When Twilight entered the building, the first thing she noticed was, of course, the books. By the time Pietro and the panda-eared girl noticed, Twilight had already collected a stack of books, “These are so amazing! So this dust stuff is used to keep your airships and cities afloat, and you use it to power all this electricity-based technology, how is it made exactly? What are its specific properties? How did you discover it? And look at all the machines, I would have never thought of half these things, cybernetics, scrolls, androids, how are they all made? Can I inspect the places where you produce them? Do you use your androids in your factories, oooh, can you use androids on rock farms, do you even have rock farms… You must, I don’t know how else you can produce dust! Oh, and look at your guard’s armour, I’ve never seen materials like these before, what’s plastic?” Twilight babbled, taking faster than anyone could comprehend, hopping in place with her books.
Pietro wore a look of stunned confusion from behind his desk as the others entered, “Ah… Laywind, good to see you again,” He said to the panda-girl, “And uhh… Who are these friends you’ve brought with you?” Looking at the purple-haired faunus woman currently molesting the schematics for a coffee maker.
“Oh, just some faunus new to Mantle… Must be from some other kingdom, they act like they haven’t seen atlesian technology before…”
“Oh, I haven’t, all this is soooo amazing, I can’t wait to tell my teacher about this!” Twilight was hopping in place.
Pietro laughed, “Well my girl, what’s your name?” Looking at the girl’s wings, tail, and ears, “I don’t think I’ve seen a faunus like you before…”
“I’m Twilight Sparkle, it’s great to meet you…”
“Good to meet you too, I’m Pietro-”
“Can I please borrow all these books!”
“I don’t see why not-”
“Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou!”
Twilight began hauling piles of books off to a corner of the room, and eagerly began flipping through them. Rainbow Dash turned to stare at the alicorn-turned-faunus, and Pietro stared at the device mounted to her back. “That’s an impressive weapon you got there, some kind of assault rifle?”
“Oh, yeah! It’s my Stormfire and it’s amazing!” Rainbow Dash hugged the gun, “It’s supposed to use dust, but we didn’t have any where I come from, so we used liquid rainbow instead… My name’s Rainbow Dash.”
“Heh,” Pietro laughed, “I can see how you got your name, with that hair and wings of yours… You really haven’t heard of dust where you come from, and what’s this Liquid Rainbow material…”
Rarity cleared her throat and cut in, “I am Rarity Belle, and I’m afraid we have more important business to deal with than that… See, we’ve come to this place… Mantle, to search for our family, see my younger sister and some of her friends had vanished from our home town and we believe them to be here… Somewhere…”
“Really?” The panda-girl, Laywind, said.
“Hmmm…” Pietro said, “Well, I’ll see what I can do about that, lost kids are always a problem… Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”
“They said something about a monster-hunting school…” Rainbow said.
“Atlas Academy?” Pietro replied. The faunus simply shrugged, “Well… I suppose I could ask James about his students… What were your sibling’s names?”
“Scootaloo Allgood, Sweetie Belle, Diamond Tiara Rich, and Apple Bloom Macintosh,” Rarity continued.
Pietro nodded, “In the meantime, can I have a look at those weapons of yours… They are simply fascinating, just from a cursory glance…” Rainbow looked hesitant and a little insulted, but Rarity convinced Rainbow to let go of her rifle. Pietro stared at the frame and barrel, and took a small sample of the liquid rainbow inside Stormfire’s ammo tanks, then handed it back to the pegasus faunus. “Simply fascinating, I’ve not seen materials like these, it has a case of… Some kind of metal… Rather than the standard plastic case of atlesian weapons, and the gemstones used in its construction don’t feel like dust crystals… Where did you find this?”
“Oh, I made it, with parts generously donated by a… Friend…” Twilight cringed a bit at the last word.
“Oh…” Rarity cut in, “One more thing… We might be staying a while in the city while we look for our family, do you know of anywhere we can stay for the night?”
“Ooh!” Laywind said, “You can stay at my place for a while, I don’t get too many visitors, and you seem like nice people!”
It was breakfast during their second day at school. While over the past few days they had grown accustomed to the strange dreams of dark castles in the void, the fillies still found themselves uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping in this place, yet, none of the other kids seemed to get those dreams… As Sweetie complimented the concept, she nibbled at her chicken… Over the week and a half she had been in this world, the filly had grown a taste for meat. Then, the familiar shape of Weiss came over to her table and turned to stare Sweetie in the eyes.
“What do you want?” She asked.
“Just follow me… I need to show you something…” Weiss replied.
Sweetie grunted, standing up, “Fine, just make it quick, I don’t want my food to get cold…”
“I’m sure you can just reheat it later…”
With that, Sweetie was dragged off, and once they were alone in the halls, Weiss retrieved a book, it’s cover bearing the arcane matrix for telekinesis with a six-pointed star for a base. “Where did you get that?” Sweetie asked.
“That doesn’t matter, where did you get it! How does it work! What is it!”
“Umm… A very long story, most of which I doubt you’ll believe…”
“I’m holding a book that tells me how to use my semblance in ways I’ve never even comprehended! Where did it come from!”
“Well… Umm… I got it from Twilight Sparkle, a good friend of mine.”
“How does it work, last time you talked to me you said something about sharing semblances!”
“Yes… Umm… Back where I come from, we use books like these too, more or less, teach each other how to use certain spells… Or… Erm… Semblances.”
“So, you write down these strange symbols, and with a mental glyph, you can share semblances?”
“That’s what I just said…”
Weiss looked… Confused, a bit conflicted, “That’s insane, impossible!”
“Well, can you do it? Can you use one of the matrixes written down in there?”
Weiss hesitated, but nodded, “Y-Yes.”
“Please, please don’t tell anyone else, I don’t want this to become a big deal…”
Weiss sighed, “Trust me, the last thing I want is for others to get their little paws on this, do you have any idea how powerful this book could be?” She sighed again, “Of course you don’t… Imagine what would happen if the White Fang got this power, or even just simple criminals!”
“C-Can I have my book back?” Sweetie asked.
“On one condition… Make me a copy.”
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom rang out inside the halls of Beacon’s auditorium, and Lavender Lake slammed into the walls, a buzzer sounding her defeat at the hands of Apple Bloom. The filly cheered as she began loading more HE rounds into Applebuck. “Good work miss Macintosh, but take care with that weapon, a stray round can harm a teammate, or a mission objective, you should know when to and when not to use it, particularly with those combustion rounds.”
With a wave of her crop, Glynda repaired the shattered walls and floors of the auditorium after Apple Bloom shot it all to hell, rending great craters in the structure… Sweetie watched with interest at the spells being used… A modification of the traditional telekinesis, one that allowed the pieces to be fused together once placed properly, much like how pegasi created solid clouds.
“Mister Arc, I believe you should go next,” Glynda turned to Jaune.
“Y-Yes ma’am… Who will be my opponent…”
“Miss Belle… I believe you didn’t get a chance to spar yesterday, will you be willing to go up against mister Arc?”
“Sure… I’m not that good at fighting though…” Sweetie marched off to the lockers for her armour and weapon. Once she returned, she stood, Lapis at her side, staring down the boy, who wore a look of nervousness and anxiety...
“Three… Two… One… Begin.”
Sweetie stood, waiting for Jaune to make the first move, the boy did, drawing his sword and charging… Now what Sweetie expected, normally the battle begun with a barrage from some kind of gun, and she had created the shield spell in her mind, expecting dust blasts, or bullets... As Jaune raised his sword to strike Sweetie, she simply raised her hand, telekinesis forming in her palm, and grabbed the boy by the arm.
He sat there, raised half a meter off the ground by his arm, caught in her grip. She didn’t have the strength to hold him for long, so she poured what power she could manage into flinging the boy across the stadium, and into the far wall. Jaune charged again, this time weaving around as if he could dodge her telekinesis… He was lifted off the ground and flung again.
Jaune charged again, holding his shield out in front of him, and Sweetie cast the shield spell around her. Jaune rammed right into the bubble and fell on his butt, Sweetie used another burst of telekinetic power to fling him into the wall again, cringing at the pain in the boy’s voice…
Sweetie was now just feeling pity for the boy, it was clear to her that he was nothing like the other combatants, he was infinitely worse… She didn’t even use her telekinesis or shield spell the fourth time, instead, she simply raised her hand when Jaune swung his sword and caught the blade. As Jaune struggled to free his sword, Sweetie turned and shouted toward Glynda, “Miss Goodwitch… I think this fight’s a bit unfair.”
That night, as Twilight sat on one of the guest beds in Laywind’s apartment, she poured over the books lent to her by that Pietro human. “Spike, prepare a letter…”
“Come on, it’s midnight…”
“Spike… We need to keep the princesses updated… What if they think we’ve been abducted, or killed by monsters!”
“We’ve been sending them letters every hour!”
“Spike.”
“Yes… Mom.”
“Good… Dear Princess Celestia and Princess Luna… This marks the end of my first day in this alien world, we have taken up residence with one Laywind Whitemane in the Kingdom of Atlas, attached to this letter will be a map of this planet and it’s major cities, to my surprise, a majority of this planet is uninhabited as a result of the monsters roaming this world, the Creatures of Grimm, which, as I have suspected, are arcane constructs of an unknown source. The kingdom of Atlas is broken into two major sections, the lower city, the one below the floating landmass that I have told you about previously, is known as Mantle, and is the home of the lower class citizens of this region, meanwhile, the floating landmass, held aloft by something called Gravity Dust, a technology I am currently studying with the aid of this planet’s books, is known as Atlas, and is home to the wealthy elite of this region… I, as of right now, cannot give any more information regarding this planet, unfortunately, but I will continue studying this world while I look for our missing children. Thanks to the assistance of an atlesian engineer and mechanist by the name of Pietro Polendina, I have attained numerous books regarding this world’s technology, and once I have finished reading them, I will be sending the tomes to Equestria for study by pony engineers and sociologists… I feel as if I have only scratched the surface of these creature’s advanced technology, and sincerely believe that these advancements will revolutionize Equestria. The Pietro human has offered to aid us in finding the children, they are believed to be attending a school by the name of Atlas Academy, and in just two weeks this Pietro will be visiting with the headmaster of Atlas Academy in an effort to confirm our suspicions. Your faithful student: Princess Twilight Sparkle.”