22. Training Montage
“Ooof!” Atlas groaned, falling flat on his back from the balcony. “A little bit less high up would have been nice, but thank you anyway…” he muttered as he gingerly got back up. “Next time I’ll just do it myself…”
“Father, there you are!” Luna exclaimed. “You took so long to get back, I was beginning to worry.”
“Fret not, dear Luna, for I hath returned safely,” Atlas said while bowing in the direction the voice had come from. “You two look beautiful by the way.”
“I know right? This is amazing!” Luna said, fanning her newly acquired wings. “And now I’m bigger than you.”
Luna and Celestia had indeed undergone the transformation into Alicorns. Aside from the obvious boost in magic power and the wings, they had also grown quite a bit. Celestia seemed to finally be the size she was in the show, towering over Atlas by a good amount. Luna was a head shorter than her sister, yet still bigger than Atlas. Their manes and tails hadn’t changed into their ethereal state yet, but Atlas had no idea how that’d work either way, so he didn’t pay it too much mind.
Luna seemed totally stoked about her new form, continuously inspecting herself and trying to move her new wings around. Celestia on the other hand was a tad more on the edge about this whole thing. In contrast to Luna's very vocal joy, she was quietly analyzing her new body with a neutral expression.
“Guess I’ll have to look up from now on when I’m talking to you two,” Atlas chuckled. “You both look amazing by the way.”
“Thanks…” Celestia muttered while still examining her wings.
“So now that we’re super cool alicorns, what’s next?” Luna asked, expectantly looking at Atlas.
“Now…” Atlas shot a contemplative look towards Celestia. “I think it’s time for some long overdue answers…”
Celestia slowly looked up and towards Atlas, her curiosity piqued. Atlas shooed them into their living room and had them sit down on the couch, himself taking up the space across from them, just like they did on their last family meeting.
“Alright, so…” Atlas began, watching his daughters still fidgeting with their wings. “Luna, you haven’t been around for that last part, but I promised Celestia some answers once we were back. You already know a lot of what I’m about to tell you, but there should be some new things as well.
“Which brings me to my first point, yes, Luna already knows quite a bit more than you do, Celesta,” Atlas interjected as Celestia opened her mouth. “She helped me out with a project that sort of required her to know some things. First and foremost, I am immortal.”
“You’re immortal?” Celestia asked, astonished. “Like we are now?”
“I can confirm, I saw,” Luna commented, shuddering slightly.
“Not in the same way you two are, but yes, I am an immortal as well,” Atlas answered. “If the prospect of immortality frightens you, I am sorry, I know how that feels. But at the same time, I’m happy, because my eternity just got a little less lonely.”
“Oh…” Celestia said, thinking about the implications.
“Since we’re on the topic of truth, there are two more that are like us, but to be honest I have no clue where either of them are currently. I’ll be sure to properly introduce them should we ever meet them in an appropriate setting,” Atlas continued on.
“I’d love to meet them someday,” Luna said, stretching her left wing and tickling Celestia with it.
“Second, and this should be news to you too, Luna, I know things about the future of Equestria,” Atlas admitted. “There’s a bright future in store for this country, and I’ve been working to make that future happen, even if it meant that I had to sacrifice a few things.”
“You know the future?” Celestia asked with a cocked eyebrow. “That sounds a bit hard to believe.”
“I know this might sound a bit far fetched, but my knowledge has so far proven to be spot on,” Atlas rebutted. “If you need proof, just look at yourself,” he added with a smirk.
“Myself?” Celestia asked, looking down at her newly acquired body. “What do you mean?”
“You two becoming Alicorns is quite an important step for the future of Equestria, even if it doesn’t seem like it right now,” Atlas replied. “After all, you are supposed to be the ones that defeat Discord and lead Equestria into an age of peace and prosperity.”
“We’re supposed to lead?” Luna asked confused. “But they don’t even know who we are…”
“My knowledge of the future is rather vague regarding a lot of things, but my best guess is that after Discord is defeated, the ponies will look towards you as their saviours and practically demand you to lead them.”
“If… if you knew about us being so important to the future…” Celestia started, a tinge of fear sneaking into her eyes. “Did you only take us with you… because of that?”
Atlas smile vanished immediately upon hearing the question. “No. Definitely not,” Atlas said. “While I will not deny that I was searching all over Equestria for the two of you after Discord’s rise to power, I didn’t just take you in because of what I know. When I finally found you, I was extremely surprised to find out that my first and oldest friend in this world was actually your mother. I believed I could maybe take on the role of an uncle or something, and help to guide you towards your destiny from the sidelines, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.
“I couldn’t just leave you after that, so I decided to take you with me,” Atlas continued. “I love both of you from the bottom of my heart, and as far as I’m concerned, you two are my daughters.”
“And you’ll always be my father!” Luna exclaimed, jumping over the small table separating them and hugging Atlas.
“Gahh, stop!” Atlas laughed. “Your feathers are tickling my nose!”
Celestia looked at the two rolling around on the ground with somewhat jealous eyes. All this time she’d been shutting herself away in her own little world, never really moving on. She refused to see Atlas as anything else other than her benefactor while Luna effortlessly forgot about their real parents and didn’t even seem to care at all, accepting Atlas as family. Her wings slowly stretched out, the feeling weirdly alien to her, even if the limbs belonged to her. She took a good long look at herself, bigger and stronger than she was before.
Maybe, just maybe, it was time to change. It was time to take a step forward, away from the past that shackled her.
“So then, if we’re supposed to be the ones that defeat Discord,” Celestia said, bringing Atlas and Luna's antics to a stop. “What are we supposed to do next?” she asked with determination.
Atlas playfully shoved Luna off himself and slowly got back up into a proper seating position while clearing his throat. “I’d say our first order of business should be to get you two accustomed to your new bodies.”
“That seems like a necessary step, yes,” Celestia said calmly while Luna returned to her seat next to her.
“So,” Atlas said with a smile. “Who wants to figure out how these beautiful wings of yours work?”
“That’s it! Keep going!” Atlas said, looking up from the open book before him. “Keep your wingbeats steady!”
Luna was hovering a few feet above the ground, her face contorted from concentration and effort while Celestia sat next to Atlas watching attentively. They had procured a few old books on the magical theory behind pegasi flight which they used in an attempt to figure out how it actually worked. Having a real pegasus teach them would obviously have been the best course of action, but the existence of alicorns was supposed to be a secret. So for now they just had to make do with what they had.
“Now, if you want to go higher, you’ll have to either channel more mana through your wings or just put some more effort into these flaps,” Atlas repeated what they already studied. “Or a combination of both.”
Luna tried to to as she was told, but the attempt at changing her output caused her wings to de-sync from each other. As a result Luna experienced some slight turbulence which snowballed until she eventually crashed down to the ground with a yelp.
“Are you okay?” Atlas asked, offering his hoof to her.
“Yes, just a bit sore,” Luna replied, gladly accepting Atlas’ offering and pulling herself upright. “This is a lot harder than it sounded in theory,” she added with a frown.
“Well, don’t tell me you expected to completely master flying on your first try?” Atlas asked with a chuckle. “Especially considering that you’re working with a set of completely new limbs.”
“No, of course not,” Luna replied. “I just thought it wouldn’t be as hard.”
“I’m sure we’ll get the hang of it eventually,” Celestia said from the sidelines, preparing herself for her first try as well. “I, for one, am actually looking forward to being able to soar through the sky…”
“And you should be,” Atlas nodded. “I’m sure flying is an amazing experience.”
“Celestia should be big enough to give you a ride, you know?”
Celestia had just lifted off the ground when Luna let the comment slip, causing her to blush furiously and faceplant immediately. “Luna!” Celestia called from the ground, much to Luna’s enjoyment.
Atlas simply shook his head with a smile. “We’ve got a long way to go…”
“Let’s get down to business,” Atlas singsonged, “to shoot down, these plums.”
The three ponies were currently outside, which was a rarity for Celestia. She seemed to be nervous, judging by her constant fidgeting and glancing around, but she didn’t complain even once. In order to gauge their new magical abilities, Atlas proposed a simple target practice outside using low-level offensive spells.
Luckily for them, a flock of plums had made their nests in the trees close to their caves, which provided them with perfect moving targets. As a side effect, every score provided them with some tasty fruit as a reward.
“Alright, whoever shoots down the most in five minutes gets to avoid cleaning duty for a whole week,” Atlas said, fully intent on participating as well. “Ready, set, GO!”
On his command, Celestia and Luna started shooting their spells towards the roosting plums, who started taking of on multi-colored bat wings as soon as the first few fell. Both Luna and Celestia seemed to have trouble adjusting to their new found powers and missed more often than not. Atlas smirked, since everything was going according to keikaku*.
True to his expectations, Atlas won easily by a huge margin. After the five minutes were over, he had shot down more than the sisters combined and then some.
“Well, looks like I won’t have to do any cleaning,” Atlas said, happily biting into a plum after he had plucked its wings. “See you back at the cave.”
“Hey, wait a moment…” Celestia said suddenly realizing what just happened. “That’s so unfair!” She called after Atlas.
Alas, she was already too late, since Atlas was making a mad dash for the cave, cackling like a madman all the way.
“Alright, now plant the seeds and bury them completely,” Atlas explained, reading from a book on agriculture.
One of their main caves had been transformed into a green house, which was currently filled with pots of varying shapes and sizes, which in return were filled with regular earth. They had to experiment with the powers they should have received from their earth pony magic, and there was no better way than to do what earth ponies did best: gardening.
Of course Atlas already told them about their healing powers, but since this was a lot more difficult to master, they decided to start small. Right now, none of the pots had any plants growing out of them, but hopefully that would soon change.
In an attempt to make an effective comparison, Atlas participated as well. The cave had been split into three equal parts, and all of them were currently planting an equal amount of seeds into their respective pots. If everything went to plan, they should see some first results in a few day, which were more than likely going to show faster on Celestia and Luna's test groups.
After Atlas was done he was content on simply watching the sisters going about their task. Luna seemed to be pretty gung-ho about the whole thing, almost carelessly planting herb seeds. She fluttered from pot to pot in an attempt to get some flying practice in on the side, flitting all over the place. Celestia on the other hand was acting with alost surgical precision. Every seed was carefully planted in the exact center of its pot, or sometimes in neat rows of equal numbers.
They were taking their whole training serious, which warmed Atlas heart to the core. They were working hard just to help him out with his selfish requests. And although progress was slow, they were growing more proficient in using their new gift with every passing day.
Atlas descended the stairs from the living room to the main cave. The sisters had just gone to bed after an activity-filled day that left them exhausted. He hadn’t had to do any cleaning over the last few months, since he always won in their competitions. The two were getting dangerously close to beating him every now and again, though, signalling that they were getting closer to the end of their training.
Both of them were quite proficient with all of their newfound powers. By now they were able to fly effortlessly through the sky, with Luna even daring to pull off her first tricks. The plants they had been growing were without exception at least twice as big as the one Atlas had planted. And they had both regained full control over their magical facilities, making them a force to be reckoned with in their respective fields.
Their progress made Atlas happy, but at the same time, with every new hurdle they passed, Atlas started to feel more afraid.
He had been trying to ignore the implications, but now that the training was close to finishing he had to face the facts. The day of the fight was drawing closer, and when it finally came, he would have no other choice than to watch as the promise he made so long ago would finally be fulfilled.
To make matters worse, he wasn’t entirely sure how they were supposed to actually defeat Discord, since even after researching an insane amount, he still had no clue about where the Elements of Harmony were hidden away. He slowly approached the center of the main cave before plopping down facing the walls away from the entrance, looking at the multicolored mana-batteries affixed to the them.
“Won’t you show me the way?” Atlas asked the empty rooms, hoping against hope that his friends would somehow be able to give him a hint.
The similarities his mana-batteries had to the elements wasn’t lost on him, since both of them were incredibly powerful, colored artifacts. Yet, last time he checked, his batteries didn’t have any kind of chaos purging-harmony restoring properties. They were just simple mana storages after all.
Even though that was the case, it was looking more and more like he needed to shoehorn together some kind of plan utilizing them instead of the Elements. If all else failed, they could just use a superpowered petrification spell. Whether or not this would hold for the required one-thousand years was uncertain, but the amount of mana they could pump into a spell with the support of all six batteries would be ridiculous.
Atlas was just about to return back upstairs and go to sleep as well, when he noticed the purple battery being a bit slanted. Intent on fixing it he walked up to it to inspect what the problem was. The problem was easy enough to identify, since the golden decorations holding it to the wall seemed to be slightly bent, and even broken in some parts.
With a sigh Atlas looked at how crooked the whole thing had become, before remembering that he had specifically enchanted the gold to be a lot sturdier than usual. Squinting, he climbed upon the table in front of it to get a closer look. Something was not quite right here and he was going to get to the bottom of this. He ran a magical scan on it, which returned nothing out of the ordinary. Next, he poked it a few times with his hoof, seeing if any change would reveal itself, only to be disappointed again.
Without taking his eyes of the battery, he disconnected the nearby red battery from its hold and floated it over, levitating it next to the purple one.
“Is it…” Atlas eyes went wide. “Is it getting bigger?”
It was barely noticeable, but the purple battery was indeed slightly bigger than the red one, which didn’t make any sense at all. The precision with which all of the batteries were made was insane, so there shouldn’t be any discrepancies with their size. Atlas knew there couldn’t be, since he checked this quite a few times, both during making them and after having finished the whole set.
The irregular growth had destroyed the golden cage holding it, of that he was now certain. He’d have to run a few experiments to find out what was happening, lest he risked any of them de-stabilizing before he could do anything about it.
That would be a disaster in more ways than one.
*Keikaku means plan.
I've also noticed that there was some confusion about just who Atlas met in the last chapter, and you are all wrong. It was ugandan knuckles.
drawn by: PonKing, that magnificent bastard!
Once again, thanks to my editors Azriel and Alcatraz, as well as my proofreaders Kilobytes and Soren Mercer.
Today's chapter was brought to you by this song.
Come join us in the Discord channel! Lonk
Or the official Divine Entertainment group! Divine Universe
Support me on Patreon!!
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A chapter that didn't take half a month to release?! It's a late-christmas miracle!
Also, that AN? 11/10. U no da wey bruddha
Thanks for the update!
Wut.
Nice chapter.
And it looks like the first happenings of the Celestia we know from the show have begun! This will be very interesting indeed, and I wonder... If the battery that has grown will be the seed for the Tree of Harmony, and when he starts experimenting with it, it plants itself right then and there.
And nice subtle continuity fix to dash our dreams with Atlas knowing the batteries looked similar to the Elements. Ha! Good one, brudda!
Now we just need to know if anypony has touched their spaghet
Luna is still best princess! :lunaemoji:
You terrible person.
8661642
I am a terrible person, come suffer with me :D
IT'S A TRAINING MONTAAAAAGE!
MONTAGE!!!!
https://youtu.be/pFrMLRQIT_k
...
...
I blame you for this.
I guess that the purple battery is starting to grow into the star shaped element of magic...
Totally knew that was the song you were going to be inspired by after Atlas's little jiggle.
8661647
exactly what I had in mind with the title.
Practice hard, my daughters. You'll outshine, the suuuun!
So is it gonna grow into the element?
8661675
That and
https://youtu.be/TVcLIfSC4OE
Apparently.
Throw in all the montages!!!
You will kno de wae of de deval! *click click click click click*
Let's get down to business, to shoot down these plums.
Here standing before me, are the moon and sun
From the sacrifice that Discord made, and Starswirl, Amethyst too.
We will build, Equestria for all.
Synchronised wings flapping, as you learn new things
To carve out the future, our lives can, begin
The path ahead, is hard and tough
But you have me, and I have you
We will build, Equestria for all.
We're never gonna get to rest
Carve these runes, please help me Luna
Oh no ponies are scared and running too
These fights are gonna take your best
Hope we're gonna make it through this
Zeus will fail and Equestria will win
Carve the runes
They must encompass all our surroundings
Carve the runes
From top to bottom, no less will do
Carve the runes
The times ahead will be harder for us
Like when Luna gets banished to the moon
Time is racing toward us, til the God's plans rise
We have to get this finished, or we all, will die
Think of all the helpless foals, Celestia, please help us too
Equestria, must be built for us all
Carve the runes
They must encompass all our surroundings
Carve the runes
From top to bottom, no less will do
Carve the runes
The times ahead will be harder for us
Like when Luna gets banished to the moon
Carve the runes
They must encompass all our surroundings
Carve the runes
From top to bottom, no less will do
Carve the runes
The times ahead will be harder for us
Like when Luna gets banished to the moon
8661686
Yes, but I would wager that Atlas would have got them to let him free already, unless he knows about Discords 'reformation' in the show. The only other options I see are; 1. Discord got too into his role and now has the mindset of a villain, or 2. Atlas just never mentioned that Discord is their older brother, which I feel is a stupid thing not to mention.
8661815
In this chapter he vaguely mentioned two other immortal creatures. Probably he meant Discord and Starswirl.
8661647
Dammit, my mind went to the exact same place
8661831
I... Don't know why you're telling this to me. I was replying to ranakastrasz about Celestia and Luna's knowledge on Discord as their sibling, not as a fellow immortal.
UGANDAN KNUCKLES TRIBE SHALL RULE THE WORLD!!!!!!!
78.media.tumblr.com/f360bef7818c7ed74f6bbe696a3cd0e5/tumblr_oyfrpuJQwu1tv5v2mo1_500.gif
You bastard.
Can never go wrong with memes, sometimes.
I loved the Mulan joke.
That damn Knuckles-thing...
quickly my bruddas! we must find da queen, she knos da wey!
I see what you did there. And also there, and even over there! Whoo!
8661675
That was beautifully done . Good work. Hope to see more.
8661815
Or 3. discord uses his powers to make the illusion of the elements and just switch himself out for a statue then he can either help atlas with the prison runes and or travel around. I mean if he can fake being a villain and terrorize everyone i think he should be able to fake some rainbow lights.
Do u kno de wae?
Lightning speed chapter posting right here!
I hate you so much. XD
Sneaky sneaky.....XD
*clok clok clok clok clock*
well i am happy to see things are working out.
and if i am right i know ware the Elements of Harmony are hidden at.
8661643 When u kno de wae but there's a wall. Just get Luna to make de wae, after all, she's cool aid pone.
8661636
That is how they will know Starswirl has returned. One day Atlas and Co come back to the cave after a day of training, ready to eat the meal they prepared earlier that day but what is this?! Atlases bowl is empty! At this point Atlas will stand up on his back legs, gestures wildly with his front legs and exclaimed “Some body touch a my spaghet!!! Right then Starswirl walked out of a side room zartnerds.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/and_there_was_much_rejoicing.gif?w=507&h=381&zoom=2
...
I WILL FOLLO U BRUDDA!!!
*HAPPY CLACKING NOISES*
8662887
Bridge under the water, long forgotten. He's grown way cold and manipulative.
8677467
Wut?! Atlas? Cold hearted?!
I see what you did there.
8662887
Belle's in Equestria's Tartarus, Atlas was in Earth's Underworld. He only went to Tartarus once, when Hades took him there, and Hades didn't want him to get distracted from separating the worlds.
The picture is broken ;-;
Could you be a friend and fix it?