The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Living Legend

Maple blinked politely. "What?"

Starlight pointed a hoof, indicating Shinespark's obviously-unmarked flank. "You don't have a cutie mark. What do you mean, yours?"

"And..." Maple shook her head. "What does that have to do with Braen?"

"That," Shinespark began, "is why I said it would be easier just to show you..."

There was a pause in the room, and Starlight could have sworn Shinespark's eyes flashed, as if she was willing something to happen with so much force she didn't even have to use her horn. The old wood table stretched out between them suddenly seemed an infinite divide... and then, with a clatter and hiss of metal, Braen's face began to move, and her helmet separated, retracting and folding in on itself until it was completely drawn away.

"It's..." Maple frowned, confusion rising in her tone. "Empty?"

Starlight stared at the neckline of Braen's armor. It was an open hole, reaching down into the torso. Against the inside of the back, on what little she could see from the room's illumination, there were strips of padding designed to keep it comfortable on a wearer... but the golden armor stood there, uninhabited for all to see.

It flexed its wings, just because it could.

"Commander Braen is an automaton," Shinespark announced, standing proudly within a winglength of the empty suit. "She's nothing more or less than a collection of metal, motors and magic of a caliber we've only just begun to understand, made by myself and Arambai for the purpose of helping to save Ironridge. She's fully independent and can move, act, fight, and even make decisions on her own, to an extent..." She stepped closer, coat hairs brushing against the shiny metal, and smiled upward appreciatively. "Though she also makes a very effective suit of power armor, when I need to use her."

Braen stood respectfully at attention, immobile save for a slight motion in her wings.

Maple and Starlight both continued to stare, the former working her jaw. "How...?" Maple tried to formulate a question. "How?"

"It's a long story, but..." Shinespark sighed. "It's also important, so here I go. Seven years ago, I earned a brand that was special. It was while Arambai was still in Ironridge. Back then, I lived under his protection due to a scandal thirteen or fourteen years before, around the time I was born. He kept me out of the public eye, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I was Mobius' heir. Nopony was watching me, and few knew I was even there, let alone of important blood. It had the side effect of making it possible to hide my brand."

She started to pace, the suit of armor standing impassively by. "It was the brand of a hero. We didn't have any doubt that it was in response to all the troubles befalling Ironridge, or that it meant it was my destiny to save the city and restore things to how they should have been. But I was still a filly. Even Blazing Rain, if the legends are to be believed, fought a long, exhausting battle with a band of true comrades to save Yakyakistan. It was obvious that no matter how powerful or significant my brand, I couldn't fight Yakyakistan by myself."

Starlight and Maple sat, watching, as Shinespark talked to nowhere in particular, circling the armor. "That's why I started wearing armor, and adopted an alias. I called myself Braen, after the old hero, and went out to do what I could to help ponies. At first, it wasn't much. I found a family who needed medicine here, stopped a robbery there... and eventually I started to become known. At the same time, we began studying my brand, trying to learn its secrets. Due to its nature, we knew there was more to it than any ordinary talent, and thought we could find a way to harness its power. Eventually, we discovered a difficult procedure that was able to extract it from my body, sealing it inside an empty piece of obsidian. That allowed me to go out in public without a disguise."

"Who's 'we?'" Maple interrupted to ask.

"Myself and Arambai, and to a lesser extent my mother, as well." Shinespark nodded. "I introduced myself to the world as Shinespark, Mobius' lost daughter. Years before, there was another pony like me, named Elise, who did the same thing. I studied what she had done extensively, mostly by taking notes from Arambai, and followed in her hoofsteps while taking care to avoid her mistakes. Most of it was luck, though. I was skilled with organization and numbers, as well as with individual ponies, and had a strong sense of duty and what was right... all traits that are effective in a leader. I also had a story. I wasn't completely off the record, before Arambai took me in... My mother, Matryona, helped with that. Some ponies remembered me as the foal who was born aboard an airship. And, unlike Elise, the Sosa I appeared to wasn't fresh off a calamity and in the early stages of blame: they had lived out their denial, were already exhausted and disillusioned, and needed somepony to look up to. I was just a filly, with nothing but potential to my name and determination in my eyes, and to them, that was enough."

The light from the room's single lamp starkly illuminated the mud on her coat, further drying and beginning to crack. She brushed some off with a hoof, and continued. "Some ponies noticed that I had appeared around the same time as Braen, and began to connect that. We stopped and discussed whether that was a connection we wanted them to make. One idea was to make my name as powerful as possible by letting everyone know who I was... but as the skyport was constructed and the yaks' influence continued to grow, we realized that picking a battle too early would be a guaranteed loss. So, we had a close friend who was similar in size to me wear Braen's armor for a time, and make some appearances while I was easily provable to be elsewhere. That took away most of the suspicion. You've probably heard of him; his name is Dior."

"He's the chancellor, isn't he...?" Maple breathed.

"Yes, he is. He's in on this too, and is a true ally and friend." Shinespark paused, staring off into the distance and remembering. "Our research on the obsidian containing my brand continued. We obtained other samples to study as well, and eventually made a breakthrough. It was a collar, fitted with obsidian, that partially extracts the brand within, keeping it from fully entering the wearer but allowing them to use its power. There were restrictions making it practically useless: ponies' bodies inherently try to reject brands that aren't attuned to them. But this was my brand, so it wasn't an issue. Essentially, it allowed me to use my brand without actually having it on my flank."

Starlight blinked. "If they reject them, then how come this moon glass can possess ponies?"

"It's a case of repulsion overcome by greater attraction, we think," Shinespark said, nodding. "To make this work, we had to have that completely not present. It means our device won't work for safely and reversibly using the power of any old obsidian brand on yourself: your own desires have to be in tune with the brand strongly enough that it might as well be yours. If we ever found a way to bypass that and force any pony to accept any brand..." She gritted her teeth. "Well, we think that's why obsidian brands have their documented effect of changing the personalities of ponies who absorb them. But we're not looking for that. We don't think that's a power ponykind were meant to have."

She put a muddy hoof to Braen's armor, polishing it lightly... though it didn't do much good. "We built the device containing my brand into my armor, so that I could still use my power when I was wearing it. That led to the idea to make other... enhancements to the armor. We added a mana core that could be used to power extra weapons, and motorized the important joints so they could assist in motion. I wasn't weak, but armor is heavy, and I wanted a full range of mobility. That lead to another discovery."

Slowly, Braen's armor split down the middle, revealing a seam that could open wider, allowing a pony to climb inside. The thick metal layer proved to be more than just armor and padding; inside was a complex array of motors and technology that fit together like a thick carpet.

"My brand," Shinespark narrated, drawing a hoof down the side and allowing the armor to re-seal itself, "was capable of recharging the mana core. We had never before understood the relationship between a pony's personal magic and their species magic, but this was a link: harmony is related to the production of mana from ambient heat in the air. I don't know how much you know about scientific principles like entropy, but that's supposed to be impossible. In a few short months, I had gone from a filly with a brand that defied explanation to being in possession of something that appeared to be a source of infinite power. That changed everything."

Shinespark sat back down, once again meeting Maple and Starlight's eyes. "A night of planning and deep discussions later, we had something more than a vague hope: a concrete idea on how to save Ironridge. We acted quickly, taking stock of everything we had and everything we needed. We knew it would take time... a long time. Several years, or more. It would be pointless to fight the yaks or try to change the city directly until then, so we moved to stabilize things as much as possible. Arambai sacrificed his post as a factory chief and effectively turned control of the city over to Skyfreeze... not that they didn't already have it. He retreated to Riverfall and built a laboratory there, so he could continue his experiments in peace. Formally, we retired Sosa's fleet forever, but it had the intended side effect of making this place hallowed ground... and the perfect symbolic area to hide and work on the city's salvation. In doing so, we created fallbacks to help the most desperate and depressed Sosans escape somewhere better, and restricted the supply of obsidian flowing into Ironridge, to protect our ponies as we learned more about how it worked."

With a flash of sapphire telekinesis, Shinespark vanished... and reappeared inside Braen's helmetless armor, the rim of its neck fitting perfectly around her. "Meanwhile, I took up residence at Mobius' factory and made him proud of me. It wasn't difficult. Age wasn't the kindest to him, and neither was the past decade. I did what I could for the ponies of Sosa, finding new jobs for them and giving them useful things to do with their lives. All that became a lot easier with the weapons contract, which Dior helped us secure."

"And how does that tie into this?" Maple asked, pointing a hoof. "Having a suit of armor that... moves on its own?"

"Braen was capable of motion for a long time," Shinespark said, flexing her limbs within the armor. "Ever since we mechanized her to aid in my movement. As I grew, the armor had several revisions to fit my body, and we improved it each time, making the motors smoother and more accurate. The wings are a recent feature I'm especially proud of. The real breakthrough, however, came when we were experimenting with remote control."

She stepped forward, hoofsteps heavier now that there was a real pony in the armor. "We knew my brand was still connected to me, on some unfathomably deep level, and wanted to find a way to make use of that link. Imagine, for example, making Braen fire a laser with a thought command. And there was partial success. We were able to make her do what I wanted... but not just that. She did other things, too. We would hook my brand up to a single motor, and it would sometimes spin even while I was sleeping. Then, one day, we tried connecting sensory inputs to the armor... and something incredible happened."

"It turns out," something said, switching to the magically-distorted voice of Braen's armor, "that brands are self-aware." Shinespark hadn't moved her mouth.

"What?" Maple blinked.

Talking normally again, Shinespark grinned. "It's absolutely fascinating. When magically connected to something that can constitute a body, a brand can take it and become a fully-functioning life form. Since this was my brand, it was me... and yet not. Braen identically shared my will, as well as all my hopes and desires, from largest to smallest. If I wanted to walk across a room? She would too. It was as if I had cloned myself. Using obsidian on oneself effectively creates one pony with two souls, but I had made myself two ponies with one... or, at least, a pony and an automaton. What's more, Braen possesses a separate set of inhibitions and memories from mine, allowing her to act independently toward the same goal. I can work from Sosa while she leads the Spirit, both working toward the same idea of carrying on hope in Ironridge while our ultimate plan moves further."

Starlight swallowed, ears flat. "You... made another pony."

"You could think of it that way." Shinespark nodded. "Does that make you uncomfortable?"

"A little," Starlight understated. She couldn't put her hoof on it, but just like with cutie marks, something simply felt wrong.

"Look at it like this," Shinespark hummed, bending down. "What we've had to do... and think about... is exactly what a pony is. For all our research, we barely know anything about brands, especially what they are. They involve hope, dreams and desires... and maybe something more. But what it's looking like is that what's in here..." She tapped her metal flanks. "Is more important to who we are as ponies than these fuzzy, adorable bodies that everyone sees. And with that in mind, the only thing we created is another body... or something a brand thinks can be used as one, just like how mothers can have foals. The brand inside, we just borrowed... It's been me all along."

"So..." Starlight frowned. "If your cutie mark is you, and yours is in there... then what are you?" She pointed straight at Shinespark. "You still sound like a pony."

"That's..." Shinespark bit her lip. "Not something we know. We've been working on this in secret for seven years, two ponies with our only method of communication as nightly letters and transmissions. There's so much more out there to learn and understand and do, and we just can't. Not when our first priority is and always has been finding a way to save our city. I even have engineers with high security clearances unknowingly working on projects relating to this one, but it's never enough... but our brands are what make us us. There's no way around it."

Starlight's ears pressed down harder. "Then what about ponies who don't have cutie marks?"

Shinespark sighed and looked away. "We... don't know that either. There's so much we don't know, and I wish we could because I want to know... but Starlight, everything we've learned... it's to save our home. Some day soon, when Ironridge is healed, we can keep digging and try to unlock the secrets of life. Some day..."

"So what does your cutie mark actually do?" Maple prodded. "You keep saying it's special, but why? What is it?"

"Heh... You want to see? It isn't every day a pony gets a brand for being a legendary hero." Shinespark grinned, taking a step back in her armor. "This isn't a thing I show ponies. Even fewer know about it than ponies who know the truth about Braen... There are several who know we're studying harmony and brands, but think mine is either ordinary or doesn't even exist. So, not that everything else I've said here isn't the most classified material in Ironridge... but you can keep this a secret?"

Maple and Starlight nodded.

With a flash of light, Shinespark jumped into the air, Braen's rocket boosters igniting and blazing against the metal floor, leaving her hovering a safe distance from the table. Maple and Starlight watched intently, eyes fixed on the fiery display.

For countless milliseconds, Shinespark hung there, the rocket flames roaring in everyone's ears... and suddenly, the room was silent, save for the faint tinkle of magic.

Shinespark didn't fall.

Starlight's jaw dropped, watching the armored unicorn hanging in midair as if there were an invisible rope around her barrel, horn gleaming blue... and then Braen spread her wings, flapped, and moved.

Slowly, Shinespark and Braen glided around the ceiling of the room, winging lazily in circles over Starlight's head. The filly nearly fell out of her seat trying to watch them, neck craned and completely ignorant of balance.

"You can..." Maple began breathlessly.

"Blazing Rain was a pegasus who could use magic," Shinespark said, flapping by. "She's history. Legendary, inspirational history, sure, and there's probably truth to it, but nobody has any proof, or is sure. More importantly, she definitely isn't in Ironridge, active and relevant in their lives."

Braen's wings snapped shut, and Shinespark kept flying, flipping over just for show. "But me? I'm a unicorn who can fly, and I'm right here, right now. Blazing Rain is a myth, but I'm a living legend."

She glided closer to Maple, hovering to a stop within arms' reach, still airborne. "Well?" She beamed. "What do you think?"

"With alternate species magic..." Starlight tried to start, still transfixed by the floating mare. "All the stuff Arambai is working on. Making ponies lighter by using their cutie marks for pegasus magic. This is how, isn't it?"

"It's where he got the idea," Shinespark said, turning effortlessly in the air. "It's not identical, but most of the knowledge for building the earliest prototypes was gained from my brand, even while it was still on me. That's how Braen's horn works - there's room for mine to fit inside, but hers is connected to a very compact version of his telekinesis machine that runs off my brand. We weren't able to fit much in, unfortunately. The limiting factor here is size, not the harmonic potential of my brand. It'll get better as we refine the technology, but on her own, Braen's magic is only good for light shows and maybe producing a light breeze."

Starlight and Maple said nothing.

"Oh, and the rocket boosters..." Shinespark fidgeted with a forelock. "Those are there so Braen can fly when I'm not wearing her, and so that I can cover up real flight when I am and make it look like this. Braen's mana core recharges over time, but things like these still run it down, and they're not even strong enough to lift a full-grown mare as well as the armor."

"You can fly," Maple murmured, as if she hadn't heard anything Shinespark had just said. "I can't believe it. It's so..." She swallowed. "What if you could make it so every pony could do this? To make it so any pony who wanted could see what a pegasus sees..."

Shinespark shrugged. "Well, Arambai's actually working on that, but like I was saying, he's not making too much progress. It's a side project, pretty much. But for now... Starlight? Maple?" She looked up, face lifting hopefully. "As great as Braen is, she's only a side project we're making in order to understand what we're working with. Would you like to see what we've really been building these seven long years to save Ironridge, with Arambai and his research and me and my resources?"

"...Sure," Maple said, standing up. "Show us this... thing you've been working on."

Shinespark nodded. "Right. Then follow me..."

Comments

[Davidp1522]

Ok, wow.

Some one somewhere called robot. Ima find out who.

Edit: I think I'm just remembering myself joke about braen possibly being a robot. Not sure that counts.

[alamais]

Eyyy, Dior's been in the suit too! Multiple ponies! I was sorta right!

I was also sorta right about obsidian trying to pull out cutie mark magic! My yak-superweapon-gonna-pull-out-errapony's-cutie-marks theory is looking up!

Actually, depending on who the yaks were warring with in the past, it could also make Ironridge a good testbed for a weapon that would work against some other hoers nation-state, and/or particularly well against Equestrians...

[Hap]

Isn't information the currency of Ironridge? Why is Shinespark so openly sharing all the biggest secrets?

[Jern]

Huh, neat.

[Sypher]

Oooh, I guess this is how Starlight learns to levitate eventually.

I privately guessed that Shinespark was Braen, after you noted they had exactly the same eye color, but this development is really unexpected.

[Codaulux]

"My Brand, 『CHECK MY BRAEN』 can easily best Maple's 『STRANGE CARGO』 and Valey's 『BAT FOR LASHES』"

[Mini-Joe]

9051639
NANI!?

[Quinch]

Hmmm.... does that mean that, if Dior or any other decoy were wearing them, Braen wouldn't have the rocket power to make them fly?

"Eventually, we discovered a difficult procedure that was able to extract it from my body, sealing it inside an empty piece of obsidian."
This will be completely unimportant to the story and will never appear in any sort of relevant capacity whatsoever in the future.

[Alchemik]

Well, that I did not expect. And yet, it makes sense. The pieces are finally starting to fall into place. But what will our heroes do here? What's the plan? I must know. Next chapter!

[Venlinelle]

I’m curious where all this worldbuilding is… going, so to speak. You’ve effectively created an entirely separate magic system from what the show uses, which always makes me wary- it’s nothing personal; the whole “what if this worked this completely different way instead” thing just doesn’t tend to be for me- but I’ll stick around to see where it goes.

It does feel like it lessens Starlight’s achievements somewhat for both her cutie mark removal spell and her flight spell to be the products of prior magitech experiments, rather than her own power or innovation. Of course, some would say that Starlight’s achievements need lessening, but I wouldn’t be one of them.

[Czar_Yoshi]

11634198
My thinking was basically the opposite. I wanted a more intricate lore so I could show, in greater detail, how Starlight came to have the abilities she has in the present. I didn't want to be limited to made-up technobabble for something so important. And while I could have said she simply invented those abilities from scratch through sheer grit and creativity, I felt it would make for a more interesting plot if some potential precursors for those abilities were out there in the world already, and the audience could see the tools Starlight had to work with in making those abilities her own and wonder how they came together into the result we have in canon.

And at the same time, TOW is about more than just Starlight. It's also about the places she visits, and the struggles of the people she meets along the way. Ironridge's worldbuilding serves the story I wanted to tell about Ironridge, as well as the one I wanted to tell about Starlight.

[Venlinelle]

"But what it's looking like is that what's in here..." She tapped her metal flanks. "Is more important to who we are as ponies than these fuzzy, adorable bodies that everyone sees.”

This feels vaguely fourth wall-breaking.

What a chapter. This sets up so much in retrospect, from Starlight’s flight via mimicking Shinespark’s cutie mark, to Braen eventually becoming a full individual, to why batponies’ marks work differently, to how Valey’s sister whose name I forget gets resurrected, to how cutie marks represent hope…