I sped towards the blue, green, and tan marble at speeds that would make Rainbow jealous, all for one goal.
I am going to kill you Celestia. I’ll kill you, then resurrect you to get what answers I want, then kill you again…
I won’t kill you, but I will certainly give you a stern talking to…
Am I too nice?
As I sped towards the ball life before me, I felt something… off. It had to do with how much magic was being used in the world below me, and I couldn’t shake the feeling as if I had done something very, very wrong.
Either way, I sped towards my planet, both in search for my friends and the answers I sought.
As I neared, the sense of wrongness felt worse, and I realized why I felt off after I made it to the moon.
“There’s no magic here… but how?” I tried to say, forgetting I was in an empty vacuum.
Okay, think. What do I know? I thought as I circled the planet, trying to find a fix to the major issue at hand.
Things I know:
Though that was all the information I had, I could work with it.
All magic comes from a dimension parallel and perpendicular to our own. Every thaum of energy spent gets sent there, and eventually ends back up in the universe when interacted with by an organism. By themselves, ponies and griffons will bounce back steadily from the sudden erasure of magic, unless they were cut from said dimension during my… episode.
Alicorns and certain artifacts can touch into this realm to gather magic, from what Celestia has told me. It’s how she moves the sun on a day to day basis, getting energy based on how much hope is in the world.
There’s also magic geysers, where the Thaumatic Plane intersects briefly with our world. Hopefully those are still up, otherwise power generators are going to shut down.
The Elements of Harmony and Tree of Harmony use feedback loops to construct huge spell constructs out of small amounts of ‘loans’ from this dimension., kind of like a rubber ball that bounces back harder every time it hits something. They release all of that magic into the universe, saturating it with more magic and harmony each time they are used. While my friends and I can no longer use the Elements, we can still call upon the abilities they contain.
If I’m correct, between Cele- wait… Celestia gains magic based on Hope. In turn, the less hope creatures feel, the less magic she gets. I just caused a magical blackout.
…
Buck.
So… to do: fix magic, imbue hope so Celestia can still move the sun, and find answers I’m looking for.
I couldn’t feel my magic anymore, which was a touch concerning. See, most ponies don’t realize the feeling of their bodies interacting with the Thaumatic Plane, but real speedsters like me have to feel it. We have to be able to draw from it at a moment’s notice and use it to our advantage when stunt flying, that way we still have enough magic to protect ourselves from crashes by wrapping ourselves in any magic we have in our stores.
And I couldn’t feel the Plane.
Combined with the fact that I couldn’t see and the ponies I had spurred were going crazy, and I felt very helpless. A feeling I always hated, that haunted me when I got my Cutie Mark.
Very few ponies that weren’t Earth Ponies were freaking out. Even all three of the Flower Trio were freaking out.
My eyesight started coming back when I heard frantic shrieking from the second floor of the Sugarcube Corner.
“Why can’t I hear you Gummy!?”
At this, I could feel all the heads in the room point towards the crazed mare.
As helpless as I felt, I couldn’t help but chuckle at Pinkie’s zaniness.
“Rich, can you lead me to the castle?” I asked.
“You’re going to the castle? Can you get Princess Twilight out of her castle? She’s been there for over a week now! We need her help!” somepony I couldn’t remember the voice of asked from behind me.
“I… Sure. If I run into her in the castle, I’ll tell her that there’s a problem. I’m sure she’ll fix it in no time once she’s aware.” I lied. I put on my best smile, not being able to see, and reassured them. I heard a collective sigh of relief.
Then heard a teleport behind me.
“Fair Rainbow Dash, you must- are you blinded too?! Gah, my luck!” Luna’s voice piped up from the side of me. I heard a lot of nervous shuffling, scraping against the wood of the floor. “Either way, I must take you to the castle. We need your… expertise with your connection to the Thaumatic Plane. Will you help?” She asked. To those who didn’t know her, she was calm and straightforward.
We had written to each other after the first Nightmare Night, exchanging prank ideas and telling each other of our exploits. We had talked during Cadance’s wedding and after we had raced several times.
Even if she said she was holding back, there’s no way she could have ever gone faster than she had during that race.
To me, I could hear a hint of desperation. A pinch of sadness and confusion. I nodded my head and smirked.
“I can’t fly, for obvious reasons, so can you help me out?” I asked seriously.
A teleport later and I was in Twilight’s castle. Specifically one of her bathrooms.
Puking my brains out.
“Princess, I am one for high speeds, but really? That was…” Just thinking about what she had just put me though made me retch again. I hoped I had gotten everything into the toilet I was currently leaning on.
“I simply forgot that you were unused to such methods of transportation and was in a rush to get here.” She whined. It was a faint whine, more of a bored lecture, but I could hear the hint.
I also heard her scraping her hoof on the floor. It was either an attack, which was quite ridiculous, or she was simply embarrassed.
I felt somewhat better after puking into the abused toilet bowl, but knew that I had to help.
“So, Princess, how’d ya manage to teleport during the magic blackout?” I asked curiously.
“The three tribes draw magic directly from the Thaumatic Realm, and in quantifiable amounts. Alicorns don’t. We draw magic based on certain emotions, which is why Celestia can raise the sun, and I the moon. Whatever severed your contact with the Thaumatic Realm can’t cut ours.” Seeing my face contort in confusion, Princess Luna continued. “Think of it like this: Is it easier to cut water or stone with scissors?”
“Stone, obviously… oh… you’re water.” I said dumbly.
The Princess nodded. “Though it is possible for me to draw less magic than you, I can also draw much more than you. It all depends on where I gather my strength from.”
“So, you said that you needed my help?”
“Yes, my sister cannot use magic, and I was wondering if you could help her find her source of power.” Luna stated
I put a hoof to my face in thought. It seemed that there was one major problem with the Princess’s request.
“Well, from what you’ve said, it could be anything. How did you figure out yours?” I started to break down the problem. Twilight had helped me figure out how I process things, I just had to take things a step further. I was mostly stalling while trying to figure out a game plan, though.
“My sister and I found out shortly after our defeat of Discord. As our ponies slept after the final confrontation some thousand years ago, they were filled with aspiration. That, of course, meant that they had hope, but they also dreamt for the first time after Discord’s reign. Our own magic was enhanced, and that is when Celestia first raised the sun, and I first lowered the moon.” the Princess reminisced. She had a slight smile on her face, which was washed off as her expression shifted into a somber one.
I nudged the Princess… Luna with my barrel. “Luna, I know she will be fine. Even IF she’s having difficulty with things, everything will change. Your sister will grow stronger, and you will support each other.” I gave a grin. “So, let’s go over to her, yeah?”
Luna seemed to stare in shock as I used her name instead of her title, but I could tell it wasn’t bad. She was genuinely happy, if a little surprised. I was surprised myself.
We rounded the corner, crystals only lit by the magic lights embedded in the walls.
“Hey Luna, why isn’t this castle blinding us? It doesn’t even look like anything’s changed!” I said in awe as I raised my head to look at the raised ceiling.
She pointed a hoof at her horn. “I simply cast a spell that would slow the light.” I wrinkled an eyebrow. “I can’t explain what I did without potentially boring you. To summarize, I cast a spell that increased the amount of time that elapses inside the bubble. This means that not as much light can come into the bubble.” I ‘oh’ed at that.
We turned several corners and trotted up a flight of stairs when I felt a tingling sensation in my wings. It was the same pins and needles feeling as when they fell asleep, but it was different.
I flapped my wings to test them, and was sent headfirst into one of the archways. I wasn’t able to even blink as I rocketed towards the pillar of crystal.
As soon as my impromptu catapulting had ended, I sighed in relief.
Celestia, am I lucky that I have natural resistance when I hit something going that fast.
“Are you okay, fair Rainbow Dash?” Luna called up, uncertainty tainting her voice..
“Yeah. Just have to- rrgh- pull myself out.” I called down as I pulled my front left hoof out of the crystal. “Phew… wait. I flew.”
Luna must have realized that at the same time I did. She galloped down the hallways, and I was only barely able to keep up with her with the enhancement to my magic.
Luna finally stopped in front of a door. I had looked around the castle several times after it sprung up out of nowhere as a favor to Twilight. She and Spike had needed help mapping the place out, and I came across this particular hallway several times. It was close to the throne room, and was a couple of turns away from the library. If somepony went forward and to the left, they would find the staircase that led to almost every floor in the place. There were four floors below it and three above it, the fourth below being a basement with exotic plants. There were also windows I could fit through on the stairwell, which let me speed up and around the castle as I got measurements for Twi.
And there was never a door here. In fact, I’d believe that the space in the wall led to a direct drop out of the castle. Granted it was in the center, but there was a hole through the center of the castle, just large enough for me to speed through when Twilight called us to her castle to catch up and offer relief to some of the townspeople.
“When was this ever here?” I asked aloud.
“Terra grew it out of the tree.” Luna said matter-of-factly.
I nodded at first, but then gaped at her.
Luna continued into the room, oblivious of, or perhaps amused by, my reaction. She led me into the room, and I saw a sparsely decorated room. There were two chairs, a bed, a desk, and a table. That was nothing on the size of the room.
“How is it so big? I thought the space this took up was smaller!” I said in awe.
An alicorn with a brown coat and a green mane and tail spoke up from the bed.
I couldn’t understand her, and luna sighed exasperatedly as the figure turned to her with pleading eyes.
“Well, the tree has Thaumatic residue, and churns out magic faster than a fire geyser from the Apploosan Territory. So she took a little bit of it to power a spell that rewrites gravity and physics so that the room is on the side of the wall, while looking like it’s straight”
I must have looked dumbfounded, as Luna piped up once more.
“She made reality think that the room is on the side of the castle, while still being straight up and down from the door.” she deadpanned.
“Wait-one-second-ima-check-something-out!” I shouted as I raced to the nearest open window.
My house was, thankfully, parked close to the castle. I loved using the castle as an alarm of sorts, as the sunlight refracting over the cloud bedroom would not let me sleep. Anchoring clouds was a chore, but it was worth having the view and convenience.
As I shot through my house, tearing apart walls that plopped together again after I went through them, I thought about what would be enough.
A pan? Nah, that won’t make enough noise over time, plus I might damage it… my clock? Easy to set up, hard to turn off. Eh, I’ll just go with it.
And thus, I raced into my storage room, grabbed a rainbow alarm clock, and raced towards the castle once more.
This clock is cliche, even for my tastes. Wonder why I haven’t replaced it yet…
Shooting over the rounded tree, I found the pit that I had used so often hidden under a large spire. The spire was held up by four stairwells, and continued up to the top of the castle. At the peak was a six sided star surrounded by five smaller stars, just like Twi’s Cutie Mark.
The pit was indeed clogged up like the brown alicorn said…
I’ve gotta figure out her name…
I wound the alarm clock to thirty seconds before my alarm, as it was easier to change the time than the alarm, set it down flat on the top of the room, and raced back through the castle to the strange room.
I got there far sooner than I set the alarm, and let the barrage of questions begin.
“Where did you go in such a hurry?” Luna asked unprompted.
“I flew over to my house to get something, next?” I said. I was slightly out of breath, but the speed I flew at was still slower than I could have gone.
Can’t have my house falling apart again after doing a Sonic Rainboom… That would be so embarrassing!
“Why?” the brown alicorn asked.
“To get an alarm clock to figure something out.” I paused before saying next, as I still had to figure out the mare’s name. “By the way, what’s your name?” I asked her. “Sorry that I didn’t ask that earlier.” I said sheepishly.
“Ma-ee naim ees Terra. And eet ees no-oo ish-oo.” The mare got out. I was reminded of Zecora’s accent, though it was different from her Zebrican accent. It sounded like she knew how the words should sound, but couldn’t figure out what to emphasize.
“I’m Rainbow Dash, fastest pegasus in Equestria, nice to meet you!” I said with a hoof offered and a cocky grin.
A ringing came from one of the walls of the room, the wall closest to the door. It was the alarm clock I had set. I went closer to the wall with wide eyes.
“This. Is. So. AWSOME!” I shouted with a hoof in the air.
I heard chuckling behind me as I sped out of the room to return and reset the clock. When I entered the room for the third time that day, I saw Luna and Terra with paddleballes in their magic. The former smirked at me as I entered the room, while the latter was laughing already.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the harmless yet humorous prank.
“So, Luna said I could help with your trait. I can’t help as much as I’d like, but I can say that something in the castle returned my magic to me.” I explained what happened to all the ponies outside to Terra.
Terra was about to start speaking when Luna interrupted her. “I’ll act as translator this one time, sister.”
Terra nodded. For some reason, my wings felt… weird. Like their equivalent of overindulging on cake and sweets.
Terra said something, and Luna translated while Terra spoke.
“So, in other words, there is this huge pocket of magic near the castle, but almost nothing in Ponyville and the rest of the country?”
I nodded. “There was enough that Luna and Celestia were able to teleport twice when everypony was panicked and dreary, that’s for sure.”
“Could it have something to do with the Tree of Harmony that makes up the castle?”
“I didn’t feel the same boost from my house, and it’s not too far from the castle. So the castle might not be putting out magic, but something in the castle, close to the center is.” I reasoned.
“Could it be coming from the tip, kind of like a... Sister, she won’t understand that reference. Ponies of this age don’t know about that…” Luna trailed off. “Though yes, that is what it sounds like.”
My wings felt so in tune with the air around me, I couldn’t tell where they ended and the air started.
After several seconds of Terra talking with Luna in a strange language, Luna turned to me.
“She requests that you fly around the Castle, recording how drained you get in major rooms. I’d recommend the spire, library, throne room, and main gate.” Luna said. I nodded and flew off.
I felt lighter than normal. Much. I sped into a wall, which did not treat me well. Even though I had the high speed impact resistance shield of magic around me.
It was to my shock that when I went to wipe my brow, there was a speck of blood on the hoof that took the brunt of the impact. It didn’t feel broken, but it was definitely bad.
Shaking off the unease that spread through me, I flew out the window with the notebook in tow to the rooms Luna had recommended.
As I neared the star at the top of the castle, I found that I didn’t feel any more energetic than normal. In fact, I was surprised to feel emptiness around me. I could feel something from deep in the castle, but nothing towards the outer layers of the castle.
Going to the Library confirmed what I felt, as I felt a pull that took me closer in. It seemed that there was a huge amount of magic coming from further in the castle.
The throne room felt more saturated, but not to the level that Luna and Terra had told me to look for.
Then I went past Terra’s hallway and facehoofed.
“Hey guys? It’s coming from in the room.” I called in as I entered.
Luna looked at me with worry. “Is your hoof okay, Rainbow? You look hurt!”
I looked down at the spots of blood on my hoof. “I crashed when flying out a window. No biggie, didn’t even feel it.” Unicorns and Earth ponies couldn’t sense how the shield would automatically react to how fast a pegasus was going, but I thought they would understand as alicorns.
“Terra, sister, you need to calm down. You’ve not actually used your wings yet, you would understand her flippance if you calm down and think rationally about what Celestia has told you about flying.” Luna said in a monotone voice, the kind of voice that just screamed how tired Luna actually was.
I felt the pins in my wing again.
“I think it’s gotta be one of you two, cause I feel a huge amount of magic here.” I told them once more.
Luna looked at her sister. “Terra, leave the room. As neither you nor I can feel what you speak of. If you can no longer feel it, then Terra must be giving it off. Or, at the very least, one of her possessions.”
Terra left the room. I could only assume she started wandering around, because the magic I felt before weakened greatly until I wasn’t able to feel the magic hotspot at all.
Luna looked at me expectantly, and I started walking out of the room once more.
“Terra!” I shouted into the mostly empty hallways. “We’ve figured out the source of the magic!”
Terra rounded a corner past a hallway that led to the kitchen connected to the throne room, walking at a leisurely pace. She motioned for me to get on with an explanation.
“I’ve figured out that you’re the center of the magic-dense zone, and we need to talk about what that means.
With alicorns like you and Luna, I’ve noticed that you don’t really have a magic cap, or at the very least it changes based on the mood of ponies around you. They feel inspired, Luna gets power. It makes sense that you wouldn’t notice, but you are putting out a lot of magic. I don’t really understand why you needed help getting your magic back when you have so much…” I trailed off.
She looked at me confused and started speaking in that broken Equuish that she spoke earlier. What she said boiled down to ‘But I can’t use magic, nor sense any around me to use. I honestly don’t know what you are talking about, friend…’
After translating what she had said, which took a minute longer than I would have liked, I raced out of the castle once more.
Whereas before I was headed for my cloud house, which was nearby, this time I was headed for Ponyville. It was far enough away that I had to pace myself, especially with the cargo I was planning on grabbing.
I had gotten into the town’s outskirts, when a pink and purple blur shot past me, racing to the castle.
The hay? Well, Luna’s there, so she can probably take on whatever monster that purple blur was. I need to get Pinkie.
As if I had summoned her, the pink party pony ran towards me, used her party cannon, and jumped over me. When I looked behind me, she had a pair of pink horns on her head. They were devil horns, and obviously fake.
“You mortal! Why hast thou summoned-eth MEEEEE?!” She shouted with a straight face.
I couldn’t help but collapse on the floor, laughing my flank off.
I finally finished teleporting around the country, shouting to everypony to cease magic usage before the wave of magic I sensed came barreling through. It payed off having a teleportation range based on the sun, so I was more efficient than most unicorns would be when traveling via lumomancy.
I made my final stop at Ponyville, as my sisters were still there. Luna had already warned the town, but I had to comfort Terra best I could until Thaumatic energy wove its way back into the universe via geysers and pressure differences. I could only hope that it would come back soon, lest…
Not a good habit to let my mind wander that way…
I could rest assured that my magic wouldn’t interfere with Equus’s sun’s gravity, so Equus’s orbit would likely simulate the orbit of said star around Equus. But my mind turned to things that I would not allow any conscious rational thought on, lest I go mad with worry. Luna would understand why I would be worried, but ponies still didn’t know that I wasn’t just moving the sun with magic…
I was fuelling it as well.
It started after Discord’s reign, as the laws of the universe were still… shaky. I had to magically move the star around Equus or face disastrous climate change. The sun had also lost many of its atoms, as Discord’s magic both fuelled it and made sure it would not run on fusion.
It had to be run on magic power. So much that it was, and still is, the largest magically fuelled construct in the known universe. The unicorns of old couldn’t even budge it, they only fuelled its insatiable appetite. I was lucky that I had stored so much magic inside it. It would certainly last several weeks, while my sister and I found a solution.
At least that’s what I thought would happen. As it turns out, fate had different plans.
“<Ah, sister, you can finally join us.>” Terra spoke with a nervous smile, one caused by the fourth alicorn in the room. Who was currently looking my way with a sickeningly sweet smile.
On a positive note, it would seem that Terra was exuding magic at a rapid pace, allowing me to charge the sun once more.
I sighed as I finally turned to Twilight. I did so with my motherly smile, though I’m sure everyone could see that it was laced with a kind of nervousness that bespoke just how much trouble I was in.
Well, time to see what my graduated student has to say.
And then a purple magic enveloped me and dragged me towards the throne room.