//------------------------------// // Nature Gone Wild // Story: The Elements of Magic // by alarajrogers //------------------------------// It was early afternoon when Celestia went into Luna’s bedroom with a trumpet and a bucket of ice water held in her magic. Luna, as expected, was sprawled out on her bed, snoring. She looked so peaceful, Celestia almost regretted having to do this... but Luna was the one who’d decided to take Ancient History at 2 pm, when she normally wasn’t awake until 4 or 5. Celestia put the trumpet to her mouth and began to blow. Luna rolled over in bed and smacked her with a wing, sending the trumpet flying, and immediately went back to sleep. This called for stronger tactics. Celestia dumped the bucket of water on her head. Luna jerked up in bed, spluttering and flapping her wings like a distressed chicken. “What the – Dis – wait, Tia?!” Celestia grinned. “You wouldn’t wake up when I blew the trumpet. It’s one pm; you’ve an hour to get dressed and ready to go to class.” “Ugh,” Luna moaned. “Why did I decide this was a good idea?” “Because it was taking Ancient History that let me recognize that the Crystal Empire was coming back, last year, and that is how our friends and we were able to defeat the Diamond Queen before she turned all of Equestria to crystal and purge the corruption to turn her back into Queen Rarity, and we became the bearers of the Elements of Magic? Not to mention earning Queen Twilight’s gratitude, because Queen Rarity was one of her best friends and her dragon consort is Queen Twilight’s brother?” Celestia had met with Queen Twilight for private tutoring sessions in magic multiple times since then, but had never asked her how, exactly, an alicorn pony had a dragon for a brother. Given that she was good friends with a draconequus who had a unicorn for a brother, it wasn’t as ridiculous to her as it had seemed to some of her… well, companions. She really couldn’t call Sombra or Tirek friends, exactly; Sombra was Luna’s friend, though, and what did you call the guy who was one of the exes of your ex? “None of this explains why I thought it was a good idea to take it at noon.” “It’s 2 pm, not noon, and the only other timeslot was 9 am.” “I should have taken that one. I could have stayed up for it and then gone to bed.” Luna pushed herself out of bed and shook herself, flapping her wings, which splattered water all over Celestia. “I suppose I had that coming,” Celestia sighed. “Let me get to the window,” Luna groused. “I want a morning flight before I have to go sit in a lecture hall.” “Of course, but the sun is up. Are you sure you won’t burst into flames like a vampony?” Luna just glared as Celestia giggled. She half-staggered over to the window and tried to push it open with her hooves. It wouldn’t push. “How odd. Sister, I can’t get the window open. Could you--?” “Sure.” Celestia lit her horn. Luna was a Pegasus, optimized for flight rather than strength or magic, and Celestia was a very powerful unicorn. The window resisted fiercely. Celestia had to probe around with her telekinesis to figure out what was holding it closed. “Now this is very odd. There are vines all over the walls, and they weren’t there last night!” With the last word, she made a final energetic push, and one of the two sides of the window banged open. She stuck her head outside. “Oh. Oh, my. Luna, take a look at this.” Luna squinted in the sunlight, but stuck her head out the window. “Do you think one of Discord’s spells went wrong?” The walls of their dormitory were completely covered in thick vines, ivy and grape and various types of vines that Greenie might recognize but Celestia absolutely did not. What was more, they could see that the other buildings on Queen Twilight’s Friendship University campus were also completely covered in vines, and there were trees all over the campus that hadn’t been there before. One had grown straight through the giant sculpture of twelve different races holding hooves or paws in a circle of friendship, knocking over the pegasus, the griffon, and the changeling, and completely shattering the gargoyle. This would probably upset Tirek, whose older brother was a gargoyle (which begged the question of why he’d thought it was so weird that Queen Twilight had a dragon for a brother, especially since he knew that young Starswirl, Celestia’s assistant, was actually Discord’s brother.) It might upset Chryssy, too, since she was very sensitive about changeling acceptance into Equestrian society – but possibly not, because she was also pretty self-centered and the changeling sculpture had been of a love-sharing changeling, not a throwback love-taking changeling like she was. “We’d better find him and ask,” Celestia said. “Can we even get to the stallions’ dorm?” Luna managed to squeeze herself through the half-opened window. “Let me check.” She flew off, and returned within a few minutes. “It looks like Discord, Sombra and Tirek are trying to pull the vines near their window off, so I think we can get over there if I fly you.” Celestia made a face. “I hate it when you fly me. What if we use the underground passages?” “I didn’t check those, but with all those new trees, I don’t know; roots may have breached the foundations.” “We should at least try,” Celestia decided. “We need to find Greenie, see if she knows anything about this.” Tirek had his entire torso out the window, trying to pull magic out of the vines that completely covered the walls of their dorm. Discord was extremely tempted to put a sign on his rump while he wasn’t paying attention – “kick me”, perhaps, or maybe “dat ass” or “shake it!” But Sombra would probably tell Tirek he’d done it, which would miss the point. “There’s a great deal of nature magic in those plants,” Tirek reported, pulling himself back in. “I can barely scratch the surface. I’d need to be a lot bigger to actually drain them.” “Let me try again,” Sombra suggested. “Nature magic is a chaotic type, and we’ve already seen that Discord can’t do anything to them, so let’s try Order.” “I wouldn’t say I can’t do anything to them,” Discord groused. “I made them grow muffins.” “Wonderful, but it doesn’t solve the problem,” Sombra snarked, and then stuck his head out the window. His red, curved horn lit, and dark-colored magic washed over the plants, tiny black crystals appearing inside many of the vines and expanding to cut them. The severed side of the vines withered, but the side connected to the root just grew more shoots and continued to climb up the walls. “Maybe I should go get Celestia?” Starswirl suggested. “Harmonic magic’s easier to combine with others…” Tirek scowled at him. “How exactly would you propose to do that? The mares’ dorm is just as bad, and you can see that the path between the dorms is overgrown with shrubs and tall grasses. We can’t walk there, and of all of us only Discord can fly.” “Why, thank you, T, I’m pleased to see you remember that,” Discord said, in a tone that could almost be mistaken for sincere. “The two of you need to be professionals,” Sombra said, pulling his head back through the window. “This is a serious enough issue that it might require us to find the mares. This could be a matter for the Elements of Magic.” “With our Elements being held by Queen Twilight in Canterlot, I’m not sure how you’d propose to use them,” Tirek said. “Maybe I can get a message to Queen Twilight?” Starswirl pulled his ever-present notebook out of the equally ever-present floppy hat he always wore, yanked a sheet out, and began writing on it with a quill. “Dear Queen Twilight, help! We are trapped in the dorms by plants.” “Don’t say that. It’s humiliating,” Tirek snapped. “We should solve the problem ourselves, not expect Queen Twilight to come in and save us.” Starswirl gasped. His horn lit up, and a message scroll materialized out of nothing. “She’s just sent us a message!” Discord plucked it out of the air before anyone else could. “Dear Discord, and also his friends: Help! There’s a terrible danger caused by forest plants taking over Equestria, and killer tomatoes are trying to eat ponies! I need a handsome young draconequus with powerful magic, oh, and his friends too, to solve—” “Give me that,” Sombra said, his magic ripping the message from Discord’s paw. Discord pouted. “You’re no fun.” “Dear Starswirl, please gather the Bearers of the Elements of Magic and have them meet me in Canterlot. As you’ve probably seen, there is an emergency; forest plants appear to be taking over Equestria, and Canterlot is trapped in a powerful storm system that has grounded our pegasi. Discord and Celestia will need to teleport you; the trains are not running due to trees growing through the tracks.” “What delight,” Tirek mumbled. Discord smirked. Tirek was not fond of being teleported. “Let’s see if we can get through the basement to find the girls,” Sombra said. “Or, I could teleport us to the girls’ dorm,” Discord suggested. “Or you could not, and we could follow Sombra’s suggestion,” Tirek said. Greensmith Apple, known as “Greenie” to her friends, was a native of Ponyville, where Queen Twilight Sparkle’s Friendship University was located. She belonged to a large and close-knit family, so it was her habit to leave campus at lunchtime to go get lunch at her family’s farm, Sweet Apple Acres. Granny Bloom made much better food than the lunch mares on campus did, in her opinion. (Celestia had pointed out to her that the lunch mares had to feed multiple species with different dietary requirements, and Granny Bloom did not, but Greenie had her opinion and it was very difficult to get her to change her opinions.) As she finished up her apple fritter with dandelion salad and soybean-paste-with-carrot dumplings, though, she felt something… something odd shivering through her, and it seemed to affect the rest of the family as well. Her great-uncle, Big Macintosh, got up from where he was sitting on the couch and trotted over to the window. “What’re you seeing, Big Mac?” Granny Bloom asked. “Feels like something wild’s coming through the earth.” “Eeyup,” Uncle Mac agreed. He stepped aside to let Greenie’s dad, Bright Mac, take a look. “Whoa there. The plants have gone crazy! Looks like the Everfree’s trying to grow over the fields!” “Well, we need to put a stop to that,” Buttercup Pear, Greenie’s mother, said firmly. “Everypony get on out to the field! We’ve got some weedin’ to do!” Greenie shook her head sadly. “Ma, Pa… I want to help out, but if this isn’t just happening on the Acres… I might be needed with the rest of my friends to put a stop to whatever it is.” “Daughter, you know how proud we are of how you and your friends handled that thing with the Diamond Queen coming back,” Bright Mac said firmly. “We’ll fight the weeds, and you go see if you and your friends need to fight off whatever’s causing this craziness.” “I’ll get my weedkiller!” Granny Bloom yelled, trotting off to her “lab”, the place where she mixed her potions. “Greenie, you get going before the weeds block you off!” “Right!” Greenie put her plate in the sink, rinsed it quick, and then trotted out the door. Outside the grass had grown to be as tall as a pony. The road was disrupted, the packed earth broken and crumbling around weeds sprouting from it. There were thick vines everywhere. There was a reason she was called Greensmith – aside from the fact that she was green, and “Granny Smith” was a type of apple. Greenie braced her hooves against the ground and drew on the magic of the Earth, hard. She was one of the most powerful earth ponies in Equestria, and she could shape plants, forcing them to grow in the places and the directions she wanted them to. But there was very little she could do about the torrent of wild magic racing through the ground. She could tell it was coming from the Everfree, and that it was equal parts nature magic – one of the earth pony specialties, that most farmers had to some degree – and chaos magic, though she only knew how to detect the latter because she was friends with Discord. Chaos mages weren’t exactly common; Discord was the only one she knew. She didn’t need to be able to control it or stop it, though. All she needed to do was direct it. A path opened up in front of her, plants withering in the exact center and growing away from her path on the left and right sides. Greenie took a deep breath, and then began to gallop back to the University. When Celestia and Luna checked, Greenie was not in her room – hardly unusual, she might not have come back from lunch yet – but her roommate Chrysalis was. Chrysalis was strange. Most changelings formed close bonds with other changelings or with members of other species, feeding on the love of friendship that they shared between them, and experiencing that love as much as they were strengthened and fed by it. Most changelings were also brightly colored, and came in shapes reminiscent of iridescent beetles, or sometimes ladybugs. Hundreds of years ago, King Thorax had brought the secret of sharing love to the rest of the changelings, and had ascended to become their King. Chrysalis was his own daughter, a princess of the changelings, and because of Thorax’s advanced age, it had been assumed that someday she would take the throne. But Chryssy was a throwback changeling – with a black carapace more reminiscent of an ant or a wasp than a beetle, and lacy legs that looked fragile, with holes in them. Chrysalis had been born unable to share love the way other changelings did, and it had made her arrogant and individualistic, and left her without friends or allies. So Thorax had sent her to Friendship University, and Greenie had stubbornly reached out to her to try to befriend her, and Celestia had joined in. Then they had all become the Elements of Magic, and Tirek, Chryssy’s elemental foil and partner, had become her friend as well. So Chrysalis still didn’t know how to feed from shared love, and might never learn, but she was capable of experiencing friendship to at least some degree, and concern for her friends. Her father sent her flasks of love jelly so she wouldn’t have to feed on anyone at the University, and she did magical training with unicorns rather than other changelings because she was so much more advanced than they were in changeling-specific magic. “We need to find Greenie and the boys and get to Canterlot,” Chrysalis said as soon as Celestia and Luna arrived. “My father has a message for Queen Twilight.” Sometimes Celestia envied the changelings’ ability to send messages to each other telepathically. “That’s just what we were going to suggest. What does he want you to tell her?” “Nature has gone mad,” Chrysalis said. “A storm system has appeared over our home, and plants are sprouting everywhere.” “The same thing is happening here,” Luna said. “Yes, well, the changelings live in a desert. We don’t get massive storm systems; we get torrential rain occasionally, but this is more like a hurricane, except for the problem that hurricanes don’t appear in the desert. And the plants always sprout during rain, but this is different. There’s far, far more of them than there usually is, and they’re taller, and there are vines everywhere.” Celestia nodded. “Luna and I saw that something similar has happened here. Have you looked out the window yet?” “No. You can’t fly, and neither can Greensmith, so I didn’t think of opening the window to fly to Canterlot.” “You might not be able to,” Luna said. “I couldn’t, and Celestia was barely able to pull half of it open with her telekinesis.” Chrysalis went to her window. It was covered with greenery to the point where she couldn’t see outside. “I see what you mean. Celestia. Fire spell?” “I didn’t want to try that in case it spread. I don’t want to burn the school down.” Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “The school is made of stone and crystal. It won’t burn. And if you can get the window open so Luna can get out, she can grab a cloud and put out the fire with rain if it spreads.” “All right, then.” Celestia concentrated. Fire, heat and light were her specialties, the magical talents specific to her cutie mark, a symbol of the sun. In a moment, a roaring blaze outside the window was consuming the plants that covered it. Celestia kept focused, directing the fire away from the wooden casements that formed the two halves of the window, until enough had burned away that Chrysalis could easily push the windows open. “I see Greensmith,” she reported. “She’s outside, on her way in.” Celestia could see the vines and overgrowth parting to let Greenie through. Luna had better distance vision, being a pegasus. “She looks exhausted,” Luna said. “I think we should go to her rather than expecting her to come to us.” “Is that safe?” Chrysalis asked. “We don’t know what these plants might do to creatures trapped within them as they grow.” “With you and I there to hold them back with magic, it should be safe enough,” Celestia said. “Luna, why don’t you go tell Greenie to stay where she is, and then put out the fire, and then come get me?” Unicorns couldn’t typically fly, because pushing against the ground to levitate themselves only worked when they were very close to the ground, and most unicorns could not directly lift themselves. But Celestia had trained her magic, most of her childhood, by playing with a chaos mage, who routinely altered his own gravity. She had learned spells to make herself considerably lighter, so her sister could easily carry her. Before anyone could agree on whether they were teleporting, flying (Discord swore up and down he could give everyone temporary wings), or attempting to use the basement passages, Discord saw Luna outside, which drew his attention to the fact that part of the wall of the girls’ dorm was on fire. “Now why didn’t we think of that?” he asked, pointing it out to Sombra and Tirek. “I did,” Tirek said. “But I didn’t want to fireball hard enough to damage the walls, and when I tried less power, the plants didn’t catch. Also, I have limited magic if you recall.” “Not feeding you,” Discord said sharply. “I don’t even want chaos magic, it’s barely useful,” Tirek snapped back. “I am going to trap Discord in a crystal and throw you out the window if the two of you can’t stop sniping at each other,” Sombra said to Tirek. “Here. Take this and stop feeding the chaos troll.” He made a ball of magic and enclosed it in a very, very thin layer of black crystal, then passed it over to Tirek. “You should easily be able to crack that with your hoof and consume the magic inside.” Discord wasn’t waiting. He slid his entire long body out the window. The vines hadn’t managed to fasten it closed again, although there was one ivy runner that had bridged across it vertically. “HEY, LUNA!” he shouted. Luna had dragged a cloud into place and was putting out the fire that presumably Celestia had started. She couldn’t hear him, or was acting like she couldn’t hear him, so he zipped over to her. “Luna! I see you got out the window!” “Hello, Discord. Do you know where the rest of the team is?” “In my bedroom, trying to figure out how to get out and get to you. Shall I go get them?” “We’re meeting down there,” Luna said, pointing a hoof at the ground. There was Greenie, in a small circle of grasses and vines that were bending away from her. “Chryssy says we need to go to Canterlot; King Thorax has a message for Queen Twilight.” “Well, isn’t that convenient! Queen Twilight has a message for us that we need to go meet with her! Apparently we have to teleport, trees have broken up the train tracks and there’s a storm system too powerful to fly into.” Luna made a face. “I vote to go with the group that teleports with Celestia.” “None of you appreciate my teleports even though I’m much better at it than Celestia.” “No one has forgotten the time you accidentally took us to that world with the giant worms coming out of the sand that almost ate us,” Luna said. “Oh, sure, bring that up again. That was one time.” Within the next five minutes, the entire group, plus Starswirl, had gathered on the ground. Greenie reported what was going on at Sweet Apple Acres, and how she was sure this was coming from the Everfree; Chrysalis relayed her father’s message, and pointed out that the Badlands were nowhere near the Everfree; Starswirl relayed Queen Twilight’s message; and Discord tried several tricks to redirect the chaotic portion of the magic, none of which worked as well as he hoped. “All right,” Celestia said. “It seems like this is definitely some kind of magical crisis. Queen Twilight has asked us to come to Canterlot, and warned us that we’ll have to teleport. Sombra, I think you know how to teleport yourself, but not others, right?” “Yes; I can turn into shadow and teleport, but I’ve no idea how to do that for anyone else,” Sombra admitted. “Chrysalis, can you teleport?” The changeling shook her head. “Not yet.” “All right. Sombra, you teleport yourself. I’ll take Starswirl and Luna; Discord, you take Chrysalis, Greenie and Tirek.” Chaos magic was better at teleportation than harmony magic was; Discord had been teleporting since early childhood and was much more experienced than Celestia at it. “We meet up inside the main hall at Canterlot Palace.” There were seven Elements of Magic, three held by ponies – one of each race – and four held by other species. Celestia, the unicorn, was Sun; her dominion was light, heat, fire, energy, and clarity – scrying spells, restoring damaged text, even sometimes prophetic dreams. Luna, the pegasus, was Moon; she had of course the usual pegasus abilities, like Celestia had telekinesis and other normal unicorn abilities, but far more than that. When she slept, she could enter the dreams of others and dispel, or create, nightmares. With her wings, she could shape shadow around herself or others, to virtually disappear… or she could push aside shadows at nighttime, to reveal things hiding in the darkness, not by shining light on them but by simply making them visible in darkness. Due to the connection between the Moon and the tides, she could also affect bodies of water, far more than the average pegasus – she could make water flow or disperse without having to pull it into the air first. Greensmith, the earth pony, was Earth; she had nature magic, and a connection to the rocks and stones and dirt that the planet itself was made of. Like most earth ponies, she was extremely strong; unlike most earth ponies, she was very aware of, and able to use consciously, her earth pony magic. Sombra, the Umbrum, was Order; he could crystallize magic into solid objects, which usually appeared as black crystals. Like other Umbrum, he could transform into a shadow form and teleport in that way, and he was a master of controlling dark magic, a feat nearly impossible for most. He was also adept at mind control spells, and equally adept at resisting them. Superficially he looked like a unicorn, but he had no cutie mark. Discord, the draconequus, was Chaos; an experienced chaos mage, he could use his powers to teleport, levitate, and generate any number of bizarre effects. He was the member of the group with the most raw power, but chaos magic was notoriously hard to control, so he couldn’t always make things happen the way he wanted them to. Chrysalis, the changeling, was Love; it was ironic, as she was a changeling who fed on love but could not feed by sharing it. She could sense emotions in others, and could drain them – including emotions like anger and fear, though she wasn’t fond of doing so. She could cast spells that made others feel specific emotions, such as love, or calmness… or darker ones. As a princess of the changelings, she could call on any changelings she met to assist her, though as a student of Friendship University she had sworn to do so only in genuine need, so she couldn’t get another changeling to do her homework or something like that. Tirek, the centaur, was Self; he could drain magic from any living creature that possessed it, including animals and plants, and channel it either into unicorn-style spells, or health, strength and greater size. Since he could drain magic, it was almost impossible to affect him with magic unless he chose, making him immune to mind control and emotion altering spells. The stronger he became and the more magic he held, the more magic he could drain, and the less resistance others could mount against his metamagical abilities. All seven of them attended Queen Twilight Sparkle’s Friendship University, in Ponyville, on the edge of the Everfree Forest. The University was open to any individual of any species who wanted to attend, so long as they were willing to act in the spirit of friendship and tolerance. Celestia had been Queen Twilight’s personal student in Canterlot, at the School of Magic, before she and her sister Luna had both been accepted to the University. They existed in three groups of partnership and opposition – Celestia, Luna and Greenie as Sun, Moon and Earth; Discord and Sombra as Chaos and Order; Chryssy and Tirek as Love and Self. Together, last year, they’d freed Good Queen Rarity of the Crystal Empire from being the cruel and deadly Diamond Queen, who wanted to turn all of Equestria into beautiful gems, and her consort Spike the dragon, and earned Queen Twilight’s eternal gratitude. And now, it seemed, they would be called on again.