//------------------------------// // Swarms and befriending the unknown // Story: Crazy, Clever and Cunning // by Fresnor //------------------------------// “Replacing all those broken boors and furniture is going to be such a pain,” I mumble to myself as I go over the list of things that I need to find replacements for in the manor. “At least everything is cleaned up now; most of these things aren’t too big a deal, not like I have plans to have anyone over to need doors on the guest room.” Setting the list down nearby I turn my attention to the view outside. It’s a rather nice day outside, with the sun shining over Ponyville on this late morning with only a few clouds about. Despite this an uneasy feeling had settled on me after what I thought I glimpsed the day before. “There’s no way that could have been one of those little beasts, surely somepony around here would know the dangers of it and warn her. Maybe I should go and check to make sure before…” I stop and stare out in the direction of the Everfree entrance at an odd sight. Out of nowhere a tornado had appeared and it looks to be changing colors from a dust brown to a rainbow of colors, “What in the world is that?” Opening the window to try to get a better look I see that it is starting to wobble and break apart, “It looks like something is flying away from i-WOAH!” I duck as I see something whizzing right at me, barely avoiding it. I hear whatever it was crash into the wall behind me with a metallic tone. I turn to find out what it was to find something I didn’t expect, “Why in the world were a pair of cymbals flying around at those speeds? Somepony could have, and almost had, gotten hurt by those things.” I close the window before prying them out of the wall to get a better look at them. They still seemed to be in working shape even though the cord on them looked to have been broken for some reason. I carry them downstairs, wondering what to do with them, until I hear a frantic pounding at my front door. “Maybe that’s the owner of these things. I hope it is so I can find out what in the world is going on.” Heading to the door I open them and am surprised to find Pinkie Pie there. “Hey Pinkie Pie, aren’t you a bit early for your weekly cake guess?” Pinkie Pie looks frantic for some reason which is worrying, “No time for that Flarie, this is an emergency! Did you see a pair of cymbals fly by here? It’s important that I find them or else the Ponyville is doomed!” I raise an eyebrow at this as I bring the found items into view which she frantically grabs. “Um yeah, these came through my window not long ago, why do you need them and why did they almost take my head off?” She was about to rush off but pauses to answer my question, “We have a Parasprite problem but nopony is listening to me about how serious it is, they just ignore me and keep making the situation worse!” At Pinkie’s short explanation I can feel myself get lightheaded at the one word I had been trying to avoid since yesterday. “Did you say Parasprites?! Right, thanks for the info but I think I’m going to be barricading everything so they don’t destroy this place. Oh and be sure to let them know not to try to use magic to make them stop eating, I’ve seen that before and it just makes things worse. So bye Pinkie, have fun trying to stop the unstoppable swarm of bugs and let me know how that goes,” I then slam the door as I rush into the basement in a panic. “I knew I saw a parasprite yesterday, why didn’t I double check to stop things from getting this bad. I should have practiced in case something like this happened, but no I had other things to do and now I have to improvise.” I work myself into a panic as I head downstairs and make my way to the center of the basement. Planting my rump down near where the hearth stone is I focus on it and the task that I need to accomplish. The first thing I do is attempt to focus on the area that is covered by the stone. I can feel that it has finally reached the runestones that I had planted. With a little effort I can feel everything that is moving within the area that is covered by it, though the only life forms I feel are myself, and what I believe is Pinkie Pie. “Good, it doesn’t look like any of those things have reached here yet. Now for the hard part,” I say as I start to focus my magic on the stone and attempt to meld it with the field it emits. Over the next hour I try various things to get the spell to work. It’s only when I start feeling the creatures start entering the area that I finally get it right, and a wave of energy expands out from the manor to the edge of the property, flinging the beasts away. “Whew, finally got that barrier spell to work through it,” I say while wiping the sweat off my face with my foreleg. “Now that this place is protected, I need to find something to do until they go away.” Seeing as it’s a nice day, I head outside and towards the edge of the property the leads to Ponyville. I lie down near the edge of the barrier and watch the parasprites as they try to push their way through the shield, wondering how the rest of the town is doing. “Pinkie Pie seemed to have some plan to get rid of those things; maybe she actually knows something that actually works. It wouldn’t surprise me, still haven’t found a way to explain some of what I’ve seen her do yet.” I stare at he the edge of the barrier as the things are still trying to get in, “I guess I should take some time to practice my spells a bit, it could have been a disaster if I didn’t get his barrier up in time and I haven’t really taken the time to try new things out in a while either.” On making this decision I focus on my journal that is back in my room still. Using the feelings I unlocked with the stone, I easily find it where I had left it. It takes a while, with a couple breaks to rest, but I eventually bring it out to where I am resting. After doing a quick run-through of the spells in it, making sure I can still do them all easily enough, I start to think of new ways to use them. Looking at the parasprites constantly bouncing off the shield I get an idea for one of my simplest ones. Reaching out my senses into the barrier I get a feel of how it is made as well as the components of how it is kept active. Making sure not to touch the latter parts, I slowly tweak the former into what I intend. Occasionally I have to stop and knock a few sprites back outside the shield as I make a mistake, but eventually I succeed and I rest to examine my work. “Well, combining it with a glue spell worked really well,” I say as I observe the parasprites getting stuck on the barrier surrounding my property. “I think I even figured out how to make it where only the things I want will stick to the spell now. That could come in handy sometime, though I’m not sure how though.” I turn back to my journal and steadily go through the rest of the spells as I wait until word comes in from town. After a while I run out of ideas and just sit and play around with a smaller shield in front of my, contracting it while not letting any of the air escape, then releasing the spell to feel the air puff out and blow my mane around. After a couple hours, part of which I observe a chariot enter and leave town, I spot a spot of pink heading towards me from town. It’s easy to see that it is Pinkie Pie as only she has that much pink around her. Standing up I head out to greet her, though she seems to be looking at the trapped parasprites in trepidation, “Don’t tell me I missed a few parasprites. Now I have to go gather up all those instruments again.” I raise an eyebrow at the pink mare, “Wait, you mean you actually got rid of the ones in town? How did you do that, I haven’t seen anypony able to do that beyond just waiting them out.” Pinkie Pie then explains what happened since she left as well as the fact that she was too late to stop Twilight from casting the spell I warned about, causing me to apply hoof to face. Apparently parasprites are attracted to certain types of music and it is by using that that you drive them away with the least effort. As she finishes her story she is about to rush back into town before I stop her, “Wait a second, the ones here shouldn’t be as difficult to get rid of now that they are all trapped.” She looks at me oddly as I turn my focus back to the barrier. Without dispelling it I gather the energy at the furthest edge and start to peel it around towards me. With a large amount of effort, with me almost passing out, I eventually drag it and all the contained parasprites into a ball that is now resting in front of us. “That was a bit tougher than I thought it would be,” I pant out. I pour more energy into the barrier so that it starts to actually glow with my real aura color, appearing to be a ball of flame covering the mass of sprites. Once it is visible I turn to Pinkie Pie with a grin, “Think you can give this a good kick so that it flies far into the Everfree?” Pinkie Pie returns the grin and turns away from the ball before giving it a massive buck, sending it a decent distance into the forest causing me to let out a whistle. “Wow, nice one there. Since that’s over I guess the next thing to worry about is cleanup since you said Twilight cast that spell. Since everything is clear here I guess I should head into town to help out.” With that Pinkie Pie and I make our way into town to help with the cleanup efforts. <><><><><><><> Cleaning up the town didn’t take all that long. Strangely enough it seemed like the ponies around here are used to problems like this happening. It’s easy to guess why though as I saw Derpy cause even more damage as she helped fix things, though the townsfolk seemed to just smile and laugh it off as if it was normal, which I’m starting to think it is. The town had finished cleaning things up just in time for the start of fall. Not much interesting seems to be going on for a while, though Pinkie mentioned a party for some local filly, a cute-something-or-other, didn’t quite catch the term. Seeing as things have been settling down, I decided to take another trip out to the castle. To prepare for the trip though, I decided to bring a bunch of extra things with me. While I am annoyed at having things stolen from me, the culprit seems to be a foal in need judging by the size. Having been alone and in dire situations myself before, I can’t help but feel sorry for him or her. I stopped by the market for various things that they would probably need, especially as the weather is starting to get colder in preparation for winter. Blankets, various foods that last, and even the last of my extra enchanted fire opals all go into a small care package for the little one. I even find a little plush of a book character named Daring Do to finish up the little gift. “I really wonder why a foal would be alone in that castle, especially as I haven’t heard anything about anypony being missing while I’ve been here.” Shrugging I levitate my bags into place and head out on this early morning for the castle. “I really should open up a path behind the manor now that I have time, that’ll be next on my list. I can probably use all the lumber for repairs inside as well; maybe I can find a spell to help with that at the castle.” On the way to the forest I spot Fluttershy who I wave to as I pass by her home. She does her usual cringing I’ve seen her do often enough, though this time she actually waves back. The walk through the forest is actually a rather pleasant distraction from the rigors of having a stable home. While it is nice to finally have somewhere to lay down roots, I do kind of miss being out and about to see new places. “Maybe someday I’ll go back to traveling again. At least I’ll have a home to look forward to again instead of having only what I could carry.” The castle is still as silent and empty as it had been the last few trips there. “There has to be some spell on it to keep the wildlife away. Whatever it is it has to have been pretty potent to last as long as this place looks to have been abandoned.” I keep an eye out for signs of anything out of place as I make my way to the library, but nothing seems obvious can be seen. The lack of dust is really odd as well, though from someone cleaning the place up or some other reason it’s hard to tell. As I enter the library I look around the area where I had caught glimpses of the foal that was here. Unfortunately I don’t spot anything, so I just set the bundle of items down by the corner so they won’t have to reveal themselves if they don’t want to. I then head to my usual table and set my packs down before heading into the shelves. After a while I lose myself in my research into various subjects, many of them spell based. “Hmm, gold for East, pearl for south, jade for west and a bloodstone for north. If I can use this arrangement and combine with this spell,” I mutter as I make notations in my journal. I am interrupted as I hear a noise from over near the corner and I turn to find the care package is now missing. I smile to myself as I go back to my research with a lighter heart. The rest of my time there I find various spells to add to my journal, from a spell to lessen the spring curse, to a spell to deaden pain, to one that can actually be used to convert felled trees into usable lumber. None of them are terribly ground breaking, but each of them is useful in their own way to help me in the future. As I am about to head out for the day I find one more book that I can’t reset going through, a book detailing various magic circles. “This is definitely a good find, I don’t remember finding anything this detailed in Twilight’s collection,” I comment as I page through jotting down ones that look useful. I return the book after scribing down a circle used as a permanent fixture that can be modified for various purposes. Making sure to note the location of the book for later I make my way to the castle entrance. As I am heading out of the castle I pause as I hear a voice somewhere behind me. “Thank you,” calls the unknown figure with a soft but feminine voice. I turn around with a small smile on my face and just wave towards the castle hoping they can see me though I spot nothing. I then proceed to make my way along the path back to Ponyville, “Well at least I can assume it’s a she that is hiding in there, and that they seem to be willing to talk a little now.” Deciding to reward myself for the small victory I detour through town to stop at the café for dinner. I decide to order one of the fish meals, to the odd looks of the waitress, and observe the ponies around the area as they finish up their day. I spot Applebloom running around with two other fillies that I haven’t seen before as they run off to do whatever it is they have planned. Interestingly enough all three of them seem to be lacking cutie marks, which I’ve noticed that only the youngest seem to lack. Turning back to my table as my food arrives I dig in hungrily, not having had a good fish dish in months. As I finish up a catch the odd sound of thunder in my ears and look around for the source before I am drenched in a localized deluge. Laughter drifts from a nearby corner and I turn to spot both Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie rolling around. Paying for my food and making my way wetly along the path towards my home I pass by the two and mutter darkly to them, “Of course you know, this means war.” This just causes them to laugh harder, though the cyan mare eventually responds, “Yeah right, you don’t look like you even know how to have fun, let alone pull off a good prank on the Prank Masters of Ponyville.” I just smile and begin laughing in the most evil voice I can muster, and out of the corner of my eye I can see them glance at each other in worry.