//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Strangers // Story: Is Brotherly Violence Magic? // by Sanguine Eyes //------------------------------// Everypony's eyes were still wide, their mouth's agape. Had this been a planned attack the 'attackers' surely would not be sitting there in confusion as they were, nor would they be simply not attacking while Celestia was mere inches away. It was the end of the summer sun celebration. After a few dozen alternate cities Celestia and Luna had decided to have it in Canterlot this year. The feast had just began, Celestia in good humor had challenged Pinkie to a cake eating contest, a contest she knew she would both lose and could not afford to be seen actually trying to win. They had just sat down comfortably and everyone was having a grand time. Even the guards smiled happily as they patrolled about. But when the massive cake was set on the main table and Celestia had happily raised the serving knife to it, the cake violently exploded. There on the table simply inches from Celestia's face were two ponies. One earth pony with a long blonde mane strung with braids, large taut muscles under thick weathered skin. He looked like he could simply walk about and headbutt the living daylights out of every guard in Canterlot with ease. The other was a unicorn that had a large bushy red mane with a soft orange coat. Though the most interesting feature was that he had only one eye, and not that he lost it but it looked like it just never existed to begin with. There was no eye socket, there was no eyebrow, there was not even a bump or anything. Just a smooth piece of skin over where his right eye should have been. The blonde maned one stared down at Celestia with wide shocked eyes then his hooves came up for him to see as if he had never seen his own hooves before in his life. Silently even as everypony stared on in confusion he continued to look at the hooves, then his left eye twitched. Slowly his head turned to the left at the one eye'ed pony. Turning with so much built up energy he looked like he was going to hurt himself or strain something. His twitching eyes narrowed as his teeth grit and every muscle in his body tensed. The one eye'ed pony slowly turned at the same time looking at the other pony. His ears flopped back and a nervous smile tried to form on his face as he began to speak. But he was drowned out by the deafening roar from the blonde maned pony. "I WILL FUCKING MURDER YOU!!!" He pounced and plowed into the one eye'ed pony smashing his hooves into his face. The guards instantly rushed in to try and break it up. "FUCKING PONIES MAGNUS?... FUCKING PONIES? EVEN IF I DON'T KILL YOU... BLAARRRRG!!!! I DON'T CARE WHAT FATHER SAYS, YOU ARE FUCKING DEAD!!!!" With some relative surprise the first guard who clobbered the rampaging pony was uprooted and chucked across the room with what looked like no effort at all. The angry pony turned back to the downed one eye'ed pony who quickly teleported behind Celestia. But he began to run, bolting through the doors, the way his head whipped back and forth made it clear to the wise and honed eye, he truly had no idea where he was, he came here by accident. The violent one roared and charged after the fleeing pony only to be uprooted in a glow of golden magic. He roared and thrashed about. "GET YOUR FILTHY MAGIC OFF ME YOU FILTHY FUCKING XENO!" Twilight gave Celestia a quick glance and gestured at the door which the other pony had fled. Celestia gave a firm nod and Twilight, accompanied by a fair amount of guards charged after the other fleeing pony. Celestia turned the wrathful equine about in her magical grip inspecting his flank. His cutie mark was a sword crossed with an axe in front of a shield. Magically seeking deeper within the pony she could feel the natural magic that was inside all ponies. The enhanced strength and connection to the earth found in earth ponies was easily ten times that of a normal earth pony. There was something even more odd about this one, and she could easily feel a very powerful magic holding even more of this same natural power back. She spared a glance back at the door as more guards moved in hoping to form a plan to get this pony under control. "Be careful Twilight.... these ponies are not what they seem..." Twilight's magic lead her to paths that the guards did not so easily follow. Popping back and forth she followed what seemed almost like an intentional flare of magic. She could easily pick it out like bread crumbs being left behind by the one eye'ed pony. It confused her a great deal. If he was trying to get away then why did he leave such and obvious trail? She could feel him teleport just to beyond the wall. She followed suit and almost regretted it as much as the pony she was following. It was a sheer drop off, they had teleported outside of a tower. Twilight easily spread her wings and her eyes tried to pick the mop of red mane and orange coat out of the cold evening air up in Canterlot. She saw him too late. He had fallen what was clearly a lethal distance and crushed some crates below him. She quickly moved in from above hoping to save his life with anything she could conjure up. It was over a two hundred foot drop. Her hooves touched down and she nearly jumped out of her skin in fright as a loud voice rang out. "OW!.... damned crates... well... I think no one is going to be eating that fruit... oh bother... why did he have to mess up my focus, can't he get it through his thick skull that the warp is not some petty physical thing you just drop on command?... now I'm stuck here... father will kill me if I can't get Russ back with me..." He paused and glanced behind him at Twilight. "Oh..... um... hi... Can you understand me?... I mean I can't Imagine you could but here's hoping... the spell I cast when we were coming here was supposed to suppress our physical presence and make it easier for us to blend in... Sort of a merging spell... but it looks like this plain of existence already has something close to that which effected us upon entry... you ... um...well to say..." He fumbled awkwardly with his hooves trying to speak in a manner that felt comfortable. "Stop!..." Twilight shook her head, she did not expect this behavior nor the odd rambling. "If you are not here to cause harm to anypony then you don't need to run... let me just get a look at your injuries and we will go back..." He stepped back and looked over Twilight once somewhat amused that she spoke his language and a little put off by her words. "I... um.. I am not really injured... but... I warn you, I am quite powerful, I will fight back if this is some ploy to lure me in... I am NOT weak and I am not one to be manipulated..." "Not weak says the pony who just got his plot handed to him by an earth pony in front of 200+ other ponies..." "That was Russ... I can't win in a fight against Russ, and even if I could father would never forgive me if I went all out on him, magic is not some toy you can whip about in fights without hurting someone...or worse." He backed up a little more. "Look, We came here by accident, I just need a place to recheck my spells and maybe study up a little, feel this out until I can find out exactly where in the warp I was thrown. Then I can take me and my brother back home, the only other option could hurt your world." Twilight's eyes narrowed at him but she sighed. "Fine, I will speak on your behalf to Princess Celestia, now come on. Just follow me and don't try anything funny...We will get to the bottom of all this." He happily nodded and cautiously followed a few steps behind her. She took the chance to sneak a peak at his flank and noticed a red sun as his cutie mark, four small straight rays and four larger wavy rays protruding from the round red circle. "How are you not hurt from that fall?" He let off a light smile. "Oh a fall like that is nothing to me or for that matter, anyone even close to me. What really sucked was landing on crates, twists my joints up really bad...Not damaging, but painful" "I... um.. see... I think" Twilight tried to make sense of it but put it off until she could hear what Celestia had to say. Twelve guards limping and bruised applied ice packs and bandages to each other as Luna sighed and shook her head. All the guests had been escorted out and everpony present did their best to subdue the single earth pony. Those who were not thrown into walls like they were made from feathers were head butted and bucked into the same walls. In the end Celestia simply held him still in the air with her magic and Luna conjured a cage around him. Though again, this failed as he bucked the magical cage to pieces and Luna tried again, only using marble from the floor and walls to create the cage. He broke that one too, screaming and cursing away, suspended in the air thrashing about until somepony brought in extremely heavy duty materials for a heavier cage which finally he could not instantly break out of. The steel bars bent violently with each buck but reformed near instantly through Luna's magical imprisonment seals. "Why didn't you just put him to sleep or something?" A guard fresh on the scene looked over at Luna and Celestia. "Your foul Psyker powers are no match for the Wolf King of Fenris you filthy milksops! And once I'm free I will eat every last one of you over a spitfire! YOUR WHOLE DAMNED WORLD!! AND THAT FUCK MAGNUS WILL BE NEXT!!!!" He continued to scream and shout even as Luna added a silencing spell over the cage. "He seems rather resistant against spells... extremely in fact...Telekinesis is the only thing that seems to work on him and only by lifting him. He is powerful enough to force his way past our magic if he gets any leverage between our magic and himself. To a point, his physical strength dwarfs the power of even our maximum effort through telekinetic magic." Luna shot a glance back at the raging pony just in time for Twilight to pop back in. "Princess Celestia!... has he hurt anypony?" She looked to the guards who were still awake and the pile of guards that had been near literally used to wipe the walls, thus her question was answered. "Ah... well I um.. caught up with our runner, and hes not a threat from what I can tell. Princess... meet Magnus the Red..." Almost sheepishly the one eye'ed pony stepped in and gave a short bow. He got a quick rundown of who was who on the way back to the room they started in, Introductions were made between Twilight and himself to break the rather awkward silence, extra awkward as more and more guards joined them. He was certain he could take apart anyone present but he did not want to test his luck, they were restraining Russ and if he got loose then it would be a death sentence. He could even see Russ screaming and savagely beating his cage through the sound proof spell. "I am so very sorry your majesty... I am Magnus the Red, and the very unpleasant foul mouthed, foul smelling, ill tempered ignorant furry one over there is my brother, Leman Russ... please for the love of all that is holy do not let him out...." Luna and Celestia gave a quick glance at each other but shook their heads with a chuckle. "We don't plan to...At least not until he calms down. So, do you mind explaining why and how you managed to drop in on us during our celebration?... perhaps where you come from is the first thing we should note." Magnus did not like the prodding questions, but if he could not make his way back to Terra with ease then these lesser magical beings could not do it in a thousand years, there was no real harm in talking a little. "...it is very hard to explain your majesty... you see..." He seemed uncomfortable saying the phrase 'majesty' but used it anyway. Celestia had seen this sort of hesitance before. He had a lot of faith in his own power, perhaps even an ego to him, though the self absorbed pieces were well hidden if they were there at all. "We are from a world called Terra, and we did not come here on purpose. I was just exploring the warp on my own and my brother... ahem... 'interrupted' me while I was doing something very delicate... the resulting burst of magic sucked us both into the warp. Unfortunately I could not pull us both back out, and all I could do is seal away our overpowering presences and hope to blend into wherever we popped out long enough to find our way back. However, my brother does not take so well to change and new or delicate situations as I do..." "Um.. Princess?..." A guard spoke up "I swear to you I have no ill intent or malice in me, I simply wish to take my brother and return to Terra without any further incident" He calmly and confidently gestured to himself as he spoke. "Princess?..." The same guard's voice rang out again with a little bit of distress. "Very well then, for now I have no reason not to believe you, but be warned, I do not take kindly to anypony trying to harm my ponies...." "PRINCESS!!!" Luna and Celestia both whipped about giving a firm shout. "WHAT?" "FUCKING MAGNUS YOU LITTLE SHIT!" His voice hit their ears before the sound of the magical barriers and cage exploding outwards did. "I DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE RUSS!!!" One tan colored earth pony resumed beating the ever loving hell out of the orange unicorn who seemed to just want to run away.