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// [Edit] Chapter 5: First Impressions and Forgiveness 
// Story: My Little Caelan: Lume is Magic 
// by Falx_of_Lume 
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“C’mon Met! Quit holding back, I don’t like beating you into the ground when you’re not giving your all!” Niteo yells, launching a front jab to Metuo’s face.

Metuo moves his head out of the way and flips backwards, his tail hitting Niteo under his chin. Metuo lunges in and hits his cousin with a reverse punch to the face, an uppercut to the chest, a right hook, and then finishes with a sweep. Niteo catches himself with his left foreleg and twists around to swipe at Metuo with a right roundhouse from the ground. Metuo is already leaping over his cousin and shifts farther away from him with a channeled burst from his wings. Niteo’s roundhouse follows through and he plants his right back leg and throws a hook punch followed up by a back-thrust kick at Metuo after he dodges the hook. Metuo spins around the thrust and throws his own hook-kick back. Niteo ducks under it and sweeps out Metuo’s remaining leg. Metuo falls forward onto his forelegs, Niteo flips and brings his hind leg downward. Metuo rolls along the ground, Niteo’s leg crashing into the dirt, and then flips upright a few meters away facing his cousin.

“He’s the one beating youinto the ground Niteo. You haven’t landed a single blow on him.” An orange dragoness calls out from the sidelines.

“Met, try to limit your movements. You’re moving too far away from Niteo when you dodge, it’s giving Niteo too much time to react when you counterstrike against him when you have to cover that extra distance.” A dark purple dragoness adds.

Metuo pants, not taking his eyes off his opponent. “Got it Aetas.” He replies to the purple dragoness.

“Why are you both on his side?” Niteo asks them, panting as well.

“Cause you’re the one who volunteered to help him. If Metuo wants to train and improve, he needs as much encouragement as possible to keep going.” The orange dragoness replies.

It’s the day after Metuo had his nightmare and Niteo offered to help him train, and the morning is bright and sunny. Metuo and Niteo’s other two squad-mates, Aetas and Cauma, came out on their own to watch the two males exchange blows, offering their own tips and encouragement every so often, occasionally switching out with one or both of them to get their own training in.

“That’s true. I’m starting to think you’ll need an extra opponent to improve more Met. You’re freakishly good at unarmed combat. Feel like jumping in Cauma?” Niteo asks the orange dragoness.

Cauma sits up and bounds to stand behind Metuo in answer. Metuo shifts his body to be able to see both of them through his peripheral.

“Well alright then, I’ll take that as a yes. Better start upping your game Metuo. You’re facing the hothead now.” Niteo says with a smirk.

“Just shut up and hit him Frosty.” Cauma shoots back, unamused.

Niteo shoots towards Metuo in response. Metuo faces him and blocks his jab, reverse, and hook punch and ducks under the spinning backhand. Metuo turns to face Cauma and shifts out of the way of her lunge. She flies past him and bounds around on all fours. Metuo redirects Niteo’s follow-up jab and ducks under the hook, then rolls to avoid Cauma’s flying kick and springs into the air with his fore-claws, using his wings to stay aloft. 

Niteo and Cauma follow closely, Niteo flying at him with outstretched but sheathed fore-claws. Metuo shifts out of Niteo’s path and flips back, hind legs kicking Cauma’s own kick upwards, and whips out a fast hook at her head. Cauma brings her left fore-leg up to cover her head at the last second and takes the blow, before immediately recovering and throwing a reverse punch. Metuo blocks the punch, and then ducks under a roundhouse kick from the orange female, but he sees the other leg coming a moment too late. The hook-kick hits Metuo in the head, knocking him so his back is facing the ground, and Cauma flips forward and drop kicks Metuo in the stomach directly downward. 

Metuo hits the ground with his back and he gets the wind knocked out of him. He rolls out of the way of Cauma’s aerial pounce and plants his front legs on the ground and whips his tail around to strike out at Cauma, who bounds out of the range of the appendage. 

Metuo tries to get his breath back, finding it hard to breath, when he sees a silver blur out of the corner of his eye. Time seems to slow for Metuo as he turns his head and sees Niteo almost on top of him from his own aerial pounce.

Metuo’s surprise left him slow to react.  Suddenly, he felt a rush of energy suddenly flow through him, and then he feels his muscles tense harder than he’s ever felt before, his element surging through them.

The next thing he knows he’s five meters behind where he was standing and Niteo is landing where Metuo was just at.

The energy surge doesn’t stop there though. Metuo feels his element pulse hard within his chest. 

Metuo gasps and rears up on his hind legs, then his chest explodes in pain, Metuo sees the red energy from his element flood out of his chest and form a semi-transparent disk out in front of him.

Metuo can’t breath, can’t look away, and can’t scream. All he can feel is his core forcing the energy within him to pool out into the vertical disk.

Metuo’s vision blurs, the lack of oxygen causing him to start blacking out, he sees a variety of bright colors out in front of him. And then his core stops the flow of energy and Metuo falls forward.







Metuo feels his element pulse as it closes the hole in his chest.

‘Owowowowowowowowowowow ow ow ow ow ow, OH BALOUR THE PAIN!!!! OW!!!!’

Metuo feels his leg muscles seize up in pain. He can’t breathe, it hurts too much to try.




“..e....o….” 

Metuo  hears a voice. He strains and tries to listen closer.

“..et..o..”

Metuo tries harder to hear the voice.

“Metuo! Wake up! Please!”

That sounded like… Cauma.

“Come on Met! Don’t go out like this after everything!”

“You’re stronger than this Metuo.”

And Niteo... and Aetas.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m SOOOORRYYYYY!! I’M A HORRIBLE PON-HEE-HEE-HEE-HEEYYYY!!!!!!”

And that was… okay, that one’s new. Wait… pony? What?

Metuo gasps, and ends up coughing up the blood that was still in his lungs. 

“Metuo!” Cauma exclaims in relief.

Metuo opens his mout to reply, but it comes out as a groan when he feels the ache in his legs and chest. He rolls onto his side to let his legs go limp.

“Are you alright? We got worried there when you stopped breathing.” Niteo says.

“Augh. My everything hurts. What the heck happened?” Metuo rasps, his throat sore.

“You somehow phased into a different spot when you dodged Niteo’s attack, and then some kind of portal burst out of your chest a second later. You collapsed when it closed, then healed and woke up.” Aetas tells Metuo. 

“Oh…” 

“Are you alright?” Aetas asks.

“Heh… yeah, totally. I heard blood loss was the equivalent of eating an apple a day.” Metuo jokes weakly.

Cauma smacks him in the head. “Ow!” He says.

“Cut the jokes Met. We don’t need you acting like Ictus right now.” Cauma scolds him.

“Ugh. Sorry, just trying to take my mind off the pain in my body right now.” Metuo apologizes.

Aetas lifts up one of Metuo’s forelegs while he lays on his side. Metuo clenches his eyes shut for a moment. “You’ve overexerted your muscles with too much elemental energy.” She tells him.

“He did? How can you tell?” Niteo asks, worried.

“He moved too quickly to not have been channeling when he avoided your last attack, and his muscles are seizing up like mine did back when I was still working on developing my ability to slow time down around me. He just needs to take it easy for a bit, and wait a few minutes for the pain to fade. He’ll be fine.” Aetas answers, lowering his foreleg gently.

Metuo groans from his leg being moved.

“That doesn’t mean the next few minutes aren’t going to suck though.” Aetas adds.

“Maybe we could burn those few minutes away with greeting our guests?” Niteo suggests, looking up and behind Metuo.

Metuo clenches his teeth together as he lifts his head up and looks around to see where Niteo is looking. His neck muscles aren’t nearly as sore as the rest of him, thankfully.

Metuo sees a group of miniature horses with a wide variety of colors staring at them with various expressions on their faces. Metuo stares at them in confusion.

Cauma growls and steps in front of Metuo slightly, the anger resonating off of her directed at the horses.

“Uuuuuuuhhhhhh… hi?” Metuo says to the group of equines, unsure why they’re here.

The yellow one gave a startled ‘eep’ before darting behind the tall dark blue one. The purple one seemed to shrink in on herself.

The group of horses kept silent, still too shell shocked to be able to respond. All except the dark blue one.

“Hello young one, I’m glad to see that you are still breathing, despite what just occurred, and we all deeply apologize for what happened here. It was not any of our intentions to bring harm upon anybody here; we simply wanted to greet a new race. However, due to the current circumstances we would understand if it is now impossible to have any kind of friendly relations for quite some time.” She, judging from her voice, says to Metuo and the others.

Cauma opens her mouth to give a sharp, and probably loud, response before Niteo interrupts her. “We’re also glad Metuo didn’t die. But I’d be lying if I said that I’m not angry that you hurt my cousin.” Niteo says with a small edge to his voice, the dark blue horse doesn’t react physically. 

“However, considering that it was obviously an accident on your part… I’m willing to forgive you. It’s up to the others to do so themselves. But regardless whether or not any of us forgive you, if you’re diplomats, we need to take you to see Sentinel Heros.” Niteo tells her. Niteo looks to Metuo. “Met, can you stand yet?” He asks. 

Metuo turns to look at his limp legs and slowly rolls onto them with a grunt of pain. He pushes himself up on his trembling legs and manages to stay upright. “*huff* Yeah, but I think I’ll need to lean on someone to walk.” Metuo answers. Cauma stands next to him in response, ready to take some of his weight when they decide to move.

Niteo nods upon seeing Metuo on his feet.

Suddenly, Metuo feels himself get wrapped up by a pink blur. He grunts from the sudden pressure on his sore spots. 

“THANK YOOOO-HOOOOUUU FOR NOT BEING DEEE-HEEEE-HEEAAAD!” Metuo realizes that the pink horse is hugging him while sobbing.

‘How did she… get over here so quick?’ Metuo thinks in confusion, not really sure what to do. Fortunately he didn’t have to do anything.

“Uh, Pinkie, he looks a little uncomfortable righ’ now, maybe you should let him go.” The orange one says to her. 

“Okay!” ‘Pinkie’ replies, surprisingly perky despite bawling her eyes out a few seconds ago. She lets Metuo go and bounces back to the group of horses. 

Metuo’s eyes widen when he sees her previously pink coat has large splotches of dark red on them. ‘Oh crap, is she bleeding?! What happened?! Oh… wait.’

Metuo looks down at himself and sees him covered in his own blood. He gives a sigh of relief that he didn’t hurt her.

Although, Metuo wasn’t the only one to notice Pinkie’s blood stained fur.

“Pinkie dear, you just got blood all over you,” the white pony with a horn said in a disapproving tone, “it was disturbing to find it just on our hooves but now you’ve got it all over your front. And I’ve heard that blood stains don’t come out easy.”

“Good to know you don’t like my friend’s blood on you after you almost killed him.” Metuo hears Cauma mutter with vehemence.

“But Rarity, I needed to give Metuo over there a hug because he’s not dead and that means we can still be friends and it would have been sad if he died because then we wouldn’t get the chance to become friends and the friends he has already would be even more sad because their friend just died and.” Pinkie rambles on.

“Wait how did you know my name?” Metuo asks Pinkie.

“Your friends kept shouting it out at you after Twilight closed the portal and you collapsed.” Pinkie says to Metuo quickly before turning back to ramble on at ‘Rarity’.

“Hey guys, how’s the trainin-hoLY SHIT THAT’S A LOT OF BLOOD!!!” Metuo turns and sees Niteo’s brother, Ictus gliding down to them. “What the hell happened?!” He asks with wide eyes.

“Oh great, as if this day wasn’t bad enough.” Cauma says sarcastically. 

“Seriously, what happened, because last time I checked, it’s not really healthy for someone to lose this much blood. And what’s up with the rainbow coated horses in the courtyard?” He says to the other four Caelans.

Aetas sighs, “They’re from another world, and they opened a portal to reach us, said portal opened up via bursting out of Metuo’s chest.” Aetas explains to Ictus.

Ictus takes a second to process what she said. Then he turns his head to Metuo. “You good?” He asks.

“Yeah, I’m okay now. Really hurt while it was happening though.” Metuo responds.

“Okay then. WELCOME TO LUME HORSES!!!!!” Ictus greets the new arrivals.

The other four Caelans faceclaw.

“Ictus, we’re supposed to be angry at them for nearly killing Met.” Cauma says.

“Excuse me. But our species names are ‘ponies’ not ‘horses’.” The dark blue pony with wings and a horn tells us.

“Oh sorry, my bad! WELCOME TO LUME PONIES!!!” Ictus greets again with outstretched fore-legs. 

“OKAY! So does anybody else want to start introducing ourselves, because I do. I’ll go first. Hello, my name is Niteo, Knight of Animusix, and this is my brother Ictus, and my squad-mates Metuo, Cauma, and Aetas. I would like to say thank you for joining us here on our planet, Lume.” Niteo says to the ponies, pointing at each of the other Caelans when he says their respective names.

The taller dark blue pony sighs in relief that things have calmed down a little. “Well met Sir Niteo, I am Princess Luna, diarch of Equestria, and I would once again like to extend my humblest apologies for the events caused by our arrival. I hope that it won’t cause any undue stress between our two nations in the future.” Luna says graciously.

“Don’t worry, it won’t. It didn’t end in death so the most it’ll do is make things awkward between us for a bit.” Niteo responds.

“Anyway, these six mares with me are wielders of ancient and powerful artifacts of my homeland known as the Elements of Harmony, hence why they are with me now. We felt it would be best to bring them, since the artifacts they wield are meant to spread their namesake, Harmony.” Luna says, gesturing to the other six ponies around her.

The cyan one with a rainbow mane and wings jumps up and hovers in front of the group of ponies. “Name’s Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in Equestria, future Wonderbolt, and the Element of Loyalty!” She introduces herself proudly.

“Huh, fastest flyer eh? How fast can you go?” Ictus asks with a raised brow.

“Fast enough to break the sound barrier and perform a Sonic Rainboom.” She says cockily.

“Mmmm… meh.” Ictus replies, unimpressed.

“WHAT?! How can you be unimpressed with breaking the sound barrier?” Rainbow asks, shocked.

“For one, every Caelan recruit needs to be able to reach a minimum speed capable of breaking the sound barrier before they can graduate and become Knights. And for another… it’s just not that useful on the battlefield, it’s not maneuverable enough, and it burns through energy too quickly.” Ictus replies.

While Rainbow Dash is staring at Ictus in shock, the orange one wearing a hat of some kind walks up to introduce herself, “Howdy, name’s Applejack, ah’ work on my family farm Sweet Apple Acres and use the Element a’ Honesty, nice ta meet ya’ll.” Applejack says.

“She seems nice enough.” Aetas says.

After her, comes Pinkie, “Hi my name’s Pinkie Pie and I like throwing parties and making ponies smile a lot and I should probably start trying to make dragons smile a lot since we’re going to become friends now but I already try to make Spike smile so I’ve got some practice with doing that too and do you guys like parties because if you do then I can throw a huge ‘We have new Dragon Friends now even though we blew up one of their chests but he’s Okay Now’ Party.” Pinkie says.

“Oh! And this is Fluttershy! She was hiding behind Luna cause she’s shy with meeting new ponies… and dragons too I guess since she’s shy about meeting you guys. Oh yeah, almost forgot, I’m the Element of Laughter and Flutershy’s the Element of Kindness.” Pinkie says while dragging the scared yellow pony with wings out from behind Luna.

“Uuuuuuuhhhhhh…” Metuo says while trying to process what Pinkie said.

“Pinkie, it’s not becoming of an ambassador to talk too quickly for the one they’re talking to.” Rarity says to Pinkie before turning to address the Caelans. “It is very nice to meet you all, my name is Rarity. Fashionista and seamstress extraordinaire, and the Element of Generosity, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She says with a flourish of her hoof.

“I can already tell she’s going to be a pain to deal with.” Cauma says under her breath to Metuo. Metuo rolls his eyes at his friend’s anger.

Lastly, the purple one with a horn and wings comes forward to introduce herself. “Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, firstly I want to say I’m so, so, so sorry Metuo. I’m the one who made the portal spell and opened it, but I should have checked to see how the portal was going to affect your world before trying to open it. I just got so caught up with meeting new beings and learning more about them that I didn’t take into consideration that the portal could hurt somepony… er… someone, on the other side.” Twilight hangs her head in shame after getting what she said out. Metuo thinks he can see her eyes tearing up from underneath her bangs.

Metuo looks at the violet pony in silence, trying to figure out how he feels about the one who almost killed him admitting her guilt.

‘Star… I’m so, so, so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to. I… I don’t know what happened…’

Metuo jerks his head back slightly at the memory. Metuo sighs. “Hey, Twilight was it? Don’t worry about it. It was just an accident. Mistakes happen. I forgive you.” Metuo tells the violet pony

The pony looks up at Metuo in surprise. “W-what? Just like that? Why? I almost…” She trails off.

Metuo gives a light chuff of laughter. “Let’s just say that you’re not the only one here that accidentally almost killed someone. And she forgave me, so why shouldn’t I forgive you? So how about we start fresh.” Metuo takes a couple shaky steps towards Twilight. “Friends?” He holds out his right fore claw. 

Twilight looks up at Metuo, disbelief in her eyes, before she smiles in relief. She reaches out and takes Metuo’s outstretched claw. “Friends.” She answers with a smile.

Niteo gives a sigh in relief to have gotten introductions out of the way. “Well, now that that’s done, how about we get all this blood cleaned off us. And then after that we can all go meet with Uncle Heros.” He says to everyone.