What's Out There?

by Sharky White

Chapter Ten

Twilight stares at me for a bit, not really reacting. Eventually, she cracks a smile at me.

"Oh, I get it. This is a joke of some sort. I should've figured that out when you said your 'father' put a spell on you when you were a baby. The amount of power it would take to get a spell like that to function would be massive."

"What?"

"Of course you're joking! You just pretended to pass out to scare me, didn't you? Very funny Star, and nice improv on your story for the joke. Unless you planned that too."

"I'm sorry, you think I'm kidding?" I ask a bit wounded. What was so funny about me saving the world?

"Well of course you are! I mean, saving the world? You can't even walk out of this house! It's brilliantly funny, very good."

"I'm serious." Twilight's smile drops at my words.

"Alright, it was funny when I finally caught it, no need to drag it out."

"Twilight, listen to me!" I sat up out of her embrace and laid my hooves on her shoulders. "I really did see my dad. Something very dangerous could be coming, and it needs to be stopped." Twilight seems to waver in her belief that this is a joke.

"O-ok, then explain. This had better not be an elaborate continuation of your joke..."

"Not a joke!"

"Wait a minute, how do you explain your father having the ability to place an 18-year operating spell on you, huh?"

"Easy, he was a great wizard. The most powerful wizard on my world!" I didn't honestly know if he was the most powerful, but it sounded cool that way. Twilight gives me a confused look.

"Your world?"

"Yes! It turns out that I'm not from this planet. Even this plane of existance, apparently. There's a whole other place that's filled with my kind!"

"Then how did you get he--"

"Getting to that! If you would let me tell the story, we might get somewhere!"

"Alright, tell me then." Twilight sits up straight and gives me a disbelieving stare.

"Alright. Now, my dad told me that he took me here years ago. He said something was attacking my home, something he didn't know if he could beat. He said it was going to destroy all magic on my world, including killing all those who use it. My dad, not wanting anything bad to happen to me, took me to a far away planet, here. Then he said he put a magic fragment of himself in my memories just in case he failed."

"Why would he need to? Couldn't he just have left you to live a new life uninterrupted?"

"Well... The monster that destroyed all the magic on my world... turns out it eats magic. This place is filled to the brim with it. He said that would make me stronger, but at the same time... we live on a giant magic feast. It's only a matter of time before it finds this place." I finish with a low and serious tone. Twilight was beginning to look scared.

"S-so... you mean... A m-monster is coming to kill us all? P-please tell me this is s-some sick joke..."

"Twilight, why would I joke about this? Anyway, he said I needed to train and prepare. He wants me to try and succeed where he failed. He wanted me to get help too, like he couldn't."

"Oh dear..." Twilight stands up and starts pacing nervously. "Oh dear, oh my, oh dear... SPIKE!" Twilight sreams suddenly. I clap my hooves to my ears and wince.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"Letter! Celestia, send NOW, tell danger!"

"Twilight, breathe!" I grab Twilight by the shoulders again and give her a little shake. "Calm down! Look, there's no need to cause a panic now. There's no reason to believe it's going to come soon, or even find us at all. I'm sure a being like Celestia would already be aware if something that powerful was approaching anyway. If anything, we should just train and wait. I should train."

"B-b-but but but--"

"Words! Use them!"

"What if we all die?!"

"We won't! Look, we have Celestia, you, and I at least to combat this thing. I'm sure that between us we can take it. So, let's not cause a panic, and just keep this to ourselves. The last thing we would want to do is alert the country and never actually have it show up. Could you imagine the panic?" I found myself greatly enjoying being the calm and rational one in the moment. It made me feel a little bit better about how much I had sucked at magic earlier. Twilight seemed to be calming down.

"R-right... ok... ok. That makes sense. Don't freak out. Don't freak out." Twilight closes her eyes and starts inhaling deeply.

"Alright, good. Good. Now, are you feeling alright?"

"Yes... I think I'm doing better." Twilight opens her eyes again and a little purple dragon steps into the dining room.

"You called, Twilight?" He asks.

"Oh hey look, a dragon." I note. I turn back to Twilight, then whip my gaze back to the dragon. "A dragon?!" Once more, something I had read about, but never seen. I felt my eyes roving his form to take in every little detail I could. He was small and young, that much was obvious. He stood on two legs, just like me. Not only that, but his arms end in structures extremely similar to my strange hooves. He has green rounded spike scales from his head down to his tail and pale underbelly scales. He turns his head and I see his green eyes with slitted black pupils.

"Awww, what did you bring in here to study this time Twilight?" He whines. "Please tell me this one won't make as much of a mess as your last study!"

"I beg your pardon?" I ask insultedly. "Make a mess? Study object? I'll have you know I'm a thinking creature just as much as yourself, thank you. I'd appreciate it if you didn't speak of me as an object. I can only handle so much of that."

"Oh!" He seems surprised to hear me talk, which was strange since I spoke when he came in. Maybe he hadn't heard me? "I'm sorry Mr, I didn't realize you weren't an animal or something."

"Why does everypony jump to animal or monster?" I wonder aloud.

"Oh, Spike. This is Star, he's a friend of mine. He'll be hiding out here for a while." Twilight explains to the young reptile.

"Hiding out? Are you a criminal? An alien? Oh! Are you somepony famous wearing a really good disguise?"

"No no Spike, he's none of those things." Twilight seems to be trying not to laugh, quite the change from her terror only moments ago. "He just looks strange, and some ponies don't understand that. He's staying here for a bit until his house gets fixed or ponies accept him."

"Why don't they understand? He looks fine to me."

"Because he's a little scary and really big when he stands up. Don't worry, we'll get them to like him."

"Ok, if you say so." Spike mumbles disinterestedly. "So, what did you call me for?"

"Oh, nevermind that. I changed my mind."

"Alright then. Well, I'll just go back to re-organizing the upstairs shelves then..." Spike trudges off irritatedly, likely upset by being called for nothing.

"Alright now, you're calm? You're ok?" I ask Twilight warily. She nods at me.

"Yes, I think I'll be alright. You need to be more careful before you pull out a statement like 'A world ending abomination is coming.' though."

"Well what was I supposed to do? Ignore it and hope the world didn't get eaten?"

"Well no, but you could've been more gentle with the news."

"So you wanted me to gently tell you our world was going to be eaten? Yeah, sounds simple enough." I counter with a dangerously large amount of dry sarcasm. Twilight shoots me a glare and snorts.

"Look, all I'm saying is you could've done better. Anyway, what should we do about all this?"

"Well, like I said, we should just keep training and getting stronger. We should start training now, actually."

Twilight nods in agreement and starts trotting towards the living room. "I agree. The more prepared we are, the better." she pauses at the doorway leading to the living room for just a moment to turn around and give me a cheeky smile. "Besides, you could use the practice!"

I frown at her and cross my arms in annoyance, but she just chuckles and continues into the living room, totally ignoring my unhappy demeanor. With an exasperated sigh, I follow her into the living room. I notice Spike, who was still going up the stairs after having left the dining room only moments before. "Hey Spike! We're about to practice some magic, wanna watch?" I offer, figuring it's only polite to ask.

"Oh, love to Star, but I gotta organize the upstairs shelves still, remember?"

"Actually Spike, I think the shelves can wait for now. You should help Star and I practice! You were always a big help when I was learning tricks." Twilight gives both Spike and I a big smile as she talks.

"Well... ok, sure! Sounds a lot more fun than organizing bookshelves anyway!" Spike quickly runs down the stairs and joins us in the living room while Twilight once again levitates the table in the middle of the room and moves it off to the side so that we have room to practice. "So, what trick are we trying to teach him?"

"Well, I think mastering that sword spell from yesterday would be a good first step."

"Whoa! You're teaching him combat magic?!" Spike suddenly seemed very nervous. "On second thought, I'm not so sure I wanna be down here. I got shelves to organize, later!" Spike hurriedly rushes up the stairs and disappears behind a door. I watched him vanish and turned to Twilight after he left.

"There a story behind that reaction?"

Twilight blushes slightly and refuses to meet my eyes. "Let's just say that I wasn't always as good as I am now and leave it at that..." she clears her throat and turns back to me, her blush gone. "So, anyway, the sword spell! Ready to give it another shot?"

I sigh deeply and spread my hindlegs a bit into a balanced stance, bracing myself slightly. "Alright, guess I'll give it a go." I immediately began to think of things that made me angry, namely how no matter how mad I got, I just couldn't get the spell. Blue swirls of energy slowly formed and gathered into yet another magic sword. To my great irritation, the blade on my sword appeared chipped and dull. With an angry cry, I cancelled the spell and flopped onto the ground. "Ugh! Why can't I get it right?!"

"Hmmm..." Twilight rubs her chin thoughtfully with a forehoof. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you thinking to channel aggression and make the sword?"

"This time I was thinking about how I can't get the freakin' spell right!" I huff and ball up the strange appendages on my hooves.

"Oh, well that explains it! You are thinking angry thoughts, not necessarily aggressive thoughts."

"Aren't they the same thing?"

"Not quite. Pretty similar, but not the exact same. After all, you can be aggressive for reasons other than being angry. For example, take a mama bear. If you just stumble near her cubs on accident, she will act aggressively and maybe even attack you. It doesn't mean she's mad, you haven't done anything bad after all. She's just protecting her children."

"Actually I think she's mad you got near her babies."

"Not according to Fluttershy."

I snicker a bit. "Not sure how much I trust her knowledge of animals." I stood again with a small sigh. "Alright, I'll give it another shot." I stand up and try to think of something that made me aggressive. Something that would make me willing to fight.

"Oh, I got it Star! Why don't you imagine someone is trying to take your books?"

With a sudden burst of blue light, a glowing, massive blue sword appears in front of me, perfectly sharp and with no defects to be found. It's almost three times the length of Twilight's short sword she had summoned before. My expression is flat and cold, determined even. "No one touches the books." I stated calmly and clearly. Twilight's eyes go wide and she trots over to examine the sword a bit more closely.

"Errr... I love books too, but that result was a bit unexpected." she mutters as she taps the side of the blade experimentally.

I felt my expression soften into a sheepish grin, but the sword didn't fade. "Well... my books are basically the only friends I've had for 18 years. Present company excluded of course. Even then I met you literally 2 days ago."

Twilight smiles softly at me. "I guess I can understand that. There was a time in my life when books were my only friends too. Granted, a short period, as before it I had my older brother-"

"Shining Armor, captain of the guard, right?"

"... right. Not too long after he left to follow his dream, I went to follow mine and got Spike. So to an extent, I can relate."

My sheepish grin grew into a bigger, more genuine grin directed at Twilight. It was kinda nice to hear someone say they knew how I felt. At least, close. "Ehm... so, how'd I do on the sword?"

"Oh. Well, just as with the barrier I must say this is the best display of raw talent I've ever seen. Still excluding myself or the princesses obviously. One thing that I should mention though, is I've never seen anyone conjure a claymore. This is a minotaurian weapon. Albeit, admittedly a bit smaller than actual minotaurian claymores."

"Oh... Does that mean it's stronger?"

"Well yes and no. In the same way that an actual claymore is heavier, but stronger, a magic claymore such as this will take more effort to move and swing, but will hit harder. It's basically literally a sword, just made out of magic and hovering. Whereas a short sword, like mine, is lighter and much faster."

"Oh. Well why is mine a claymore? You said you've never seen one before."

"Well it's theorized that when a pony uses this spell, it summons the melee weapon they would've used had they chosen the path of a soldier or warrior. Most ponies summon short swords, long swords, or daggers because those are weapons that we can hold in our mouths and use. Using something like a claymore would be incredibly difficult for any non-unicorn, and unicorns just use magic to fight. The minotaurs however, are a magic-less race. A lot of them, the ones that take to battle anyway, heavily prefer lots of armor and big weapons like the claymore. Since you have a similar body structure and could presumably use a claymore, I guess that's what you'd be swinging around if you were a warrior."

"Oh." I mumbled in response. "Neat." I gave it a few experimental swings, taking great care to keep it away from Twilight as I did. It didn't feel especially hard to move, I suppose. Then again, I'd never moved a magic sword before this. "You know... to be honest, I don't really know how much a sword is going to help us against whatever's coming..."

"To be honest, if it's as bad as you say, I don't really either. However, it's important for me to figure out what you're good at and where you'll exceed as a mage. After all, most ponies can only learn a few tricks that relate to their talent. The princesses and I being the exception to that, as my talent is magic, and they're incredibly powerful."

"Ah well... I never got my cutie mark." I remark with a touch of sadness, turning to show her my blank, still unclothed flank. "So I've no idea what my talent is..."

"Well, judging by how quickly you've gathered the spells I've taught you so far, and how effective they've been, I'd say it's combat magic."

"I still don't have a mark though..."

"Well it's possible your species doesn't get cutie marks. I mean, ponies, so far as I know, are the only species to get them."

"I guess that's possible..." I sigh and poke my flank with a small frown. "I was really hoping I'd get one someday though..."

"Well..." Twilight seems to pick up on my sadness and react a bit. "M-maybe I'm wrong. I mean, could be anything really..."

I smile a bit. "Yeah... there is still lots of stuff I haven't done after all!"

Immediately after I exclaim that, the room suddenly seems to erupt into a cloud of pink smoke.

"SURPRISE!"

Comments

[Puuguu]

Nice chapter. Pity its on hiatus though. You are a great writer!

[Puuguu]

2368681 Well I know you will be soon enough. Keep at it!

[Mr AJ]

2368681 Don't sell yourself short!

[Hairy Rainbowish Thingy]

OH NO it can't be true.I already need to wait for the next update and i just start reading in the morning

it was too good