> A Lesson in Portals > by GameytheGeemer > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: A Confusing Beginning > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bang, a green unicorn burst out of a fortified door from an unmarked building. He was bolting out as fast as he could, but he was chased, in hot pursuit, by three of Luna's commissioned bat ponies. While the unicorn was going break neck speeds, the Pegasi were still much faster than him.The bat ponies were were closing in on him, so close that he could feel that he could feel their hot and moist breath on his tail. "Curses, I was hoping I wouldn't have to use this much magic in one go." He said, charging up all the magic he could gather in his horn. The bat ponies came closer and closer, starting to try to grab him for his crime. He suddenly vanished with a discharge of magical energy. There weren't any witnesses as to what happened, because the streets of Vanhoover are always empty at night. So there he was, a trained unicorn, alone in the frozen woods. Miles from any know civilization. Further than any unicorn in Vanhoover could teleport to find him. For the first time in his life, Portal Jet, was completely alone and surrounded by hundreds of miles of frozen woods in any direction. Hope being an afterthought to survival. So, friged and cold, He started digging into the softer part of the ground with his hooves for a place to sleep for the night so that he wouldn't die of hypothermia on his first outing on his own. Now, with his hole dug to the standards of a shallow grave, he lied down in the hole, and covered himself up, leaving his muzzle exposed so that he could breath. > Portal Jet's Diary 1/10 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Early to Mid Fall Age of Reunification Year 1 (formerly Age of Harmony Year 1000) Dear Diary Today I realized how much behind the scenes power that Princess Luna has. I guess that I should have naturally figured that the physical goddess of the night, whom resides at the top of the government bureaucracy, would be able to have an immense pull on the social and economic sectors of the world. Wow, I've been spending to much time doing homework, I'm starting to sound like the professor. But I digress, school was out today on the grounds that there were open screenings of foals my own age to find acceptable applicants to a new school opening up somewhere north. And every Filly and Colt in the whole of Canterlot must have been there, and wow was I nervous. So, after waiting patiently like a good colt, I got to see one of the scientists who was performed a spell on me that cast a beam of light on me, and it was like the scanner that a few of the richer ponies have to keep out intruders. He seemed a little surprised by the results, and said that I had a good bit more mana than most kids my age, and he said that I would definitely be an excellent addition to 'Princess Luna's Academy for the Research and Documentation of the Scientific Principles of Magic', which when I recited back to him, he said that I already have my horn in the front door. I was definitely a small amount surprised at this, because I didn't have my cutie mark yet. I didn't think that I was eligible for any specialized schools. So, I hope that I get in, that would be a dream come true. I thought that this would be a good bit longer than it is. That's odd, when you look at any one day, and then find out that it was less than you think it is. I wonder why that is. Anyway, From Portal Jet > Chapter 2: Cults, Elk, and Freindship, Oh my > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Portal Jet, having slept in what could have easily become his own grave, woke up feeling stiff all over his body. Fortunately for him, he also had gotten back a good amount of mana back in his system. He didn't have enough to do some of the more advanced things he had learned how to do in the academy, but he was able to levitate and use a basic compass and map spell. So, he checked his current location. He reaffirmed that he was far up north, and so he started walking to the south. He walked, and walked, and walked. He walked for miles. The repetitive motion of his canter driving his hooves in and out of the snow caused the lower parts of his legs to start going numb with hypothermia. He knew that he couldn't keep on going this way, he would pass out into the 2 foot thick snow bank. It was then that he felt a presence. He cast a basic life detect spell, and found that there was a small gathering of ponies less than a mile away. So, he went from a brisk trot to a full on gallop in the direction of the ponies. It was then that he passed out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Portal woke up later. And when he did, he found that he was quite surrounded by elks, although there were a few ponies in the crowd, but it was the elks that drew his attention, as he had only seen them once before. "Ah good, you're awake, we were starting to think we'd just have to bury you" An elk with larger horns than the rest said, "we had found you on the outskirts of our small village. Might we ask your name stranger." "Portal Jet, Number 31415." He said, purely out of instinct,as soon as his name was asked. 'Fucking academy, and their habits,' he thought to himself. "Well Mister Jet, It would appear as though you were saved from the cold grips of death, may Princess Twilight bless your coming." The head elk said as he made a star motion with his hoof. 'Princess Twilight, these guy's must be that cult I heard rumors about. I'm going to have to play it safe... For now.' Portal thought. He then fell asleep with the purpose of regenerating as much mana as he could. > Portal Jet's Diary 2/10 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Diary Now that I finished primary school, my letter of acceptance from 'The Academy' (I've decided that that's how I'm going to short hand it, since having a 14 word name is a hassle to write out). So, I was expecting that I would wait until the start of next school year to go to the finishing school proper. And wow, was I pleasantly surprised when I found out that that wasn't the case. When I read the letter, I found out that I had to go to the railroad station today to go ahead and go to the campus, something about familiarizing me with the campus. But that's not even the best part of all that's happened today, when I got to the train platform, I saw a few of my friends there, specifically Que Ball and Golf Club. And that made me a lot less nervous than I had been. After all, I thought that it was just going to be brainiacs like Square Root and Waveform going to this school, and I only got in because I had a higher magical potential than the rest of my class mates. Again, that was a huge relief. Anyway, we played games for a while, settling on indoor bowling as the best way of passing time. That lasted until the scientists stopped us to keep an eye on our mana levels, and they wrote down all kinds of numbers on the spells we were using. They didn't seem to be too impressed by the simplicity of our spells. But it was fun, since there weren't any Earth Ponies or Pegasi on the train we used our basic levitation spells to play better. After a while of the indoor bowling, a researcher came in and gave us a basic little fun riddle, "What question can you never answer yes to?" I had given up after a few minutes of guessing to myself, but eventually Square Root got the answer with, "Are you dead?". That was really how the rest of the day carried on with the researchers asking us a lot of trivial questions. They said it was to help our critical thinking skills that we're going to need for the lessons at the school. It was then that I decided to ask one of the researchers what kind of magic would it be that we would be learning about at The Academy, and she give me a shifty answer. She said something about the magic we would learn would be more or less situational to the room that we would be learning them in, but with a good mind we would be able to do more than they were basically made for. I still don't know what that means, but from the sound of it we're going to be spending time in more than one room per day, so I'm looking froward to that. All the adults were right, finishing school is going to be amazing. I can't wait to see what the inside of this school is going to look like. It sounds so interesting. From, Portal Jet