Agents of F.R.I.E.N.D.

by PeppyJoe

12. More Than One of Everything

"Even if you're right, we didn't kill anyone. A bunch of unicorns a thousand years ago did. And the 'if' in that sentence is pretty significant."

Minuette shook her head, looking morosely at the Celestial Stone on its pedestal. "I'm sure of it. We might not be personally responsible, but our world is. These ponies have been blaming unicorns for generations, thinking they ruined this world... and they were right. They just didn't have all the details."

"Mini, look at this room. These unicorns were moments away from doing the same thing; it could have just as easily been our world."

The mare sighed, climbing back to her hooves and turning to face Soarin. "It wasn't, though." She trotted up to the Celestial Stone and bent her head forward, resting her horn on its surface.

They both stood there for a while in silence. Eventually, Soarin ventured to speak once more. "Now that we know, what do we do?"

Minuette scraped a hoof against the floor. "I think... maybe I can use the Stone to open a portal. I don't know how, but they're creating a bridge between the universes that's big enough to let magic through. I might be able to widen that bridge enough to let us get home."

The pegasus spread his wings in excitement. "Great! Let's go, then!"

"It'll take a while. This will use a lot of magic, and while our version of the Celestial stone is probably at the bottom of the ocean, I don't want to take any risks on the off-chance that somepony's near it. I should double-check on paper, but if I've figured it all correctly, I'll be able to safely finish the spell in a couple hours."

Soarin grinned widely. "That's nothing! What's that much more when we've already been here a month?" Minuette let a hint of a smile break her otherwise-downtrodden visiage, but said nothing as she turned back to the gem and began cautiously testing its output, making notes on a scroll levitating nearby. Deflating a bit when he saw his friend's foul mood persisting, Soarin deflated a bit and gave a serious nod. "Right. If you're all good to start on that, I'm going to go find New Growth and let him know we'll hopefully be gone soon."

Minuette glanced up. "Alright. Pass along my thanks, if you would. He was a good host."

After taking a longing glance out the windows at the sky, Soaring sighed and started the twenty-seven-story trudge back to the ground. Minuette resumed her testing.

~ ~ ~

Knight could see Griffindor on the horizon now. The ship's crew had finally fixed the engine problems that had stalled her journey so severely, and now they would arrive within a day.

More than a hundred miles away and far below the ocean, a small shard of crystal clear glass began to flicker and glow faintly. As it lit up, so did dozens of others resting on the ocean floor. The light was not even remotely bright enough to be seen by anyone on the surface, even if someone had been around. The only creature that did take note of the change was a small but particularly enterprising fish. It swam up to one of the shards, and after a moment's inspection, decided to ingest it. As it swam away, disappointed in its choice, it began to slow down and promptly died.

~ ~ ~

Soarin decided his best chance of finding their friend was to check the fountain where they had intended to meet later, and began making his way there after leaving the tower. As he walked, he considered how Minuette had reacted to their discovery. It was a terrible thing that had happened, he would concede quite readily, but he found it odd that the mare would take it so personally. He hoped she would be alright after they got home.

He hoped they would get home.

He paused his train of thought as he reached the fountain and saw nopony nearby. "Figures. Hours to go until sundown." Soarin continued past the area, towards other important-looking buildings.

It occurred to him that New Growth would need to lend the two of them their tent and some provisions, given that they would have a long walk even after reaching their world.

After checking several buildings, each of which had indications of already being searched, Soarin spotted a griffin poking through what looked like a bank. He ran up and spoke New Growth's name in their foreign language; the griffin nodded, led Soarin out of the building, and pointed to another down the street.

After finding and inviting the stallion to accompany him, Soarin explained the situation as the pair of them walked back to the southern tower.

"And you can just magic yourselves away now?"

"Pretty much, yeah. i swear, unicorns are deus ex machinas in pony form."

New Growth's pace slowed. "Dayus... Day-"

"Don't worry about it."

They reached the tower soon afterwards. After much climbing, they entered the casting chamber where Minuette remained hard at work.

"Hey, you almost done?"

Minuette sighed. "No. As you can see, I remain hard at work."

"Oh. Okay."

~ ~ ~

Thirty minutes later, Soarin and New Growth returned to the casting chamber after exploring the upper levels of the tower. They had encountered many more interesting things on the floors above than what they had on the ones below, but unfortunately they had no room in their saddlebags for arcane trinkets, ancient tomes, sentient suits of armor, or lava-lamps.

"Now I'm done," Minuette proclaimed as they entered. She stood facing the Stone, her horn still glowing. "It was a bigger pain getting this to work than I had expected. I didn't want to open the portal straight away, of course, because you might not be here. So I needed to drain the magic slowly but constantly, and without putting that magic into the actual spell."

Soarin blinked slowly, trying to keep up. "So what did you do, then?"

"I cast a hollow null-magic field around me, and I've been saturating it with the raw energy I'm siphoning from the Stone. I'm at roughly two megaswirls now." She paused, noticing his expression and explaining further. "A swirl is a measure of magical energy. One swirl is the amount of energy expended to levitate a one gram sphere for one second. But regardless, I have enough energy now and I can cast the spell. Then I'll let it build and we should be able to go through. Are you ready?"

Soarin nodded, shifting the pack on his back. "Ready and rearing; I've got all the supplies we'll need once we're on the other side."

"Good. This is very much a one-way trip unless we recover the other Celestial Stone, I'm afraid." With that said, the glow around Minuette's horn began to grow brighter. After a moment, a distortion began growing around the gem in the center of the room. The unicorn flared her horn once more, releasing the spell, and stepped back as the distortion grew. She turned to Soarin, and grinned for the first time in a while. "Now or never, scaredy-feathers!"

Minuette jumped forward, vanishing the moment she hit the portal. After a second of hesitation, Soarin followed. New Growth watched on with a blend of fascination and fear as the two outsiders returned to their world. Once both were gone, the pony looked at the distortion for a moment more. Once it begin to gradually shrink, he turned and left.

~ ~ ~

Minuette appeared in the air over an empty space, and fell approximately three meters before hitting the rough snow-dusted cobble floor. Soarin appeared in the air over an empty space, and fell approimately two and a half meters before making a landing that one of them would appreciate as being much softer.

Minuette grunted, pushing the pegasus off her and staggering to her hooves. She looked around at a barren storeroom. Glancing up, she saw the roof above her had collapsed, and the remains of the casting chamber was above them. The large glass windows that had lined the walls had long since shattered, exposing the room to the outside elements.

As Soarin stood up too, the unicorn started toward the door. "Come on. Miles to go before we sleep."

~ ~ ~

The portal continued to shrink for several minutes after New Growth was gone, until it was nothing but a small shimmering glint inside the Celestial Stone itself. That shimmer never vanished, though, as magic from the other world trickled in just fast enough to power the spell maintaining the connection. As days passed, that feedback loop grew stronger, leaching more and more magic through the Stone and into the null-magic field that was also maintained by the continued flow of energy.

Days turned to weeks, and the spell persisted. New Growth's group returned to their homes, loaded down with relics and tools. Those weeks became a month, and then one day, the null-magic field reached its breaking point. The massive concentration of magic within the barrier poured out all at once. Some of that energy was consumed as heat, light, and a deafening bang, but the vast majority simply dissipated into the magic-starved environment surrounding the Stone. Some small fraction of that flowed into the cobble floor, and into the walls and the glass and the curtains.

Most of it flowed into the sixteen dead mages, two dead servants, and one dead prince that were collapsed in the room.

And then one of them groaned.

Comments

[nightwalker]

Now that is an interesting note to end things on.

Let's hope this story gets picked up again at some point.