//------------------------------// // Chaotic Rainbow Fire // Story: The Last Keeper of Harmony // by Rammy //------------------------------// "So tell me what you have discovered so far." Harmony asked at the others gazed around the laboratory. "Well we think we have found a way to mitigate the lack of healthy mana needed to reestablish congruency with your natural mana production there by revitalizing the natural..." Harmony had stop listening by this point and was looking over the diagrams and equations on the various chalkboards. Everything seems to be in order. A diagram of the Elements of Harmony, Scorpan, and Discord caught his interest. Hmm interesting... I take it that Discord will be used to counter the effects of the local leylonic magic. "Harmony?" A voice called out. "Harmony!" The voice this time yelled. "Huh? What?" Harmony stammered snapping out of his trance. "Have you even been listening?" Twilight asked gritting her teeth a bit. "Truthfully? No." Harmony admitted still going over some of the equations. Twilight grumbled in irritation at this. "Why do I even bother?" "Believe or not Bearer of Magic but I can hold my own when it comes to advance theory such as this. I just don't find scholarly droning to be very... how should I put this?" Harmony taped a hoof to his chin thoughtfully, "Stimulating." Flutershy smiled a bit at this while Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie fell to the floor rolling in laughter. Rarity did her best to stay lady like but couldn't stop herself from giggling a bit. Spike just snorted a bit a puff of smoke escaping his nostrils. Twilight went into a rage. Suddenly she was in the air her coat had gone white and her mane was flames. After a second of two of this she dropped to the floor returning to her normal colors but with streaks of smoke and ash. "Whoa, Deja vu." Scorpan muttered. "What?" Twilight snapped still a bit angry. "Oh, nothing..." Scorpan said slyly trying to hide his smirk. Whispering to Harmony he added, "She remind you of a certain pony?" Harmony had to stifle a snort. Luckily Twilight wasn't able to hear it however Spike heard. What is so funny? he thought. "For us less learned ponies," Scorpan began ignoring the stink eye from Twilight," What Twilight is trying to say is that the old treatment requires a magic user to pull out all of the mana. Once out of the patient the uncorrupted mana is separated from the bad. The good mana is then restored to the patient there by resetting mana production. This only works if there is still any non corrupted mana left. Harmony, of course, is beyond the point where this would work. As the Elements of Harmony are designed to restore Harmony we have surmised that they should be able to restore Harmony's mana to its correct state." "The hay an' the what now?" Applejack asked scratching her head. "Uh.. let's see... It's like having a fish for a pet!" Harmony exclaimed. "When you drain a dirty fish bowl so you can replace the water you clean the bowl before putting water back. This is so that when you put in clean water it doesn't immediately become dirty again. Unless you like defeating the purpose of changing out the water." "...." Twilight and Harmony both facehoofed in frustration at Applejack's continuing confusion. "You know," Harmony grumbled, "Not worth it right now. You really don't need to know the fine details... Let's just say it cures Magic Wasting Disease and leave it at that before I get a headache." "An' what does that have tah do with us non magic users?" Applejack retorted. Gah! Harmony thought of smacking the mare but decided against it. "You will use the Elements and hit me with the Rainbow." "Seems easy enough." Rainbow Dash yawned. All the egghead talk on magic was boring her and she was itching for action. "Not completely. The Elements need to be in perfect balance. You have not been trained on this so when you activate the Rainbow it tends to be a bit lopsided. This usually is not a problem when time is of the essence and you have some crazy villain trying to kill you." "An' how are we suppose to do that?" Applejack asked rubbing her head in frustration. Magic was never her forte and all this was confusing her to no end. The only conciliation was she was sure Rainbow Dash was even worse off. "The same way that I told you to lessen your concern for Spike when we first met." The mares only looked at each other in confusion and or doubt. "Don't worry I'll guide you." Harmony said reassuringly. Note to self: train the Bearer of Magic on how to do this." Everything seems to be ready to actually do this." "Well yes but..." Twilight began. "We are more then ready." Scorpan countered turning on a machine behind him. He then hooked it up to Harmony attaching numerous electrodes to various parts of him. Once done Scorpan took a step back and nodded to Harmony. "Discord Ready a chaos shield. Once he has that up everypony but the Bearer of Magic use your Elements." "How did you..." Twilight started. "I may have not been paying attention to you but I was reading up on what you wrote." "Oh." Twilight mouthed. Discord snapped a claw and a strange, square, bubble encased Harmony and the Bearers. One by one each Element glowed with power then shot out light rings in the shapes of the respective gems straight at Harmony. A light humming sound filled the laboratory. Harmony nodded in approval as he began to gauge the balance of the Elements. As he figured there was a bit of lopsidedness nothing that he couldn't fix with a bit of coaching. "Fluttershy you're a bit too nervous I want you to imagine I'm a sick animal for a bit. Can you do that?" Fluttershy responded however no one could hear her reply. Harmony could sense that she was at least doing what he had asked and could feel kindness rising to the correct amount. Okay one last adjustment "Too much joy!" Harmony shouted over the increasingly loud hum. "Okie dokie lokie." Pinkie Pie scowled in happy concentration her tongue sticking out. She lessened her bouncing and her mane became a bit less poofy. Gah her joy is like sugar! Harmony had to shake his head a bit. "Okay that is perfect. Maintain that as long as you can. Scorpan are you ready?" Scorpan nodded trying hard to concentrate under all the noise. "Bearer of Magic give it your all and don't stop until the Rainbow exhausts itself." Twilight nodded and her eyes went white with power as a rainbow began to connect between the Bearers. Once the rainbow hit her it went skyward nearly hitting the ceiling before crashing down on Harmony. Scorpan then began his work. He fiddled with some nobs on a machine hooked up to Harmony. Once he was done he could see a tendril of of darken mana slowly appear intermixed with the nearly blinding rainbow light swirling around Harmony. Scorpan reach out with his magic and began pulling on it carefully. Slowly at first then faster the darken mana was pulled from the rainbow light. After it seems like hours there was no more trace of the darken mana. Scorpan adjusted some nobs on the device. Nodding in satisfaction he turned to carefully monitor the progress of the treatment, "Keep going Twilight!" He yelled out noticing that the Rainbow was beginning to falter. Twilight only grunted in response beads of sweat dripping down from her coat. After another half hour the Rainbow began faltering again. Come on Twi you can do this! Spike crossed his claws. However Twilight had reached her limit and with that the Rainbow died out dropping her roughly. "Did it... Did it work?" Twilight asked breathing heavily, too dizzy to get up. "Give me a moment." Scorpan replied looking at the readings. "Well his coat does look better." Rarity commented seeing that Harmony coat had brighten and was again slowly shifting. "Hhmm..." Scorpan took a look at Harmony gauging his magic aura. "I would say that it has worked. Although it will take a few days to reacquire the higher levels of mana you should have." "No surprise there, but I'm afraid that we don't have time to dally here any longer then we already have." Harmony taking a look at some of the readings himself. "It seems safe here...right?" Fluttershy spoke then sheepishly blushed hiding behind her mane again. Harmony put down the paper he was reading and gave Fluttershy a hard look. "Have you forgotten what I said about the dangers of being a Keeper? I might add that ALL three of us are here? Also Spike's harmony magic is beginning to manifest and like flies to a corpse the minions of the 'Dark One' can smell uncontrolled harmony magic." Fluttershy eeped at this trying to further hide behind her mane. Harmony turned to Twilight, who was brushing herself off, and asked, "Tell me, Bearer of Magic, what happens with a unicorn filly or colt before they learn control?" "They can have bursts of uncontrolled magic." Twilight responded knowingly now standing up straight. "Exactly. Spike is having a similar issue. If we get ambushed out here we are in trouble given the chaotic effects this place has on your magic or do we need to have the Bearer of Loyalty give us another demonstration?" Harmony stole a glance at Rainbow who was doing her best Fluttershy impression. "Didn't think so. We still need to get to Hourglass." "How is that place any safer?" Scorpan looked up from reading to eye Harmony. "Are you telling me after all these years living here in the middle of the Untamed Wilds you have a problem with Hourglass?" "A bit." Scorpan shrugged slightly. "Oh Scorpan..." Harmony facehoofed shaking is head in disbelief. However Spike's overly loud yawn interrupted Harmony. "I think you should all go and rest. We shall move out in the morning." Twilight open her mouth to object but then thought differently and turned around, "Come on girls, Spike. Let's get some sleep." The girls and Spike slowly filed out of the room. Twilight picked up Spike and put him on her back. Spike groggily looked back at Harmony. Harmony gave a small smile in return then turned to face Scorpan who writing a few notes next to some of the the readings. "My boring alarm is ringing so I think I will head out for a snooze myself." Discord was about to snap his claw but stopped, "Harmony try and get some rest." "I will Discord." Harmony nodded. Discord eyed him for a bit, shrugged, then snapped a claw disappearing in his trademark flash. With everyone gone Harmony sighed. "Scorpan lay it on me. How well did it really work?" Scorpan took a deep breath and laid down his quill, "It didn't work. The damage is still there we only regressed the symptoms to an earlier stage... Harmony magic alone won't do it. Your mana, even though you released your harmony magic, has a duel nature to it. My research on this (that I did without Twilight's knowledge) indicates that you would need the original treatment layered on with the new Harmony treatment. Of course with this there is a problem..." "Most non-Keepers don't need magic to survive... where as all Keepers do." Harmony eyed the equations still on the chalkboard. "Yes... Yes, as you have told me before. I just hoped that it would fix the damaged mana by while I pulled the bad magic out." Scorpan eyed what Harmony was looking at and dismissively added," All of our equations and readings are correct both Twilight and I went over them a dozen times. You need a transfusion of good mana then have harmony magic used on you to mix and recalibrate it so that it your body has the correct template to begin producing mana again. Then remove the transfused mana once your body has enough mana to survive. " Harmony's ears twitched ever so slightly. Smiling slightly he motioned slightly at Scorpan. Scorpan made no outward movement but his eyes conveyed understanding. "I take it you didn't tell her about the needing magic to survive part did you?" "No. It wasn't my place and I secretly hoped that it would work without the necessary drainage of mana..." "Luckily Twilight didn't find out that it most likely wouldn't work. She may be the Bearer of Magic and know a lot about magic but there are some fields where she lacks understanding," Harmony gazed up at the ceiling lost in though for a moment," As for a magic source, the only one that could work that is readily available, that is of a high enough order, is dragon..." "A Dragon? Why not Twilight?" "She is a bearer of one of my Elements that would cause some issues with the harmony magic." "Of course it would!" Scorpan threw up his arms in exasperation," I suppose then that would exclude Princesses Celestia and Luna?" "Even though they are no longer bearers, yes, their magic was effected by being Bearers. I also can't have Princess Candace either because of her connection to the Crystal Heart." "Crystal Heart? How would she have a connection to a Keeper artifact that is not yours?" "It matches her talent..." Harmony shrugged. "What about Discord?" Harmony just gave him the most obvious Really? look that he could give. "Ah, right, of course...." Scorpan sheepishly replied hanging his head slightly. "Given that Spike has yet to choose his name I can not illicit his help. A dragon has no access to his magic until adulthood, minus the letter spell, which always requires an anchor. But even if he could it would cause... complications." "Let me guess given a dragon's natural resistance to pony magic would exclude the use of your elements given that they are the pony elements?" "Most likely." Harmony softly responded gazing now at the floor. "Great! Stupid Starswirl's First Law of Magic Order: 'A Higher Order magic easily effects the magics of a lower order. However not always in the reverse.'" Scorpan pinched a claw across his brow in frustration. "What about using Spike harmony magic instead of your Elements? "Spike's harmony magic is out because he had no real control until they become fully manifest at the Choosing." Harmony countered. "And Discord's harmony magic is not conducive for this application either." "Which leads us right back the beginning! In order for this to work you must have both normal and harmony magics... Given the trouble that will surely come we don't have time for a different solution. Gah it seems hopeless!" Scorpan slammed a fist heavily onto the lab table knocking over a few vials, shattering them. "You do realize this wouldn't have been a problem if you hadn't given up your harmony magic?" "I know..." Harmony signed heavily, " I know..."