//------------------------------// // Just the Beginning part 1 // Story: This is... // by WatchMeShadow //------------------------------// Earth Ponies Where do I start with Earth ponies? They’re my kin, my race, and what I know most about, well compared to Pegasi and Unicorns at least. Earth pony magic is kind of like a series of complicated living/evolving enchants that’s etched in our body’s. It’s similar to Pegasi but where their magic only affects non-biological things around them, Earth pony magic only affects themselves and other living things. How shall I go about describing the more prevalent Earth pony ‘magics?’ I guess I will go in order from my brief description from the previous page. Strength Earth pony ‘magic’ doesn’t merely give the appearance of strength that Pegasi magic does. Our magic passively strengthens our entire body. When we train our muscles, we become stronger than any other race I know of, well… except full grown dragons. Included in strength is endurance, which is being able to run for a long time and not get tired, and heightened senses which should be pretty self explanatory. Earth ponies were once very capable of surviving pretty much any environment, with few extreme exceptions. That changed when we ‘lost’ most of our life force. We’re only slightly stronger than Pegasi and Unicorns now. Healing Our ability to heal ourselves and others is perhaps one the most notable things we lost. Several perished to diseases as we were now susceptible to them. Luckily the Unicorns and Pegasi had cures for them already, and that saved many lives. Our ability to heal is not an automatic process. It requires an honest vision. I can’t think of any other way to describe it, but without it any attempts to heal oneself or others will be pointless. We weren’t able to grow limbs back but we could accomplish some great feats. It’s a shame we ‘lost’ this, so many lives could be saved. Plant Growth Although healing others and ourselves is pretty up there in importance so was our ability to grow plants. Sure we didn’t lose it completely like we lost our healing, but we did lose a significant amount of that ability. We only grow food somewhat better and faster than the Pegasi and Unicorns. What once took one day to grow a large field of wheat with ten earth ponies now takes about two weeks. This is the closest we came to anything resembling Unicorn magic. That’s the ability to grow plants at will, and to the mind's eye. Life was ours to command. Now we can only do it passively. Our culture, housing, and tactics changed dramatically with the reduction of this one ability. General Earth ponies used to live in pony made ‘forest’ for a lack of a better word. The trees were large enough to fit a family and then some. We had an effective defence with flowers that would constantly pollute the air with an disorientating pollen. We were immune to its effects. We also had flowers that would illuminate the night, I miss those flowers. We had to abandon our world tree during The Great Migration, as even it couldn’t save us from what we now know as a magically induced winter ‘more like ice age’ fueled by several strong negative emotions perpetrated by Windigos. Page 3 The Ponyville library was closed today, even though by all rights it should be open. Anypony coming by to browse the selections of books would surely be disappointed to see a sign on the door stating, ‘Sorry we are Closed! Important Princess business!’ Below that sign was another one that read ‘Contact Spike if you need anything, he’ll be around.’ Inside, Twilight Sparkle sat next to a podium scribbling down the last of her notes. This is after rechecking her translation for the third time. Her hair was rough and ragged. “Finally,” she tiredly said. It wasn’t long ago her unofficial student Sweetie Belle was sent to the hospital from a manticore attack. She felt so hopeless. She didn’t even want to know what Rarity felt like. All she could do was wait and act strong for everypony else. She felt relieved and grateful that Sweetie made a miraculous recovery thanks to Applebloom, her other unofficial student. Growing up and learning everything she could about magic, she knew that shouldn’t have been possible. Healing magic was a pipe dream researchers fruitlessly tried to accomplish for hundreds of years, it was simply too complicated a matter. Yet, Applebloom who’s not even a unicorn managed to do it. She knew where to get answers, and that’s what she'd just did. Translating that journal was anything but fun. Puddinghead, the creator of said journal, didn’t use proper Old Equestrian. Proper Old Equestrian was confusing enough, but Puddinghead ignored some rules and that just made it a headache and a half for somepony like Twilight to deal with. So Twilight sat there, satisfied with her accomplishment. She almost wanted to go to sleep but couldn’t. She had sent Spike out to retrieve Applebloom for her, and they should be here any minute. She needed to inform Applebloom about what she discovered. It’s important. She just got done making notes and copies to send to Celestia while waiting on them. She still couldn’t get over the fact that Applebloom and her friends literally fell into what she is now convinced is one of pony kinds biggest cover-ups. She regretted her decision to not continue translating the blue journal that lay before her. Applebloom could have used the information within to heal Sweetie sooner; then again, maybe not, as ‘honest vision’ is a little too vague and cryptic for her liking. Instead she chose to begin the process of making the CMC into her official students. The idea of teaching her own students like Celestia taught her gave her a nice nostalgic feeling. She wasn’t looking forward to translating more of the journal tomorrow, but this is something she knew she had to get done. With a click, the door opened with Spike and Applebloom walking in, “I’m back!” yelled Spike. “Spike good timing, I just got done making a copy for Prin…” Twilight froze mid sentence, most of her lifetime spent calling her mentor Princess was a hard habit to kick, “for Celestia,” her horn lit up along with a scroll that began to float towards Spike, “could you send this to her?” “I wouldn’t be your number one assistant if I didn’t,” Spike answered taking the scroll. He let loose some fire from his mouth and the scroll seemingly burnt up and the ashes were whisked away together in an nonexistent wind. “Thanks,” Twilight said. “It’s what I do,” he said happily, “speaking of that, I’m gonna get a snack either of you want anything?” Both Applebloom and Twilight answered with a no, “Suit yourselves,” he said as he disappeared into the kitchen. Twilight brought her attention to her guest. She noticed Appleblooms bow tie still had splotches of darker color making it look kind of off, she got up close to get a better look at it, “Applebloom I’m glad you came by. I have something important I need to share with you. Regarding the journal you and your friends found in the cave.” Applebloom was looking at her slightly concerned for some reason, even leaning away, “Um okay, so what’s this about?” Twilight didn’t realize her unkempt hair might have reminded Applebloom of a certain incident. Twilight blinked, after noticing Appleblooms odd behavior, and backed up opting to say nothing about the stained bow tie, “I translated what Puddinghead wrote about Earth ponies. One second…” Twilight quickly levitated her notes to her, “Alright. So if my theory still holds true then you can do some pretty amazing things now,” she said excitedly, “So according to Puddinghead the ability known as ‘Strength’ encompassed everything from well strength, to your visual, olfactory, auditory, gustatory, and tactile perceptions, also to your endurance…” Applebloom looked at Twilight slightly puzzled, “um right, your eyesight, smelling, hearing, tasting, and how you feel things,” Applebloom made the ‘oh’ face of understanding, “Basically meaning you’re Applebloom 2.0 if you’ll forgive the science fiction comparison.” Applebloom hopped in place, “Endurance, huh? Well, now that Ah think about it, Ah haven’t felt exhausted in while,” Applebloom placed a hoof on her chin, “Well not since Ah blacked out thanks to that big ball of magic, and when you had me carry that boulder for a while. Ah guess Ah have noticed some things like that with my senses but Ah never thought about it.” “Yeah, that sounds about right if my theory is correct,” Twilight paused and looked Applebloom in the eye and changed her tone to a more serious one, “Applebloom I have a question I want to ask you, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to but I think it’s important,” as she walked closer to Applebloom. Puddinghead’s description of how healing magic worked for earth ponies wasn’t one Twilight would leave alone. The best way she could think to get a clear answer from Applebloom is by not giving her a chance to think about possibilities. The sooner the better. Applebloom now more relaxed didn’t think much of it, “Alright shoot.” “Applebloom what were…” Twilight sighed, she didn’t like this but it had to be done. She looked Applebloom softly in the eyes, “Sorry, but what were you thinking about when you healed Sweetie?” Applebloom closed her eyes and brought a hoof to her stained bow tie. Twilight made a note of the action. Applebloom brought her hoof back down and opened her eyes, “Ah-Ah was thinking about how Ah was about to lose one of my best friends, and how Ah acted like nothing that serious was happening. Twilight when Ah felt her hoof, Ah knew…” she blinked a couple times, “Ah knew she was going to no longer be with us,” Twilight quickly embraced Applebloom with one of her wings, “it was so cold, Ah’ve never felt so scared in my life.” “Why’s that?” Twilight asked. She knew Applebloom had been through many scary dangerous situations before. “That, that’s something Ah need to talk to Applejack about,” Applebloom hugged Twilight back “Thanks Twilight,” and they separated. Twilight was curious about what Applebloom meant, but didn’t think it her place to do so, “No, thank you. I know it’s a tough subject, and I didn’t tell you why it was important. So let me tell you now. According to Puddinghead healing is something that requires ‘honest vision’ so whatever you felt or realization you came to while holding Sweeties hoof allowed you to…” Twilight felt shock, she had no reason to doubt Appleblooms senses yet, not to mention what the doctor practically told her at the time. Saying it outloud was like a blunt blow to the head, “t-to save her.” “but Ah don’t know how Ah did it,” Applebloom looked down, “Ah wasn’t even trying. Ah was too distraught to think about it. Ah just… Ah just don’t know.” “It’s okay Applebloom, we can always figure it out later,” Twilight said softly trying ignore the numbness of what she has no reason to doubt. “Yeah, later,” Applebloom said harshly. This brought Twilight back to the moment, she didn’t want to dwell on what could have been, “Anyways,” Twilight exclaimed, “That leaves us with one more thing to discuss.” Applebloom perked up, “What’s that?” “Plant growth, or at least that’s what it translates to. According to Puddingheads journal your ability to grow plants is similar to Unicorn magic,” Twilight stated. “how so?” Applebloom questioned. “Well it requires you to actively think about what you want it to do. Take levitation for example,” Twilight levitated a quill in front of them. “What about it?” Applebloom said pointing at the quill. “It requires me to be calm and focused. I’m sure you’ve seen me levitate several objects at once right?” Applebloom nodded and Twilight continued, “well there’s no way I can possibly keep track of all those things,” Twilight smirked, “for example when some fillies piled up a bunch of books and I had to reorganize the entire library,” Applebloom pouted, “well all I’d have to do is look around and remember the basics of my surroundings and it kind of just follows what I vision in my mind's eye. Depending on what I’m levitating or… You know what? I got a better idea, Applebloom how’d you make that impressive Appletree yesterday? That was really nice by the way” “Thanks,” Applebloom put a hoof to her chin, “Well... Ah first thought about a full grown apple tree which isn’t too hard when surrounded by apple trees, then just hit the ground next to it with my hooves while yelling at it to grow in my thoughts and it just pops up like that.” Twilight brought a hoof to her chin, “have you ever tried to make a tree or flower look odd or unique?” “No, Ah don’t think ah have. Just tried to make it what it should be like, or simple thought it to grow if Ah had no clue what it was…” she trailed off, “now that Ah think about it when we visited Zecora, before the incident... Ah showed off my ability to her. Ah mean Ah asked her for a seed to grow and Ah had no clue what it was but I grew it just fine anyways,” Applebloom responded. Twilight levitated a pot and sunflower seed over to them. She planned on growing it at the libraries entrance to make it more welcoming. Even though she closed the library down to get these translations done, it was at most for a couple days. She made sure Applebloom didn’t see the seed and buried it in the soil of the pot, then placed it on the floor. She knew Applebloom would recognize what kind of seed it was and that would ruin her experiment, “hmm that’s interesting, Oh Well,” said nonchalantly, “Anyways, I think you got that part down. Speaking of which I was planning on growing a cactus for the entrance of the library in this pot to make it more welcoming,” Applebloom looked at her oddly, “you think you could grow it for me?” “Certainly!...” Applebloom beamed, then looked at the rather small pot questionly, “Umm, isn’t that a little small for a cactus?” “Oh, not at all,” Twilight waved her hoof in a dispelling manner, “this is one of those small cacti that’re round and have nice pink flowers on them,” “Ohhh,” Applebloom said in understanding, “one of those. Yeah Ah can see that looking good at the entrance. So where’s the seed?” Applebloom questioned. “I already planted it, I was hoping you could speed along the process,” Twilight smiled sheepishly. “Alright then, here goes nothing.” Applebloom brought down her on the edge of the dirt within, with a ‘thud’ as the pot hit the floor it was already resting on. Almost instantly, a small plant sprouted up and bloated into a small round shape well within the confines of the pot. White spikes popped up around it like fine hair, and some leaves that clearly didn’t belong sprouted out on the sides, while a rather large yellow flower sporting a brown center bloomed on top almost covering the whole thing. “Wha… Ah’m sorry Twilight, Ah don’t know-” Applebloom began to say but Twilight interrupted by holding up her hoof. “Applebloom it’s okay, I actually lied to you,” she said with an apologetic smile, “Sorry. It’s true I planned on using that plant for the entrance of the library, but I told you it was a cactus seed when actually it was a sunflower seed, and now it’s whatever that is,” Twilight said pointing to it. Applebloom looked back down at the odd sunflower cactus hybrid, “Oh, Ah get it, that was clever,” she said smiling. “Thanks,” Twilight slowly brought her hoof to one of the plants ‘spikes.’ She felt a little pain and retracted her hoof to find several little hairs piercing her hoof. She levitated them out intrigued that Appleblooms change wasn’t purely as superficial as looks, “well whatever you did to it, affected it quite a bit. Well I guess that’s all I got for now. We will try and figure out that healing ability of yours, I promise you that, but I still got to translate what Puddinghead said about Pegasi and Unicorns so we know what might have changed with your friends.” Applebloom sighed, “Alright Twilight Ah’ll see ya’ll later then, thank you for helping us out,” and left for the door waving goodbye before leaving. Twilight now left alone noticed the absence of a certain assistant of hers. She walked to the kitchen door and opened it to a mess with Spike at the epicenter, distracted with a runaway mixer. Spike yelling at it as he gave chase. She quickly yet quietly closed the door and walked away like she saw nothing, and went back to work with the translation. One headache was more important than the other and she wasn’t about to deal with both. ------------------- Applebloom ------------------- As Applebloom made her way home from Twilights she couldn’t help but think. So many things had happened recently, life changing things. First, the reason why she visited Twilight. She fell down a cave and in the process gained magic and ‘life force,’ as Puddinghead called it in his journal, which gave her some neat abilities. She was beginning to think Scootaloo might have been on to something when she said they gained ‘super powers,’ now that she looks back on everything. She can grow an apple tree almost instantly, no normal pony can do that. Unless they used alchemy, which she still wants learn about. Next, she brings her friends with her to visit Zecora when they asked. Nothing life changing about that right? Well, not until Applebloom got a first row seat to watch Sweetie get mortally wounded by a manticore on the way back. She felt guilty about that, even though she knew no pony was to blame, she couldn’t help but think she could’ve said no to them, and it wouldn’t have happened. Then, while at the hospital she discovered she’s been deluding herself in a false belief, even though she had plenty of reasons to believe it. She believed that life was always going to turn out good. That karma or something traded her parents for a guarantee that things would always work out. Now she knew the truth. She didn’t feel safe, she felt anything but safe. She couldn’t help but worry. So many things happened that could have ended horribly to say the least, she use to foolishly assume that was an impossibility. Then she learned Scootaloo’s an orphan and has been living in their clubhouse. That shattered any tethers she had to her belief, because she tried to argue with herself that things did turn out alright. That Sweetie is healthy and alive, and they all gained superpowers. She so badly wanted to keep believing that lie, even after she decided to keep Sweeties blood stains on the bow tie her parents gave her before they passed away as her ultimate rejection of that belief. She was happy to learn Scootaloo had help from Pinkie Pie of all ponies, but if there ever was such a trade Scootaloo wouldn’t have that problem. She’s been trying to keep it together and stay positive, but it was hard. She needed to talk to Applejack, her meeting with Twilight made that clear. She just couldn’t find the courage to do it. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In a vast desert like landscape where the sun beared-down relentlessly during the day and the night brought only limited comfort from the heat before it got too cold to enjoy. The land was mostly flat but had enough canyons, gullies, ravines, buttes, mesas, and hoodoos that it could be considered otherwise. The layers of color from the outcroppings varied from a red like dried blood, a white like ashen bone, a rough yellow like sandpaper, and a sunburned orange. The ground itself is a flaky tan as if it was made of dying skin festering in the heat of the sun. This is the badlands. There aren't many creatures that inhabit the Badlands, and the ones that do give the creatures of the Everfree Forest a run for their money, like the tree sized, venomous battle snake, the rabid diamond prairie dogs, and so much more. Ponies, griffons, and even minotaurs gave up trying to settle there long ago, but there was however a race that could settle there, and did. The changelings had lived there for nearly twelve thousand years, always on the brink of extinction via starvation. They tried to be forthcoming and explain their situation when they first came to be, but there were complications with some unhinged changelings and they got hunted down as a result. Queen Chrysalis the current ruler of the changelings lived during those days when they were hunted down like monsters, she was too young to remember much; only that she was hungry and her mother did her best. They escaped their way to the badlands and settled in a vast natural cave system, fending off wildlife best they could. Their only source of food was from the surrounding nations. Their survival hinged on their anonymity, for they fed off emotions. They expanded it as time went on but their population never got too big. Nearly one year ago the changelings took a heavy blow that only got worse as time went on. Queen Chrysalis had a plan to take down Canterlot and with it the rest of Equestria would have fallen, guaranteeing a rich food source. She failed and lost a decent amount of her changelings that participated in the attack. They didn’t die during the invasion nor from the harsh landing when they were flung out of Canterlot at high speeds by a shield spell, but by the weakened state the spell left them in and the inhospitable place they were unfortunate to land in. The resulting backlash from Equestria and neighboring nations made it very difficult to collect their food source, as they were no longer anonymous. Chrysalis did have food stored up for just such an event but she never thought it would come and didn’t have enough. Several young changelings were made orphans from the failed conquest. One of the orphans was from Chrysalis’s second in command Sword Mimic and his mate Glass Reflection. Outside of what other species may think, changelings in fact could feel the full range of emotions and Chrysalis was no exception. She took her failure to secure a permanent food source for her kind to heart. She took full responsibility and her first action when she made it back and confirmed who all was lost was to adopt her second in commands daughter Mirror Edge. Fortunately, there were some small towns that word about her kind had not spread to. They were able keep a steady stream of food coming their way. It wasn’t nearly enough however and a huge number of them really were going to starve to death in the next four to six months unless something changed. Chrysalis herself was still recovering from her landing. She spared the love she gained from Shining Armor to those who needed a boost after the landing, it was a sacrifice she would gladly make again. It was a sacrifice because she easily could have used that love to heal herself, a unique changeling trait, but that would have undermined everything she has tried to accomplish for her kind. Mirror Edge was not a fan of Chrysalis. Not by a long shot. The same could be said for most of the hive. The only reason she wasn’t immediately dethroned and exiled was because they all believed in the invasion as well. Everyling knew it was a fluke that sent things into the horrible spiral that they’re currently living. Now Mirror sat next Chrysalis as she did her best to manage the aftermath. “I don’t care if your son doesn’t have energy to run. Be glad he can still walk. NEXT!” Chrysalis shouted from her throne. There was a long line of Changelings lined up to complain about the lack of food all day everyday for the last year. In a way, it was her ultimate punishment to be reminded of her failure on a daily bases and watch her kind slowly wither away. Mirror at this point was use to Chrysalis handing out rejection after rejection. It was still hard for Mirror to watch them all get turned away, "Why?" Mirror asked after the last petitioner left and they were alone. Her voice was a little harsh but mostly mellow and sweet. "Why, what?" Chrysalis responded in an irritated growl. Mirror grew use to Chrysalis's barbed responses over the last year. This was pretty tame compared to when she first came under her care. "Why can't you go out and get food for the hive yourself?" Mirror had been wondering this for a while. She found it odd that Chrysalis would personally see to the invasion last year, but let her subjects try to deal with the aftermath. "I can't," Chrysalis responded sharply. "Why not?" Mirror asked again ignoring Chrysalis's hostile sounding voice. Chysalis sighed, she has been doing this a lot lately, "I need to keep things coordinated, and orderly at times like these and I can't do that if I'm also gathering food. Is there anything else you want to know?" Mirror considered if she wanted to know more. She was left with a devastating reality for someling her age last time she pushed Chrysalis for answers. At the time, she wanted Chrysalis to accept at least one of the petitions made to her; after having had enough and witnessing a particularly emotional petition. Chrysalis kicked everyling out and explained in all the nasty details about how screwed they are. Even so, she still felt Chrysalis should have accepted one or two request a month. Instead Chrysalis only accepted those of dire need. There were not many of those, as everyling knew to go to their equivalent of a hospital if things truly got bad. "No," Mirror responded almost instantly and left for her room, so she could prepare. Mirror never truly got over the death of her parents and wanted to blame Chrysalis but she knew full well they completely supported the invasion. She couldn’t bring herself to blame the Equestrians for defending themselves regardless of how badly she hated them. She became a princess when she got adopted but that was more a title than anything. The only reason she attended court now was because she wanted to be one of the first to hear good news that would solve their situation. It never came in the capacity that they needed, A small town here or there was good but not nearly enough. They lost their ability to harvest from major cities thanks to heightened security. Tonight Mirror has plans to run away and harvest some love for herself to share to her fellow changelings. If she were to have informed nearly any adult changeling about this they could have asked questions that she would have not thought of. She didn’t however, and continued with her plans. First she would get saddle bags and supplies she thought she would need for the trip and then leave during the night. She knew being princess was only a title because of technicality, Chrysalis made that plenty clear, but she might have let it get to her head a little that she was given a responsibility that she needed to live up to. She was well aware that if she told anyling about her plans, they would've made sure she didn’t go anywhere, because she’s too young or some other such nonsense. So with a little creative distraction to the guards outside the entrance she made her way out into the night, headed towards the one direction she knew would have food.