“I can’t believe I managed to find the formula to break the barrier between different universes!” Twilight thinks to herself giddily. “And now Celestia is sending me and the girls through the portal to meet with the leader or leaders of the
“I can’t believe I managed to find the formula to break the barrier between different universes!” Twilight thinks to herself giddily. “And now Celestia is sending me and the girls through the portal to meet with the leader or leaders of the first race we meet. Hopefully we'll be able to start a peaceful relationship with them.”
“Let’s see, oh this is perfect, I think we landed right in front of a group of… dragons?! Okay, okay, calm down Twilight, they might not be like dragons from Equestria, and they look civilized and… they’re looking at us in shock and… horror? Wait, why do my hooves feel wet? And why is there a choking sound coming from behi-OH MY CELESTIA THE PORTAL’SBURSTINGOUTOFHISCHEST!!!!!!!!!”
MLP:FiM characters are owned by Hasbro Studios Lume characters are owned by me Rated Teen for mature language, blood, and dark themes and moments If you dislike the story, please leave a comment down below to give me ideas on how to improve
Twilight Sparkle wrote furiously on her piece of scroll, only pausing to dip her quill into the inkwell when she ran out. The candlelight being the only thing shining onto her desk to illuminate the parchment that is quickly being filled up with words and equations. Twilight knows that Spike told her to get some rest, but she can’t stop writing, not now, she’s so close. So close to getting everything she’s been thinking down on paper.
A week ago, Twilight needed to go through a magic mirror to retrieve the Element of Magic after it was stolen. She found alternate versions of her friends in the human world, and though they were very similar to her friends, they also were different. Of course, that didn’t stop her from becoming friends with the humans, it’s just impossible to not be friends with them when Pinkie Pie is there to put together a Let’s be Friends with Twilight who’s an Alicorn Princess from an Alternate Universe Party. After defeating Sunset Shimmer and getting the Element of Magic back, Twilight returned back to her world after saying goodbye to her new friends. Her pony friends and the other three Princesses then greeted her when she came out of the mirror with Spike, and everything resumed its normality.
At least, until Twilight decided to scan the magical signature of the mirror, after that, she just kept coming up with theory after theory until she decided to try and figure out a way to replicate the effect of the mirror, but stronger.
And that is why Twilight is furiously writing in the middle of the night with nothing but a candle that’s about to burn out. Twilight sits up after finishing another page, and then proceeds to grab another piece of parchment from the stack of blanks to her left.
“Hoo.”
Twilight jerks up in surprise and looks behind her at the source of the disturbance.
“Oh, it’s you Owlicious. You startled me.” Twilight says to her pet owl perched on his stand slightly behind and to the right of her.
“Hoo.”
“I know Spike told me to get some rest, but I’m so close, I can feel I’m going to make a breakthrough at any point now.” Twilight responds to the concerned tone of her pet’s single sound.
“HOO!” Owlicious says a little louder than normal, indicating he’s getting irritated.
“Alright, alright, I’ll go to bed. But I’m going to test a dimensional viewing spell first, it isn’t what I’m working towards, but it will let me know whether I’m on the right track or not. I’ll go to bed right after, it’ll only take a minute.” Twilight negotiates with her pet.
“Hoo.” Owlicious replies, nodding, satisfied with his owner’s compromise.
“Alright then, I’ll get to it right away.” Twilight says while moving to the center of the library.
Twilight’s horn glows brightly as she concentrates on her spell, a clear disk forming vertically in the air in front of her as she does. A few seconds later, Twilight’s horn stops glowing and the disk is displaying trees and other animals in it, some of them nonexistent on Equestria. Twilight’s eyes light up at seeing the success.
“IT WORKED!!! That means that the Rift spell is only a few steps away from being complete.” Twilight says enthusiastically… before yawning tiredly.
“And it’s time I go get some sleep like I promised. It’s probably not a good idea to keep going while tired. With the way things work in Ponyville, I might just botch the spell at the very end and cause another catastrophe to occur. Thank you Owlicious for looking out for me. Goodnight.” Twilight says to her pet before heading upstairs to her bed.
“Hoo.” Owlicious replies, happy his owner is finally getting some sleep.
Metuo felt Aduro’s wing-talon rip through his left shoulder, the searing white energy passing through his flesh and bone with ease. Metuo screams in agony as his limb falls off, still smoking from the cauterized cut. He channels energy through his wings to strafe away from the older dragon, but Aduro is faster and channels through his wings to flank Metuo at blinding speed. Metuo turns in midair, his element enhancing his reflexes, but not fast enough to avoid a channeled blow to his midsection. Metuo flies straight into the wall, the wind getting knocked out of him in the process. Before Metuo can even cry out, he gets pinned to the wall by spikes of light impaling Metuo in numerous parts of his body, especially through his limbs. Then, and only then, does Aduro finally let up in order to let Metuo scream.
Only to find he can’t, because Aduro impaled him in his throat, disabling Metuo’s ability to breathe. Metuo’s body convulses in both pain and desperation.
“I’m sorry, son, but you didn’t give me much choice. You were resisting too much for me to be able to remove your core. You won’t be able to pass on until you’re unable to draw upon your element anymore.” Aduro says consolingly. “I promise, I’ll make this next part quick.” He says while walking towards Metuo briskly on four legs.
Metuo is too desperate to breathe to reply, not to mention that he can’t speak with his neck impaled.
“Tell your mother that I’ll be with you two in a little while, I still have some things I have to do before following.” Aduro says to Metuo with finality, before raising his right foreleg in preparation for one last strike.
Metuo is finally able to fight through the pain and lack of air in order to focus on Aduro. Metuo’s eyes staring at his supposed father with terror, his mouth silently pleading words he cannot speak.
‘No, no PLEASE NO!’ Metuo mouths and thinks desperately, his element urging him to avoid the next strike, but unable to due to his immobility.
Aduro thrusts his claw towards the center of Metuo’s chest.
‘NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!’
Aduro’s claw plunges deep inside his chest.
Metuo violently jerks awake, gasping in terror, all the while clutching at his chest where he thought he felt Aduro’s foreleg pierce it. He looks around frantically; slowly realizing it was just a nightmare.
‘A dream… just a dream.’ Metuo thinks to himself, trying to slow his heartbeat down.
Metuo concentrates on breathing for several long minutes, too rattled by his nightmare for his normal methods to work immediately.
Metuo raises his left foreleg to his sight, his slitted eyes able to see it shaking, due to the adrenaline still rushing through his bloodstream. He opens and closes his fore-claw slowly, still relieved that his element was at the point where he can regenerate lost limbs. ‘Still doesn’t mean I want to lose any more.’ Metuo thinks to himself, before looking down to his chest, realizing he’s still clutching it.
Metuo moves his right foreleg to see the somewhat jagged scar underneath, he sighs. ‘After all of the ugly injuries I’ve experienced, this one is the only one that actually scars.’ He thinks to himself morosely.
Metuo closes his eyes to try and calm himself down the rest of the way, the quiet of his room comforting him. 'Again... the same dream happened again. Why?' He silently asks the air around him.
Metuo gets up out of his bed, the sheets falling off of him as he steps onto the stone floor. He reaches out to the desktop next to his bed to grab his pendant, diamond shaped with a red crystal embedded in the center. After putting it on, he walks over to the mannequin in the opposite corner of his room. He removes the gauntlets from the armor and puts them on, before reaching for his sword and slips into the strap of its sheath. Satisfied that he has everything he needs, Metuo opens the door to his room, steps out, and closes his door again.
Metuo turns around to look across the hall, the open doorway revealing the empty bed of his younger sister, Starry Night, and feels a pang of sadness. ‘I wonder when she'll get back from her training with our aunt.’ He thinks, missing his sister.
Metuo stares at her room for a little longer, before turning down the hall to walk in the direction of the courtyard, intent on training until dawn.
‘I need to get stronger...faster… he found me once… he can find me again. I need to get stronger.’ Metuo says to himself, his eyes focusing on the ground as he walks.
‘Faster.’ Metuo thinks as he shoots past and slashes the light charged construct.
Other mana charged Cealans fly at Metuo at high speeds, aiming to take Metuo down. Metuo avoids the first one’s downward slash by flipping around his strike, splitting its head with his own counter-strike while in midair. Then Metuo darts in to stab the next construct in the shoulder, interrupting its attack, before swiftly twisting himself under and around the construct, which severed its right foreleg from its ‘body’. Metuo slashes his gauntlet blade through the back of its neck before moving on. The two constructs burst apart upon being ‘killed’ and the energy returns to the training crystal.
‘Faster!’
Metuo flicks his sword through one construct and into another. Metuo reaches it before it bursts, grips the handle, and flicks it downward through the midsection of the construct, bisecting it. He flings two elemental knife constructs into the heads of two others. He shoots into the third and decapitates it using his sword, and then promptly ducks under a horizontal swipe from behind, and uses a basic, but powerful, Fear blast to decimate the construct.
‘FASTER!’
Five constructs remaining, Metuo waits for one of them to make the first move. When the second to last one takes a step, Metuo shoots off fast enough to reach the construct in the time it would take to blink. Metuo slashes the forelegs off before twisting around to slash its throat, and then sheaths his sword while spinning around again to stab the gauntlet blade into the next construct’s throat with the leg that used to hold his sword. Metuo uses his wings to flip around and slash through the middle construct’s spine, and lands to slash the front of the next construct’s neck. He continues his momentum around as he steps around the construct and slashes the back of its neck with his right blade. Metuo lunges forward at the last one and stabs it through the upper left of its torso with his right blade, and through the lower right with his left one, and then slashes outward with each while using his wings to flip over the ‘dying’ construct. Metuo twists around midair and lands on his hind legs facing the constructs while in a guard position. The constructs burst apart and return to the crystal.
Metuo pants as he stays in his guard position for a moment, before retracting his blades back into his gauntlets and bringing himself down to stand on all four legs.
“Wow, never noticed how ruthless you’ve gotten with your fighting style. Kind of scares me a little.”
Metuo’s head snaps up and whirls around at the sound of the familiar voice. He sees a silver and sky blue Cealan with yellow eyes leaning on a stone post of the training courtyard, with one of his forelegs crossed over the other.
“Then again, it’s kind of hard to be scared of someone who’s afraid of his little sister, who happens to be genetically incapable of growing larger than even the smallest Caelan.” The silver dragon says with a good-natured smirk on his face.
Instead of feeling mildly offended like he normally would, Metuo just stares with a small frown on his face. “What are you doing up Niteo?” Metuo asks.
Niteo’s smirk falls slightly. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.” He responds.
Metuo looks down slightly before answering. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Another nightmare?” Niteo asks.
Metuo’s silence is all the answer Niteo needs.
“Man, he really did a number on you didn’t he.” Niteo states aloud.
Metuo turns and walks towards the crystals that control the training constructs.
“You know, training constructs can only get you so far. Sometimes it’s better to go against a real opponent.” Niteo says, hinting at something.
Metuo stops walking, and turns to look at Niteo with mild surprise.
“Really? Are you sure you don’t want to go back to sleep?” Metuo asks.
“Does this look like a face that would try to trick you?” Niteo says with a flashy grin.
“You are Ictus’s brother.” Metuo says, giving a small smile of his own.
“Ha ha! There’s the Met we all know and love. I was starting to worry that he sucked all of the joy and laughter out of you.” Niteo says while walking towards the center of the courtyard.
“No he didn’t do something that bad, just ripped my core out.” Metuo says nonchalantly while unstrapping his sword and sheath.
Niteo stumbles a bit in shock. He looks at Metuo like he just told him the sky was purple. “Uhhhh… You sure it’s not too soon to be making jokes about your near death experience like that?” Niteo asks, concerned.
Metuo shrugs his shoulders while taking his gauntlets off. “If anything good has come of it, it’s the fact that I can catch you off guard with mentioning it like that.” He says.
Niteo gives a tiny laugh at that.
“Alright, I’m ready when you are cousin.” Metuo says, getting up on his hind legs with his forelegs in a guard position.
“Met, if anything, you're my brother after everything we’ve been through.” Niteo says with affection.
Metuo drops his guard, before reflexively blocking a charging strike from Niteo as he attempts to take advantage of Metuo’s lapse in focus.
“And that, dear brother, is how you take advantage of a shocked opponent.” Niteo says with a smirk.
Before getting jabbed in the face by Metuo, using the opening Niteo gave him when he started running his mouth.
“Okay, that’s it, you’re going down.” Niteo says with a determined smirk, only mildly angry that he got caught by surprise.
Metuo actually smirks to match Niteo’s at that. The two Caelans continue to spar against each other until morning.
Celestia’s sun shone brightly in the sky over Equestria, showing a land of peace and tranquility for miles around. Most ponies living in Equestria wouldn’t ever dream of going to visit far off places, especially if there was a possibility of them getting into dangerous situations. However, Princess Twilight Sparkle is not like most ponies, and not just because she’s an alicorn either. While most in Ponyville would agree that Twilight is the type to stay cooped up in the Golden Oaks Library reading for long periods of the day, they will also agree that when she finds out about new knowledge, she will set out to even the most dangerous places to learn that knowledge.
Currently, Twilight Sparkle is on her way to meet with Princess Celestia, the ruler of Equestria, due to the recent discovery Twilight made this morning. The summons mentioned that Celestia wants Twilight and the others to come to Canterlot before Twilight tests the portal she discovered how to make.
Twilight, being the inventor of the spell, naturally jumped to the conclusion that she and the others will be going to another world. Also naturally, she told her five friends with her about her suspicions. Fluttershy was afraid of the ones living there all being mean, Rarity was imagining the new designs she could make from seeing a new world, Rainbow Dash was boasting about kicking the aliens’ flanks, Pinkie was bouncing around erratically at the prospect of new friends, and Applejack was concerned. The cause of her concern is what is not natural with Twilight.
“New Friends! New Friends! New Friends!”
“New Knowledge! New Knowledge! New Knowledge!”
Twilight Sparkle… was acting… like Pinkie Pie… PINKIE… PIE!
“…Uh, Twilight?” Applejack asked uncertainly.
“New Friends! New Friends! New Friends!”
“New Knowledge! New Knowledge! New Knowledge!”
“Twilight.” She states again, slightly annoyed at being ignored.
“New Friends! New Friends! New Friends!”
“New Knowledge! New Knowledge! New Knowl-.”
“TWILIGHT!!!!” Applejack raises her voice while interrupting Twilight’s nerdgasm.
Twilight jumps in surprise at the sudden shouting. She looks at Applejack in confusion, before the deadpan look on Applejack’s face tells her that she was acting a little strange. Twilight gives an embarrassed smile at Applejack, as if to say ‘sorry’, Applejack accepts it with a nod, before noticing that they had arrived at Canterlot station. Twilight perks up at noticing this.
“Oh good, we’re here. Come on girls, we shouldn’t keep Princess Celestia waiting.” Twilight says to the others. They all nod in the affirmative, agreeing with Twilight’s statement.
The six mares begin walking towards Canterlot Castle, all with differing opinions on the possibility of a new adventure.
Twilight and her friends enter the Canterlot throne room after pair of royal guard unicorns open the massive doors with their magic.
“Welcome Twilight, girls, it’s nice to see you again.” Princess Celestia says in greeting while getting up off of her throne to walk over to them.
“It’s good to see you too Princess Celestia, we came as soon as we got your request for us to come and meet you.” Twilight greets her old mentor as she and the girls walk to stand closer to Celestia.
“I’m glad to see that you got here so quickly, but you do know that it wasn’t an urgent request, correct?” Celestia asks with a small smirk and a raised eyebrow.
Twilight rubs the back of her head in mild embarrassment. Rainbow Dash flies forward and in front of Twilight. “So when are we going to go and kick some alien flank!” She says while giving a few punches with her front hooves in the air, a cocky smile on her face.
Rarity’s eyes widen in shock. “Rainbow Dash, we are not traveling to another world for the sole purpose of attacking the inhabitants!” Rarity says sternly to the cyan pegasus.
Rainbow opens her mouth to respond when Pinkie pops up between them. “But what if they’re a bunch of big muscled alien warriors and they’re surprised to see us ponies. And what if ponies don’t exist on their world and they attack us out of fear of the unknown and we have to defend ourselves just to get out of the situation alive, and the diplomatic mission we’re getting sent on turns into a huge misunderstanding that leads to Equestria going to war with the aliens and the aliens end up figuring out how to get to Equestria and end up invading and enslaving everypony we know and love and we have to start an underground resistance fighting force to…” Applejack finally gets around to covering Pinkies mouth with her hoof to stop her rambling. “Pretty sure things won’t get that out a’ hoof, Pinkie Pie.” Applejack says with half lidded eyes.
“I’m hoping it doesn’t get out of hoof at all.” Fluttershy says nervously, currently cowering behind Celestia due to Pinkie’s vivid description. Celestia looks down behind her at Fluttershy with a comforting smile.
“Don’t worry my little ponies, I have taken precautions to ensure your safe return should something go wrong. And I’m hoping Twilight can help me make some more by viewing the place that you will be arriving in. As much as I have faith in all of you, in the case of visiting a place with so many unknowns, a pony can never be too careful.” Celestia says to the group.
“That’s true, and looking back, I probably should have thought of that before now. I’m sorry Celestia, normally I’m not so shortsighted in these kinds of events. I… suppose… I was a little excited about visiting a new world. Heh heh.” Twilight gives a nervous laugh, somewhat embarrassed… again.
Celestia gives a laugh of her own at Twilights embarrassed state. “It’s alright Twilight, we all forget to prepare from time to time.” She says.
“Uh, Princess, did you say somethin’ about making preparations ta’ make sure we’re safe?” Applejack asks curiously.
“Yes I did. Twilight is still somewhat new to her position as a Princess of Equestria, so I asked Luna if she would like to accompany you on your trip. She agreed, feeling it would be safer to have a second alicorn coming along. I also have a feeling that she’s excited about visiting another world as well, even if she didn’t voice her excitement. Being able to control the stars, it seemed to her like an interesting prospect to visit a place among the stars, even if they’re not the same stars she commands.” Celestia says, answering Applejack’s question.
“Princess Luna’s coming with?!” The six mares in front of Celestia cry out in surprise.
Celestia gives another laugh at the main six’s reaction. “Yes, she is. Did you think she just stays in her room all the time? She gets out and about every once in a while.” She says in an amused tone.
The girls look a little sheepish at that statement, some of them thinking that she did, but not realizing until now how silly it sounds.
Twilight clears her throat after coming out of her third state of embarrassment for the day. “Ehem, so anyway… what can I do to help prepare Princess?” Twilight asks Celestia, getting back on topic.
“You told me in your letter that you used a dimensional viewing spell last night to get an idea of what you needed to do to complete the rift spell. I would like to help you pick a world that is able to support life, but also has signs of civilization similar in advancement to ours. Any additional information about that world we can gather, before actually sending somepony there, will be helpful.” Celestia says in a slightly more serious tone.
Twilight nods in agreement, before looking down in thought. “But… just so you know, Princess… I’m not sure whether I’ll have the magical stamina to keep looking for very long… I’m sorry if this is an inconvenience.” Twilight says, looking a little sad at her limits preventing her from completing a task from her former mentor.
“You don’t have to apologize for that Twilight, we all have our limits. But as I’m sure you’ve noticed, becoming an alicorn greatly increased your magical threshold, and if it’s necessary, I can power the spell while you direct it.” Celestia consoles Twilight with a smile.
Twilight perks up at Celestia’s words.
“Now,” Celestia starts. “how about we go and eat lunch before starting the task of finding a suitable world to visit?” She says while turning around to walk in the direction of the dining room.
“I think I found one Celestia.” Twilight says while maintaining her concentration on keeping the vision of the viewing spell stable.
“That’s good, after searching for so long, I think I can actually feel myself becoming a bit drained.” Celestia replies, also focusing on her own task.
The two alicorns are leaning forward and touching the tips of their horns to each others, the rounded disk showing images similar to what Twilight viewed last night. They’re viewing the same world as last time, with flora and fauna foreign to the world of Equis being shown.
“What can you observe about this world Twilight?” Celestia asks.
Twilight takes a moment to split her focus between the spell and the images. “Hmmm… well… the animals seem to have the forms similar to animals on Equis, with mouths and torsos, so they probably breathe in the same way as us. And the plants also seem to photosynthesize in the same way as ours, by using chlorophyll, so there’s probably oxygen in the atmosphere. I think it’s a fairly safe guess to say that the planet has a survivable atmosphere for ponies.” Twilight lists off.
“That’s good to know. Are you able to shift the focus of the disk to see if sentient life exists?” Celestia asks.
“Yes, I can do that right now.” Twilight says before focusing again.
The images shifts to the right, as if looking around, before it suddenly shoots in the direction the sky would be on the planet. When it finally stops, the two alicorns can see a bird’s eye view of the surface of the new world.
Twilight searches the surface of the planet until her eyes land on a mass of something in the distance.
“There! I can see what looks like buildings clustered together. In fact, it looks like a fairly large city from here, since it stretches all the way past the horizon. If that’s not proof of sentient life, I don’t know what is.” Twilight says with excitement.
“Well, in that case, I believe we’ve found our destination. Go ahead and end the spell Twilight, then we can tell your friends the good news.” Celestia says.
“Got it, ending the spell now.” Twilight says before ending the viewing spell.
Metuo feels the tightness in his chest subside. ‘Ow.’ He thinks to himself with a wince.
The day after Metuo’s training session with his older cousin Niteo, Metuo returned to his room to rest and clean himself up a bit. He wasn’t concerned about his lack of sleep, he usually only gets about six hours of sleep anyway; he’s always had nightmares at around that time of night. The only difference between then and now is that his nightmares seem to be focusing themselves more nowadays, and he can’t get back to sleep after them, and he can feel a lot more pain in them… okay they’ve gotten a lot worse after that specific event, but he’s still used to them.
Metuo moves his weight off of the wall he was leaning on for support. Sometime in the middle of the day, Metuo was walking through the hallway to go train again, when suddenly he feels tightness in his chest, which got worse over time, before vanishing after about five minutes. Normally, Metuo would just dismiss this as just a phantom pain from a time when he got injured. Since His element heals any injury he gets in a fight, Metuo sometimes feels pain erupt from some areas he got an especially nasty injury.
But this time was different… the pain came from the one wound that ever actually scarred, and it felt different than the other times. For one, it was a lot more intense than the others. And for another… it felt less like pain… and more like something wanted… to get out.
“Uuuugggggghhhhh, cooooommmmeee oooooooooooonnnn Twiliigggghht.” Rainbow Dash groans out impatiently.
“Rainbow, this is very important, one mistake could have disastrous consequences while we’re on a foreign planet.” Twilight says to Rainbow Dash.
“But you’ve been talking for hooouuurrss! Let’s just gooooooooooooo!” Rainbow Dash whines.
“I’m just trying to cover all of our bases to make sure we’re prepared. This next point on my checklist is the last one, can you just sit through one more Rainbow?” Twilight asks.
“… Fine.” Rainbow answers.
“Good. Ehem… ‘Make Rainbow Dash Pinkie Promise to not threaten, provoke, offend, attack, or incur the anger of any of the inhabitants of the new world we are visiting until the time in which I say that she is allowed to.’ which should be enforced by Pinkie since she’s coming with.” Twilight says before looking at Rainbow expectantly, the other six mares gathered doing the same.
Rainbow looks at Twilight incredulously. “You actually put getting me to Pinkie Promise in your massive checklist?”
“Yes, I did, and I’m not opening the portal until you do.” Twilight says in a no-nonsense tone of voice.
“Ugh, fine! Cross my Heart and Hope to Fly, Stick a Cupcake in my Eye! There you happy?” Rainbow asks hotly.
“Very.” Twilight says, satisfied.
“Then I do believe it is time for our departure Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Luna says to Twilight.
Twilight winces at the title. “Heh, you know, you don’t have to call me by my title Princess Luna. I would actually prefer it if you didn’t, actually, since we’re friends.” Twilight says to Luna.
“Hmmm, then why is it that you can call me by my title?” Luna says with a reflective look on her face.
“Wha…well… I mean… that is to say… um…” Twilight stumbles on her words at that revelation.
Luna gives a laugh at Twilight’s lack of a proper response. “I only jest Twilight. But since we are friends, I also would prefer it if you just refer to me as Luna.” She says after Twilight recovers.
Twilight sighs in relief that Luna isn’t angry at her. “Alright Pri- Luna, I’ll drop the title from now on.”
“You know… I wouldn’t mind just being called Celestia every now and then.” Celestia says aloud.
“Alright, I get it, no more Princess titles between friends.” Twilight says aloud.
“Would you just open the dumb portal already?!” Rainbow bursts out, frustrated at the lack of anything besides talking happening.
“Rainbow Dash! Your behavior is most unbecoming of an ambassador of the planet.” Rarity scolds the pegasus.
“What? I just want to leave already. The sooner we get there, the sooner I can start showing the aliens how awesome I am.” She replies impatiently.
Celestia giggles at the cyan pegasus’s behavior. “I think you’d best leave now Twilight, Rainbow Dash doesn’t seem like she can hold out much longer.” She says to Twilight.
Twilight and the others minus Rainbow give small chuckles at Celestia’s words. Twilight starts to concentrate on the viewing spell, trying to find the world she and Celestia decided on visiting. After a few moments of searching, she found it, and smiles at her success.
“Okay everypony, the spell is ready, is there anything anypony forgot?” Twilight asks the group. Eveypony but Pinkie Pie shake their heads in the negative, Pinkie looks to be in thought for a few moments before looking like she just remembered something… before shaking her head in the negative.
“Ooookay then, here we go.” Twilight says, her horn already glowing to alter the spell from viewing into rift.
FWOOM
The viewing disk’s edges change to an translucent red and the inside becomes transparent, with only a mild amount of light distortion. The portal is now open.
“Okay everypony, let’s go!” Twilight calls out to the rest of the group before stepping through the rift.
Twilight thinks she heard Celestia call out ‘Good luck my little ponies’ before she was completely inside. She wasn’t sure because she was focusing on the feeling of traveling through space and time at a speed that would normally disintegrate anything in the physical world. ‘Wow, this is a lot different than when I went through the mirror,’ Twilight thinks. ‘it felt like I was twisting and turning in every possible direction back then, but this… this just feels like I’m shooting forward at an incredible speed. Rainbow’s probably enjoying this right now.’
And then suddenly, Twilight finishes taking that single step she took to get into the portal. And when she does, she realizes that she’s on the other side… and in a new world.
Twilight’s friends and Luna come out of the portal behind Twilight. Twilight feels herself smile knowing that her spell worked, and looks around to see where she is.
The first thing Twilight notices is that she and her friends stepped out into what appears to be a training courtyard, similar in size to what the royal guards at Canterlot use. The second thing Twilight notices is that there are three dragons of different colors in front of them, one silver with sky blue highlights, one dark purple with lighter violet highlights, and one dull orange with lighter orange highlights. The third thing Twilight notices is that they appear to be staring at Twilight and her friends in shock, ‘Not very surprising considering we just walked out of a portal that appeared out of nowhere.’ The last thing Twilight notices is that she’s standing in a growing pool of blood.
‘Wait WHAT?!’ Twilight thinks in panic before looking back down to her hooves to see that there is, indeed, blood spreading out on the ground from some point behind Twilight.
Twilight’s friends follow Twilight’s eyes and see the blood themselves. They all gasp in horror at the sight of so much blood. But then Twilight hears somepony else’s gasp, but this one sounded much more choked, and filled with a lot more pain.
Twilight spins around to look back at the portal… which is bursting out of the chest of a black and white dragon.
“CLOSE THE PORTAL!!!!” A voice shouts at Twilight.
Twilight jumps before doing exactly that, the panic she’s feeling being all the motivation she needs to follow the command.
The portal closes with a fwoom and the dragon collapses forward into the pool of his own blood.
“METUO!!!” The orange dragon calls out before the three dragons rush past the ponies to the fallen dragon.
The other ponies seem to be going through different methods of freaking out. Fluttershy is hyperventilating, Rainbow Dash and Applejack look like they’re going to be sick, Pinkie Pies mane is down and straight, Rarity is freaking out over the blood on her hooves, and Luna is trying and failing to keep her composure, unable to ignore the gruesome injuries inflicted on the dragon.
And as for Twilight, all she can think is four words.
‘What have I done?’
[Edit] Chapter 5: First Impressions and Forgiveness
“C’mon Met! Quit holding back, I don’t like beating you into the ground when you’re not giving your all!” Niteo yells, launching a front jab to Metuo’s face.
Metuo moves his head out of the way and flips backwards, his tail hitting Niteo under his chin. Metuo lunges in and hits his cousin with a reverse punch to the face, an uppercut to the chest, a right hook, and then finishes with a sweep. Niteo catches himself with his left foreleg and twists around to swipe at Metuo with a right roundhouse from the ground. Metuo is already leaping over his cousin and shifts farther away from him with a channeled burst from his wings. Niteo’s roundhouse follows through and he plants his right back leg and throws a hook punch followed up by a back-thrust kick at Metuo after he dodges the hook. Metuo spins around the thrust and throws his own hook-kick back. Niteo ducks under it and sweeps out Metuo’s remaining leg. Metuo falls forward onto his forelegs, Niteo flips and brings his hind leg downward. Metuo rolls along the ground, Niteo’s leg crashing into the dirt, and then flips upright a few meters away facing his cousin.
“He’s the one beating youinto the ground Niteo. You haven’t landed a single blow on him.” An orange dragoness calls out from the sidelines.
“Met, try to limit your movements. You’re moving too far away from Niteo when you dodge, it’s giving Niteo too much time to react when you counterstrike against him when you have to cover that extra distance.” A dark purple dragoness adds.
Metuo pants, not taking his eyes off his opponent. “Got it Aetas.” He replies to the purple dragoness.
“Why are you both on his side?” Niteo asks them, panting as well.
“Cause you’re the one who volunteered to help him. If Metuo wants to train and improve, he needs as much encouragement as possible to keep going.” The orange dragoness replies.
It’s the day after Metuo had his nightmare and Niteo offered to help him train, and the morning is bright and sunny. Metuo and Niteo’s other two squad-mates, Aetas and Cauma, came out on their own to watch the two males exchange blows, offering their own tips and encouragement every so often, occasionally switching out with one or both of them to get their own training in.
“That’s true. I’m starting to think you’ll need an extra opponent to improve more Met. You’re freakishly good at unarmed combat. Feel like jumping in Cauma?” Niteo asks the orange dragoness.
Cauma sits up and bounds to stand behind Metuo in answer. Metuo shifts his body to be able to see both of them through his peripheral.
“Well alright then, I’ll take that as a yes. Better start upping your game Metuo. You’re facing the hothead now.” Niteo says with a smirk.
“Just shut up and hit him Frosty.” Cauma shoots back, unamused.
Niteo shoots towards Metuo in response. Metuo faces him and blocks his jab, reverse, and hook punch and ducks under the spinning backhand. Metuo turns to face Cauma and shifts out of the way of her lunge. She flies past him and bounds around on all fours. Metuo redirects Niteo’s follow-up jab and ducks under the hook, then rolls to avoid Cauma’s flying kick and springs into the air with his fore-claws, using his wings to stay aloft.
Niteo and Cauma follow closely, Niteo flying at him with outstretched but sheathed fore-claws. Metuo shifts out of Niteo’s path and flips back, hind legs kicking Cauma’s own kick upwards, and whips out a fast hook at her head. Cauma brings her left fore-leg up to cover her head at the last second and takes the blow, before immediately recovering and throwing a reverse punch. Metuo blocks the punch, and then ducks under a roundhouse kick from the orange female, but he sees the other leg coming a moment too late. The hook-kick hits Metuo in the head, knocking him so his back is facing the ground, and Cauma flips forward and drop kicks Metuo in the stomach directly downward.
Metuo hits the ground with his back and he gets the wind knocked out of him. He rolls out of the way of Cauma’s aerial pounce and plants his front legs on the ground and whips his tail around to strike out at Cauma, who bounds out of the range of the appendage.
Metuo tries to get his breath back, finding it hard to breath, when he sees a silver blur out of the corner of his eye. Time seems to slow for Metuo as he turns his head and sees Niteo almost on top of him from his own aerial pounce.
Metuo’s surprise left him slow to react. Suddenly, he felt a rush of energy suddenly flow through him, and then he feels his muscles tense harder than he’s ever felt before, his element surging through them.
The next thing he knows he’s five meters behind where he was standing and Niteo is landing where Metuo was just at.
The energy surge doesn’t stop there though. Metuo feels his element pulse hard within his chest.
Metuo gasps and rears up on his hind legs, then his chest explodes in pain, Metuo sees the red energy from his element flood out of his chest and form a semi-transparent disk out in front of him.
Metuo can’t breath, can’t look away, and can’t scream. All he can feel is his core forcing the energy within him to pool out into the vertical disk.
Metuo’s vision blurs, the lack of oxygen causing him to start blacking out, he sees a variety of bright colors out in front of him. And then his core stops the flow of energy and Metuo falls forward.
Metuo feels his element pulse as it closes the hole in his chest.
And that was… okay, that one’s new. Wait… pony? What?
Metuo gasps, and ends up coughing up the blood that was still in his lungs.
“Metuo!” Cauma exclaims in relief.
Metuo opens his mout to reply, but it comes out as a groan when he feels the ache in his legs and chest. He rolls onto his side to let his legs go limp.
“Are you alright? We got worried there when you stopped breathing.” Niteo says.
“Augh. My everything hurts. What the heck happened?” Metuo rasps, his throat sore.
“You somehow phased into a different spot when you dodged Niteo’s attack, and then some kind of portal burst out of your chest a second later. You collapsed when it closed, then healed and woke up.” Aetas tells Metuo.
“Oh…”
“Are you alright?” Aetas asks.
“Heh… yeah, totally. I heard blood loss was the equivalent of eating an apple a day.” Metuo jokes weakly.
Cauma smacks him in the head. “Ow!” He says.
“Cut the jokes Met. We don’t need you acting like Ictus right now.” Cauma scolds him.
“Ugh. Sorry, just trying to take my mind off the pain in my body right now.” Metuo apologizes.
Aetas lifts up one of Metuo’s forelegs while he lays on his side. Metuo clenches his eyes shut for a moment. “You’ve overexerted your muscles with too much elemental energy.” She tells him.
“He did? How can you tell?” Niteo asks, worried.
“He moved too quickly to not have been channeling when he avoided your last attack, and his muscles are seizing up like mine did back when I was still working on developing my ability to slow time down around me. He just needs to take it easy for a bit, and wait a few minutes for the pain to fade. He’ll be fine.” Aetas answers, lowering his foreleg gently.
Metuo groans from his leg being moved.
“That doesn’t mean the next few minutes aren’t going to suck though.” Aetas adds.
“Maybe we could burn those few minutes away with greeting our guests?” Niteo suggests, looking up and behind Metuo.
Metuo clenches his teeth together as he lifts his head up and looks around to see where Niteo is looking. His neck muscles aren’t nearly as sore as the rest of him, thankfully.
Metuo sees a group of miniature horses with a wide variety of colors staring at them with various expressions on their faces. Metuo stares at them in confusion.
Cauma growls and steps in front of Metuo slightly, the anger resonating off of her directed at the horses.
“Uuuuuuuhhhhhh… hi?” Metuo says to the group of equines, unsure why they’re here.
The yellow one gave a startled ‘eep’ before darting behind the tall dark blue one. The purple one seemed to shrink in on herself.
The group of horses kept silent, still too shell shocked to be able to respond. All except the dark blue one.
“Hello young one, I’m glad to see that you are still breathing, despite what just occurred, and we all deeply apologize for what happened here. It was not any of our intentions to bring harm upon anybody here; we simply wanted to greet a new race. However, due to the current circumstances we would understand if it is now impossible to have any kind of friendly relations for quite some time.” She, judging from her voice, says to Metuo and the others.
Cauma opens her mouth to give a sharp, and probably loud, response before Niteo interrupts her. “We’re also glad Metuo didn’t die. But I’d be lying if I said that I’m not angry that you hurt my cousin.” Niteo says with a small edge to his voice, the dark blue horse doesn’t react physically.
“However, considering that it was obviously an accident on your part… I’m willing to forgive you. It’s up to the others to do so themselves. But regardless whether or not any of us forgive you, if you’re diplomats, we need to take you to see Sentinel Heros.” Niteo tells her. Niteo looks to Metuo. “Met, can you stand yet?” He asks.
Metuo turns to look at his limp legs and slowly rolls onto them with a grunt of pain. He pushes himself up on his trembling legs and manages to stay upright. “*huff* Yeah, but I think I’ll need to lean on someone to walk.” Metuo answers. Cauma stands next to him in response, ready to take some of his weight when they decide to move.
Niteo nods upon seeing Metuo on his feet.
Suddenly, Metuo feels himself get wrapped up by a pink blur. He grunts from the sudden pressure on his sore spots.
“THANK YOOOO-HOOOOUUU FOR NOT BEING DEEE-HEEEE-HEEAAAD!” Metuo realizes that the pink horse is hugging him while sobbing.
‘How did she… get over here so quick?’ Metuo thinks in confusion, not really sure what to do. Fortunately he didn’t have to do anything.
“Uh, Pinkie, he looks a little uncomfortable righ’ now, maybe you should let him go.” The orange one says to her.
“Okay!” ‘Pinkie’ replies, surprisingly perky despite bawling her eyes out a few seconds ago. She lets Metuo go and bounces back to the group of horses.
Metuo’s eyes widen when he sees her previously pink coat has large splotches of dark red on them. ‘Oh crap, is she bleeding?! What happened?! Oh… wait.’
Metuo looks down at himself and sees him covered in his own blood. He gives a sigh of relief that he didn’t hurt her.
Although, Metuo wasn’t the only one to notice Pinkie’s blood stained fur.
“Pinkie dear, you just got blood all over you,” the white pony with a horn said in a disapproving tone, “it was disturbing to find it just on our hooves but now you’ve got it all over your front. And I’ve heard that blood stains don’t come out easy.”
“Good to know you don’t like my friend’s blood on you after you almost killed him.” Metuo hears Cauma mutter with vehemence.
“But Rarity, I needed to give Metuo over there a hug because he’s not dead and that means we can still be friends and it would have been sad if he died because then we wouldn’t get the chance to become friends and the friends he has already would be even more sad because their friend just died and.” Pinkie rambles on.
“Wait how did you know my name?” Metuo asks Pinkie.
“Your friends kept shouting it out at you after Twilight closed the portal and you collapsed.” Pinkie says to Metuo quickly before turning back to ramble on at ‘Rarity’.
“Hey guys, how’s the trainin-hoLY SHIT THAT’S A LOT OF BLOOD!!!” Metuo turns and sees Niteo’s brother, Ictus gliding down to them. “What the hell happened?!” He asks with wide eyes.
“Oh great, as if this day wasn’t bad enough.” Cauma says sarcastically.
“Seriously, what happened, because last time I checked, it’s not really healthy for someone to lose this much blood. And what’s up with the rainbow coated horses in the courtyard?” He says to the other four Caelans.
Aetas sighs, “They’re from another world, and they opened a portal to reach us, said portal opened up via bursting out of Metuo’s chest.” Aetas explains to Ictus.
Ictus takes a second to process what she said. Then he turns his head to Metuo. “You good?” He asks.
“Yeah, I’m okay now. Really hurt while it was happening though.” Metuo responds.
“Okay then. WELCOME TO LUME HORSES!!!!!” Ictus greets the new arrivals.
The other four Caelans faceclaw.
“Ictus, we’re supposed to be angry at them for nearly killing Met.” Cauma says.
“Excuse me. But our species names are ‘ponies’ not ‘horses’.” The dark blue pony with wings and a horn tells us.
“Oh sorry, my bad! WELCOME TO LUME PONIES!!!” Ictus greets again with outstretched fore-legs.
“OKAY! So does anybody else want to start introducing ourselves, because I do. I’ll go first. Hello, my name is Niteo, Knight of Animusix, and this is my brother Ictus, and my squad-mates Metuo, Cauma, and Aetas. I would like to say thank you for joining us here on our planet, Lume.” Niteo says to the ponies, pointing at each of the other Caelans when he says their respective names.
The taller dark blue pony sighs in relief that things have calmed down a little. “Well met Sir Niteo, I am Princess Luna, diarch of Equestria, and I would once again like to extend my humblest apologies for the events caused by our arrival. I hope that it won’t cause any undue stress between our two nations in the future.” Luna says graciously.
“Don’t worry, it won’t. It didn’t end in death so the most it’ll do is make things awkward between us for a bit.” Niteo responds.
“Anyway, these six mares with me are wielders of ancient and powerful artifacts of my homeland known as the Elements of Harmony, hence why they are with me now. We felt it would be best to bring them, since the artifacts they wield are meant to spread their namesake, Harmony.” Luna says, gesturing to the other six ponies around her.
The cyan one with a rainbow mane and wings jumps up and hovers in front of the group of ponies. “Name’s Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in Equestria, future Wonderbolt, and the Element of Loyalty!” She introduces herself proudly.
“Huh, fastest flyer eh? How fast can you go?” Ictus asks with a raised brow.
“Fast enough to break the sound barrier and perform a Sonic Rainboom.” She says cockily.
“Mmmm… meh.” Ictus replies, unimpressed.
“WHAT?! How can you be unimpressed with breaking the sound barrier?” Rainbow asks, shocked.
“For one, every Caelan recruit needs to be able to reach a minimum speed capable of breaking the sound barrier before they can graduate and become Knights. And for another… it’s just not that useful on the battlefield, it’s not maneuverable enough, and it burns through energy too quickly.” Ictus replies.
While Rainbow Dash is staring at Ictus in shock, the orange one wearing a hat of some kind walks up to introduce herself, “Howdy, name’s Applejack, ah’ work on my family farm Sweet Apple Acres and use the Element a’ Honesty, nice ta meet ya’ll.” Applejack says.
“She seems nice enough.” Aetas says.
After her, comes Pinkie, “Hi my name’s Pinkie Pie and I like throwing parties and making ponies smile a lot and I should probably start trying to make dragons smile a lot since we’re going to become friends now but I already try to make Spike smile so I’ve got some practice with doing that too and do you guys like parties because if you do then I can throw a huge ‘We have new Dragon Friends now even though we blew up one of their chests but he’s Okay Now’ Party.” Pinkie says.
“Oh! And this is Fluttershy! She was hiding behind Luna cause she’s shy with meeting new ponies… and dragons too I guess since she’s shy about meeting you guys. Oh yeah, almost forgot, I’m the Element of Laughter and Flutershy’s the Element of Kindness.” Pinkie says while dragging the scared yellow pony with wings out from behind Luna.
“Uuuuuuuhhhhhh…” Metuo says while trying to process what Pinkie said.
“Pinkie, it’s not becoming of an ambassador to talk too quickly for the one they’re talking to.” Rarity says to Pinkie before turning to address the Caelans. “It is very nice to meet you all, my name is Rarity. Fashionista and seamstress extraordinaire, and the Element of Generosity, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She says with a flourish of her hoof.
“I can already tell she’s going to be a pain to deal with.” Cauma says under her breath to Metuo. Metuo rolls his eyes at his friend’s anger.
Lastly, the purple one with a horn and wings comes forward to introduce herself. “Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, firstly I want to say I’m so, so, so sorry Metuo. I’m the one who made the portal spell and opened it, but I should have checked to see how the portal was going to affect your world before trying to open it. I just got so caught up with meeting new beings and learning more about them that I didn’t take into consideration that the portal could hurt somepony… er… someone, on the other side.” Twilight hangs her head in shame after getting what she said out. Metuo thinks he can see her eyes tearing up from underneath her bangs.
Metuo looks at the violet pony in silence, trying to figure out how he feels about the one who almost killed him admitting her guilt.
‘Star… I’m so, so, so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to. I… I don’t know what happened…’
Metuo jerks his head back slightly at the memory. Metuo sighs. “Hey, Twilight was it? Don’t worry about it. It was just an accident. Mistakes happen. I forgive you.” Metuo tells the violet pony
The pony looks up at Metuo in surprise. “W-what? Just like that? Why? I almost…” She trails off.
Metuo gives a light chuff of laughter. “Let’s just say that you’re not the only one here that accidentally almost killed someone. And she forgave me, so why shouldn’t I forgive you? So how about we start fresh.” Metuo takes a couple shaky steps towards Twilight. “Friends?” He holds out his right fore claw.
Twilight looks up at Metuo, disbelief in her eyes, before she smiles in relief. She reaches out and takes Metuo’s outstretched claw. “Friends.” She answers with a smile.
Niteo gives a sigh in relief to have gotten introductions out of the way. “Well, now that that’s done, how about we get all this blood cleaned off us. And then after that we can all go meet with Uncle Heros.” He says to everyone.
Cauma helps Metuo walk to the channel of water on the edge of the training courtyard to wash his blood off of them, the ponies following close behind. After that, Niteo began leading the group inside the… not so much a castle… it seems too fortified for that, at least to Twilight. She would have to say it’s more of a fortress.
While they were walking, Twilight tried to work up the nerve to ask Metuo about something. She walks up to next to him, “Um… excuse me, Metuo?” She finally gets out.
“Hm? What?” The black dragon says, coming out of his own thoughts.
“I’m a little curious about something, can I ask you a question?” Twilight asks, still somewhat tentative because of what happened earlier.
“Uh, sure. Go ahead.” Metuo says with a small smile.
“How… are you alive? Not that I want you dead or anything!” Twilight adds quickly, “It’s just that… there was so much blood, how did you live through that?” Twilight asks tentatively.
Metuo cocks his head slightly. “My element healed me.” He says.
“Huh? What do you mean ‘your element’?” Twilight asks, regaining some of her natural inquisitiveness.
“Well, all Caelans are born with their own element that they can use. Mine just has the unique perk of healing severe injuries.” Metuo explains.
“Caylen? What’s a Caylen?” Twilight asks.
“We’re Caelans. It’s what we’re called.” Aetas says.
“Oh… sorry, I thought you guys were something else. You all look very similar to beings from our world called dragons. I guess I should have guessed you’d have a different name for yourselves.” Twilight apologizes.
“We are dragons. Caelan is just the race of dragons we are.” Cauma tells Twilight irritably.
“Cauma, calm down.” Metuo tells the orange dragoness, “There are six dragon races on this world. Caelans are one, and another one you’ll definitely see here in this city are a slightly smaller race called Lupae. They walk on four legs like us, but don’t have wings, and they have fur on their heads, and ears instead of horns like us.” Metuo explains to Twilight, glancing up at his own horns, which are just extended parts of his skull with skin and scales covering them.
“Caelans and Lupaeins. What are the other races? And are they here in this city too? What are they like?” Twilight asks, getting bolder.
“Slow down, we’ve got plenty of time to talk, it’s not like the world is going to end anytime soon. Going in order, the other four races are called Fortis, Serpens, Terrae, and Avis. No, they’re not here in this city, they’re kind of all rival nations to the Lupae. As for what they’re like, they’re… different and diverse, like all dragons I guess. I don’t like to generalize them all into one description.” Metuo answers with a shrug of his shoulder that’s not pressed against Cauma.
Twilight smiles at learning more, and tries to ask more about the races of dragons, but she’s interrupted by someone calling out, “Niteo!”
Everyone looks to the source of the voice to see a lithe gold and silver Caelan padding fairly quickly towards them with a black Caelan following her.
“There’s a huge bloody spot in the training courtyard. Do you have any clue what happened down there?” The gold female Caelan asks Niteo.
“Welllllll… there was a small accident involving Metuo down there…” Niteo says, trying to find the right way of explaining what happened.
“What kind of accident Niteo?” The female asks with a serious expression.
“You see these ponies standing behind us?” Aetas asks suddenly.
“What?” Anan asks, “yes I see them. I was going to ask about them next.”
“Aetas, maybe we should…” Niteo starts.
“To make a long story short, these ponies tried traveling from one world to another via some magic portal. They succeeded, the portal just accidentally came out of Metuo’s chest. Metuo bleed out for a little bit with everyone getting frantic but he eventually healed himself. Then he forgave them, and now we’re taking them to see your father.” Aetas explains. “Was that so difficult to explain Frosty?” She says to Niteo.
“Yes, was that so hard to explain?” Anan says pointedly to Niteo.
Niteo gives them a half-lidded frown.
“Frosty? Is that a nickname or something?” Rainbow Dash asks, hovering next to Aetas.
“I’m an Ice dragon, they came up with that name to annoy me despite it not being creative at all.” Niteo tells cyan pegasus.
“We only use it so much because it annoys you how uncreative it is. If you want us to stop, just stop getting annoyed.” Ictus says with a smirk.
“I’ll be sure to do that.” Niteo rolls his eyes.
"That'll be the day." Anan remarks cheekily. She turns to look at Twilight and her friends next. "Anyway, you've all obviously met my three cousins and their friends, so I'll just introduce Falx and I. *Erehehm*" Anan clears her throat. "Hello, my name is Anancites and this is one of my squad mates, Falx. It's a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to our humble city of Animusix." Anan introduces herself politely.
"Such a perfect little lady." Ictus says in a mocking sing-song voice.
"Well I highly doubt you gave them a formal welcome." Anan says with a glare at the green dragon.
Twilight watches the Caelans banter with each other, a smile forming.
‘They’re… really close. Maybe we’re all not as different as I first thought. If dragons can become such great friends with each other, why couldn’t they do it with us? I just hope they can forgive me for what happened earlier.’ Twilight thinks.
“It sure is a heartening sight to see how close they are, isn’t it?” A voice says from next to Twilight.
Twilight looks to her left to see the head of a black Caelan… sticking out of the wall.
“AAHH!!!” Twilight screams in surprise while jumping away from the disembodied head attached to the wall.
Everyone else looks to see Twilight leap away from the Caelan head protruding from the wall. The other members of the main six all let out their own startled cries once they see the head, Luna shifts into a wider stance, expecting a fight, and the Caelans faceclaw.
“Well that was a little rude. Do you always scream every time you see a new face?” The head says to Twilight with a small frown.
“WHY IS THERE A TALKING HEAD STICKING OUT OF THE WALL?!” Twilight shouts.
“Talking hea-Oh, wait, eh heh heh. Sorry about that.” The head says sheepishly.
The head moves away from the wall further to reveal a somewhat larger Caelan body stepping out of the wall.
“I spend so much time shadow travelling most of the day that I sometimes forget to come all the way out on a few occasions. I’m sorry for that. Sad to say that me scaring new arrivals to the building happens a little more often than I would like.” The black Caelan says.
“Sentinel Nox, it’s good to see that you’re being as socially awkward as usual.” Anan says dryly.
“Oh don’t you start lecturing me too Anan, I already have your parents telling me I need to get out and meet someone. I don’t need my niece getting on my case as well.” Sentinel Nox says to Anan.
“Well that’s a nice way to talk to your supposed niece.” Anan says playfully.
“Well last time I checked, I was your superior. Sentinel outclasses Knight, I’m afraid.” Nox cheekily replies back.
“Well I’m eventually going to become your superior.” Anan counters.
“Well ‘eventually’ isn’t ‘currently’, so I’m afraid you’re stuck being my underling for the foreseeable future.” Nox counters back.
The two Caelans glare at each other for a few seconds before chuckling at the serious faces they’re making at each other.
“Heh heh heh heh… So was there something you needed?” Anan asks the larger Caelan.
“Actually, I was alerted to some newly shaped shadows entering the building and I decided to watch and observe these ‘ponies’ and see what their intentions were. After a few minutes of watching how they interacted with Niteo and the others, I decided they weren’t malicious in their intentions, and just enjoyed watching them chat away with my family. And then eventually revealed myself, as you all… demonstrated.” Nox finishes while looking pointedly at the ponies in amusement. Twilight blushes in embarrassment at this.
“Sorry about that, I’m not usually so jumpy, but today has been kind of…” Twilight trails off.
“Shocking?”
“Scary?”
“Gory?”
“Painful for all involved?”
Everyone gives Ictus an odd look at his input. "What? You think I enjoy seeing my cousin bleeding out on the ground? I'll have you know, I do not." He says seriously.
Twilight finally just nods at the input of her friends plus one dragon. “Yeah, that.” Twilight acknowledges. “And seeing a random head sticking out of the wall kind of made my mind jump to a more gruesome conclusion.” Twilight finishes.
Nox raises his brow while smirking in amusement. “Don’t worry about it, jumping away in fear just means your reflexes are working properly.” He says to Twilight.
“Not trying to derail whatever bonding is going on right now, but shouldn’t we get around to introducing these girls to Sentinel Heros?” Aetas says.
“Straight to the point as usual, huh Aetas.” Ictus says.
“Would you expect any less from me?” Aetas asks Ictus.
“Nope.”
“I agree with Aetas’s plan. Heros should hear about the events that have occurred as soon as possible.” The dark grey Caelan next to Anan says.
Ictus leaps forward to stand on the dark Caelan’s other side, putting his foreleg around his neck. “Falx, how have you been buddy? I usually try to give you your space whenever you seem to be in the mood to be silent, but you’re clearly not today so…”
“Niteo.” Falx says.
“On it.” Niteo replies. He lifts his right foreleg and flicks his claw upwards in the direction of Ictus. A shell of ice encases Ictus’s head completely. He pulls his foreleg away from Falx as he stumbles around with a block of ice covering his head.
“Thank you.” Falx replies with the same impassive face as before.
“You never have to thank me for doing that.” Niteo replies with a grin as he watches his brother frantically try to keep his balance.
“I feel like everyone should always thank you for doing that.” Cauma says with a cruel smile in Ictus’s direction.
The ponies look at Ictus’s struggling form with varying levels of concern.
“Is… he alright?” Luna asks, worried about the Caelan suffocating, but also perplexed by the other Caelan’s lack of concern.
“He’ll be fine, Niteo does that to him all the time. It’s just how those two interact with each other. Ictus gets on everyone’s nerves with his nonstop talking, and Niteo freezes his head to shut him up for a while. Ictus almost always manages to get out of it in time. And when it looks like he isn’t going to be able to, Niteo unfreezes him.” Nox explains to the lunar princess.
*Smash!* “Hah! Suck it Niteo, new record!” Ictus cries out while pointing at his brother.
“See, it’s just brothers being brothers.” Nox says with a smile, waving his claw in their direction to show the proof of his claim. “Now, I think you said something about finding Heros. He’s in the dining hall with Glacia, waiting for you and the other Knights to gather for dinner. I think that would be the best place to go meet him. It’ll let you introduce the ponies to both him and anyone else that needs to see them.” Nox says to Anan.
“Thanks uncle Nox.” Anan says to the black Caelan with a smile.
“Anytime, I’ll probably be seeing you all later.” Nox says to the group before his shadow gets darker under him and he sinks into the floor. The shadow shoots across the floor and down the hallway, away from the group of ponies and Caelans.
Anancites turns around to follow the shadow. “C’mon, let’s go introduce you girls to my father.” She calls out behind her at Twilight and the others.
In the dining hall, there sits a gold and silver male Caelan at one table, with a snow-white female sitting directly across from him. The male has his eyes trained downward at the table, while the female sits upright with her eyes closed. Both dragons have impassive looks on their faces. Smaller wingless dragons in armor stand at attention on the both sides of each entrance to the room.
“Heros.”
The gold male looks to his left slightly to see Nox standing next to him.
“What did you find out about the disturbance Nox?” Heros asks.
“Apparently, we have new neighbors.” Nox replies.
“Come again?”
“Those new shadows I told you about. They belong to another planet’s inhabitants. They figured out a way to travel between dimensions, and ended up in the training courtyard of Center Command. Your nephews, and their squad mates made first contact. As they were bringing them here I listened in on the conversations they were having and decided they didn’t seem like an immediate threat. After your daughter and Falx met up with them I revealed myself and told them where you are. You’re going to have to act as a diplomat for our planet pretty soon, Heros.” Nox finishes.
“*sigh* Alright. Can you go and let Lady Night Flare know about our guests? She needs to know about this. And after that, can you go and retrieve Gladius? Anan is going to need all of her squad present for this.” Heros asks Nox.
Nox nods and sinks into the floor. The white dragoness across from Heros finally opens her eyes.
“What about Starry, Veritas, and Conlisus ?” She asks Heros.
“Flare will probably ask them to come with her. And if she doesn’t, then she doesn’t want them here.” Heros answers her.
The dragoness nods her head at Heros’s words, before looking around the empty dining hall, her eyes softening. “It used to be a lot more crowded in here by this time of day.” She says nostalgically.
Heros lets out a deep breath. “Yeah.” He agrees.
The two Caelans sit in silence as they wait for the Knights to arrive with the extraterrestrials. Heros is looking down at the two pendants dangling from around his neck. One shaped into a diamond with the two side corners cut off, the other shaped to look more like a flame. “I know.” The female says.
Heros looks up slightly to be able to look at her.
“I miss her too.” The she says sadly.
Heros looks back down at the table without a word.
“Hey dad, you in here? Oh, there you are.”
Heros sits up and looks over his shoulder to see his daughter walk into the dining hall with the group of Caelans and the newcomers Nox told him about.
Heros smiles.
“Anan, thank you for brining them here.” Heros stands up to face the newcomers. “Hello, welcome to Lume. I am Heros, Sentinel of the fortress-city Animusix, and your humble host for your stay on this world. Nox has already informed me about some basic things that have occurred already, and I sent him to retrieve a few more dragons we’ll need before any diplomatic discussions can take place. In the meantime, how about everyone sits down to join me and Sentinel Glacia for dinner.” Heros says to the group of Caelans and ponies.
“We would be honored Sentinel Heros.” Luna says to Heros. The rest of the group sits down around the two older Caelans.
“Alright, it’s about time we ate, I’m starving!” Rainbow Dash says aloud.
“Rainbow.” Twilight says with a slight frown.
“That’s not very polite there Dash.” Applejack says.
“Heh, sorry.” Rainbow apologizes while rubbing the back of her head.
“Don’t worry about it, we’re used to those kinds of outbursts from Ictus. So, what would everyone like to eat?” Niteo asks the group.
“I’ll have a hayburger with hay fries.”
“Could I get a light salad?”
“Ooh! Ooh! I’ll have a dozen cupcakes, with an apple pie!”
“Do you have any daffodil sandwiches?”
“Ah’ll have..”
“Whoa wait, what? Hay-whatnow? Daisy? As in like the flower or some…. Oh wait. Are ponies… herbivores?” Niteo asks.
The ponies nod their heads at that. Some of the other dragon’s eyes widen slightly in realization. For a moment, Luna’s eyes widen slightly, as if realizing the same thing the Caelans have, before softening, as if knowing what Niteo is going to say.
Niteo sucks in some air between his teeth. “Eeeehhhh…. yeah, um… I don’t know how to say it nicely, but… *sigh* yeah, dragons are omnivores here. We mostly eat a combination of meat and fruit.” Niteo explains.
The ponies look at him, not getting what point he’s trying to make.
“Yeah, and?” Rainbow Dash asks.
The other Caelans look at Rainbow, confused at her response.
“Uh, you’re not grossed out?” Ictus asks.
“Well, yeah, I guess it might be awkward watching you guys eat meat, but we don’t see a reason to judge you on it. There are other meat eating races in Equestria so it’s not like we’ve never encountered it before. So were you trying to make another point with telling us you’re omnivores or something?” Rainbow asks.
“Well… I guess we were just expecting you to be a little skittish around us. Herbivores tend to avoid predators. And dragons are kind of the top predators on Lume, sentient race and all.” Niteo says.
“Well, I don’t know abou’ everypony else, but ma’ judgements about ya’ll lasted a total of two seconds after comin’ outa’ that portal that burst outa’ Metuo’s chest.” Applejack explains.
“WHAT?!?!?”
Most of the ponies and Caelans at the table look to the source of the outburst to see Nox standing at an archway with four other smaller dragons. One, of which, is wearing an absolutely furious expression on her face.
Heros, however, saw Glacia’s face at the news of how the ponies arrived. It quickly morphed from shocked, to something very hard, very sharp, and very cold.
‘Oooooooohhhh fuck.’ Heros thinks to himself.
‘Oooooooohhhh fuck.’ Metuo thinks to himself when he sees his younger sister, Starry Night, standing in the doorway with a furious expression on her face.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BROTHER?” Star asks Applejack fiercely.
“Wh-wha…?” Applejack says, intimidated by Star’s anger.
“YOU JUST SAID THAT YOU CAME OUT OF A PORTAL THAT BURST OUT OF MY BROTHER’S CHEST. SO WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!?!” Star asks again while stalking towards the orange pony.
Rainbow Dash jumps up and hovers in front of Applejack defensively. “Hey! Back off!” She says to Star.
“OH, ARE YOU FRIENDS WITH HER? DID YOU HELP HER HURT MY BROTHER?” Star says, turning her anger on the cyan pegasus.
Metuo gets up and moves between his sister and the ponies. “Star, calm down. I’m fine, and what happened was an accident. They didn’t mean to hurt me.” Metuo says to Star, trying to calm her down.
“But they still hurt you.”
Metuo thought he felt the temperature drop… no wait, it actually did drop.
“They hurt you, after everything that’s happened to you. After everything you’ve struggled through… after everything you’ve suffered… they still hurt you.” Glacia says, slowly standing up from her seat, mist coming off of her from the frigid cold she’s radiating.
“A-aunt Glacia...?” Metuo says nervously.
“And yet you still forgive them… you forgive everyone… you forgave the Fortis for killing Night Sky and Siren Song, for killing Caleo… for killing Aquarus… and for nearly killing you countless times…” Glacia continues.
“Mom, you need to calm down.” Niteo says, standing up and moving in front of the ponies next to Metuo.
“And now you’re forgiving yet another race for nearly killing you? Is there anyone else who can try to kill you that you’ll just eventually forgive? Huh Metuo? How many times do you have to almost die before you realize that whoever succeeds will not be forgiven? I won’t be able to find it in my heart to forgive them Metuo! Not a single one! I can’t bear to lose anyone else Metuo!!! So why do you keep giving them chances to keep on trying to kill you?!?!” Glacia finishes loudly.
The room is silent after Glacia’s rant, every being looking at her in varying degrees of shock or fear.
“I’m sorry for disrupting this meeting. Lady Night Flare, may I have permission to leave? I don’t feel like it would be wise for me to be present right now considering I’m… emotionally unstable, as of this moment.” Glacia says briskly to Heros and one of the smaller dragons standing by Nox.
“Very well, permission granted.” Night Flare answers before Heros can answer.
“Thank you Lady Night Flare.” Glacia says to the smaller dragon. She then turns and walks briskly out of the room, all the while avoiding eye contact with anyone in the room.
After Glacia leaves the room, Night Flare walks over to the space next to Heros, Conlisus, and Veritas slowly following. Night Flare sits down next to Heros. “Well. Now that all of the drama is over for now, I believe now would be a good time to get some food into everyone’s stomachs.” Night says to the gathering of dragons and ponies.
Night turns her head to look at Metuo and Niteo. “Metuo, Niteo, Starry, since you’re already standing, would you mind going to the kitchen and getting everyone something? Veritas, Conlisus, you two can help them carry everything.” She says to the orange and blue dragons behind her.
“Yes mam.” They say in unison.
“A-ah’ can help them too. We were talking abou’ the differen’ diets we have before ya’ll came in, so ah’ can help carry the stuff we ponies are able to eat… mam.” Applejack adds after thinking for a moment.
“Uh, yeah, I can help too, since I’m up anyway.” Rainbow Dash adds.
Night tilts her head slightly. “… Very well. If you wish to help, that’s fine.” She concedes.
With the permission of the small dragoness, Applejack and Rainbow Dash move to walk beside the dragons as they head towards the kitchens.
“Psst, hey, Niteo.” Rainbow Dash whispers. Metuo looks sideways at her. “Who was that? She’s just barely smaller than you, but I got this weird feeling when she talked that made me think that she’s really dangerous. And that angry white dragon that just left called her ‘Lady’.”
“Also, please don’t insinuate my mentor and aunt is ‘dangerous’ like she’s going to snap at any moment. She’s powerful and she knows it, that’s all. She’s used to giving orders as well as protecting those she cares about.” Star says irritably to Rainbow, still miffed about learning Metuo got hurt, but not really angry after witnessing Glacia’s reaction.
“Uh, sorry about that, didn’t mean to offend.” Rainbow apologizes to Star. “But my question still stands, who is she exactly.”
“Night Flare, the Lupaein you’re talking about, is the ruling Lady of this stretch of territory in the Lupaein Kingdoms, and is also one of thirteen members of the Council of Magic. She’s also the one of the younger members, but also one of the most powerful, physically, and magically. Heros is the one she leaves in charge of the city for the most part though. The city itself is critical to the Kingdom as a whole, both economically and martially, so it in and of itself needs a lot of focus to maintain and watch over it. Night Flare stops by the city pretty often to discourage attacks on the city, but she can't be around that often, since we're so short on Sentinels and Knights, so she leaves a lot to do what she can in the other parts of her territory in the Kingdom.” Niteo explains to the two ponies as the group reaches the end of the room with the kitchen staff just opening the food up at the serving station.
“Soooooooo, she’s really importan’, is what yer sayin’.” Applejack simplifies.
Metuo snorts in amusement at the orange ponies comment. “That’s an understatement.” He says with a smile.
“Understatements are just truths bein’ modest.” Applejack responds.
“Heh, I like her, she’s deceptively clever.” Star says.
“Well, uh, thanks… wait, wadduya mean ‘deceptively’ clever?” Applejack asks.
“Hi Roast! What’s on the menu today?” Star says to the female Lupaein behind the counter, dodging Applejack’s question.
“Hello Star, it’s good to see you back. And it’s always a pleasure to see you four as well.” Roast says to Niteo, Metuo, Veritas, and Conlisus. “And today we have grilled Cassowary as the main meal, with the usual sides of fruits and mushrooms, you know, the stuff that never changes.”
“Thanks, we’ll have two full meals, eleven half portioned meals, and can we also get seven meals without the meat? These girls are herbivores.” Niteo says pointing at Applejack and Rainbow Dash with his thumb claw.
“No problem, I’ll be right back, just gotta put the food on plates.” Roast replies before moving back to go prepare the meals.
“Half portioned meals? What, are you guys not hungry or something?” Rainbow Dash asks.
“Gee, I wonder, it couldn’t possibly be because we’re half the size of Heros and Nox, now could it?” Star says sarcastically.
“Star, come on, be nice.” Metuo says.
“Well I’m sorry, I was looking forward to seeing you again after three months of intense training with our aunt. But as soon as I walk into the same room as you, I hear that seven ponies walked out of a hole in your chest. But I’m sorry for caring about you, dear big brother of mine.” Star says to Metuo, sarcasm dripping from her words, before her eyes travel down to Metuo’s chest area. Her eyes linger for a moment before widening.
“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?!?!?!?!?!!?” She cries out.
“What?” Metuo asks, surprised by his sister’s sudden outburst.
“Your chest, Metuo! There’s a giant scar on your chest! How did that happen?! Your healing ability has never left a scar before.” Star says less loudly, still looking at his chest distraught.
Metuo’s eyes widen upon realizing what she’s surprised about. ‘Oh crap, she wasn’t here when I first got back. She doesn’t know.’ He thinks.
“Oh, that… it’s… something I’ll explain later, Star, when there are less eyes looking at us from a distance.” Metuo says while looking at the group of ponies and dragons sitting around the table looking in their direction. Star follows Metuo’s line of sight and sees the group looking at her specifically.
“… Fine, but you better explain everything I want to know about.” Star threatens.
“Don’t worry, I will.” Metuo assures her meekly.
“Alright everyone! Order up!!” Roast says, returning with several plates held in her levitation tether.
“Thanks Roast!” Niteo says to her while taking two plates to balance on one foreleg.
“No problem Niteo, just keep on doing what you guys do best, and I’ll keep doing what I do best.” Roast says with a wink while handing Metuo two plates as well. “And your new herbivore friends can keep on doing what they do best too.” She says, giving a smile to Rainbow Dash and Applejack.
“You can count on that!” Rainbow Dash says with a salute.
“Thank ya’ kindly.” Applejack says with a tip of her hat, taking two plates and placing them on her back.
Once they have their food, the group of dragons and equines walk back to the table. Metuo sees Gladius and Lucerna finally joined the group at the table. Metuo also notes that the older members of their group, Luna, Heros, Night Flare, and Nox, all seem to be nodding their heads in agreement, as if they’ve already reached some kind of decision.
“Ah, it seems we finished up just in time, the food’s here.” Nox says with a smirk.
“So it is.” Night Flare agrees.
“Finished up with what?” Rainbow Dash asks Twilight.
“They just finished discussing what to do now that our two cultures have met. While both nations could benefit from trade with each other, it’s also not possible to keep an inter-dimensional portal open for extended amounts of time.” Twilight explains.
“So, there’s peace between our two nations, but no chance for benefits for either side?” Niteo asks.
“Not necessarily.” Heros says. “Congratulations Niteo, you, your squad, Anan’s squad, and Star’s squad are going on vacation to Equestria.” He says with a cheeky smirk.
