Beyond the Skies- Meeting Royalty
Fluttershy’s Cottage
Some time after the small chompy incident that occurred earlier in the day, Calvin returned back to Fluttershy’s cottage along with her and Discord. After everything that happened so far, the young boy felt like he needed to rest for a little while, especially with the amount of energy he burned from fighting the little monsters that were attacking the civilians in Ponyville. However, his bravery did not go unnoticed, especially with the visitor that was knocking outside Fluttershy’s door.
“I’ll get it!” Discord declared as he quickly zipped over to the front of the house and opened the door. “Well, hello there, Twilight. How’s Tia been lately?”
“She’s alright,” Twilight answered briefly, “Speaking of which, is Calvin here? I need to talk to him.”
“He’s in the living room. By all means, come on in,” The spirit of chaos insisted, opening the door widely and allowing the Alicorn to trot on in. She made her way to where Calvin was, sitting on the couch and having the muffin that he didn’t get the chance to eat while at Sugarcube Corner. Along with that, Angel was sitting by him and nibbling away at a carrot that Fluttershy had given him recently. The two of them didn’t even notice Twilight until she trotted closer to them.
“Oh hey, Twilight,” Calvin greeted, upon noticing the Alicorn’s presence.
“Hello, Calvin. I see that you’re doing well.”
“Indeed. Fluttershy and Discord have really been helping me out a lot with getting adjusted and making me feel comfortable. I even got the chance to meet Pinkie Pie earlier today at Sugarcube Corner.”
“You did? Hmm…” Twilight paused for a minute so she could formulate the question that she was going to ask inside her head before saying anything. “Hey, Calvin… Can I ask you something?”
“Um… Sure?”
“Did you use any of your powers recently?”
“Y-yeah. There was a problem in town with a bunch of little monsters called Chompies, and I had to use them to stop them. Why, am I in trouble?”
Twilight’s eyes twitched for a brief moment before looking back at the boy. “N-no. Why would you think that?”
“You look a little funny…”
The Alicorn took a moment to shake her head and readjust her focus before looking back at Calvin. “S-sorry. It’s just that I felt a surge of magic earlier today and thought it was you, so I-.”
“TWILIGHT!!!!!!!!!!”
The new voice startled the individuals inside the cottage as Twilight’s assistant, Spike, rushed in through the open front door, out of breath with a scroll in his claw. “L-letter!”
“A letter? From the Princess!?”
“Who?” Calvin asked, a bit puzzled by who Twilight was talking about.
“Princess Celestia,” Discord said, “Ruler of Equestria and Diarch of the Day. She rules Equestria alongside her sister Luna, who is the Diarch of the Night. Not to mention Twilight’s teacher.”
“Teacher? What exactly does she teach?”
“The magic of friendship I believe. Other than that, she taught Twilight many other important lessons and morals over the past few years.” Discord was going to continue speaking, but when he saw the expression on Twilight’s face, he could tell that something wasn’t right. “Is something wrong, Sparkle?”
“Sparkle?”
“That’s her last name, Twilight Sparkle-,” Discord told him, only to be hushed by Twilight a few seconds later.
“Everypony, we got a situation. Listen,” The Princess of Friendship cleared her throat before speaking again, reading from the letter she had received. “My Faithful Student… Earlier today; Luna, Cadence and I felt a powerful surge of unknown magic for a brief moment around one o’clock this afternoon. We would like you to look into the matter alongside them since they felt the magic nearby where Ponyville is located. They should be arriving at your Castle momentarily. In the meantime, do the best you can in order to assist them to the fullest in their investigation regarding this matter. Sincerely, Princess Celestia… Oh dear. This isn’t good.”
“What’s wrong?” Calvin asked.
“Remember when I asked you about if you used your powers earlier and you told me yes? Well, it seems like the Princesses also felt it, too.”
“Is that a bad thing or a good thing?” The boy then asked her. She shook her head, diminishing the boy’s positive hopes for a moment.
“No. If they’re dealing with Unknown magic, then they always take it seriously-” Twilight stopped mid sentence, realizing a detail that she had overlooked earlier. “Oh no… We need to get to the castle, like RIGHT NOW!” Before Calvin could ask anything, Twilight’s horn glowed, illuminating the room in a brief flash of light as everypony was teleported into the Castle of Friendship’s Throne Room, where the rest of Twilight’s friends were. While Rainbow and Pinkie were happy to see the young boy again, one pony wasn’t quite fond of his entrance.
“Oh my!! Who do we have here?” The Fashionista named Rarity asked as the Skyshifter tried to make sense of what was going on.
“Hi, Calvin!!” Pinkie responded, startling him on accident.
“H-hi, Pinkie. Um… Where are we?”
“In Twilight’s castle, silly!!” Pinkie hopped and bounced around him.
“Wait, darling? You know this… individual?” The White Unicorn in the room asked as she trotted a little closer to Calvin, grimacing a little at his clothes. “His clothes look SO ragged for a handsome young colt.”
“Rarity, it’s not the time for critiquing his sense of fashion,” Twilight told her, “Princess Luna and Cadence are making a surprise visit today and could be here any minute!”
“Uh, Twilight. Did they actually say when they were to arrive?” Rainbow asked, folding her front forelegs as she was floating in the air with the support of her wings. The Alicorn shook her head, recalling on how the letter said that they would be here momentarily. Calvin did not understand it, but Discord provided the rough translation that they would be here any minute now. The boy knew one thing for sure... since they were figures of Royalty, he better be on his best behavior, especially since two of them were stopping by.
Soon, both of them made their “grand entrance” by teleporting directly into the room. The sheer act in itself knocked him backwards and onto his face, groaning in pain. “O-oww…”
“You okay there, rookie?” Rainbow asked him as she helped him back up.
“Y-yeah. Just a scratch,” he replied as he shook his head. However, his eyes had now met the eyes of the two princesses, and they were quite surprised to see him, just as much as he was surprised to see them.
“Twilight, who or what is this creature?” Luna asked.
“Princess Luna. Princess Cadence. This is Calvin. He just arrived here under unknown circumstances earlier today.” Twilight explained. However, as the two princesses trotted closer to him, they became a little suspicious of him because of the necklace around his neck and the magic that they could feel from it. The same kind of magic as the one that they felt earlier today.
“It seems that we have found the source,” Luna replied, “Twilight, were you trying to hide this youth from us?”
“N-no, Princess! Not at all!!”
“Then, how come we can feel a powerful source of magic from this boy?”
“Ahem, if I may,” Calvin interjected, “Maybe it would be best for me to show you rather than trying to answer all of your questions all at once.” With that, Calvin said a different phrase as he prepared to shift into another Skylander.
“Any Last Wishes?”
Within seconds, the light around Calvin swirled, and he turned into Ninjini, the Magic Skylander Giant. He was a lot bigger now and the insignia on the Skylanders belt reminded Twilight of her own Cutie Mark. Calvin only kept this form for a few more moments before deciding to revert back to his normal state.
“W-what was that?” A shocked Luna asked in a demanding tone.
“That was something I am capable of now. The pendant around my neck allows me to transform into beings that are known as Skylanders. They’re heroes that consist of ten different elements that fight evil. The one I turned into just now was Ninjini, a magic skylander that is one of the five Skylanders Archetypes that is known as a Giant.”
“Wow… that is a very powerful gift there, young one,” Cadence responded. She had known Crystal based magic from the books in the Crystal Empire’s archives, but have not seen anything quite like this. All this power just with one gem? It must be a big responsibility. Calvin continued to explain everything that he told Twilight before to the Princesses now, including the names of the Archetypes.
Skylanders, Giants, Swap Force, Trap Team and Superchargers. Each with their own differences and similarities. To demonstrate the other types, Calvin turned into Blackout again to show the normal Skylander, Snap Shot (A Water Skylander that resembled a anthropomorphic crocodile had a Traptanium Crystal Bow and Arrow) for a Trap Team member, Free Ranger for a Swap Force member and lastly, Spitfire (A flame and tech enhanced legless gargoyle) for a Supercharger. Turning into Spitfire and saying the name made Rainbow Dash confuse him for the captain of the Wonderbolts, but after a while, he was able to clear things up. Returning back to normal, Luna gave the boy a few compliments for his skills, but then heard the Element of Loyalty say something.
“Yeah, you should totally see Calvin in action. He’s flipping awesome!!”
“Is he?” Luna asked. “If so, then maybe we should see what this young one is capable of. Twilight, I believe that Ponyville has a training barracks, does it not?”
“We did, but it got destroyed during my fight with Lord Tirek a couple of months ago. It’s still being rebuilt.”
“Shame, and I thought we had a facility where we could properly demonstrate your skills.”
“H-hang on a second, Luna. I think I have something that can help,” Rainbow Dash replied, leaving for a few moments before returning with a wooden dummy. “I remember a long while ago that Scootaloo and her friends were trying to get their cutie marks in martial arts, so I kept the dummy in case if they ever wanted to try it again. Plus, we could go to the fields outside of town if you want a big empty place in order to test him.”
“That… sounds like a good idea.”
“Very well, Rainbow Dash. Please, guide us.” The Pegasus nodded, guiding the ponies and princesses outside of town and had an area set up for Calvin to prepare to fight. With a quick signal, the cyan mare had the boy prepare for combat again. Using his powers, he switched to Blackout and began to use his wings in order for him to strike the dummy. After a few times though, a small ring of light glowed around him and a voice went off in his head. Something along the lines of “Level up” like the almighty voice in the sky would say. That wasn’t the only thing that happened though. Calvin was able to learn a new skill in which when Blackout performed an aerial attack, he became a spinning buzzsaw and the spines along his back became rotating blades.
When he was done and shifted back to normal, Luna was impressed… Partially. “You have skill and talent, but you need to find ways to extend your limits. How many of these “Skylanders” can you possibly turn into?”
Calvin began to scratch his chin, doing the mental math inside his head. “Well, if you do the math, which includes eight giants, sixteen swap force members and trap team members and exclude the variations and re-releases… that totals it to around one hundred and fifty.”
The only resulting expression that he got from the ponies and even Discord was their jaws dropping and their eyes widening. Basically, he broke them. The boy sighed to himself and thought of a question to ask Twilight. “Hey, Twilight? When do you think that it might be a good day for me to visit Celestia?”
“Why not Monday night?” Rarity suggested. “It’s the night of the Grand Galloping Gala, and she’ll be there for sure. The only thing though is that it’s a formal event.”
“Formal? What does that mean?”
The fashionista sighed, Facehoofing herself. “It means that I’m going to have to craft you a suit for the occasion.”
Meanwhile…
Kaos was in a concentrated state of mind. One where he preferred to not be disrupted. If so, then his train of thought would be derailed, and his thinking would be back to square one. However, given someone of his status, he never had the chance to get a few moments of peace... especially when he sent out Glumshanks to go on a reconnaissance mission.
“Lord Kaos? Come in,” came the voice from the radio transmitter that was on board the loyal minion’s ship. “Sir, I’m getting a LOT of turbulence down here from following the coordinates you gave me. Are you sure that everything will be okay?”
“Oh! I knew I was forgetting something,” Kaos snapped his finger at the sudden realization, “Don't worry, Glumshanks. That's just the natural magical field between Skylands and the land below. Acts as a natural barrier. You'll make it through. Probably…”
“Probably…!?”
“Possibly.”
“POSSIBLY!?!”
“Anywho, give me a call when you get there. I have some preparations to make…”
“But Si-!” Kaos didn’t hear the last of the transmission from Glumshanks after he cut the communication channel for the time being. By preparations, Kaos meant that he needed to prepare his new plan. He wasn’t sure of a lot of things. What the population was… How much magic it had… if it had any trees that needed to be burned to the ground. All these things had to be taken into account in order for this plan to be better unlike the last few plans.
Especially when he was forced against his will to work for the Skylanders. A time where he had to label it “Community Service” just so the rest of his family did not have to hear about it. One thing he knew for sure though was that no Skylanders were aware of his current intentions. He had his armies attack different outposts in small scale battalions in order to draw their attention away from the ship that Glumshanks was using. He just hoped that for his sake he knew how to fly a troll ship.
Unfortunately for him, luck wasn’t always on his side.
“S-sir!? I don’t think I’ll make it through!! The ship's engines are damaged, I’m running on fumes and it’s beginning to fall apart at the seams!! But, Sir, I have to say, it has been an honor servi-.”
“Oh, quit with the melodramatics!! …Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself, Glumshanks? I ask you!”
“But, Si-.”
“Nope! Not another word. Guess I'll have to handle the barrier myself,” Kaos interjected, his eyes glowing as he looked at his loyal minion in the viewing pool that was part of his Portal of Power. Suddenly, before Glumshank's ship, a rift opens in the energy field, providing him clear passage through. “There! I used my Dark Portal Powers to see you through. There. You happy!?”
“Oh, thank you, Si-.”
“Good! Now, get to it!!” The Dark portal master yelled at his loyal minion, whose only reply at the time was a loyal salute and a wave.
“Of course, Sir. The ship is now exiting the energy field. I'll make sure to get all you need, Lord Kaooooooo-!!”
“Huh. Odd. Communication's cut off. ....ah, he'll be fine. Now, where was I?”
Landing Site
Glumshanks was covered in soot and scratches by the time he was able to walk away from his crash landing on a strange new world, surrounded by darkened trees.
The Minion coughed a little, before refocusing his attention. “Guess it's true what they say... any landing you can walk away from is a good one-” Then, his sense of smell kicked in, making him want to cover his nose. “Whew! What is that awful smell!?!”
That was the least of his worries though. Glumshanks began to hear a series of loud snarls behind him. Shaking a little, he slowly turned around. His eyes soon widened at the sight of pairs of green eyes that belonged to a pack of timberwolves, howling to call upon more of their kind.
“… Oh no.”
“Hey girls, did you hear that?”
“Hear what, Calvin?”
“Something that sounded like someone screaming?”
“ … Nah, all I hear is the train on the tracks.”
“Odd, I swear I thought I heard someone just now.”
End Scroll 3