A Stone's Throw Away

by Emperor123456


Chapter 1: The Machine

Despite it being evening the magical corridors of the Canterlot Academy For Gifted Unicorns reflected the few bright afternoon rays and spread them across their lengths, lighting them up as if it was day, contrasting the quickly approaching autumnal twilight outside. High Flier shut the wooden door adorned with countless engravings and symbols as carefully as he could, dragging his bag along the floor. Even after three years of attending classes here he still couldn’t quite let himself relax in the expensive looking environment like the other foals did. But even if he was a bit high strung over not accidentally tipping anything over, and the lessons exhausted him to no end, he was glad that he could attend at least some of the classes. 

“Some, yeah..." High Flier sighed, and after having taken a deep breath and gathered his strength picked up the heavy bag with his right wing. The contents sending off a loud clang as they slammed against each other.

High Flier was a mellow orange pegasus with a long burgundy mane, quite disheveled and making him look as if he had never seen a comb in his life. On his flank rested a grey machine, sporting a gauge in the center and with pipes coming out of it, which leaked a rainbow colored goop. As far as he could tell he was the only pegasus in the entire academy, but he couldn't bring himself to be proud over it. 

He somberly started to trot back through the halls of the Academy, he had hoped that the lesson would last longer. Sure he had books at home but having someone teach them to him always made them much more enjoyable.

By the time he had reached the main staircase the landscape outside was now fully in the grip of twilight, and the magical lamps lining the corridors kicked in, replacing the warm glow of the sun with a cold white. As soon as he reached the staircase,a grand flight adorned with gold and marble, he heard sounds of approaching hoofs from the floor above, and a familiar voice coming with them.

‘Oh no, why hasn’t he left already?’ High flier really didn’t want to risk going now and then having to deal with Shining Seeds taunts, so he hid behind one of the pillars next to the entrance to the main staircase.

“Yeah, and after my father signed the deal he was in a really good mood and told me I could throw a big party, just because he did what he always does. So you’re all gonna be invited and I made sure my father would order the biggest and best cake one could get in Canterlot." The high pitched-nasal voice belonged to the unicorn known as Shining Seed, son of Flying Cold. The pegasus who had taken a decaying noble family and turned it into the richest airship magnates this side of the ocean. High Flier had heard that every member born of their family had a cutiemark of an airship, and Shining was no exception, although he sure didn’t act like a dignified pilot.

“Wow, you’re so lucky, my dad never lets me throw parties like that!” 

“Thank you Shining. My mom says that I can’t waste my time on something as wasteful as that, and she even forces my dad to say the same." One of the accompanying voices mumbled.

“Yeah!"

Shining Seed was almost never seen without his clique, and it was another one of the reasons High Flier was so annoyed by him. Since when in his group of noble foals he would always try to show off as much as possible. This would go on in and out of class, disrupting the lesson and annoying High Flier to no end. Glad on having avoided the loud group, High Flier let out a content sigh. He stood up and put the saddlebag back onto his wings, after it had fallen off. However, while he did so he didn’t hear the hoofsteps quickly approaching from below.

High Flier looked up and came face to face with the smug teal face, topped by short grey hair, of Shining Seed.

“Well, well, well if it isn’t the little pegasus who could?”

“Ah stuff it, Shining, I have to go home."

“Just gonna abandon me here? Why, I couldn’t imagine that a son of a nobleman could be so rude! If I didn’t know any better I’d have taken you for a commoner.” he laughed. High Flier wanted to end the conversation quickly and he knew that walking away would be the best way to do so. But he could feel the weight of a long day on him and the irritation was getting to him. He wanted to say something witty, something to finally shut that foal’s mouth once and for all. He fumbled his words but eventually stammered out:

“Well at least my father is actually accomplishing something and isn’t sitting on his bum doing nothing!” High Flier cringed the second after he finished his reply.

However, to High Fliers surprise Shining Seed didn’t fall down laughing at the awful taunt. Well, at first he did start to chuckle, but as he parsed the words his face lost all emotions before twisting into a grimace of anger.

“What did you say! My father, lazy? How do you even dare compare our fathers!” He shouted as he pressed himself closer to High Flier. High Flier was taken aback by the sudden rage of Shining Seed, never had he seen him in such a state. He tried to answer but it was as if the foal encroaching on him pressed that answer into a paste and forced it down his throat. High Flier swallowed.

“You can’t even defend yourself, but you try to compare yourself to me! You have no friends and just like your father you suck as a wizard. But the last part should be kinda obvious, don’t you think?” High Flier lowered his head, while still looking at Shining Seed. Whose face was currently regaining that smirk. 

‘I am not a failure!’ He thought.

High Flier spat it out, all stutter now gone.

“You’re wrong, my father is no failure, I bet your father doesn’t even have a secret project he’s working on-" High Flier’s eyes widened and he cut off his speech before he could blurt out anything else. Shining seed didn’t seem to notice the sudden change in High Fliers voice and responded with just as much fervor.

“You’re lying, there is no way YOUR father has anything like that going on. He is a failure and that’s that!” Shining Seed insisted.

“Well I can prove it! Can you prove your father is doing anything now besides being lazy?”

“Oh yeah, let’s see this proof then!”

“Well come home with me and I’ll show you!” High Flier shouted. The two foals remained silent as they took deep breaths, calming down from the heated argument. High Flier then realized something, his shouting match had led to him having to spend more time with the bully. 

‘Horseapples.’

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The Canterlot inner district, defined as the district closest to the castle, and a place only the most wealthy or those with the right pedigree could afford. Every mansion had ample space between each other and gorgeous gardens around them, which were tended to during daytime by a veritable army of gardeners. The streets were lined with immaculate granite stones which were regularly cleaned by magic and when Luna’s moon started shining upon these streets they would light up from hundreds of obsidian encrusted lampposts and the dark would be broken by bright, but mostly empty streets, with only the occasional carriage slowly passing by. All of this under a dark, starry sky.

Shining Seed was miffed. Not only had he forgotten to take some warmer clothes for when he went home, he had to watch the pegasus magician of all ponies walk there in front of him in the cold fall wind. The feather on that pegasus warming him while Shining Seed shook from the cold. It didn't help that he had to abbandon his friends and probably be late to his party to follow said pegasus. If he wasn't so sure that High Flier would make a fool out of himself he'd just have ignored him and gone home.

Even though he was annoyed at that failure of a pegasus forcing him to trot all the way into the backend of the inner district just so the pegasus could come clean about his dumb lie, he could at least glance take the opportunity to stargaze. The sky today was especially beautiful, not only did the dark fall night force the stars to shine brighter, a vast space-cloud  spread out on the dark canvas. So vast it’s arms fell behind the houses around him. The blues, reds, oranges and browns. It was beautiful. At least he and his father could agree on that.

Shining Seeds sightseeing got cut short as the rhythm of High Flier’s trot changed. Shining Seed took another look at his surroundings and saw the slopes of Canter Mountain extending sharply in front of him. They were getting close to the edge of the inner district, considered by many to be the worst part of the inner district. They stopped completely when they reached a small mansion, with plain alabaster walls and a tower sticking out of the left side. The garden was filled with nothing but grass, which at least looked maintained unlike the tattered roof, which was missing many of its shingles.

“So this is your house?” Shining Seed asked, lazily pointing a hoof towards the building. High Flier looked at it, and shrunk back a bit.

“Yeah." High Flier answered, staring at the tower. Shining Seed stared at the house too, and was about to ridicule it when the wind picked up speed and lashed out at his exposed coat. He fought not to let his discomfort show to High Flier, despite the other foal still staring at the house and completely ignoring him.

High Flier winced at nothing, but started walking towards the house, motioning with his wing for Shining Seed to follow. 

The doors loomed ever closer to Shining Seed. He looked at High Flier, furrowing his brow. Despite High Flier having lied to him about some secret project High Flier wasn’t even nervous at being discovered. More than anything he looked, sad? Shining Seed had trouble telling. He shook his head, watching High Flier try to send out some of his magic into the lock on the door through his hoof, but struggling with it. 

Shining Seed once again almost took the opportunity to ridicule High Flier but the pegasus’ demeanor continued to bother him. Someone on the verge of being discovered, especially that pushover, should have been trembling by now, and yet he was perfectly still. Shining Seed refused to believe that High Flier’s father could be working on anything that important, it simply wasn’t possible for that failure to have such a project. At most it would be some kind of useless trinket, but High Flier wasn’t dumb,and he wouldn’t have mentioned if it was just some useless trinket. So then why, why wasn’t High Flier cracking? Why was he just as calm as he had been when leaving the academy?

Once the doors opened they stepped into a rather plain hall for a noble family, the only distinguishing feature being a staircase leading to the second floor. At least the walls were of alabaster and not of stone. This time Shining’s quip was stopped by High Flier mumbling something akin to “stay here” and galloping up the stairs, leaving Shining alone in the hall. He looked around impatiently. There were no maids cleaning the house, no butler to welcome them home, and the house was devoid of the sounds of distant conversation and activity. It was empty, wrong, like an old haunted mansion, only this one was for some reason somepony’s home.

Shining Seed started tapping his hoof. 

“Where is that pegasus? I’m starving and he’s making me wait… didn’t even have a servant bring me a snack." The foal felt his stomach rumble. “Thanks again for the late lessons, dad.”. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t much longer until High Flier came back, carrying a small purple box similar to those one put wedding rings in.

“I hope you’re not gonna try proposing to me flier?” Shining Seed snickered, but High Flier’s face held its calm expression.

“Just come with me.” High Flier said, moving towards the wall behind the staircase. He looked back when he didn’t hear Shining Seed doing the same.

“So are you coming or not?” Hesitantly, Shining Seed fell into walking behind High Flier.

High Flier fumbled with the box in his wings and finally pried it open, revealing its contents. Shining Seed couldn’t see clearly what it was, but it looked like an orange string affixed to the inside of the box by a piece of tape. High flier carefully pressed the string against the wall and the box with it and then stood like that for a while. 

Nothing happened at first, but then the wall started to glow and slowly turn transparent. Shining Seed stared in shock. The wall eventually disappeared completely, and both foals stood still, unwilling to take the next step. Before them lay a long winding staircase leading into the underground, the stair and the walls were of alabaster and an engraving of the sun and moon hung above the entrance.

It was Shining Seed who broke the silence.

“W-well then, let’s go and see this, “super secret project” or whatever.” He laughed and took the first step on the winding staircase, before looking back at the pegasus. High Flier remained silent and squeezed past him after a moments hesitation, leading the way.

They descended for what felt like hours. When they’d complete a circle around the winding staircase hidden lights would illuminate the next part of the way, bathing them in sterile white light, while the previous set of lights turned off. They continued to descend in their little pocket of light as the alabaster turned to stone, and a soft blue glow soon started mixing with the white light. The longer they descended, the stronger the glow would become and as it grew in strength the white light got weaker.

High Flier had been growing more and more jittery as they descended, and he was now practically jumping at every noise perceived as unusual, which in this unfamiliar stone environment was practically everything: The slow trickling of water against the stone steps, the echoed howling of a far off wind, and the fast steps of the unfamiliar insects around them.

Shining seed on the other hand was still shocked that there was some truth to High Fliers boast.

“Hey, High Flier?” High Flier ignored him. “Hey I talked to you...” Shining Seed didn’t get to finish his sentence as they suddenly arrived, and the sight before him stole all his words away from him. 

Before them grew a cavern of massive proportions, two mansions the size of his own could comfortably fit in the space between them and the far of wall, and the roof was at least thirty meters above them. To the right of him blue crystals with an attached machine were dispensing glowing blue dust into a shaft going into the floor, and all around the cave similar shafts emerged from the walls and spewed forth the same dust, keeping the entire cave bathed in a soft blue light. Several industrial sized ovens were arranged at the far end of the cave, close to another tunnel which had been blocked off by a huge magical shield. The shield was in turn pierced in several spots by pipes coming out of the ovens. Unkown machinery and buildings were scattered all over the cave, but what truly stole Shining Seeds breath was the airship the size of a mansion laying in the middle of the cave. 

‘No, wait, that’s no airship, where is the balloon, where are the propellers, this shape isn’t aerodynamic at all!’ 

The contraption had a long metallic hull consisting of an elliptic cylinder as the main body with two long pipes attached on either side of the body, both of which ended in some sort cones. Two hump like structures emerged from the top of the body, one of which had plenty of windows while the other one had none. Heading this beast of silvery metal was a spherical room attached to the main body by a circular corridor, metallic scaffolding and several metal poles. Besides this many spots along the hull of the ship seemed unfinished, with pipes and what looked like wiring still exposed, and the length of the ship was surrounded by scaffolding.

Shining seed didn’t want to believe it, but it was hard to deny a truth that was staring him right in his eyes. He wasn’t quite sure what this was, but it definitely wasn’t a useless trinket, in fact if the pony accompanying him was someone other than High Flier Shining Seed didn’t believe he'd be able to contain his excitement. Still, this was High Flier and he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing him lose his cool.

“So this is the “secret project” your father’s been working on?”

“Yes, now can we please go, I don’t want to be here any longer.”

“Please, my father has several things like this in his personal hangar, there’s no way this is something special. Unless you're saying that there is something more to this?” Shining lied, failing to keep the insecurity in his voice from poisoning his speech. High Flier hesitated, still rooted to the entrance of the cave unlike Shining Seed. Seeing as High Flier was hesitating Shining Seed started trotting towards the machine by himself, thankfully this was all the encouragement that High Flier needed and he quickly joined Shining Seed.

Upon closer inspection he could see that the construction was built over a crater and was being held up by three hydraulic pistons extending out of it, giving the impression that it was lying down. 

“Hey High Flier, can’t your father even build a door?” He said, hoping High Flier knew where the door was. Luckily, High Flier did know and slid into the crater motioning with his wing for Shining Seed to join him under the hull. High Flier flew over to a small dome sticking out of the bottom, which was placed between the pistons, and stuck his hoof into it, after fiddling with it something clicked and a circular platform, roughly two meters in diameter spun slowly down to the ground, revealing a ladder into a shaft lit by dim red lights. 

Shining Seed gulped, and hesitantly followed High Flier into the shaft. The shaft was covered in semi-soft padding and seemed to lead to a dead end. High Flier however, flew up the shaft and pressed a bright green spot. Shining Seed yelped as the ground under him rised up and the platform spun back up again. High Flier just hung onto the ladder and was relatively unbothered by the spinning. With a loud click the staircase locked the two foals in the badly lit shaft before a gas was quickly blasted in. Shining Seed coughed but the gas went away as quickly as it came. A long beep was heard in the tube and the end piece opened to let them into the machine, which seemed to be almost completely dark on the inside. As he climbed up the ladder he saw that High Fliers face was fixated on the long dark corridors, barely lit by tubes which glowed a dim red. 

They had emerged into a dead end in a hallway, lockers decorated the walls around them and some sections of the floor still exposed wiring and tubing. This wasn't unique to the lockers, Shining Seed saw that the entire corridor was littered by unfinished sections and some of the lights were flickering or outright not working. Despite the ominous lighting the corridors were broad and tall.

'With the proper lighting these could sort of be comfortable.' Shining Seed thought.

The foals stood there, none of them sure of what to do, but then High Flier started walking forward. High Flier took a second longer and was about to say something, but in the end silently joined Shining Seed.

The foals walked beside each other, none of them wanting to get lost in the never ending dark corridors where each of their steps seemed to echo forever. No words were exchanged as the two colts wandered the corridors, a mixture of fear, awe and curiosity sealing their mouths shut. They passed many doors, ventilation shaft openings and even a few scattered clipboards, their hoofsteps on the metal floor constantly echoing back to them. Most of the corridors and doors seemed indistinguishable from each other, all but one.

Well, the door was like all the others, a plain slab of metal, but the colts could hear a loud humming sound coming from the other side. The foals curiosity was peaked, but both hesitated. Finally, Shining Seed pushed the green spot beside the door, relieved when it gave in and opened it.

On the other side was a large room illuminated by a bright, cyan light, which came from a huge glass sphere in the middle of the room. It lay on a metallic pedestal and had a massive cylinder connected to it from the roof. As Shining Seed got closer he saw that within the sphere was a shifting blue liquid with spots of marine blue scattered around. Surrounding the sphere were desks with several screens displaying readings and several smaller vials, which were connected to pipes going through the desk and into the floor. Each of these vials were filled with some kind of mysterious fluid, but the strangest one was a pulsing pitch black fluid that periodically let out pinpricks of blue and yellow light.

High Flier stared in awe at the construction in front of him and Shining Seed could feel those same feeling mirrored within him, but he had more self control than High Flier. The pegasus then galloped to look at a section of the desk which had its internal workings still uncovered. Shining Seed continued to stare at the machine, it was as if somepony had taken a sledgehammer to his entire worldview.

“Holy Celestia look at these runes, they aren’t even close to what we learn at the academy…” High Flier said, staring at one of the runic arrays within the desk but then snapping his head around to look at the screen above him instead. “and, holy, 50kCu from just this? Is that even possible?” High Flier went back to staring at the arrays, his hoof scratching against one as he did so.

While High Flier was gushing his heart out at all the technology around the room, Shining Seed stood speechless. Nothing in his father's fleet could compare to the machine in front of him. One look at the core and he could almost feel its power inside his bones, trying to twist him, destroy him, like an evil version of Celestia's sun. He trotted over to one of the intact desks. This one mostly had screens displaying text and graphs in green over a black background. He tried to decipher what was being shown but he couldn’t make heads or tails of what several screens were supposed to represent. Sure, he understood the simple ones like "energy output", "remaining fuel" and so on, but most of the screens showed weird things like constantly changing numbers, weird geometry and ever graphs of waves, all marked by weird names. What even was an “rpto” anyway? Suddenly the graphs and numbers stopped changing and a notification appeared in the top right corner of the screen. Shining Seed leaned in to investigate, but as he did so he heard a click.

There, under his hoof a yellow and black striped button was being pressed down. Shining Seed stared at it in horror and removed his hoof in shock. Realizing his mistake too late Shining Seed could only watch in horror as the button slowly went back to its original position.

An alarm started blaring, startling the foals and causing them to almost jump in shock. A deep metallic voice spoke from somewhere.

“Activating main reactor in 3 2 1....main reactor online.” When the voice had finished its announcement the noise from the orb increased, both foals were scared still and stared in fear at the orb as the cyan liquid was swallowed by the emerging marine blue.

“Error: no power output destination set upon startup, switching to default, powering all systems at default output.” The dim red light was replaced by bright white with a loud clack. The foals were blinded by the sudden change in lighting. When they regained their sight the entire room was now fully illuminated, and they could hear other lights around the ship properly turning on too. Several other weird noises joined the intensifying hum of the orb. A woosh there, grainy beeps from the other computers and the sound of turbines revving up, all adding into a deafening cacophony around the foals. Shining Seed clutched his ears and High Flier screamed.

“Warning: Overabundance of energy detected, exceeding safety limitations, attempting to vent. Surroundings unsuitable for venting, relocating.” The construction lurched, and the foals where thrown down from where they were standing. The sound of meta and wood crashing against solid rock could be heard coming from the outside. “Relocation unsuccessful attempting alternate relocation.” For a second there was no sound, no movement, nothing, even the hum stopped. Then, a pulsating sound began coming from under them.

“Preparation successful, relocating to destination: “org” in t-minus 5 minutes.” As the voice finished the lights slightly dimmed, the liquids in the vials began to flow into the pipes and the orb turned into a bright purple. The alarm resumed.

The foals ran, Shining Seed using whatever magic he could to try and fling himself forward and High Flier flapping his wings as fast as he could, but stumbling often and ending up about as far as Shining Seed. Despite the previously dark corridors being lit up it didn’t help them much, they were too identical and the panicking foals could barely understand where they were going. They ended up getting stuck in circles or running into dead ends quite often, but they still managed to make progress. 

“T-minus 1 minute until relocation.”

High Flier shouted something to Shining Seed, the words being drowned by the panic and alarm, who after having turned around saw that High Flier was pointing at a sign labeled “emergency exit” which pointed to the right. Shining Seed quickly changed direction and galloped with High Flier beside him.

Finally Shining Seed saw it, the hatch out of the ship, at the far end of the hallway. They both threw themselves at it, lungs burning, tears in their eyes. Few seconds were left but Shining Seed was sure that they would make it.

“T-minus 10 seconds until relocation.” High Flier tried unlocking the hatch but it didn’t budge this time.

“Warning: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent relocation.” a sped up robotic voice said, coming from the button that High Flier had pressed. High Flier and Shining Seed couldn’t believe it. They both started pushing the button and pulling at the metallic trapdoor together but the message just repeated.


“Warning: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent relocation.”
“Warming: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent relocation.”
“Warning: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent relocation.”
“Warning: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent relocation.”
“Warning: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent relocation.”

“T-minus 5 seconds until relocation.”

Shining Seed thought of his home, his bedroom, his safe bedroom with his parents beside him, telling him it would all be okay.

“Error: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent-”
“Error: Airlock sealed shut due to imminent-”

High flier threw himself at the trap door once again, flailing at the thin layer of metal between him and safety.

“T-minus 3 seconds until relocation.”

“Warning: Airlock seal-Warning:Airlo-Warning:Airlock sealed”

“T-minus 2 seconds until relocation.”

“Warning:A-Warn”

“T-minus 1 seconds until relocation.”

“Wa-Wa-W-W-”

“Relocating.”