//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 2: I'm Home 
// Story: Fortresshy: The Nine Fathers 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	Pyro stared around at the land before him as he stepped through the portal.  The bright colors, the shimmering light, the energy given off by every living thing...there was no other explanation.  This was Rainbow Land.  Fluttershy had brought him to Rainbow Land.

He sank to his knees, falling back to sit on his feet, arms limp at his side.  As he stared out at this mystical land he had long thought was delusion, tears fell from his eyes behind his mask, and he shook slightly with his sobs of pure joy.

Behind him, he heard Engineer speak up.  "How come they're all asleep?"

Confused, Pyro turned to see what he meant.  Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Spike were all on their sides, snoring softly.  Luna and Discord stood over them.  Luna spoke up.  "I need to do some slight alterations to their memories before giving Fluttershy the memories of her old life."

Engineer frowned.  "What sort of alterations?"  He obviously wasn't happy with this information.

"The battle where Fluttershy killed them so freely and efficiently," Luna explained.  "When Fluttershy recovers her memories, her old persona would be drastically traumatized and reviled at so freely butchering her friends.  At the same time, Rainbow need not remember being so brutally slain - over and over - by her oldest friend, nor Spike remember witnessing his mother figure, big sister figure, and crush being blown to bits before his very eyes.  None of them need those memories, as they would only hurt them."  She levitated the scouter off Fluttershy.  "They will remember witnessing Fluttershy showing her great combat prowess, and being both awed and somewhat frightened by it, but none of them will remember they were the target of her skills.  Engineer, can you alter the records on the scouter so Fluttershy cannot find through it what she had done?  Perhaps you can make it look like the data was not yet saved and the portal wiped it, which is why there's no record of the battle she remembers?"

Engineer nodded.  "Sure, I can do that," he said, taking the scouter.  "I take it ponies aren't normally as comfortable with death and killing as we are?"

"No," Luna replied.  "1000 years ago, things were different, which is why it does not bother me as much.  And Discord is the Spirit of Chaos, and very little bothers him."

"I'm really going to love having these guys around," Discord said as he floated up over the team of mercs.  "They're going to sow so much chaos just by being here, disrupting the lives of so many ponies and altering the equilibrium of the world...and Celestia can't even blame me this time, because you brought them here, Luna!"  He cackled loudly.  "Such a wonderful gift, Princess, and it's not even my birthday!"

Luna sighed.  "As I said," she groaned, "very little bothers him."

"Say," Discord spoke up, "what's up with the fire guy?  Isn't he normally bouncing up and down and waving his arms wildly?  He's just sitting there unmoving, hardly fun."

Pyro realized everyone was looking at him.  Helplessly, he gestured out at the world around him, trying to find some way to explain what was going through his head now, but he had no voice to share them.

As everyone stared at each other in confusion, Luna stepped forward, her horn glowing.  "With your permission," she requested, gesturing with her horn towards his forehead.

He thought about what she was saying, and realized she was asking permission to look into his mind for answers.  He nodded.

Stepping forward, Luna placed her horn to his forehead.  He felt her magic flowing into his mind, so slowly, so gently.  It felt like refreshingly cool water in his mind, slowing the rapid fire synapse surge of his thoughts.  He relaxed into her magical flow, feeling his mind slowly open in response.

Luna frowned.  "I see.  The Rainbow Land Fluttershy mentioned...you long thought it a delusion, a sign of your mind failing you.  You used it to shield yourself from what you did as part of the team, to convince yourself you weren't the monster you knew you were."  Her frown deepened.  "Before you joined the team...the people who tried to 'treat' your 'delusion'..."  Anger entered her voice.  "Butchers!" she barked.  She glanced towards the others.  "No offense."

"None taken," Medic replied with good humor.

She turned her attention back to Pyro's mind.  "But Fluttershy felt like a piece of Rainbow Land..."  She suddenly gasped.  "Rainbow Land was never delusion!"  As her magic flowed into him, flame leapt from his hand.  "You've been gifted with magic since birth!"  The entire team gasped in shock, Pyro included.  "But your world has so little magic, your mind had no frame of reference for it...and you saw beyond your world into a world of magic.  Ours was the closest, and so you saw our world, slightly distorted by the dimensional boundary into the 'delusion' you knew."

Pyro glanced around at the world once more, realizing that yes, it wasn't exactly like the Rainbow Land he saw.  It was more real, more fleshed out.

Luna continued her examination.  "Your magic naturally is in tune with fire...and it responded to the Australium used in the manufacture of your more advanced equipment and weaponry."  She pulled back, confused.  "What is Australium?" Luna asked in confusion.

"This," Engineer said easily, pulling out a block of it he kept in his gear for experiments.

Luna reached out with her magic towards the block and gasped, pulling her magic back rapidly.  "Mana Stone!" she gasped out.

"Eh?" Soldier asked, confused.

"Occasionally, the magical field of our world becomes especially intense, and the magic crystalizes in solid form, a magical ore.  We call it Mana Stone, and it's one of the rarest, most valuable minerals that can be found anywhere.  It's primary use outside spell components is for prosthetic horns, as it has the same magic conducing properties as the carbuncle core of a Unicorn or Alicorn's horn."  She looked closely at the lump of Australium.  "But I've never seen a deposit this pure, this large."

"We call it Australium," Engineer explained.  "It's a mineral found only in Australia in our world, and the energy it gives off has a positive effect on the genetic structure of those who come in contact with it.  Between that and the major advance in technology it made possible, Australia's filled with supermen and utopian cities, except for the Outback which is preserved for when people want nature."

Luna stared at the lump.  "Given what you said about the amount, I would say at some point in the distant past of your world, 95% of its magical field was concentrated in Australia, and crystalized."  She shook her head.  "I'm surprised you were able to bring such a large chunk with you."

He shrugged.  "It's my own stash.  I've got a few blocks for my experiments, and I've got a detector if I need more."

Luna's eyes widened.  "You...you can scan for where magic has crystalized into Mana Stone?  We've never been able to do so because of the reaction of Mana Stone to magic energies."

Engineer grinned.  "Yeah, it's a passive scanner that picks up spikes in the energy field that show the location."

As Luna stepped back, swaying a bit, Pyro turned back to the world around him.  That discussion was of no interest to him.  Only one thing was on his mind right now.

I'm home...