After the successful defense of Newvale from the CRA, I decided I could use a shower. And then I paused, realizing something vital.
What with all the excitement, I hadn't had time to properly make a home for myself.
I mean, granted, I had Newvale, but there was no house specifically for me. Or I could have used the Penumbra Sanctum, were it made for, y'know, the living. And that time I crashed at Twi's didn't count. Both because that night, I didn't sleep, and that I couldn't actually go there for fear of the second coming of The Crazed Purple One.
So, yeah. No proper home, and I needed one. Nothing for it, I would have to make one. I idly scratched behind Measured's ears while I mused about my conundrum out loud. "Huh. I've only just now noticed I don't have a place to live."
At this, she jerked her head around and stared at me. "What."
I shrugged. "Things've been hectic. Phenomenal power comes with phenomenal responsibilities, and mine have kept me going from place to place so much that I only just now realized my predicament."
She blinked a few times, clearly not expecting a reasonable answer to her statement. And then she got the creepiest grin.
"You know, my place in Canterlot has a guest room. I could-"
"No." I shot that idea down before she even voiced it fully, causing her to frown, then pout slightly and give me puppy dog eyes. Fortunately, I'd had a younger sister, so I could put up with a reasonable amount of pouting. "Not just no, but hell no. There is not enough no in all the world. I want my own place, thank you very much, where I can do experiments with my power and not have to worry about the neighbors. And with all this crap that keeps coming up, it'll need to be defensible as well. That's pretty much the definition of a Keep, and I'd like to take over and refurbish one than build one."
Measured's frown increased as her brows furrowed. "There are no vacant keeps, besides the Castle of the Royal Sisters in the Everfree."
I sighed and ran my hand through her mane. "I doubt they'd let me take that over, it's sort of a relic at this point. Which means..."
And here I got a wicked grin.
"I get to make one. Now all I need is to decide on a location, and really, it's a no-brainer."
"Oh?" That head cocking thing people do when they're confused is adorable on a pony.
"Yeah. Only problem is making it alicorn-proof."
At this, Measured grinned. "That's not really a problem, considering your unique situation. I know of a spell or two to cancel out magic. If I provide the framework, you can provide the energy. Combined, the theoretical applications are limitless."
And at this, I turned to her and turned my grin up to eleven. "Mah dear, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."
-----
(3rd POV - Twilight)
Everything was normal in Ponyville, surprisingly.
The sun was shining, the foals were playing, the weather was just perfect.
Twilight sighed to herself as she began to plan around the day Auric had all but forced her into going at without a schedule.
He had said nothing about making general plans, or plans around the day after all! She could still have some form of structure, just not one as rigid as she normally used! It was technically not cheating, just exploiting a loophole he'd accidentally left open!
And that was when the earthquake struck.
Casting a spell to stabilize all the bookshelves so that none of them fell over onto her, or worse, spilled their contents, Twilight braced herself as well as she could. The drain of keeping the library stable was starting to show just as Spike started to bounce down the stairs.
"What's going on?!" Fortunately, Spike's scales protected him from too much damage as he slammed into various things. The same could not be said of the objects that he was unlucky enough to hit.
"I don't know, Spike! Just hang on to something!"
After five minutes of non-stop shaking, the world settled back into something resembling normalcy. Spike crawled out from underneath the table he'd managed to crawl under, and Twilight ceased her spell, wiping her brown in the process.
"Phew. Well, whatever it was, it's over now." Twilight looked around the lobby of the library, noticing that the damages from Spike being jostled around weren't any worse than Rainbow Dash crashing in. She looked over to her number one assistant and sighed. "Well, we should go see if anypony else needs any help."
Spike climbed up onto Twilight's back and nodded. "I don't think Dash will need help...or have even noticed. Pinkie's probably fine. Applejack will probably appreciate the shaking if it got any apples off her trees. That just leaves Fluttershy, who'd be more scared than anything, and Rarity," and here the drake's eyes widened, "and all her needles and scissors and...we gotta go now, Twilight!"
Twilight blanched at the mental picture Spike was painting. "You know, for once, your crush pays off."
Spike was too worried to even correct her as they ran to Carousel Boutique. As they ran through the streets of Ponyville, they noticed a few of the citizens were coming outside to see what, if anything had caused the sudden quake. A few were holding hooves to bruised parts of themselves, and every so often somepony would come out with a smashed item. Spike and Twilight were too engrossed in checking on Rarity to notice a common theme: after a few houses, ponies would be staring behind them with their jaws wide open.
The bell chimed as Twilight and Spike ran inside. "Rarity? Rarity are you in here? Are you alright?"
A voice drifted down from the upstairs. "Twilight dear? Oh thank goodness! I could really use your help up here!"
Twilight and Spike raced upstairs. "Where are you, Rarity? Is everything okay?"
Rarity's voice emanated from behind her bathroom door. "Everything is most certainly not okay!"
Spike hopped off of Twilight's back and rapped the door a few times. "What's the problem?"
"Spike? Oh Spikey, don't open that door!"
Spike blushed a bit and stepped back. "Of course not, m'lady."
Twilight took his place and pressed an ear to the door. "What's the problem, Rarity?"
"Well, I was getting ready for my usual spa date with dear Fluttershy, when that ghastly quake struck! Before I could so much as cast a spell, all my shampoos and conditioners and dyes and...everything just fell on me! I'm afraid to look!"
"Do you want me to?" Twilight had her hoof going for the doorknob before she even finished her question, and was quickly rebuffed by Rarity's response.
"Absolutely not! Nopony must see me like this! Or dragon, either. I have a plan. Spike, if you would be so kind as to go downstairs, please?"
Spike nodded and scampered off. "Now Twilight, if you could close your eyes, I will open the door and come into contact with you. Do you think you could teleport me to the Spa's lobby like that?"
Twilight turned the idea over in her head. "Yes, I think I could. It isn't how I would normally do it, but it is doable."
The alicorn shut her eyes. "I'm ready whenever you are, Rarity."
There was the sound of a door opening and a hoof coming into contact with her coat. "Ready, dear. And do tell Fluttershy for me why I couldn't pick her up, please?"
"That was our next stop," Twilight responded as she charged the spell to send Rarity on her way. There was a bright flash through her eyelids, and when she opened them, the unicorn was gone. The bathroom, however, was a disaster area, and Twilight cringed at the thought of Rarity being coated in that mess.
She made her way downstairs to see Spike gawping out the window at something. "Spike, what is it?"
Wordlessly, Spike pointed, and Twilight followed the line his claw made until she saw it.
Straddling the border between the town and the forest was a huge stone tower, taller than any building had a right to be, though not nearly as tall as Canterlot Castle. Sticking out of it at base level were several smaller additions, and surrounding it was a stone wall just as tall as any house, with a set of wooden doors that seemed to be thick and sturdy.
Rarity's shriek from across the town punctuated the sudden appearance of the tower and its wall perfectly.
"THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE THING!"
-----
(POV - Auric)
I grinned as I stood atop the wall surrounding my new home. It wasn't easy convincing the earth to move, but once it started, the problem was getting it to stop again, and exactly how I wanted it to.
Seriously, if I hadn't managed it, Ponyville would have had a new mountain on its borders. And that wouldn't have been good living space at all.
Measured looked up at me and managed to put her jaw back where it should have been. "I think I seriously underestimated the amount of power you have."
I shrugged. "Hell, far as I know, there's not a limiter on the amount or ways I can use it besides what I can think of." I scratched the back of my head as I turned that last statement over in my mind. "Okay, well, technically there is a limit, and when I was fooling around in Canterlot, I nearly hit it. And there are rules and laws about things I cannot do, which is why I try not to do them. I mean, besides my own morals."
I waved a hand at the wall we were standing on. "Anyways, the wall should be full of gemstones. Tower too. Equestria just seems to be a more gem-rich place than I'm used to. If we use them to store whatever spell you have in mind, it should hold for a lot longer."
Measured nodded at me and charged her horn up with some form of spell. "There, the framework is laid. All it needs is power, and this tower will be secure from all manner of things." Here she grinned at me. "Alicorns included."
I reached out with my right hand and clasped her horn, letting power flow from me into the spell she had prepared. And that was when I heard a very familiar voice.
"Auric? Auric, you get down here right now and explain yourself!"
I turned to see Twilight coming up to the front gate and smiled. "Ready, Measured?"
She nodded and prepared to loose the spell, but I waved at her with my other hand. "Not yet, I want to do something that will drive her bonkers first."
Measured blinked a few times in confusion, and I turned to face Twilight, channeling what little I could of Ian McKellen.
"You cannot pass! I am a servant of the Balance, wielder of the Flames of Alchemy. Your magic will not avail you, Twilight of Ponyville! Go back to the village." Here I nodded at Measured, who let loose the spell. It took hold in the wall, and then rushed upwards to the heavens, creating the illusion that there was, temporarily, a huge golden firewall in place of the regular one. After a moment, it dissipated, and I drew in a deep breath, attempting to use my own version of the Royal Canterlot Caps Lock.
"You! Shall not! PASS!"
Surprisingly, that echoed far more than I thought it would. Apparently, just like music is sometimes magic in Equestria, so is drama.
Twilight shook her head a few times and glared at me. "Get. Down. Here." She bristled at me, and I put a hand up to my chin.
"Hmm. Nah, I don't think so."
"Auric, get down here, or I swear to Celestia, I will-"
I smiled at her. "Will what, Twilight? Go on, try. I'm not coming down."
At this, her horn lit up, and a huge bolt of purple magic rushed at me.
The moment it crossed the line the wall made, though, a rush of golden flames reached up and sort of...ate away her spell. Twilight blinked a few times, then tried it again, only to get the same result. And then, only when her anger had been replaced with confusion, did she walk up to the wall and put a hoof on it. "What sort of magic is this?"
I nodded to Measured, who took it as her cue to begin telling the story. "I know of several methods to make dwellings or rooms secure from all manner of hazards. Comes with being a researcher. When Auric said he wanted to make the place he would make secure from 'just about everything,' I cobbled together all my theories and known spells together into making one huge security spell. The only problem is, it would normally be uncastable. It would require power held only by those with a talent for such spells, a highly powerful unicorn, or one of the Alicorns."
"Which is where I come in," I interjected. "I've got more power than I can shake a stick at, and the wall itself has so many gems embedded in it. Combined, we pulled it off, and the spell is self-sustaining now. Now, only anything either of us invite in can get in. Including you and your magic, Twilight."
The gears turned in her head, her jaw dropped, and Twilight's wings started to twitch in irritation. "Yooooooou..."
Spell after spell flew from her horn at us, only to vanish in a flash of gold as they crossed the boundary. I smiled smugly at her, and that just seemed to infuriate her all the more. She let out an inarticulate scream of rage as she realized I had set up a barrier she could not breach.
I merely turned to Measured and sighed. "Let's tour the place, shall we?"
Measured nodded and winced as Twilight started ranting at me. "Yes, let's."
-----
Though there were eight stories to my tower, and four laboratories on ground level, there were no stairs. Or excess of doors.
I forget which book I'd taken it from, but the thought of a door that constantly changed which room it connected to was one I admired. There was, of course, a loophole: if you ask it politely, it would connect you to where you wanted to go.
The only rooms not connected to my door network were my laboratories, which would not even open for anyone but me if I were not in there. It'd be far too dangerous if anyone just walked in, after all. I'd be meddling with things just as primal as nature itself, and one stray hoof could spell disaster.
While it was currently very bare in here, that could be remedied eventually. Either by making furniture from the nearby woods, or by Measured saying she intended to move in. I glanced at her when she said that.
"Isn't that a little fast? We've not even gone on a date!"
She blushed at that. "It's...not just that. It's just...you make me feel safe. You saved me, after all. And it doesn't look like Twilight is in any hurry to do you any favors. So she's probably not in a rush to help me with that either."
I grimaced as I heard another scream through the stone. "Yeah, fair enough. Well, I think the tour is pretty pointless until we get some defined places placed, such as your room, mine, the study, the kitchen, the dining room, and the like."
Measured nodded and opened her mouth to say something when we heard a sudden hush fall outside. We'd grown sorta used to Twilight and her angry rambling that when it vanished, it felt odd.
And then there was the ringing noise from the doorbell I'd installed. Well, it was more of a bell-pull, but it served its purpose.
I reappeared atop the wall and looked down to see Celestia looking at the gate. I coughed to get her attention, and she looked up at me without batting an eye.
"And what does the mighty Sun Princess need from me?"
She actually sighed at that. "Auric, can I come in?"
I put a hand to my chin. "Can, certainly, I have every faith your legs are capable of locomotion. May? That's another matter. Why do you want to?"
She let out a wry grin at my statement before it faded as swiftly as it came. "I need to enter Newvale. And I want your help in doing it."
I was stunned for a moment until she pulled out of...somewhere a blue crystal that resembled the control crystals I was unfortunately familiar with. With a burst of magic, she activated it, and it played a message in that familiar stallion's voice.
"Princess Celestia, I hereby give you one week to abdicate your throne, to ensure that there are none in line for it, and to get all of your affairs in order while I take care of that settlement known as Newvale for you. After that, I shall come for Canterlot. And I will take what I want and lead ponykind to a glorious new era. Else my name is not Omega, Master of Psynergy!"
I growled at that. "His arrogance knows no bounds." My look of anger was quickly replaced with confusion. "But why does that necessitate your visiting the town?"
"Because," she replied, "I wish to protect it and those that dwell within."
I blinked a few times and facepalmed. "Cel, I've already thought of three ways that can go wrong. No. Just...no. Don't do this. Please don't do this."
She merely smiled her insufferable smile, and I groaned.