• Published 18th Jul 2016
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Jacob was just an ordinary student the year the whole world changed. It started with the powers, powers that seemed to be spreading. Can he get to the bottom of this mystery and take back his life before there's nothing left to save?

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Chapter 13

Jacob made his way into the office alone, waving one last goodbye to Harley as she called that she would be “waiting outside.” It was a fairly large space, with one massive window facing into the portal room. Mirrored glass, though he had seen only the reflection from that side.

There was a table by the window, and two chairs, though the room's only occupant was behind her desk. He saw dark mahogany, polished glass surfaces and several fancy computer displays. The shelves held more than books, though his eyes had trouble looking closely at any of the objects there. He thought he had seen a few from some of the episodes, though.

Sunset Shimmer looked very much as he had expected. A little older than Twilight had been, though not by much. Bright hair, pale skin, and even brighter eyes. She had ditched the leather for something more formal. What she wore looked like a fancy navel uniform of sorts, with medals and ribbons and even a little band of metal around her ears. They called her the Regent. Guess the show must not have done a good job with her.

"You must be Jacob?" She pushed a manilla envelope away from her on the desk, then rose and offered her hand. "Congratulations on your Cutie Mark. I'm told the tailor will be done with your new garments by tomorrow. It's an important day for you."

Jacob took the offered hand with as much amusement as shyness, not meeting her eyes. As the other ponies he had met, she didn't sound anything like the voice actor who portrayed her, though she seemed to have some of the same intonations. Her appearance, while not exactly the same, was immediately obvious even without the sun Mark sewn over her breast. "Harley seemed to think so." His tone was flat, neither submissive nor angry. Unlike Harley, this pony really was involved in the decisions that had unraveled his life. How closely, he didn't know yet. "I'm surprised you're not a pony. You have ponies outside..."

"Sit." She took her own chair again, and he obeyed. "Does wearing this mask change what I am underneath?"

"No."

"No," she agreed. She pushed something towards him, a little green scrap of cloth. There was a medal on it.

Jacob lifted it off the table, feeling its unusual weight. The medal ended with a red and white ribbon at the bottom, and was set with Cadance's heart Mark. "What's this?"

"Only citizens of Equestria can be granted recognition for their acts. Reports of your behavior made it to me, but we had to wait. It's recognition for the heroism you demonstrated getting your friends to safety, and saving mine."

The medal itself looked silver, though it was a kind of silver he had never seen in person before. White gold, maybe? Or platinum... It sparkled like something more valuable than tungsten, that was for sure. "Your ponies were saving my life, and the lives of my friends, weren't they? Of course I was going to help in return."

"Everypony says that. But when our world crumbles and everything we knew is taken away from us, many break down. We become afraid, or angry. If Twilight told me the truth before she left, you did not do either. That's—"

He interrupted. "Don't take this the wrong way, Miss Sunset, but isn't Twilight a princess? I don't really understand much about ponies, but..."

She didn't look upset. "They all ask that. Twilight is a princess in Equestria, and so her position is valuable and her work important. But ever since I got the mirror working, I have been more involved with your civilization than anypony. Twilight wouldn't want my position—and neither would any of you refugees. Believe me, it sucks."

"Your movies kinda sucked."

She laughed, and the illusion of dignity was broken. "My influence on the corporation had been slipping for a long time by then. It's a long and interesting story, but not one for today." She cleared her throat. "Did Harley tell you what getting your Cutie Mark means?"

"It's important," he answered. "She always seemed to think it was important. Gave us... more rights or something. She said I could leave once I got it, if I wanted to..."

"And she was right. Though... a little more forthright than I might've been." She rose, walking past him towards the portal in the window. She didn't turn around. "Reaching this point in your development so soon is rare Jacob, so forgive me if some of this doesn't make sense. Most refugees do not arrive here so traumatically, so they usually develop more slowly."

"I... okay." He got up, following her. Standing, he was about an inch taller than Sunset, though he didn't get nearly close enough to be sure.

"Discovering your Cutie Mark is more than it ever was in the television show you've been following. It is your proof of adulthood, proof of citizenship... most importantly, it is proof that magic has accepted you."

"You're right." He followed her gaze to the mirror, though he could see nothing through it. He hadn't been able to see anything last time, yet through the fruit had come. "I don't understand."

"I'm sorry if this is traumatic." Sunset had a wand in her hand, so fast he hadn't even seen her fingers move. Like most wands, it was shorter than his own, a little stubbier. It still glowed, a flash of green so bright he had to cover his eyes.

The world shifted. Jacob couldn't see hands anymore, couldn't see his clothes or Sunset's or most of the objects in the room for that matter. There was a pony in front of him, made from orange light with a bright sun on her flank. She didn't seem small or cute anymore, but mature, powerful, confident. The kind of pony who could stop an army if she needed to.

Gray transparent walls rose up around him like monoliths, and Jacob himself was so very small. His hands were numb, rough stone touching four very not-hands. He wasn't holding a wand anymore, because he didn't need it. He had his own.

Sunset's voice echoed strangely in the space, yet it didn't sound pitch-shifted up the way the guards outside had sounded. "When those we save grow far enough to acquire Cutie Marks of their own, we teach them this difficult truth." She gestured, and one of the walls suddenly wasn't there. Instead there was a shimmering outline of green light, making room for them. Somehow, Jacob knew how to follow, and follow he did. Through the wall into the portal room, where plain glass had changed too.

While all the machines around it, all the conveyors waiting in the floor and machine-gun turrets folded aside in storage, all of those were transparent, the mirror itself was clear and solid. Instead of glass, Jacob saw straight through to the other side, to the sun and green grass and sweet-smelling flowers. "The difficult truth is this, Jacob. You have already seen magic enough to change the rest of the way. So far as anyone is concerned, you aren't human anymore."

He whimpered, though he managed to fight back anything more. "N-no. I don't want..."

"I am Celestia's appointed Regent. No pony of hers will be forced into fighting a war, even if their hooves are badly needed." They were right beside the portal. Had they even walked there? She gestured, and her hoof passed through the edge, lighting up with an alien sunlight. "You may go now, and leave us to fight for you. Or... you can stay." She walked down the ramp again, back towards the office. The wall was still missing. She stopped after only a few steps, though. "Stay with us, and you may die. You will be required to take up your wand to fight for your fellow ponies. If you stay, you aren't a refugee, but a citizen. A soldier."

Jacob took one last look at the golden grass, smelling the sweet scent of the flowers that came from beyond. Somehow he knew that if he walked through that door, nopony on the other side would judge him. He had already saved his fair share of lives, or at least helped. He could go and... if not get his life back, at least get another life worth living over there.

Then he remembered Michelle, a sister he might never see again. She might be his only living family, but so far as Jacob was concerned, that was enough. To say nothing of the other life he had left, the years he had already invested into school, and the career he had wanted to do. Did Equestria need human architects?

He turned away. "I don't want to go... but I don't want to hurt anyone, either. I might not make a very good soldier."

"Most of us don't." He followed Sunset back into the office. "You did very well already. If you thought magic was useful before, imagine how effective you will become once you actually learn it. Princess Twilight has gone back to Equestria, but there's still a war. The ponies here could use another doctor."

"Yes." He nodded, and with that his decision was made. "I'm staying."

Something flashed, and all the world returned to normal. Jacob found the furniture had shrunk back down to the height he expected. The window into the portal room was intact, and his clothes were right where he expected them to be. Sunset too had returned to her human body, showing no sign that anything had just happened.

"Welcome to your princess's service, Jacob." Instead of shaking his hand, she embraced him. "You won't regret this."

"Uh..." She broke away quickly, for which he was grateful. "What was that, just now? Was I just..."

She nodded. "And still are. Whether you ever look that way permanently is up to you. The rules, I'm sure you already know. If you want to stay human, then stay away from magic. It can..." She blushed, turning away. "Well, sorry about the eyes. It's always a gamble, such a powerful spell... but they make great contacts! You could even order some with your new stipend. I'll, uh... make sure the first month is a few hundred higher than normal."

Jacob turned to face his reflection in the window, but couldn't see much. It didn't hurt, and he wasn't blind. "I get a stipend?"

"Along with new duties." Sunset handed him a thick folder, the same one she had been looking at earlier. "You may remember the losses we suffered bringing in your group. We're accelerating your training. We need you. And your friends too. So if you could help them find their Cutie Marks too, I would be very grateful."

"Yeah," he answered, taking a step back. "Just... before I go, one more thing."

"Yeah?" She sounded more nervous than she had been before.

"I'm sure I'm... wanted on the outside, or presumed dead, or something. I'm sure you'll want to lecture me about how everyone's better off thinking that. Just pretend you gave me that lecture, and then I'm going to ask again: can I get in touch with my family? Harley said you were the only pony to ask about that."

"Well, uh... yes." She took her seat, and didn't meet his eyes. "There's an ID in that folder... it can open the door to the internet cafe downstairs. Just know that we heavily monitor outgoing traffic to keep our location secret. Anything you say won't be private, you can't talk about anything that might be used to find Unity, and if talking to your loved ones puts them in danger, we can't rescue them." She looked sympathetic as she said that last.

"I understand. And all that's fine. I just want my sister to know I'm okay."

And Jacob was careful. He couldn't know how Michelle was doing without some kind of direct communication, anything that might be tracked to him. Yet there were other forms, forms he could be sure would remain well-hidden from whatever government entities might be tracking her. Using his brand new money, Jacob made a new Amazon account, and ordered up several of the worst movies he knew of. Double Down, Samurai Cop 2, and Space Cop were very unlikely to trigger any kind of watch-list or monitoring software he knew of, except perhaps for those with even a modicum of taste.

He and Michelle had never had any of that, though. Watching bad movies had been one of their favorite bonding activities, and those particular titles some of their favorites. Instead of ordering them to wherever he was living—God only knew what country they were in, let alone where—Jacob ordered them delivered to his sister's roommates, and put an Amazon gift-note in asking they actually be given to Michelle instead.

Jacob spread these movies out to once a month, and resolved to make them his way of making sure Michelle knew he was okay. Unfortunately, communication would go only one way, but that would have to do for now. Everyone he talked to had horror stories of what happened to relatives and loved-ones of those who had joined, and those stories usually began with open communication even though they all knew it was a terrible idea. Jacob didn't abandon the idea, he just resolved to consider it a little longer. Until he came up with some way to contact her that wouldn't clue in anyone watching her that she had made contact with him.

He had very little time to think about it, no matter how important it might be to him. Sunset hadn't lied when she said she had moved him forward in his training, because suddenly the empty classrooms where he was told about the dangers of poking eyes out with horns were replaced with a single group always packed into a little basement room, where they learned magical healing from an Equestrian expert in the field.

There were textbooks, printed the size of paperbacks but with obscenely small text, memorization, homework... basically everything he had left behind. Except now he wasn't trying to become an architect. As fascinated as he was by the method the ponies had used to build their fort at the top of a mountain, and the way they locally manipulated weather so it was always veiled in clouds and yet never cold or windy, he knew that wasn't what Celestia's "army" really needed.

That they were at war they were never allowed to forget. The number of people in Unity seemed to be always dwindling—several other small groups came in about their size, and all joined into a single living area for displaced refugees, yet no bigger batches came in. Either they weren't trying to save big clubs worth of people, or... they weren't succeeding. Either way, it was abundantly clear to Jacob that this was not a winning war.

After the first month, Eric got his Cutie Mark, and made the same decision Jacob had. After the third, Danielle still hadn't and she was getting frustrated.

December was a frustrating time all around, really. Harley was sent back to duty, though she had only dark stories to tell from that time and seemed to hang out with the three of them whenever she was "at base." If she had any more successes with rescue, she didn't mention them, and her mood deflated along with the rest of Unity.

Jacob studied magical theory with the same rigor he had ever learned multivariable calculus or CAD. The magic he had wrought on the flight over had been powerful stuff, and maybe had helped to save some lives. Even as circumstances turned him from a student architect to a prospective field-surgeon, he did his best to keep up on what he had been studying back at University. There was the remote chance that he would one day be able to return.

The chances of that seemed more and more remote with each passing day. Though he didn't dare try to log into any of his old accounts, he did do public access reading for the newspapers of Colorado Springs during the time he had been dragged away.

The front page for that Saturday's paper had an image of a burned-out classroom, and the headline "41 Dead in University Lab Explosion." Sure enough, his own name was among the dead, though there was no mention of what club had been meeting at the time, or anything about government involvement. A few weeks later talked about a memorial service on campus, and grief counseling offered to students. And just like that, we've been erased from existence.