Necromancy is the banned magic revolving around the raising of the dead itself and has been condemned for over two thousand years. But when a small filly makes a breakthrough which allows the reanimation of the body and soul then big problems arise.
The World of Equus is ruled in Harmony and the spirit of Chaos himself even bows down to it. But the world wasn't always friendly and neither where the prominent mages which survived within it. During the civil unrest between the three pony races, the unicorns feared the lack of food that they would get if they fought against the earth ponies and decided to see if they harvest their magic for themselves. They would resurrect the bodies of the fallen earth ponies that they killed and set them to grow the food themselves. The wars that ensued when the earth ponies where discovering the unicorns were doing this to their loved one where considered the bloodiest around because the unicorns proceeded to then use the earth ponies to fight back. The two Alicorns decided to absolutely ban the magic and no one has attempted it in over two thousand years since. A little filly accidentally perfected necromancy when her little brother manages to drown under frozen ice and actually brought back his soul which was considered impossible. She ran away from her house afterwards scared of punishment and has survived for ten years in the wilderness and has resurrected multiple ponies with an increase of fame following her and now the Elements themselves are after her.
Thank you to Professor_Wizard for proof reading my work because my grammar seems to be horrific.
I looked at the view in front of me and grinned as I watched the ponies in the town at the bottom of the mountain conversing while appearing to be the size of ants to me. I gazed down at the snowy peak below and my rugged blue mane brushed past my eyes as I inspected its condition. I grabbed one of the ancient scrunchies from my handy backpack and tied my mane into a ponytail behind my head to ensure that it didn't get in the way of my eyes for this next part. I detached the sled connected to the back of my backpack and made my way to the edge of the huge mountain, before counting to three and jumping. The feeling of freefall overwhelmed me and I dragged the sled under my torso as I positioned myself in the air. I slammed into the ground with a grunt and started skidding down the mountain at speeds which could rival the Wonderbolts themselves as I started giggling my head off, but I kept a clear enough mind to make sure that I didn't slam into the gigantic boulders which were racing my way. I watched the inhabitants of the town start looking up the mountain at me going down, and then saw them start to rush around to try and help me stop, presumably. I was nearing the bottom of the mountain just as the pegasi started racing their way towards me. I activated my horn and started slowing down the sled so that they can approach me while still sliding down at considerable speeds. “Are you okay? I have never seen anybody go that fast while sledding,” asked the first Pegasus. “It’s not even the biggest mountain I’ve sledded down, don't worry,” I replied. After my sled eventually came to a halt, I dismounted rather aptly and looked around at the town, before the Pegasus who spoke to me before approached me again. “I have to say, lady; that was the most impressive entrance I have ever seen,” he stated, smiling. I grinned back while I attached the sledge back up to my bag and said “That is my specialty; besides, it was the quickest way to get here.” “Where did you come from, then?” he inquired. I was very cautious about what I said next, since I knew that the kind of news I was involved in traveled fast and traveled by law. “Across the range, small town named Frostgallop,” I finally come up with as a reply. “You hiked across the whole range?! I went there once and I made sure I took the long way around. There are dragons and Chimeras in that range,” he said in astonishment. “As I said; I needed to get here quickly” I replied quickly. The dragons of this region had already made an agreement with me the first time I had encountered this range but I didn't feel like going through that story with somepony I had met less than an hour ago. “And just what are you in such a hurry about?” he asked. “I am a family friend of the Snowtrots,” I answered solemnly. “I shouldn't get in your way, then. She needs all of the help she can get to try and get past these dark days,” he says apologetically and sadly. I departed the conversation with a nod in his direction and started trotting to the town in front of me. The town in front of me was simple and the citizens hadn't made any of its stores into a novelty item. She felt some comfort over this, but she could see that they had constructed the town to ensure that they could survive the harsh winters in these northern mountains. I tried to mentally keep track of the stores that I was walking past as I had to buy supplies later and I had to see if I could buy a decent newspaper in this town. After walking through the town for a few minutes and asking the locals I discovered the location of the Snowtrots' house and made my way there and knocked my hoof on the door. “W-Who’s there?” I hear a voice stutter shakily behind the door. “Hello. I am Quiet Heart and I am a medic mage. I have come to help with your daughter,” I said as kindly as I could manage. “O-Okay... let me get the door,” I heard the voice reply. I stood and waited until the mare opened her door, after which I gave her a smile. “You can come in,” she says, replying with her own wavering smile. I entered the house and gave a more formal introduction as she brings me into her sitting room. “So, what are you really here for?” she asks me I sighed. This was always the hardest part “I have an offer, but it requires the uttermost secrecy, since it could cause issues with the princesses themselves, but it could give you something you desire. If you swear to secrecy before this conversation, then I can offer the solution to this grim misfortune.” The mare shifted awkwardly in her chair and then said “I promise to be silent.” That took the worrying part out of the way then, I lean forward and say “Thank you. Now, what would you say if I told you I can bring your filly back to life?” The mare looked at me with fury in her eyes and said “Are you a con artist then?! Preying on me after I lost her?!” “Please calm down; I am being one hundred percent honest here. I am a necromancer and I can bring most things back from the dead. All I require is your permission and some bits for my own survival” I said calmly. She looked at me again “But Necromancy is illegal; and it doesn't even bring ponies back to life. I read up on it when applying for Starswirl’s Academy, it just revives the body.” I grinned at her and replied “That's the beauty of it: I worked out the kinks in the original spell and it resurrects the soul as well; but I need to do this quickly or the spell might not work otherwise.” The mare looked with her tearing eyes and then said “I... have to try. If I found out that you were speaking the truth and I sent you away, I could never forgive myself; come with me, she is at the funeral director’s workplace.” The mare practically ran out of the door as I followed her and we started heading for her child at a trot’s pace. We managed to make it to the directors in less than five minutes and the mother was insisting that we be able to see her daughter’s body immediately. At first the funeral director tried to decline, but no force on this earth can deny a desperate mother’s persistence, and we were taken to the back of the building and into the preparation room shortly after. “I understand your grief madam, and I will show you your daughter's body; but may I ask why?” the mortician asked us while we entered the room. “I was called in for a second opinion on the girl's death” I replied quickly. “You can’t misdiagnose death!” the mortician shouted, outraged “And exactly what qualifications do you have that put you above my analysis?” “I am certified to work in every section of Equestria as well as the dragon lands, not to mention being nominated 'The Saving Grace' of my year in Starswirl's Academy. I have been through the trials of The War Healer and achieved the medal of all three races. I think I am more qualified then you could ever be” I replied callously. He bit his tongue back to my response and I stepped forward to the body on the table. What I said wasn't completely untrue, but it was done under another name and I barely spent 5 days at Starswirl’s academy. What I was doing here was a top tier illegal version of magic and i had to remain anonymous. I stood next to the girl lying on the table and I started checking the body. After an initial scan, I noticed the blood cancer is the main reason of this filly’s death and that the cells had built up to critical mass on the lungs and had collapsed them. I could cure this with a varying amount of spells and then resurrect her afterwards, but I knew that amount of spells caused noise somepony was bound to hear. “Doctor, could you please leave the perimeter for a moment? It would make my analysis much easier,” I asked the mortician. He left quickly and I turned to look at the mother. “I’ve examined the cause of death and while it will take effort I can rid her body of the cancer and ensure that she will no longer get it before I resurrect the body,” I informed her, watching as her eyebrows shot up. “You can cure cancer? I thought nopony could. The doctors said that cancer was immune to the magic we possess,” the mother replied, surprise and admiration clear on her voice. “I cheat; the real problem with cancer is that the cells are linked to the pony’s soul and magic directly. But because I can resurrect the ponies, what I do is work with the ponies’ body without the souls, meaning that modification is a lot easier and that I can remove the cancer cells and leave a spell into the body’s natural spell matrix to prevent the malicious cells from being created when I resurrect her. The spell matrix will boot up and she will be cured,” I explained as clearly as I could. She nodded her head and I started casting the spells on the filly’s body. As soon as I finished the final touches on her spell matrix, I started weaving the extremely complex resurrection spell around my horn. I continued doing this for a few minutes. The logic behind this spell, when I first created it, was surrounding the three things that a body required to be alive, which were the body, the magic and the soul. When a being dies, it loses its soul meaning it becomes unable to produce magic anymore, and therefore a body is left behind with a limited amount of magic behind. The soul flits off by itself and hides in an area I call the Soul Pool. What the old necromancers used to do was boot up the limited amount of magic in the body with a spell that would control the body directly as they wanted and kept pumping them full of magic to keep themselves alive, whereas I bring back the soul into the equation by taking a portion of the magic in the body and go fishing for the soul in the Soul Pool and use the magic to find the distinct magic signature in the billions within the pool itself, which was like matching two pieces of a puzzle together without looking. After finding the soul, I can reanimate the body and bind the two together while giving a small magic boost into the body to make sure that the soul stays in and therefore I have truly resurrected life. I fired the completed spell at the filly on the table and I watch my magic winding all over her. I see a soul drag itself into the body, and after a while, I see the filly open her eyes and look at us. “M-Mommy? My body doesn't hurt anymore,” she said, putting the extremely complicated nature of my spell into simple terms in a way only small fillies can. I heard a shriek behind me and saw the mother hurling herself towards her daughter with tears in her eyes. I grin at the heartwarming embrace, before I hear the door slam open. “What was that bang?! I knew I shouldn't have let you in he-!” the mortician asked, stalking through the doorway dramatically and pointing an accusing hoof at me, before finally seeing the resuscitated filly and the mother and stopping dead on his tracks. He stared at me wide-eyed and slack-jawed “How is she alive?” “Doctor, could we discuss this in quiet? This is a big moment for them.” I responded professionally at the imbecile. The doctor nodded dumbly and we walked out of the room. I started talking before he could pick up his jaw ''When I did the magic scan on the filly’s system, I noticed that her magic levels were abnormally high for a filly her age. “I then proceed to check the cancer that I had assumed to be collecting her lungs with a stronger scan and I noticed that these were a purely magical constructs and not normal cells, so I came to the conclusion that she had a magic surge which had been accidentally suppressed and therefore went inwards in the form of cells. “As the doctors were attempting to treat her for cancer she was deteriorating in body and in the end she acquired a form of Locked In syndrome which was bad enough to mask all forms of life signatures and therefore looking dead.'' I admit I’ve gotten skilled at lying. The doctor was looking guilt stricken and slightly awed at my faked abilities as he said “If we had buried her, then she would have died without us knowing. I have to thank you.” “I’m just doing my job, Doctor. This was a case that even I rarely see in my travels, it’s not your fault that you made a mistake.” I replied. “With those qualifications, you have to be one of the most qualified doctors in Equestria. The War Healer title is famous for being in the regions of the nigh impossible to achieve. How can she even afford you?” the doctor asked me in awe. “I’m one of those ponies who do what they do just to know that they’re saving lives. I’m only going to charge her one hundred bits.” I reply. “One hundred bits?” He gaped “I usually get paid more than that!” He scoffed, shaking his head, but smiling softly “Well, it's your decision. You can go back inside, if you want to; it’s you who saved her, after all.” The doctor said. I nodded, gave him a small smile, and went back inside the room to see that the mother has recovered enough to be able to converse with. “How is she holding up?” I asked the mother politely, although I already knew the answer from previous experiences. “She's perfect,” she answered softly and teary-eyed “How can I ever repay you? You’ve given me my world back.” “One hundred bits, if you can afford it, is all I ask,” I replied politely. Her daughter, behind her, was looking around the room with a curious expression. When her eyes landed on me, she appeared confused at my presence, and slightly scared. “I can get that quickly,” She said, smiling at me before she turned towards her daughter “Come on, sweetie. We’re going home.” The three of us made it to the house and I was given my payment. I also gave her a way to contact me if an issue arose in the future. As I started walking back towards the mountains, I couldn’t help but start grinning, thinking about my possible next assignments and who I could save.
I looked down the huge library spanning across the large room and levitated my scroll and quill in front of me as I looked down at the purple dragon at my side. “Are you ready for the bi-weekly re-organization?” I asked him enthusiastically. The young dragon rolled his eyes in my direction and said “Twilight, you’re an Alicorn princess, not to mention the Element of Magic! Don’t you have a spell that just can do this by itself?” “Spike, you know that I prefer doing it book by book! Besides, this allows me to have a few hours of quiet time to myself! Celestia knows I need it,” I replied. He sighed and walked towards a shelf lazily ‘‘Just because I’m your number one assistant, I’ll help.” I started taking the books off the shelves and checking the genres as well as the author’s first name to start the new sorting system I had devised last week, when I hear a familiar burp behind me. “Twilight, Princess Celestia has sent a message!” Spike called as he walked towards me. “Thank you, Spike,” I replied and grabbed the message, while I carefully placed my scroll on a nearby shelf. The letter read: “Dear Twilight, A situation has arisen and I require the assistance of you and your friends. Please notify them as fast as you can and try to get here as soon as it is convenient. This is not an imminent threat, but I’d appreciate it if you could get on a train to Canterlot quickly. Your Mentor and Friend, Princess Celestia.” “Do you think that this country could survive without you? Every disaster seems to need you to fix it.” Spike joked. “Equestria stayed strong without my input for about a thousand years before I was born Spike, I am sure that Celestia has multiple backup plans if I wasn’t around,” I stated faithfully, before adding “Even if it seems like I do save the country a lot.” “Should I go and get the girls, then?” Spike questioned me. “No need! I’ve been dying to test out a spell which should work with the map table; if it works right, it should deliver a message to them and tell them to come find me.” I mentally constructed the spell in front of me and then weaved it, using the castle as an amplifier; before casting it across Ponyville. I went back to organizing my new library using the new system as Spike tried to assist me for about thirty minutes; before I heard a gentle voice across the hall. “Twilight, are you in here?” Fluttershy’s soft voice approached me, and I looked up to see the sunny Pegasus mare looking at me. I smiled at her and spoke “Yes Fluttershy, I was just arranging the books while I waited.” Fluttershy looked across the rows of books and spotted Spike arranging multiple books, so she waved at him. As Spike waved back, Fluttershy turned to me and asked “Why did you bring us here? My Cutie Mark just started shining and I assumed the castle map wanted us to come.” “The Princess called for us; she sent me a letter that said we needed to get there as soon as we could.” “Oh my,” Fluttershy seemed a bit worried “You don’t think anything bad happened, do you?” “She didn’t mention, she just said to get there as soon as possible. Spike, do we still have a copy of the train timetable? I’ll need to double check if there are any trains going to Canterlot today.” “Sure Twilight; I’ll go get it.” Spike said to me. Spike scampered out of the room and then a gravelly voice said behind me “Yo Twilight, what’s up?” I turned to look at the rainbow-maned mare and nodded at her “Hey, Dash. I received a letter from Celestia asking for our personal attendance.” “Do you know why she wants us?” Rainbow replied. “I have no clue, but we’re going to her today.” It took another fifteen minutes for the rest of the element bearers to arrive and we all headed off to Canterlot on the train. Celestia had assigned us a personal guard to escort us to the castle and we managed to make it without incident. As we walked into the throne room, we saw Princess Celestia rise up from her throne and walk down the hall towards us. We bowed, but she gestured for us to raise our heads. “I’m glad you could all make it here so fast; I trust you didn’t experience any issues?” she asked. “No, princess,” I reply “The spell you gave me to fix; I figured out the main issues in the way it was created and was missing a component; so I could gather the rest of us with ease.” “It’s good to know you got that working, it could prove to be useful in the future. Now onto the reason I brought you here, I have an urgent issue which requires your help.” Celestia replied. “Is it another monster or a universe traveling unicorn bent on revenge? Ooh is it a giant snake? Twilight is terrified of snakes!” Pinkie said with enthusiasm. “I am not!” I replied fighting against a blush that threatened to show itself on my cheeks. “Please Pinkamena; the situation is a bit too serious for us to be making jokes.” the Princess said, despite the upwards twitching in the corners of her mouth. “Please take a seat while I describe the issue.” Due to a lack of chairs on the throne room, we all sat on the floor while Celestia started pacing. “The threat we are met with here is a form of dark magic, one of which Luna and I had thought we had been rid of for all time; I’m talking about Necromancy on an enormous scale.” I gasped, but I was the only pony to do so as the rest of the group looked confused. I remembered the lessons I had through my time through school and the reality of the crime. “I can imagine that everypony here, except for Twilight, doesn’t know what Necromancy is,” Celestia looked grimmer than I had ever seen her as she spoke “So let me give you a description of the magic: “Necromancy is a concept that ponies have come up with since the dawn of our kind as it surrounds the defiance of the death itself; this is a noble concept itself, since every being wishes that they can see their loved ones again. The problem is that due to the fundamental way that nature works there is no way to retrieve the soul of the pony and therefore no point in attempting. We are born, we live, and then we die. There is no other way around this fact. “That was until the tribe wars. The battles against Earth Ponies were always considered the tamest, since everypony was terrified at the prospect of losing all food. Starvation was already an issue due to the Windigoes making the land unfit for growing food, and the death toll was rising like nothing else, so then unicorns attempted to exploit the magic in Earth Ponies to take advantage and solve two problems with one stone. “They stole hundreds of corpses from the Earth Ponies’ graveyards and then loaded a spell into their deceased bodies. The spell would reactivate the bodies and force them to be under the command of the unicorns, the raised dead could use the bodies’ magic to grow the food necessary for the Unicorns. They could not tire, they did not require substance, and they could fight as well as any other Earth Pony, if not better, since they felt neither pain nor fear. “The Earth Ponies were furious, as they should have been, and decided to go into a war that was considered one of the bloodiest as the Unicorns decided out of desperation to use the resurrected Earth Ponies solely as soldiers against their own brethren. It was a slaughter for the Earth Ponies because they couldn’t bring themselves to injure their own brethren and the reanimated corpses had no objection to doing so. The Earth Ponies had to run, but they came back in the middle of the night and slowly extracted the magic of the land and barricaded the unicorns into what essentially was their tomb as they starved to death slowly. “I am sorry I had to explain that all to you, and if you would you please wake up Rarity, since this next bit is important, that would be perfect. My sister and I, when we took control over the land we ensured that all forms of necromancy were banned and that those guilty of committing the crime would be forever banished from the land.” I looked around at all of my friends after hearing this appalling story to see their reactions, Rarity seemed to be extremely close to fainting again, Fluttershy was a mixture of pale of horror and green of sickness, Pinkie Pie and Applejack had their eyes turned down in consideration of their ancestors’ horrible fate, and Rainbow Dash seemed to lose some of her bravado. “But what does any of this have to do with a crime?” Rainbow asked, her wings flaring up in annoyance. “I was getting to that,” Princess Celestia said “About ten years ago; The School for Gifted Unicorns had a twelve year old filly by the name of Blue Syringe attending. Unlike Twilight, she wasn’t attending for a love of magic but because of her fascination with healing. “She was considered to be a pioneer and a genius in her magic and had already patented multiple healing apparatuses, such as the device that is used to measure the magic flowing through a Unicorn’s horn. She had already acquired her cutie mark and it was the legendary Asclepius Wand, which is only provided in the form of a trophy to those who are considered to be the next greatest healer through the years of our existence. Everypony had great hopes for the pony until an incident happened to her brother. “You see, by no fault of anypony, the brother was playing on thin ice without anypony very close to him except Blue. When he fell through the ice; she couldn’t get him back up before he stopped breathing, and because it took too long, she was unable to resuscitate him. It broke her will entirely and she hid herself in her room refusing to eat or see anyone. Even when I attempted to visit, I was barred from her room. “Nopony could have anticipated what she was actually doing in her room. One day, her parents went up to her room to check on her, like they had been doing for the months she had been locked. “They found the door open, and in her place a note and her revived brother, the latter sleeping in her bed. Apparently, she had managed to sneak into the forbidden archives to steal the resurrection spell.” The girls and I gasped, and Celestia continued. “She performed some modifications on the spell to make sure that her brother would remain alive indefinitely and then she ran away into the wild, as she had known of the implications of what she did. “Search parties were sent out to try and find her but she was too clever to be captured and we thought she had perished. But after five years of fruitless searches and giving up, I started receiving reports of miracle healings, and before I knew it, the healings started gaining in number. Through investigating the situation, we discovered that there had been multiple resurrections which had been cleverly covered up by lies, and of course I put two and two together. “I started to investigate on my free time and I found information which linked to multiple ponies which all seemed like they could be her with all having high level achievements in healing in some kind or another. “That’s where you six come in, since I cannot freely roam the country and I am not connected to the average populace as you six are. Therefore, you could gain information and assure her capture easier than I could.” I spent a few short moments digesting the information before I answered to the princess “We won’t fail you, Princess.” “I know you won’t, my student,” She replied with a graceful smile. The six of us started walking out of the hall and I started discussing with them the information we had as well as how we were going to gather more. “Cheese Sandwich might be a good bet. He seems to know everypony in Equestria and might have picked up a snippet of information. Pinkie, can you contact him?” I asked the party mare. “Sure Twilight!” She replied back enthusiastically, even if she still seemed a bit shaken by the information. “Applejack, your family is fairly spread out across Equestria. Do you think you could check in with them?” I asked my farmer friend. “Yup, but Ahm going to need some time to do it,” She replied, her tone and expression grim and serious. I wasn’t surprised by her attitude; Applejack valued family more than anypony else I knew, and hearing about the corpses of loved ones being used against the parents, siblings, and children of the deceased couldn’t be easy for her. “For the rest of you, I’ll need you to check with anypony you can think of. We’re going to need information to help us and I will go back to our castle and come up with a few ideas myself,” I spoke as commandingly as I could manage with my friends. We needed to be serious about this, and there was no time for sentimentalism. We broke up into groups, each with our own ideas on who to ask for help. As I walked towards the train station, I couldn’t help but think this wasn’t going to be an easy job.
I fumbled through my saddlebags with my telekinesis and managed to find my keys at the bottom. I withdrew them without much effort and inserted it into the door in front of me before I walked into my small house.
I put my saddle bags into the corner and then went to turn on the lamps by hoof, as I always found it strangely relaxing to not just rely on my horn. That doesn’t mean I didn’t levitate the letters which were sitting by the doorstep over to me, though.
I flicked through them; distractedly noticing that most of them were energy and water bills, which I knew I could have a discussion with an old acquaintance to take of that, when I saw a distinctive letter. I almost squealed with excitement as I saw it and recognized the magical signature which was smothered all over it.
I sat down on my couch next to a lamp I had just for reading and opened the seal on the envelope before starting to read the letter.
There has been an issue which has been troubling me since I was about eight years old. The restoration of nerve fiber, as it considered to be an impossible task since the brain will not accept any alternatives and therefore other ponies decided to give up.
I was not, however, an ordinary pony; and I knew that I could find a way to do it and after I swiftly departed from my home due to circumstances I do not want to think of.
I started to look for anything that even attempted to attempt to regenerate the tissue and I found nothing. None of the races even had an idea how to fix the damned things and I was utterly trumped. That is, until about three months ago.
I went to help a family located near the southern border of Equestria in a quaint little town named Hot Hoof (to be honest, I thought the inhabitants were messing around with me, but apparently the creator of the town stood in a hot patch of sand when deciding the town's name) and to my uttermost surprise I discovered the family was composed solely of changelings.
After a tense moment and a tense-er discussion, I discovered that the changelings were on the run from their own hive and just wanted to settle into the town. I described my own forced banishment from society and we started talking in friendlier terms.
It was basic conversation at first and coincidently we got into the discussion of pony conversion.
Apparently the changelings had the ability to convert a pony, if it was willing, into a changeling as long as they had the right chemicals. This meant that all ailments of the pony would not be transferred into the new body as it was effectively creating a new body.
I knew that I finally had my answer but I also knew that a lot of work had to be done to make sure that the pony wasn't actually turned into a changeling. Therefore, I needed data.
The changelings and I arranged a deal: if I resurrected their fallen companions, then then they would try to find all of the information they could get their hooves on about the conversion process and the biology of the changelings.
In their last letter they had mentioned that they had found a potential source which should allow me to get all of the information I needed to try and creating an apparatus and cure.
As it turned out, they had managed to come through.
I looked through the huge amount of data and started to formulate the plan in my mind about how I could even attempt to implement the spells and get enough data to consider making this a viable option.
I even considered pulling out my legal identity of Doctor Mia Grain (although it was a risk using this name considering it was a pun of a medical issue. I just couldn't resist myself) and sending the blueprints and data over to the University of Trussville and let them do it without threatening myself when suddenly I heard a short but high pitched noise hum through the air.
The average pony might’ve ignored the sound, but I immediately recognized it and put the documents down on the table while walking into my bedroom to put a hoof down behind my wardrobe to retrieve the book resting behind it.
I looked at the leather tome I pulled out and almost got tingles feeling the texture.
It was interesting that I got shivers holding a dead object considering the amount of time I had spent around dead ponies in a nearly daily basis, but maybe it was because the way the body was disfigured, or perhaps it was just a product of how I was brought up. I opened it to land on the page which was alerting my presence.
While I had been working on medical magic during my time under Celestia, I made sure that I had read on the other schools of magic that were available to me (even though I didn't look into depth about them), which lead me to find out that when it came to telepathic spells, it was possible to intercept them if you had an adept unicorn who just managed to find the line between the two ponies.
After I decided to leave home I realized that those I had saved could be used to send me information about others who had fallen to their own mortality but I had to find a way to let them communicate with me and I couldn't use telepathy for the reason of being able to easily found and also telepathy required a high level unicorn to cast.
I decided to go north and find the reindeer as I knew that they used runic magic, due to the fact that ley lines would pull it in. After convincing them that my reasons were pure, even if they disliked my methods, they gave me the tome and said that any being that had a certain rune could use this as form of communication and as virtually zero ponies in Equestria actually used runes then the communication channels were entirely clear.
I saw a message being written into the last page:
“Dear Ms. Bones, I had hoped that I wouldn't require your assistance again but due to the tightened political circumstances my family has been attacked leaving my son gravely injured, as well as my daughter. I had hoped that you could perhaps treat their injuries.
If you could arrive here as speedily as you possibly can and assist us; I guarantee a sum of five thousand bits will be paid to you, not to mention any travel expenses that appear on your way here.
Yours Truly,
Lord Sunfeather.”
I almost giggled at my old identity of Baroness Bones being mentioned and remembered that it almost had been five years since I had last seen Sunfeather.
I looked at the book again and sighed, knowing that I wouldn't have any time to work on the nerve project, before I go to my bathroom to go grab some black mane dye.
It took me almost two days of traveling to reach the borders of Griffonstone since I decided to take a pony-drawn carriage. The last time I attempted to take the train I forgot to put a disguise on and almost got spotted by some guards. Even though I knew I was disguised, the experience reminded me that I couldn’t be too careful.
I managed to arrive at Lord Sunfeather and mine’s pre-arranged meeting spot, where I met a group of griffon guards waiting for me.
"Good evening, gentlegriffs," I said courteously, giving a small bow of my head.
"Baroness Bones, right?" one of the guards asked with that tone of rushed annoyance that could only be achieved while standing still by a griffon.
"Yes, I’m glad to see I am recognized this time. The last time was such a hassle," I said with a huff at the end.
"Please show us your Cutie Mark for identification," the guard asked with indifference to my statement.
I lifted the backside of my robe to show them my Cutie Mark in an act that would make proper Canterlot mares faint, and made the guards nod at each other.
"Alright, come this way Ms. Bones, we have a chariot waiting for you," the guard said.
I followed the guards across the border of Griffonstone and mounted a griffon-drawn chariot which quickly took me to the city of Griffonstone, which was named the same as the country in a clear showing of why it’s a bad idea to ask a griffon to name your child. I watched the griffons below watch me with varying looks of emotion as I headed towards the mansion. Some were somewhat afraid, most looked distrustful.
“After the attack, we’re pretty worried about strangers,” one of the guards answered before I could ask.
“Lord Sunfeather mentioned something about political tensions in his message. What is happening, if I may ask?” I asked.
“A new group of radicals has risen in Griffonstone who are attempting to overthrow the lords and instate a new political system or some crock like that,” the guard says with a hint of venom showing through his calm demeanor.
I make sure to not mention anything else. I make sure to always remain neutral when it comes to these situations, I really can't afford to lose any potential allies, while also making sure that I don't work with a biased mind when I’m trying to do heal my patients and therefore don't accidentally harm them.
We eventually landed after another five minutes, which lead to us walking over to the doors of the large mansion where one of the guards tapped on the door with one of his claws.
After about thirty seconds a griffon answers the door and says to us "Good evening, gentlegriffs, I am afraid my master is indisposed at the moment, so if you could possibly wait until he gets his affairs in order," he spoke in a monotone yet fluent voice.
“We are here by request of your Master; we have a pony by the name of Baroness Bones,” the guard said, his gruff voice marking a contrast against the servant.
The butler looked down at me for a few moments before speaking “Welcome back, Ms. Bones. I shall take her off your claws. And guards? I apologize for my impolite behavior.”
The butler led me through the mansion. After a small and slightly awkward silence formed between us, he spoke to me again "Ms. Bones, it is wonderful to see you again. Although I do wish it were under better circumstances."
“A doctor is only needed under negative circumstances and my line of work is the most negative of the lot,” I replied with a sigh.
Some days I wonder if I could have been content with simply curing cancer, but nooooo! I just had to go further and cure death!
“Considering that you are the only individual in your line of work; it must be difficult to keep up,” the butler replied.
“It was tiring at first, but you do it for a few years and you just get used to it.”
“When was the last time you took a break?” the butler asked, cracks of concern showing through his calm shell. Say whatever you want about ninety percent of griffons everywhere, but this one was a saint.
“I think it was when I was about twelve. I can't really afford to allow for a break, considering…” I replied with a calm shrug and leaving the
last word floating between us.
Eventually, the butler went into a room. A few moments later, he returned
"My master offers his sincerest apologies that he cannot meet you at this second as he is about to have an unplanned meeting with the rest of the lords,” the butler dipped his head apologetically “He says that he is having the patients brought here tomorrow and you can stay in one of the rooms of the manor.”
I was then lead to a mostly empty room, where I bid the butler goodbye and I settled in for a night with my other work.
As I walk down the street I look at the purple alicorn along the side of me, who appeared to trying to organise her note at regular intervals.
"Darling, could you please stop fidgeting with your notes? I am trying to make sure we do not miss the house and the noise is slightly distracting" I hear my eloquent voice broadcast.
"Sorry Rarity, I just want to make sure I don't miss anything... I need to make sure that we don't miss anything, this is hard enough already without us missing any information." the Alicorn replies with a tired tone.
"Twilight, stop worrying, we have been through the questions five times on the train and neither of us noticed any discrepancies in them." I reply with a slight smile on my face.
Twilight nods back to me and I notice the her eyes are bloodshot and her mane looked frazzled but with an attempt to comb it down, I wasn't surprised, to be honest, our target was one of the most elusive figures we had even encountered and information pertaining to her location was vague at most.
As I am looking through the addresses on the sides of the houses, I notice the house that we were looking for come into view and I say to Twilight "Twilight, this is the house we are looking for, now remember we can't say too much as it might be too much for the poor mare to handle after what the princess told us."
Twilight gives me another nod and walks to the front door, and after a moment of hesitation, raises her hoof and and knocks three times.
We hear a feminine voice reply in a muffled tone through the door "Coming, give me a second."
After a few moments, we watch a mare open the door and look at us with weary eyes and then says "Hello, sorry for the wait, can I help you in anyway?"
I hear Twilight say "It's fine, if I may ask, are you Miss Place bo?
The mare looks at us inquisitively and replies "Yes, is there anything wrong?"
"There is nothing wrong, you see I have decided to write a book about the influential figures of Modern Equestria and I believe your daughter developed the pioneering Horn Multimeter and we were wondering if we could have an interview, I want to make sure that I get her story correct." I hear Twilight respond.
I watch the pink orbs that were her eyes look between the two of us and after a few moments says "I have an hour before I have to get to work, so I have some time to talk."
We are led inside by the mare who offers us a seat and then asks if any of us would desire anything. I see Twilight attempt to avoid the temptation of beverages as she wants to ask her questions, that mares desire for knowledge is unrelenting I tell you, but before she manages to get the words out I speak out and ask for tea.
As Miss Bo leaves to go and get us tea, I watch Twilight blink and stare at me for a few seconds and I motion my hooves to communicate to her to let me take the lead.
While Twilight looks over her notes, for the millionth time, I decide that I should attempt to to take in my surroundings.
I look around the living room that we are situated and notice that the house was extremely clean, almost like the boutique used to be before a certain sister moved in, and I notice that pictures and ornaments from many different periods of time hang up. The main thing I notice in the room is a large painting hanging over the fireplace which contains two foals. The first foal was a filly, who was slightly taller than the other foal, had bright blue mane tied up into a scrunchie. Her coat was white with a silver tint and her eyes were pink like her mothers. The second pony was a colt with a brown mane and a similar coat to the other pony except his eyes stood out more than hers with them being a vibrant orange .
After looking at the portrait for a period of time, Miss Bo returned from the kitchen with our refreshments. After she poured out our tea and settled into her chair look at us and said" Let's get on with the questions then, I don't want to be late to work."
Twilight almost look relieved to be getting straight to the point and said "Okay then, I want to start off by asking about her appearance and date of birth."
"Well her key characstic is her blue hair, she also has a similar coat to mine and her cutie mark is a snake wrapped around a staff. Her birthday is the first of december 1991." The mare replied.
She is about six years older than the oldest in our group, I think to myself.
Twilight writes the notes down and then asks " And personality wise, what was she like?"
I watch a smile creep itself onto the mare's face and she responds " Very curious, even when she was young. It's how she managed to get into medicine, we hadn't planned for her to follow her father and my footsteps, she managed to find a few casefiles while we were at work and after going through our medical books and managed to find the right diseases that the patients were inflicted with. After that she would ask to see more and more casefiles to try and help us because she happy to be helping mummy and daddy and after a while the hospital started to give us more casefiles just for her. Then she started coming into work with us and after a while managed to cure a case that had been plaguing the hospital for months and that's how she got her cutie mark." After furiously scribbling all of the words down Twilight asked "And what was the case?"
The mother responded" It was a bit before your time, but there was a virus that affected unicorn foals. It was dangerous in fact that it forced unicorns to have numerous magical surges as well as blocking the horn and preventing the magic from escaping. The magic would cast inwards damaging all it could including the brain and the spinal column. It was an horrific fate to inflict on the children. Little blue cured it though, she worked out that if the blockage was removed then the magical surges would pass and drive the children to magical exhaustion which is an ailment that under supervision could be healed easily so she developed the horn multimeter and started testing for where the blockage was. She cured the disease within 72 hours."
I noticed that Twilight had stopped writing her notes through the story and was watching in awe as the mare was describing the mare.
"I am sorry that I am rambling on, it feels nice to talk about her." The mother says with a gentle smile still resting on her face.
I watch Twilight shook herself out of her previous state and proceeded to ask "I hear she went Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns, may i ask how she performed?"
The mother though for a moment and answered "In terms of raw magic she was like me sadly as we both lacked magic but the examiners were prepared to allow her to take the test due to the plague curing. I was worried for her to be honest as I had heard how crushing those tests were especially the magic potential test. But what that mare lacked in magic she gain in brains, she used alternative methods to get past every blockade by creating complex magical patterns to conserve magical energy instead of just brute forcing it and even using a mix of chemicals she had concocted to induce a magical surge at a crucial moment. When she got accepted into the academy her grades were usually high though her professors noticed that she would sneak out of classes to the medical books within the library but they also noticed that she would take all other sorts of books to analyse and attempt to create more cures. After a while the librarians started to allow her to take books from the restricted sections, I still remember the the talks that I used to have about the Mummies and how we have developed more advanced methods."
I remember at my age asking my mom about about what we going to eat for dinner, not talking about the preparation of a pony's body.
"To be honest, we were worried about her social life. We knew that she was a medical genius but when we started look through her notes we noticed that some of the treatments she was describing would cure the illness but would cause the patient a large amount of distress. It was like she was detaching herself from the patients and only caring about the illness. We were so happy when she finally made that friend of hers."
I watched Twilight raise her head from her notes and I knew why, this could be a crucial bit of information.
"Friend? Her professors said she wasn't close with anyone in her class." Twilight stated in confusion.
"Yeah, Bellatrix was on the opposite side of the school from Blue. She was learning illusion for her acting skills. Blue had not understood how illusion magic worked and basically just walked up to the first illusion student she found and told her to teach her everything. After that they were joined at the hip with Bellatrix teaching Blue the basics of illusion magic and Blue showing her the perfect herbs for enhancing magic and teaching her how to make her magic more complex. After Blue's incident, Bellatrix would come over to support us, she is such a good mare."
Warning bells were now going on in my head after the description and it seemed that Twilight seemed to have the same inclinations. Twilight asked cautiously "Does Bellatrix have a magic show?"
"Oh you met her? Her shows are fantastic, in my opinion but she does get an ego the size of Canterlot mountain I tell you, She starts calling herself The Great and Powerful Trixie!"
I wonder the halls of Lord Sunfeather's mansion, as I am waiting for the two children to leave their tutor for their final examination. After pacing the hallways for a few moments, my eyes are attracted to a shield that had been mounted onto the wall.
This shield, bearing the coat of arms of the Sunfeather household, was polished down to a blinding sheen but it also seemed to paradoxically have its fair share of scars marking its surface. As I attempted to have a closer look at the shield, I heard a deep noble voice echoing down the hall speak "I'm afraid, Ms Bones, that those injuries are some that even you cannot cure." Without turning around, I respond "I hope so, I'm not exactly a Smith, am I?"
Hearing clawsteps approaching and a chuckle as well.
Lord Sunfeather continues "Do you know that shield belonged to my great grandfather? One of the few Griffin' nobles that ever served in the Equestrian army, it was not an optional affair though, poor Griffin was caught with a girl from the town in the lord's bed and practically thrown into the hooves of the soldiers by her father. The damage to the shield was committed by a particularly vicious wyvern that he managed to strike down in the end"
I visibly wince at the end of the sentence.
"Ahh, I do apologise, of course, you wouldn't want to hear war stories considering the profession… But there is a reason I bring this story up."
Turning away from the shield and towards Lord Sunfeather, curious as to what secrets he might be hiding.
"During my great-grandfather's stint in the army, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant and coincidentally managed to start to make some connections with the right circles. He went to war as a disgraced noble's son and clawed his way up the social ladder, using both brains and skills."
Lord Sunfeather pauses for a moment and returns back to his monologue afterwards.
"After the war ended, he returned to find the estate in a state of disarray and the name of Sunfeather had been dragged through the mud to the stage that our title was about to be lost. My great-grandfather reversed that, he used every tool in his repertoire from underhanded deals to blackmail to somehow manage to bring the Sunfeather name to the highest households in the land. I am betting you are wondering why I am bringing all this up."
I feel a pit start to develop in my stomach but I wait for him to finish.
"He had a remarkable ability to gauge a character by the end of his life, all of his travelling and meeting different types of people help, I suppose, and one of the things he demanded from the family was to be able to do the same. We are exposed to the masses early and attend public education as well as being privately tutored. I am not a fool, Ms Bones, I have always been aware of your false alias but I have always had respect for your mission so I never asked. An issue has risen though, it appears some ponies are looking for you."
BUCK
Seriously, buck, who on Equestria is looking for me? And not looking for Ms Bones either? Who knows I'm alive? I haven't even said my name since I left Canterlot and I have been so careful.
I watched Sunfeather carefully, if he gave the order then I could be dragged to Celestia herself and the last time I checked there was still a death sentence linked to necromancy. I weave and hold a spell in my horn, I am not a combat specialist and practically failed every self-defence course in the academy but I learned a pretty good way of sedating a patient a few years back by squeezing the carotid artery in their neck but due to preparation time and my lack of aim using it in a fight is just not possible.
The Griffin smirked and said "Don't worry Miss Bones, I have only heard this from a discrete source in Canterlot and all they knew was that some ponies were tasked with the task of finding a pony called Blue Syringe, and even then they have some loose sources. I only managed to work out the link due to knowing you. I only say this as a word of warning, as somepony who has saved this household on several occasions, I would rather see you safe and continue your mission."
Relaxing my muscles, I give a slight grin to the Griffin and say shakily "Thank you, my lord, it's somewhat strange hearing my name again I'll be honest. Blue Syringe is something I abandoned after I set out into the world, I assumed that it died when the search was completed. I am curious who is looking for me though, I really didn't interact with many in the academy, I spent most of my time in the hospital unless I was actively studying."
"Trust me Ms Bones, you are still quite young in the perspective of things. Someone will always notice you no matter what you are doing, especially if you are capable of reversing death. Now I believe that you have some patients to inspect and I will have a nice tea brewing if my butler is doing his job correctly." Lord Sunfeather wisely says before striding off.
I chuckle as Lord Sunfeather leaves and I start to head to the bedrooms
I knock my hoof on the children's door and notice squabbling through the door. With a sigh, I reach for the door handle and push my way in and see that the children seem to be fighting.
"You broke it, you clod!" I watch the brother yell at his sister with tears in his eyes.
"No, I didn't, it's fine!" The sister replies dismissively.
"Look! The wing is chipped, it was a collector's item! "
"We can glue it back on and nobody will not-..."
I watch the sister notice me at the door and very slowly try to hide her talon behind her back.
I roll my eyes, children of every race manage to always find something to fight about… Well I suppose adults do as well.
I say with an authoritative tone "look, I need you to stop arguing. Your final checks are today, and I'm guessing that you want my out of your feathers."
Hearing something clatter to the ground behind the sister but I watch both griffins come towards me.
Taking out a pad with some notes, I had been collecting since I'd got here, and said "Okay, Icaothius, stand here and raise your right wing."
I watched the boy gingerly come towards me while starting to raise his left wing but suddenly changing to his right.
Moving in closer to check along the scar lines and activate a scanning spell to assist.
"Why do you keep checking his wing? It looks fine to me." I hear the sister say to my left.
Not looking away from the wing, I respond "And when did you get your medical licence? But, I do need to keep checking it. The amount of damage your brother's wing was extensive. And if I made any mistakes in its repairs then your brother will suffer one day. Could you imagine his wing seizing while flying?"
The sister went quiet after my response but I didn't really have the time to deal with her. Continuing my check of the boy I noticed that he still had some slight fractures and the scar tissue had yet to heal but given it month he should be fully functioning.
Now for the hard part.
I send the boy away and call "Lantern, please come here"
Watching Lantern sulk her way across the room reminds me of my brother, he used to always try to delay the inevitable.
After Lantern stands in front of me, my eyes drift to the collarbone and the scar that runs down her chest. "Feeling any chest issues? Any tightness or itching?" I try to say with a calm tone
She appears to ponder for a while and responds "it feels sore and when i lie down, it feels like someone is squeezing me."
I'm not too surprised by this, the twelve hours of surgery I did on her chest would leave anyone sore, I've done some intensive surgeries in the past but never had to re-construct a heart to the level I did.
Griffins can be terrifying sometimes.
"It's to be expected to be honest, I'm going to prescribe some muscle relaxants which should relieve some pain but it will hurt for a short while still, your body has to adapt. Now, any other issues that have arisen?" I say while looking down at my notepad.
Lantern goes to speak but withdraws for a while, after a few minutes she opens her mouth to speak again "I… I have been having nightmares."
Right, a shame she hadn't mentioned this before but I imagined this to be the case, she's been looking more tired recently and this whole scenario wasn't good for a child.
"Icaothius, would you mind leaving the room for a moment? Thank you. Lantern, would you mind describing your dream?" I try to say sympathetically.
Lantern seems to check that the door is closed and starts "my brother and I are leaving home in the beginning, we have school, I think, It's hard to remember where we were going but we start walking up the path into the woods. I felt like we are walking for a few hours and I watched Icao mess around with a stick when I hear shouting up the path coming towards us. After a while, the shouting stops and the world goes quiet. I watched and saw lots of shadows come down the path and I saw Icao try to fight them off with his stick but they knock it away and… stab him I think? Like multiple knives attacked him on his wing, and I tried to be the big sister, daddy always tells me to try and help Icao, and one of the shadow swing his knife thingy at me and my chest feels cold. I saw Icao get knocked over and he didn't stand up and then the shadow sat on me and started scratching my chest. I felt so cold and just wanted to sleep and I felt myself drift away. After that I landed in this… pool, I think? It felt weird, like everything was wavy, and then I started hearing all these voices asking me to relax and sleep but after a while i started feeling something tugging me and then I woke up."
I mentally sigh, no wonder she hadn't mentioned anything, it sounded horrible being able to remember your own murder. But luckily she didn't seem to be aware of the reality, might be able to get a psychiatrist to live in and watch her condition.
After a moment of deliberation, I say "that sounds like a pretty nasty nightmare, but I have something that can help."
That had just about rounded up the final checkup and I decided to go and talk to the butler and discussed the medication prescribed.
After that, I said my goodbyes to the lord and started heading back to my apartment. I needed to reach out to some contacts and figure out who is after me.
"NEXT STATION, PONYVILLE!" I hear the conductor bellow across the speakers.
I rub my eyes in an attempt to wake mah self up but I still feel tired, but I know the girls are feeling the same.
I look around the compartment and see that most ponies had left but there were a few stragglers still waiting. Looking at the sleeping form in front of me, I lean ma hoof forward and jab it.
"... I'll do the clouds later, dad" I hear it mumble.
"Last time I checked, I ain't your Pa, get up ya lazy sod" I reply while grabbing my bag off the shelve.
I watch the form sit up and opens its rose-tinted eyes and I see it sleepily look around the cabin. I see a hoof come up to rub her eye and afterwards watching her maw open with a yawn, her wings stretched at the same time which I thought clever.
"Apple.. ughh… Applejack, what's up?" I hear the mound of feathers speak.
"Getting close to Ponyville, Dash, come on and get your bag" I reply while chucking her bag at her.
"Yeah, yeah… I'm coming," Rainbow says as she starts flapping her wings.
We manage to get off the train on time start heading home.
"So… ughh… Twilight said 'to get all our affairs in order', right? I'm thinking we split the houses and meet at twilight's Castle." I hear Rainbow say above me.
I ponder for a moment and say "good idea, but remember that we got to bring the pets to the farm. Hopefully, Granny can help keep care of them. Ahm headin' there first to check, I need to have a talk with her anyway. I'll take Fluttershy's an' Pinkies house, they are closer to the farm anyway."
I hear the flurry of wings above me as I start walkin' through town, that mare lives in a constant sprint, she's going to get herself hurt sooner or later. As I walk through town, I check out the markets to see if Mac had set up yet.
"Hey, Sis" Mac states as I get closer.
"Hey Mac, how's the stall?" I reply,
"Ain't busy, but think we can unload the apples by the end of today. How's the princess?" Mac responds while counting the bits.
"She's good, but it looks like me and the girls are going to be away from home for a while, she has given us a whopper of a mission. Do you think we'd be fine around the farm?" I reply.
"Ahm sure we'd be fine, Ah can get 'Bloom to help around if needed. Might want to talk to Granny though, she is goin' to worry"
"Ahm on my way now, need me to bring anything back?"
"Naw, Ahm good. See ya later, Sis" Mac says with a wave.
I walk away from the stall and start heading up the road. Walking past the Sugarcube Corner, Ahm tempted to go in and grab that 'Gator Gummy so I don't have to make a return trip but I#d imagine it'll Granny wouldn't be none too pleased with that.
It takes me a few minutes to get to the farm and I start doing some checks on the trees as I am walking, a habit that just can't be dropped, and I start seeing the barn come into mah view.
As Ahm approaching the farm, I notice Granny sitting on her ol' rocking chair under the porch and I give her a wave.
I see Granny lean forward, and after a moment, wave back.
It takes me a few more minutes to get to the house and I wipe mah hooves on the mat at the base of the stairs before going up and sitting next to Granny.
"Hiya 'Jack" Granny says while rocking her chair.
"Hi Granny, how's the hip?" I say while relaxing on the bench.
"Damned thing seems to have relaxed today, at least. Fight anything while you were gone?"
"Nah, The princess just wanted a talk. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about." I respond with a somewhat serious tone.
"Ahh, so something did happen then," Granny responds.
"Yeah… Me and the girls have to go and find somepony."
"Somepony? Tad strange for you, normally its some big monster. What's this pony done wrong to get you six after them."
I sigh and say "Ah want to tell you but I don't know if Ahm allowed. The princess wanted us to keep this secret." "Don't worry 'Jack, I've been keeping secrets from before your parents were born. You can trust me" Granny responds while rockin' her chair still.
Taking a moment to think, I then say "Alright but you can't tell Mac or Bloom. I hate keeping this a secret but we need too. Princess Celestia told us that we are looking for this Necromancer Doctor pony. Necromancy is…"
I watch Granny stop rocking her chair and turn towards me to say "I know what necromancy is. And I had hoped that foul magic never needed to be spoken of in this house."
I look at Granny in shock, unable to say anything.
"It was a story mah Granny said to me, it's been 'round the family for centuries, but she told me how some ponies stole our dead and did their dark magic on them. They started attacking their own brothers and sisters, it was a dark time for the Apple family. Apparently, the family had tried to save the ponies and managed to get a few of them back home where the ponies started being friendly and remembering their past and when the families went to bed for the night, the dead woke up and started killing them in their own beds. It's foul magic, anyone practising it should be strung from a tree. Granny said with a spiteful tone.
I feel a mix of emotions writhe through me: anger, sadness and shock. When the princess mentioned it was earth ponies that had gone through this suffering, I had felt like someone had stabbed me in the back. But finding it was family was like the knife being twisted in my back. If that had happened to us, Ma and Pa… I couldn't let that happen.
"That just confirms it then, Ahm going after that varmit. Would it be okay if we brought mah friend's pets here Granny?" I say with a tinge of anger creeping into my voice.
"Sure Applejack, Farm's big enough for it anyway. Just promise me, you won't get hurt." Granny says to me while holding mah hoof.
"Wouldn' let that varmit touch me anyhow. I don't know how long Ahm going to be gone but thank you, Granny." I say while heading inside the house.
Leaving the house, I sling my saddlebag over my shoulder and as I start heading down the steps, I notice a multicoloured blob that seems to be fighting with itself, after a while it seems be coming in our direction.
I look back up to granny with a smirk and turn back to watch as Rainbow comes into the land and instantly drop the mass of fur she was holding at arm's length.
"I'm going to contact Tartarus! Where in Equestria did Rarity get this she-devil!?" Rainbow says while pointing her scratched up fetlocks at Opalescence.
As Rainbow is pointing at the "Hell-cat", I watch the cat climb the steps of the house and leap on to Granny's lap, do a spin, and lay down to start purring. I raise my eyebrow and look at back at Rainbow, who is gawking at the sight.
"Of course she is, You got tank?" I replied attempting to change the topic.
"Ye...Yeah, He fell asleep on my back on the way here. You pick up the others yet?" Rainbow responds.
"Naw, Trying to pack my bags first. Needed to grab some stuff from Sugarcube corner anyway." I state as a matter of fact.
"Bags… I forgot to pack my bag." Rainbow says while slapping her forehead.
"Go pack your bag and we'll stick to the plan of meeting at Twilights," I respond while tightening my shoulder strap.
I watch Rainbow nod and turn around to take off in the direction of her house.
I turn around again and sat "Granny, you seen 'Bloom anywhere? Wanted to say goodbye."
"Nah, her and the other two youngin's went off on a trip today to get their marks again. I'll tell 'em when they get back" Granny responds.
I nod and start heading back down the road.
After getting Pinkies 'Gator back to the farm and checking into Fluttershy's cottage, she told me that Angel could take care of himself and the other wildlife, I start heading towards the castle.
I see Rainbow standing in front of the castle looking hesitant to go in.
"What's up Dash?" I call out.
I watch Rainbow turn around and as I get closer say, "It feels wrong just going in without Twilight here."
I can appreciate what she means this is the most separated us girls have been through our friendship but there's not much we can do, its a big country and we have to split up.
"Come on we just need to mark the map. It's going to be quick." I say while heading through the door.
It was an idea that Twilight had, the map in the castle was a perfect representation of Equestria and could be used to find obscure towns and we could mark off any place confirmed to not be influenced by that filth.
I mark Canterlot and Ponyville off the map.
"Alright, the train should be here soon. Anything else needs doing?" I ask Rainbow.
"Nope, Bags are all packed and pets are on the farm. You sure you got her address, right?" Rainbow responds while flying out of the door."
"Yarp," I say back "the address of one Bellatrix Lulamoon, Manehattan here we come."
Preparation is the name of the game, I had always juggled the possibility that someone would come looking for me, a lack of a body tends to leave possibilities open. The key issue is why they are looking for me. I can picture three possibilities, my parents might have opened an investigation again, from what I could remember off of the newspaper I was laying on at the time that was mortified that the search had been called off which leaves the possibility open that they haven't given up.
The second possibility is that they might be looking for my notes after I came up with the Horn Multimeter, the Magical Society of Medicinal Arts hounded after everything I did. Had to get several restraining orders to get them to stop bothering me on the way to school, apparently, they were sure that I had numerous fortune making tools scribbled away in my notebook and after I had made a deal with a charity to ensure that the multimeter could be made cheaply they were scared what I would do next. I absolutely hated them, promising me they would make me millions by ramping the prices of my stuff.
The third, and most worrying, the possibility is the chance that they've discovered the resurrections. I know that they know what I look like, not much I could have done there, and I also know that they don't appear to know about some of my disguises but what else do they know? Have they found anything? And who is it?
Attempting to talk to Lord Sunfeather didn't yield much, apparently, his contact had only managed to get a few whispers. It was only mentioned to Sunfeather as they had thought it was interesting, apparently, my case had wedged a place in the thoughts of the Cantelotians.
I can't go to Canterlot to check it out either, I avoid the place like a plague… Which now thinking about it is a bad phrase considering my profession but I digress. The risk of getting caught is way too high with how many I treated when I was younger, why did I have to be so efficient?
Looking at it, I need to assume all scenarios. All three lay the goal for my future, not getting caught.
Now then, with all that considered I have to plan my next steps carefully, I look down the country road that the carriage is bringing me down cautiously before bringing a quill and a tattered diary and start planning.
After a few hours, I close my book and place it back into my saddlebag while drawing my hood up. I step out of the carriage turning to the pony drawing the kart and offer a stack of bits to him, I always make sure to offer a generous tip ponies generally keep a tight lip for those that pay more, and I make my way to the apartment door. Hesitating for a moment, I peer into the window to the side and notice the papers I'd left on the table were still there, so I carefully turn the doorknob and slip into the apartment. Noticing a stack of newspapers at my feet, I step over them and walk around the apartment trying to manually turn on the lanterns to attempt to alleviate my nerves.
Pulling my diary out of my saddle-bags with my hoof, I levitate my saddlebags over to one of the hooks on the wall and sit down on the settee. Placing my diary on the coffee table and flipping the page to my most recent entry, I concentrate on the desk to my right and draw my ink, quill, parchment and letters over with a bit of difficulty, trying to cast levitate on multiple things is hard for me to even when I am feeling stressed, curse you genetics and your creation of limited mana pools. I set to focus on the parchment in front of me and using my diary as a reference, I write several letters to some correspondence I knew in the right places, I find that even the most loyal of positions give leeway when love ones are involved… Celestia, I'm really starting to feel like a villain, I wish that Equestria's law system wasn't so antiquated, If they could read the spell then they'll understand there are no malicious elements about it, I even left a copy when I left. Not complete mind you, it was constructed using Lovelace's Circular constructor.
A genius in her own right, Lovelace was one of the greatest magicians of all time yet one of the most hidden. One of the rare times where Harmony wasn't the primary motivator in Equestria, it was a time where the country was still being settled and the princesses hadn't graced us with their divine presence and duelling was still an act. Duelling unicorns, presences that ruled Equestria for two decades, the majors were part of this group: Starswirl, Billy the Foal, Bologna, Horatius and of course Lovelace.
Lovelace was considered to be on the side of Villainy, to be fair all of them were aside from Starswirl were his crew kept the dream of Equestria alive, but Lovelace was unique in her spells. While Starswirl had come up with a library of spells about fifty per cent were a nightmare to learn due to the concept of different feelings being described in his notes, Lovelace had come up with the concept of a spell constructor.
The principle was this, an interconnected series of rings all having tiny spells and in theory, you picture a blank ring in your mind, then you could start taking sections from the highest ring in Lovelace's layout, taking different parts from every section would lead to this complex spell and because you were working with minimal elements some complex but efficient spells could be made.
Lovelace actually caused issues for Starswirl, she could cast so many high-level spells so quickly that he actually lost two battles, nearly lost his life in one of them, and actually required himself and five other ponies to take her down, and very amusingly create the mountain of Canterlot. Well, Lovelace finally conceded to the side of good afterwards and started teaching Starswirl her methods, to the happiness of all academics everywhere, and the Constructor became a mainstay for magic.
There is a minor issue with the thing.
It's bloody complicated in reality, the first few rings are easy to construct due to the lack of evidence but if you make a mistake anywhere, it usually ends in disaster.
A twelve-year-old that primarily worked on medicine? Are you having a laugh? I wrote the bloody thing down and even then it took me three weeks to work out if it would do the right thing. When I cast the spell on my brother, you can bet I was shocked to see the thing work. I had rushed to scribble out a copy, but I left out two rings around the outside, one to make sure they couldn't counteract it immediately and more majorly I thought they could work it out using my work as a start but when I was trying to hear about the incident through word of mouth no evidence of the documents existed.
Maybe they were deemed to be dangerous to even know about but there's not much I can do about it now.
I turn my attention back to the letters as I lick the edges to seal them, I always weirdly like the taste of the glue for some reason, and after I finish sealing them I slide them into my saddlebags.
Might be a bit paranoid for me to do this, I suppose, but it's a hard habit to kick. When you've spent the majority of your life attempting to stay hidden, you start to fit into some patterns.
Need to buy some food? Attempt to switch stores regularly and if you need to go to the same one, change something like your hair or your accent.
Need to send a letter? Either use a discrete courier or even better, send letters from different post offices.
And if you need something hidden? Get someone to hide it for you, especially if they know where everypony is looking.
Right, well with all of that business handled, onto other matters.
The annoying thing with dealing with opportunities like Sunfeather is time, with personal stuff like that I have to resurrect and also deal with the treatment and to be perfectly honest… It's a waste of my time.
I will continue to do it, the asset of Sunfeather is too great for me to squander, but the best use of my time would be to deal with the underlying condition of the patient, resurrect them and then leave a basic plan with the local doctors for further treatment, even the worst doctors can understand those.
Usually, I attempt to offer more medicinal options unless the dire situation calls for magic, magic can heal but there are flaws with healing people with it, its only good at replicating cells and replacing the damaged ones. But what happens if the cells had been created poorly? If a single cancerous is targeted then you could be relayering some poor sod's entire system with cancer and effectively dooming them to an even worse fate then before.
The doctors of Equestria really need a reform, while there are hospitals around the country they are too sparse. A depressingly amount of cases I work on are caused by these professionals that manage to get doctorates by under-funded universities and settle in towns relying on the town's desperation for assistance.
But that's beside the point, basically what I'm saying is I have work to do. Everything dies and usually in a rapid case, and the best place to find out that type of information, if not through the grapevine, is in the newspapers.
I had to go and pick one up sadly but to be honest, I'll wait for a bit, I really need to start on that changeling conversion formula, from what I had briefly read in the letter a lot of the chemicals had been derived from Changling goos and chemicals created in other processes so in that circumstance I was slightly stumped but they had mentioned that the goos had usually had been harvested from various Fauna and flora from around the nest.
That I could work with, I'm a lot better at diagnosing a disease than bioengineering but I could still, in theory, come up with something. A lot of the plants they mentioned in the letter I could probably work out, I knew a Zebra out in Ponyville that I'd worked with before that was pretty good with plants. From the looks of it, there were some hidden plants that the colony cultivated themselves, I wonder if I could sympathise something similar using other plants, I had done something similar in a prior case.
It was worth considering but it was going to take an age to set up, I needed access to a lab, to begin with.
I looked at the list of stuff I need to do in my diary, and sigh, it was days like this I missed being at home, I could always bring my ideas to mum and dad at dinner and we'd talk about the effects it would have on different nervous systems and the latest medicines with the potential side effects. And showing brother the various ideas I'd had through the day, I remember once making him a minor speed enhancer before he went out and played hoofball apparently the teachers had thought he was an Olympic athlete in the making.
I wish I knew where he was, I couldn't bring him with me he was too scared, I left him behind on my bed telling him to wait for mummy and daddy but since then I haven't heard anything about him. Someone I know in Canterlot told me that he was at neither at my mother or my father's house, so I suspect that he was taken somewhere but I've not been able to find out where. I can only hope they are treating him well, but my worries are they still view him as dead and a puppet to my dastardly deeds.
Another thing for the pile to consider but first things first.
