiky ball or task the trike fall… it’s hard to understand when its muffled like that, but I think I know what he was talking about. Hedgy, you in the house?!” I called out. I heard small scratching against the floor coming from upstairs before small hedgehog popped up at the top of the stairs, “Hey bud, how are you?” The hedgehog made some sniffing sounds before rolling in a ball and bouncing down the stairs and when he reached the bottom he uncurled and i picked him up, “Oh really? Well that sounds fun, you find your special hedgehog yet?” He shook his head and sniffed a bit, “Ah, well take your time, it’ll happen, Angel said you know where the attic is?”
He nodded and sniffed some more, “Really the guest room? What a weird place for it but alright.” I put my hedgehog on my head and he curled up in my hair.
“Aaaaaaand you can understand your hedgehog too, why am I not surprised?” Rainbow said sighing.
I looked at her curiously, “Should you be? Anyways, like I said give me a few minutes.” I made my way upstairs to the guest room and opened the hatched door to the attic, pulling the ladder down, when I made my way into the attic I blanched at all the stuff up here, “How'd she even get all this over from the cottage and up here?” Hedgy sniffed some, explaining what happened, “Oh ok, that makes sense, remind me to thank AJ and Big Mac… uh actually do you know where the box of my stuff is at?” He crawled off my head and moved in between a split between two large piles of boxes. I followed him to see him standing on a very large box that was stored up here and was marked, ‘The love of my life.’
‘Oh my god, my heart… i think it just stopped for a second.’
+It did, I had to start it back up pretty quick.+
I snorted, “Ok lets see if what I need is in here…” I opened up the box and dug around before I found the pajama pants I arrived in and dug through the pockets, “Aha, got it.” I pulled out my old phone, never really needed it until now so yeah just left it alone, I pocketed it and sealed up my pocket with a layer of ice so the phone won’t fall out flying back. I closed the box back up, picked up Hedgy and put him on my head and climbed out the attic. I closed it up and headed down stairs, taking Hedgy off my head and sitting him on the floor, I called Angel over as well and he came hopping over giving me a look.
“What?” I asked him, he thumped his foot in response, “Sorry, i’ll let you go back to reading in a second, I’m heading back to Canterlot but we should be home later tonight or early tomorrow ok?” Angel thumped his foot in acknowledgement before hopping away. Hedgy sniffed a few times, getting my attention, “Yeah I’m ok buddy, I’ll tell you about when we get home ok? Make sure Angel doesn’t do anything too crazy, yeah?” My pet nodded his head before shuffling off to the same room Angel was in.
I walked outside and closed the door, finding dash laying on the roof sunbathing, “Hey Dash I’m good to go.” I called up to her.
She sat up and jumped off the room, using her wings to break her fall, “Finally, alright let's go, even though I doubt you’ll be able to win, given your performance getting here.”
“Hey to be fair I wasn’t using my powers.” I told her.
“What why not, you weren’t taking this seriously were you?! Having pity on me?!” She asked, clearly upset.
I held up my hands in defense, “What? No, I just wanted to see how hard I could push myself without it.”
She glared at me, before looking away, “I guess I get that… but I want you to go all out this time, it’s the only way I can push myself.”
I nodded, “Alright, I can do that for you.”
+Also it would be good to help you learn to control this yourself and help you push past your limits too.+ Ixis said.
‘Yeah yeah, by the way how much power can we use in this without passing out when it’s done?’ I asked her.
+About….. 80% You won’t pass out but you will need to rest.+
“I’ll rest on the train.” I said out loud, “Alright Rainbow, let’s get ready to rock.” I crouched down on all fours, digging my hands and feet into the dirt, “Hope you don’t mind me pulling out all the stops this time.”
“I’d beat you into the ground if you didn’t” She Said with a laugh.
I smirked, “I bet you would, alright on go… 3.”
“2!”
“1.”
“GO!” We both said, and just like last time Dash was the first of us to go and she was even faster than last time.
+Damn look at her go, It’s gonna take a while before frozen time is at full running…. Or as full running as it can be at 80%. But it is going so you should be able to catch up the longer this goes.”
I nodded, wound up my tail in a coil and angled it beneath me, I tensed up my arms and legs and then literally launched myself off at near breakneck speeds, keeping my wings tucked in so I could get as far as I could with just the launch, I formed a cone of ice in front of me as well to break the air in front of me making even less resistance, with all of this combined and with frozen time beginning to kick into effect I shot past Rainbow at even speeds she would gawk at, I actually made it little over half way doing that and as i was starting to slow down I thrust out forward while sinning slight, getting just a bit more distance and then I flared my wings open and pushed forward with a powerful flap. I looked behind me to barely see Rainbow in the distance.
+Does it look like she stopped to you?+ Ixis asked.
‘To be honest I wasn’t paying super amounts of attention.’ I replied, focusing on getting to Canterlot.
+That’s fair and by the way you’re running at maximum… well maximum 80% anyways.+
‘Cool, thanks Ixis.’ I pushed onward more and decided to glance back one more time, only to find that i couldn’t see Rainbow at all, but before I even got the chance to wonder where she went I heard an ear splitting blast and my vision was blinded by colors, causing me to stop for a few seconds.
+What in the world?+ Ixis asked.
I didn’t have time to answer as I saw something technicolored seeding towards me at speeds I wish I could describe, but as she passed me I caught a glimpse of her face, she was laughing and having a great time, and honestly I was too, but I wasn’t about to let her outdo me.
‘Hey is there anything we can do to match that?’ I asked Ixis.
She hesitated for a second, +Well… there is one thing.+
‘Lay it on me Ice Queen.’ I have so many random nicknames for her.
She groaned, but she told me what she had in mind.
‘Alright… sounds interesting. I’ll give it a shot.’ Since I was already hovering in mid air all i had to do to pull of what she told me was take in all of my available power I was using to slow down time slightly and bring it to the core of my being. I closed my eyes and focused, concentrating, drawing all of my magic power into the core of my being. I could feel it building and swirling deep inside of myself, I then took a deep breath, exhaled and open my eyes, only to have them be a blinding white.
“ICE DRAGON’S FROZEN TIME!!!!” I yelled out, a shockwave of pure ice draconic magic releasing from my body, slowing everything down to a near crawl, remember this was only 80%. I looked around and honestly I was stunned, I had this kind of power at my disposal? I was a monster of massive proportions, but i had no time to dwell on it, I shook my head to clear my thoughts and looked forward on and was stunned even more by what I saw, Rainbow was still going an impressive speed… although it looked like my max speed without using powers. I smiled, well this is going to be a close race indeed. I stating flapping as hard as i could and I eventually caught up to Rainbow.
I looked at her and smiled, she was shocked at first but shot me a smile back before flapping and pushing slightly forward. Oh so she still has some push to give, good, so did I I flapped even harder, pushing slightly ahead of her, and it was like that for the last stretch of the race, neck and neck back and forth until we reached Canterlot and the castle it's when my magic started to wear off and Rainbow started pulling ahead further and further until she landed on the balcony about 45 seconds before me. I landed and was panting heavily, my tongue hanging out my mouth, oh yeah I forgot about that my tongue actually changed too, it was similar to a snakes but about the thickness of a normal tongue all the way through. It was weird but I dealt with it.
“Oh man, i haven’t been this tired since I had to deal with the Saddle Arabian’s Festival of Water.” I said laughing, though it came out more as a wheeze.
Rainbow actually was just as bad off as I was now that I looked at her, “You’re telling me, i haven’t flown that hard ever, I actually never flapped my wings in the middle of a sonic rainboom.”
+Is that what that was?+ Ixis asked.
‘I guess so, makes sense a mix of shattering the light spectrum and sound barrier.’ I said back.
“But man, how did you catch up, did it have to do with that wave of freezing magic you sent out?” Rainbow asked.
“Wait you felt that?”
Celestia stepped up, “We all felt that Chris, as Rainbow Dash said, what exactly was that?”
“It was… hoooo… hold on….” I bent over and took a deep breath.
“Do you require some water?” Celestia asked, I nodded and she had some water brought over for me and some for Rainbow as well.
I chugged down probably about half a gallon of water before I was able to talk without taking pauses to catch my breath, but I still sat down on the ground and crossed my legs, “Ok ok, so that was Ice Dragon’s Frozen Time, as the name says I literally freeze time, I don’t know how far it reaches but I’m assuming t effects the planet’s magic so it doesn’t mess up one nation or area of the planet.”
“Well that's a bit overpowered don't ya think?” AJ said.
I laughed, a proper laugh at that, “Fun part is, that was only 80% strength so really everything was only slowed down immensely through my perspective, though I’m guessing for you all it just seemed like my speed output increased dramatically?” I got nods, confirming my theory, “Cool… downside to using that though, i can’t use it again, or any strong ice magic or draconic ice magic for a few days to weeks depending on how much power I put into it I’ll actually be out of commission on stronger spells for a while so not too overpowered.” I melted the ice covering my pocket and dug out my cell phone, “Here Twi, this is from my world, It should work.”
Twilight took it from me and examined it, “What is it?”
“It’s a phone, a mobile one, connects to man made satellites in the sky back in my world to talk to anyone anywhere in the world, can do a lot more but that’s all that matters, will that work though?” I asked.
She nodded, completely enamored by my phone, “Yes it should, it’ll take me about a week to figure out the how to connect this and the portal together though.”
“That’s fine, actually…. Hey Celestia, R&D, are they busy with anything other than helping twilight with the portal?” I asked the Sun Princess.
“Well Inquiry will be helping Twilight but I believe that Ontogeny would help you with whatever you need.” She said.
“I can take you to them Sir Christopher, I am most intrigued to see what you would ask of them.” Luna said.
I stood up and stretched, “That would be nice, thank you.”
Fluttershy came up to me, “I’m going to head home with the rest of the girls ok? Don’t take too long.”
I gave her a kiss, “I won’t I promise.” I walked up to her parents, “Bee, Dipper it was good meeting you and thank you for coming today.”
Dipper smiled and pulled me into a hug, “No problem son, you’re family.”
Bee giggled at her husband’s antics, “He’s right Chris, you’re family and you’re welcome over whenever you feel.”
“I will, thank you.” I turned back to the girls, “I’ll see you all when I get back home, make sure you prepare to stay for awhile!” I called out to them before heading off with Luna to R&D or should I say I&O hey hey!