Matter-Horn and Radiance came into the central command of the base of operations for the Power Ponies, Power Pony Citadel, with Aurora and Rose in tow with all the files and goo samples they had collected. The tower was located on the edge of the city, but given the abilities of several of a members that wasn't much of an issue. Filly-second had her hood off and was zipping around between seventeen cooking catalogs while Saddle Rager had her hood like mask off and was trotting out of another room, neither seemed to notice the four ponies or resources that had entered the complex. “The little darlings are asleep now,” said Saddle Rager in her gentle and soft voice, her baby blue fur and dark bond mane seeming to shimmer as she entered the room.
“Great to hear,” said Fili-second in a subdued voice that seemed a bit odd to Matter-Horn and Radiance.
“Hi Sliding, Garden,” said Radiance.
“We thought you were still in Derby Heights,” said Fili-second.
“Just back yesterday,” said Matter-Horn as she removed her mask and her natural colors became known, we would been back in sooner, but our families showed up the moment we were got home.”
“Well we met her grandmother shortly before leaving, that mare figured us out pretty quickly, turns out she used to live the life we do.”
“Used to?” said Saddle Rager.
“Yeah, she hung up the mask to marry grandpa and have my dad,” said Aura, “she also helped with a little problem I brought to light. Don't worry, Garden, it's nothing serious now.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Saddle Rager.
“Um, mom woo are dese ponies?” said Aurora, drawing attention to her and Rose.
“Sliding Scale,” said Aura gesturing to Fili-second, “the foremost chemical expert in Maretropolis and best baker in the whole country.” Fili-second showed a bit of a proud blush through her green fur.
“And Garden Delight,” said Radiance, gesturing to Saddle Rager, “she runs and maintains the largest pet rescue facility in the city, she also happens to maintain and care for all the orphanages in the city.” Saddle Rager made a motion to hide behind her mane.
“And who are these two cutie pies?” said Garden after her introduction.
“The super team from Derby Heights,” said Aura, Radiance floated the files to Garden and the goo samples to Sliding. “I believe these will be of interest to you, Sliding we need you to be more thorough than usual, those samples came from these fillies.”
“Care to explain that one,” said Sliding.
“The filly that looks like a little me is in fact a clone of me that Dark-mare cooked up in a tube, and the files pertain to the filly next to Melody.”
“These are government files,” said Garden as she took look at the file covers, “was she involved in a government project without her knowing?”
“Why am the Gobermant Pwoject,” said Rose, she started to cry into Melody's outfit.
“Oh dear,” said Garden with another look at the file folders.
“What are their names? We can't just keep calling them the fillies,” said Sliding.
“The filly that's my clone is named Aurora Flame,” said Aura.
“And due to the way her project file is named the little filly next to me is named Rose Adamant,” said Melody as she caused her mask to disappear, “for all intents and purposes we've decided officially adopt them as our legal daughters, but it's going to take some work. Coming up with cover stories for how they ended up with us is going to be tricky, after all we're two of the most publicly recognized ponies when we're in our civilian forms.”
“Such is the way of things,” said Sliding as she headed for the chem lab, “that's why I dropped off the map and came back as a baker, if I'd kept it up the way before I would be in so much public spotlight I wouldn't be able get any proper sleep. Besides, baking with my family's restaurant is what sparked my interest in chemistry.”
“And that same love of chemistry is responsible for your abilities, why you had to drink concoction of yours in the first place still troubles me,” said Melody.
“Don't forget that out of control thunderstorm that caused me to get struck by lightning,” said Sliding.
“Well, at least the one responsible for it apologized to you,” said Melody.
The other mares giggled, the fillies just gave them all confused looks. “What show funny,” asked Aurora with confusion.
“That's how I met the mare that calls herself Zapp when she's out being a super hero,” said Sliding, “Garden, you should get to work on those files.”
“Oh, right,” said Garden.
“So, where's Humdrum? He wasn't around when we got home,” said Aura.
“Or up this morning,” said Melody, “one of the first things I did after putting Rose to bed was leave him a message that we were back. He always leaves a message for me in the morning on the network, but there wasn't one when I checked my messages.”
“That's funny,” said Sliding, “we had him running some errands around town the past few days, he should have finished them by now.”
“Oh, I hope nothing too bad has happened to him,” said Garden.
“He seems to get caught in someone's trap every few weeks,” said Aura, “we'll go looking for him in a bit, but right now we can't really waste our energy looking for him on account we don't have any clues to where we should start looking. Besides, we also have to find out why Aurora and Rose don't seem to be completely broken down into what Sliding is analyzing. Garden, after you've skimmed the files, I'm not expecting you to thoroughly read them, give the fillies a checkup, you're the closet we have to a medical professional right now.”
“Understood,” said Garden as she left the room with the files.
***************************************************
Almost five hours later in the facility's medical ward Garden was looking over Aurora with the highly advanced equipment they had in the base, but the near literal hovering Aura was doing as Garden performed her examination of the filly was upsetting the pegasus mare. However this set of actions did yield something interesting that was easily helping Aurora distinguish herself from Aura, and that was the fact the filly was somehow a natural empath. She was picking up on the emotional states of the other ponies in the room and adjusting her behaviors to match those emotions, this was trait that no one in Aura's family possessed. “You're behavior is really upsetting her,” said Garden Delight in a nervous voice, which was reflected in the nervous agitation of Aurora, Aura's worried fear was also reflected in Aurora being in a state of confusion of who to turn to for comfort.
“Why'm comfused,” Aurora finally said, she started to break into a little cry, “Why compt chwooze woo twoo make me fweel better.”
“What do you mean? Why are you so confused? I hope it isn't a sign the ritual didn't quite work,” said Aura with worry.
“Why cwan fweel your feelings, thand mwiss Gwarden's twoo,” said Aurora.
“Can you also hear what they're saying? Don't force it, just let everything flow unterrupted. Aura, calm down, please, this might mean something important.”
Aura quickly adopted a calm composure, which in turn calmed Garden and Aurora down, she also went over to a cabinet and pulled a large book of cataloged super abilities experienced and described in older texts. She quickly flipped to section on mental powers.
Aurora didn't say anything and just closed her eyes, after a few minutes she just gave a few successive nods.
Aura flipped through the volume and stopped at a point with clear surprise, “Garden, she's a natural empath! Some unicorns can train themselves to have the ability and there instances of pegasi and earth ponies having the ability to some extent, but according to our research a natural empath of a level that actually responds to emotions at this level at a young age is exceptionally rare,” she seemed to be mulling over a few things in her head, “it's possible that the ritual we used to stabilize Aurora gave her the ability as a side effect.”
“Or awakened it,” said Garden, “she has all of your genetic potential, there has always been a chance you could develop the ability. Maybe it's that potential that allowed you to bond with the horn?”
“And her with the bracer,” said Aura is if she were putting pieces together, “when she uses the bracer to 'transform' she turns into two mentally linked independent entities.”
“What kind of abilities do they have?” Aurora at this point in a unique reaction to the calm fell asleep on the examination table.
“One half of the two always knows what is true, regardless personal knowledge, and the other always knows what is being shrouded, same deal as with the truth centered one. The one that always know the truth can only say what is genuine, although it is done in a way that makes you have to figure out what exactly is being said sometimes. The one that knows when something is being kept is also excellent at keeping things hidden and usually talks in a manner that is intended to mislead. They also have elemental power, light for the truthful one and and darkness for the secretive one. One more thing, when her aliases introduced themselves by referring to themselves as guardians. I think your theory might be right when about why she was chosen,” she looked over at the sleeping filly, “If I really do have the potential to be an powerful empath I just want to know why my clone gained the ability within her short time alive and I didn't display any signs of it in the years I've been doing hero work.”
“Maybe you're over thinking it, what if hints of it came out before you found that artifact?”
Something clicked in Aura's head, “My apparent business savvy and vague feelings of trust or distrust when I meet new ponies, those feelings are usually proven right a few weeks or months later. If that is indeed the case, then that means that means I practically built my company on a partial formed empathic ability. It is often believed psionic abilities require a strong will to properly regulate them, both sides of my family are quite well known for their willfulness and in some cases even their stubbornness.”
“I guess that's why Matter-Horn and Mare-velous can seen butting heads from time to time.”
“I suppose, but Civic and I usually get along, it's just when we have difference of opinion on how something is to be done that we argue, why do I keep telling you and Wind Whip this again?”
“Oh, I knew, but Aura started to wake up during your musing over psychic abilities. I just wanted her to hear from you how even the best teams aren't always cooperative.”
Aura looked over at a half-awake Aurora and smiled before returning her attention to her friend. “Not many ponies have empathic abilities, and those that do tend have it limited to their special talent. Aurora's different, she's displaying the ability before she is even aware of what her special talent.”
“You're doing a good job being a mother, which reminds me, things haven't been as calm as we hoped. You see...” she gestured for Aura to follow, after putting the partially sleeping filly on her back Aura followed. As she followed the other pegasus Aura wondered what was going on.
After almost five minutes of moving through the halls they came to one of the lesser used rooms, when the doors opened they revealed the room had been converted into something akin to a nursery with super powered foals in mind. Inside were a pair of fillies. The first filly looked to be pegasus filly with coat the same color as Garden's mane and a sea blue mane, the other appeared to be a buttery yellow earth pony filly with a mane the color of dark chocolate. Both were sound asleep in enclosure pen
“I take it that these two aren't ordinary fillies,” said Aura as she approached the enclosure and placed Aura within it, “how come you haven't let Melody know about this yet?”
“Rose is very persistent in keeping close to her,” said Garden.
“I think that will change when she see the other fillies, do they have names?”
Garden nodded, “The pegasus is Sea Glider, we're lucky I found her when I did; and the earth pony is Cocoa Butter, Sliding found her while you were out.”
“What kind of super abilities do they have?”
“We promised to let them show you, sorry Aura.”
“It's okay, we should have all the fillies together and then head to the meeting room to compare notes.” Garden nodded.
_______________________________________________
At around the same time that was going on Sliding had completed her analysis and was doing her best to not startle Rose Adamant. “Come on, Melody, I think you're really gonna like where I want to take you,” she was saying about seventeen times a minute, “we found something that relates to all this and it would better if I just showed you.”
Melody unfortunately could only make out every fifth word, and thus was having difficulty understanding her friend. “Sliding, for the seventeenth time, you are talking too fast. Slow it down to saying the same sentence three times a minute, maybe I'll actually be able to make out what you said, I still have no idea what your results on the goo had to say.”
At that moment a navy blue baby dragon with fuchsia spines in a green cape, mask, gloves and boots walked in and gave an exasperated sigh before saying in a deadpan manner, “Oh joy, more fillies, as if we don't have enough in the building already,” he then noticed Melody, “oh, hi Melody. Um, sorry about that, I've been running all over town for the past fifty hours, still haven't slept, so please excuse my uncharacteristic unfriendly manner.
“Not at all, Humdrum,” said Melody, “I picked up this little one on the mission, “Aura's probably still pestering Garden over the one she brought in.”
“Whatever,” said Humdrum as he removed his mask and tossed on a random chair and then proceeded to to do the same to his cape, “follow me, I'll show you where we're keeping the other fillies.”
“I thought he was joking,” Melody said to Sliding.
“That's what I was trying to tell you,” said Sliding in a more normal speaking pace as they followed the boot and glove clad dragon, “we found some unusual fillies ourselves, of course we promised to let them deal with the matter of what they can do.”
I moved through the halls at pace that took almost twenty minutes, it would have taken somewhere between ten and fifteen if Humdrum wasn't so visibly tired, before coming to the doors to the nursery. When they opened they revealed Garden and Aura were already there, looking into the enclosure pen Melody saw three sleeping fillies. She giggled to herself as she lifted a now sleeping Rose off her back and into the pen next to Aurora. “Alright girls,” she said, “let's go and compare notes. Fang, go and get some sleep, that's an order.”
The young dragon gave a lazy salute before heading off in one direction as the four mares made their way to the meeting room.