Twenty-Third Chapter
Howard walked along with Twilight Sparkle, following behind the mare as she led him into the forest his family landed in before. The ‘Everfree Forest’, she called it. She had many different kinds of tools and instruments and sheets of paper and whatnot levitating in front of her as she walked. Howard himself focused on the journey ahead and practicing lighting up his horn like his daughter showed him last night.
“I don't think it's very likely we'll get you and your family back home today,” Twilight Sparkle explained as they walked along the familiar path Howard led his family down. “If all goes well though, maybe we'd be able to get it figured out within a few weeks! Although I can understand why that might cause trouble for you, being away from home that long.”
“Yeah, a little trouble,” Howard admitted as he nodded his head. “What exactly are you looking for? And why do you need me here with you?” he asked.
“I told you before!” the purple pony explained happily, wearing a wide grin. “You’re helping me find my way to where you and your family appeared! I’m reading the magic coming off of you so I can find the trail back to where you teleported in from!”
“And then what are you gonna do when we get there?”
“Analyze the magic, of course!” Twilight chuckled. “If we can see what kind of magic it was that brought you here, it’ll make it all the easier to get you back home! It’ll be a little more difficult with wild magic, like the magic all around us in the Everfree Forest, but if it was just ambient magical buildup, it’ll be a lot easier to work with. I can provide you with a better timetable once we find it… uhh, do you mind walking more in front of me? It’ll be easier to track your magical trail if I’m not having interference from behind.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry,” he quickly apologized.
“Thank you, ma’am. And can you hold my stuff for me? I usually have Spike do it, but obviously he's not here right now.” That request felt a little weird, but the pony just smiled at him like it was a completely normal thing to ask. He guessed she was a princess, after all, and Howard wouldn't really mind anyway.
“I can't lift objects with my mind like you though,” he told her, “and I don't think these hooves are gonna do me much good, to be honest.”
“You mean telekinesis?” she asked. “You just need to imagine what you're grabbing. Even if you did just land here a few days ago, it should be easy for you since you're a full grown mare. It might be harder for your foals to do though.”
Howard looked at her with an unsure expression, and she waved a hoof nonchalantly in response. “It's fine. I'm sure you'll get it later. I can just hold it for now. This is why I normally have my assistant around though. I don't really like wasting magic having to hold all my materials myself.”
And now Howard chuckled to himself. This mare was definitely a teenager, twenty at most, just from her personality. Or maybe ponies in this world just had different attitudes than humans. But it was interesting that she had a kid dragon carrying around all her stuff when she had magic to do it for her. Strange, certainly.
The forest was just as he remembered. Dark trees towered above them as he walked forward in front of Twilight Sparkle along the path. There was a spot just off the brown dirt road that she directed him to head through, past a couple of bushes that seemed familiar and some marks in the ground that were definitely hoof and claw prints left by he, his wife, and his daughter. Yeah, they'd been here.
“By the way,” Twilight started as they continued on, “do you mind that I call you a mare? Because it'll be easier for me to do, unless you don't like it.”
“Uh, I don't mind,” Howard said quickly, a hint of pink showing under the white fur on his cheeks. He quickly changed the subject, asking, “What exactly are you gonna do with whatever data you collect?”
“Well, try to recreate it in a laboratory setting, since naturally forming worldgates are hard to come by,” she explained. “If I can't do that, we can always try talking to Princess Celestia. She's the most powerful magician I know, and should be able to come up with something. But like I said, if it's ambient magic that dumped you down here, magic from Earth, the process will be much easier.”
“Is there anything we can do to help you? Since my daughter and I can apparently do magic, too? Because if there's any–”
“Look out!”
Howard was suddenly being yanked hard and pulled back from apparent danger he didn't see. A second later, Twilight's horn lit up again, and the two teleported to a spot further away. Howard shuddered and shook his head nervously at the sudden change in scenery, then looked to the purple pony for an explanation.
“Sorry! There was a cockatrice right there that you didn't see!” she explained quickly. “I don't know if you know this, but there's a lot of scary animals and plants in this forest that you need to be aware of!”
Howard figured as much, and let out a slow breath to reset his nerves. “A warning would do slightly better next time, please,” he told her before turning back around. It was another familiar spot; whether she intended to or not, Twilight made it so they ended up by the river they stopped at before they were chased by the wolves. There were scorch marks on some of the trees, and in the grass were large clawed paw prints of the beasts who tried to kill his family.
He closed his eyes and shivered again. He didn't do a very good job of protecting them a few days ago. Hopefully he was doing a better job now.
“We came from that direction,” he explained as he used a hoof to point in the opposite direction of the bank. “It took us a few hours to get here from where we woke up… how did you know to teleport us here?” the mare asked.
“I didn't,” was Twilight's simple reply. “I just have a friend named Steven who lives near here, so it was the first place that came to mind. Lucky coincidence though, because the magic is a lot stronger here! Let me get out my tools!”
He let her do whatever measurements she needed to while he kept a closer eye on their surroundings. He didn't see or sense anything out of the ordinary now, but if something was coming, he wanted to know. He didn't even know what a cockatrice was, but if Twilight was afraid of it, he was too. He'd seen enough monsters already.
He did that while practicing lighting up his horn until Twilight Sparkle was ready to move on again, this time the princess of friendship taking the lead. She chatted about how she could feel the magic stronger and what the nature of it was, but a lot of it went over Howard's head. Although he had to admit, if he focused hard enough, he could maybe feel some kind of shift in his horn? He didn't know exactly what he was feeling, but something. Magic, presumably.
It was strange and chaotic and disorderly, it seemed, but also… nice. He wasn't exactly sure why, but it felt that way. Like the air around him was trying to energize him. Had he had that feeling before yet? He didn't think so, or at least didn't notice it.
“Is it normal for the air around you to feel kind of… electric?” he asked carefully.
“Usually, yeah. You'll get used to it until you don't even notice… there it is!”
The pony was suddenly trotting up to a spot in the grass ahead of him. There was a circle of trees surrounding the grass that Howard didn't notice before, like they were there for the specific purpose of protecting whatever unlucky family happened to teleport in. It was strange to walk upon it now, the trees a bit darker and the grass a bit brighter than the area immediately around the circle, but back then he was more concerned about his family and their new bodies upon waking up. Not to mention, having been awoken by a nightmare.
The mare quickly shook that thought loose from his head. “What do we do now that we're here?” he asked. “Do you know if you can send us back?”
“That's what I'm trying to figure out…” she trailed off, dropping most of her supplies casually to the ground. She kept only a notepad and a thermometer looking device that she glanced at every few seconds as she trotted around, seemingly at random. Howard shuffled about on his hooves watching her dumbly for a few minutes, unsure of what he should do now. There wasn’t much beyond standing there and playing through what happened here a few days ago.
It only made him feel confused to think about how he felt since waking, of course. And a little bit awful, even if there was a base feeling of relief there. But hopefully it wouldn't matter soon anyway. Staying here for months or years wasn't in the cards, he didn't think.
“Huh, that's strange,” Twilight commented aloud to herself as she glanced between the thermometer, the circle, and her horn. She looked a mix between stern and unsure as she wrote something down.
“What is?” Howard asked casually as he stepped closer to her.
“It's like your magic trail just suddenly vanished,” she said as she looked around and moved through the circle, still writing things down. “All of your family. It was right here, with an orientation that suggested you were pushed here from Earth instead of pulled to Equestria. I know I felt it, because I got your and someone else's measurements down before it just… vanished. It completely disappeared without a trace or a warning.”
“If it's helpful,” Howard offered, “I don't think I noticed anything? That electricity is still there.”
“Yes, but this was much flatter. I doubt you'd notice though since you're from Earth. It's just confusing.”
“So what do we do then?” he asked, still shifting around on his hooves anxiously. He'd been asking it a lot, but doing anything was better than nothing. He might not have had much magical ability to offer—not yet anyway—but he would be okay to try whatever if it helped her.
She could definitely sense his tension, and moved to put a hoof on his shoulder. “It'll be okay,” she assured him. “It's a process. We'll figure it out. It'll take some time though, okay?”
He let out a breath and nodded, trying his best to believe her. There wasn't much else he could do anyway, besides stand around and watch her do whatever it was she was doing.
“It's just… so strange that it just up and disappeared like that,” she said, a focused look on her face. “It's not a typical property of ambient magic like what I felt. Maybe it dispersed because of how it interacts with the magic of natural Equestrians?”
“Uh, does that mean if you leave it'll come back?” Howard asked dumbly.
“Maybe,” she shrugged. “Probably not though. I don't really have time to give a lesson on the properties of magic right here, obviously, but basically, every time you step through magic, you displace it slightly. It's kind of like moving through liquids, and just like certain kinds of—get down!”
No teleportation this time. Instead, he was football tackled by the purple horse as he saw a few glints of sparkling light and heard a large boom hit his ears. A few seconds later, a rush of wind twisted up his mane and tail before the sparkling light faded away into the scene of the forest they saw before. Nothing seemed to have changed, except for the fact that now the leaves were rustling and the air felt just a little bit more filled with electricity.
“Oh, phew!” Twilight wiped her forehead with the edge of a leg like a human would do with their arm. “I thought that would be a lot worse! Apparently it doesn't take much magic at all to transport creatures between worlds! That's great news!”
“What the heck was that?” Howard asked incredulously. “The magic you said left?”
“You’re a pretty fast learner, Howard!” the winged unicorn complimented with a grin. “Especially for somepony who hasn’t interacted with magic much before she came here! Yes, once magic is displaced, like water, it has to go somewhere. And if it doesn’t have anywhere to go, then it’s gonna be forced back to where it started. There wasn’t enough for it to transverse to Earth—obviously you and your family ate some up when you transformed into Equian creatures from Earthlings. But there’s a lot of magic from Earth hovering around this spot, and with some inside of you, I bet we could get you back to Earth with enough time. Maybe even in just a few months!” She put a hoof to her chin and looked up, wondering aloud, “I wonder how much Earth magic you each have in you…”
A few months would be a long time, longer than Howard desired. But it was a start, he figured. A start to something. What kind of something, he didn’t know, but he couldn’t complain. Anything was better than nothing.
“We’ll have to come back here another day though,” she explained. “The monsters that live in the Everfree are drawn to spots where magic fluctuates, and I don’t want us getting hurt out here.”
“What if the magic disappears again though, while we’re gone?” Howard had to ask. “What would we do then?”
Once again, she put a hoof on her chin and wore a thoughtful expression. “It probably wouldn’t be good… I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But we don’t wanna stay out here right now. Being safe is the most important thing. Let’s get going.” She looked up and considered aloud, mostly to herself, “We’re definitely going to need to get that magic contained somehow though. We don’t want other creatures accidentally making their way to Equestria, do we?
Then, she lit up her horn to take the two back to Ponyville and leave the magic lingering in the Everfree Forest behind.
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It's more like psychokinesis, I think. But I could be wrong.
Given the proper precautions, Cockatrices become more of a nuisance than a threat.
But that's a different story. Seriously, it is.
- MLP: FiM
- Adventure
The multiverse is just one grand experiment for many immortals as they try to explore its secrets. This is the story of one such experiment on what would happen if a new element was added to a universe that nearly exactly parallels the original.I'm getting the feeling that something either wants them staying there, or not going back Home.
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AFAIK they're the same, though there's probably some D&D lore or something that makes them different from eachother. However, I feel telekinesis is more right as you're not moving things with your mind, like psychokinesis sounds to imply, you're moving things with magic, controlled by your mind.
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Telekinesis (n): from "tele-" meaning 'at a distance' and "kinesis" meaning 'movement'. The production of motion in objects without contact or other physical means.
Psychokinesis (n): from "psych-" meaning 'relating to the mind' and "kinesis". Movement of physical objects by the mind without use of physical means.
Psychokinesis typically has the connotation that it is caused by psychic powers in particular, whereas telekinesis is a more commonly used term (even in explicitly psychic media) for any supernatural ability to move things without touching them.
Either word is technically correct but I would normally expect someone in this situation to use the term "telekinesis". If she were to use a more specialized word, I would expect Twilight to use something like "Arcanokinesis" (arcano- referring to magic somehow) as it's more descriptive of the mechanism of action.
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I was under the impression that telekinesis was a subset of psychokinesis (being able to affect the world via your mental prowess, a la Mai, The Psychic Girl and... Psi Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy to a lesser extent)
All telekinesis being psychokinesis, but not vice-versa, you know?
This is getting less like getting their chain pulled, but more like yanking dis cord?
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I grabbed those definitions off Webster's , so I don't know what to tell you. Just by the literal definition, they mean the same thing.
The connotations are from my own experiences but that is how I've typically seen them used and what makes sense to me given the prefixes. It does seem like you're right and that there is some media or there which uses it as a grab bag of beeps psychic powers. I'm guessing that "psychokinesis" is just a less commonly used word that sounds fancy and writers decide that its meaning is squishy enough that they can make it mean what they want it to.
If a character's power was telekinesis, but they could use that to freeze water, heal wounds, and control minds, that would require a lot more explanation on the writer's part to justify than "oh, the setting just uses an uncommon word in a weird way".
That notion is highly strange. I don't think there is any mage powerful enough to do that on Earth. Unless Starswirl dumped a powerful artifact over there too.
Now I have a question about this fanfiction - what is the main conflict of the work here? What idea does the author want to convey to his readers?
It's just that so far, it just feels like a family adventure in Equestria. And if that's the author's idea, then okay... but if there is no morality in the story, there is no thought that the author wants to convey, there is no central conflict of the work, then this is not good.
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That said, Websters, if I remember correctly, doesn't get the difference between figurative and literal, at one point.
Because I feel that the family has something beyond that not even another race can within itself. As we know, being a brother can describe many things and know more, including learning much more, including magic. who could become king or queen, princess and prince. and Thornton, who is the protagonist, created when he is reformed, I feel that you will not have the same appearance as a changeling, but rather a type of insect, that is, a different appearance than that of a reformed changeling. ps: I don't know if it's true or not but I think his father and sister will become alicorns. and I wonder if Thornton has a mate or not (I don't care if he is paired with a male and female)
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