//------------------------------// // 0 - 3: Trust // Story: Four Stars // by Moterius //------------------------------// (DB) Having slept after training flying – I eventually switched after Celestia became too tired training with Star – I was woken up by the ringing of my handy. Knowing that custom ringtone, I grabbed the phone, looked at the clock and answered it, my brain not properly working although having four times the volume it had before now. “What is it, Lukas, it’s like five o’clock in the morning. The hell do you want?” I growled while trying to suppress a yawn. Unlike him, I wasn’t one of the people who could stand up early and be awake. “Hey, could you give me to Samuel? I haven’t talked with him in a while.” I thought a moment if I should tell him the truth or not, then decided to just go with it. “I’m Samuel, although I should go by Samantha now,” I retorted, getting awake slightly more than before. “Seriously? Don’t screw with me, Samuel is male.” I groaned. “Summer, 2016. Me, Lisa, you and your sister, the lake, you thinking you saw a squid,” I shot back, knowing that only the people I just listed knew about that day. On the other end of the connection, I could hear something clattering to the ground. “…r-really? You’re serious?” he then asked, a slight amount of panic in his voice. “Yeah,” I responded, then looked at my wristwatch that was lying on my nightstand. I completely forgot about that one. “Then, how about we meet at my place? It’s Sunday anyway, so you should be able to come here before 11 o’clock.” I shrugged, then thought a moment about it. Jogging there would cost me about half an hour. And right now, it was five in the morning. “ONLY if you stop calling me when I’m not awake.” “Just turn off your phone. Welp, I’ll see you later, I guess,” he responded, and then ended the call. Fair point, he usually called me on my mobile phone. Sighing, I made my way down before eating breakfast. Whilst doing so, I realized that even though ponies were supposed to be herbivores, I still could eat meat. (Actually, I just made scrambled eggs with bacon and ate it without thinking about it, but the meat tasted, for some reason, even better than before.) The rest of my time was spent trying to fly. I also noticed that Flare had less lift than the other three, but also seemed heavier. Maybe she was actually made from molten stone? By ten thirty, I could hover and move around quite well in all bodies, but strong air bursts still threw me off and caused me to crash more often than not. And while I knew that an alicorn was quite resilient, I had no intention to test that or allow myself to be spotted by someone. I put the horn ring back on, noticing the clothes reappearing that I put on this morning. I had the flame t-shirt and the jacket as well as one of the jeans I bought on. The jeans were not one of those slim, elastic ones but some that had a bit give, which meant I could actually jog or run without worrying about them ripping apart on me. Also, I didn’t want to show off. In the end, it took me about twenty-five minutes to actually get to his house Ringing on the bell, he then opened the door and let me in, staring at me. “So, no prank?” “Nope,” I retorted, chuckling. “How did this even happen?” he then asked, shaking his head. I sat down and explained my encounter with that self-proclaimed ‘god’, carefully cutting anything out about what I had become. “Wow. That’s deep,” he then said, and I found myself nodding. “How does one cope with being told their whole world is just a copy of a copy? You either stop doing anything or you walk forwards, one step in front of the other,” I said, and he nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Still… for some reason, I think I know your voice from somewhere.” I shrugged. “My voice is bound to sound similar to someone. There are way too many people on the planet for that to not be the case,” I retorted, knowing my voice probably sounded like whoever was voicing Celestia in MLP. “Still, did you get anything else out of this?” “Magic,” I deadpanned, causing him to raise an eyebrow. “Magic?” “Magic,” I said, lighting up my right hand with the white glow my magic had when I pulled out the aura. That also meant I had only a very small amount of magic to work with, but it was not my intention to show him how powerful I actually was. Additionally, if he had any idea about MLP, the color could give him enough information to tell him what I had become. “So, it’s real? I always wondered if it was,” he said, and I found myself nodding. “It’s very real,” I said, pulling out some pages I copied from the book describing how to draw upon one’s magic. He took them and quickly skimmed over them, before putting them on a shelf. “I’ll try that later, but I don’t think I’ll succeed. If I had to guess, whatever happened to you also gave you magic.” “Maybe,” I responded – Correct, I thought. “Oh! By the way, in the night from Friday to Saturday, a meteor shower hit the earth, and it caused some confusion as we had no idea where it came from. Could maybe be linked to whatever happened to you.” Ah, right. He was an astronomer. Maybe I should tell him who I am? Meh, why the hell not. Why was I hiding that, again? “Well, you’re interested in astronomy, right?” He nodded. “Yeah, why?” I focused my magic in a small orb between my hands – and then I pulled at my reserves. It glowed brighter and brighter until I could feel enough magic between my hands to blow up the city. A small replica of a star was now hovering between my hands. Grabbing it with my left hand, I then changed it a bit so that one could touch it, and so that it would only slowly lose strength instead of exploding. I did not know how I did it, but I knew that I succeeded. It had a nice, yellow glow. “What did you just do?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. I handed him the star. “Okay… and what is this?” he asked, turning it between his fingers. “It’s a miniature star. I thought you might appreciate it,” I responded, causing his eyes to go wide. “You… you did what now? Are you still human?” I shook my head. “I don’t think so. But for an astronomer, a star is the right gift, don’t you think?” He just nodded slowly in response, then placed it on his kitchen table. I could tell that a small amount of magic was flowing from the star, which then got absorbed by him. Realizing this, I made a mental note to get some sort of harness for the star. I got the whacky idea to make it look like that eye of something (I think it was called Eye of Amaretto) that held the time stone in the Marvel movies. May I help with that? Looking around shocked, I noticed that Lukas stopped moving and that ‘god’ was hovering next to me again. “The hell are you doing here?” Just wanted to play a bit around. I’m bored. “…weren’t you the one who complained about not having any time to do your job?” If I stay in only one world, I can return to my office in the multiverse at the moment I left it, and I really need a bit of vacation after what my co-worker just dumped on me. So, you want to create metalworks? I nodded. Well, I would recommend using Flare for that. She should be able to bend rocks and metal with her magic easily. As you may have noticed, your powers are not exactly the same as they should be, and what Flare turned into was not an alicorn with the power of the sun coursing through her body, but an alicorn made from stone and obsidian, kept alive by insane amounts of magic. As long as you only want to form metal and not have it specific attributes, like being steel, she should be able to do that. Ciao! And before I could do anything, he vanished again, the world resuming. I decided to just ignore what happened but still made a note that Flare was made from rocks. At least makes healing easier… “Samuel? You look a bit lost…” “Sorry, I get lost in thought easy lately. Did you say something?” He shook his head. “No, but I was wondering if you will stay.” “What do you mean?” “People are bound to notice that something happened to you, and if they ever hear of your abilities, they will probably try to get you and use them to their advantage,” he said, and I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll probably not stay too long, but I promise that I’ll try to stay in contact with you, if that’s okay with you.” “Sure. After all, it’s not me that should tell you how to live your life,” he retorted, and I chuckled. “I’m open to suggestions,” I shot back, and he facepalmed. After a bit more banter, I eventually left, reminding him about the magic he should now possess on my way out.