//------------------------------// // LODAF // Story: My Little Forumites are Magic // by Mx Story Anomalax //------------------------------// Vinyl Scratch had woken up from a really weird dream. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes before putting her purple glasses on. Her frizzle hair was a little out of place, but a small head shake fixed that. She rarely remembered her dreams, but this one was continuing. It had been about Lyra, and she had been using her instrument to tell a story. Rather, stories. In the dream, she understood all of the lyrics that seemed to come to her from nowhere, seeing past the obvious at the time and feeling the presence of something bigger, or, rather, more knowledgeable than her. She wasn't sure why the dream was sticking with her, but it all felt ominous. Pinkie Pie was her favorite fan, and she had given her a few things she called captchalogue cards a few days ago. She said to consider it future payment and an early Hearth's Warming Eve gift all at the same time, telling her it would help to keep her stuff organized. She had told her that since she called on her so much it only felt right. She had experimented with them last night, and was really surprised at how they worked. She wanted to go to the market to get some apples, having a craving, not knowing there wouldn't be apples around for awhile. --- Lyra too, woke from a dream. But this was a nightmare. She felt dread and so much fear for her life that it was almost breaking her sanity. The dream had been bad, and it stuck to her memory like tar. She picked up her lyre from the dressing table and started doing a small lullaby, but it soon turned into something creepy and ominous. It's like she didn't have full control over what was happening, as if something was controlling her. What she didn't know was that the nightmare had impacted her so hard that it was messing with her subconscious. Lyra planned to stop by Twilight's place and tell her about it, but felt like she had something else to do. And remembered being told something in her dream, but it all felt fuzzy despite remembering that she had seen some terrible, awesome (in a bad way,) images that had damaged her psyche. She had something to do, and she didn't want to think. It hurt to think and it just brought more fear. --- Spike was thinking about the gem shards in his captchalogue deck and had tried to see if he could make more of them. But when he looked, there was no code for them that he could make out. This surprised him, and he went to Twilight and Phynicxs about it who were just as perplexed as he was - Phynicxs most likely more. Spike sighed and said "oh well," deciding to give it to them in person when the time came. It sucked he couldn't make more though. --- Vinyl trotted toward the open market place and saw a wrecked Lyra looking around, Bonbon nowhere near her. Lyra was shaking all over and kept looking behind her shoulder as if she expected something to be there. She looked like a nervous wreck, but once she saw the small stage in the market place she climbed up on top of it and started playing her lyre, a glint in her eye. She felt herself calm down, but the lyrics and music was completely alien to her. It was dubstep. I wish I was joking, but I'm not. It was totally dubstep, which was as weird as sour noodles. Lyra's eyes began glowing with a rainbow color (which reminded her of Rainbow Dash) and a small aura of darkness surrounded her, but she seemed to be really getting into it, nodding her head along with the music that flowed from her along with the sound of her lyre. Vinyl Scratch was extremely disturbed by this and wanted to get away, an ominous and fearful feeling accompanying it, but as she saw a crowd draw to it, and listened to the strange lyrics, Vinyl Scratch felt something had to be done. There was something else with Lyra - something that was hidden in the darkness. And as she saw other ponies go up to Lyra, she realized that some of them were listening intently, as though in a trance. It was like they couldn't see what was happening, but at the same time were more aware of what was happening than Vinyl did. Her fear reached a crescendo, but she thought about her friends and those that were surrounding Lyra, and decided to try and do something about it. Something electronic. Something musical. Much more musical than the crap that came out of Lyra's body. It was time to set up as a white aura started to caress Vinyl's body. Her glasses glowed from the light in Vinyl's eyes. --- With Vivere's help, Zecora was quick in deploying the items around Rarity's large house, the Carousal Boutique. Zecora was a little put off at all the fancy-looking dresses, preferring to stick to her heritage. She didn't judge Rarity, no, but it wasn't something she was interested in. Rarity rushed through the house, waiting for her cat-sitter to come by so Opalescence wouldn't be so alone without her and so endangered by the game. The doorbell rang and she ran to it, happy to see Derpy on the other side. Rarity smiled from ear to ear and brought the cat carrier out with a hissing Opalescence. Derpy was klutzy, but she knew how to get things done without TOO much damage. Rarity hurried her outside, giving Derpy a small bag of bits, and ran back inside to prepare for her session, the kernelsprite already out. Zecora was looking through Rarity's... Entertainment book shelf and found a book that looked familiar to her. She'd seen the same book at one point in her dad's old saddlebags. She didn't know what it was, and Rarity freaked out when Zecora held it in front of her. She almost pulled out her hair - no one was supposed to know about her smut collection. Rarity screamed for her to put it back - put it back right now - but something rumbled underneath Zecora, accidentally dropping the book, causing it to land in the kernelsprite. Rarity screamed and, instead of falling onto her drama couch, started screaming on the floor. No one could know about this - she had to keep this secret - her reputation depended on it. She had to destroy the evidence. She had to destroy her kernelsprite. Derpy was just taking off and was a little ways from the ground before her jaw slackened at seeing things shake with her two eyes - causing her to drop the cat carrier. Derpy cried out and dived for it. When it hit the ground the cage broke open, Opal hissed, and quickly took off, climbing into a tree and jumping into an open window on Rarity's second floor, and hid under her bed. Derpy chased after the cat, trying to get her back in. Zecora's connection broke suddenly as the shaking about stopped. She called for Vivere to help her out but he wasn't answering. A little scared of the very small earthquake, she peeked her head outside her hut. --- Rarity tried multiple things to destroy the head from her smut novel, some of the more gaudy and perverse paragraphs scrolling across the kernelsprite as though it were trying to learn. She tried to choke it, she tried to smash it, she tried suffocating it, she even tried throwing things at it. Not to mention she also tried to rip it apart with her magic. But nothing worked. At least not yet. Rarity got a message from Twilight to hurry up, as it was already taking longer than normal, and Twilight was getting antsy. Rarity took a deep breath, and decided to hide it behind a curtain for now and would take care of it later. She was really perturbed by her entry item. It was an eye with a very sharp needle and thread next to it. She figured what she had to do, as gruesome as the idea sounded to her, and started to thread the needle and proceeded to sew the eye shut. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes, not knowing what the future held or if this transference was going to be painful. Or nauseating much like Twilight's teleport spells. The eye glowed with power, getting stronger and stronger, layers of what seemed to be magic reeking from it much like Twilight's horn. And finally, all that energy was released and seeped into her house. Derpy and Opalescence inside. Spike's adventuring was slow going because there were tons of enemies with varying characteristics. His fighting had improved significantly and he was quickly learning how to fight efficiently and to his current potential. Gia was a major help to him, especially when Spike found things he wanted to hoard. She kept him in check, often helping him to calm down and sometimes meditate about what he was doing. After a few hours he decided to take a nap, and woke up on Prospit. He was extremely confused as he woke up in an area that resembled the house tree. He heard something upstairs and when he checked, saw that Twilight was asleep. He tried to shake her awake but it was a no-go. He decided to leave her alone and go look out the windows. He wasn't aware he could fly, and when he looked into the clouds, he saw so much. He saw what happened to Rainbow Dash and how the others had saved her. He saw himself there and was wearing clothing. He also looked bigger and stronger, not to mention fierce and warrior-like. Gia was right beside him; although she looked sad. He tried to call out to them, but learned quickly that he could only see, not hear. The fact that Rainbow Dash was alive in some way gave him some hope. At least this way he wouldn't have to focus too much on his breath. Wait what? Spike moved away from it, having seen a figure in the large void in a cloud; although it was hard for him to make out and it would have been impossible for others - something terrible and powerful. It wasn't very big, but the guy had clothing on that flashed many colors, the symbols on his chest projected out with a small machine inlaid in his chest. The symbols changed rapidly and Spike at one point thought he was going to have a seizure. When he finally woke up, he talked to Gia about it who told her that something had to have changed for some reason to warrant Rainbow Dash being saved from the one with the guns. Gia found this weird, not recognizing the symbol Spike had shown her and not understanding why Rainbow Dash had to be saved due to the fact she was wearing knight of breath clothing. Spike figured they should look for her, but Gia informed him not to yet until he was stronger and RD's house had been built up. Gia talked with Shadowtanksprite as Spike decided to heed the advice, feeling power radiate from his captchalogue deck. --- Twilight was learning to fight and steal inner magic from the enemies' leylines, just to use it on herself and Phy, Smarty-snakesprite keeping a little behind so as to not scare the crap out of Twilight anymore, occasionally calling to her. She still wasn't that good at travelling back in time without disappearing soon after, but every time she brought something else or someone else back in time with her, it was like they got stuck. Twilight was getting worried she might never master her aspect, but Phynicxs reassured her that it just takes time. And keeping bonds together had come natural for Phynicxs (along with stealing bonds and helping it to strengthen their own, but using the blood to fight had taken a long time to master. So much so that she seemed to only get better at it when she became godtier. Twilight nodded, understanding. --- Pinkie Pie came to her aspect naturally, using some of the grist to help strengthen some of the powers that came to her. There seemed to be no rush, and she was excited, training herself before trying to catch frogs with Ying's help; although Ying left it mostly to her. Gummy had been killed by an imp earlier, and before Pinkie saw it Ying tossed Gummy into the kernelsprite, and then Gummy always seemed to be snacking on gum. Gummycandysprite seemed to have trouble talking considering he had no useable teeth, but Pinkie seemed to be able to understand him clearly (and with some difficulty Ying could as well due to the sprite's power. She was happy that Gummy would be helping to guide her through the game, deciding not to ask Ying what happened. And he was thankful for that. Pinkie was mostly exploring the parties, coming across complex riddles occasionally and asking Twilight for help. She seemed to be a natural at sliding block puzzles - even the hardest of them. Some of the block puzzles were very similar to the one from PE2, and others were even harder, and many of them confusing. But Pinkie just seemed to have a way about it. She seemed to see how everything was supposed to be placed a certain way, almost like her intuition had grown. Or almost like she was a seer of space. But it came so naturally to her Ying had figured she was an heir. --- Applejack was slowly getting ideas of what she had to do, slowly learning who to trust and who not to trust. But there was so little information ever given that she needed to talk to so many rats just to find out where she was supposed to go, like this was the central hub of her entire planet. With Aranea's help, Applejack was able to repair her hope and light in order to see through these things and arrive at the right answer. She was being pushed to her limits, and it was difficult and tuckered her out. But some of the rats, as they talked to her, started to feed upon her integrity like it was something they had been missing all their lives. And that just made Applejack more tired. Almost as tired as she had felt when she was trying to farm all the apples on her own. Sometimes she even had a headache and needed to rest. There weren't very many enemies to fight for her - at least not yet - especially because she was still wandering out close to the city. The life was everywhere though, and decided to try and collect some food and remake it using alchemization so that the others would have something to eat when she got to them, if they didn't already have something. --- Land of Diamond and Fabric. Rarity was screaming. Her own heart in turmoil as she tried to deal with Derpy's self and with Opalescence. She wasn't relaxing and meditating enough to find the answers. Right now all she saw was anger, somewhat glad that Sweetie wasn't here for multiple reasons. Smeareyes saw her rage, and where it was coming from, but didn't expect what happened next. Derpy was flying around, trying to scope out the place, and when she landed on the top of Carousal Boutique for a rest, she fell through and landed on Opalescence. Rarity screamed and started shouting unlady-like profanities at Derpy who got sad and flew away. Rarity felt immediately sorry after it but was so tired of all of this. She just wanted to get some beauty sleep and it hadn't even been a day yet. Smeareyes helped her out by seeing her rage and seeing where it ended and how to end it so that she wouldn't hurt someone else through it; although he was pretty impressed how she seemed to be empowered by the rage and other feelings. Smeareyes calmed her down and put Opalescence into the sprite, which she wanted no one looking at, but she finally yielded and decided if she wanted her cat back, she was going to have to do this. Opalescencesmutsprite was a disaster. She was a total bitch. And Rarity had had enough. She walked out through her door, saw all the gems and fabric that went everywhere - she gasped and felt so much within her, but then she saw the oil and the oil fish and screamed. She ran back inside and started to cry, wanting a break but not getting one. Her soul was on the fringe - the precipice - of disaster. Smeareyes tried to comfort her the way he knew how, knowing she wasn't yet keyed in to her powers of heart, whatever that was. He tried to help her meditate and relax, which was something he was used to doing ever since his aspect started showing up, Phynicxs having helped train him to do so. Rarity was at her wit's end. Smeareyes had noticed that Rarity's consorts were cat fish, and almost smiled at the revelation. Smeareyes was also aware that he'd have to find Derpy and help cheer her up, which would keep him away from Rarity, but he was sure she could handle herself after all this that had happened. She just needed some time to think and relax so she could see and hear better. Later Rarity would discover that many of the gems and fabrics were fake - like the fabric that looked like it was durable really wasn't, and the a lot of the gems were fake. She would have to look closely and go with her intuition sometimes in order to find the right ones for her quests that helped her grow as a Seer of Heart quickly. But every step of the way was painful and wracked with drama. Smeareyes had been glad at one point that he'd taken off after Derpy, having to take an hour or two to find her.