Werewolves of Knicknik

by Atuhor Name

CH. 28 A Prophecy and a Promise

A Prophecy and a Promise

As Twilight and Naudia reached the encampment things seemed to be accelerating there, everybody was packing up. It was very strange, nothing had looked temporary, but all of it was very temporary. The whole camp couldn’t have even been here a week.

Time felt different for Twilight and Naudia, everything had been happening so fast that Twilight had actually forgotten what day of the week it was. She hadn’t even thought of trying to make a schedule today, or yesterday, and she couldn’t check her schedule to see when she’d missed last making a schedule.

Twilight just had to stop for a moment and realize how much this whole thing had consumed her life. Even when she and Naudia were out in the desert, she had privately sketched out a schedule in the sand.

It was time to eat, they sat down on different tables than they had just this morning.

“The table and dinnerware have been summoned in, they’ll dissolve in one hour.”

And with that, while they were eating the dinner container-ship thingy packed up and blasted off back into the sky again. It still used those thrusters that Twilight was curious about. The question burning in her head Twilight flagged somebody down.

“What did that flying restaurant use to fly around with?”

She had asked a strange bird creature whose broadcast system had identified as a “harpy”. His feathered face had opened up to reveal a fox face underneath the false feather face.

“Oh, that, I believe the Oily Flange normally uses cilia but since we’re in an atmosphere it was adapted with open cycle fission rockets.”

Twilights eyes bulged out.

“Isn’t that… dangerous? Like really dangerous?”

The fox-harpy just tilted his head at her.

“Isn’t that thing just spewing out uranium gas in it’s exhaust everywhere?”

“Well yeah, but mag-uranium dissipates less than a second after it leaves the nozzle.”

“But it’s dissipating that into the air, everywhere.” Twilight gesticulated wildly.

The harpy began massaging his temple.

“The, mag-uranium, dissipates into nothing, magically created materials are…” The harpy looked at Twilight as if measuring her. “Do you know what a virtual particle is?”

Twilight nodded.

“Well our magic works basically like that, all virtual particles that we have set up to perfectly annihilate themselves at a designated time. The mag-uranium gas doesn’t dissipate into the air, it dissipates into nothing.”

“But if you’re using the mag-uranium to do work then shouldn’t the work you’re doing with it cause some sort of problem? It’s offsetting the balance of the virtual particles.”

The harpy knitted his brow.

“It basically doesn’t matter if there is extra energy left in quintessence, it’s too large and dense to be effected.” The harpy looked to be stretching his knowledge a bit. “Sorry while I am a spell researcher, some stuff, like that, just doesn’t come up. It’s just not worth looking into optimizing because it’s always going to be different, you know because of the quantum fluctuations in the sub-atomic scale area we pull our magic from.”

Having enough shop talk the harpy walked off, and Twilight and Naudia finished their lunch, mulling over and discussing what they knew about this strange new branch of magic and science.They ended up with a lot of interesting questions they wanted to ask later.

When they looked up from their lunch they saw that a tent had been set up, the whole thing looked weird. The tent was dark blue and the cloth looked thick, and extremely heavy, like it had been stuffed with lead.

“It’s lined with lead.” Said Gwynn Hall coming up next to them.

Yunguaq were circled around it with menacing looking equipment to set up some kind of geodesic dome over the tent as well. Other yunguaq were casting spells to create plates to slot into the dome covering the tent.

“What is THAT for?” Naudia asked.

“Your baptism Naudia.” Gwynn said. “Everybody in the First Administration recognizes how hard it is to stand up to a nerteln, so we galvanize those who must fight against them. I can say no more about the process, but we are ready when you are.”

“Is it going to hurt?” Naudia asked.

Gwynn had to consider that question for a minute.

“I honestly don’t remember.”

“Why aren’t I getting baptized?” Twilight asked.

“Because you technically already got an uncontrolled one when you slashed at the First Administrator’s face.” Gwynn frowned at Twilight.

“Is it seriously going to be THAT bad?” Naudia asked having seen Twilight in the hospital bed next to hers.

“Twilight was exposed to Camna’s blood, that is NOT part of the process. In addition her aggression towards him triggered a defense. Today will be far less destructive, far more… controlled than that. There will be no element of ‘luck’ as to if you survive or not.”

“That really doesn’t inspire confidence.” Naudia said.

“Well, if you’re certain that you can face down the nerteln without it, we can skip it.”

Naudia’s mouth scrunched into a thin line. She shrank back into herself.

“Remember if your courage fails you, then Twilight will be fighting the nerteln on her own.”

Naudia’s eyes had met with the ground.

“I’ll… I’ll go through with it.” Naudia said ashamed.

Gwynn placed a hand on Naudia’s shoulder.

“There is nothing wrong with being afraid to fight a nerteln. They are monsters, abominations that should not exist in this world. Nobody should be put into a situation where they have to fight one, that is what the First Administration is for.” Gwynn’s expression turned into a scowl. “That’s why it’s so frustrating that we have to work at the whims of some sleeping cosmic entity.”

Gwynn looked up at the empty sky, seemingly at something Twilight and Naudia couldn’t see.

“But we have a plan for that.”

-------------------

The inside of the lead lined geodesic dome was empty. Twilight and Naudia’s hooves clanked on a metal floor that seemed to be full of water for whatever reason. It wasn’t dark, but the environment was very dim. The whole thing was small and contained two plush reclining chairs with restraints, and a set of rolling cabinets. Naudia noticed that the restraints clearly meant for a horned head included some sort of enchantment.

“For your own safety your magic will be blocked for the duration of the baptism.” The First Administrator's voice came from behind them. He had not been in the room when they looked around. “Also please remove your bagrats and place them in here, they will be returned to you.”

Naudia had honestly forgotten that she had a rat hanging around with her somewhere in her hair. Sure it was a nice warm feeling around the back of her neck, but things were so hectic that she had forgotten it wasn’t just part of herself split off. She and Twilight placed their bagrats into a cage where they were quickly whisked out of the dome.

“What is all of this? What is going to happen to us?” Naudia asked.

“I will be imparting you with a fragment of my memories. An understanding of nerteln. This will involve you looking into the Ryladite, so for your own safety you will be restrained.” The First Administrator smiled at them. “By the way, as for one of your rewards, should you survive all of this, I have arranged for you two to meet with The Oracle of Adak.”

“The what?”

“The Oracle of Adak is the most advanced isentropic computer ever constructed. I have arranged for 3 hours of time with Adak for you two as well as a data repository for your personal use.”

Twilight didn’t quite understand.

“She is a wellspring of knowledge beyond anything you could possibly imagine. If there is a known answer to a question Adak can answer it. The data repository should be larger than the collective of all Equestrian knowledge.”

Twilight’s eyes grew wide, Naudia’s jaw about hit the floor.

“You’re joking right?”

The First Administrator scowled.

Naudia realized how stupid that question sounded being directed at him.

“Moving on, we should begin the baptism, I would like to ask you two to strap yourselves down in those chairs with magic, then we can turn on the anti-magic field and begin.”

Twilight and Naudia reluctantly got into the chairs, they were quite comfortable, like these chairs were designed for them. There was even a spot for Twilight’s wings. It felt very strange to be strapping yourself down into a chair like this.

“For your own safety we will be suppressing your magic during the procedure, exposure to the Ryladite should have no lasting consequences.” The First Administrator glared at Twilight. “Unless you do something stupid. This procedure has been done trillions of times and the only points of failure have been people holding out knives and such to cut their bonds to try and TOUCH the Ryladite.”

Naudia could feel something turn on in the chair behind her, and suddenly it was like somebody had put a blanket over her magic.

“Are you ready?” The First Administrator asked.

Naudia tried to nod, but her head was strapped in.

“Then we can begin.”

-------------------

In the beginning the universe was a single point of chaos, a catalyst for the great reordering, but it existed as such for only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second before it exploded outwards at the speed of light. This was not the beginning of the universe, as there was a universe before this universe, and possibly one even before that.

The old universe had matured for 13 billion years until a race called humans developed a method to alter the laws of reality. The dream was to create a mythological force called “magic”. But the procedure went wrong, this magic was malformed, and thus were born the nerteln and all the evil that comes with them.

The nerteln expanded outwards, their unassailable influence sinking and entrenching deep within the star system Sol. Until one day, a resistance group operating around the moons of a planet called Jupiter, were pushed far enough into a corner that they activated the Briggs Machine.

True magic was born as well as the new universe. In that destructive moment the entire old universe died, consumed by the great reordering. The nerlten were supposed to have died, their very existence torn apart by the violent birth of the new universe.

But the Yunguaq, those that separated themselves from the monstrous humanity who had lost their naklekun, their compassion, survived. They surveyed the empty universe before them and the first spell of sovereign magic was cast.

-------------------

Camna put on his glasses. It was over.

Naudia lay limp in her chair, her breath coming in shallow gasps. She knew things now, like the things Twilight had told her, and more. She understood the depth of the horror of the nerteln, something she could only glimpse at with her emphatic abilities.

It helped to know all this, know they could be fought, Doctor Willow no longer seemed unassailable. But she could feel it taking a toll on her mind and body. She lay there, just trying to recover, trying to straighten out her head.

An eternity of mentally scrabbling to pull herself together later somebody was removing her binds, she didn’t even think to try and remove them with her magic. Doing something with her magic felt beyond her at that moment.

As soon as her left hoof was free she reached out to grasp Twilight’s hoof and held on. An anchor in a world that was still spinning, reshaping itself around the revelations she had just experienced.

Eventually Naudia began to feel slightly better. It was like waking up from a terrible reality.

She realized that she and Twilight had pulled their chairs up next to each other.

It took Naudia quite a few minutes after that to fully recover, or at least it felt like that. She never let go of Twilight’s hoof the entire time. About halfway through somebody came in with some snacks to help them back up onto their feet.

Even though they had more or less recovered Naudia didn’t feel up for much, she and Twilight leaned on each other they both felt like going to bed.

“Now that is out of the way, I think it’s time to dangle the carrot in front of you two.”

Naudia slowly dragged her gaze up, until it could meet with the First Administrator again.

“It’s not going to be as exhausting as that last one is it?”

“Far from it. It’s as easy as looking at a tee-… A picture. It should actually be very relaxing after what you just went through.”

Gwynn was holding two things that looked like they went over Twilight and Naudia’s eyes. They looked a bit hacked together, like the hole for their horns was still covered with black duct tape.

“If you put these VR helmets on, we’ve put something together to show you the future I have planned for you. A prophecy and a promise.”

Standing up straight to put on the helmet, at first Naudia could only see darkness, like she had put one of Rarity’s sleeping masks on. After a moment there was light, and she was somewhere else.

She was standing in front of a window. Outside the window was space, but a space like she’d never seen before. Close by, or not, it was hard to tell because the thing looked huge, Naudia recognized it as one of those huge rotating drums they visited like on Zaohm. The habitat had lots of other facilities attached to it’s living wooden surface as well, places where spaceships were being built, places where you could see in and there was everything from farms to ski slopes. The habitat was practically buzzing with activity.

Then there was another one along ways off, and another one, shining dots, littered the sky in orderly lines slowly orbiting around the sun. They looked like stars.

Then the view from the window began to move with no sensation of movement. Naudia realized Twilight was standing beside her because they both let out an exclamation as it looked like they were going to crash into the side of the rotating habitat. But nothing actually did happen, and they were inside of it now.

Inside was a city, a lot like Manehatten, and like Manehatten there were ponies there, pegasai flying about managing clouds, unicorns walking around levitating things in their magic, Changelings buzzing just above the crowds, earth ponies flying around on various things that looked a lot like a folding camp chair with wiggling hairs on sticks that seemed to move them along. There were all kinds of street vendors, and lots of changelings, Naudia could even spot a couple yunguaq wandering the streets as well. The middle of the street was a canal, surrounded on the sides by a beach and a boardwalk, there were little fillies and colts playing in the clear waters.

The ponies even exhibited traits that Twilight and Naudia’s new bodies had, that sort of werewolf transformation, the slime-ish stuff they could do. It was a lot like the city they had seen inside of Zaohm, but filled with ponies.

It looked so real, like they were there, looking over an actual city. She turned to the side to look over at Twilight who was staring out at the cityscape mouth wide open.

The view from the window moved out of the rotating habitat and away from the city inside the drum and to another drum, this time orbiting the outside of the drum habitat. The view took them through the various places outside of the habitat, the ship maintenance places, something that looked like a camping ground around the entire circumference of the drum. There were farms, factories, what looked like a docked cruise ship, and a water park.

All inhabited by ponies and changelings.

Eventually the view pulled back to look at the solar system at large and Naudia got an idea of how uncountably many habitats like that there were around this star. There were so many that from certain viewpoints they looked like a fog that blocked view of the star entirely. These tiny points of dust that made up an opaque fog around a star were all habitats with at least the population of Manehatten, possibly more. The scale of this pony civilization was staggering, utterly incomprehensible in scope.

Naudia could find no words to describe this, there was nothing to say.

She turned to her side to see Twilight gazing out across the seemingly endless expanse of pony civilization.

Naudia sidled over and pressed her side against Twilight and looked out the window, they were flying through another habitat full of ponies.

-------------------

Eventually they took off the viewing “Vee Arrr” helmets as the First Administrator called them. It was strange taking them off, they were exactly where they were before with a couple cameras having been set up on tripods in front of them.

Naudia’s mind needed to adapt to the idea that they weren’t flying through space, a pair of ghosts looking at a huge pony civilization though a window. She almost fell over at first because she had lost her bearings.

Looking around the geodesic dome they had been “baptized” in was already being taken apart. Even as she was looking around, the rolling table they put their helmets down on was already being wheeled away. She could already see outside as some of the triangular dark metal plates had been taken off.

The First Administrator was reading a book in one of the chairs they had been sitting in, and there was a question burning in Naudia’s mind as brightly as a star.

“Was that… real?” Naudia had. “Is there someplace really like that out there?”

“No. There is no place like that out there.” The First Administrator said. “Think of that as an advanced concept blueprint, me showing you a possible future for your species. If things go well with my plan that WILL be the future of ponies, changelings and all races on Equis.”

All of that, Naudia could not even begin to imagine how much ‘all of that’ could even be the scale would not fit inside her head, for ponies.

“I would also like to apologize for not being able to fully establish the scope of this civilization to you, we were only able to really put together something that showed the scale of the primary rotating habitat layer and not the outer system colonies, solar polar collectors… Tell me, did you notice if they had time to put in the starlifting operation?”

“What? There is more? How could there possibly be more than what we saw? What is ‘starlifting’?” Twilight buzzed with questions.

“You know, starlifting, mining a star.” The First Administrator said as if that explained everything.

Twilight and Naudia could not even comprehend what he meant, they could only imagine trying to land on a star with a bucket and a shovel to “mine” it.

“You use rings of magnetic field satellites to compress the star’s outer layers causing matter to fly off the top of the star. You filter out all the hydrogen and dump it back into the star and use everything else.”

“OOOOOH.” Twilight and Naudia said simultaneously, that made sense. Then it hit them the kind of scale an operation like that would have to exist on.

“No, we didn’t see anything like that.”

“A pity, I’ve always liked how they looked.”

It took them a while to shake that shock off, when they finally did they noticed that the camp was seriously starting to empty itself out.

The only thing seemingly not being touched was a set of what looked like camping chairs, the fold up ones that Twilight had considered bringing to Rainbow Falls. Except they didn’t look normal, below the arms were at pair of sticks with… a hairy broom? Sticking out the back. And the chair legs looked like they were wearing fur ruff bell-bottoms.

It took a second looking at them to realize what they were. The sticks were obviously some kind of weird organic looking broomstick or mop, and the bell-bottoms were decidedly rocket nozzle shaped. Naudia could only conclude that these were meant to fly, but there was no place for any sort of power pack or something like that.

Gwynn Hall ambled over to them to explain. She was holding Twilight and Naudia’s bagrat cages.

“These are your new transport methods, broomsticks, we’re going to need you to move something kinda large at a moments notice. When we’re done here you can keep them.”

“I guess they kinda look like a witch’s broomstick.” Naudia said.

“It’s based on historical yunguaq broomsticks, over time the name never changed but this turned out to be the best folding design to carry around and be comfortable on.”

To demonstrate Gwynn placed a hand on one of the armrests and activated the strange moldy sticks. The moldy sticks sprung to life in a way that would look sort of like a broomstick if you’ve only had one described to you in a hurry. The strange mold-looking strands that were supposed to be the broom head wiggled around in the air and glowed blue. So did the strands around the rocket nozzle bell-bottoms.

-------------------

Twilight watched as Naudia was flying through the air on a folding camp chair attached to some sticks with glowing mold. It was a moment where she just had to sit down and take stock of the situation.

She had been turned into an immortal hermaphrodite slime-werewolf, had been given combat training as a different type of werewolf, she was going to be fighting a soul eating monster in the next twenty four hours. And she was watching her fillyfriend fly around on a camp chair like it was some kind of roller coaster.

The broomstick didn’t seem to be super duper fast, she was sure Rainbow Dash could do better, and so could some pegasi. What it seemed to really beat them at was agility, it could do tight loops, corkscrews, fly upside down, fly sideways, outright spin in place in the air. Twilight was certain that even Rainbow couldn’t have pulled off as tight a helix as that chair. Naudia always seemed to be very much in control as well, almost like the chair reacted to her intent and was working WITH her, particularly with how she managed to dodge that tree.

Eventually, after much yelling, they managed to get Naudia to come back down to earth.

“That was SO MUCH FUN!” Naudia exclaimed, her face was beaming, Twilight hadn’t seen her enjoy something THIS much since they met Daring Do.

“You can keep the broomsticks when you’re done with all this by the way.” Gwynn said.

“REALLY!?” Naudia was right up next to Gwynn like a foal unable to stand still.

“Yep, and now it’s your turn Twilight.”

“Uhhh, well… I don’t know if I want to do all that, that looks a bit much for me…”

“You just have to learn how to fly the broomstick, not do tricks on it.”

“I’ll tell you what Twilight, I’ll fly my, broomstick,” Naudia had wanted to call it a chair. “Right next to you the whole time and you can take it as slow as you’d like at first okay?”

Hesitantly Twilight agreed.

Her first flight on the broomstick was a shaky thing, prone to pitching in the direction of one of the chair legs and then jerkily stabilizing back to level. It took her far longer to get the chair even a couple feet off the ground and she dug a few holes in the dirt doing so.

The problem wasn’t that she lacked control, Twilight realized, it was that this chair had too much control. It was like she was over-mashing the buttons beyond what they should be able to do with the strength of her magic. That was a theme that seemed to carry through with her bumbling exploration of how to fly this broomstick.

Naudia could do tricks, Twilight had power and speed. Naudia could dodge in and out from between the treetops, Twilight accidentally knocked the top off of a spruce tree.

Coming down, spitting spruce needles Twilight was deemed “good enough to fly above the treeline.”

That was when Gwynn started filling them in on the plan they had for dealing with Doctor Willow.

Author's Note:

BTW I have a second story running on Bhooks.

https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/986081/the-exogenous-god-has-been-released