//------------------------------//
// Our Story So Far... 
// Story: Brightly Lit 2: Pharos 
// by Penalt 
//------------------------------//

Our story so far:

    After the defeat of the Godwindigo and the acceptance of the citizens of Brightly as sometimes ponies, work progressed on both sides of the small portal in an effort to enlarge it so full and easy contact could be a thing between Earth and Equestria.  Both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna enjoyed their unintended vacation from their duties, getting to know the people of Brightly and starting diplomatic relations with Canada and the world in general.

    Celestia in particular made the effort to make friends and confidants, taking both Medevac and a production assistant from Fox News under her metaphorical wings and granting both titles and positions under her.

    While this was going on, Luna continued to cultivate her relationship with Captain Rios, and although he declined her offer to be her personal huntsman in the quest to find where the Windigo had gone to ground, he did accept her offer of basic tutelage in magic in exchange for the US putting a military unit on standby to take out the Windigo when it was finally run to ground.

    As long as Canadian authorities approved of the incursion.

    Jessica Velasquez, Fox News production assistant, broke the news that somewhere out in the world were forty-seven Equestrian gemstones.  Stones that been gifted to John Leung during his ordeal in the mine and shortly thereafter.  While each of the stones possessed an enchantment to aid in a survival situation, they were also capable of absorbing energy around them, and then releasing that build up of power in a titanic burst.

    A massive global scavenger hunt broke out for the missing gems, of which at least two of which were found and experimented on by high energy physics.  The first, when exposed to the output of a nuclear reactor, sent both the entire reactor and some of its personnel… elsewhere.  The second was exposed to the output beam of a particle accelerator and for a short time created a gateway between Earth and a different elsewhere.

    Meanwhile, the scientific community did their best to converge on Brightly, in an effort to understand magic and the ponies it had created, and though access to the town and the area nearby was of necessity controlled by the Canadian military, the cordon was also occasionally breached by desperate individuals who discovered, to their amazement, that they too could tap the growing magic around the town.

Indeed, magic began to become commonplace in Brightly to the point where even non-ponies discovered that they could create small magical effects.  

But the greatest harnessing of the growing power in the area was Iron Heart’s forging of the Foxfire Swords.  Five bronze blades meant to represent the forging of himself, Foxfire, Iron Hoof, Shield Maiden and Seeker into a full and complete family meant as a simple mundane gift became infused with the full power of the realized magic of Iron Heart’s cutie mark as it manifested during his creation of the swords.  

The effort nearly killed Iron Heart, and during the battle to save the life of the pony smith Foxfire’s Umbral companion took advantage of the situation to step up its gambit of mentally corrupting the unicorn by getting the witch to agree to allow her body and magic to be directly controlled by the magical spirit.  

During this time the Umbral manipulated events to plant a powerful compulsion in the mind of Medevac, the town’s primary medical caregiver.  The mental compulsion would render her utterly obedient to NyteFyre, Queen of Brightly and the Lands Beyond, that being the persona that the Umbral was slowly corrupting Foxfire into.

Canada’s apparent monopoly on magic and ponies did not sit well with either the international community or many of Canada’s traditional allies, such as the United States.  More than one country sent detachments of special forces to “obtain” samples of magic or ponies.  All of which failed.  

When their own covert forces failed, elements of the US military dispatched a small group known as Team Mercury to Brightly in an attempt to bribe, cajole, trick, or outright kidnap a pony to the United States.  The team set their sights on Skylark, and planned to use an invitation to visit the US Air Force Academy to lure her and her family to the US.

The Umbral’s covert subversion was revealed when Celestia was told of a subservient bow that Medevac had begun making to Foxfire.  A specific kind of obeisance that was of a slave to their master.  Celestia and Luna were preparing to act on this information when Twilight Sparkle signalled that she was about to enlarge and stabilize the portal between the worlds.

Shelving their discovery for later, the sisters moved to perform their part in the manipulation of the gateway, only to find that an unknown source of magic was interfering with their attempts.  This unknown source, in reality a tree planted decades ago by John Leung and brought to life by the initial burst of magic from the portal, had also thrown off Twilight’s calculations with regards to how much power was needed and how that power needed to be used.

It was also this tree that had been slowly increasing the magic in and around Brightly as it matured, flowered and began to produce fruit of its own.  A secret and unknown fountain of magic.

A last minute improvisation by Starlight nearly saved the day, until an intended helpful addition by the Cutie Mark Crusaders blew up in everyone’s face, destroying the mirror the portal was framed in and unleashing its energies in a whirlwind of chaos that would have made Discord proud.  

In this moment of distraction and opportunity, the Umbral made its move to finish its corruption of Foxfire, and would have succeeded, if not for the timely interruption of Seeker.  Though Foxfire escaped being fully ensnared by the dark entity, the Umbral did manage to use Foxfire’s power to blast Celestia and Luna back through the rapidly closing portal, dragging the Fox News staffer with them, and as the energies of the portal exploded in a thunderous crash the twisting of the ether also grabbed up the Crusaders and hurled them bodily to Earth.

Frightened by the powerful explosion, Leung’s tree stopped sending out its magic and instead shielded itself from a suddenly frightening world that was now silent of the magic of its homeworld.  With the sudden cessation of magic in and around Brightly, every pony lost the vast majority of their abilities, but no creature was more affected than the Umbral within Foxfire’s mind.

Suddenly deprived of the magic that was its lifeblood, the dark spirit faded into nothingness, vowing that it would return.

In the aftermath of the collapse of the portal, the world had to deal having set up mechanisms to deal with Equestria, but no Equestria.  The only signs that anything odd had ever happened was a town with a good number of now depowered  ponies, forty-odd gemstones with unusual properties somewhere in the world and three Equestrian ponies.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders survived their explosive trip through the dying portal and after recovering at the local clinic, found themselves being adopted by the Harding family.  Windweaver and Thunder opened the home and their hearts to the dimension tossed trio, letting them know that for as long as they needed it, they would have a place alongside their own children.  

While well intentioned, this action caused its own complications, resulting in a short, but sharp confrontation with child welfare authorities at the Harding household.

Present at the time, Team Mercury used this confrontation to impulsively kidnap Apple Bloom and attempt to make off with her, along with three gemstones that Sweetie Belle had carried with her through the portal from Equestria. In the end, Mercury was thwarted both by the rapid response of Canadian security forces and by more permanently with Team Mercury encountering the Foxfire Swords, which turned two of them into ponies.  

With Team Mercury, human and pony both, in custody, the ponies of Brightly turned their attention to the swords themselves.  This time, care and caution were exercised and Seeker, Iron Hoof, Shield Maiden, Iron Heart and Foxfire each took up their sword and gained a small insight into their futures.

While the quintet recovered from their magical interaction, another was taking place with the CMC, and their appointed bodyguard, Warrant Officer Ram of Joint Task Force 2.  Together they rediscovered Leung’s tree, and upon eating from its fruit, both regained much of their abilities, and in the case of Officer Ram, found themselves transformed into a pony.

Once the local authorities caught wind of this they decided to harvest as many apples as possible from the tree, during which a soldier accidentally broke one of the tree’s branches, and the tree responded by strengthening the shield around itself, cutting itself off from all outside contact.

Until a pony named Seeker heard the tree’s call for help and answered…