Part 2: Stands and Magic
It was the afternoon and hospital visiting hours were underway. Fluttershy laid in her bed, peacefully enjoying a book on flowers the nurse left her. The nurse thought it might help her relax as Fluttershy seemed constantly agitated over something. At first she didn't have much interest in reading, but her Stand insisted. It didn't speak a word, but it would nudge Fluttershy frequently, urging her to read it.
It was odd. She obtained it only yesterday, yet her Stand seemed to have a will of it's own and even showed concern for her well being, almost like a guardian angel. After multiple attempts, Fluttershy finally caved in and read the book. It was filled with gorgeous photographs of various different plants and where they grew.
The nurse was right, it was quite relaxing, as it eased her anxieties away, but not all of them. The events of last night were still playing in the back of her head. She hadn’t heard from Sunset Shimmer all day and was terribly worried about her. Thankfully, Fluttershy’s injuries were healing nicely, the doctor even told her she could leave once they gave her wound one final check, but she decided to stay and wait for her friends to arrive first.
She continued reading her book, losing herself in the imagery as she imagined lazing in a field of flowers, drifting along with the fragrance of soothing, sensual - “SURPRISE!”
Fluttershy squeaked in terror, holding on to her bed sheets for dear life as her fantasy was destroyed by the piercing sound of a loud party blower.
“What did I JUST say about causing noise in the hospital? You’re disturbing the patients.” Cried a disgruntled doctor.
“Whoops… guess I got a little excited.” The pink, poofy haired, girl apologised.
“Honestly, Pinkie. Can’t you control yourself for more than five seconds?” Asked another, white, curly haired, lady.
“Nope.” Pinkie replied, preparing another party popper.
“Yoink!” Yelled the rainbow haired girl as she snagged the popper before Pinkie properly popped it.
“Hey!”
“Too slow, Pinkie.” She affirmed, juggling the popper in her hand. “Hey, where’s Fluttershy, I thought this was her bed?”
“She’s under the duvet.” The prim and proper lady pointed.
The rainbow girl pulled the bed sheet off to reveal Fluttershy, embarrassed and shaken. “Oh, hello, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie.” She greeted, waving meekly.
“What’re you doing under the covers, silly?” Pinkie asked.
“Oh, you know, just taking a quick nap.”
“You can nap later, it’s friendship time.” Pinkie pulled Fluttershy by her arms, lifting her upright.
“What?”
Rarity sighed and attempted to retain a modecum of normalcy. “What she means, is that we’re here to see you. Is your recovery coming along smoothly?”
“Oh, yes. My waist is much better now. I should be able to leave, just as soon as Applejack arrives.”
Rainbow Dash did a quick scan around the room. “Well, what’s taking her so long? And where’s Sunset? Are we the only ones who showed up?”
“Applejack was here with my parents this morning, she said she’d be back, but I haven’t heard from her for a while now.” Fluttershy grew anxious again, after what happened last night, who knew what was keeping her friend.
Rarity reassured her. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
Right on cue, the door opened with a slam. The girls looked on in confusion as they heard Sunset and Applejack wheezing and grunting as they slowly dragged Bulk’s still unconscious body into the room. Without a word, they continued lugging him past various patients' beds, over to the girls on the other side of the room and propped him up on a chair.
The two of them took a moment to catch their breath.
“Hey, girls, so how’s your morning been?” Sunset gasped, with sweat rolling down her face. The girls simply stared back, unsure of how to respond. “Hey Fluttershy, how’ve you been doing, that wound healing up?”
“Um… yes. Sunset, are you okay?” She replied.
“I am really tired. Is this seat taken?”
“No.”
“Good.” Sunset collapsed onto the chair and slowly sunk into the cushion.
“Are you okay, Applejack?”
“I’m good. I’m used to heavy lifting.”
“So, are you going to tell us why you dragged Mr. Biceps here, or is he just part of the room’s decor now?” Rarity questioned.
“We should probably wake him up, first.” Applejack suggested.
“And how do you propose we do that?”
Applejack grabbed a glass of water from Fluttershy’s tray and splashed it in Bulk’s face. He awoke, batting his hands around his face like a helpless child, while babbling nonsensically until he fully came to. The girls gathered around him, with Sunset and Applejack being particularly upset.
“Oh no…” He lamented “I’m having that dream again.” He quickly looked over himself. “At least I have pants on, this time.”
“You mind telling us why you attacked me, Sunset and Fluttershy… twice.” Applejack demanded.
“I did what now?”
Sunset and Applejack were baffled by such a simplistic and unhelpful answer. They were in no mood for Bulk's shenanigans.
“Last night you assaulted Sunset and Fluttershy with your Stand thingy and then attacked me and Sunset, again, earlier this morning.”
“I did?”
Applejack and Sunset looked at each other, confused. They glanced over at Fluttershy who simply shrugged.
Sunset attempted to clear this baffling dillemma. “Bulk, do you know where you’ve been the past couple of days?”
He took a moment to think. “Now that you mention it... no.”
Sunset covered her face with her hands in frustration while Applejack tugged her hat down. They hit a dead end.
“Pinkie.” Rainbow Dash whispered “Do you know what a Stand is?”
“I think it’s that thing you hang your coat on.”
“Do you think he attacked them with evil coats or something?” Dash sarcastically asked.
“I don’t know, but everyone’s looking at us.”
Dash recoiled in embarrassment only to hear a voice come from behind her.
“Actually, they’re looking at me.”
Behind them stood Equestria's own, Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle, carrying with her a big book of magic.
“TWILIGHT!” The girls shouted in excitement.
“What did I JUST say about the noise.” Complained the doctor from the other side of the room.
“Sorry…” The girls apologised in unison.
“So, Twilight.” Rarity asked. “What brings you here, from Equestria? Did something happen?”
“Seems like it.” Twilight replied in a serious manner. “Sunset sent me a message, as soon as I saw the word “Stand”, I rushed over as soon as possible.”
“So, you know what's going on?” Sunset urged, desperate for more information.
“I think so. Everything I could find out about Stands, is in this old book from Princess Celestia’s secret library.”
“Secret library? I’ve never heard of any secret library when I was her pupil.”
“Well, it is a secret. She didn’t tell me about it either, but one night, when I was still her student, I found an old room hidden at the back of the Canterlot Library. I was informed that only a handful of ponies were authorised to enter the hidden room, but I was super curious to find out what they were hiding in there, so I snuck in one night and what I found was incredible.” The girls waited with baited breath. “It was filled with tons of old books!”
“Oh.... lame.” Mumbled Rainbow Dash.
Twilight continued her fascinating tale. “It was so thrilling, seeing all those unabridged, unedited, unbelievable tomes and compodiums, untouched for decades, no centuries, even. I was surprised there was enough air in the room with how much dust built up over the centuries. I just darted to the closest book I could find. I was so excited to read about all kinds of secrets that Celestia must be keeping from everypony, I mean why else would she keep it a secret. Although, I didn’t get to read them for very long.”
Twilight suddenly looked dejected.
“Why?” Sunset asked. “Twilight, what happened?”
“I… inhaled some dust and got caught when I went into a sneezing fit.”
The girls gave Twilight varying levels of condescending looks.
“But, anyway, even though I got caught, Celestia, at least let me keep this book. Apparently the information in all those old books are outdated. The whole room was mostly just an archive. A dusty, dusty archive.”
“So, how’s this dusty book going to help us?” Sunset wondered.
“Just because the information is outdated, doesn't mean it isn't still useful, especially when it comes to ancient forms of magic suddenly making a resurgence. This book has reports dating back to over a thousand years ago. A compendium of various magic theories that are no longer relevant for today's standards of magic, but I did remember seeing something in here with details about strange, ghost like figures that were called Stands.”
“Oh, you mean Burly Heart?” In that moment, Bulk’s Stand appeared before the girls.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie were impressed and thought it was the coolest thing ever, even if they could barely make out what exactly it was.
“Good Heavens! What is that beast!?” Rarity, not so much.
“That is a Stand!” Twilight grabbed herself a chair as she explained. “An entirely different way of conjuring magic, allowing you to wield it in it’s most purest and destructive form... depending on the user... Pull up a chair girls, it's story time.”
She opened the book and read aloud the reports:
“In the interest of insuring the public safety of those partaking in these experiments, I have decided to omit the use of names and dates. These experiments were extremely dangerous and most definitely illegal. In fact, it probably wouldn’t be wise to keep a record of these events at all, but the results were simply too fascinating and I refuse to let all my hard work simply vanish.
As is common knowledge, there are three types of Ponies inhabiting Equestria: Unicorns, Pegasi and Earth. However, currently, there is friction between these three factions. Most notably the Unicorns have been deemed by some to have an unfair advantage over the other races. Their power over magic allows them to potentially take over the jobs of Pegasi and Earth Ponies. This seems to give a lot of Unicorns a sense of superiority that the other factions find insufferable. While most Ponies tolerate this behaviour, a small group of us gathered together to discover a way in which we could obtain this magic for ourselves. Personally, at the time, I thought it was nonsense, but as the others argued about how their mastery over the land and skies was far more reliable than unicorn magic, I began to wonder, why?
I proposed the idea that all Ponies were born with magic, but this magic only manifested itself depending on that Ponies talents, which would explain why Pegasi naturally walk on clouds whereas Unicorns needed a specific spell to accomplish the same task. Unicorns themselves were an exception to this rule, they could manipulate magic in any way they pleased so long as they were willing to learn how.
The core of our experiments were built on two simple questions: How do Unicorns manipulate magic and how can we Non-Unicorns use it for ourselves?
In order to figure out how this magic is utilised we needed test subjects. Unfortunately, we couldn't find anypony who was willing so we resorted to other methods. Experimenting on these subjects, we easily deduced that a Unicorn’s distinctive horn was their tool for wielding magic, but what we needed to know was, how? What was so special about it?
After thoroughly examining several subjects we came to the conclusion that the horn wasn't just attached directly to the skull, but extended beyond it as all of our subjects had a sharp, needle like bone that dug into the center of their brain from their horn. The bone was hard as diamond, impossible to move or break with brute force. We examined the skulls of Non-Unicorns to find that this bone was absent. It was only in Unicorns which made it even more probable that this bone could be the key to unlocking our hidden potential.
Since we couldn’t remove the needle from the skulls we instead created an accurate recreation of it, but to keep its existence a secret we added fletchings to the end and referred to it as the “Unicorn Arrow”. We stabbed the arrow into the brains of Non-Unicorns in an attempt to unlock their hidden magic and after a few failures, we eventually discovered the specific part of the head we needed to stab to reach the exact center point of the brain, where our untapped magic was stored.
The results were nothing like we expected. The excess magic, having no horn to control it, manifested itself as a ghost like apparition. Since these magical entities could stand beside their user we dubbed them “Stands”. These Stands came in various shapes and sizes, from appearing as ghostly ponies, to tools, to weapons. There seemed to be no limit. Even their abilities varied greatly from user to user, however this troubled me.
These Stands had incredible potential, their powers could easily surpass that of a Unicorn’s, possibly even the princesses themselves. However, there abilities were too specific to their user, unlike Unicorn magic which could potentially do anything, Stands with great power only appeared with those who needed it, or wanted it. The others either manifested Stands with powers not suitable for combat or were unable to control their power and were rendered, obsolete.
The raw power of these Stands could usher in a new era for Equestria, possibly creating a new race of super magic wielders, but I needed more, I needed the power to ensure our dominance, a way to utilise this magic more effectively, not by wielding one specific power, but any power that I desired. I needed the ultimate Stand. I gathered a group of our strongest stand users and used their abilities to find the most powerful force in Equestria, hidden away in the Princesses' Castle. The Elements of Harmony.
If Stands were made from pure magical energy, then they should be able to utilise the power of the Elements without any issues, but I was horribly wrong. The Stand users absorbed the Element’s powers and their Stand’s evolved, but their powers became unstable, it seemed even Stands could not forcibly use The Elements of Harmony if they were not chosen to. The Elements of Harmony unleashed an immeasurable amount of power, that began consuming everything.
The raw power of the Elements forced the Stands to evolve at a rate that the user's minds and bodies could not handle. Overwhelmed by blinding light, it felt as if time and space were collapsing around me. This power was beyond comprehension, no mortal being could hope to control it. If it wasn’t for the interference of Princess Celestia and Luna neutralizing the Elements, the distortion would have spread throughout all of Equestria, erasing everything.
Once the Princesses discovered the Stands, it was all over. The castle lay in ruins and the stand users, unable to control their powers, perished. After the incident, the Princesses declared that all Stand users were forbidden from using their powers, those who abused their powers were dealt with and I currently remain in hiding. It won’t be long before I’m discovered and this whole incident is wiped from public memory, but these reports and the Unicorn Arrow will live on. If you wish to unleash your hidden potential, the arrow has been buried in the arctic wasteland, on the outskirts of Equestria, but I hold no responsibility for whatever disasters fall upon you.”
A hush fell over the room as the girls tried to digest the massive information dump they just received.
“Well?” Twilight asked. “Any questions?”
Pinkie raised her hand. “What’s a Stand?”
Twilight groaned in response.
Sunset couldn’t believe somepony would actually go to such insane measures just to become some all powerful being, then again, she almost did the same thing, but at least she didn’t bring the world to the brink of destruction.
She turned to Bulk for more information. “This arrow is how you got your Stand, right Bulk?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember anything about who used it on you?”
Bulk sat back in his chair and thought for a moment, twiddling the small tufts of facial hair on his chin. “Well, I was out jogging a couple of days ago when I was jumped by this weird, shadowy dude. He stabbed me with something and next thing I knew I had this ghost thingy. Then the shadow dude started talking about me being his servant or something and I had no idea what was going, so I wasn’t paying attention, then he got mad and then I blacked out.”
Sunset pondered. That shadowy figure could be anyone, or anything, but the thought that something like that was lurking in her town left her uneasy.
Applejack questioned Bulk next. “Do you know anything about any other Stand users? You said there were others.”
“Well… there’s you.” He pointed out.
“What?” Applejack was dumbfounded. “Not me, dummy. The one’s you were working with.”
Rainbow Dash interjected, jumping up and down, demanding attention. “Wait, Applejack has a Stand? Can I have a Stand? I want a Stand.”
“Not now Dash, the grown-ups are talking.”
Dash folded her arms and pouted.
“Oh, those guys." Bulk suddenly remembered. "Everything about the past couple of days is kind of a blur, but they're out there. I think there’s five of them, but I don’t know.”
The girls sighed once again, Bulk just wasn’t able to give any concrete answers. Since she went to all the trouble of coming here, Sunset asked Twilight what she thought of their predicament.
“Well, I think the answer to your problems lie with that Unicorn Arrow.”
“The arrow?” Sunset responded.
“If the past couple of incidents are anything to go by, the only way to fight a Stand user is with a Stand your own. You’ll be at a pretty big disadvantage otherwise and if there are multiple Stand users then you’ll need to get as much help as you can.”
“But having a Stand would make you a target. I don’t know if I want to put anyone's life at risk, for my sake.” Sunset felt unsure of herself. She didn’t have the best track record when it came to decision making. There were really only five girls she knew she could trust with such a task, but putting them in danger was the last thing she wanted to do.
She looked over at her friends. They all gave her warm, determined smiles. She didn’t need to ask, they had already decided to take the plunge and fight alongside her, no matter what danger came their way.
“Are you girls sure about this?” Sunset asked.
“A shadowy monster using a magic arrow to give people supernatural powers?” Dash retorted. “Yeah that sounds like our kinda thing.”
With that settled, Twilight took her leave.
“Wait!” Sunset spoke out. “Aren't you gonna stay and help?”
Twilight stopped for a moment. She didn’t feel like this was her fight. “I wish I could, but Equestria still needs me. The Princess of Friendship can’t just take a leave of absence to fight evil in some other world, when there's so much work to do back home.”
Sunset was disappointed.
“You'll be fine, Sunset. I couldn't think of a better person to trust this problem with than you. After all, I hear you’ve become an expert at handling 'magical incidents'.”
Twilight's words helped Sunset psyche herself up. Her town and her friends were under threat by a mysterious new enemy, with even more mysterious, new magic and she wasn't going to allow some supernatural weirdos hurt anyone else. This was no time for moping, she had to be strong. As she grasped the Unicorn Arrow tightly in her hand she assured Twilight that she can get the job done.
"We got this."
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KO awesome chapter, the girls know who to fight to protect the world and will each get their own stand. Can't wait to see what their like and what there abilities.
hmmm wait, didn't the scientist guy said you ahd to be stabbed someplace specific? however here (and, though possibly unrelated, in JoJo canon) the arrow didn't need such precision, considering Fluttershy was stabbed near the waist. You might have something planned for that.
Personally, I would've preferred if Twilight didn't know what a Stand was, leave it as a form of magic native to the human world.
That backstory on the arrow was cool. Really chilling stuff.
Loved this idea of the arrows origin. It would make sense that Earth ponies and Pegasi would try to unlock their magic in such a manner also
That made my laugh may harder than it should have (though if I was in the same room as the Unicorn Arrow I'd probably be acting just like Dash here)
So this is basically like JJBA part 4, Diamond is Unbreakable?
Dio? Diavolo maybe?
Less seriouse than the first story i read so far but this bearly started. Stand is Magic than? O...k...