//------------------------------// // 8. Static // Story: Radiance // by flamevulture17 //------------------------------// [Static] A smile spread across Twilight's face to the point when she could smile no longer. A plethora of possible demonstrations began to circumvent the interconnected web in her mind that would not only prove her magical abilities to the human, but could bring her one step closer to improving their already broken relations with each other—which had not turned out as well as she hoped. Plus, since the human claimed to have never seen magic before, she thought she'd impress him with some of the basics. She quickly activated her horn and focused her magical aura onto the thick book that lay lifeless on the glass table at the center of the room. The book was lifted into the air with ease and Twilight flawlessly levitated it towards the dumbfounded human. Lucas' eyes nearly popped out of his head. He watched at the small purple unicorn—aka 'Twilight Sparkle'—raise his favorite history book off the table without touching it. The book floated near his face and gently descended on his lap. “Wow,” he silently mouthed. Lucas poked at the book, making sure there were no wires attached. He picked it up and flipped through the pages. They all seemed to be in order. No pages wrinkled or missing, just the extensive content of world history. “That's just a simple levitation spell,” Twilight chimed. “Most unicorns learn that spell at a young age. I've known it more than half my life and now it's like second nature to me.” Lucas looked up from the pages. “Here on Earth, we call it telekinesis.” “So you do have magic?” Twilight scrunched her face, confused at his comment. “Well no. Magic is supernatural mumbo jumbo. Telekinesis is supposed to be scientifically possible, theoretically. We believe that because we know that if our brains were slightly more evolved than they are now, we might have the mental capacity to manipulate objects with out minds,” he explained. Lucas felt smart with what he knew about science fiction becoming reality from reading X-men comics. “But there's no strong evidence that humans can do it, even on a microscopic scale. I don't know if I want to call it magic just yet.” Twilight heart sank a little for her failed attempt at convincing Lucas of magic. He seemed to know much about psychology. She rapidly thought of another method that would certainly change his mind. “How about this.” Twilight pointed at her horn from Lucas to see. Despite his skepticism, he looked positively enthralled again when she lit up her horn for a second time and pointed at another object on the table—which in this case was a glass apple. “Observe the apple,” she drawled. The spell she was about to preform was one she had not used in a while. It was advanced for any normal unicorn, but intermediate spell for her abilities. Twilight concentrated her magic onto every molecule in the glass apple and levitated it a few feet above the table. The apple gradually began to spin as she poured more magic into the very quantum construction of the glass and began to break apart the very atomic bonds it was made of and recombine them into something different, changing the order and shape in front of their very eyes. The object was soon enveloped in a bubble of white as the room grew significantly brighter. There was a small electrical spark that orbited the sphere which let out a screeching hiss. Lucas shielded his eyes from the white light that flashed from the glass apple. Seconds later, the light suddenly died down and eventually faded into darkness. His eye sight was slightly burned and fuzzy, but he recovered enough to see properly again. What did the unicorn just do to my priceless apple? He thought. Twilight carefully placed the object back on the table and grinned. When Lucas blinked away the dark spot in his eyes, he looked for the glass apple, only to find something else entirely. The object in question was replaced by a perfectly crafted sculpture of what appeared to be a diamond heart. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Even Rainbow Dash—who watched the entire lighting display from behind—was rather impressed. “What did-” “I just sculpted it into the exact shape of the Crystal Heart,” Twilight interrupted, too pleased with her work to let him finish. “The what?” Lucas asked, still wearing an awestruck expression. He reached over to pick up the diamond-shaped glass heart, but hesitated to touch it. He wasn't sure if it was real, would collapse in a pile of dust, or explode the moment he touched it. A pair of worried eyes had befallen the lavender unicorn. She nodded. “It's safe.” He took a deep breath and grabbed the diamond heart. He held it up to his face and inspected every neatly cut surface with his fingers. It looked like it was crafted by a professional sculptor who was so precise in the geometric shape that it could pass for a real diamond. However, it was still glass. A slender vertical support molded out of the same material as the heart kept it upright and balanced on the table. “I thought I'd show you a more difficult spell that most unicorn aren't able to preform,” Twilight continued. “It's called the Transfiguration Spell. What you are seeing there is the Crystal Heart, the primary energy source of the Crystal Empire. It was the first thing that came to mind because Cadence here is the Crystal Princess. She runs the Empire with some help of my brother, Shining Armor.” Lucas listened intently on her dubious explanation on the significance of the heart. It seemed he had a lot to learn from these sentient ponies after that wave of important information that he was certain did not exist. He was pretty sure there was so such thing as the Crystal Empire anywhere in human history, and even if there was, he would have surely known about it. Twilight watched Lucas as he seemed entranced by the heart, wearing an expression of doubt and incredulity. This worried her deeply. It was as if he was trying to believe something that shouldn't exist in his world, which accurately described his perspective on the nature of magic. Either he was scared or shocked, emotions within him began to flood his mind. “Amazing.” Lucas uttered as he finally broke from his delicate operation of inspecting the glass heart. Though his tone of voice implied the difficulty in trying to accept what he had just witnessed, whether it be magic or an illusion. “How is this possible?” “I can show you another-” “No no, that's alright, you don't have to.” Lucas held up a hand. “I believe you.” He rubbed his forehead. “It's just that... I don't know what to say. This is all so weird to me.” “I don't blame you,” Twilight assured. “Magic is a difficult concept to understand. I myself have spent years studying it so I can discern its inner workings from other known natural phenomena.” Lucas sighed. “I don't want to sound harsh, but with your... supernatural powers and all, you make me feel so...” he paused as he bashfully looked off to the side. Twilight waited for him to continue, but when the seconds ticked on longer than she wanted, she spoke up. “So what?” Lucas took a deep breath while trying his best to say the word that had him at war with himself. “Powerless.” Twilight gave a confused, yet empathetic look. “Why do you say that?” Lucas took a long breath and exhaled slowly. He waited for the day he could tell someone how he really felt about the world compared to himself. However, he never thought he'd express it to a small purple unicorn sitting a few feet in front of him. Clutching the glass heart in his hands, he began. “I don't know, I guess every person who has ever lived has wanted something greater than themselves and wanted the power to change things. Power to control our lives and have the ability to do anything beyond what nature would allow. You just showed me that that's possible. But the way I see it, I just felt a little smaller. Outsmarted by a mythical creature. An insignificant human who is smart enough to understand everything around me, but too feeble to do anything with it. So close, yet so far away.” Twilight head sank. For the first human she had met, she was quite surprised he gave such a philosophical statement. She knew exactly what he meant, but didn't know how to react at first. She thought she could reassure him with her own choice of words. “Don't say that. You DO have the power to change things. You don't need magic to do it. You don't have to belittle yourself like this.” “Easy for you to say,” he countered. “You've always had it. Our species has known of the concept of magic and the supernatural since the dawn of man, but it's never been proven to actually exist. I've always liked the idea of magic of modern fantasy stories, even though I never believed that any of it was remotely applicable to the real world. Now here you are, proving the world wrong. But also reminding me of my own little misfortunes.” Twilight now remained silent. She could see that the human was indulging in self-pity for who he was and what that meant of his species. Her benign instincts searched for a way to voice her logical concerns with his pessimistic thoughts. Although, he made a good point and had a good reason to think negatively of himself on one simple fact. She unintentionally played a part in his recent dysphoria. This was partly her fault. She put him in this position. She could only understand the surface of his plight, so she began to wonder what she could do to fix the damage she had caused. She was at a loss for words as Lucas stood up to stretch his legs and began to pace around. If Twilight had a quill and parchment with her to record ever observation of the human, she'd run out of ink. However, out of respect, she opted to write nothing if had a quill and parchment. “I know I can't have everything I want,” he continued. “But I can always count on my imagination to fill the emptiness I feel every day. No matter how hard I try, I never get to where I want to be. I'm not saying that I'm waiting for everything to be alright—because I know that idea isn't true for everyone, I'm just doing what I can to get by. But you know what, that's fine, That's just how it is. I can't change that now. When you try enough times, you start to learn that it doesn't matter. Even then, it doesn't hurt to keep searching for something you'll never find.” Lucas paused to catch his breath and recollect his thoughts. “I've always thought about why things happen the way they do and why they tend to pick on me rather than someone else. First the boat, then Stanley, and now this.” By now, Lucas had ignored exactly who it was he was talking to, avoiding direct eye contact with Twilight and Rainbow Dash. He slowly paced back and forth behind the sofa and continued to think out loud. In the fairly sized kitchen of another part of the building, Stanley frantically searched every drawer and cabinet for the can coffee beans. He had been looking for over five minutes, but still failed to find his prize. In the meantime, he began to run scenarios in his head on how the rest of the night would play out now that they had colorful creatures of pure myth to look after. He also wondered what Lucas was doing with his alone time while sitting in that room with talking ponies. For some reason, that thought made him chuckle. With every square inch of the kitchen checked, Stanley gave up looking for the coffee beans and began thinking of alternatives. He opened the fat white refrigerator at the end of the room and started sifting through its contents. He was relieved when he found a substitute. “Hm, this is even better,” he mumbled. He grabbed four cans of Pepsi out of the bottom shelf and placed them of the table. It was tricky to hold all four in his hands at once, but managed to do it would dropping a single one. He made his way out of the kitchen and back to the lounge. As he approached the door, he stopped as he remembered one crucial thing before reentering the room. He turned and walked up the stairs to the second floor. Down the dim and narrow hallway, he made his way to his own temporary living quarters to retrieve his most expensive possession. Setting down the soda cans on his small bed, he turned on the light and began rummaging through what little belongings he owned. He glanced at the digital clock on his nightstand, reading eleven-twenty. When he found what he was looking for, he wrapped the strap around his neck, grabbed the soda cans, and hurried out of there. He skipped every third step on his way down the stairs and barreled his way through the living room door. “-and to think I could solve the problem on my own, I never knew what it was like feel so helpless.” Lucas finished his solemn speech as Stanley loudly entered. “Are you talking about me?” Stanley jested as he set the cans of soda on the glass table. He noticed a particular heart-shaped sculpture on the table that didn't use to be there. “Partially, but no. Did you get the coffee?” “I couldn't find the coffee beans, so I brought Pepsi instead.” “What's pepsi?” Rainbow asked, suspicious of the drinks in question. “Only the best soda brand ever made,” Stanley commended. “You know what soda is, right?” “Sure I do,” she quipped, glaring at him. “Okay then, there you go.” He rudely slid one of the can in her direction. “What are you doing with your camera?” Lucas asked as he walked up to grab a can for himself, quickly opening it and taking a sip. “What else do you think?” “But why?” “For evidence. You know how in some horror movies when people take pictures of ghosts that aren't really there and the images come up fuzzy or completely empty. I'm just gonna make sure we're not the only ones seeing them.” Stanley pointed a finger at Rainbow Dash. She recoiled her head a bit, but leaned forward. She opened her mouth and chomped her teeth together directly on his index finger. “OW!” Stanley screamed as he quickly snapped his arm back. Lucas reacted by pulling his cousin away from the blue pegasus and stepping away from the table before things could get worse. Twilight activated her horn and forced Rainbow back with her magic. “Rainbow Dash!” she yelled. The throbbing pain in Stanley's finger reminded him that it was all real after denying their very existence since. “Does that answer your question?” Lucas said with a smirk. “She bit me,” Stanley complained. “I can see that.” Lucas chuckled in his cousin's ear. “It was actually kinda funny.” “But that really hurt.” “Stop whining you big baby. You're lucky she didn't kick you in the balls.” Across from them, Twilight was giving her blue friend a nasty look as she tried to talk some sense into her. The rainbow-haired pegasus remained unscathed from the assault of Twilight's words that failed to convey any further than another boring lecture. After the few words of intervention from the unicorn that had fazed right through Rainbow Dash, Twilight turned to address the two men. “I'm really sorry for Rainbow Dash's behavior. She doesn't trust you.” “How is that our fault!?” Stanley argued angrily, being held back by Lucas to prevent him from doing any more damage that already dealt. “It's just that she's never seen your kind before. Neither have I, but it seems she still can't get past the fact that you might still be dangerous.” “Well she's got a point,” Stanley quickly said before Lucas squeezed his hand to penalize him for siding with them. “AHHH- I mean, why does she think that?” “Well, she is concerned with my safety and the security of Princess Cadence.” Lucas whispered something in Stanley's ear, but Twilight's couldn't hear what was it was. Stanley sighed before being released out of his cousin's grip. “What do you want us to do?” “Prove to her you're not a threat.” Stanley rolled his eyes. He knew he had been doing a piss poor job of showing his peaceful side. He grabbed his can of soda, opened it, and took a sip. “And how do we do that?” Twilight started thinking of ideas that could potentially work, but didn't know if any of them applied to humans. Lucas, on the other hand, had one idea in mind that had been itching at him since the first demonstration of magic. He sat down in his original chair and rubbed his chin. “Okay how about this; do you have a spell that evaluates injuries?” Lucas finally asked, breaking the ice that froze the group in place. “Or maybe something so you can read minds?” Twilight was taken back by the question. She was reluctant to articulate an honest answer, but was afraid of how it would affect her perfect record of obeying Equestrian law. It would potentially hurt her reputation if Celestia found out she broke the rules of giving that sort of information to strangers. Mind spell were highly illegal in Equestria. But one thing was for certain, she wasn't in Equestria anymore. “Um, I don't know about reading minds, but I do know a reliable cognition spell that helps me detect critical changes in brain activity. It lets me shadow a host's mind for a few seconds.” “Even better.” Lucas nodded Twilight—despite her knowledge of Equestrian policy—had learned a few psychological spells from Princess Celestia herself, but could only be use for emergencies only. She wasn't allowed to tell anypony about them because they were considered unethical by the majority of pony society, but given her current circumstances, this particular case outweighed the law. Although, it all depended on the reason for why Lucas eagerly wanted to know such forbidden magic. “Why do you ask?” “I want you to use it on my boss, Kate.” Stanley immediately shot his cousin a glare and trying to slap him in the head, but Lucas deflected the incoming arm just in time. “Are you out of your mind?” he retorted. “You going to trust HER with Kate's life?” The navigator's protest was ignored as Lucas continued to ponder in his seat. Stanley would have drawn the line right then, but if it wasn't for the fact that he longer possessed enough anger and frustration from earlier to set things straight again. Instead, he became curiously concerned with that Lucas was insinuating. “I agree,” Twilight said, garnering the attention of them both. “Are you sure you want to trust me with such a monumental request? This spell is very complex and I don't like to be tricked.” “The way I see it, we have to start trusting each other if we want things to work out and prove to you we are willing to cooperate. I mean we're just having a bad day and I can't stand it anymore. I really want to know it Kate is alright. I'm starting to have doubts about her condition, which I'm sure you do too for your... princess. But Kate's been unconscious for a while and I just want to make sure it isn't too serious.” Twilight thought for a moment on the validity of his request. He had a point. She and her friends were lost in an unknown country with no knowledge of how they got there. If she's learned anything about friendship, it's that trust was important to buildinging a strong relationship between ponies, and breaking that trust is the fastest way to lose a friend. Stanley hated to admit it, but he agreed with his plan. When he first found Kate unconscious in the fishing boat, he was practically panicking. The severity of Kate's condition was unknown and they had no way of finding. It this plan worked, then maybe he'd believe that it was truly magic and not some insipid stunt. Twilight confirmed their consent through their expressions and nodded. “If you wish.” Twilight stepped towards the sofa were the female human named Kate lay unconscious. Lucas and Stanley took a few steps back to let the unicorn conduct her magical brain scanner through that small spiral horn of hers. Fortunately for Stanley, he came prepared. He took off the lens cap of his digital camera, pressed the power button, and pointed the lens at the sofa. He switched the camera function to video mode and began recording. Twilight gave one last look at the humans before taking a deep breath. She closed her eyes and activated her magic. As she channeled enough magic to sustain a working mind spell, she immediately felt something strange floating around in mana-space, almost like an entity made entirely of energy. In fact, as she focused more on the pool of the invisible mana-space that surrounded the room, she actually felt two separate energy signatures that were hovered above them. Ignoring the small distractions, Twilight leaned in closer to Kate's forehead and concentrated all her magic onto the dynamic network of brain waves that pulsed within the human's mind. She instantly noticed just how advanced the neural network of the human's psychological activity really was. It was unlike anything she had seen before. Perhaps they were more advanced than she thought. As Lucas requested, Twilight monitored Kate's brain waves to see if they were in working order. They were. However, it was much weaker than she expected. Her mind seemed to dodge her every attempt to grab hold of the central core of Kate's consciousness. As she did that, Twilight sent a significant portion of her magic elsewhere to warp the space around the room, sucking in every sliver of energy to help maintain the spell. This was a huge mistake. As soon as Twilight entered her mind completely, a spark from her horn ignited. Her own magic began to fluctuate out of control. She tried to fix the problem by manually shutting down the magical flow from her horn, but it was too late. “What's going-” Lucas tried asking before something cut him off. Within a fraction of a second, a quick burst of neither light nor sound shook the entire room. The displacement wave reverberated throughout the floor and the walls of the building with enough power to knock books off the shelves of their respected tables around the lounge. Twilight remained stationary as the Stanley and Lucas jumped upon feeling the noiseless pulse. For a moment, Twilight began to glow purple just like her aura. A screeching sound came shortly after the mini shockwave, scratching at the everyone's ears, but then suddenly dissipated as quickly as it came. After several hair-raising seconds that the spell was active, Twilight was able to regain control of her magic. Knowing an abrupt cutoff from preforming a difficult spell could be fatal, she brought down the power output from her horn ever so slowly. As it finally faded completely, everything when back to normal. Twilight collapsed to the floor. Rainbow Dash quickly ran to her friend's aid. “Twilight!?” she cried, lending the exhausted purple mare a helping hoof. “Talk to me!” “Huh?” “What did you just do? I've never seen you do that before.” Twilight finally got to her hooves and stumbled around. Her head pounded as if she threw her head against a wall. As dizzy as she was, she was able to recover fully within seconds. “Do what before?” “Was that supposed to happen?” Lucas asked. “With the boom and everything?” “I have it all on tape if you want to see it.” Stanley complied a few feet next to him and kept recording. He would wait another minute before ending the video feed. “I felt something strange, but I was managed to enter her mind for a short period of time before everything when white,” Twilight explained. “I can tell you that she is doing fine, but her brain activity, is weak, like she isn't even dreaming.” “That doesn't sound good,” Lucas muttered. “I have done what I can. I'm sorry I can't do anything to help her get better. You'll have to wait till she wakes up to find out.” Twilight yawned. “Did that take a lot out of you?” “Not really,” she paused to take a breath. “I just haven't had a good night's sleep yet.” Twilight's eyes felt heavier with each passing second. “Speaking of sleep, I could use some of it.” Rainbow helped Twilight crawl over to Cadence where the unicorn slumped down and fell asleep almost immediately. Rainbow then stood up the address that humans. “Don't try anything funny, ya hear,” she warned with a suspicious squint. “I got my eye on you.” She was on the verge of collapsing herself to take a quick nap, but the humans kept her from doing so. So she simply sat on her haunches next to Twilight and continued to observe the two humans, no matter how boring it was. Stanley and Lucas looked at each other, communicating only through rapid eye movements. “What should we do now?” Stanley lowered his voice enough so only Lucas could hear, but didn't qualify as a whisper. “I'll tell you what.” Lucas began. “I'm gonna take their advice and go to bed, and we'll take care of this mess in the morning. When Kate wakes up-” he hesitated with a sigh. “If Kate wakes up tomorrow, I will tell her about the damage to her boat and take the blame.” “So that's it? You're not even going to tell me why you've been acting so different lately? And you're gonna kick those things out in the morning? Did you even see that the purple one just did? How do you explain that?” “Yes, I saw, and no, they are staying until they're healthy again. I will help those three for as long they need it.” Lucas then slowed his speech rate according to resurfacing creed. “I've got a lot on my mind right now, especially with those ponies here. I'll tell you everything later. I promise.” With the bitterness in Stanley's heart, it was difficult to forgive Lucas right there on the spot. He needed more time to think things over as well have some time to himself. After all that he went through that day, he was the only one among the three who tried to keep everything together while caught in the storm on the boat. They have been skating on thin ice for a while now and he hoped it wouldn't get warmer. His health and sanity would return after a good night's sleep after being to overworked with exhaustion and hysteria that had crippled him for the past five hours. Lucas grabbed his half empty Pepsi can and turned to leave the room, dragging his feet along the carpet. He knew the caffeine would keep him up for another hour or two, so he'd rather get himself comfortable in the warmth of his bed rather than sleeping on a chair in the lounge. He paused just before he was opened the hallway door. “And stop calling them 'things', they have names you know. Don't do anything stupid. Again.” The navigator rolled his eyes. “What do you take me for? An idiot?” “Actually yes, I do.” With that, Lucas exited the room and walked up the stairs, leaving Stanley to figure out a way to handle himself with vibrant ponies in the same room. On one hand, he wanted to follow after Lucas and head to his own room, but on the other hand, he had didn't want to leave Kate alone with the ponies. He had a personal obligation to protect her and he had been failing so far. Suspicions of the ponies were the basis of his mind. Their very existence was enough to keep him up all night. A few minutes of silently thinking to himself, Stanley huffed and borrowed one of the blankets draped over Kate and walked to the single-person couch near the window. He sank his figure into the soft cushions and laid his head on the arm rest, all while in view of the blue pegasus that stared at his every movement. He shuffled to find the most comfortable position that made him feel secure. Within a half hour, Stanley's eyes began to flutter involuntarily. They gravitated towards each other ever so slightly. He tried rubbing his eyes to scrape off his exhaustion, but it was no use. His mind started to drift away from reality and closer to the depths of his subconscious that manufactured his dreams. The one time something cool shows up in this world, it had to go and screw everything up for him. He'll be the first to admit—unless there's a scientific explanation for all the things that happened up to that point—that is was all magic. That was his last thought before he fell into a deep slumber.