//------------------------------// // Chapter 26: The Burnt Magician. // Story: My Little Fantasy // by GuyWhoWritesThings //------------------------------// Chapter 26: The Burnt Magician. "Do you really think we'll find Equestrian Materia in a dingy old cave, Dusk?" Trixie asks me from over my shoulder, still forcing me to carry her as we make our way to the Crystal Caves. "Hmm... maybe Trixie can find one strong enough to amplify her stage magic a hundred fold!" "Anything we find down there is likely going to be exceedingly dangerous, Trixie." I reply, giving her an annoyed glance. "You wouldn't be able to use something like that for performance purposes." "The danger perceived by the audience is what makes the magic all the more thrilling, my dear Dusk!" Trixie replies, pointing a hoof out dramatically and making it that much harder for me to carry her, then lowers it slightly. "Though, Trixie supposes it's not much good if a show ends with Trixie being a pile of Trixie 'n Bits." "Besides," Twilight cuts in, "what kind of effects would a Materia from Equestria even have?" ...A good question, honestly. "When I used Cloud's Materia once back in Ponyville, it created lightning... would one from here do something like that? Or would it do something like imitate the special powers of a particular kind of pony?" "Good questions as always, my Student." Celestia replies from the front, turning us down a staircase that leads to a dingier part of the castle. I can only assume we're getting closer. "Unfortunately, it's hard to say. Unicorns of the past often believed the larger crystals were best for channeling magic, so it was rare for them to research gems similar to the ones Cloud carries. As with all things, there are... stories. A unicorn using a brooch to give himself flight, for example, or an amulet alleged to give one the magic of an alicorn. However, even I only have so much insight as to the truth behind these tales." "Sounds like we'll just need to try one when we find it and see what happens." Which, honestly, has been my strategy with all my existing Materia as it is. "We're here." Celestia says, stopping the conversation and our walking in front of an unusually fortified door. "It's sealed with quite a number of spells in addition to old-fashioned locks to prevent a repeat of what happened during Cadance and Shining Armor's wedding, so please give me a moment." Celestia lowers her head to face the door, her horn glowing like the rays of the sun and reacting with whichever wards are protecting it. I, meanwhile, pull my arms out from under Trixie as a not-so-subtle hint. "Here's your stop, Supreme Excellence." "But we're not in the caves yet!" Trixie pouts. "At least take Trixie down to these Crystal Caves before you force her back onto her hooves." "Off." I repeated sternly, not giving her any more ground than she's already taken. Or been carried over. "Hmph! Such an unaccommodating assistant you've turned out to be." Despite her complaints, I feel Trixie's hooves release my neck as she finds her way back to the ground. Twilight, meanwhile, simply shakes her head. "You two..." "Yes, Sparkle?" Trixie turns to face her. "What is it?" "N-nothing!" Twilight replies quickly, trailing it with a nervous laugh. "It's open." Celestia says, ending that particular moment. "Let's move quickly. The guards for the Caves won't be happy I've lifted the seals for an unscheduled visit as it is." The door swings open, revealing a roughshod, rocky path leading further below. The door and connected wall, it appears, have merely been built in front of an existing entrance to the caves. "Who cares if some dumb guards get mad?" Trixie says with a small 'hmph' as she enters the cave in front of the rest of us. "Trixie would think a Princess of Equestra would not need to clear traversing her own castle with a lowly guard." "It's not that simple, little one." Celestia replies as we follow behind Trixie, heading deeper into the cave. "Even as a Princess, one must work to minimize the burden they impose on others. However, this situation is merely too urgent for us to waste time on official channels." "Burdens." I interject. "That would include not making people carry you because you're too lazy to walk." "Hey!" Trixie turns her head back to us, shouting defensively. "Trixie pays you for that service, assistant!" "But... you don't pay me." I cast her an annoyed glare. "Of course Trixie pays you!" Trixie fires back, smirking. "She pays you with her time and attention, a privilege most ponies in Equestria would die for!" "Right..." I shake my head as I hear the requisite giggling from both Twilight and the Princess. As we round a bend in the path, it finally opens up into the 'proper' Crystal Caves, at least as far as I can tell. We're on a ledge with a path deeper in, looking down on an expansive network of caves. And, as the name implies, the caves are filled with large, shimmering crystals that easily reflect the few light sources hanging around. At various breaks in the crystals I'm also able to see rail tracks, which I assume to be remnants from when unicorns would harvest these crystals to augment their magic long ago. Twilight lets out a small but audible gulp from the back of our group. "Never thought I'd be down here again..." "Is everything alright, Twilight?" Celestia asks, turning back to face her student. "It's fine, Princess." She insists, shaking her head. "I'm fine now. Let's get going." Twilight turns before a reply can be made and begins walking the path down to the main cave from our ledge, the rest of us following close behind. "So what exactly happened down here in this cave to get you like this, anyway, Sparkle?" Trixie comes out with the least sensitive or tactful question of the day. "Trixie has seen you combat mutant chupacabra monsters and barely register it as an abnormal day." Though... fair point. "I'd really rather not talk about it, please, Trixie." Twilight replies, still facing foward as we walk. "Ah... very well then Sparkle. Trixie apologizes for her persistentness." Apologizes? For persistentness? Have I stumbled into a parallel universe or something? "Since when do you apologize for anything?" I blurt out before I can catch myself. "Trixie knows very well how to apologize for her mistakes, thank-you-very-much." Trixie lets out another of her usual 'hmph's and raises her head. "She just refuses to do so with you because you are so busy always putting the 'ass' in 'assistant', Dusk!" I smirk. "Is that the language you should be using in front of a Princess, Trixie?" Her reply is to simply use her magic to pull her magician's hat down over her head, eliciting a small laugh from the aforementioned Princess. "Actually, Princess," I begin asking after a moment, "how do you know so much about the Lifestream and other worlds, anyway? You explained a lot earlier but never bothered to tell us how you know any of it is true." "Ah," Celestia responds, taking a small breath, "I did seem a bit... presumptuous in my explanations, didn't I?" A few moments after her rhetorical, she continues. "Ever since ponies gained control over the Weave, scholars deemed fit to learn of its existence have tried to glean knowledge of what it is and how it functions. This has resulted in a small library of knowledge, researched by these scholars and explored by those with power over the Weave, to be built up across millenia. Much of this includes things such as the minutae of manipulating the sun or stars, but some is of a different kind entirely." "A library?" Twilight interrupts as Celestia takes a moment to collect her thoughts, her face lighting up a bit despite the current environment. "There are books about all this?" "Of course, dear Twilight." Celestia responds, looking warmly down at her. "However, with the passage of time, much of it is in languages so ancient, their existences have been lost to all but a select few. The collection's location is sworn to secrecy as well, so I sadly cannot take you there, my Student." Celestia pauses, but continues as Twilight's face falls in disappointment. "Though, maybe I shall sneak a tome or two out for you some day, Twilight." She says, giving the unicorn a wink. "It'll be our secret!" "Even if I can't read it, to even examine a book like that..." Twilight says aloud, the sentiment trailing as she tips her head to the ceiling, her brow scrunching up as she gets lost in her thoughts. "Didn't you just get done talking about how even a Princess shouldn't burden others?" Trixie asks, Celestia's personability seeming to have finally fully disarmed her revery for royalty. "Wouldn't stealing a several-thousand-year-old book of lost and arcane knowledge from a secret library burden somebody?" "Perhaps." Celestia replies, her tone a bit more upbeat after succeeding at making Trixie act more frankly at last. "But I never said a Princess was perfect, either, now did I?" "You remind Trixie of a very troubling individual..." Trixie replies, giving the Princess a suspicious glance. "You mean, you?" I reply with crossed arms, looking down at her back. "Why, yes!" Trixie exclaims, flipping her hair dramatically with one hoof. "It is just more evidence of how Trixie is of a lost, royal lineage!" "Oh, please, Cloud." Celstia turns her head back to me. "I'm royalty, but even I'm not that egotistical." Oh, damn. I think the cave suddenly gained a new heat source. No, it's just a smouldering Trixie, sitting on her haunches in front of me. "Did Trixie... just get burned... by the Princess?" She blinks, stupefied. "Yes, now let's get going." I prod her in the back with my foot. "It looks like we've almost reached the 'Crystal' part of the Crystal Cave." "Finally!" Trixie quickly gets back to her hooves, galloping past the Princess and Twilight as she makes her way to the bottom. "But, yes, Cloud," Celestia continues, slowly her pace slightly so she's walking next to me as we finish the walk down. "To further answer your question, part of this research involved more industrious Weavers making use of the Weave to reach out, trying to touch other planets and explore the universe once they learned the truth behind our own world. Sometimes, they were able to reach the Weave close enough to a planet to make that Planet's own Lifestream reach up to meet it, allowing them to exchange knowledge the Weaver would then access and preserve with the rest of our knowledge about the Weave and the universe beyond our world." She stops, for a moment, turning to face the path ahead to think before turning back to me. "It's possible your appearance is due to a similar phenomenon - your world reaching its Lifestream out for some reason and finding our own, and somehow sending both you and this creature to our own world. If the old tomes are to be believed, this wouldn't be the first time it's happened..." This has happened before? Does that mean there could be...? Celestia shakes her head, assumedly reading my thoughts off my face. "Not like that, Cloud, I'm sorry. The last recorded event similar to this one happened before my sister and I were born. Even if it did happen, and those who appeared here were even from your own world... they would likely be long dead by now, an unrecorded footnote in Equestrian history." "I see..." I mull the thought over to myself a bit longer as we finally reach the ground level of the cave, Twilight and Trixie both already having begun to sift through the large crystal spires in their hunt. After a quick look around, Shining Armor's words from earlier come to mind. '...hunt for small shiny rocks in what's essentially a field of giant shiny rocks.' That's actually... a really accurate description of what's going on. Both the size and quantity of these crystals below the city is massive beyond my original expectations, and the cave itself seems to go far beyond what I was able to see as we walked down from the upper ledge. This could definitely take a while... "These crystals are amazing!" Trixie exclaims from a bit ahead, Celestia and I finally catching up to the duo of unicorns. "Up close, they're just..." "How are you two fairing?" Celestia asks, alerting the duo to our approach. "This is interesting, Princess..." Twilight replies. "When Chrysalis put me down here last time, I never noticed. Maybe I'm more sensitive to it after Cloud allowed me to use his Materia, but... it's like I can feel the power coming off the different crystals." Celestia gives her a small smile. "So finding our goal down here should be easy then." "That's not what I mean, Princess." Twilight says as she shakes her head negatively. "I can feel it coming from all the crystals. As if they're all giant pieces of Materia or something." "What?" I mean to think, but end up saying aloud. "Yeah..." Twilight continues. "I don't feel anything coming from Cloud's Materia, but maybe that's because it's part of another planet. Now that I know what the magic they use feels like, it's almost like these crystals are beckoning for me to take them up and use them." I walk to her side and place my hand on one of the crystals, looking between it and the Materia on my bangle. These crystals are more clear and reflective than my Materia, lacking the distinctive color coding, but, at least at a glance, they definitely do have a composition I would easily think of as Materia were they the correct size. Could they really be...? "It's pretty amazing, isn't it?" I stop. Everyone stops. My blood feels like ice at the sound of that voice. We all turn to our right and he's just... standing there. The silver-haired man, in his black coat, and the terrible, Eastern-styled sword hanging loosely in his left hand, blade trailing behind him, his right hand pressing against a crystal as he gazes into it. "Spires of 'Natural Materia', the likes of which those fools at Shin-Ra could only dream, found on a planet bathing in its own Lifestream. It's quite a miracle of nature, don't you think?" My hand quickly draws back to the hilt of my sword as he speaks casually, as if this situation is no different than meeting an old friend at Trixie's favorite Donut Joe's. "How did you get down here?" Celestia asks, tone serious and protective as she steps in front of Twilight and Trixie, flaring her wings. "A question like that's not important, is it?" He replies, turning his back from us to walk from the crystal he was examining before, to a larger one on the side. "There must be far more important things you'll want to know." "Then, who are you?" Twilight cuts in, slipping out from under one of Celestia's wings to face him and lowering her head defensively. "Another 'human', like Cloud?" This question from Twilight elicits a detestable, guttural laugh from the man, which rings out clearly along the many walls and caverns of the cave, echoing back to us. "I'm simply... someone who makes planets disappear." "So you're the creature that has been consuming the Weave?" Celestia asks, her eyes not wavering from the man, though both Trixie and Twilight give me a quick glance over their shoulders in response to Celestia's question. "The Weave? That's an interesting name for it." The man muses, his continuing casual attitude a grating contrast to our tenseness. At Celestia's lack of a response, he continues. "For now, I've merely come to clean up some loose ends." "Loose ends?" I ask, the grip on my sword's hilt tightening, though I don't unsheathe it. "I think it's time I made you give me some answers now that you've shown yourself." "You should learn to be less impatient." He finally removes his hand from the surface of the crystal, turning to face us. He looks at me and lets out a small, amused laugh. "You look ridiculous." I narrow my eyes, finally drawing my sword from its sheathe, gripping it tightly in my right hand. "I don't need fashion advice from you, thanks." "Now, don't be like that." He says, his casual attitude beginning to be tipped with malice. "Weapons will just make this messier than it needs to be." "Shut up!" Simply hearing his voice so long sends my nerves into a frenzy as I kick off and leap into the air, gripping my blade with two hands as I raise it over my head. I come down on him with the force of both my leap and my overhead swing, but in that small moment, his sword has found its way into his right hand, a simple left-right horizontal swing blocking my vertical leap, the impact throwing me like a rag doll down a small crystal-lined path to his right. My sword is forced from my hands from the impact, and I can hear it clang against the ground and skid to a stop nearby as my body begins to cry out in pain, like I've been hit by a truck. "Dusk!" Trixie slips out from under Celestia's wings and I hear her hooffalls down the path I've just finished unceremoniously traveling. "Dusk, are you alright?!" Her hoof rests on my shoulder and quickly rolls me from my side onto my back. "Never better..." I reply as I slowly pull myself up into a sitting position and shake my head to try and clear that rollercoaster of an experience from it. "Is that all?" The man asks mockingly, all the nonchalantness now replaced by a mix of malice and amusement. "I was expecting a bit more from someone who has the nerve to go around and call himself 'Cloud Strife'. Looks like reproductions really do fail to measure up." "What the hell are you talking about?" I ask with a pained groan as I get unsteadily to my feet, Trixie using her magic to scoop my sword up from where it fell and pull it back to my hand. He simply ignores my question. "After all this trouble you've caused me, I'd hoped you'd be a bit more sport." His eyes leave me, and sweep over the others. "I suppose I'll need to get a bit creative to get some satisfaction out of this." Sensing his intent, Celestia moves from her current place to blocking the pathway where myself and Trixie are in a single, fluid motion, Twilight by her side the entire time. "Consider your options carefully if you wish to threaten my subjects, creature." This seems to merely make the man's eyes glint in excitement. "Maybe this will be entertaining, after all." The man enters a fighting stance, his body shifted to one side, gripping his sword with both hands as he holds it level with his head, the blade pointed at us. "Though, it's just like you to hide behind women, isn't it, 'Cloud'?" I grip my sword as well, but stumble slightly as I take my own fighting stance, my body still reeling slightly from the previous impact. The reminder of my first attempt is the only thing stopping me from lunging at him a second time. I lock eyes with him, steadying myself as best I can. "Are you done talking?" "I've just got one more question for you, 'Cloud'." He states with a single, sinister laugh. "Which pretty little pony do you think will scream the loudest when I cleave it in two?"