//------------------------------// // Rebirth // Story: Immortalus // by Imperator Chiashi Zane //------------------------------// “Girls, Princess Celestia has requested our presence, immediately. Something of Legendary proportions.” “Oh, my. Are we going to need to bring anything special? I redesigned Fluttershy’s mission suit, and made one for each of us.” “I don’t think we’ll need those. It’s probably just a meeting. I bet it’s to discuss the Tirek incident.” “Of course. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” __ “Twilight, you remember the book you found the tale of Nightmare Moon in?” Celestia looked at her prize pupil, knowing that Twilight remembered. The filly had a practically photographic memory. And Celestia knew she had read the whole book. After all, the return was at the back of the book. Twilight nodded, “Yes. Of course.” “Then you remember the part about her Guard.” “Murdered by her own hoof, turned to dust, with only a pair of statues in tribute.” “Yes. At least, that was the way I understood it when it happened,” the solar Princess sighed. Twilight’s eyes widened, “But that wasn’t really all of it, was it? They weren’t statues, were they?” “Not…exactly, no.” “But they’ve been freed now, and they still think Nightmare Moon is in charge, and want to help her take over again?” Pinkie Pie burst into conspiracy mode in an instant. Her idea was immediately squashed with a bony growl, “No. Quite the opposite, in fact.” The pink pony spun around and stared at the skull of the armored stallion, “Who are you?” “Raedfaest Integra. My lady’s knight, Most loyal and honest of those who survived,” he shook his head, the glass eye rattling around in his skull noisily, “Also, close to dying, so if we could hurry these talks up, I would be most appreciative.” Another trotted up, clinking softly, “Raedfaest, where are your manners. We are not going to perish in mere hours,” a second knight travelled up behind Rarity with a soft clanking noise, “Starlight Overdusk, at your service.” Rarity yelped and leapt away from the armor behind her, “There’s two of you?” Raedfaest nodded, “The last two. The, uh…” “The spell matrix, um…It was lethal. Nopony should have survived it. Technically, nopony did.” Twilight looked curiously at Starlight, her horn lighting up, “Can you show me the matrix? I might be able to solve the…problem…You know, make you not die.” Raedfaest shook his head, rattling his eye again, “Too late, filly. At this point, it’s not about keeping us alive, but the Lady.” Twilight glanced over her shoulder at him, “I don’t understand.” “The Matrix, as the Lady built it used Starswirl’s Fifth notebook, the ‘Time to Spare’ spell, as the foundation. Onto that, we built Platinum’s Passive Puppetmaster and Red Sun’s Perfect Preservation to stabilize it as a base. We tied Soul Sword into that, and sealed everything together with Loren’s Life Leech and Stone-heart’s Spirit Shield.” As the undead Pegasus spoke, Twilight used her magic to weave a pattern into the air, “I see. And when it all ties together like this, it turns your personal artifacts into a sort of Phylactery. Those need to draw life off something, so that means you need to remain in a place with a lot of life in it, or find a host with a lot of life. There have been a lot of new developments since the Event.” “Yes, I am led to understand that the Library is currently larger than it is capable of being, at least, on the inside. I assume that means there are many more books there as well.” “Yes, full of spells. I don’t think I’ll need to look for the bits I need though. I need to see your artifacts. And we need hosts, or something,” she started muttering to herself as a second layer of magic formed over the first, bending and warping it, “Let me see. If I use Depth Charge’s Solar Storage here, and Red Sun’s Crystal Ear around it, it can reduce the load on your host. But then there won’t be enough excess power to fit Shatterstar’s Immaterial Tether, so you won’t be able to travel more than one meter from your host without killing them, or yourself.” “Unless we use Red Sun’s Compiling Charge Cascade to build up an impulse first. And lace it through Long Strider’s Ethereal Kudzu to stabilize the weave of the Tether,” the Pegasus was almost as excited as Twilight, and the two were almost muzzle to muzzle through the floating weave. They needed a solution, and they were going to find it. Twilight pulled up a third layer of magic, displaying the layer Starlight had suggested, “Ok, but to cast this chain, we’ll need a few ingredients. Feathers, a perfect circle of identical feathers, Orange specifically. What was it about Long Strider and his attraction to the color Orange? That needs to be laid across the third layer, with a mesh of red hair, one inch grid, across the middle. That has to be sandwiched between two pieces of parchment,” She froze for a moment, “Rainbow Dash, can you get me eight feathers from Scootaloo. They must be identical, they do not need to be primaries. Rarity, do you know anypony with a red mane? I need Twenty-four strands exactly. No less than twelve inches long. Applejack, I need an apple, no less than three inches in diameter or it won’t hold the cascade.” She stared at the matrix for another minute, waiting as Rarity and Rainbow left, “I need hoof shavings from an Earth Pony, ah, a lot of them. Specific breed isn’t important, so Pinkie, Applejack, I’ll need enough bits to fill a cup. The smaller the better. And I’ll need a few more feathers for the Solar Storage, Alicorn specifically, so I’ll need six from you, Princess. None of Luna’s. That could cause the whole thing to collapse catastrophically.” “And two Pegasus W. Humerus bones, powdered, to stabilize the resonance with the original enchantment.” Twilight stopped abruptly, “I’m sorry. What?” “Don’t forget we will need host bodies. They don’t necessarily need to be alive, just intact and unenchanted. One Earth Pony, one Pegasus.” Twilight swore under her breath, “Fluttershy, I hate to ask this of you…” Fluttershy nodded, “I understand, Earth Pony male, Pegasus female. Princess, which way is the morgue?” Both princesses stared, even as the elder pointed, “Fourth door on the left, take the stairs all the way to the bottom. The nurses will direct you to the, uh, ideal bodies.” As Fluttershy flew away, Twilight sat up, placing the three layers on the floor, “I need both artifacts as well. They have to go in the top of the matrix, after I get it charged up. How much time do we have left?” Luna sighed, “Less than a day.” “Ok. Let’s get started. Hoof shavings?” She floated the cup over and poured the bits into a circle on the floor, then lowered the feathers onto the shavings. Starlight shook her wing sleeves out in the center, forming a pair of piles, and carefully started patting the piles down, preparing them for the artifacts. His eye, her crystal tooth. Rarity and Rainbow Dash returned with their components, and Applejack with an apple, all of which Twilight snagged and began placing precisely in the matrix. The artifacts went into their places, and the matrix began to glow under its own power. It quickly became too bright to look directly at, right as Fluttershy arrived with two bodies in tow. Twilight quickly levitated them up into the glowing sphere, “Here we go. In three…Two…One!” The light disappeared in an instant, forming itself around the bodies, lifting them up, and ripping them apart before the room went dark so abruptly that it blinded everypony in the room. __ Raedfaest was the first to regain his sight, his eyes rolling around as he regained his stance. He hadn’t felt pain like this since he was a colt. Still, he stood and opened his eyes, looking around at the floor, at his hoof. His very, very yellow hoof. He slid his hoof along the back of his scalp, yanking a bit of mane out. He looked at the clump. Perfect, pristine apple red. At least his chin felt right, if a little softer than the stony jaw he remembered. At least all his other parts felt like they were in the right place. He turned around to look at where Starlight had been, and froze at the sight of a sky blue Pegasus filly sitting in the armor. A glance at his own back showed that he was still at least partially in his armor, though he had removed his helmet and boots to get his eye out. A brief tap of his face showed that the glass orb was still there. The filly smiled at him, revealing her crystal tooth, “It worked, Raedfaest. We’re alive!” Twilight shook her head, “Not exactly. Your bodies are alive, in a manner of speaking. They will grow, develop, everything that a normal body does. Except for one major change. Any injury will remain indefinitely, and will require magical repair.” “I think I understand. Is there anything else that you mixed into the matrix?” “Yes. The tether. It will allow your Phylacteries to travel as much as five hundred meters from your body, and also prevents them from being damaged as long as they are NOT inside your bodies at the time. Your bodies will not die as long as the Phylactery is not present inside them, so if it looks like you are going to get hurt really bad…” “I am not a child, Lady Twilight. I understand. I will need some time to adjust to this new body before I can get back to my duties, Lady Lunari.” The younger princess cleared her throat, “Actually, my loyal servants, I must ask you to break your eternal oath to me. I no longer require your services at this point in time. You will instead be sent to Ponyville with the Elements of Harmony, where they will help you move back into society, as they did with me when I was first returned to this land. Now, I must rest and recover my power. A carriage will take the eight of you back to Ponyville. Hopefully they can do for you, what they were able to do for me, and your transition to the present day will not be overly harmful to your psyches. Any moreso than what I did to them already.” Raedfaest shook his head, “I understand, Milady. Until we meet again, and when we again fight by your side.” His hooves spread, lowering his muzzle almost to the ground, a comical look in his now oversized armor. Starlight nodded, and matched his pose, slipping out of her armor’s neck hole and stretching her long wings wide.