A World of Colorful Feathers

by The Psychopath

New First Steps

BasKas stretched his feather 'fingers'. "I suppose then that she'll need an introduction to everything here, since she'll stand out too much."

"Didn't she already do that with her joy-teleporting everywhere and into the castle?" Fizzy asked.

The avian looked up pensively. "You're right, but I'm not interested in doing it today."

"Nor I," the stallion grumbled.

Luster sat awkwardly in front of the two. "Can you...explain the runes a little more?" she asked meekly.

"I already explained everything." Fizzy's eyes shot wide open. "I'm not telling you what happens to the wizards that fuse too many runes to their bodies!"

"No no!" Luster quickly corrected. "The materials used in crafting the runes and how they're implemented."

The stallion stared at her, stuck in his angry hoof-pointing-over-the-table position. "Oh," he muttered. BasKas snickered. "Well, I told you that runes can be made of a wide variety of materials. The bases to write them on can be something simple like clay, mud, or even plant fibers. The stronger ones can be made of various metals." He pulled out several small squares from the boxes behind him, each half the size of a pony's eye, and placed them on the curvature of the table. "Aluminum, copper, or iron." He pulled some grayer metals out. "Stronger ones are mixtures of other metals -or alloys-, like bronze, steel, and titanium."

"They're much harder to come by on the market because of the fervor at which the wizards take samples, ever eager to purify and purify or just shove them in their bodies!" BasKas emphasized by punching the air. "But then there are the extremely rare metals."

Fizzy scratched the back of his neck. "These things are...Well. If you see a wizard that seems horribly twisted, then they've used one of these metals."

"Fizzy has some of them," BasKas added. "They're so valuable, which is why he can afford to stay in his mansion tower here."

The stallion shot BasKas a glare. "Yes. I can make the metals, but it's time consuming."

Luster was caught off guard. "Wait, so you can make them and nopony else can?"

"Others can. I'm just the only one -as far as I know- that does so," Fizzy explained.

"Okay? And what about crafting the rune itself? Is it like with me where I have to focus and bend at several points of my horn to make spells?" Luster asked.

Fizzy hummed pensively. "In a way, I imagine. Every type of magic has its own style, if you will."

"You remember those water slides we rode on to get here?" BasKas asked Luster.

"I do. Was it water magic?" Luster said.

The avian shook his head. "Nope. Weight magic."

"Also known as gravity magic to the more fantasy-driven out there," Fizzy added. He had started to paint a wooden rune with a blackish-green ink.

Luster laughed. "That's a silly name. I prefer gravity."

The grumpy stallion scoffed. "A surprise, to be sure." He pointed the brush at Luster. "But that you can theoretically use any magic makes you, potentially, the greatest danger to this world."

"Yeah. Sure she is," BasKas said dismissively.

Fizzy shot him an intense glare. Luster was never directly 'aimed' at by his glares, but she would always start trembling, and yet BasKas always approached these with a humorous gait. Was this what friendship did? Were they even friends? She didn't want to believe that her princess was right even if she held her in high esteem.

"Don't listen to the grouch. Everything that could change magic is always the 'greatest death' to the world," he mocked.

"Because they are!" Fizzy shouted.

"You mean like the floating islands that created more space and separated the wizards and more eccentric 'richies' from the general populace?" the avian asked.

"They could have been dropped on city centers!"

"And yet there's around thirty different safety measures in place to prevent any damage to either if they fell." Even though Luster had no way to discern any features in the feathers of this creature that absorbed all light, she was certain that he was smiling...somehow. Luster still had no idea if he had a real mouth or not. "Then what about the airships?"

"They could've caught fire and crashed down!" Fizzy screamed in a panic. "Do you know how much damage that could cause?!"

BasKas shook his head. "You hate everything new." He leaned forward and waggled his 'fingers'. "Everything new is evil and we should keep to the old ways because they're known and safe!" he mocked.

"Well, they are!"

"Which your predecessors said about what you were doing, and they theirs, and so on and so forth," the avian said as he rotated his feathers in the air.

Fizzy bared his teeth in anger. "Go show our vacationer this Canterlot of ours. Find what's the same and what isn't so I can get better knowledge on the problem."

"And get out of my sight!" the two said at the same time.

BasKas shrugged, and Fizzy threw a glass bottle at his head, prompting the avian to grab Luster by the foreleg to the lower floors, making her little body fly around like a stuffed animal.

---

King Daegcandel called for an end to the requests in the throne room. He was weary. Hours upon hours of creatures coming to him and his wife for guidance. It was time for some entertainment that everyone sorely needed. He hopped out of his throne, the sound of his heavy hooves slamming into the stone beneath the rug muffling the mumbling of the crowd.

"Fantastic," he cheered quietly to himself. "Assistant," he called out.

A lime-green stallion with a yellow mane manipulated into a single giant, forward-facing curl hanging in front of their face stepped forward. "Yes, my lord?"

"Are the boxing matches ready?" he asked. "I'm eager to see the start of this year's mixed tournament." He licked the side of his mouth and rubbed his armored hooves together in anticipation.

"They are. Your wife -the queen- is already seated in the royal balcony. Would you like an escort there?"

Daegcandel shook his head. "No need. Is it still at the peak?" he asked.

The pony nodded. "Of course. We wouldn't move it without informing the king and queen."

"Very well." The stallion steadied himself. "I will just teleport there."

As the king began to glow yellow and tendrils of white-hot magic started to swirl around him, the stallion lost his composure and frantically rushed to Daegcandel.

"My king! Don't! You'll melt everything there!"

The alicorn scoffed at the warning and went anyways, melting a hole in the throne podium. When he appeared next to his wife, his magic spread out in a violent flash, blinding everyone and creating tremendous wind pressure.

"Your king has arrived," Daegcandel announced.

"And he creates shockwaves countered only by the open design of this sports coliseum," Heofoncandel said with restrained anger.

Daegcandel shared the frustration against his wife, but the two cooled off and the king sat on his yellow cushions. He had a great view above everyone in the seats below, and several other more 'successful' members of his city were sat in similar balconies as the royals, just at lower positions. A circular platform sat in the middle of the coliseum where two creatures were currently being introduced by a presentation in a bombastic fashion. It was fully illuminated by the cloudy sky above, but the rain falling met only an invisible barrier kept strong by the runes built into the structure of this area. Four triangle shaped pieces of metal hung over the crowd, ready to close and shut out the outside world whenever the command was given.

The king, while hating the massive crowds the audiences gave him, absolutely adored these kinds of events. So many creatures shouting with excitement and joy. He wanted it above all else. A moment where the yelling and screaming weren't directed at him but towards someone else. Heofon looked at her husband from the corner of her eyes and could see the excitement and relief coming from him, even if he was sitting comfortably on the cushions and not displaying much more than a meager smile. He even had a little spyglass hanging on a brace drilled into the ledge of the balcony for him to see better if he wanted.

The crowd languished at the loud cracking noise coming from the middle podium, at this moment, a guard stepped in.

"Sorry to bother you during your respite, majesties, but there's been some development regarding the mare who escaped the dungeons," she explained.

Heofon scoffed. "Kidnapped is more like it. She could hardly even function." She winced when one of the opponents had to be escorted out of the ring.

"Regardless, she's no longer in the dungeon." The king refused to take his eyes off of the fight. "What have you found out?"

"Well, one of them had..." The guard cleared her throat and began sweating profusely.

"Yes? Get on with it," the king ordered.

The guard's voice gradually turned into inaudible squeaking as the two rulers gradually turned towards her with pure, unrestrained rage on their faces. Below, the announcer was making another very loud introduction. He was a stallion missing his right foreleg and wearing a red velvet coat.

"I'm sure you've all been entertained by the brutality of the first ever mixed-species competition." He laughed. "Naturally, we only let the same-sized fight for these preliminaries, but this mare thought herself up to fighting any opponent!" Light projectors hung against the walls behind the crowd focused on a corner where a pony was coming forth. The announcer's voice lowered to a quiet-but-suspenseful voice "She came from a backwater trough family, where dirt is your food and rocks your water. She weighs just a measly one-o'-five P, but I can assure you all that it's naught but muscle on muscle." His voice increased in volume. "A rookie to the sport but eager to succeed with her hard work: Jacked Apple!"

An orange mare with a rough, unkempt mane and almost non-existent tail stepped into the ring. Her body was covered in pale stripes that her bulky frame pushed out prominently. She was gruff and was missing a part of her right nostril. The crowd cheered not by fandom, but for the inevitable career that this rookie would have. They were eager to follow her from her start to her end.

"And in the corner is the challenge for this little mare," the announcer continued. The lights flew to another corner. "Maybe she's trying to take on an apple too big for even her. He's easily four times her size in every department, and he's covered in spikes to boot! A creature that crushes boulders in his hands to develop grip strength and the sturdiness of his own body: Quill Drill!"

A tremendous creature stepped into the ring, towering over the little pony. His spikes pointed downwards on his body, threatening his opponent's body with their potential strikes. Quill Drill's eyes could hardly be seen between their quills.

"This tiny pony wants to fight me?" the giant asked calmly. "I'll pull my punches for a fair fight, then."

The pony frowned. "Y'all go doin' that and yer gonna have every quill 'n bone broken when ah'm done with ye," Apple threatened.

She bared the side of her mouth, revealing a disturbing sight for some. The top four teeth going from her right wolf tooth had been replaced with sharp, metal teeth. Her gums were very discolored as well, intriguing the giant.

"Scarred within and without?" He laughed. "You tried to inject runes in yourself."

The mare's eyes became red with anger, and the announcer backed away, letting the bell announce the start of a long battle. The giant performed the first strike, punching downwards, but his opponent was quick enough to dodge to the side, letting the fist impale the ground instead. Apple twisted her body in the air, double kicking the giant in the head and breaking several quills, causing him to stumble back and grab his bruised cheek. Jacked Apple smiled maliciously at the shocked giant, and everyone in the spectator seats cheered.

"I'm impressed, rookie. To hurt me so easily," the giant said.

"Ah ain't no rookie ta fi--"

"What?!" the two rulers bellowed at the top of their lungs.

Everyone squished themselves against their seats or on the floor when the whole coliseum shook violently from the explosive bellowing.

"How did that get into my capital city?!" Heofon hissed.

"Should I have all my border guards executed for extreme incompetence?" Daeg emphasized.

The guard had squished herself completely under their gaze, and her armor was clanking from her trembling. The rulers were seething with rage. What was she supposed to do?

"B-but, no pony knows if that's what the creature was. We're just cross-referencing everything we've seen from witnesses of both guards and civilians." She gulped loudly. "H-honestly, everything is contradictory!"

Daeg pointed at her. "You better tell them to get their act together and confirm any sightings. I won't have the whole of my people suffer because of the incompetence of a few guards."

The mare nodded and scampered off.

"It's okay, people. Sorry for our outburst," Heofoncandel explained. "Please, resume the show."

Comments

[Celestial king turles]

Interesting they have a Colosseum

[Discworld-mlp]

I need more

[The Psychopath]

10276636
Alrighty. Lemme finish the chapter. Should be a few minutes, if I can focus.