//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Rune Cascade // by Valtyra //------------------------------// Frederick kneeled down behind the bushes and waited; slowing down his breathing, so there would be less of a change of being caught. He wasn’t sure if he was in the same country anymore, it was possible he was nearer to the equator, but that wouldn’t explain the lush foliage and half wooden buildings. One of the countries, called Avgrad, sat in the equator on the side of mountains. They used rock as their main building material and having to import in wood meant they couldn’t use it so haphazardly. The second country, Ahan, lies west of the first, near the coast beside mountains, over half of it being built on marshlands or plains of low elevation, meaning there was very little forest around those areas. He thought hard about the prospect of having been teleported to one of the unexplored islands and shook his head. “Magic attracts magic, I wouldn’t be able to arrive in a location where there wasn’t any...” He said to himself, whispering, “Then again, it is new magic...” He broke himself out of his thoughts and moved some leaves out of his vision. He saw six brightly coloured equines, or some variation. He started sweating when he saw that they were communicating vocally, with an adequately advanced language. “I don’t think I’m on Alaria anymore...” He thought to himself. His mind scrabbling for explanations of what actually happened. Looking down, he felt like all of his focus had imploded to a single point. His vision darkened and threatened to leave him, before he breathed in and out, calming himself. “Alright... If they can talk, they can be reasoned with. But I had better not risk it...” He mumbled, steadying himself from falling over and waiting to see if they would leave. He documented that two of them looked like regular horses... no, slightly smaller... ponies, two of them looked like pegasi and two of them looked like unicorns. “Improbable, but not impossible I suppose...” He muttered and focused in on the purple equine, “she seems to be the leader of the group, and she seems to be the most skilled at communicating.” “What I don’t understand is, why are they all different colours? Even the pegasi in Alaria don’t have different colours and they were summoned...” He mumbled to himself, before moving back into the bush as silently as he could. ___ Twilight stopped the group and looked about, “Right, I saw the tear directly in front. I suggest we just walk straight there and look about. Any questions?” She asked, levitating a small quill and parchment out of her bag and creating some check-boxes. “Yeah, I have one,” Spike asked, Twilight turned her head to look at the dragon who was lounging on her back, “How far is it?” Twilight frowned and rolled her eyes, “I’d have to estimate a good few hours by hoof, but I can’t tell for sure.” “Okay.” Spike simply replied. “Any pony else?” Twilight asked, looking at the girls. Each of them shook their heads or replied with varying types of “no”. “Then we can set off, let’s go!” Twilight said, turning around and galloping into the forest, rushing past the bushes and mud that splashed up around her. Behind, she could hear the groans of Rarity whining about her fur becoming “horrid” or “unbecoming” and rolled her eyes. “Sometimes Rarity...” She thought as she jumped over a broken log and through another mud puddle, her fur becoming stained and messy; but either she didn’t notice, or simply didn’t care. The only thing on her mind was finding out what had caused that anomaly. Her friends weren’t faring so well and were lagging behind in the rough, uneven terrain. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were affected less, but sometimes had to be grounded from low hanging branches. Rarity kept whining about her mane and tail, while Pinkie just hopped along, hoping to spend some more time with Twilight. ___ Frederick was doing well, he was tracking the ponies through the forest and seemed to be gaining. He was doing so well mainly from the fact that he could hear some sort of, what he guessed, whining and just headed in that direction. After running, jumping over, and tripping over some logs, he got fed up of getting dirty and simply paced himself. After all, if they were intelligent beings what good would looking dirty bring? He heard the whining stop and looked about, worried he had been spotted then sighed when he heard it pick up, worse than before. Picking up the pace, he reached the general area where the sound was coming from and peeked over some dense bushes. He saw the white unicorn being pulled along by two of the Pegasi, most likely against her will. Thinking this was strange, he documented the behaviour and noted it away in his head for later, but didn’t interrupt it; his presence wouldn’t go over well, right now. For some reason he couldn’t quite see the purple unicorn around and ducked behind the bush and surveyed the area. He saw dense hoof-prints in the mud up ahead and sneaked parallel to them. Hoping there was no chance of him being seen by the group, he started jogging after the unicorn. He could only speculate why they were here before it hit him, the tear. “It must have been obvious, a bright glowing tear in the sky doesn’t just go unnoticed...” He thought, before he tensed up, “If they find my equipment...” __ Twilight had made it to the expulsion site for Frederick’s equipment and had stopped just short of the border. She eyed the wreckage carefully and with hesitant steps, moved forwards. She was just short of the wreckage before a spark flew off the partially melted metal and landed onto her horn. She jumped back with a yelp and charged up a shield around herself. A few seconds passed and nothing happened, she kept the shield up and walked forwards, taking tiny steps, not willing to be scared again. When her shield came close, sparks jumped from the metal to the shield, lighting up the outside with multi-coloured ripples. Fascinated, she stepped forwards before hitting the shields surface. Pulling back, she touched the shield and found it had solidified against her will. Trying to turn her magic off proved to be useless as her horn wasn’t listening to her commands and kept feeding power into the shield, weakening the unicorn at the same time. “Girls, help!” Twilight shouted, hoping that her friends would come galloping out the forest and save her. Her hopes were killed when nothing replied, let alone helped her. She started whimpering with the thoughts that she would exhaust her magic and started to hit herself against the barrier, losing more magic each time she did. “Why is this happening?” She asked no pony in particular and slumped down against the shield, having tired herself out. Maybe if she just closed her eyes for a second to restore her strength... ___ Frederick ran to the edge of the woods and out into the clearing, before quickly stopping and slipping backwards in the mud. His eyes shot wide as he looked on in amazement at the mass of magical energy swirling around in front of him, “Beautiful...” He said out loud. Getting up and walking towards it, he felt compelled to become one with it, like his very being needed to meld and lose himself in the energy. Quickly shaking his head, he looked over to the side, spotting the purple unicorn he had been tracking and rushed over to it. She looked to be inside of shield, but didn’t seem to be awake from what he could tell. He hit the shield, taking note that her face winced each time he did so, along with the glow of her horn. “Magic, of course they can cast magic.” He turned towards the magical energy and closed his eyes. Breathing slowly, he calmed himself and opened them again to analyse the energy. He quickly turned to the wreckage, “the energy source must be from my experiment, the energy is floating off of it.” He turned his head towards part of the wreckage which he missed the first time and noted, “the core...” The core, covered in runes and glyphs seemed odd. Back in the shed it glowed slightly yellow, but now it was a light blue, meaning only one thing, rune corruption. Frederick frowned, he was sure he created the runes perfectly and double checked them, “I guess I’m not as good as I think I am...” He said, his mood dropping quite considerably. “Good or not...” he mumbled as he walked up to the swirling mass of energy. It seemed to entice him, trying to get him to jump in but he shook its effect off and pulled out the Unox stone he pocketed earlier, “knew I’d need these...” He chuckled darkly and shook his head. The plan was crazy, absolutely crazy and he doubted it could even work. But the chance was there and nothing else was coming to mind for the young inventor. He pulled out his locket, took one last look at it and held back a tear, he knew this could kill him for real. He carefully placed the locket back inside his lab coat, near to his heart and buttoned the jacket up. The wind was picking up quite considerably and he could couldn’t hear the shouts coming from behind him as he took a look at the stone he held tight in his right hand. Bright yellow in colour; Unox stones could power runed weaponry or lighting, tanks or heating, but a slight fluctuation in the power could bring a rune to ruin. Frederick was hoping it would work and create a power cascade, what he needed was a large amount of mana, more than a few stones could give him... Breathing in, he looked into the heart of the energy and smiled, “Please don’t hurt...” he whispered and walked forwards. ___ “Rarity, please!” Rainbow Dash pleaded, getting annoyed at her constant whining. “But...” Rarity replied, moving her head side to side, looking at the tiny amount of mud on the bottom of her hooves. “No buts. Twilight ran ahead, we can’t help her if she’s in trouble!” Rainbow landed, moving forwards, “Now come on!” Rarity huffed, “I swear, I’ll force you to the spa if my mane gets dirty!” “Ooh, can I come as well!” Pinkie shouted, hopping over to the bickering mares. “If you must, Pinkie,” Rainbow replied, “but we have to find Twilight first.” Suddenly the forest lit up, the darkness was being pushed away from them as a mystical glow formed. The group turned to face it and gasped. They knew Twilight was in trouble now and nothing was going to stop them from helping. “What is it?” Spike asked, in awe of the glow. He turned to face Rainbow and jumped on her back, “Can you fly above the trees?” “Sure thing,” she said, taking off and breaking through the treetops. They turned towards the glow and saw a large mass of magical energy forming. They had never seen anything quite as beautiful, but knew that if anything, Twilight was probably near it; possibly in trouble as well. Rainbow flew down and told the rest of the girls what she had seen. They decided to quicken their pace, with Rarity at the front; she was feeling guilty for slowing down her friends and letting Twilight go ahead alone. “I’m sorry Twi...” Rarity thought as they raced through bushes and mud, trying to get to their friend before anything bad happened. They broke through the border between the woods and the field and gasped at what they saw. A large wreck was sitting in the middle of the field with large strands of electricity arcing off the surface of the metal and onto their friends shield. Within seconds, the group had rushed over, being careful to not disturb the shield or move near the machine. Rarity, being a unicorn, tried to interrupt the shield spell that Twilight was feeding with one of her own, but was unfortunately not able to do anything about it. In terms of raw power, she just couldn’t compare to Twilight. Applejack and Pinkie was next, deciding that raw strength was the answer and bucked the shield. As soon as their hooves touched the shield, they heard a sound like glass shattering and turned to find they had cracked the surface; a look of pain etched into Twilight face as well. Feeling guilty for causing their friend pain, but not knowing what to do, they decided to focus on the mass of energy that was growing slowly beside them. “Oh my... there’s something in there!” Fluttershy gasped, hiding behind Rainbow Dash. “I don’t see anything,” Spike replied, moving forwards to get a better look. Eventually, his eyes focused and the glow softened to show an upright creature just in front of the energy. It looked down to something in its grip and... Laughed? Spike couldn’t recognize it; even with his late nights talking with Twilight about mythical creatures of Equestria. He took his eyes off it and walked over to the shield; placing his claw on the surface, but not applying any pressure, lest he hurt Twilight. He began to cry, “Twilight... please...” he choked out, tears sliding down his face. Pinkie moved to his side and place a leg around his shoulders. He turned and hugged her, thankful for the compassion. The rest of the girls saw the creature standing there laughing, but could not hear it over the sound of the wind whistling past. Rainbow, deciding it was better to do something than watch it stand there, tried moving towards it; but the winds were too much and she was forced back. After it seemed to stop laughing, it stepped forwards into the light. The glow brightened considerably, forcing the group to cover their eyes. After they were sure that the glow had receded, they took their hooves away to see that the mass was dispersing. Fluttershy looked over to Twilight and shouted, “Girls, Twilight!” Spike ran over and shook Twilight. She frowned, then her eyelids opened, revealing her violet eyes. They darted around then settled on her friends. Smiling softly, she got up out of the mud and shivered; she wrapped a leg around Spike, “I love you Spike,” she whispered to the dragon, causing him to tear up again. She trotted up to her friends and hugged them all, “I don’t know what to say...” “There’s no need to say anything dear,” Rarity interrupted, “It’s my fault that we weren’t with you, I am sorry.” Rarity moved forwards and stopped, “can you ever forgive me?” “Oh Rarity, do I even have to say it?” Twilight replied, hugging the unicorn tightly. Pulling back, Twilight spoke up, “thank you girls, you really saved me there. I guess I shouldn’t try to solve a problem all by myself...” The rest of the group smiled and pushing the memories back, nodded. “But I’m curious, how did you stop it?” She asked, looking about, she watched the final piece of mana disappear into the atmosphere. “To be totally honest, we didn’t really do anything...” Applejack replied, taking her hat off to scratch her head. “What do you mean?” Twilight asked, confused. ___ Frederick walked down the road, he had just passed the test to get into the most respected college this side of Alaria and nothing could bring him down. “Hey there Frederick, nice day isn’t it?” A passer-by shouted to him from across the street. “It most certainly is, enjoy it!” He shouted back, feeling on top of the world. His show of mnemonic shield casting in 4d space was, in his opinion, a little showing off; but it did get the job done. The judges were so impressed that they accepted him almost instantly. Frederick passed the local bakery and turned off down one of the side passages that passed over the river. It had been a long time since he’d used this route, but he felt like a change; soon he’d be moving to the capital, High Prez and wouldn’t see any of this again. High Prez, the largest and most well established city in the country, it had the best mage college. This meant that he could finally move away from this city, as well as it is. But as he passed a news stand on the corner of the passageway, his mood dropped. “This isn’t right...” he thought as he picked up a newspaper and read the title, "Alaria declares that Dr Gyle Pare, should wake up!" "Dr Gyle Pare should forget about his dream of a unified continent." Said a student of Life Mechanics and Rune Modelling at a latest conference. "I feel it’s time for Alaria to start believing in itself and try to fix the problems that we have tried so hard to ignore," Dr Pare head lecturer for Rune Research and Development was heard saying at one of his lectures. Everyone here at the New Haven echo feels that he should just go back to what he knows best and not meddle in the affairs of other people." “There’s something wrong, he didn’t want a unification...” Frederick spoke quietly as he placed the paper down and walked off. He passed along the side of the river, watching the factories. After a few minutes of thinking, he felt calm enough to go home and tell his mother and father the good news, he wasn’t sure what their reaction would be. Frederick paced himself and made it home before the sun was setting and opened the door. Inside was his mother cooking dinner and his father out in the back chopping some wood. His mother turned around and walked up to him. Hugging him, she asked, “How was it?” With trepidation. “I... I passed,” he replied, smiling. Grinning, his mother started jumping up and down. She ran outside and pulled her husband in, “he did it, and oh I knew he would.” “I know you did, honey.” His father said before turning to his son, “Well done son, I know you will do great things.” He patted Frederick on the back and pulled him in for a hug. Frederick rarely experienced his father like this, he was a hardworking, no nonsense guy. So he did what he thought was best and hugged back, thankful for the closeness. His mother stood there with her hand on her cheeks, smiling for her son. “Again with this nagging feeling...” Frederick thought as he sat down for dinner. He looked around the room. “Shouldn’t there be a third?” He mumbled as he focused on the chair next to him, “my sister should be here.” Breaking Frederick out of his thoughts, his father asked, “What did you show them?” “Hmm, oh... I just showed them how to use 4d space to reinforce a mnemonic shield.” Frederick replied, slipping back into his thoughts. “How lovely. My son, the genius!” His mother announced, clinking her glass against his father’s. “Where’s Angela?” Frederick asked, looking over to his father. “Who?” Both of his parents replied, confused. His mother perked up and said, “I think Freddy has found a girlfriend!” “What, no!” He shouted, getting up from his seat, “my sister, where is my sister?” “Frederick, this isn’t funny anymore, you don’t have a sister.” His dad responded, also getting up, “I think it’s better if you sit down, you’ll upset your mother.” “No, I’m leaving!” He shouted, making his way to the door. He was blocked by his dad, who was standing in the doorway. “Please dad, I don’t want to hurt you.” All he saw was his dad try to grab him then a flash, then his dad on the other side of the wall; a hole where he slammed through. His mother staring at him like a monster; Frederick panicked, he ran out onto the street. It felt like hours before he stopped running. Frederick had made it to the other end of the city and things looked a lot different here. Colours were running off the walls and everything looked darker, as if everything was out to get him. “What’s going on?!” He shouted out across the river. “It’s falling apart.” A females voice from behind replied. Frederick spun around and readied a small shield, “show yourself!” He commanded. “Don’t worry, I’m here to help.” The voice replied, sympathy evident. “Really, then come out,” He asked, looking around, “forgive me if I seem to be a little apprehensive, this place is not known for its hospitality.” The voice laughed and Frederick felt a little calmer. He watched as a slender girl with waist length black hair walked out of the shadows between two factories. She was wearing a knee length, gothic dark blue skirt. She looked around twenty, but had a wise look in her eyes. He kept his shield spell ready, the bandits around this area are known for their tricks. “You still don’t believe me...” The woman asked, a little saddened. She walked up beside him, noticing him tense up and move away. “If you look over there, you can see it cracking,” she said, pointing over to one of the factories that were fading away. “What’s going on,” Frederick asked, scared of what he was seeing. “It’s simple, you’re in a dream.” The girl replied, with a grin, “and a well-constructed one at that, I’m impressed,” she praised, inspecting the cobblestones under foot. “A dream... no way. I remember walking here.” Frederick said, refusing to believe her. “Is that so?” She asked with a smirk and raising her brow. “Ok, what did you do before you walked here?” “I had dinner with my family...” he started, before being interrupted. “Before that?” “Walking home.” Frederick explained. “Before that?” The girl repeated, her grin getting slightly larger. Getting annoyed at the barrage of questions, Frederick tried replying to prove her wrong, but he couldn’t remember, “I don’t know... wow.” “Exactly. Now let’s go before this dreamscape breaks apart and you wake up.” The girl held out her hand and waited for Frederick to take it. She wiggled her fingers, “I don’t bite.” He took her hand and in the span of one blink, they had changed location. He looked around and found himself in a luxurious bedroom. Various chairs were placed together in front of a fireplace, bookcases lined one wall and on the other were two double doors leading outside to a balcony. Behind him stood a queen sized, four poster bed, big enough to fit five people in. Laying under the bed was a large red rug that travelled the length of the room, only stopping just short of another double door that had an engraving of a crescent moon. Looking up, he saw that it was as if the stars themselves were painted directly onto the ceiling, sparkling with real beauty. Suddenly, he remembered that he had sacrificed himself and that he was dreaming. He turned to the girl and stumbling back, shouted, “What manner of blood magic is this!” Taken aback, she frowned and asked, “Excuse me, what is this "Blood magic" you are referring to?” “You know full well, mage!” He continued shouting. “Please, end your senseless accusations.” She pleaded, “My name is Luna, my sister and I are co-rulers of this country, Equestria.” “I... I’m really not in Alaria am I?” He asked, his anger crumbling into nothing. He looked into the girls eyes and saw sympathy, it reminded him of his sister. Moving his hand to his face, Frederick started crying, tears fell through his fingers and onto the floor, forming small damp spots on the rug. Luna walked over and hugged him, “I’m sure my sister and I will find a way to get you home. You did save one of ours after all...” Frederick looked up and sniffed back some sobs, “It would never have happened...” “If you had never have come here. It doesn’t take away from the fact that you did save her; for that, we are eternally grateful.” She smiled and hugged him again, showing how much it meant. “Sorry about shouting at you...” Frederick said, feeling annoyed that he jumped to conclusions. “Please, don’t be. No harm came from it.” She walked over to another chair and sat down, “I saw some strange things in your dream.” Wiping away the last of his tears, Frederick made a mental note to work out his feelings at a more appropriate time. He had the prospect of teaching something someone, this was more important than getting emotional. “What do you want to know about?” He asked. “Can all of your kind do magic?” Luna asked, sitting on the edge of her chair, waiting for an answer. “Well, some of us. You could say I’m one of the unlucky ones,” he replied with an undertone of sadness. “What do you mean?” Luna picked up on the tone and moved back in her chair. “Mages are not welcome in most civilised countries... at best, they don’t trust us. At worst, they kill us.” Frederick explained, “as Alaria developed, we used these crystals called Unox, the power certain runes, or etchings if you will.” He paused for a second before continuing, “As we used more and more crystals, the more magic was released into the world... of course we didn’t know this at the time.” Luna frowned, she couldn’t understand a world without magic, “so there were no "mages" before the crystals?” “No, foetuses in the womb absorbed the magic, giving them the ability to manipulate ambient magic.” “That doesn’t explain why people don’t like your kind.” Luna said. Frederick sighed, he didn’t like the story in school and certainly not now, “there were a group of mages, they formed around eight years before I was born. They were only teenagers at the time, but they had the ability to level villages. The military was called in and finally killed them, but not before half of the troops died.” Luna’s mouth hung open, “So that’s why...” “Yeah.” The silence that followed was almost painful. “Do your parents know?” Luna asked. “No they don’t, only my sister knows; I trust her enough.” Frederick replied, holding in some tears, knowing he will never see her again. “I... don’t know what to say.” “Well, let’s get off tragic subjects like this. How come you look human? Surely you’re also a pony, like that purple one and the group?” Shaking her head, she walked over into the middle of the room.