//------------------------------// // Chapter two: Unsteady Relations // Story: The Phoenix and The Illusion // by Alasdair Edom //------------------------------// Chapter Two "Are we getting closer Twilight? I don't want to be stuck out here for long with all this iky... Dirt." Rarity asks. I nod, "We're almost there. There are two distinct distortions, but they both happened at the same time, so we're heading for the closest one." "I hope they're okay..." Fluttershy quietly adds, I smile. "I'm sure they'll be fine Fluttershy, and if not, we can use the medical supplies you brought along." Rainbow flies down and lands beside the group. "Any news Dash?" Dash nods, "I saw movement just a little ahead, two ponies by the looks of it." I raise an eyebrow, "Were they injured or slow-moving at all?" She shakes her head, "They were moving at walking pace, so I don't think they're hurt." "From what I felt... They should be at least mentally exhausted, and that's about as generous as it gets! That couldn't have been them, it's impossible..." "We'll soon find out anyway, they're coming this way." I look around to make sure there aren't any predators following us, "Dash, can you hover just above us and tell us if you see anything?" "Already on it." She says as she hovers up just above the trees as we wait for the mysterious source of all this fuss. And we'll be finding out soon. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ All was reasonably quiet between me and Chandra as we strode through the thick forest to get out, but the silence was broken as I sensed another powerful magical mind nearby. I hold out an arm, stopping Chandra from moving. "What is it-" "Shhh! Someone's nearby." I whisper. Chandra rolls her eyes and whispers back, "Why don't we just walk up to them, and if they aren't friendly, I fry them?" I shake my head, "We're on a strange plane with no knowledge of what live here, I would prefer to find out what the sentient species is like, and maybe there's more than one." "If they try to kill us, then can I fry them?" I give a quiet groan, "Maybe, it depends on how things work out." I make a gesture for her to follow, and she reluctantly does so. She isn't one for stealth, but right now I think it would be best for us to stay hidden. I don't want to confront this mage if I have the option not to. We make our way to a thick part of foliage next to the presence, but I don't see anything... "...can you hover just above us and tell us if you see anything?" I hear a feminine young adult sounding voice say, she's not alone. "Already on it!" I hear another young adult voice say, female, but heavily masculine. I look around to search for the source of the voices to have my eyes land on five... Ponies... Pastel colored ponies... As well and unicorns and pegasi... What... "One part of me wants to burn them to oblivion, and the other part wants to hug them all." Chandra whispers sarcastically, I just ignore her. "I'm going to find which one of them is the powerful one, then I'm going to try and talk with them." Chandra just rolls her eyes for the hundredth time. I begin to peer into each of their minds, interesting memories to say the least, but I wasn't bothering with looking over their minds, I was looking for the powerful one. I begin to look into the mind of the purple one, now only noticing she has wings as well as a horn, only to see her look around warily and I quickly decided to withdraw from her mind. "W-who's there?" "So you're the mage?" I say within her mind, only for her to freeze in place. Telepathy is probably a new experience for her. "M-mage? No, I-I'm just good at m-magic..." "Who y'all talking to sugarcube?" An orange one with a hat, a Stetson if I'm right, says to her purple partner worriedly. "Were you looking for us?" "N-no, not y-you specifically, I-I just felt a magical d-distortion and came to s-see if you were alright... I-I guess y-you are." Her companions were looking at her like she was insane, but didn't say anything. "Are you curious as to meeting us?" "Y-yes... I s-suppose so..." "We will show ourselves then, just don't attack us. I'm not responsible for the actions of my partner." She nods, and I turn to Chandra, "We're going to approach them, so don't start throwing fire-axes everywhere." "Fine." She grumbles, and we both rise from out position and make our way through the foliage to meet the group face-to-face. To say that their expressions were priceless would be an understatement. They all were completely confused and terrified at the same time. "What is your name?" I ask, Chandra was completely ignoring the conversation and probably fantasizing about roasting me there and then, I didn't need to read her mind to know that. "T-Twilight Sparkle, and these are my f-friends." I give the smallest of bows with my head, "It would be nice to get to know you all, but we need to get out of this forest." "Twilight! Yo, Twilight!" I hear the voice I heard earlier call from above us, and a cerulean blue pegasus with a rainbow colored mane appears above us. She soon spots us and narrows her eyes at us, "What are they? They look like overgrown monkeys..." This immediately snaps Chandra out of her daydreams, "Can it idiot before I turn your bones into charcoal!" All but one of the ponies recoil at her aggressiveness, and the one pony who doesn't, the arrogant pegasus, zips up close to Chandra's face which just causes her to get more angry. "Oh yeah? What can something like you do? Crawl around? I could fly circles around you!" Chandra was near the point of catching fire, "IF JACE WASN'T HERE THEN I WOULD HAVE ALREADY BURNED DOWN THIS ENTIRE FOREST, YOU'RE LUCKY YOU'RE STILL ALIVE, EQUINE!" I step in between the two, before Chandra kills everyone. "Calm down! Both of you! As much as I don't like being called an overgrown monkey, I would rather not be turned into a mound of sizzling flesh!" The pegasus slowly backs down, keeping eye contact with Chandra as they stare one another down, or did until there was a colossal roar from close by. "MANTICORE!!" Twilight exclaims, and I turn around to see a massive lion crossed with a scorpion with bat wings stomping it's way over to us. "Now can I get angry?" I roll my eyes, and make an offering gesture towards the creature with my hands. Chandra give an evil grin before she sets fire and charges at the manticore, although, the beast doesn't flinch and just swipes at her with it's large cat claws, only to get singed by Chandra's flames. "NO GAMES!" Chandra exclaims as a pillar of flame encompases the manticore and burns it alive. I only see glimpses of it's body as it turns to ashes, and after the pillar disappears, all that's left is a rather large pile of dust. Chandra triumphantly strides back over from the ashen remains. "Feel better now?" I ask rhetorically. "What? Someone's got to do the dirty work." I look over to the group of ponies, all of which had shocked, or horrified looks on their faces. "Good going with first impressions, you've now labelled us as giant-cat killing bipedals." Chandra just gives an exasperated huff, "Not like we weren't already hated across dozens of other planes." Before any more retorts could be passed back and forth, the silence was broken by none-other than the cyan pegasus. "That. Was. AWESOME!!!" Twilight was the next of the group to recover, "Rainbow Dash! She just killed another being!" Rainbow crossed her arms, "It's was still awesome." "Looks like you've got a fan Chandra." I say as I nudge her arm, and she just smiles triumphantly. "Y-you killed it..." I just about hear the butter-colored pegasus with a rose pink mane say. "It's always the quiet ones..." I think to myself, just as Chandra get's her second facefull of pony, with said pony staring daggers into her eyes. "YOU KILLED IT! WHY WOULD YOU KILL IT?!" Chandra didn't look impressed, "Because I'm not in the mood to get eaten by an overgrown mouse, and please stop staring like that." The pegasus just keeps staring. "Yes, I get the point. Your eyes are cute, now, could you please get out of my face? I won't ask next time." The pegasus backs away after that, with a more than surprised expression. Even her friends seemed to be looking at Chandra with awe, even if it was still mixed with fear. "You're... Not affected by her stare?" The white one with an amethyst mane says as if she just saw the Blind Eternities for the first time. Chandra just crosses her arms with an annoyed huff, "I don't know what's so special about your friend's "Stare", but I've stared down worse. Much worse." I just shake my head, "Look, I'm sure there will be plenty of time for questions later, but we need to get out of this forest now." They all started whispering to each other, and I heard little bits of "Are they safe?", and "We can't trust them!". I rub the bridge of my nose a few times before I gave up waiting, and took the discussion into my own hands. I cast a mind read spell on all of them, learning their names, significant events, and cultural knowledge. I was curious about things like the arrival of Luna, the co-ruler of this country, Equestria, on the world of Equis, and her corruption and purging. There was something else about a being called Discord, but I would go over that later. I release the spell, none of them noticing except Twilight who was eyeing me suspiciously. "We are not evil, we don't want to kill you, or eat you, or turn you into pony jam, we don't want to take over Equestria, and I would prefer if we got out of this forest, and to Ponyville, as soon as possible. So please, can we get going now?" At the mention of "Ponyville", Chandra starts chuckling, but the looks of wonder in the ponies faces were of more importance. "How... Do you know about Ponyville? You only just arrived here..." Twilight asks, eliciting more chuckles from Chandra. I roll my eyes. "Long story. Now, can we get going?" Twilight shakes her head in confusion, and she starts walking in the direction of Ponyville I assume. "Come on girls, let's get back home." She said, causing all the other ponies to look at her worriedly, but complied, and we followed. ~~~ "So..." Twilight begins, "What are you exactly?" Lovely, question time. "My species name is commonly known as Human, along with my colleague's race, but we come from two very different places." "Thankfully, I wouldn't have been able to stand him in the same plane as me." Chandra adds, and nudges my arm rather painfully with her elbow. "Plane?" Twilight asks with curiosity. "This is going to get annoying eventually." ""Plane", is a term we use for different worlds, or dimensions. What she means is we weren't both born on the same world." Twilight seemed perplexed, "I don't understand... How is that possible?" "Don't ask me how the planes work, but long explanation short, were Planeswalkers." She just gives a confused look. "You haven't encountered any Planeswalkers before?" I ask, she shakes her head. "That's interesting... Such an eager plane with so much control... You would think planeswalkers would at least be known here..." I sigh, "Planeswalkers can travel between worlds and dimensions, or a more common term used, planes. It's the ultimate form of teleportation if you like, and only those who have a spark inside them from birth can do it." Her eyes lit up, "Does that mean anypony could be a Planeswalker?" Chandra chuckles at the use of the word "Everypony", but I just ignore her. "In theory, but the chances are close to none, and you have to discover your inner spark before you can use it. It's similar to when you ascended to an Alicorn state, but everyone's experiences are different." Twilight's eyes widened, "How could you know about that? We only just met!" Chandra butt's in, "Because he's a good-for-nothing blue mage bastard who takes pleasure in knowing everyone secrets." I narrow my eyes at her, "You're not the only dangerous one here, Chandra." She just hmphs and crosses her arms. I turn back to Twilight, "It's because I looked through all of your memories, along with your friends as well. I needed to know incase of a misunderstanding." Twilight looked shocked more than anything, "But... But that's an invasion of privacy!" Chandra just laughs, "He could do a lot worse than that if he wanted to." "Destroying someone's memories and life isn't something I take pride in, unlike you." "In my defence, the ones I do kill tend to either get in my way, or are incredibly annoying." She says, emphasizing the "annoying" towards me. "And yet, look where I got us. I'm the one who will get us out of this plane, and you'll thank me later." "That doesn't mean I trust you!" She exclaim in my face as we both stop walking to face one another. "I'm having to tag along with the man who has turned others to mindless shells! I am the one worse off here! I didn't choose to be here! And I bet if you had it your way, we would be stuck here for several dozen lifetimes just so you can so your stupid thing of reading every book in the largest library you can find! I DON'T WANT TO BE STUCK HERE, AND IF I HAD A CHOICE, I WOULD HAVE KILLED YOU WHEN I ARRIVED HERE!" Her hair was ablaze by this point, and I could see the fire barely contained behind her eyes. There was no use in arguing. "...You're right." I say, surprising her a little. "I know you feel like a caged animal, and are fed up of being treated like dirt... I can't say I've felt pain, and anger like yours... But I know being treated like a mindless animal is one of the worst experiences I know, and I'm sorry. I should be staying level-headed, and get us through this, and not be trading petty insults... I'm sorry." Chandra calmed down considerably, and began to cool down, her hair extinguishing in the process. For the first time, I can see the fire in her eyes calm, no longer thrashing, burning violently, or trying to escape, but just calm. Like an average campfire. Dangerous, but calm, and delivering in warmth. "...I've still got my eye on you." We start walking again in silence. Not even Twilight broke the silence, I could tell she knew to keep quiet. She knew to let matters like these calm down on their own, but it didn't change the fact that there are six anxious ponies in front of me, and all these arguments just make it worse. ...I think I might be getting a soft spot for these ponies...