Ungrounded

by Lucien Chance

Chapter 25: In the Clouds

"LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN!"

"LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAAAAAAAAINNNNNN!" The music quickly slowed down and faded out into the background noise of the late-afternoon sounds. All the ponies that were participating in the song fell to the collapsed on the ground, their funny-looking outfits getting slightly dirty and their hats toppling off their heads.

Lucien picked himself up off the ground and magically switched out of his sloppy-looking tuxedo + hunchback costume and back into his regular clothes, a grin stretched across his face. He looked around at all the ponies on the ground, each one breathing hard from the physically exhausting song. "Wow, everyone, that was fantastic!"

Twilight Sparkle stood up behind him. "Great. Just don't ever have us sing that song again. I don't know how we all managed to know the words to a song only found on your planet, but I've had enough of impossible things from Pinkie Pie, so I'll just let it go this time."

Upon hearing Twilight's final words, Lucien's eyes widened and his eyebrows shot up. "That's a great idea!" He sucked in breath and prepared himself. "Let it gooo! Let it goooooo! Let it—oof!" He stopped suddenly as a hoof slammed into his stomach, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

"No. More. Singing," said Rainbow Dash through gritted teeth. "That last one was more than enough!"

"You can't stop the funk!" said Lucien weakly, doubled over in pain.

"If that's another lame song from your planet, keep it to yourself!" Rainbow shouted, raising her hoof again threateningly. "What am I even wearing, anyway?" She was, in fact, wearing an outfit that could be misconstrued as sexy, if it weren't obviously meant for the opposite gender when the opposite gender is pretending to be her gender.

"At least you didn't get what I got! This is positively garish!" Rarity contributed, wearing an outfit that would not be out of place at one of Earth's New Years' Eve parties.

"I think we all look great!" said Pinkie Pie, bouncing in, wearing a costume best suited for cleaning a house; with a somehow-fitting frizzy red wig. "That was fun! What other songs do you know, Lucien?"

"Well, there's this one—" he stopped mid-sentence as Rainbow gave him a very threatening glare. "I don't know any other songs Pinkie, sorry," he stated as if he was reading lines off a sheet of paper.

Rainbow gave him an approving nod and flew away, no doubt going to find something helpful to do.

The whole town, now that Lucien and Aiden had removed all of the monsters, was working to make quick repairs to buildings that had been partially destroyed or took fire damage. Virtually every pony was helping the effort, and already after a meager two hours was making massive progress towards getting the town to look like itself again. Aiden was still resting, his mana reserves critically low, as Lucien observed when they had finished.

"Man, that kid's got some serious ambition to try to undertake a spell like that. Or maybe some serious gonads." He shrugged internally. "Either way, that spell would have been almost too much for me to handle alone, and he was gonna attempt it by himself. There's attempting to fix your errors and then there's just plain suicidal."

"Yo, Lucien! Help me move this!" Dash shouted from across the street. She was trying to move a support beam into place on a building that had taken some heavy damage. If he recalled correctly, he had launched a golem into that very building when it tried to trip him as he ran past. Though that might have been a different building. He had done a lot of running.

He wrapped the beam in his aura and lifted it up with considerable strain on his mind. It seemed that he still hadn't fully recovered from casting that spell. Rainbow fluttered back as Lucien carefully guided the beam back into its former place and held it their while several unicorns walked forward and cast a spell to put all the shards of wood back together, effectively remaking the support like it was just built yesterday.

Lucien quickly lost himself in the tasks he took on, many magic-related. After another ten minutes of working he popped open a can of alchemically-enhanced soda, withdrawn from his backpack, and chugged the contents. His mana reserves took a temporary boost as the drink quickly infused his body with a sugar-rush-esque influx of power. He figured it would be enough to get him through the rest of the day.

And get him through the rest of the day it did. By the time the sun went down and darkness swept over Ponyville, a good chunk of the town had been cleaned up and put back into shape. Lucien's house, being just on the edge of the Everfree Forest, was thankfully unharmed from the fighting. He stumbled in through the door and shambled upstairs, shrugging off his equipment and letting it just lay on the stairs. He tumbled into bed and fell into a deep magic-exhaustion-induced slumber.

---

"So he's still at Applejack's?" Lucien asked Twilight. They had met up when he woke that morning. He rubbed his eyes sleepily and yawned while Twilight answered. The sun had risen a meager thirty minutes ago, and the two of them were still tired from using too much magic the day before.

"As far as I can tell, yes. He didn't come back into town last night, same with AJ." They were both currently en route to the cowpony's farm.

It didn't take long before they reached the Apple family's house. After knocking on the door, they were waved in by a friendly Granny Smith and Big Macintosh. They pointed with hooves upstairs, indicating that there were still sleeping ponies. Twilight gave a smile in return and Lucien offered a small wave as they walked up the creaking wooden stairs. As they moved down the hallway, the two heard voices coming from behind a door.

"—don't have to disappear after cleaning your mess. We'll forgive you eventually." It sounded like Applejack.

"I really don’t want to cause anymore trouble than I have. I feel as if I already overstayed my welcome here," came the voice of Aiden.

Lucien opened the door, despite the frantic silent protests of Twilight and made a swift interception of the conversation. "You what now?"

Aiden gawked. "Uhm, hi."

“Yeah, so, just came to make sure you weren’t dead. That’s important. Mana exhaustion is the leading cause of magically induced deaths,” Lucien said cheerfully.

“He’s fine now, just needed a good night’s sleep,” she said. Lucien took note that her cheeks were tinged slightly red, but from what he couldn't know. He didn't comment on it.

“That’s also helpful. Oh!” he suddenly flung his backpack around and unzipped it. “Here,” he said, tossing Aiden a can of soda, which he barely caught, surprised by the sudden flying cylinder. “Drink it, I made it myself. Restores mana. It’s like a Red Bull for magic.”

“Okay,” Aiden replied raising a brow. The can made a hiss as he pulled the tab open. He took a sip, and immediately brightened up. Holding back a burp, "Whoa," he said.

Lucien shot him a grin. "Yeah, it does that. Anyway, we still have work to do.” He held up his hand to stop, as if suddenly realizing something. “Wait, you have some work to do. I should probably get going to Cloudsdale. Twilight?” he turned around to look at her, then pointed. “You’re coming with me.”

“What? Why?” she asked, clearly confused.

Lucien shrugged. “I’m lonely.”

“Aww, and I guess you might want your favorite blanket too?” Aiden interjected mockingly.

Lucien spun back around, still pointing, though now at Aiden. “And you can shut your face. Now,” he pointed upward and said, “We go!”

He made it through the house and part of the way through the orchard before realizing that Twilight was not following him. With a short groan, he spun around and headed back to the farm house.

Upon reaching the bedroom again, he heard voices... again. Aiden was explaining how his illusion magic works. "...Mainly focuses on messing with the minds of your opponents. Good for quick getaways, or at least that’s what I tend to use it for. I create clones of myself, or even mess with my opponent’s mind so much that they begin to see things that aren’t really there,” he pondered for a brief moment, “But that doesn’t mean the magic is any less dangerous. The illusions can do some real damage to the mind of the one it’s affecting, and do physical harm as well.”

“Fascinating. So you can control illusions of yourself? Are they physically present? Can they manipulate objects like we can?” he heard Twilight's voice ask.

“Yes, yes, and yes,” Aiden answered.

“Hmm…” Lucien was done listening. Twilight let out a surprised yelp as he reached his hand in from the hallway and snagged her, pulling her out of the room. “Hey! I wasn’t done!”

"Sucks to suck, we've gotta get going," Lucien said, ignoring the little hoofy-kicks she was landing on his arms as he carried her down the stairs.

She harrumphed in defeat and relaxed, allowing Lucien to better hold her as they left the house. They attracted odd stares from Granny Smith and Applebloom, both of whom were sitting at the dining table, eating a pancake breakfast.

"Can you put me down now," asked Twilight when they were halfway through the orchard.

"Uh, yes. Sorry." Lucien put the pony on the ground.

She brushed some non-existent dirt off her shoulder and looked at him in irritation. "What was all that about?"

"We have a job to do. We should get going today," Lucien replied, keeping his eyes on the road.

She gave him a look. "You're strangely eager to get started on a job," she said suspiciously.

He opened his mouth to quickly deny it, but instead let out a defeated sigh. "Well, I'm not sure how stable Aiden is. He's a nice kid, but he's still a very young mage, hell, even I'm still a young mage. He's been through a lot already, and he was willing to commit a spell that he knew would kill him if he tried it alone. I..." he took a breath. "That's not to say he's just gonna blow up at any second, but..." He stopped walking. "There are things where I am from that make nightmares look like daydreams. I'm not exactly sure what happened to him, or how long ago it was, but it's still affecting him."

Twilight stopped a few feet ahead of him and turned around. "I won't pretend to understand what your world is like. But you're both here now, not there. Nothing is going to hurt you here, in Canterlot, or wherever we go. I won't allow it." The mare had firm determination in her eyes it voice.

"Thanks, Twilight." Lucien's face brightened up. "Now c'mon, I want a ride in that hot air balloon you told me about!"

---

About an hour later, they were breaking through the clouds to find the city of Cloudsdale. Lucien couldn't help but laugh like an idiot while looking around at the decorations, and the sheer idea of making a city out of clouds. "Wait, this place is literally made of clouds, right?"

"Yes," Twilight answered, fluttering out onto the clouds with her still-somewhat-new wings. Satisfied, she took a few steps out, then turned around and smiled. "Do you need help with the spell?"

"Nah, I think I got it. Though I probably won't be able to step on any land for the next week or so. Or until I dispell it." They watched as his feet glowed a light blue for a moment, then flashed brightly. When they could see again, his shoes were ordinary as ever.

"Why is that?" asked Twilight, confused.

"Because," Lucien said, stepping out onto the cloud street with complete confidence in his spellweaving, "I took a look at my shoes and changed the surface they're calibrated to walk on to clouds instead of ground. So I don't know what would happen if I tried to walk on the ground with these. Maybe just sink through it like I would with a cloud." He shrugged.

"But enough of that," he continued. "This place is amazing! Well, except for the disgusting amount of rainbows, but still amazing. Humanity has been dreaming about flying cities forever. A couple of people I know would freak out seeing this place. Anyway, we should find a hotel? This might take more than a day to figure out."

"That would be for the best, yes. Spike should be alright on his own for a while, but I don't want to be gone for too long." She sighed. "Who knows what that dragon will get up to?"

---

Spike sighed as he finished off another tub of ice cream. He sunk to the floor and let the tub roll off to the side. He patted his bulging belly and let off an undignified burp. "When Twilight's away, the Spike will play... heh heh heh."

---

Lucien blinked away the vision, electing not to tell Twilight about it. He set off walking, ignoring the stares given to him and Twilight by seemingly every pegasus that passed by them. "Hey," he said to her, pointing at an extremely large and modern-looking building that stood out among the city, "do you think that's the Skyline Corporation?"

"Hmm?" Twilight looked up from her levitating maps and followed his gesture. "Yes, I believe so. Luna did say it's 'big in Cloudsdale.'"

Lucien stopped in his tracks and stared at her.

"What."

"Did you just make that pun?"

"What?"

"Biggest building in the city. 'Big in Cloudsdale?'"

"...It was Luna, I swear."

Lucien held back a sigh. "She is a bad influence..."

The pair, directed by Twilight made their way to the nearest hotel and bought a two-bed room for an undefined amount of days. Lucien was able to pay for it all himself, using funds "paid" to him by Celestia. The receptionist, to her credit, didn't so much as give the odd pair a second look as she led them to their room.

They settled in immediately and fell asleep talking to each other about magical theories and what tomorrow would hold for them.

---

"Sir?"

"Hmm?"

"That human and the Element of Magic arrived in the city earlier, sir."

"Oh, yes. Of course. Thank you."

"Not at all, sir. Anything else?"

"Hrmm... yes. I want you to..."

Author's Note:

As promised, here's another shorter chapter, out faster.

On another note, I have no idea what happened with the beginning of this chapter.

Except this:

Comments

[NobleValor]

You don't really think Spike really gorges on ice-cream when Twilight is away do you? He wouldn't have to wait for Twilight to be away, he'd just have to wait for her to go on one of her study binges.

[Coltsguy]

Only years later do I notice that Twilight doesn't need a cloud-walking spell for herself. She's an alicorn so she gets the pegasus benefits in the package.

[Lucien Chance]

9157212
Fixed. Twilight is an alicorn now.