Ch 7 - Bait
“… Therefore, if we should ever find a being with a projected aura, we must immediately seek to contain it...”
I woke up with a scream as I fell off of my sleeping branch.
The world became a blur of greens and browns as I fell through the air.
My landing made a dull thump when I hit the grassy floor.
I didn’t feel anything break, hell, I barely felt the fall at all.
“Such abominations are not gods, they are not ‘spirits’ as they sometimes claim, but rather, they are monsters…”
I shook my head as I clambered to my feet.
My breathing had quickened and was growing more and more shallow.
The world was darkening as I felt my eyes begin to ache.
Abomination? Monster? No no no no, I am not a monster!
I clenched my eyes shut as I took deep breaths to slow down my heartbeat and leaned against a nearby tree.
The rugged bark felt warm to the touch. It was odd, it felt like a hug from a grandparent on Christmas.
Like a bright and sunny summer day smiling down upon me.
But it didn’t stop the dread, oh no, it still remained and I could feel it taking my mind within its frigid grip when the last line fell into place
“… with unequaled capacity for mayhem.”
I felt cold.
Not the icy stabbing of frostbite, not the creeping panic of being trapped in icy water, no. I felt the emptiness of a blizzard, the bleak skies of Winter, I felt the gnawing hunger of the frozen north.
No, I am not a monster! The pretentious pricks who made the principle are probably just like Starswirl: too full of themselves to see others as more than tools.
I gritted my teeth as I pushed off the tree, staggering for a moment before leaping into the air.
I felt my stomach clench while I weaved between the trees.
The towering monarchs of the forest passed me by in blurs of brown and the undergrowth reduced everything below me into a solid carpet of green.
I dodged branches and flew over shrubs. My ear twitched at howls in the distance as the sun pierced the canopy above.
Minutes sprinted by, and seconds crawled to a halt. The light flared and the world darkened.
Anger boiled in my heart while hate froze my mind, but hope wormed its way into both.
Across the miniature town made of pavilions and tents, on a hill in front of the mage tower, was a trio of ponies.
One of pristine white, another of sickly yellow, and a third of dull gray. I wound up to shoot right over but a memory stopped me.
“Maybe that principle was right…”
I shook my head with a grimace.
He could have been referring to any number of ‘principles!’”
I shot another look at the ponies
Then again…
I set my jaw as I pondered the situation.
I could eavesdrop a little I suppose, maybe even teleport back over here to make it seem inconspicuous.
I scratched my head as I twisted my lips.
But they might spot me.
My frown deepened at the thought.
Invisibility perhaps? It worked the last time we met.
Almost as if on command, a line of words paraded through my consciousness before looping back to my personal pit of knowledge.
“Structural fractals rebound off of any sort of surface, visible to the naked eye or otherwise. All spells radiate said fractals in various quantities, the most potent of these being spells that…”
I grimaced at the thought.
Great, can’t just walk up to them.
I looked up to gauge the possibility of just flying over, but an open sky dashed such hopes.
Not from above, not in plain sight…
I tapped my hoof while I brainstormed up more options.
Portals have the same problem as invisibility. Increasing senses would just muddle up the conversation because of the noise from the camp.
My tapping came to a stop as I looked downward.
But how about from below?
I was nodding now while I paced in circles.
I could just tunnel over there, drill a hole in the ground nearby, and stick my ear near the conversation!
With my plan now set, I snapped a hand drill as large as me into existence.
A grin infected my face while I started spinning the hand crank on the side of the cartoonish device and began my underground quest!
Dirt sprayed my face, rocks bounced off my head, and I would occasionally run into something too strong for my drill.
However, I made progress, and over the course of a few minutes, I judged myself close enough.
I stuck my tongue out and snapped a tiny version of my drill to tunnel up to the surface.
Another few seconds of waiting had me grimacing at the taste but a hole now ran from my little tunnel all the way up to the surface.
I brought my fingers together for one final snap to bring a pair of cans attached by string into being.
I planted one can in the hole and punched it. The coils of string rapidly disappeared into the tunnel as the can neared the surface.
I took a couple of deep breaths before putting my ear to my end of the makeshift telephone.
“I’m telling ya Girder, steel might be stronger but iron is easier to work with! We don’t need these things to last all that long either, just until…”
I flicked my ear as I tried focusing on another set of voices.
“And then he gave me the mug of, uh, I think he called it ‘coffee’? Anyway, that’s the first time I’ve ever had somebody actually try to help with that sort of thing…”
I shook my head with a smile as I tried to find the right conversation.
For a moment I worried that I surfaced too early.
I know I didn't overshoot because my targets were the closest to the tower and I was quite sure that I hadn’t run into that giant hunk of rock.
“…and Hexane has made great strides in discovering some of the deeper mechanics behind magic. Specifically, how intent and close observation affects the outcomes of a spell.”
However, my concerns were dashed upon the rocks when I heard Starswirl’s voice.
A hoof scuffed the ground before Luna spoke.
“I appreciate the thorough report, Starswirl, but I-“
Luna’s voice was cut off by Celestia’s correction.
“‘We,’ Luna, remember the royal ‘We.’”
I could almost hear Luna’s eye roll through the cans.
“Is that truly necessary? What’s next, ‘We’ revert to the patterns of speaking from several hundred years ago like the more pretentious of the nobles?”
I heard Celestia sigh before responding.
“We may well have to, Luna, but enough of this. Were you not the one who was in a big hurry to travel here?”
Luna snorted as she went back to addressing Starswirl.
“We would rather get to the point.”
Starswirl's sigh preceded a voice filled with dread.
“I hate to ask this of you, Princesses, but I need help reinstating the tower wards.”
Celestia was the first to respond.
“I don’t know why you’re so hesitant, Starswirl, my sister and I would be more than happy to help. Now, which ones are giving you trouble?”
Nervousness was laced through Starswirl’s weak chuckle. He cleared his throat.
“Pretty much all of them.”
I pursed my lips as I kicked at the dirt beneath me with a talon.
Both alicorns took in a sharp breath before Celestia’s far more strained voice ended the silence.
“Might I ask why they need repairing?”
Another bout of quiet bumbled through the conversation and only died off when Starswirl spoke through gritted teeth.
“Typhon.”
My ears flattened against my head while Celestia asked what he meant by that. Starswirl growled while he tried to answer.
“He, well he, ugh.”
The mounting rage in his voice deflated when he sighed.
“If I’m being honest Princess, I have no bucking clue.”
A faint thump interrupted his sentence but he continued on in a haggard tone.
“One moment he was fending off my student’s offensive strikes.”
No pride, no satisfaction, not even a drop of acknowledgment for that whirlwind of fire, ice, and stone was spent on that statement.
However, before I could ponder his apathy, Starswirl continued
“The next, a second sun just pops into existence around four miles above our tower.”
He snorted before adding.
“The bloody thing shredded all of the yard wards, cracked the tower badly, and even knocked the damned central crystal out of alignment!”
A long sigh fell out of Starswirl’s muzzle, resembling a waterfall of absolute fatigue.
“After the crystal got struck, the defensive wards, the structure augments, and even the foundation webs broke.”
I was forced to listen to the background white noise of the camp while I waited for one of the Princesses to start talking.
Luna’s voice pierced the backdrop first.
“Sister, I told you so.”
“Not now Luna. Starswirl, do you have any idea what Typhon did?”
Starswirl’s voice replied with a big fat ‘no’ before adding.
“And all I could get out of the monstrosity was that the explosion made a sort of mess that nopony could see.”
He snorted, continuing by saying.
“And I don’t doubt it. By the time he finally came down, patches of skin were literally sliding off of him.”
Starswirl paused, probably to shudder, before finishing.
“I even had to remind that madman to put his eyes back in place! How the buck does one simply forget that their eyes are melting?”
A sigh preceded Celestia’s question.
“Ok, do you have any way of containing him? The Yak Thingy principle suggests a sort of Fairway cage.”
Starswirl snorted.
“Yes, that simple electric construct was a base for our design. However, we had to tighten the mesh and add tubes to account for the unstructured spells he seems to favor…”
The unicorn began to weave in and out of complex jargon that would’ve required a quick dip into the library in my head.
The pair of pony Princesses just stood quietly, waiting for the great wizard to finish.
“…In short, yes we have a containment field that should be able to hold him. It would probably be best to drain some of his power first though.”
A moment passed before Starswirl threw an idea into the open air. A horrid, despicable, conniving idea that would rankle any idealist's sensibilities.
“I could have my apprentice lure him into a trap. Yes, it shouldn’t even be that hard. Just set up the containment, fake a tea party or something, and close the door when he’s inside.”
Luna called out a seemingly glaring flaw in this wonderful plan that I was listening to.
“Wouldn’t that risk the lives of Clover and anypony else caught in the trap with the beast?”
“So?”
Silence hung over the trio, strangling the conversation.
Then Luna’s voice exploded at Starswirl, she snarled and her words were shouted with growling undertones.
“So? So? That’s all you have to say about risking the lives of other ponies? Have you no empathy?”
Starswirl’s calm voice retained a sense of serenity, of cold logic.
“Of course I do, but it’s a matter of costs. Either somepony leads Typhon into the cage or we run the risk of an immortal child with enough power to bury both of you going on a rampage! And if I judge correctly, he seems close to it already.”
Luna seemed to have missed the last sentence, judging by her response
“Bettering the lives of our subjects, Starswirl, that’s the charge of a royal. My sister and I cannot afford to sacrifice ponies because of some hunch you-”
Celestia’s voice cut through Luna’s message like a knife through butter.
However, little deviations in pitch, a choppy tone that broke up the sentence, and the fake force behind the statement, all pointed to a hidden strain for… something.
“Yes Luna, protecting our ponies is our first duty.”
She swallowed before continuing.
“To that end, I believe that Starswirl’s idea holds some merit.”
Luna snorted without any further response so Celestia added.
“However, Starswirl, are you sure that Typhon would be likely to attack soon, if so, why, and is it truly necessary for us to risk lives in the manner that you have suggested?”
Starswirl sighed before an answer came, though the weariness behind the words gave the message all the more weight.
“Yes Princess, I do believe that Typhon is close to snapping. At least, that’s what our latest interactions have indicated.”
Starswirl seemed to crack as he talked.
“There’s also the matter of that explosion that nearly flattened our entire operation. Oh, I almost forgot that he stuffed our entire library into his head!”
He forced a pair of short, diseased chuckles before wheezing.
“That was so fun to hear, you know. One moment, I was minding my own business, looking over the latest deep-scans of our leyline, and I get some panicked colt bursting into my study while shrieking about the freak collapsing in the library.”
He took a deep breath before hissing out his next line.
“By the time I got the full story out of him, another pony trots in and calmly lets me know that Typhon manifested a metaphorical concept. Apparently, he thinks that’s what we do with levitation!”
The mage groaned
“As for why we need bait, he’s sensitive to magical imbalances. The first time we took samples of his mana, he passed out after just two canisters. The poison from the explosion we talked about a minute ago was not visible to the eye, to any sort of magic scans, buck, the majority of our equipment just picks up nothing but static in the mana waves from his spell. Yet he could sniff it out like a bloodhound would a rabbit.”
Starswirl blew out a breath before finishing.
“So, yes he’s dangerous, yes he’s unstable, and yes, we need bait.”
Someone took a deep breath and Celestia spoke.
“Then we will prepare. Starswirl, prepare the trap. Luna and I can distract him with…”
The rest of her words faded away into the echoes of the can when I pulled back.
I glared at the silvery metal while thinking.
Though those ideas were far too dark to remain in the light of conscious thought.
Instead, they broiled in the depths of my emotions, steeping in the extremes that spoke to me.
Anger shrieked for me to burn the sky and singe the earth with a hurricane of fire.
Sadness wept a river of words, each telling me to run, to hide, to no longer burden the ponies with the dangers of my presence.
Disgust told me to leave, that this trash should be left behind.
Hope’s muted voice attempted to reason with me saying, ‘it could be a misunderstanding. Maybe they really didn’t mean it.’
I didn’t believe that.
In the center of this whirlpool of emotion, I stood.
My thoughts were blank, my emotions outside of me, and I felt cold. So very cold.
Snowflakes danced around me, falling from a pitch black sky.
My breaths began to mist as my body shivered from the drop in temperature.
The vibrant fiery red of my anger faded to the dull gray of ash.
The deep blue from my sadness faded while the pool of worries swirled and twirled before calming itself.
The creeping dark green of my disgust wilted as the jungle that represented it died all at once.
All that was left was that perfect black sky, those serene falling flecks of white, and an endless sea of gray.
It was calming.
It was quiet.
It was cold.
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Goodness, I can feel the tension rising and turning from a rubbery surface into but a panel of glass ready to crack and shatter. Electrically envigorating and terrifically interesting.
Considering starswirl knows exactly why the tower was knocked down and is just going cause more problems by this behavior than if he had left it alone.
Starswirl plan is shortsighted and driven by fear. What will he do after he capture him? let him rot in a cage? he said it himself typhon is an
, the focus should be child.
"Starswirl, my old friends, I just know you'll love this song!"
"Typhon, I–"
"Now, now, Starswirl. I simply must insist you hear it. It will change your life forever! I call it, 'The Rains of Castamere!'"
So celestia joined in? Perhaps this time around his “chaos unleashed” is totally justified? Like seriously the ever so cliche “self-fulfilled prophecy”
11312879
Yeah but to be fair the Starswirl from the show was never about the personable side of things always going for the logical solution, what with the shadow pony his answer was to basically destroy the the pillars with the shadow pony, in the end he was correct but not for the reason he did it for, the emotional damage caused the shadow pony to happen in the first place and his response to typhon fall in line with that line of thinking "if there is a one percent chance that he is a threat, we have to take it as a certainty" or he is different therefore he is bad. Honestly this turn of events makes much more sense as to explain why discord is created. I would also not be surprised if all of the other races get created because of him to show them for the creatures that they truly are, like griffons are greedy and warlike with and appetite for bloodshed or at least meat, zebras to show how even as close to them as they are the ponies are still xenophobic because they are different, the deer because they hide away from others, changlings because of the fact that they have no love for others and now they need to feed of it to survive, and other reasons for the rest or something because only ponies have been shown at this point
Well, time to take their horns and let them know they failed the test of friendship. Perhaps once they learn how to be a true friend they can have them back... then leave. clearly there are lots of other places to go!
Typhoon offering friendship and knowledge, they thank him like that? He should remove them as a threat. He has the potential to be dangerous yes. But they are actually dangerous!
Starswirl should be made a hornless unicorn, he is clearly insane.
Well then, this is not good.
Understandable from both parties, but not good.