It had been about two months since I had that creepy experience as my sister thanks to poison joke. It may have not been a big deal to some because they would like to be that happy and spontaneous, but for Celestia’s sake I had a rep to maintain becoming the mare juggernaut was not easy darn it. As people and ponies say it's hard to build a rep it's easy to ruin it. It's been a little while since I spoke about my dojo. Everypony in said dojo were advancing at a good pace Rainbow Dash barely passed to get her orange belt. But afterwards I had to scold her a bit about proper rest I know she had experience with karate but the teachers were poor at best and complete morons the worst. Not giving your body the proper rest from physical exertion was paramount to suicide.
Luckily Rainbow understood and promised she would slow down a little and follow proper guidelines to Kung Fu. Derpy surprisingly joined the class a little while ago. Apparently she felt that these skills would help in areas such as lower Manehatton where the more rough and tumble ponies tended to live. She wouldn't be wrong it would help for that. She was up to green belt despite barely starting she was a prodigy in the art.
Big Macintosh also joined the class to help defend the farm with my friend AppleCider. They both showed extreme determination. They were both yellow belts not impressive sure but with the shere will power they put forth I could imagine that they could go up the ranks quickly.
But off of that topic, short I know but It’s been a while but anyway. Over the past few days I felt a sense of foreboding for two reasons. One: the Grand Galloping Gala was in a month and that was when Celestia would spring her horrible trap for me. Two: you ever feel as if your doom was approaching but you couldn’t put your finger on why? That was what I was feeling now
And because of that I have been looking around everywhere trying to find the thing that was causing me to have these feelings. But it seemed no matter where I looked I couldn’t find what was causing this feeling. The only time I had felt this before was a horrible family event
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ten years ago
Pie family farm
I remember the beginning of the event like it was yesterday. We had plenty of good rocks harvested to sell. We also grew plenty of gemstones which made the bulk of our bits back then. We sold stone for everything from wall building to foundation. It was actually quite an interesting and complicated process growing rocks. What I didn't know at the time was that the rocks in equestria were not normal. They were a little biological the rocks we grew started out as little pebble like seeds.
Which when planted in the ground that was enriched with magic grew into larger more tough rocks. Though the interesting thing about this process was that the pebble seeds didn't have variety. They all were the same you got the different rocks depending on where you planted that pebble seed. The ground was full of magic that's true but it had all kinds of different magic. Which when it came in contact with said pebble seed would mutate the pebble into different rocks and gemstones. But believe it or not (I didn’t at the time) pebble seeds had a plant by date. If it wasn’t planted before that time the rocks became useless. Growing cracked or chipped meaning they had to go to the rock break pile.
Which all of us had a turn in breaking the rocks. Because for some reason unlike rocks on earth the pebble seeds were inside the rocks like a piece of fruit. Which then were ready to plant again. Anyway the whole process went like this. We would first plant the pebble seeds we were on all kinds of terrain from desert to grass land to forest. Plant a seed in the forest and you got stone such as granite or basalt. Granite for smooth large squares put to use in making stone walls. The basalt for the base roof layer, before they put the hay on the roof for insulation. In the desert you got gneiss and sandstone.
Gneiss was used for road paving while sandstone could be used for outdoor patios. The grassland held magic that made that pebble seed turn into limestone used in blast furnaces that blacksmiths used in there forge. It also gave us marble used in the construction for many of the buildings in canterlot. If you planted a seed in the ground in a lake it would give us sapphires if we planted a seed then built a fire pit over it and kept that fire going then we would grow rubies. Enough oxygen and pressure and we would grow diamonds. The only things to my knowledge that we didn’t grow were amethysts and onyx. Because the amethysts required saturation from not only the lands magic but a unicorn's magic as well. The other required the same except it also needed to be saturated in black magic which we were not willing to mess with. Though the really rare gems were risky to try and procure fire rubies required a bunch of steps that required patience and luck. The steps for a fire ruby were as follows
Step one: plant the seed near or under a source of fire, keep fire stoked and hot.
Step two: let steep for a period of five to six months letting it transform into a base ruby (this was the step my family usually stopped on)
Step three: unearth ruby and put immediately into heat magic box to keep ruby from setting into permanent ruby base.
Step four: if fire that is over ruby begins glowing blue or white skip step three and keep fire going and put ruby into flames. Ruby should absorb all of the flames transforming it into fire ruby. (this was rare because magic was quite twitchy. Wild magic does what it wants if it feels like making a fire ruby it will make a fire ruby) if fire does not change put fire out and unearth ruby, put in fire magic box. Be wary only other way to make fire ruby is bathing it in mature dragons fire. This is especially risky as mature dragons can be quite aggressive when anypony goes into a dragons territory.)
Those were the steps and we just weren’t willing to risk anypony using the dragons method and we just did not have enough resources or time to wait for fire to turn blue or white. anyway we would then allow the rocks to saturate with magic and when a few weeks past we would unearth them to then we would check the rocks or gemstones for purity the bad going on the break pile, the good going in the many baskets we would then put on a cart ready to go to Trotsville for selling and processing and sending to construction projects across Equestria. Or in the case of the gemstones to many jewelers and enchanters. That particular summer that led to my phobia. The mental association of equestria named in spritephobia the acute fear of parasprites. What people didn’t know was that yes parasprites ate food and multiplied like crazy but they also ate magic if they couldn’t find food. I was about fourteen at the time. I had the forest plain unearthing the granite for a big shipment to Fillydelphia. Now this was where a lot of my boosted strength came from.
Big granite blocks weighed quite a lot at least six tons. It built up my strength fast. I had unearthed my fifteenth block of granite when I saw it. A strange little bug was sitting on top of one of my granite blocks. It had a round spherical body, Big compound eyes short stubby legs and transparent wings. It chirped at me now normally any girl who sees something like that. With its cute look would squee before taking it home but me? One look at it and I knew something was wrong. I tried returning to my work but the insect kept chirping at me. Annoyed I turned to tell the insect off when I saw what would begin my family's nightmare. It leaned over a bit and sucked the magic right out of the granite causing it to crumble. Then it looked like it was going to puke before it opened its mouth and another insect came out!
Those two insects then went to two other granite blocks before sucking the magic out again! Two more insects being spawned this time. That is when I knew it was time to run. I used all of my strength to get back to the farmhouse. When I got back father asked why I had returned so early. When I explained what I had seen he went from grey to pale white.
In a great bellowing voice he told everyone to go to the emergency shelter. This shelter was massive it covered about a mile of the underground. It had food water and comfortable beds. The only problem was that it was on the edge of the farm five miles away. The forest where I was working was less than fifty meters away.
We began to walk towards it at a decent speed. But then a sound that would haunt me for years to come was heard. A loud ominus buzzing was heard in the air. Its sound could be heard for miles. Everypony began to run at this point. But as for me I was foolish enough to look back. What I saw stayed in my nightmares for years to come. You think that you are the first shrink that I have been to doc? Not even close I had to see so many different psychologists all at the support of the crown. Even these days I have occasional nightmares of the events that happened that day. For when I looked behind me there was a dark enormous cloud of those insects. It was at this moment that I froze fear gripped me like no other. In an instant flashbacks of what had happened to send me to equestria in the first place flashed through my mind.
And all the while the swarm got closer my pupils dilated I began to sweat profusely. My knees were knocking my entire form was trembling. I begged and pled to anyone to help me live. Unfortunately for me one answered. “Child you must hurry the Parasprites will not be merciful. They consume everything they touch!” yelled Granny Pie as she picked me up that was when my instincts told me to run. We ran fast I remember my last sight before the worst of it happened. We made it about four miles, father and mother shouting at us to hurry the fear in their eyes, my granny unfortunately was getting on in her years her speed was hard to maintain without breaks. She was on her knees in the field. I had skid to a halt turning around to run for Granny, I was a few feet in front of her when the swarm crashed down onto her I saw her wither and fade away in front of me.