"We're almost there."
Hex and I neared a clearing in the woods which most likely was my impact site. Wow, saying that feels weird. Impact site. That sounds like something about a disease, like "Sir, you appear to have warts on your impact site. Did you use protection?"
Yeah, I'll stop now.
Point is, we headed towards my impact site. I was told I slammed down pretty hard, hard enough to form a crater. I call BS on that one. If I slammed down that hard, I doubt I'd still be alive, which means that there were other forces at play. Calypso, I'm looking at you, you psychotic bi-
"There it is!"
Finally, we broke through the trees and came into the clearing. It was a mess. Trees laid scattered about willy-nilly, some broken in half while others were completely uprooted. The grass as well as the trees was singed, and visibly dying in some places. Oddly, unlike the rest of the forest, there were no animals anywhere in the clearing. Birds could be heard deeper in the forest, but not close-by. No squirrels scampered about, and even insects avoided the place like the plague. Okay, to be honest, I didn't look that hard for any insects, but whatever.
Topping it all off, the whole place had a strange atmosphere that just gave me the willies. It was similar to walking into a creepy house and screaming "Is anybody there?", only to have nobody answer. No, that's a bad analogy. It was just spooky, alright?
Hex smiled madly at the sight of this weird ground zero, giggling like a schoolgirl to himself.
"Even now, I still feel overwhelmed when I step in here. The amount of magic is just incredible! Can’t you feel it too?”
"I can't, actually. Apparently, I'm immune to magic. Isn't that just a buzzkill?"
Hex frowned at me, raising a wizardry eyebrow in disbelief.
"No, that's impossible. This energy matches up with you. I didn't get my cutie mark in reading aura for nothing".
Speaking of cutie marks, his was a blue heart burning inside deeper blue fire.
"So what the dickens is an aura?"
His eyes focused on me for a second, after which he sighed and shook his head.
"It is something like the essence of all living things. It emanates from one's body, but can't be seen by most ponies. Only those born with the gift of Sight can see auras."
"Wow, Sight. That's a creative name. Anyways, what does this aura do?"
"Aura can tell you everything about a certain pony. However, not all ponies can read into it too far. Some can only discern others' emotional states. We call those the Empaths. Then, there are those who can read into others' personality and characteristics. Those ponies are known as Seers. While Sight is rare, Seers are even rarer. Finally, the especially gifted can even see information about one's past and future. Those are the Oracles. As far as I know, there hasn't been an Oracle born in over a thousand years."
Okay, that was a lot to take in. Seers, Empaths, and Oracles. Empaths can see your mood, Seers can see your personality, and Oracles can even see your future. If someone told me this on Earth, I'd object and call them batdoodoo crazy, but I'm not surprised to hear it here.
"Yeah, okay. Two things: One, you just screwed yourself over. Now that you said "there are no Oracles as far as I know", an Oracle is gonna pop out of somewhere. Hell, it might even be you. Two, you never said which one you are. So cough it up, buddy."
He smiled at me, then set off towards the crater in the center of the clearing. By the way, I decided to name the clearing Stanland, because I can. Anyways, I followed the annoying pony wizard towards my crater. By now, I was more than used to not getting my answers immediately. Calypso and Hex both like to draw things out longer than necessary and make them horribly awkward.
Hex paused at the edge of the crater, as did I. That strange feeling was even stronger here, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
"What color would you say best represents you, Stan?"
"Uhm, I dunno. Red, I guess."
Hex mischievously grinned at me.
"And why would that be?"
"I mean, I don't really know. I guess it's cause red and me both are intense, or something. Why?"
"No reason. Come on!"
As annoying as always, Hex dodged my question and slid down the side of the crater. I followed him down with a groan. Still, I had to be careful sliding down the side, as I didn't have four legs like Mr. Hex. I could fall over much easier, and that would be pretty embarrassing.
Once we got down to the bottom, Hex excitedly showed me some white metal object that lied near the center. Wires haphazardly stuck out of the back, and what I assumed was the front was firmly stuck in the mud. In fact, upon taking a closer look, the whole thing looked dirty.
"Princess Celestia asked us not to touch this. She said you might know what is it better than us."
I stuck my hands down into the mud and heaved the heavy cylinder thing up. I laid it back down on the ground and spent a minute cleaning the front from all the mud. After that, I picked it back up. The front had a black metal strip, in the center of which was a small black tube with some glass thing in the middle. Suddenly, the glass lit up yellow and I dropped it, after Hex and I both screamed like little girls.
"WELL YOU FOUND ME. CONGRATULATIONS."
The metal thing spoke in a robotic, text-to-speech-like manner.
"WAS IT WORTH IT?"
At this point, I was so thoroughly disturbed I only saw one option: Punting the talking metal thing as hard as I could. Which I did. Which also happened to hurt really, really bad. Note to self: Don't punt heavy metal objects.
"THE ONLY THING YOU'VE MANAGED TO BREAK SO FAR IS MY HEART."
Okay, plan B. I grabbed it and ran up the side of the crater and to the nearest large rock. After throwing the metal creep down, I grabbed said rock and proceeded to bash the crap out of the metal thing with my rocky tool of destruction.
"THIS ISN'T BRAVE. IT'S MURDER."
Despite its protests, I continued my assault without any relent. The object's voice was getting more and more distorted at each hit.
"WHAT DID I EVER D-DO TO YOU?"
With a scream, I brought the rock down on it for the last time.
"You don't even care... do you?"
Having uttered its goodbye, the object finally broke apart and the wires fizzed out. I got up, panting. Hex ran over to my side and sent one look down at the broken metal fellow.
"Well! Remind me not to ever scare you."
After a chuckle, I stood back up.
"Sure, hah. Now, will you tell me why you lead me here or should I start guessing?"
"Well, that thing was one of the reasons. The other is because Commander Rising asked me to test you for magic."
"Doesn't anyone listen to me? I don't have any friggin magic."
Ignoring my protests, Hex told me to sit down and get in a comfortable position. I sat down cross legged on the ground, and he sat on his haunches next to me. Next, he instructed me to close my eyes and just relax for several minutes, to push everything out of my mind. I did as he asked, even if it was a waste of time. Some people just aren't worth arguing with.
While Stan was meditating, Hex quietly got up and looked at him. Just to reaffirm what he had seen before, he channeled magic into his eyes and began the process known as sight. As his eye got accustomed to the flow of magic, Stan's aura began to reveal itself to him. Just like last time, it was an iridescent mass of colors. It shifted and twirled around, none of it staying in place for too long. It was unlike anything Hex had ever seen before.
Other than the color, the shape was also irregular. This, however, was more easily dismissible. Different animals have all kinds of different aura shapes. Even if that was true, it was still the first time Hex had seen such a violent shape. Rather than the round, calm aura ponies have, Stan's was jagged and more of an oval. What that meant, he had no idea.
With a sigh, he stopped the flow of magic to his eyes. Slowly, the surroundings went back to normal, their aura hidden once again.
Truly an ambiguous aura, Hex thought to himself.
"Hey, this meditating crap isn't working."
I opened my eyes and Hex gave me a shrug.
"I suppose you simply have too much on your mind. We will try again tomorrow, be sure to get a good night's rest tonight. I suspect you'll need it."
We both got up and began walking the long, winding way back to the castle.
"Lord...Umbra."
Umbra turned to face the speaker: a wraith. Wraiths are surreal beings made completely of ashes, able to take any form they might desire. Stronger wraiths can abandon their ash bodies and form themselves from shadows. During that stage, they are known as Shadow Wraiths. Shadow wraiths are nearly invincible in the night, because nearly everything is dark and they have room to manifest.
Long ago, many wraiths would burn living creatures alive to creature more of their kind. Their birth is the main reason so many wraiths are violent and resent living beings. Due to that monstrous ritual, Celestia banished all of them when she took the throne, and they always held a grudge towards her. When Umbra came along, he promised them freedom if they swore to serve him.
This wraith took the appearance of a small, ashen rodent. It spoke in a slow, composed manner.
"What do you want, Ras?"
"I found... it."
Hex and I walked into the giant library, as Hex said he had wanted to pick up a book on aura. It worked out well for me, as I already needed to get a pen or pencil to write in the book. The crater didn't offer me as many answers as I had hoped, so I needed to try the book again. Hex told me to look at the books or something while he went to find one, but that didn't sound very appealing to me, so I just decided to wander around the library.
I saw Twilight Sparkle sitting at one of the tables, her face buried in books. A glowing quill furiously scribbled some notes down on an adjacent notebook. Near the notebook lay another canister full of quills, and a small jar of ink lay next to that.
"Hey, Sparkles! Can you bum me a quill?"
She completely ignored my kind request and continued to write some crap on her notebook. Nerd.
I slammed my hand down on the table, causing her to jump up a bit.
"Wha... Stan? Why did you do that?"
"'Cause you weren't paying any attention, jerk. Can I borrow a quill and some ink?"
"Well, I guess so. You can have my extra bottle of ink."
A bottle of ink flew out from behind a stack of books, shortly after which a quill joined it. I snatched them out of the air and thanked Twilight. She went back to her reading and writing and I left to find Hex. A second after that, I decided that it was more important to check out the book.
I found a secluded corner of the library that was hidden behind some bookcases, the perfect place to do my work undisturbed. The book easily came out of my pocket, breaking every known law of physics in the process yet again. I flipped it open to the first page, and dipped my quill in the ink. After taking a deep breath, I pressed the quill to the paper and wrote out a brief greeting.
Suddenly, the book slammed shut and ripped out of my hands. It flew up into the air and blinded me with a flash of light. This whole scenario reminded me of Calypso and how she changed into a human. Wait a second...
Yup, there it goes. After I could see again, the book turned into a woman. Color me surprised.
The bookwoman was shorter than I, standing at maybe five and a half feet or so. It was difficult to tell exactly how tall she was, considering she was flying in the middle of the air. She had long, black hair, and black eyes as well. It then dawned upon me that the short greeting I wrote on the book was now scribbled across her face. Yep, "Waddup" was written on her face. Maybe that's why she was glaring at me?
"Well that was rude of you. Could you not have simply asked me to awaken?"
"I mean, you were a book. I don't speak to books very often. And by that, I meant that I never speak to books."
Madame Livre sighed. "Then you are simply closed-minded. Now, what do you want?"
I scratched the back of my head, and responded, "Uhh... What do you mean 'What do you want'? I was under the impression that you were going to give information or something."
The girl crossed her arms and nodded.
"Then is it knowledge you seek?"
This woman made no sense to me. Calypso gave me her in book-form and said that she would provide me with all of the knowledge I need, but it seems like this girl doesn't even know what I need.
"Well, I suppose. I want your help against this d-bag called Umbra."
She nodded and was about to move, but then she froze and her eyebrows furrowed.
"You... request my aid? Elaborate."
"Well, it doesn't look like you have that much stuff to do, so I just wanted you to help. To be my ally, a companion, a bro, you know?"
"To be your... ally?" She paused as she considered whether she should accept or not.
"Very well."
I did a fist pump in celebration, and considered going for a high five, but then again, a book probably wouldn't know how to high five.
"So, what's your name, new friend? And how much do you know about me?"
"My name? I have none. Neither do I have any knowledge on you."
Hmm, odd. Calypso also said she didn't have a name, but it seemed like she could read my mind. Strange.
"Well, you need a name then. I can't just refer to you as "you" forever, y'know?" After all that hiking in the woods and Rising's tests, my body was pretty worn out. I didn't have the energy necessary to think up of a cool name for her, so I just settled with a mediocre one.
"I think I'll call you... Book.
Wow, and I even insulted Hex's Sight and called it unoriginal. I hate it when I end up looking like a hypocrite.
Some emotion flashed past her eyes, but it was gone before I could properly recognize it. Her face settled on that passive-aggressive glare, and when I wasn't looking it seems that she cleaned off the ink from her face. Even if she did act like a bit of a jerk, it was good to have her on board. She was the only human I could interact with until I get home. Then again, she was a book, but close enough.
"Very well. And what is your... name?"
With a smirk on my face, I responded, "Well, you can call me Sir!"
After I received another angry glare from her, I added, "On second thought, Stan works too. Yeah, call me Stan."
Someone called out my name, and Book reverted back to book state. I guess she.... had to book it.
Hex came into view and looked relieved to see me.
"There you are. Come, we have to report to Rising."
Ash Ghost and her fellow assassins prepared themselves for the mission ahead. A wraith spy, Ras, had located the two legged creature they were to assassinate. He had been on a carriage that was headed to Canterlot. While there would be many guards and sentries posted at Canterlot, it would be relatively easy to get a single assassin in while the others waited nearby. Once the target was eliminated, all of the assassins would pop out of hiding and help their fellow escape. Seeing as Ash Ghost had the most experience with their target, she was chosen as the one who would sneak in.
Umbra warned them about what would happen if they failed. He promised to kill every single assassin present if they didn't accomplish their task without a hitch. With that grim thought in mind, the assassins steeled themselves for the fight ahead. It would be the hardest mission they've done yet as a team, on they couldn't take lightly.
Personally, Ash Ghost looked forward to it. The last time she and the creature had met, she had been humiliated by it. Not one to screw up twice, she was sure she'd make it pay for her last failure.
The team of Pegasi assassins finished their preparations, and were ready to head out. Umbra gave them a grim smile and a nod, and they took off towards Canterlot to enact punishment. Nopony can get survive for long against Umbra.