//------------------------------//
// The Journey Begins 
// Story: Price of Life 
// by Myst Ninja 
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Chapter-3 The Journey Begins


Myst had been told by Bluebell to start forging weapons for their army. That is what irked Myst more than anything else. Bluebell always referred to his plans as 'their' plans. It was as though he had forgotten that Myst was an unwilling compatriot in his schemes. He treated her like she had been on board with him from the start, instead of having been enslaved part way through. Myst was suspicious that Bluebell was acting that way to try to brainwash her into agreement with him.  

It might have worked had Bluebell not greatly overstepped his bounds. Demanding the creation of a perfect soldier and enough weapons for an army was not so bad. The problem was that he also wanted Myst to love him. Somehow in his twisted mind he saw no reason that Myst couldn't love him. But after being rebuffed and refused for a few weeks, he lost patience and used his magic to force her to love him. It didn't actually cause Myst to love him, but she had to act as though she did.

This violated Myst in a way that she had never even thought possible. She was angry at Bluebell so deeply that words could not describe it. He had trapped her inside her own body—only the smallest part of her could be angry at Bluebell. But that piece was never allowed to become dominant. Instead Myst was forced to predominantly feel love toward Bluebell. All other emotions were stopped almost as soon as they started. Every time they kissed, every time they cuddled, every time they walked together, Myst had no choice but to enjoy it. The knowledge that this was somehow perverse was the only thing that kept her anger alive. Had she ever had any feelings for Bluebell before his spell, perhaps she would have become his pawn completely and totally. But as it was, she had the will to resist, even if that will was the smallest part of her. Therefore, despite her actions she was never fully Bluebell's.

But the living Tartarus that Myst had been subjected to eventually came to an end. When trying to create the perfect soldier for Bluebell, Myst had thought of the Wolverine—a man who could recover from almost any wound and who never aged. Myst knew that completely replicating his abilities was impossible, but she had an idea to get a similar result. Myst remembered that aging was caused by cells failing to properly copy themselves. So, Myst thought, if she could magically enhance ponies so that their cells' reproduction was magically supplemented, she could double the cellular regeneration rate as well as eliminate errors in copying. This would allow soldiers to recover faster from wounds and serve longer. In all the wars Myst had read about, eventually soldiers would get too old to fight. This would no longer be a problem. This army would always be composed of the best soldiers—those who could avoid getting killed.

It took three weeks to prepare her crystals to make the super soldier. After carving the seven thousand runes required Myst wanted nothing more to do with either crystals or sculpting tools. The hardest part was figuring out a way to nullify all magic other than hers. It took huge amounts of trial and error to come up with a solution that would actually create a null magical field. This was key for her spell to work. If any outside magic interfered with the modification of cells it could easily kill the pony being modified. The hardest part of the null field was avoiding nullifying her own spell. 

It was with great excitement that Myst finally finished her work. She decided to be the first test subject. Recruiting rebels was not something that either she or Bluebell were particularly good at. This left it up to Myst to test the spell on herself. The mind magic Bluebell had placed on her made her want to take the risk herself. After all she couldn’t risk harming Bluebell. Therefore Myst went deep into the Everfree Forest and began to set up her crystals.

Myst set up her rune crystals in the middle of a large clearing. Trembling with excitement she positioned herself at the focal point of a large octagon. The octagon was composed of crystals of varying colors and properties. Placing the last crystal Myst felt the familiar crackle of magic as the crystals all around her began to glow, quickly becoming brighter. Soon a dome of pink magic cut her off from the outside world. Though she couldn't see it, she knew that the dome was just the top half of a spear that extended underground. The sphere crackled with power as all magic in the area was nullified. A sudden bolt of magic struck Myst. It caused no pain—quite the opposite: immediately her mind was freed from all the magic Bluebell had put in place. 

As Myst laughed manically she realized that Bluebell had accidentally enabled her to end his control. He had prevented her from thinking about a way to free her mind, but this meant that she hadn't thought about how her spell would remove his magic. Had she thought about it, she would have been prevented from following through with her spell.

Still laughing, Myst flared her wings, enjoying the tingling sensation as magic coursed through and around her. Once the dispelling was completed the crystals began to glow brighter in a myriad of colors. Had anyone been there to bear witness they would have fled as fast as they could. A mare enveloped in a rainbow sphere laughing crazily is a disturbing sight. But to top it all off, her eyes seemed to be harder than steel. Any who beheld her would never think of challenging her; the lack of tenderness in her gaze could have caused a dragon to flee in terror.

It felt good to be free, to once again be her own pony, no longer subject to every passing whim of another. However, Myst's laughter was cut off when her head exploded with pain. It felt like her skull was having a hole bored into it. Myst screamed in agony, but she braced herself against the pain as it raced through her. Despite her best efforts, she could see darkness creeping up from the edges of her vision.

In the moment before unconsciousness took her Myst decided she would embrace who she was. No longer would she try to live her life as if her past had never happened. Every scar she bore was proof that it had, and a lesson she had learned. Bluebell had added one more to their number, though by far his scar was the worst that she bore. The lesson she learned from that scar was that—no matter what she wanted—Myst was not one of Celestia's little ponies. She knew that, no matter what, she could never truly be one of them. Too much of herself was born out of violence and death. For a moment some part of Myst told her that she could still become like these ponies. But Myst silenced that voice. She knew that if she was like those ponies she could not kill Bluebell. After what he had done, nothing could save him from her, and if that meant giving up a utopic life, then so be it.

When Myst awoke, the landscape had changed drastically. All around her scorch marks radiated in a large circle. The fragments of crystal that were left stuck out of the ground at odd angles. For all the world Myst was reminded of bones. That illusion was shattered when she realized that they were not only in the crater. They had been hurled outward with enough force to shatter all the trees for thirty yards in all directions. Myst had no idea why her spell had caused such an explosion. Considering the state of her crystals, she had no hope of figuring out what had happened. Remarkably Myst was unharmed; it was as though some force had saved her, though she didn’t know of any force that could have done so.

Examining herself she made an interesting discovery. She now had a cutie mark. When Myst saw it she chuckled slightly. It was a square split evenly into a grid of nine squares. In each of the bottom three squares there was a solid circle. In the row above that, the last square on the right also had a solid circle. The top row had a solid circle in the center square. The symbol of hackers was emblazoned on her fur in the same cyan color of her eyes. Myst had embraced that symbol as her own while she was out on the street. It had promised something better; it had promised a world without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias. And with every virus and zero day she developed, that is what she got—the world of the electron and the switch, and the beauty of the baud. That symbol was like an old friend, and since she had embraced it as her standard all those years ago, it seemed fitting that it would now live forever as part of her.

Myst got up and checked her kukri. As she drew it the hardened cloud was cold and reassuring against her mouth. She experimentally swung it a few times before returning it to its sheath. Satisfied that all was well Myst began the long walk back to her house. After climbing out of the crater, the rest of the journey was easy. As Myst approached her house, she approached cautiously, watching for any sign of Bluebell. She saw none until she entered her abode.

Entering the front door a neat interior was revealed. There were a few chairs and a couch, Myst had made all of them. After the events of the past few weeks she no longer looked at them fondly. Instead of being a testament to her skill as a craftsman they were a reminder of her pain at Bluebell’s hooves. As she passed through the small living area she heard singing coming from the kitchen. Entering the kitchen she saw Bluebell doing the dishes with his back to her. 

Myst drew her kukri, wishing that the quiet hiss as it rubbed against its sheath was even quieter. But Bluebell didn't turn around—Myst did not give him the chance. She walked up behind him, the cloud floor muffling her footsteps. Raising her blade, she swung, pouring all her strength and anger into the blow. At that moment, several things happened. First she heard Twilight yell, “Myst!” Second, she saw Bluebell's head turn to look towards the sound. His eyes caught hers in the instant before the blade connected. They were filled with surprise, right up until Myst's blade flew through his neck with a satisfying resistance. Then those eyes stared blankly at her as they flew through the air before the severed head hit the wall with a dull thud

Before Bluebell's body had time to crumple, or Myst could turn to face Twilight, a light blue aura of magic sized Myst. She found herself unable to move as she was pulled to face not one but two very angry alicorns. One was Twilight.  Myst had never seen the other before, but she knew from several descriptions that it had to be princess Celestia.

“You had better have a very good explanation for this!” Celestia shouted.

“I hant alk ith is ing im y outh,” said Myst.

Celestia roughly pulled Myst's kukri from her mouth, leaving her free to talk.

“Ah, much better. That corpse was Bluebell. Perhaps you remember his brother. Apparently he tried to access a forbidden archive and you turned him into a statue for his trouble. Anyway, Bluebell decided he wanted to kill you in retribution. Along the way, he took control of my mind. That mother bucking foal of a nag forced me to love him against my will. Now if you will kindly let me go, I will dig him a grave, defecate on his corpse, and leave a nasty hate letter on his unmarked grave every year instead of flowers.”

Both Twilight and Celestia were left agape by the venom in Myst's speech.

After a few seconds had passed, Myst continued. “I am sorry to have offended your highnesses into open-mouthed speechlessness. In case you couldn't tell, I am more than a little angry with Bluebell. Please forgive me if after being a prisoner in my own body I don't speak with the utmost decorum.”

After a continued lack of reaction, Myst tried again. “Whether or not you can forgive me for offending your royal ears, you can find the weapons I was forced to make in the basement. Also you will find his plan of conquest, with annotations by myself that describe how to make it something other than a suicide mission.”

Finally Celestia spoke, “Myst, you stay here, while I go investigate your claims. Twilight, if she so much as twitches, restrain her again.” With that, Celestia released her magical grip, resulting in Myst tumbling roughly to the ground.

“Y-you k-killed him,” Twilight managed to choke out despite her dazed state.

“Yes, I killed him. If I hadn't, many more ponies would have died. You would likely have been among them. He had it in for all you princesses. And that doesn't include all the royal guards who would have died. Probably a few of the rebels would have died as well. That still leaves out the countless lives Bluebell would have ruined with his mind magic.”

“I knew you were a killer, but somehow it seemed less real when it happened in a different world. Seeing death, it...” Twilight trailed off.

“I know, I know,” Myst reached out a wing to comfort Twilight. “It is not pretty. But sometimes it is necessary. I wish there were a better way, but I couldn't let him off, not after what he did to me, not knowing what he planned to do.”

With that, Myst stopped talking. She found herself in the same position as Twilight had been when she had showed up on her tree. It was odd to see an alicorn sobbing like a child, while a smaller pegasus held her trying to offer what comfort she could. That unusual sight is what greeted Celestia when she returned from examining Myst's basement. 

Before coming here, Celestia had just received a letter from Twilight detailing all of her interactions with Myst. She had been upset that such important matters had been withheld from her attention for so long. She knew that it was important for Twilight to shoulder the responsibilities of a princess, but this kind of thing should have been brought to her attention. The letter she had received described a pegasus without a cutie mark. But the pony holding Twilight had a horn, and a cutie mark.

This puzzled Celestia. She had never heard of a pegasus getting a horn. Every so often a pony would be born with both a horn and wings—Cadenza for example. Occasionally a unicorn would come up with some way to grow wings. Sometimes it worked, other times it ended badly. Then there was Twilight who had become a true alicorn, embodying earth pony, pegasus pony, and unicorn. That was some magic that Celestia doubted would ever be used again—too few unicorns had the talent or magical reserves to cast such a spell.

None of that explained how a pegasus had gained a horn. Celestia thought back to the letter Twilight had sent her. She remembered that the pegasus had a crystal that she had been using to work magic. Then she remembered the explosion she had heard as she was flying over to meet Myst. The pieces fell into place in Celestia's mind. She wondered what exactly Myst had done, but decided it was best to wait until after Twilight stopped crying to start asking questions. In the meantime she quietly disposed of Bluebells remains.

Eventually, Twilight calmed enough to extricate herself from Myst, and stand beside Celestia. At this point Celestia began to question Myst.

“Unless I am greatly mistaken you were the cause of that explosion. What exactly did you do?”

“Well I was trying to magically enhance my cells. The end goal was to be able to heal twice as fast and stop the aging of my body.”

“So where did your horn come from?”

“Horn?” Myst felt the top of her head, and as her hoof contacted her new appendage a look of confusion filled her face. She spent a minute feeling her horn and trying to figure out how it had gotten there. Slowly a look of understanding crossed her face.

“You know how a horn is required to actively use magic. Well, the cellular enhancement has to be done actively. At least that is the only way I could think of to handle it. So unless I am mistaken, my magic decided that I needed a horn. The crystal was the only thing there that had the potential to hold magic the way a horn does. So the crystal must have morphed into my horn. That would explain why my head hurt so much after I activated the spell.”

Celestia's magic wrapped around Myst's horn, examining it. To Myst it felt really strange. It was similar to Bluebell probing her mind, except it wasn't her mind, and there was no malevolence in Celestia's magic. After a few seconds, Celestia decided to share her findings.

“Well it looks like your spell worked. If I understand it correctly, you actually absorbed several of the rune crystals as well. I can feel the runes carved inside the layers of your horn. They are shaping your magic almost as fast as you absorb it. Unless I am badly mistaken, you can now use magic like a unicorn, but its strength will be very limited. It will take quite a while to store magic since you are using it almost as fast as you absorb it. And your horn has less storage capacity than most; instead of storage capacity, most of your horn is taken up with runes.”

“Honestly, I am very impressed that you accomplished this feat, I highly doubt either my sister or myself could replicate your accomplishment, especially not if we were limited to runes. I would like to commend you, and perhaps offer you a position teaching others what you know. But that will not be possible. I can't let a pony that is prone to decapitate others go completely unpunished. In this case I believe you were justified, but that does not mean you handled it properly. You should have come to me with this instead of acting. I can't condone vigilantism if I want to maintain order.”

“You have put me in a very difficult position. Had this matter come to my attention, I would likely have sent some guards to arrest Bluebell, but not knowing his full capabilities that would likely have been condemning them to death or worse. So by your actions you have limited the casualties to one. But you also have broken a number of laws. Murder is the only one you are really guilty of. The rest were Bluebell acting through you. Even so, I can't let you go unpunished, and neither can I let you go uncommended.”

“So I will do both. I hereby promote you to specialist in the Night Guard, and I banish you to Broken Paw Island. You will stay there for no less than three years, or until the Isri conflict is ended. The Night Guard there will want all those weapons you have made. So I will send a pegasus cart here, help them load it, then accompany them back to Canterlot.”

With that, Celestia turned and left. Myst could hear Twilight asking Celestia what this Isri conflict was before they vanished in a sudden burst of light. As she waited for the cart to arrive, she cleaned her kukri, and began moving her stash of weapons out of the basement. While she was down there, she noticed that Celestia had taken the plans for rebellion.

Myst had just finished moving the last of the gear out of her house when the cart arrived, pulled by two nervous pegasus guards. Deciding it would be fun to mess with them Myst tried to imitate a fashion model as she approached them. In the most sultry voice she could muster Myst said, “So what has you two so nervous?”

After a moment of hesitation, one of them answered, “This is the Everfree Forest, and you are a Night Guard. The rumors about this forest are... less than pleasant.”

The second guard interjected, “And the rumors about the Night Guard are even more troubling. Every so often we hear rumors of fighting with gryphons and dragons. Worse still, there are rumors that they often combat rogue pony elements. Every so often the Royal Guard is called on to clean up after the Night Guard. We never see any bodies, but sometimes there are blood stains on the stuff we move. If this huge pile of equipment is anything to judge by, you were fighting at least a hundred of something. We hear about horrors in  this forest, we hear that the Night Guard does lots of fighting, then we find a lone armed mare standing over a huge pile of weapons. We don't want to get on the wrong side of some pony who single handedly deals with a hundred armed beings.”

After that Myst was unable to get anything else out of either guard. They kept eying her nervously as they worked. Finally they finished loading the cart and all of them flew silently to Canterlot. It bothered Myst that these ponies were so willing to let rumors rule their feelings and actions. But she had to admit it was at least a little amusing that she could scare two guardsponies without doing anything particularly impressive.

When they finally arrived in Canterlot the ponies accompanying Myst left her with the cart of weapons just outside of a small gated compound. The gray stone was shrouded in the shadow of twilight as Myst approached the gate, pulling the cart.

A gruff voice called out, “Identify yourself.”

“Specialist Myst reporting for duty,” Myst yelled back.

“Well then, Myst, leave the cart in the yard, and head into the large doors across from the gate.”

With that, the large gate creaked open, and Myst pulled the cart into the yard. She was glad to be free of the weight as she stepped out from under the harness. Looking around she saw several wooden doors. A few lights could be seen in windows around the square. It gave the place an eerie look in the gathering shadows. Myst felt shivers crawl up her spine as she approached the door she had been directed to. An insignia had been carved onto the door. Two bat wings spread out from an eye with a slit pupil. Something about it put Myst slightly on edge.

After pushing the large door open, Myst was greeted by the sight of chaos. All around the room, pieces of parchment had been scattered. Some looked like they were maps, others looked like lists and ledgers. It looked as though years’ worth of information had been placed on the desk, and then washed out towards the door in a flood of paper, covering everything in its path. In the center of this mess was a dark blue alicorn. She was floating several papers in front of her face while taking notes on yet another parchment. Her mane looked like it was a nebulous cloud of stars. She chewed on it speculatively while rearranging her papers. Myst was awed by the presence of this mare, even more so since she looked so approachable. Celestia's face had been a mask. No matter what she was saying she had seemed aloof. But this alicorn looked far more approachable, like a real pony with a life, dreams, and aspirations—not an imposing royal figure.

Myst took a moment to drink all this in before announcing herself, “Specialist Myst reporting for duty.”

At this, the alicorn looked up while spitting her mane out. “Myst, I have been expecting you. Normally I would have been angry at Tia for assigning any pony a higher rank than private in my Night Guard. However I have been examining your proposed plan for revolution, and I find it incredibly well done. If you really have a kill count of two-hundred-two that easily makes you my most experienced soldier, and one of the best tacticians I have. Admittedly it doesn't help that the Night Guard is made up almost exclusively of unwilling recruits.”

“We don't get to recruit like the Royal Guard. We are given the criminals that Tia believes are not dangerous enough to become statuary, and are not gentle enough to be reformed with a little jail time. As a result, we are something of a mismatched hodgepodge collection of ponies. We do occasionally get a member of the Royal Guard who asks to be transferred, but those are rare, even more so since I have been gone a thousand years. I have tried to convince Tia that all ponies should be aware of the threats they face and be free to volunteer to help out. But every time, it is the same story; she does not want warfare to corrupt her little ponies.”

“Pardon me. That was out of place; I have no business pulling others into royal disputes. I am princess Luna, head of all foreign relations, chief of Equestrian security, and your most superior officer. I suppose technically princess Celestia has equal rank to me, but she keeps her nose out of the Night Guard as much as possible. Honestly I am surprised that she sent you my way at all. You must have really impressed her to avoid becoming a statue.”

Myst was unsure what to do with the very casual way in which her princess had just addressed her. She wondered if it was some kind of test. This feeling was amplified by the fact that she had heard Luna spoke very archaically. Even so, something about the princess before her made her want to trust her implicitly. She couldn't explain why exactly, but it felt as if she had just come home, a feeling she had not had since her parents died.

“Princess, why is it that you speak normally?” Myst wanted to kick herself for saying that, but it was too late.

Luna laughed. Her laugh was the most musical Myst had ever heard. “We did speak with the royal plural, and use much speech that today's ponies are unfamiliar with. To answer thine question though, we stopped talking in the manner of a millennium past for it did befuddle most of the ponies we spoke with. So I started talking 'normally' as you put it. After all, it is hard to tell ponies what to do if they stop every few sentences to try and figure out exactly what I said. It is kind of a shame though. The language now just doesn't sound quite as musical.”

“So what are my orders?”

“Well, you will start by going to Broken Paw island. There you will be sent to the training ground in Marescow. At that point your skills will be evaluated. After you have been evaluated, you will be assigned to a unit.”

“How am I supposed to get to Broken Paw?”

“Tomorrow night we will embark on a ship leaving from Los Pegasus. We will get to Los Pegasus on the Midnight Express. Which reminds me—we need to leave for the train station. Before we go, though, I would like to see these weapons you have made.”

With that, Luna got up and entered the courtyard with Myst following her. She began to examine some of the weapons that Myst had made. They were incredibly light compared to most weapons she had seen. Luna tested the strength of one blade on a stone wall. She had anticipated that the blade would either snap, or bounce off. Instead it buried itself about an inch deep in the stone. Surprised, Luna examined the weapons with renewed interest.

Turning to Myst, she asked, “How did you make these? I have seen several attempts at making weapons, tools, and armor from clouds, but none that come close to this. Most cloud blades would have shattered, or been bent beyond any real use.”

Smiling, Myst explained the process. “First you take a cloud, and then you compress it. You do this until it is solid enough to interact with objects besides clouds and pegasi. After that, you shape the cloud into whatever form you want. At this point you enhance the cloud with a spell to harden and strengthen it. The hardening doesn't do much besides make the blade hold its shape instead of deforming. The strengthening prevents the hardening from making the cloud brittle and prone to shatter. I have the spells I used if you want them. Just be aware that if some pony other than a pegasus pony uses anything made out of clouds it will dissipate after a few weeks.”

“Excellent. You will have to teach the smiths how to make more. But for now we must get going.”

Suiting her actions to her words, Luna ducked under the harness of the cart. She was surprised, however, when Myst joined her under the second harness.

“You have had a long day. Aren't you tired?”

“Perhaps a little, but I have always loved the night. The darkness always felt comforting, like a friend offering solace after a rough day. I was always teased about it, being called a creature of the night. It was always said it in jest, but the fact of the matter is I do prefer the night over the day. Quite often I would stay up all night and sleep for most of the day.” Myst chuckled softly remembering what her teachers had thought of her trying to sleep through class. With that, the mismatched pair flew towards the train station.