//------------------------------// // Book Two: Chapter Two // Story: Unity: A Tale of Arcadia // by Kieva Lynn //------------------------------// Book Two: Wizard Quests Chapter Two Bethany Stanz sat on the side of a hospital bed, Macintosh by her side, while a Unicorn doctor performed a magic scan of her abdomen. Another doctor, Human, stood off to the side, clipboard in her hand, waiting quietly so as to not distract the in-progress scan. In truth, Beth's 'in-depth' appointment hadn't been for several more days, but after the fall she took in the Crusader's Chocobo Jockey adventure yesterday the medical staff had decided to keep her overnight and go ahead first thing this morning. The Unicorn's work took about five minutes, and when he was done he turned to the other doctor and said "Go ahead with your report Sarah. I'll need a couple of minutes." "Okay Beth, on the technological side of our tests, everything looks good." the doctor said. "You're at about two and a half months, and everything appears perfectly on tract for a human child, save that the vestigial tail is about twice as long as we would expect at this point, though I suppose that's to be expected seeing as there's a good chance it isn't going anywhere." "There's no sign of any harm from the fall?" Beth asked. The doctor shook her head. "No. What you said you told the others is true: a womb is a very well protected place. " "Ahh!" The Unicorn doctor, Caring Hoof by name, opened his eyes. "Good news on my front as well. Aside from the tail, and there will certainly be one, the baby shows all the morphological signs of being human, as we expected. So, you get away with a nine month pregnancy instead of eleven-" (Here Beth gave an audible sigh of relief) "-and absolutely everything seems to be growing and functioning just as it should." "Can ya tell the gender yet?" Macintosh asked, a rather loopy grin on his face. "Try again in another month?" Caring Hoof said apologetically. "I'm just glad everything's okay." Beth said. "Though, it would have been nice to stop Pinkie from going that awful half-pink half-blue route with the cake..." Everyone laughed at that. "Well you know Miss Pie." Caring Hoof shrugged. "I'm beyond amazed you got her to hold off as long as you did." "Party's tomorrow tonight, by the way." Macintosh said. "You're both invited." "A Pinkie party? Wouldn't miss it." XXXXX Golden Oaks Library. Just past lunchtime, Twilight had gathered her friends, along with Jim and his allies and several of Unity's leaders , for another meeting with Gandalf. Unlike the first meeting days before, the purpose this time was to lay out the plans for how to proceed. "Okay. So, I spoke with Princess Celestia and Princess Luna last night. They confirmed what Gandalf has told us. We have a major threat looming, and need to prepare, which in their case means coordinating military responses to merge Human technology and Pony magic, and in our case means getting teams to Eqqus and Earth to find Starswirl and Merlin." "And that involves... Some pony who's turned out to be an alien?" Sheriff Tucker asked. "Time Turner." Twilight supplied (In fact Celestia had told her of the spell the alternate universe Celestia had taught her. But she had also made clear that only an Alicorn was powerful enough to use it and that it was to remain a state secret for the time. Twilight vaguely wondered if Gandalf had something similar, but she had chosen not to ask for the time.) "Gandalf?" The wizard stood. "If my old friend is able to repair his conveyance, we will have the ability to make the journey. Unfortunately, he has already made it clear that any repairs will be temporary. I sincerely hope that we can get a round trip, if nothing more. In fact, the Doctor was quite adamant to not expect more, given the risk of being stuck somewhere unpleasant." "When will he know if the repairs will even be possible darling?" Rarity asked. "I am to return to him tomorrow morning for tea. And if the repairs are successful, I would advise haste. We should leave as soon as the Tardis is operational, for while neither Earth nor Eqqus has come under attack as yet I fear we are very much on borrowed time. The first team will be left on Eqqus, then the second will proceed to Earth, where the Doctor will wait with the Tardis until they complete their mission. Then he can collect the first team, and Starswirl with them, before returning all of us here." Gandalf explained. Twilight was practically giddy. "This is so exciting! Starswirl is alive! And I get to help find him!" Gandalf shook his head. "Not so. I am sorry Twilight. You will get to speak with your mentor in person. It's why I chose to go to Eqqus first. But the team going to search for Merlin on Earth will, I sense, have need of you." "But... But..." "You'll still get to meet him Twi! When we come back!" Rainbow Dash said. Twilight smiled a little at that. "Yeah, I guess so." "Who will be on which team?" Blinky asked. Gandalf answered "Aside from the need for Twilight to go to Earth, and young Jim as well, and that I myself will go to Eqqus, no decisions have been made. You may choose among yourselves... Although..." Here Gandalf looked across the room to Tess. "Lady Tessindra, I would be most grateful for the accompaniment of an Elf." The Elf girl looked shocked to be asked. "Erm... I'll come if you wish, of course. But, Mithrandir, you do understand that my people today are not as powerful in magic as those you knew before?" "Yes, I know." Gandalf answered. "But just as Twilight will be needed on Earth, I feel your help will be most beneficial on Eqqus." "Well it seems clear that the Eqqus team should be mostly ponies. They'll know the lay of the land so to speak better." Bert suggested. "Right." Twilight agreed. "And besides that I doubt Claire, Toby, or Blinky will agree to Jim going without them." "Absolutely." Claire said. "Yeah, where Jimbo goes, we go." Toby agreed. "So with Twilight, there's the whole Earth team." Applejack said. "Not all." Twilight said. "Rainbow Dash, hopefully you'll be flying by the time we're ready. I'd like you to come with us." "An adventure on a whole other planet? Count me in Twi!" Rainbow Dash cheered. "Um, I have a question..." Fluttershy whispered. "How will we know where to start looking? I mean, an entire planet is a big place to search for one person. Especially one person who hasn't been seen in hundreds of years." "Don't worry. Princess Luna said she had some ideas on likely options for Starswirl." Twilight explained. "And something will present itself once you arrive on Earth." Gandalf added. "What about once you all get back?" Sheriff Tucker asked. "What I mean is, finding these other wizards is all well and good, but what exactly are you planning to do once you've got them?" "That, I'll have to play as it lies." Gandalf said. "I do have a plan. But, you must understand, Starswirl and Merlin, especially Merlin, will have plans of their own. Once we're all on the same page though, the merger of all three of our talents and skills will allow us to give you the means to counter our enemy before all is lost." "So, I'm still really confused by all of this 'parallel worlds' stuff." Rainbow Dash said, "But if we're going to Earth, which one? The one Fallow Meadows came from, or the one Arcadia came from?" "Arcadia, Dash." Twilight said. "But, doesn't that mean we'll be meeting Humans who know nothing about any of this, and will still be all riled up and trigger happy from a town just vanishing?" Rainbow insisted. "That's a good point." Applejack said. "Y'all are gonna have 't tread real careful like." Jim said "And it's even worse than that. By now, Gunmar has probably made it back to where Arcadia was. If he found an army task force or something there, there's a good chance he attacked." "Meaning that they'll be more than just 'riled up.' They'll know they have a powerful enemy and anything out of the ordinary will be in the shoot first and ask questions later column." Bert concluded. He looked Twilight in the eyes. "You're gonna have to be very, very careful." "I wish we could tell them. Get the information to them, somehow. So at least they'll know what's happened to their town." Twilight said. "And know to be preparing for an attack." Rainbow added. "Well who says you can't?" Pinkie asked. "Before we all go, the people from Arcadia should record a movie. Explaining what's happened!" "Ah doubt they could just walk up 't the army and hand it over Pinkie." Applejack said. Fluttershy's eyes went wide. "But they wouldn't have to! Record it on one of those blank disks, put it in an envelope, and mail it just before you leave!" Ophelia Nunez, who had been listening from the back of the crowd, agreed. "I can have something ready in a day or two. It won't be very polished of course. But that hardly matters." "Then I guess all that's left is to hope Time Turner gets his machine working." Twilight said. "Indeed." Gandalf agreed, "And let us hope it most fervently. For our enemy is legion, and grows stronger every day." XXXXX Earth (Fallow Meadows timeline): The initial incident was so minor, and so remote, that even government supercomputers specifically programmed to watch for the warning signs missed it at first. In the far north of Baffin Island, Canada, a man had gone missing. Not that missing persons were anything new, but this was a healthy, experienced outdoorsman, whose family had lived in the forbidding arctic tundra for centuries, vanishing without a trace on a routine trip to check his traps. A search party had been organized, ten strong, all men and women just as hardy and experienced as their missing compatriot, and very well armed to boot. None of them returned either. A call was sent out, and a large Canadian army search team responded. This group did have survivors, but only a few, who told of finding half eaten bodies before being attacked by a hoard of vicious creatures. This finally tripped the sensors in the computers, which led to an international task force, led by former U.S. Secret Service agent Henry Marsh, to investigate. Unlike the Canadian search team, Marsh and his people had at least some idea of what to expect. It was enough to keep them alive, but the weapons they took, including a pair of light tanks, were useless in causing any damage. The team managed to fall back, taking losses including the tanks as they went, and as soon as he was in the clear Marsh hurried back to Washington to report. "So it has begun." Celestia said through the comm window, after Marsh had finished his report to her, Luna, President David Whitmore, and several other world leaders watching by video on tablets set up around the perimeter of the room. "And it sounds as if your mother was spot on regarding their resistance to technological weapons." Whitmore mused. "Where do we go from here?" Marsh asked. Through a tablet, the Canadian Prime Minster said "I've ordered a full deployment. We'll hit them harder, see if it does any good at all." "And in the meantime, we'll do whatever we can to hurry along research into fusions of technology and magic." Whitmore said, "Though if we can't do anything as is, that may be too late... Princess, did you still want to go ahead with your offer?" "I do." Celestia answered through the window. "David, Agent Marsh, please step back from the center of the room. This will be the first time I've tried this with somepony else along for the ride." The two men stepped back near the door, and Celestia vanished as she stepped away from the window's viewing area. Only to reappear, for real, in the center of the room, with several other ponies by her side. "Agent Marsh, this is Captain Shining Armor, head of the Equestrian Royal Guard. He and his team will aid you in testing ways to combine our strengths to combat this new enemy." "Captain." Marsh said as they shook. "Let's see what kind of damage we can do." Shining Armor grinned. "Yes. Lets."