Flight to Nowhere

by computerneek

Hooves

“Uuugh,” Thiz groans, crawling his way back to conscience. He’d burned way too much power when he made that portal- and it doesn’t help that this seat is dreadfully uncomfortable, especially with the pressure on his-

His what? He’s not entirely sure; they’re not arms, nor legs, rather they’re positioned somewhere between the two, on his back. He raises an eyebrow even as he opens his eyes, looking up towards the wall in front of him. How did he get here? At least the indicator reports that whatever small craft he’s seated in is landed- and it’s safe to unbuckle.

It takes him a quick, well-practiced stroke to strike the releases on the straps holding him in, letting them retract back into the seat. Thank Magitech for springs. He leans forwards, alleviating the painful pressure on his back, and stretches out those… limbs. Whatever they are, they’re very sensitive. Once the initial kinks work themselves out with a few loud pops and snaps, he finally turns his head to look.

Interesting. He wasn’t aware he had wings. Not the kind of thing any typical Shielgician has- nor that he might possibly miss for so many years. He stretches it back out as far as it goes… disappointed that, according to his aerodynamics training, he’d have to make something like Mach 3 to produce enough aerodynamic lift to hold himself up. No matter how hard he pushes it, simple mana is not enough to propel a Shielgician form to those velocities. Dang! After glancing at the other side- yep, that’s a wing too- he draws them in and twists in place, searching the rest of the compartment.

Empty… Momentary multiplication informs him it’s a rather large craft, compared to the ones he’s used to riding in, at least. There’s at least fifty seats in here, possibly a hundred. Not that he cares, much; it would seem he’s alone.

So, he sniffs the air. Unfortunately, there’s virtually no mana present for him to recharge himself with; oh well, he’ll just have to produce it himself. Perhaps something happened while he was out?

… And what’s that weird scent…?

Finally, he looks down at himself. These seats were designed to be comfortable, not the opposite.

He spends almost a full minute staring at his… are they hooves? He lifts one up, twisting it around to look at the bottom. That little motion easily violated the range of motion of every hooved creature he knows- not that any of those had wings. He examines the cream-colored extremity for some time more before he carefully slides his way out of the seat, landing on all fours. After taking an experimental step or two, and stumbling only once, he finally decides it’s not all that different from what crawling used to be like; rather, this just feels more natural than that ever did. Now, he twists his head around to catch a glimpse of his back, where his wings remain folded. He’d noticed earlier that his new neck should be long enough, if it’s as flexible as his old one.

Interesting. He’s some kind of… horse-like creature? He almost has to snort at the color combination, though- his coat is a light cream, with his tail (and, presumably, mane) more of a light blue, complete with a slightly lighter stripe down the middle.

Finally, he raises his eyebrows, spreading his wings once again. A shielgician form might not be able to hit Mach 3, but he’s not yet familiar with the aerodynamic properties of this form… A shielgician form might be too heavy to fly with this size of wings anywhere slower than Mach 3, but this form might be lighter… He gives his wings a good stroke.

---

Whiz stares at his blue hoof. He doesn’t know how long he’s been impersonating an inanimate object, but he doesn’t really care, either. He’s spent the time trying to reason out the hows and whys related to the hoof- alongside trying to figure out how he’d perform so many of the tasks he’d done before, especially in this mana-less world. After all, with no standing fields from which to draw his energy, he simply can’t just throw spells around the way they do on Shielgic, or aboard their ships.

He snaps out of his trance when he hears a crash and a pained- and definitively feminine- yelp from the passenger compartment. Only, he’s fairly certain he only has one passenger- and Thiz is definitely male.

He freezes halfway through his search for the nearest sidearm- not like he could actually use them with a hoof- to remind himself of his own strange voice, and looks down at himself.

Light blue fur… and, yep, no longer male. The same thing could have happened to Thiz, he supposes- and he would activate their telepathic link, if he had the mana to maintain it for more than three seconds without drawing on a nonexistent shipboard supply. He- or, she- stands up again, successfully falling on her face once more before she tries a four-legged stance. Then, when she tries walking towards the door, she manages to fall on her face.

At least she doesn’t repeat that mistake twice. Once she figures out the walk, the door arrives fairly quickly, with no more painful faceplants. Opening the thing is one of the easiest things she’s done yet- a small burst of mana and it slides smoothly open, revealing…

Revealing an empty passenger compartment. She glances around the room. “Hello?”

---

His attention is drawn quickly by the sound of the cockpit door sliding open across the room- and the distinctive clopping noise he’d already found his own hooves made on the ground. He raises his head off of the decking, focusing on his ears until he points them successfully in the desired direction- towards the inbound noise. He’d found out about them when he landed on his head some seconds ago; as a matter of fact, he’s still lying on his back after that tragic maiden voyage. He never knew his yelps could be that high-pitched. At least he’s confirmed that his new form actually can fly without mana at all, though how he has no clue. Nevermind that he’ll have to learn how to fly with wings as well; presumably, he’ll be able to fly for as long as his muscles last, rather than for as long as his mana lasts- which, if he can’t draw from a surrounding field, could be as little as ten seconds.

“Hello?”

He tilts his head at the strange voice wafting over from the direction of the cockpit. Once recognition fails, he folds his wings and rolls back onto his hooves to stand up, rising from behind the seats before he responds. “He-Oh… Um, hello?” Even his normal voice is way too high, like a girl’s… He resists the temptation to check. It’s not like that’s actually important right now.

The creature by the door looks at him. “Thiz?” she asks.

Thiz spends a few seconds taking in the captain’s light blue fur and even lighter golden mane before he responds. “Uh, yes? I think?”

The captain raises an eyebrow. “It seems we’ve… changed,” she states. “I’m Whiz.”

Thiz tilts his head sideways, trotting his way up the aisle to meet his captain without shouting overtop the chairs. “What happened?”

Whiz sighs. “I’m not sure. As soon as we went through your portal, we were attacked. I had to announce a Lima Charlie, and tried to use a hyperspace to get us away.”

He nods, pretending to understand what his brother… Sister? Is telling him. “Uh-huh.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve never done those before- so the portal came out into a hyperspace that didn’t exist.”

He repeats his show.

Whiz lets out a huff. “In short, stuff happened and I accidentally dropped us into the void, so now we’re finding out what happens to everyone else that’s happened to!”

Now he understands. “Ahh.”

“So, we’ve been turned into…” Whiz’ eyes travel to Thiz’ wings, before she twists to search her own side. “What? You have wings?”

“You don’t?” Thiz returns; he hadn’t looked. Now he does- and, indeed, there are no wings on his brother-sister’s back. Bro-ter? Sis-ther? … Sister is good enough, he decides. He glances back at his own wings, extending them partially. “Um, okay.” He folds them again. “So, where’s everyone else?”

“We’re the only survivors.”

Comments

[LostArchivist]

...Do I want to know what that remark was about the seat being comfortable?

So, is Whiz a grounder or a pointy-head?

[Thiz]

8871476
Glad you liked it!

Computeneek wrote most of it, by the way, so blame him for the lack of backstory XD

Shielgicians are humanoids, and not (much) different from humans.

Also, their magic is not equestrian magic, and is also not discord's magic. Somewhere in-between, where they can have ships run on it too.

[LostArchivist]

8873177
It reminds me a bit of Starship Mage, if you want to get inspiration from that system. (Medium rune-based, but there's some regular magic too -- runes just amplify)

I am glad that it's a different type that isn't dependent on subspecies. Kinda had to be, really (otherwise someone would have drawn the short straw).
I know that it's not quite the same as Discord's, but in power and versatility (plus the fact that they can rip space itself a new one with little or no preparation (H) or effort) it looks similar. Just that the mechanics are different, then.

I bet the older brother's pretty upset that he can't fly. Any plans of tech-assist for that?
(Also, depending on interpretation, Twilight got her wings from discovering a new magic. I wonder what happens when the world discovers non-ponies who have yet-unknown magic. Is that how they got baleful-polymorphed? Or is there an accidental ascension somewhere in their future? (I am trying to figure out if the sheer hilarity of that outweighs the total OP advantages that would give them...))

Glad to see that the second chapter starts to answer how they ended up in Equestria. So, a hyperjump to a non-existant H-space does not cause decoherence, but instead a shunt to a (presumably random) multiversal plane. (I assume it's random, or Equestria probably has a crapload of ex-humanoids pronking around by this point.)
Yes, "pronking" IS actually a word. Look it up.

[computerneek]

8871476
I don’t see much harm in the question; it’s a humanoid-designed seat that he was strapped to as if he were still human. Thus, the seat that’s designed much like modern aircraft seats (though with a more comprehensive harness) applied pressure in the wrong spots... Which spots, I don’t know. His tail might have had a part to play in that, too.

8873177
Oh come on, lack of backstory creates suspense! Besides, if I were to provide it all at once, I’d start by writing the book that this is technically a crossover with. Yes, a crossover with that which does not exist... It works, okay?

8873230
Sounds about right... Ascension might be an interesting future event (not sure yet), and I believe they did mention they can self-levitate with their own power, though it doesn’t last very long. Whiz’ll probably be most bothered when he finds out his brother can now walk on clouds... and he can’t.
Oh- and their power is not rune-based; it behaves more like a cross between traditional magic (think unicorn) and electricity. They’ve got specific materials that can conduct it, specific devices that can perform specific tasks with it... No computers, though. All switches controlled manually by the pilot... through that control bar and his own ability. Nevermind that the ship’s power is supplied to him for the purpose, allowing him to fly for as long as the ship has power- which could be days, weeks... He’ll still need to eat, though.

[LostArchivist]

8873393
That's actually how Mage did it. Runic circuitry allows a Jump Mage to power a large teleport spell to move the ship. As it so happens, the rune matrix for this happens to amplify ANY spell, but there's a special diverter that cuts in for any other spell and breaks the resonance loop, dumping it into the ship's radiator system. (Guess what the main character ends up doing...)

Anyway, the point is that the mage provides the power, but runes can be built into a circuit for additional effects.

An interesting alternative might be found in the book Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher. That one has flying ships that actually work off of a combination of electricity and power crystals harnessing the aether. (Read: Zero-point energy analogue and holistic energy field in one) There are also etherialists, eccentric people who can interface with the aether mentally and cut out the machinery that would normally be required to perform an action. They can do anything that the aetherships or other equipment can, but go crazy over time since their inborn talent causes the aether to be drawn to them and mess with their minds. (The book mostly depicts this as partially benign. Most of them live to old age anyway, with the minor caveat that they pick up minor compulsive disorders; one is unable to use doorknobs and must have a wagon of random items nearby. It only really causes problems with those that don't act kooky -- those ones are scary, since it manifests as sociopathy.)