Chapter 28
“Sir, please, you need to try and remain still,” whispered one of Canterlot’s medical professionals into my rapidly twitching ear.
“I’m trying,” I growled through clenched teeth.
Pain coursed through my body in sporadic waves. Nearly every muscle I had clenched and unclenched with barely contained energy. The nearly limitless ocean of magic gifted to me by the spirits I had called, continued to pool within me. Though no longer being amplified by Legion’s rage, their power was still active and seeking an outlet from the tight confines of my altered body.
I folded my legs beneath me in an attempt to sandwich them between me and the hospital bed upon which I lay. I could only groan as more of that energy seeped into my muscles and flexed them against my will. It was as though I were suffering from a whole body cramp. Despite my best efforts, every so often a small amount of magic slipped past my vigil and radiated into the room around me.
With a particularly bad twitch of the muscles around my ribs, causing me to grit my teeth and groan audibly, the entire medical room I was in groaned with me. The large room, although mostly empty, was much larger than any of the common hospital rooms I’d seen earlier. It was a large perfectly square room that rivaled the Red King’s inner chamber for size. Almost every surface was a pristine white marble that practically radiated antiseptic cleanliness. The entire room was lit by a series of lanterns that hung from the ceiling of the room at strategic locations. The grandiose nature of the hospital room gave me the impression that it was the personal room reserved for the princesses, at least, it did before I got there.
The light brown unicorn at my bedside stumbled and nearly fell as the floor beneath him shifted. The tiles of pristine marble flooring surrounding my bed cracked and pitched like ocean waves under my poorly contained power.
“Sir, p-please, calm down!” the doctor sputtered, his horn igniting with light blue energy as he worked to steady himself. “Uhm, Prince Dresden, if you’ll let me I’ll cast a spell to dull some of whatever pain you’re in and force your spasms to stop.”
"I’m not your freaking prince.” I huffed, my power finally, if temporarily, subsiding and allowing me to reign it back under my control. “And please, don’t stop doctoring on my account.”
An odd confused expression briefly flashed across the unicorn’s face before resolving himself back into the “proper” bedside manner most of the doctors I tend to avoid seem to adopt. The unicorn approached me and tapped his glowing horn against my neck, taking care to avoid the billowing red energy that was my mane. From the point he touched, a slight cooling sensation radiated out and across my body, calming my twitching muscles and allowing me to actually rest on my hospital bed. Even then, I could still feel the power I held coursing through my body, searching for an outlet.
“There we go,” the doctor whispered as he backed away from me, clearly comforted by the fact that I wasn’t twitching anymore and that the ground was once again stable. “Now Prince, apart from the, erm, fire, you appear to be in perfect health. There’s no blemishes on your coat, no cuts, no bleeds. I don’t see anything that should be causing you pain or involuntary muscle spasms.”
I ignored him for several seconds and just enjoyed the simple joy that comes from being relieved of pain. Once I regained something resembling a calm mind, a turned my attention back over to the doctor.
“Stop calling me that,” I said in a calm and supremely authoritative tone, as though my words were the next best thing to divine law. “And forget about me. I don’t care about me. What about Twilight?” I rose a little bit on my bed, my neck stretching up so that I was looking down on the doctor. “Where is she? How is she? What are you doing to make her well?” Near the end I was almost growling out the words as though it were the doctor’s fault she was hurt.
The unicorn visibly shrunk under my gaze. His legs bent and he lay down on the floor at my bedside, without once daring to tear his wide shocked eyes from me. Short of curling up into the fetal position, there was no greater sign of complete submission I could have got from him.
Back up on the throttle there, Dresden. He’s just doing his job. Scaring the piss out of him isn’t going to help. Prove to everypony that emitting fire from your head and back doesn’t immediately make you like some kind of demon. Just smile, I mentally berated myself while relaxing ever so slightly back into my bed. Once I lowered my head down to a less oppressive height, I offered the doctor what I hoped was a less aggressive smile.
The unicorn, unconsciously or not, took note of my body language and responded in kind. He stood back up to his usual full height and ran a foreleg over his white doctor’s overcoat to straighten it out. While his demeanor seemed to return to something more or less normal, his eyes still stared at me with a significant amount of uncertainty.
“S-she’s being taken care of sir,” the doctor stammered. “Last I heard, she’s still in surgery. She was taken there as soon as you two arrived over an hour ago.”
“An hour?!” I shot back, my head and neck extending back to my previous full height.
I poured back through my memories of what happened since I left the battlefield. I remembered taking off and flying towards what I knew was Canterlot Castle. I felt sore and exhausted from the mere task of existing in my body and using memories that weren’t mine to fly it. For the entire flight, I switched into autopilot to try and distance my aching mind from it all. I remembered landing somewhere on the castle once I reached it. It was a large rounded platform that was built into the side of the castle, most likely one of those that the Castle’s pegasi guards used to land or take off from. I remembered screaming and howling at the top of my voice for help, then there was just pain. The consequences of my actions seemed to have caught up with me and I collapsed next to Twilight on that platform. Everything since was just a massive blur of random faces swarming over us and several ponies shouting.
The doctor shifted a little closer and leaned in to study my face. “Yes sir, an hour. Do you not remember? Do you know what you did to get how you are now?” he said and gestured to my quasi-alicorn form.
“What about Luna?!” I immediately shouted, ignoring his request completely as a fair amount of panic gripped my heart. “Where is she? She said she’d help her! She told me to bring her here!”
“Calm down, calm down, Mr. Dresden,” the doctor whispered in the soft calming voice parents use with upset children, and waved a hoof in a corresponding gesture. “She arrived twenty minutes after you did. I met with her myself. She went up to her room, and then went straight down to Twilight. Ms. Twilight is perfectly fine. If anypony can help her, it’s Princess Luna.” The doctor backed away slightly and began studying me more thoroughly. “You should focus more on yourself, Mr. Dresden. Now, like I said before, you’ve been exhibiting constant pain with no apparent cause, and loss of muscle control. Depending on whatever you’ve done, there could be many possible-“
The doctor’s rambling turned into white noise as I laid back down into my hospital bed. My head hit my pillow and I just reveled in the simple joy of finally getting some good news for a change.
We won. I inwardly thought as a smile spread over my muzzle. Celestia’s safe, the Red King’s dead, and Twilight’s going to be okay. We actually won.
As if only to sour my mood, the latent energy that had been getting its jollies tearing through my muscles, instead turned inward now that my body was forced into relaxation by the doctor’s spell. A sudden rush of lightheadedness washed over me, similar to the head rush you get from suddenly standing up. To go along with the sudden unease, phantom noises began ringing in my ears. It was unclear at first, but after a few seconds of careful consideration and continued ignoring of the doctor, the source became much clearer. They were whispers, muted and only barely recognizable as such, but undeniable voices coming from thin air.
The unease grew as my restless power awoke more of my slumbering spirits. Multiple voices, some male others female, began whispering to me. There were far too many talking at once that any attempt to make out a single voice was futile. After a few seconds, the volume of whispers held even at around being stuck in a semi-large crowd, a much smaller number than what I knew was housed within me. Curiously enough though, none of the awakened spirits sought to regain control over the body they inhabited. Instead, they just whispered, and whispered, and whispered.
“Shut up,” I groaned out loud and brought my forelegs up to cover my ears in a futile attempt to drown them out. “For the love of all things holy, shut up.”
“Sir?” the doctor at my bedside offered in a slightly hurt tone. “I was just discussing possible methods of treatment.”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I added as I buried my head under the admittedly sizeable pillow on my bed. I guess being in a royal suite at a hospital has its perks.
“Not me?” the doctor mumbled out loud, his face pulling a puzzled expression before I dove under my pillow. “What do you mean not me? Mr. Dresden, are you hearing voices? If you are, you could have some form of brain damage. Do you know where you are, sir?”
“His mind is fine, Doctor Redheart. It’s just a little overcrowded at the moment,” offered a kind feminine voice that I knew all too well.
My head shot up and immediately pivoted around to face the new figure that stood in my doorway, causing my pillow to fly off my bed in the process. Celestia casually walked into my hospital room, radiating her usual sense of calming warmth over everything around her. While she wasn’t quite back to a hundred percent, she was looking much better than when I found her in the Red King’s hideaway. Her mane once again flowed smoothly out behind her, and there was almost a complete lack of any physical harm on her body. Only the occasional patch of smudged or disturbed alabaster fur gave evidence of her capture.
“Princess, what are you doing here!?” Doctor Redheart spluttered and hurried over to Celestia. “You shouldn’t be here. You need to be resting in your room.”
Celestia offered the unicorn a warm and understanding smile, but did not retreat an inch.
“I am perfectly fine, Doctor. I was not subject to extensive physical harm during my capture,” Celestia said while staring directly into the unicorn’s eyes. “I will not rest uselessly in my hospital bed while I can still do some good."
Doctor Redheart nodded slowly without breaking eye contact with her “Yes, your Highness, but still, you must be exhausted. You should-“
“I may not be at peak condition, but my connection to the sun has given me more than enough strength to operate as I see fit. Until such time as I say otherwise, Mr. Dresden is under my care,” Celestia snapped at the doctor, completely cutting him off. “I would like for you to go and watch over my student, Twilight Sparkle. As soon as my sister and her team are finished with her, you are to bring her here to me. Understood?”
The unicorn doctor bowed low to the ground and offered a single, “Of course, Princess”, before he galloped from the room to carry out his orders. Celestia’s eyes traced the retreating pony across the room, and as soon the door closed shut behind his brown tail, she let out an exhausted sigh and quite suddenly slumped out of her prim and proper poise. She leaned back to sit on her haunches and dipped her head low as she chuckled under her breath.
“Bless his heart. He’s a superb medical doctor, but understands very little about magical maladies.” Celestia shifted her gaze back over to me and offered a weary smile. “I believe he has a daughter working in the Ponyville hospital. I’ve received a few reports from her about some of my student’s more, hazardous activities.”
"Not that I don’t appreciate you sending another doctor to watch over Twilight, but what are you doing here? I don’t care how powerful you are, you don’t just get up and trot around after what you’ve been through. Heck, you’re sporting a pair of raccoon eyes that humbles even me,” I commented and waved a hoof at Celestia’s dulled eyes. Though I paused partway through my gesture, my hoof hovering over the bed sheets, as her words finally registered. “And what do you mean magical maladies?”
Celestia tossed her head back and let out a short laugh before she heaved herself back up to her hooves. “Well, that may be because the late Red King didn’t let me get any form of rest since the moment I was captured. An old technique, true, but an effective one.”
“All the more reason for you to be resting in your own bed, and not caring for the idiot that rescued you.” A certain tightness spread over the muscles of my neck, so I laid my head back down onto my now pillow-less mattress. “And you’ve haven’t answered my questions.”
Celestia sat down at my bedside and ignited her horn in her trademark light aura, all the while giving me her same motherly smile. “You are not the only one who can operate off of hunches and half formed ideas, Dresden. Before I say anything else though, I need to confirm my suspicions. Please hold still.”
At her last words, Celestia’s golden aura enveloped my head and a deeply warming sensation radiated over my entire being. It was like I was suddenly relaxing on a beach under a bright sun, only without the risk of sunburn. Then, as suddenly as it came on, proper sensations returned to my muscles, and with them, all of my excess magic. All four of my legs immediately cramped and pulled up against my barrel. The muscles around my neck and ribs tensed and relaxed uncontrollably. Pained gasps and grunts escaped from my maw as I twitched helplessly on my bed. The sole upside to the whole experience was that the multitude of voices sounding off in my head died down to a barely audible breeze in the background of my mind.
“I’m sorry, Dresden. Just one moment longer,” Celestia hurriedly said into my rapidly twitching ear. Her voice was one of worried tension, as though she had not expected the reaction my body gave her.
Before long, another wave of warmth cascaded down my body and dulled the pain back down to near nonexistent. My muscles ceased to betray me and calmed down as my excess energy was forced from its destructive path.
“Hells bells!” I shouted once I regained control over my jaw. “What was that for?!”
Celestia leaned back a little and straightened her neck as she looked down over my altered form. The look upon her face as she inspected me was a very odd mix of sorrow, understanding, and even joy. It would have been an odd expression on a normal pony; on Celestia, it was a near unique experience.
“I apologize, Mr. Dresden, but I had to temporarily dispel the doctor’s muscle relaxant in order to get an undistorted view.” Celestia hung her head a little at her own words. “I did of course reapply my own version as soon as I was done.”
“Done with what?” I responded, trying very hard to bite back the venom that was trying to inject itself in my tone. “So far, you’ve been doing your best to avoid giving me a straight answer.”
Celestia’s smile brightened a bit as she stood up from the floor and beamed at me. “Only because I’d prefer not to repeat myself.” She craned her head around to glance over at the door to my hospital room and shouted, “Come in everypony!”
Opposite of us, the large wooden entrance to my room suddenly flung itself open, and a small parade of multicolored ponies funneled in. Applejack lead the way through the newly opened doorway, no longer in her heavy plate barding, her orange coat and straw blonde mane reflected Celestia’s natural aura slightly. Immediately behind her followed, Pinkie, Rarity, and Michael, all of which entered the room without their respective battle equipment; save for Michael, who still bore Amorracious proudly in the custom sling along his side. Pulling up the rear was one of the hospital’s mobile beds, upon which Rainbow was stretched out, and was being pushed by a very flustered looking Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash was fully conscious and looking around the room from her mobile, although was heavily bandaged from head to tail by thick linen cloth bandages. The rest of the ponies were left largely unharmed; only the occasional nasty bruise or cut marred the ponies’ otherwise intact hides.
The instant each pony stepped through the doorway, their wide eyes snapped over and locked onto me. Many astonished faces studied every inch of my new form from my increased size, to the billowing wing constructs on my back. The group of friends seemed to be at a complete loss for words; even Michael stared at me as though he were trying to process something he couldn’t quite wrap his head around. The sole exception to the stunned silence was, of course, Pinkie.
“Hello Harry!” Pinkie cried out in excitement and bounced towards me. “You look amazing! I saw you flying around earlier over the battle… Well I didn’t really know it was you, but then who else uses as much fire as you do? Anyway you flew around, which was awesome, and beat back all those meanie vampires and saved the day!”
At the very end of Pinkie’s longwinded and breathless introduction, she nearly tackled me on my bed in her unique form of a hug. Her head and neck ducked underneath my chin, her poofy cotton candy mane threatening to tickle my nose, and her forelegs wrapped around my neck to complete the embrace. I felt the subtle shifting of energy as Pinkie’s hooves sunk into the billowing cloud of red and orange that was my mane.
A very brief pang of fear hit my heart as I felt Pinkie’s intrusion and memories of the massive burns my mere proximity gave to the Red King, but my fears were unwarranted. Instead of the shouts I had expected, Pinkie snorted and began giggling excitedly. She quickly extricated herself from her embrace, leaned back, and began playing with the heatless flames that sat on my head.
“Hahaheheh. Your mane’s warm,” Pinkie giggled as she sunk most of her right foreleg into my mane.
Celestia just smiled warmly at the spirited quality of my friend’s greeting, and the slack jawed responses of the rest of the ponies in the room. The Princess quickly noticed the perplexed look I gave the pink limb that was diving in and out of the apparent inferno of my mane, without suffering any immediate consequences.
“You needn’t worry, Dresden,” Celestia whispered in a soothing motherly voice. “Your mane and tail have merely been imbued with enough magic to convert them to energy, much like Luna’s mane, or my own.” Celestia’s ethereal rainbow mane flowed upwards into the air to add emphasis, at roughly the same time a muscle over my left ribs spasmed slightly. “It should be able respond to your conscious thought, emotions, or-“
Before Celestia could get her final word out, most of the muscles along my left ribs suddenly tensed with all the might they had. The massive ocean of energy I was poorly handling, apparently indignant about being ignored, flared and forced its way through Celestia’s muscle relaxant spell. My body bent and contorted in a ‘U’ shape with my left side at along the inner bend, and relaxed back as soon as the flare died away. At the same time I contorted, my mane flared up wildly in response to the pain surging through me. Shortly after, Pinkie let out a loud yelp and twitched away from me as fast as she could, cradling a foreleg that bore a significant amount of singed fur.
“Physical stimuli,” Celestia finished lamely and moved closer to reinforce her spell, her horn igniting again with warming sunlight. As she worked Celestia held her head a little higher and spoke with a clear carrying voice, “For the time being at least, I would avoid directly touching Mr. Dresden.”
Several pained grunts and snorts escaped from me as my muscle were forced back into relaxation through magic. My head flopped onto my mattress as I lay prone and tried to wrestle with my own body. My potentially hazardous mane, tail, and wings all faced the wall and warmed the stone therein. The rest of my friends slowly made their way into a semi-circle around Celestia and me.
“You okay, sugarcube?” Applejack asked as she drew near the pink party pony. Pinkie smiled and nodded quickly and tried to rub the singed fur free from her hoof. Applejack then turned her worried gaze back over to me. “What’s wrong with him, Princess?” she asked, her voice filled with an uncertainty that even a horde of vampires couldn’t give her.
“How did you get like this?” Rarity followed up and addressed me directly, an expression more of genuine curiosity rather than worry played across her features.
Celestia opened her mouth to answer the ponies, but instead paused and slowly closed her mouth, her half-formed words dying in her throat. The alabaster alicorn glimpsed back around towards me and offered an uncertain expression similar to Applejack’s. I caught the not-so-subtle meaning almost immediately.
“I called for help,” I spoke up from my position on the bed. “The Red King left behind a lot of vengeful ghosts in his wake.” My thoughts ran a mile a minute as I desperately tried to cast a positive light on essentially desecrating countless dead along with my own body. “I reached out to them for help. What you saw earlier, was ultimately their doing, not mine.”
A silence thick enough to cut with a knife fell across the ponies. Applejack and Rarity both stared at me, their mouths agape in shock. Fluttershy, only just then finishing wheeling Rainbow’s bed against the adjacent wall, averted her gaze and tried to hide her face under her mane. Rainbow and Pinkie, conversely, tilted their heads in unison and gave the exact same confused expressions. Michael moved closer to the head of my bed and leaned in over me slightly.
“You manipulated the souls of the dead to attack your enemies?” Michael muttered under his breath, his voice was a carefully mixed tone of disbelief and accusation.
“Do you honestly think I was the one manipulating them?” I replied back, a stupid toothy grin spreading across my muzzle.
“Dresden, of all the idiotic and foolhardy desperation plans you’ve come up with, this is pushing a line even you try to avoid.” Michael leaned back and a small smile broke through the disapproval to grace his features. “But then again, you wouldn’t be Dresden if you didn’t do something monumentally stupid at least once a year.”
A wide smile broke across my muzzle and a dull chuckle rattled in my throat. “I was only keeping true to the Golden Rule: ‘Treat others as you want to be treated’. A little more literal in this case, true, but it seemed like a good and wholesome plan at the time.”
The uncomfortable tension that had fallen in the room broke as most of the ponies suddenly broke out into laughter. Pinkie led the others and laughed the hardest, naturally. Michael followed Pinkie’s example and added his own booming baritone to Pinkie’s hyperactive giggling. Applejack and Rarity both smiled and gave appreciative, if nervous, laughter. The rest merely smiled and nodded their heads at the new light hearted atmosphere. Fluttershy even came out of hiding from underneath her mane to cast a worried gaze back over me.
“S-so, are they still… inside you?” the shy Pegasus whispered, only barely loud enough to be heard by the rest of the room. “Are they the reason you’re in pain?”
“Yes, on both accounts,” Celestia immediately answered for me. She turned away from the yellow pegasus and resumed inspecting my completely sedated body. “The spirits gave Dresden the strength he needed to defeat the Red King, but without the constant energy expenditure of battle, that energy started building up.” Celestia’s horn ignited again and flowed that energy back into every corner of my body. “Contrary to how he looks, Dresden has not been made into a true alicorn. He does have certain limits, and if I don’t make sure that energy stays separated from his muscles, his body will tear itself apart.”
A sharp pang of ice cold fear stabbed at my heart. It was information I had already more or less pieced together myself, but it never feels good to have your fears spoken aloud. That and the increased whispering inside my head didn’t help my confidence in the least.
“We gotta get them out then!” Rainbow Dash piped up, struggling slightly with her bandages to properly face Celestia. As soon as she started moving, Fluttershy leapt into action and began restraining the injured speedster. After a brief moment, Rainbow gave up struggling and allowed herself to be manipulated back into a prone position on her side. “We can’t just let Dresden die! There’s got to be something we can do to help him.”
Celestia actually smiled and nodded her head at Rainbow’s outburst, although she didn’t dare turn her attention from her work. “That, actually, is already well underway.”
A resounding “What?!” echoed through the room from multiple sources, including at least three mares, one baritone stallion, and one quasi-alicorn that was numb from the neck down. After a brief moment of shocked silence, Applejack was the first to break the sudden silence.
"Princess, what are you talking about?” the orange farmer mare questioned. “Is he or is he not going to be okay?”
“Mr. Dresden is going to be fine, Applejack,” Celestia responded calmly. “It will take a little time, and it will not be pleasant, but he will be restored.”
“Excuse me,” I interjected, “I’m dead from the neck down, I’m hearing at least two dozen different voices in my head right now, and I would like to know why they’re not going to kill me.”
“Because they’re leaving you, Harry,” the Sun Princess responded with that same calming tone a mother gives to her frightened child. “They were wronged and sought vengeance on the being that harmed them. You unified them by their hate, their sorrow, and gave them their final wish.” I glimpsed upward at Celestia, twisting what neck muscles I still had control of, and saw a single tear escaping her left eye as she continued her work over my body. “Now that their vengeance is complete, that unifying desire is gone. I calmed them for a short time, but they are finally drifting off and getting the peaceful rest they deserve. Rest you allowed them to fight for.”
The faint whispering echoing around in my head suddenly increased in volume, as though responding to Celestia’s words. I funneled my attention and my magical senses inwards as far as I could manage, not merely trying to contain the power within, but to analyze it. I immediately came into contact with countless minds and thoughts that weren’t my own, thoughts that clashed with each other as much as they did me. While the overwhelming majority of them were still unconscious, there were several that felt my intrusion and responded.
Their voices grew stronger and clearer to me the longer I listened. I could make out many disjointed words, but they all clashed with one another so severely that no meaningful statement could get through. That being said, I could at least tell that they were no longer aggressive, quite the opposite in fact. A dull and relaxing warmth emanated from the minds I touched and grateful thoughts reached me through that connection. Finally, it wasn’t until I established that contact that I confirmed Celestia’s theory. As I listened to each of the different faint whispers, I felt their connection to me fading. Whispers were fading in volume until they silenced themselves entirely, only to be replaced by new voices and new words. Every few seconds, several of the minds within me severed their connection to me completely and faded from my body, taking with them the power that had changed my body and killed the Red King.
I smiled at the new information and began chuckling under my breath. “Of all the possible ways this could’ve played out…”
“What’s that, Harry?” Rarity asked, peering at me with concern in her eyes.
“She’s right,” I stated and glimpsed up at the alicorn standing over me. “It’s not their fault. They’re grateful for what I did, and they’re leaving me to go do their own thing.” I relaxed back into my bed and let my eyes lose focus. “Whatever that may be.”
Fluttershy, while busily checking Rainbow’s bandages, asked, “So, you’re going to be all right?”
“Yes, he will be,” Celestia answered for me once again. “I just need to make sure that his body doesn’t react too violently to the spirits, and their power, leaving him.” Celestia leaned over a little and looked down on my face as she worked. “Although, Harry, am I correct in assuming that the change to your form was done after your possession and was a very rapid change?”
I frowned deeply at her question and refocused my wandering eyes on her. “Yeah. The whole process took a little over minute or so, and it felt like I was being torn apart and put back together again. Why?”
Celestia blinked and looked away for a brief moment before speaking again, “Because, as the spirits and their power leave you, your form will most likely revert to how it was before.” She took a deep breath to steady herself and get out what she needed to say. “It will also be a very slow process, if the spirits’ rate of dispersal doesn’t change.”
“But I won’t feel it right?” I immediately spat out at the same time an icy touch of fear gripped my heart. “You’ve completely numbed me with your magic, I don’t feel anything right now.”
Celestia shook her head dully, “I’m preventing your magic from feeding back into your muscles, and I’m forcing them to relax. There’s nothing I can do to prevent their power from draining out of your body, and reverting it to its original form. I’m sorry Dresden, but you have a long night ahead of you.”
Oh great, even after the fighting I still get to suffer.
“Well don’t you worry none, Harry,” Applejack spoke up and thumped a foreleg on the bed beside me. “We’ll stick by your side ‘till you’re all better.”
"Yeah!” Pinkie cheered and hopped up and down on the spot. “I could go run and grab the special apple cider again. Make us all feel better!”
Above me, Celestia’s eyes unfocused and she paused in her magic weaving. “So that’s what happened to my stash,” she muttered only barely loud enough for me to hear.
“Hells bells, Pinkie. Just no,” I said to the energetic mare, unable to completely hide my smirk. “The last thing I need is to add a hangover to my list of injuries.” Applejack offered me a smug grin at that. I ignored her and tried to change the subject matter. “Though I could use a story. What happened in the clearing, after I chased after Twilight?”
Michael moved around to stand at the head of my hospital bed and sat down back onto his haunches. “There’s honestly not too much to tell,” he answered, his voice taking on something of a solemn note. “After you and Twilight broke through the Red Court ranks, I tried to chase after you, but they closed the hole you made too quickly for me to follow.”
“After you left, those of us on the ground held the line fairly well; or at least we killed two for every one of us that fell.” Applejack added. “Those vampires learned the hard way that it’s near impossible to break our lines.”
“Meanwhile the pegasi were flying around in a giant disorganized mess among the vampires,” Fluttershy interjected while pressing her hooves to one of Rainbow’s bandages. “Rainbow would you put pressure here please, it’s starting to bleed again.” Fluttershy removed her hooves from the cyan Pegasus as her own forelegs replaced them. “It was insanity, pure chaos and destruction. Fighting Discord was tame by comparison.”
“Whoa,” Rainbow whispered from her mobile hospital bed. “Sorta glad I got knocked out as early as I did then.”
Fluttershy gave Rainbow a small smile and patted her mussed mane. “After tonight, I think we could all use some sleep.”
Rarity sat up a little straighter and looked intently at me, “But just when everything started going bad, and the Red Court had taken control of the sky, you made quite the entrance.” Rarity paused for a moment to take a deep breath. “Before we knew it, there was this alicorn in the sky completely wreathed in fire and was shouting pure rage at anything it saw. It, by which I mean you, started throwing around fire and death on a level I could never have imagined. We know better now of course, but at the time, I thought that the gates of Tartarus had broken open and we were all about to die.”
Rainbow let out a short bark of laughter. “Now I wish I hadn’t been knocked out. That sounds like it would’ve been awesome to see!”
“Fireworks aside,” Michael interjected with a dismissive wave of his foreleg. “After you finished raining devastation down on the Red Court, you flew off into the distance with some other large vampire, the Red King I assume.” Michael gave me a very wide smile that actually seemed to brighten the room by a small amount. “Then, shortly after you two left, a massive wave of energy spread over everything. The entire world shuddered and changed under that power; and then I heard Him again. I feel the calling again, Harry.”
I frowned and furrowed my eyebrows as I tried to process what he had said. It honestly took me several seconds of complete silence before I could not only remember Michael’s chosen profession, but why exactly he couldn’t go wherever his ‘boss’ may have needed him.
“The wards,” I breathlessly uttered as soon as the idea clunked into place. “Michael, are the wards around Equestria gone?”
“Correct, Dresden,” Celestia answered. “The moment the Red King’s horn shattered on that stone floor, every single working he was maintaining disintegrated. His binding spells, the constructs sapping my magic, and his wards sealing shut the Veil, all of them were undone in an instant.”
“There’s nothing forcing me here anymore, Harry.” Michael’s equine face turned upward and a look of deep longing and joy spread over it. “I can see my family again. Lord only knows what kind of mayhem the little ones have been giving Charity.”
It was only at that moment as I looked upon the pure joy of Michael’s face, that I remembered Michael’s exact situation. Michael was a titan and a saint among men and stallions. He would willingly sacrifice himself to safe one insanely stubborn wizard, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have his own wants and desires. While Michael could put on a calm face that could fool the world, I knew he wanted nothing more than to go back home. If I had a family like he did, I would probably move Heaven and Earth to get at them too.
A toothy grin broke across my muzzle and I looked up into Michael’s elated face. “What’re you going to tell your kids, eh? You going to spin an epic yarn about the time you went to a magical land, got turned into a pony, and fought ba-aaaAAAHHHHH!”
Without any form of warning, a sensation I could only describe as my bones exploding, consumed the entirety of my lower body. My hind legs thrashed wildly while enveloped in the complete and mind-numbing pain. The cracking sound of breaking bone met my rapidly twitching ears. The stone wall at my back received a fresh blast of heat as my mane, wings, and tail all exploded in response to the sensations ripping through my body.
“Harry!” shouted several feminine voices from somewhere vaguely in front of me.
Then, as suddenly as it came on, the pain disappeared. I ignored my still twitching muscles and quickly glimpsed down at myself. In the span of a few seconds, the entirety of my hind legs, from my flanks to my hooves, had shrunk back down to their normal size. Other than the fact that my tail was still billowing flame, my lower body had been restored to its previous lanky stallion state. If it weren’t for the fact that it felt like I had been suddenly placed inside a trash compactor, it would’ve been a humorous sight.
“Dresden, are you alright?” Celestia whispered and nudged at me with her muzzle.
“I’m fine,” I croaked out after a few seconds. “Though suddenly, I’m not feeling the love from the ‘thankful’ spirits so much.”
“At least his sense of humor is still intact,” Rarity commented with a quirked eyebrow and a small yawn.
“So long as I’ve known him, it’s been the single constant of his identity,” Michael added.
Celestia sat back up on her haunches and continued carefully pouring her magic over my body. “That’s only step one, unfortunately. You must endure just a little longer.” Celestia craned her neck around to survey the rest of the room and its inhabitants. “I’d like for Dresden to try and get as much rest as possible during the transition. You all have been through a lot as well, and I’m sure that you could use some rest. If you like, I can arrange for each of you to get a room nearby.”
“No thanks, Princess,” Pinkie said cheerfully, while idly getting up and stretching like a cat. “I think I can manage right here. I don’t wanna leave a hurting friend after all.”
At her final word, Pinkie trotted over to the end of my bed and curled up into a giant pink ball on the floor. Sounds of her soft snoring almost immediately filled the room. Pinkie’s, by this point, expected antics elicited a few giggles from the other mares.
“That actually sounds like a good idea,” Applejack added while trying, and failing, to stifle a yawn.
Applejack similarly moved to sit down and curl up next to Celestia beside my bed. Rarity wordlessly yawned and nodded her head in agreement with her friends. She got up and lay herself down on the floor next to Rainbow’s bed. The rainbow-maned pegasus herself was already fast asleep on her bed. Evidently the events of the evening were enough to break down even her hardened reserves. Oddly enough, the only mare not moving to get some sleep was Fluttershy. The shy, yet apparently stubborn, pegasus remained hovering tirelessly over her ward. Michael only smiled and watched proudly over the ponies that he had fought to protect each other.
Celestia returned her gaze back to her work, but tilted her head slightly and spoke out of the corner of her mouth, “Mr. Carpenter, I know you must be eager to return home, but I would ask you to wait for a short time. There’s a matter I wish to discuss with you and Mr. Dresden.”
Michael got up to his hooves and nodded. “Of course. I wouldn’t dare to leave Harry right now anyway. If my wife ever heard I abandoned a friend in a hospital, she’d tan my hide.” He turned and made to move towards the door to my room. “I can stay awake for a while longer. I’ll stand just outside and make sure nopony disturbs you all.”
“Thank you,” Celestia responded just before the door closed behind Michael’s tail. Her message relayed, Celestia looked down at my face and gave me one more calming smile. “You should try to get some sleep as well. I can’t use magic to put you to sleep without potentially undoing my magic holding you together. So just try and relax, Dresden. Hopefully the changes will go more smoothly if you’re unconscious.”
I let out a huge sigh and flopped my head back down onto my bed. “We can only hope.”
It did not.
In short order, exhaustion overcame me and I slipped into a well-deserved sleep to join the mares around me. It was a short-lived rest, within half an hour I awoke again to my left foreleg exploding in pain, then again an hour after that, and an hour after that. For hours I lay there on my bed, being tortured by my own body as it slowly reverted, piece by agonizing piece, back to the form I awoke with back in Twilight’s library. Each change was as painful, and short-lived as the last. Every burst of change forced onto me, flooded my body with adrenaline and got my heart racing a thousand beats per minute. Contrary to Celestia’s hopes, sleep was but a fevered dream that did as much to help me as a light pat on the head.
Celestia had the good grace to sit at my bedside every passing hour and make sure I didn’t implode on myself. Whenever she noticed some part of my body tensing and twitching, signaling an impending change, she mercifully extended her magical grip over my muzzle and clamped it shut. My throat turned hoarse as I shouted and screamed myself silly into her magical grip. Thankfully, my auditory objections to my situation escaped only as dull muffled sounds.
“Mmrghl mmrphm,” I mumbled into the golden aura holding my muzzle closed. My sternum only having just reformed into its proper shape.
Celestia released my muzzle and shook her head slightly to shake away encroaching drowsiness. “Sorry about that. How are you feeling?”
I ignored her and raised my head off my bed to peer around the room. “What time is it?” I croaked in the vague direction of the large alicorn.
“Midmorning,” Celestia responded before leaning in to study my face a little harder. “I rose the sun roughly an hour and a half ago. How are you feeling?”
I gave up on the slightly blurry room and turned my gaze back over myself instead. From where I lay, I looked to be almost entirely restored to the body I had before. My limbs no longer rivaled Celestia’s for length, my barrel had shrunk down back to my usual wiry build, and even my pentagram cutie marks rested neatly on my reformed flanks. The large billowing clouds of heatless flame on my head and the base of my spine had solidified back into disheveled bunches of jet black hair. That change alone took away the majority of the light within my hospital room. The sole feature that still remained were the two great wings of solidified fire jutting out from my back.
“I’m doing fine,” I grunted and sat up on my haunches. I wracked my brain to try and find the remnants of my possessors. I immediately came into contact with several minds apart from my own, but there were far fewer than there were before. “I think most of the spirits are gone. I can’t hear them anymore, but I can still feel some of them.” I craned my head around so that I was looking directly at the wings flapping slightly behind me. “Why are these things still here? Thought they’d be one of the first things to go.”
“I thought they’d be as well.” Celestia’s horn dimmed and went out for the first time that night. As her horn lost its golden glow, the steady flow of warmth she’d been pouring into me ceased. “I wouldn’t worry too much, I’m sure they’ll disperse soon enough. I believe that enough of the spirits have dispersed that you’re no longer in any immediate danger.”
Without Celestia’s magic holding back the different sensations and forcing many of my muscles into relaxation, all kinds of dull aches and pains started making themselves known. I was suddenly and severely overcome with a bone deep weariness that touched every part of my body. It was as though I had just woken up from a month long coma and my muscles had atrophied to the point where lifting a small cup was taxing in itself. Though that wasn’t the most irritating revelation.
A powerful tension stabbed at my back. The points where the fake wings touched on me radiated a constant aching pain. I made a conscious effort to extend my thoughts to the strange constructs and manipulate them. The glowing wings twitched slightly, flapped once, and then stood at full attention on my back.
“Stupid freaking constructs,” I spat at the wings before vanishing them from my mental radar.
“Dresden,” Celestia almost barked, drawing my attention back to her. “Please tell me, how are you feeling? Your body may not be tearing itself apart anymore, but that doesn’t mean damage has not been done.”
I sighed and let my gaze wander around the room. “I’m okay, honestly. I am tired, I feel like I just ran a marathon, there are things on my back trying to burn a hole through me, but other than that I am perfectly fine. I’ve endured worse.”
All around my hospital room, the different mares hadn’t moved an inch from the places where they dropped. Each and every one of them was still curled up and sleeping in their respective corners of the large room. Even Fluttershy, who had apparently met her limits during the night while tending to Rainbow, had not moved from the speedster’s bedside when she dropped into sleep. Thankfully, my muffled screams and shouts had done nothing to disturb any of their sleep.
“That’s good,” Celestia stated and finally stood back to her hooves. “It would seem as though you’re out of the woods then, Dresden.”
Before I could offer any response to the alicorn, the large door to my room suddenly flung itself open and bathed us all in the bright light of the hallway beyond. Through that open door, two more figures entered the room before it closed behind them: one dark colored alicorn, and a unicorn laying prone on a medical gurney.
“Twilight!” I wheezed dully. I immediately began wriggling around in my bed to try and find a way off it without further hurting myself.
“Good morning, sister,” Princess Luna announced as she strolled into the room, magically pushing Twilight’s gurney ahead of her. She paused mid-step once her eyes fell on me, and she pulled backward slightly. “Good morning, Mr. Dresden.”
If I would’ve found her reaction at all odd, I wouldn’t have known as I waged my epic war with my limbs to get at Twilight. After several seconds worthy of a Three Stooges outtake, I managed to work my legs underneath me and worm my way off of my bed. Applejack grumbled something in her sleep as I stepped over her hopping off my mattress. I stumbled a few times on my way over, but soon enough I was standing in the center of the room beside Twilight’s gurney.
Twilight looked about a thousand times better than when I dropped her off, though that’s not a hard statement to make. Twilight lay fast asleep on her mobile bed, actually snoring into it slightly. A set of fresh thick linen bandages were wrapped tightly around her middle, just below her ribs. Her sides rose and fell with nice unlabored breathing.
“She’s going to be perfectly fine,” Luna answered my unspoken question. “One of her lower ribs was broken, and a piece of it got thrashed around enough to cause some pretty bad bleeding. You made good time getting her here. If the doctors hadn’t already started working on her by the time Celestia and I got back, I can’t really say what would’ve happened.” Luna rested a hoof on Twilight’s flank. “She should be coming around any time now.”
I reached up and carefully rubbed a foreleg through Twilight’s silky soft mane, desperate to make sure that the image of a healthy Twilight was in fact real. Satisfied with my grip on reality, I looked up from Twilight to the pony that had saved her. Princess Luna, in stark contrast to Twilight, was a complete and disheveled mess. Her coat, while free of any kind of dirt or contaminant, stood up in random places and was matted down in others. Her mane and tail flowed erratically through the air behind her. Around her long neck, Luna wore an odd set of goggles I’d never seen before like a necklace. Yet, despite it all, she stared down over Twilight with the utmost pride and energetic joy. She gave me the distinct impression of a college student that had just solved some longstanding theory by working on it for three days straight without sleep.
“I told you they would work, sister,” Luna cried to Celestia and raised a hoof to the googles around her neck. “You’re always so hesitant to try anything new.”
Behind me, Celestia let out a low sigh and brought a hoof up to rub at her temple. “I don’t have anything against your tinkering. I just want them to pass a safety inspection before you bring your inventions into an operating room.”
Luna directed her attention back over to me and gave me a wide toothy smile while bouncing the steampunk-esque goggles on her hoof. “I made these in my room. They’re goggles infused with some of my illusion magic. They let me see right through Twilight’s hide and pinpoint the damage without needing to cut her open for exploratory surgery!” she let the goggles thump back against her neck. “And I was only nauseous for fifteen minutes afterward, a major improvement!”
My brow furrowed at Luna’s energetic movements, the whole situation sparking something in the back of my mind. My unease wasn’t caused by Luna’s use of untested devices in Twilight’s surgery, at least not directly, but rather her recent demeanor towards me, and that of Celestia’s as well. It took me a brief second, but I eventually managed to pull together the disparate memories of recent events, and found the common thread that left one massive question hanging in my mind.
“You called me ‘Father’,” I muttered out loud before craning my head to look Celestia directly in the face. “Back in the Red King’s hideaway, when you first saw me after I was transformed, you called me ‘Father’. And you,” I turned back around to face Luna, who had begun to shrink away slightly, “you recognized me in the the skies over the battle, long before Celestia told you who I really was.”
Both Celestia and Luna bit their lips in the exact same manner, and glimpsed uncertainly between each other. For several moments the two communicated wordlessly through that psychic bond close siblings always seem to have, before Celestia finally stepped forward to speak.
“How much do you know about our father, Harry?” the sun princess asked in a carefully level tone.
“Twilight and her brother told me the story,” I said with a small shrug. “He’s supposed to be a god that lived on this world a long time ago. He fell in love with a mare, had you two, and then followed that mare into the afterlife when she died.”
Luna nodded her head as I spoke. “Accurate enough, but one thing the stories never tell, what nopony has ever known, is our father’s appearance.”
Celestia tilted her head upward and her eyes unfocused as she recalled some memory in the deep recesses of her mind. “Our father, the King, is a tall grey alicorn stallion, with a mane, tail, and wings that burn brightly with the very fires of creation itself.”
I craned my neck around to catch a glimpse at the ember wings still standing at attention on my back. My mind immediately began processing the new information as fast as it possibly could, trying to poke a hole in a story that I had no place in.
“How would you know what he looks like?” I responded and turned back around to face the sisters. “The story said the King left Equestria immediately after Luna was born. You would both be too young to remember his appearance.”
Luna bowed her head and looked away from me, as though she were ashamed. “Our dreams,” Luna whispered, “he comes to us in our dreams. Whenever we are lost and need guidance, our father appears to us and guides us.” Luna’s head dipped a little lower. “And tries to warn us against the darker paths of life.”
I sensed the deeper meaning of Luna’s words almost immediately and pulled a massive u-turn, lest I depress the lunar mare. “So, what, the spirits transforming my body the way they did, was just a coincidence?”
“That’s one possibility,” Celestia said with a small smile. “You do have a natural grey coat, and the physical manifestation of their rage could feasibly have turned your mane and tail into flame. But there may be another explanation.” Celestia lowered her eyes to look more intently into my face. “The King is responsible for all life in Equestria, and as such, all life carries with it a small fragment of our father. It could be, that by summoning so many spirits into a single body, you may have actually tapped into the King’s essence.”
“It is just a theory,” Luna stated and lifted her head back up to its usual height. “But for all we know, our father may have actually flown again last night.”
My mouth opened and closed repeatedly as I tried to combat the very thought of what I may have inadvertently done. Unfortunately, everything I knew couldn’t immediately disprove the princesses’ theory. My only real counter argument could have been when Legion tried to turn their power against Luna for her past as Nightmare Moon. Though even that didn’t quite hold water. As fury-consumed as Legion was, if they saw an outlet for their rage, there wouldn’t be a thing to stop them from from using that outlet as violently as possible. Yet, despite their rage, they let Luna go on a whim and an ‘I’ll-get-her-later’ mindset. The more I thought about the whole situation, the more I dreaded the implications.
So lost was I in my mad fumble to figure out just how many lines I had crossed, I almost didn’t notice the most important thing. The large lump of purple fur began shifting around on her gurney and let out a loud yawn to break the silence.
“Twilight!” I cried and darted forward to the unicorn mare, completely forgetting about my worries, at least temporarily. I reached up and rested a foreleg on her neck. “Twilight, can you hear me?”
“Harry...” Twilight mumbled drunkenly and wormed her own forelegs around my neck, bringing her head right beside mine.
I returned the gesture and patted the back of her head. “Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine. We beat him. We beat the Red King.”
“Harry,” Twilight interjected and squeezed my neck slightly harder. “Are you on fire, or do you have wings?”
I disengaged from the lavender unicorn and held her at foreleg’s length. “Ehm, ‘yes’ would be the most accurate answer. I suppose I-I…urgh,” I grunted and doubled over from a sudden rash of phantom sensations.
Pain radiated across my back from where the wings touched my hide. I felt my muscles tense and release as the magical constructs thrashed around wildly. The erratic movements caught and moved around large amounts air, threatening to lift me off the ground.
“What in the…?!” Twilight’s voice trailed off as she observed the crazy unicorn before her groan under involuntary muscle spasms.
“Don’t worry,” I choked out after the fit died down, and I felt another acorn of borrowed power leave my body. “It’s just the aftereffects of my spell dying off. Give it a little time and they’ll disperse. Then maybe I’ll have learned my lesson about not dipping into dangerous magic.”
“Hey, what’re these?” asked a feminine voice to my immediate right.
Before I could turn to see what was going on, Princess Luna advanced on me and shoved her head down into my side just under my right wing. For reasons best left to the princess, her muzzle buried itself at the spot where the magical wing met my hide. I immediately released Twilight and bent my body away from the princess who had lost all sense of personal boundaries. As I bent away from Luna, she retracted her head as suddenly as she buried it. Curiously enough, I felt several small sharp jabs of pain as her head left my side, as though she had pricked me several times with a pen or quill.
“Oi!” I shouted at the princess. “What was that about?!”
Princess Luna ignored my outrage and instead directed her attention at whatever was in her mouth. The four of us that were conscious in the room leaned in and got a good look at what had fascinated the lunar princess. In her maw, Luna held three long ashen grey feathers.
Behind me, Celestia let out a soft chuckling laugh. “Looks like your spirits wanted to give you something a little more tangible than simple gratitude.”
Instead of being elated, or even curious about the magic involved, I groaned in despair at the revelation.
“Haven’t I had enough?” I pleaded to the room at large, even as I felt a building increase of tension on my back. “Please tell me this will be gradual and easy.”
Celestia’s only response was to smile sheepishly at me and not meet my gaze. Twilight looked between the three of us, hoping for the same answers I was searching for. While off to my right, Luna offered me the same placating smile her sister gave, only with the addition of three long feathers sticking out of her mouth and grey downy fluff falling from the ends.
Stats
Page generated in 0.029 seconds
Total duration
1,093 users online
2,168,468 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
AND HE LIVES AGAIN!!!!!!
Awesome chapter, and there better be a great ending and stupendous sequel to this story, in repentance to you making us wait so long for updates!!!
Otherwise keep up the good work!!!
Well bugger me with a fish fork! That last bit was very Unexpected, although tending towards the interesting end of Mary Sue-ville. Never the less, Well Done.
It's nice to see this updating. Nitpicks:
I poured back through my memories
If you mean this in the sense of "to examine closely", then it should be "pored"
desecrating countless dead along with my own dead.
I don't get it. Why are "his own dead" not counted among the "countless dead"?
4647485 That was supposed to be: "desecrating countless dead along with my own body." I'll fix that when I get back too my computer.
Awesome chapter with plenty of hilariousness ensuing.
So Dresden's a bona fide alicorn now, huh? Interesting. I hope that's a sign that he's going to stay in Equestria with Twilight
Small mistake here:
Missed a space.
Otherwise, great chapter, and things seemed to be tying up quite nicely.
Care to explain why, at the end of this chapter, I sarcastically thanked M.A. Larson?
Alicorn Dresden? I also hope this is a sign he stays and makes foals with Twilight.
Hmm, will Harry even be able to return to Earth or will he be stuck in pony form the rest of his life??? I can totally see Michael's daughters squealing over him though. Now, can Michael catch a glimpse of a certain TV show when he gets home
and can Murphy see Harry in pony form???
4650311 Actually, within the confines of this story at least, MLP:FiM isn't a thing in Dresden's world (not that he'd know even if it was). I feel that If you call a story not real reality from within its own narrative, it detracts severely from the immersion you could get from the story. If Michael were to go home and flip on the TV to find the same ponies he'd fought beside, running around in an episode, it would make the whole experience less real and therefore have a little less of an impact. So no, Michael and family would not be able to watch the adventures of Starbutt and friends on the TV. Although Michael would have a lot of fun stories to tell his kids, and a whole new appreciation for horses. Maybe he could sit down with an artist to get an accurate depiction for his kids. Maybe he could go start MLP:FiM from the knowledge he gained in Equestria.
4650430 OK
4719170 It was more a question on whether the spell would traverse realities/dimensions.
HWWB is He Who Walks Behind. Applechip would never delete my comment.
~dopeopleactuallyreadthis
I think it would be hilarious if he kept the flame-mane/hair effect when channeling large amounts of power. Would be somewhere between hilarious and dangerous. Not that it would make Dresden more likely to burn buildings down.
Harry has a thing for turning the ghosts of the Red Court's victims against them, doesn't you? Still, I figured the Dark Hallow would be his trump card back when he started working on the 'simple but ancient' spell. His modification is both nice and horrifying. A tamed down version might be useful for ectomancy. The forced possession and all...
Yep, typical dresden.
Heehee
I know this story I already finished and I love the ending but one alternate ending I kinda wanted to see is that twilight got turned into a red court vampire but ended up turning against the vampires instead. I say this because they said when they’re infected they have a strong craving for blood but still had some mentality left so she could of focused her bloodlust on the ones who turned her instead of Harry and the other ponies.
8964222
Basically what happened to Susan, so... that seems like a poor narrative choice.