//------------------------------// // Chapter 21 - The Truth // Story: Rain of Fire // by LessThanHuman //------------------------------// There is a point where pain becomes so intense, that the nerves of the being sustaining the pain, can no longer comprehend it, and everything feels numb. As Firestorm flew backwards, blasting through the stone wall, which less than a second earlier lay a fair distance behind him, he felt only a lingering tingle in his chest where Luna’s powerful spell had initially struck him. A second wall stopped his brief and violently fast journey, his consciousness instantly slipping away. “Luna, what have you done!?” Celestia demanded, her voice a mixture of anger, fear, and confusion. Luna didn’t respond, she stared into the hole with her horn still glowing faintly. Celestia approached her sister and rested a hoof on her shoulder. Luna snapped her attention to Celestia in surprise, as if she were expecting somepony else. Celestia looked into Luna’s tear filled eyes and saw only one thing, pure fear. Celestia moved her body so it was parallel to Luna’s and draped her left wing over her back, “Luna, what’s going on?” Before she could explain her actions, Scootaloo skidded to a stop directly in front of her, “Why did you attack my daddy!?” The color drained from Luna’s face at the filly’s question, “D-Dad?” “Firestorm has been living in Ponyville with us for the past few weeks, he adopted Scootaloo,” explained Twilight. “Living in… Adopt… Quickly, describe his actions and personality traits” Luna demanded. “Umm, okay well, he is very calm for the most part, helpful, caring, friendly, social… Oh! He also used his magic to amplify the spell of another pony to correct the vision of a Ponyville resident, Derpy Hooves. Granted it didn’t go too well in the start, but the end result was even better than expected.” “Don’t forget ‘bout the time he socialized with Filthy Rich,” Applejack added. “Prey tell, what happened?” Luna asked. “Well, he uh, kinda…” Twilight spoke trying to find the right words. “Whooped that stuck up stallions flank!” Rainbow Dash said interrupting Twilight. “Thanks Rainbow…” Twilight said sarcastically. “Why did you attack him anyway?” Rainbow Dash asked Luna. How did he execute the stallion, Filthy Rich was it?” Luna asked completely ignoring Rainbow’s question. “Execute!? Princess, Firestorm didn’t kill anypony. Assault maybe, but nothing more than a few insignificant bruises!” Twilight quickly explained. “Yeah, and a major bruise to his ego!” Rainbow Dash added. “Not helping Rainbow…” Twilight said in a hushed tone. “A few bruises, that’s all? Curious.” Luna replied. “Luna, what is going on? That combat spell you used would have passed right through a pony, killing them instantly, not sending them hurtling through a wall! Who is he and what made you attack him?” Celestia asked. “He came here looking for answers about himself, the ones he doesn’t already have,” Twilight added. “Hmm, it does not surprise me there would be memories missing, though I am surprised his mind did not simply deteriorate after as long as it’s been…” “Luna you’re stalling, explain to us right now what you know about Firestorm,” Celestia said sternly. Luna’s ears folded back and she turned away in shame, “Let us wait a little while longer, he will be awake soon and I would very much like to only have to explain this once.” Celestia could detect something in her sister’s voice which she just couldn’t put her hoof on but one thing was for sure, Firestorm’s presence was causing her a great deal of distress. A mere nod of her head signified she would honor Luna’s request to wait. Firestorm slowly regained consciousness, his aching body pleading with him to relieve the pain in his left arm and wing. He tried to stand up but found himself wedged against a wall and beneath a concrete pillar. He assessed his body had sustained and determined a short range teleportation would successfully help free himself. He also determined, in his current state, it would hurt… a lot. With no other options available, Firestorm began to charge the spell. As the spell neared its peak, he looked over his shoulder at his right wing. Under normal circumstances, both wings would be glowing during the use of any form of magic. This time however, the glow in his right wing stopped about halfway down, leaving the rest of his wing lying limp and useless behind him. With only his left wing glowing completely, the effect of a teleportation spell being used would have the same effect as a unicorn having only half of their horn to focus their magic with. Not that there was ever any such documented case but Firestorm had a relative idea of what he was in for. Sure enough, as the spell completed, Firestorm found himself falling backwards for what he calculated to be two if not three seconds, a significant height if ever there was one. With only half of his magic thoroughly focused, the spell was unable to account for precise elevation, directionality, and tilt. As his body made contact with the marble flooring, the first thing he landed on was his already broken wing, which made getting the air knocked out of him when his back hit the ground feel like a pat on the back. Firestorm wanted to cry out as the sharp pain reverberated throughout his body, but not having air in one’s lungs makes that an understandably difficult task. By the time Firestorm was able to catch his breath and breathe normally again, he had lost his urge to scream. Firestorm rolled over onto his left side, opting that rolling over a broken arm would hurt a lot less than rolling over what he now assumed to be a multi-fractured wing. He couldn’t be sure, but once he was on his stomach, it didn’t matter. Slowly and painfully he got to his talons and stood upright. Still in his draconic form, he took hold of his left wrist in his right hand. Looking up and to his right, Firestorm quickly pulled his broken arm downwards, the sound of bones and joints resetting echoed throughout the room. Firestorm clenched his jaw and took deep sharp breaths between his teeth. Everypony watched in stunned silence as Firestorm’s arm corrected itself the rest of the way and instantly healed. Once that was done, Firestorm lifted his right arm above his head and stretched his right wing around to his side. Any pegasus seeing a wing broken as badly as Firestorm’s would lose their lunch or whatever meal they had eaten prior to seeing a wing in such bad shape. Luckily, Rainbow Dash had a strong stomach for such sights as being captain of the Ponyville Weather Patrol meant seeing such injuries whenever storms broke out of control. Unfortunately, one of the pegasus guards present didn’t share her strong stomach and ended up refunding the remnants of his breakfast to the corner he had been standing in at the time. Fluttershy had fainted when Luna blasted Firestorm with her magic and had yet to recover. Firestorm’s wing was broken primarily at the forearm, the hum was intact but the all the phalanges in his right wing were broken somewhere. Firestorm took hold of his wing on the forearm with one hand on either side of the compound fracture. Without a second thought, Firestorm pulled his hands apart, straightening his wing, and correcting the fracture. The sickening pop of the bone was followed by a sharp cry of pain. Firestorm stood motionless for several long minutes before releasing his grip on his wing. No sooner had he done so, the phalanges all cracked and popped as they corrected themselves followed by a flash of red, then, blue, then green light throughout the bones of his wing as his magic recovered its strongest path of focus. Firestorm released a content sigh and looked towards everypony else. Each had their own look of fear, shock, concern, or straight up horror accept for Princess Luna, who completely avoided eye contact. Firestorm got down onto all fours and moved towards her with his head bowed, everypony accept for her took several cautious steps back. Firestorm stopped at Luna’s hooves and bowed completely, shifting back into his pony form in the process. “Well Luna, explain,” Celestia said sternly. “Twilight Sparkle” Luna said plainly, “What is your theory of the origins of the pony known as Firestorm?” Twilight looked to Celestia out of confusion. Celestia merely shrugged her shoulders and nodded giving Twilight permission to proceed. Twilight cleared her throat, “Well, my first assumption would be that he is a hybrid, coming from a bat pony and unicorn mother and father.” “That would be correct, his father was a bat pony, his mother a unicorn. Both were very dear friends of mine,” Luna stated, “However, your theory fails to explain his ability to shapeshift.” “Yes, I knew that a bat pony could not produce a foal with any other pony outside of another bat pony because they have a much more complex genetic blueprint. I decided that perhaps if changeling DNA were somehow combined with the father's’ sperm and the mother's’ egg, it might naturally adapt and compensate for the missing chromosomes of the mother. But the chances of that successfully occurring are-” “We know the odds, but that does not explain his lifespan.” “I know it doesn’t but…” Twilight was cut off by a white hoof resting on her shoulder. She looked up to see Celestia smiling down at her before her smile faded and she turned to face Luna. “Luna, I have no doubt in Twilight’s abilities to eventually uncover the truth about Firestorm but my patience is fading. You already have the answers and I want you to explain them to us now!” The strict tone carried by Celestia’s tone was strong enough to startle everypony in the room. Luna took a deep breath and then released it, “Twilight referred to Firestorm as a hybrid but that is a gross understatement. Genetically engineered complex organism is much more appropriate…” “Engineered?” Firestorm asked, “That’s impossible, I was born. I had a mother and a father. I remember-” “You remember only what happened after you were born, nothing before or during. Twilight was on the right path, your mother was a unicorn and your father was a bat pony. Changeling DNA was added to stabilize the fetus and the fetus itself was merely a stable base! “A stable base for what?” Celestia asked, “What aren’t you telling us, what was the primary genetic donor you used to create him?” Luna looked at Celestia with tears in her eyes, “I used anoptryx DNA…” “You WHAT!?” Celestia shouted, causing several stain glass windows to crack and a slowly recovering Fluttershy to faint once again. Luna shut her eyes tightly as her body trembled. Twilight approached Celestia, “Princess what’s wrong, what is an anoptryx?” “An anoptryx is a dragon species which went extinct over eight hundred years ago.” “I’ve never heard of them before or came across them in The Big Book of Dragons when I read it to spike when he first started learning how to speak.” “You wouldn’t find any information on the anoptryx species in any books or even the Canterlot Archives, Twilight, I destroyed all traces of their existence when I caused their extinction.” “You… you what? You wiped out an entire species?” Twilight asked as tears welled in her eyes. “Yes, the anoptryx were the most powerful and most dangerous of the dragon species. I created them to help ponykind grow and thrive. They were intelligent and had the comprehension and dexterity to support it. They even helped build this castle, but they became aggressive. Each generation became more hostile towards ponies and any other species as time went on. Eventually they waged war, and I was given only one option. I withheld the sunlight and froze our world during winter, warning only my subjects before the event so they could take shelter and store provisions.” Celestia explained. She turned her gaze to Luna, “Even you knew how dangerous they could be, so why did you use their DNA to create Firestorm!?” she asked Luna. “Because he is a war relic,” Luna answered. Celestia felt her heart skip a beat as the realization dawned on her. “Nightmare Moon created him to help me overthrow you!” Queen Chrysalis leaned in and nudged Discord who was sitting in a theater seat eating a bucket of popcorn, “Does this happen a lot around here?” “You mean all of us coming together on the same day at the same place or everything happening right now, because they’re both somewhat rare but I’m loving every minute of it! Popcorn?”