Quintessence: The element beyond elements, sometimes called divine or infernal energy depending on the disposition of the wielder. Its first known presence was when it was used in ancient times by the followers gods that were foreign to Equis. These foreign gods came with promises of peace and prosperity, but only brought war, turmoil and strife. It was only by the united efforts of the servants of the Animus Mundi(nature), the wizards of that age and a select few former followers of the old gods—scorned by their masters for questioning them—that the influence of these gods was banished from Equis.
Knowledge of Quintessence itself today is highly classified, known by those that sit on the thrones of sufficiently powerful nations, have acquired the knowledge in servitude of the Animus Mundi or by decades of study as royal wizards. Besides that, the only other people that know of it are the members of a secret order dedicated to preserving the methods of the turncoat priests that aided Equis to make sure knowlege of Quintessence was still available for the defense of Equis, should the old gods ever return.
So what happens when the keepers of this energy, the Servants of the Animus Mundi and modern Wizards all feel a disturbance at the same time, wreaking with the taint of one of these old gods? Can the children of Equis meet this potential threat before it escalates? Or will this disturbance mark the return of the old gods?
"-and be sure to record the pattern of flickering of Candis four, five and seven, not just how bright they are tonight, Spike," Twilight called back to the baby dragon as she looked through the telescope on her castle balcony.
"Right, right," he mumbled as he looked at the glowing nodes of the machine, flipping on three of the switches next to them.
Finally prying her eye from the telescope with an energized, but mildly wanting face, Twilight returned inside. "how are our test subjects doing tonight, Spike?"
"Subject," he corrected as he reached for his comic book again.
"What?"
"We only have one test subject tonight, Twilight. Two used their one night skip tolerance tonight and the other three said that the pay wasn't worth the sleep they were losing, so they quit."
Twilight just stood there for a moment, with a slow twitch to her eye.
"Ugh!! And tonight is the clearest night we've had in weeks!" She growled loudly as she went straight to the sofa.
With a quick look at her meager one pony worth of data flowing in from the controlled room upstairs, she flopped on the couch. "How am I supposed to test how star behavior effects the flow of Æther around Equis if I don't have a wide spread sample to minimize error with the law of averages on the nights I can actually record the stars!?" She ranted, gradually growing into a yell. "I'd be up there hooked up to the machines myself if I could, but becoming an alicorn changed the composition of my magic and my data can't be pooled with the data of other ponies anymore!"
She finally flopped over and firmly planted her face into a pillow. "Uuuugh!"
"Couldn't you just, I don't know pay them more? As a princess you do have a decent sized coffer, you know."
She lifted her head off the pillow and looked at her assistant with worry and empathy. "Oh Spike. I know I 'can' do that, but I can't." She got down off the couch and gave her assistant a firm, maternal hug. "This isn't a royal project. It's just my own pet project. Aside from my personal allowance I let the city counsel set, I'm not supposed to use the money in the coffer for personal endeavors. The rest is entrusted to me to use in the interests of the citizens of Equestria, not my personal projects."
She let go of the dragon and went to the speaker to talk to her test volunteer.
"I barely had an acceptable sample size as it was with six unicorns. I'll just have to shut the project down and save up a little to pay them better another day."
She then activated the speaker. "Thanks again for coming in, Lyra. But I can't work with only one test subject tonight. I'll still pay you for the full night, but you can close up and go home now."
With a few flicks of some switches, the machines that were recording data were shut off.
"OK, Spike. Care to join me for a breakfast for din-"
Suddenly a rumble in the sky shook the castle as a falling star streaked across the sky to the north.
*wwwwhhhheeeeefffooosh*
Running to her balcony, Twilight saw the star crash into the far side of the Everfree Forrest.
"..." she stood there with a blank face for a moment as the stirred wind from the falling star just blew by her unnoticed.
"You know what? No. I'm not going to beat myself up over it," She resolved herself as she went back to walking to the kitchen. "Even if the machines were on, nopony would believe any data from Lyra alone anyway. I'll just go look at the crash site in the morning."
She had barely left her laboratory when Spike burped up a letter addressed to twilight from Princess Celestia.
"Dear Twilight,
I apologize that this letter is written in haste, but it is of the utmost importance that you do not go anywhere near the fallen star that landed just now. I will explain further in person when I get the chance. I know you love to learn but please do not go anywhere near it nor allow your friends to do so until I've explained the situation to them."
Minutes before, in the Crystal Empire.
Sunburst sat at the table in the middle of the restricted section hidden well underneath the official restricted section of the Crystal Empire's royal library.
Princess Celestia paced around him, her normally polished demeanor long discarded. Discord was laying in the corner, with a sleeping mask on and a teddy bear. "I'm listening..." he muttered in his fake sleep.
"The Animus Mundi?" she barked her question at him much like a drill instructor.
Sunburst's glasses slipped as he tipped his head up and gave his answer bravely:
"The life force and residual energies of all living things in a world, interwoven and connected. Collectively it forms an energy field that can readily be described as the willpower, or some dare even say soul, of the world itself."
"Æther?"
"An energy that largely resides on a higher realm of existence than Equis, but can be drawn upon by many of our world's inhabitants such as unicorns and dragons and is the key energy used in most known magic," he prattled off from his memory as he confidently pushed his glasses back up to his eyes.
"Are they related?"
"While there is some overlap in end results, absolutely not. Æther is not connected to the life force of anything short of an automaton and has limited, indirect medical use. The Animus Mundi is capable of being used in ways that Æther cannot be used, such as the aforementioned medical applications. However, due to the inherit and overwhelming willpower that exists within the Animus Mundi, its applications must align with that will and thus said applications are far less flexible than Æther."
She quickened her pace around him as he spoke. "And Quintessence?"
"A folklore name for Æther before it was properly understood."
she asked again, "Quintessence?"
"The theoretical energy believed to come about with the use of both Æther and the Animus Mundi in a single task. No scientific evidence of this fusion of energies has ever been documented."
Princess Celestia stopped right in front of him and spoke in a wisper, "The winds of change cannot be stopped, but they can be guided. We must..."
"Be careful how we guide them, lest we change for the worst," he whispered back.
With this, she lifted her head back and asked one final time, "Quintessence?"
With a heavy sigh, he replied. "The element beyond elements, sometimes called divine or infernal energy depending on the disposition of the wielder. While faint on Equis, it is far more potent than Æther unit for unit. Its first known presence was when it was used in ancient times by the followers of gods that were foreign to Equis, and have since been banished."
"Its known wielders?"
"Yourself and the other Alicorns can use a trace amount in conjunction with Æther, granting you greater control and power. The Lord of Chaos, Discord. His resistance to Quintessence wielded by a native was reduced as a part of the magical contract he willingly bound himself to in order to be considered a surrogate native of Equis during the banishment of the foreign gods. However, while he is now weak-"
A dagger literally shot out of the draconequus's opening eye and levitated with its point right at Sunburst's throat.
"Correction: While he has willingly reduced his resistance to it, he can still utilize it in its raw state in a manner adept to the tactical terminology of a 'glass cannon' to achieve his chaos magic."
With this the dagger disappeared and the draconequus closed his eye again.
"Potential wielders?" Celestia continued without skipping a beat.
"Beyond the prior examples, Quintessence can only be used by natives of Equis who have great dedication and faith in a cause—such as the Pillars of Light in days past. Most users of it do not even know of it bein-"
*wwwwhhhheeeeefffooosh* a noise could be heard down the only stare case that led to the room, in spite of the muffling spells in place to keep noise from going in or out.
Discord shot strait up and wiggled wildly. Likewise every feather on the princesses wings went rigid when she saw this.
"Princess? Discord?"
"Session over. You pass. Welcome to level two. I have to go write Twilight," she rambled in haste before dashing up the stairs with Discord following behind.
He quickly dashed towards a high ranking member of the secret society.
"The taint is back," was all he spoke to the member as Celestia ran out of the anti-teleportation field and teleported. He then promptly followed suit out of the field and vanished with a snap of his claws.
In the hut she had made from the innards of a tree that a prior servant of the Animus Mundi must have planted for just such a purpose, Zecora meditated, and listened intently to the memories held within the Animus Mundi.
Pain. Great pain, pleading and suffering in the cries of the lands, waters, skies and deep earth was what she heard. Steadily, the pain became more sharply focused as the shaman braced and readied herself to let the image flow more fully through her. She could feel the pain of the trees being chopped down, the starvation and fear of the wildlife fleeing from ruined landscape after ruined landscape. She felt the choking of the life in rivers and oceans caused by the contaminants.
There were a few general chapters like this in the memory of the Animus Mundi. But all of the others were simply extinction level events in ancient times. Times from before the first servants learned to speak with the spirit of Equis. The Animus Mundi bore no ill will towards these events. The damage was done all at once and was over. The world would then recover over the eons and move on.
This particular moment that it was showing the Shaman, however, was something it feared. It wasn't a mere moment that hit it hard then allowed it to recover. It was a constant bombardment of damage, pain and suffering caused by a plague from outside. The plague came peaceably enough at first. Then, as soon as it had its tendrils around what it wanted, it yanked and consumed voraciously. Swiftly it would run over the next treasure trove of Equis's life blood, only to yank and tug again and again in an unending cycle of hunger. Torment never ending, never improving regardless what its servants tried to do.
Zecora had felt this a few times. She was aware of this entire story, but she was wanting to get a sharper picture of what the foreign energy felt like. She could tell it felt similar to a small number of native creatures but she couldn't quite place it. Many servants of the Animus Mundi simply accepted the tail as soon as their master was able to tell it to the end to them. They would then move on with their duties, satisfied with the vague description of the odd energy that was given, believing it to be merely a right of passage into a higher level of trust. Zecora, however, wished to delve deeper into it and recover some of the lost knowledge of that age.
Slowly, she meditated on this. She would get a slightly sharper image of that energy after making a small breakthrough every twelfth or so meditation. She felt like she was on a cusp of another breakthrough but the Animus Mundi was being particularly stubborn and she had no idea why.
She was about to give up and mark her wall for the forty second time since her last breakthrough when suddenly the sky lit up to the north.
With her eyes opened, she ran outside to see a falling star streaking across the sky and coming closer and closer to her.
Being so near, she probably would have been shuttering in pain from the noise alone.
That wasn't what was causing her to writhe on the ground, however. While one could normally simply let go of their link to the Animus Mundi and it would fade away on its own in under a minute, the shaman's connection went into overdrive from the other end. It screamed in agony with more crisp an image of the foreign energy than Zecora had ever dared dream of retrieving from it.
Just before she passed out, the shaman matched up that mental imprint burned into her mind with exactly one thing she had ever sensed with her own mortal senses: The energy being radiated from the falling star as it passed overhead.
"But you could get hurt if you're right, and if you aren't, then it could be somepon-" Twilight pleaded with Princess Celestia before being promptly interrupted.
"If. If it is somepony friendly then that gives me all the more reason to be weary, Twilight," Princess Celestia scorned her.
Turning around, she dropped her war face and gave her protege and fellow princess a weary but nonetheless warm smile. "I know you want good relations with other worlds but not all can be trusted. The first time this taint was sensed, its bearers came with promises of peace and prosperity, only to later reveal their true motives of squandering Equis's resources in their own wars, eventually trying to occupy Equis by force and nearly succeeding."
Twilight shook her head and then hung her head downward. She had latched onto Celestia at this point and started crying. "Ugh! This is so confusing! First you tell me there's another type of magic that alicorns, including myself, tap into that I've never even heard about and that an ancient war predating modern history has the potential to return."
Twilight then pushed off Celestia and started matching towards her, backing her into a corner. Her voice turned angry. "And then you tell me that you are going alone? A potential invasion from an entirely different part of the universe with armies upon armies hardened with generations of strife and war, each potentially setting their sights on Equis for our resources is at stake, and you're going on a suicide mission with absolutely no backup!?"
Spike and Applejack came over to pull Twilight back. "Now now, she only said she's scouting to get a better feel for the situation."
"Yea Twilight. She's not going to start a fight. She's just flying over the crash site to see what's going on. Besides, she's not going alone. Discord is going with her."
Twilight shifted her head over towards the draconequus with a glare. "While he has proven trustworthy and has his talents, being quiet or careful in a delicate situation isn't exactly one of them."
The draconequus simply shushed a scowling Fluttershy from across the upside down tea set and looked over to Twilight.
"Twilight, Twilight. You know my nature is chaos and I do admit that I've enjoyed making a good era of strife or seventeen in my day and lavishing in countless more I only pushed over the edge. But you also need to realize I among all of us have the most to lose."
He then got up and stood upon the map table dramatically. "I am the sole surviving member of the turncoats that helped Equis drive out the-"
"Earning your free ticket to stay here and cause trouble instead," she interrupted in a snarl.
"Yes, yes, yes." He quickly slapped the ruler that was suddenly in his paw on the desk that wasn't there a moment ago, both quickly vanishing again. "The point is that I am a traitor in the eyes of those that were kicked out of Equis long ago and there are beings that are so powerful that they could squash even me like a fly, and will want do a lot worse to me if they catch me. Equis is my one for certain sanctuary I have from them as long as their followers, and in turn their eyes, stay out. So naturally I want it to stay that way."
Twilight just glared at him as Celestia came up next to her from behind. "I know you have reason to doubt Discord's reliability in not escalating a situation, but he is the only one still alive that knows their tactics from experience and he is at his best when he's working with as few ponies as possible."
As the three of them went to the balcony, Celestia continued. "He will make sure I stay safe as we scout the area and will help me make a preliminary assessment of the situation. Any larger a group would be recognized as an aerial search party and provoke them."
With this, Discord snapped a surfboard and a pair of swimming trunks on himself and dove into Celestia's hair while shrinking to the size of a mouse and started riding it like a surfer in the water.
Celestia rolled up her eyes, closed them and gave a huff.
"Oh don't be such a party-pooper, Celestia dear. I'll be a good little soldier when we get there. Mustn't drain my chaotic nature any more than necessary or I might not be able to give it a full one hundred and eleven percent when it matters most."
Just as they took off, Pinkie could be seen sowing up what looked to be a patch of thin air. When the others looked at her, she just said, "Trust me when I say, 'You don't want to know.'"
"Huh... You know, I thought the forest that my seeds promoted the growth of would blend with and take over the Green Hills Forrest quite well when I set my seeds on the tree of harmony," Discord called as he held a complex set of alchemist's goggles to his face while sticking his head out of Celestia's mane.
"But it seems that my corruption wasn't strong enough to fight off the fay of the Green Hills Forrest and the lingering energy in the tree of harmony at the same time." He let the goggles poof in the air and slid out of her main onto her back with his arms crossed and a disgruntled look on his face.
Celestia gave a pained sigh as she did her best to humor him. "If it's any comfort to you, Discord, the Everfree Forrest is now the official name of both regions despite the Green Hills region having always been far tamer. And it seems I now know why the local fey have largely moved on in late centuries."
"Really Celestia? I thought you said you were going to leave them alone? What's this about you monitoring them?"
"No official treaty was formed that keeps me from doing so and I only do it from a distance. It is a shame though. The Fey refuges were the only outsiders that truly lived by a live and let live policy. They have as deeply rooted a fear of Æther users as they do with Quintessence. Respecting their privacy by keeping my ponies mostly out of their forest was the best I could do."
As they flew indirectly over the crash site, discord held his enlarged ear out tensely. "Odd... I don't detect any activity on the local rift. If anything the fabric over the rift is even stronger now than it was before."
"Are you sure, Discord?"
"In order to be sure I'd have to get a closer look, which isn't in the cards with our flight plan. But it could be..."
Celestia closed her eyes as she turned to return to Ponyville. "The star could have been laced with a spell to create a stable rift, which couldn't be detected from this distance and would only look like a thickening of the fabric. We'll have to look more closely soon."
Celestia started lowering the sun when discord spied something from the confines of Celestia's main.
"What's this?"
"What's what?"
"That creature down there, it's positively soaked with the fallen star's signature."
Celestia made a strong couple flaps of her wings to gain altitude. "How many?"
"...One."
"One squadron? Have they spotted us?"
"Not one squadron, just one. And it doesn't look like it has spotted us. But we had best hurry along before it does."
"Just one?" Celestia pondered aloud as she finished lowering the sun. "...Then we need to make a detour on our way back. I have a favor to ask of somepony far more suited to this task than myself."
Zecora was nursing her blown ear drums slightly better than her headache. It would take the entirety of her powdered mother of pearl stash to make enough rejuvenation potion to even let the ears heal at all, but she knew she could do it if she just kept to her medicine and treated it right away. While she had been saving it to make venom and poison treatments for the infestation of cockatrices as of late, making sure she could hear them coming was kinda vital, as she couldn't use her eyes against them.
If she could get her hooves on some actual pearls, they would be a lot easier to use in potions and even one ounce of pearl could do more than an entire ten pounds of refined shell, but pearls were also far, far more expensive. So she would just have to ask the ponies of Ponyville to keep an eye out for more shells she could extract mother of pearl from next time they were at the coast.
It wasn't until her door disappeared and Celestia came in calling to her in a yell she couldn't hear, did Zecora realize that she had company.
A few odd conversations later with the aid of Discord's odd mechanisms acting as crude temporary ears for her, which she wasn't too pleased about, she managed to get the gist of the request they were making.
"I shall ask the Fey to help keep an eye on our new guest. I will report back what I find, but for now I must rest."
Zecora spoke with the Fey, as Celestia asked, as soon as she recovered her hearing. Sadly she was met with resistance.
"We have no intention of helping those of the outside world study something within our realm," The chosen speaker answered the shaman. "While you are a servant to our surrogate mother, shaman, you still associate with users of Æther and so we cannot trust you fully. We will not aid you."
"Your people know the legends more vividly than mine ever could." Zecora called out to the seemingly empty trees. "Some of your eldest were fledglings on the day the rifts were sealed for good. Surely you realize if this creature brings back war, the Fey would suffer far more."
The one visible Fey zeroed in on the shaman's face. "We have our own contingencies for such events. We do not need the collaboration of outsiders. They have been kind enough to leave us in peace and thus we leave them in peace, but that does not change the fact that we will not aid Æther users in a war that is not ours."
Zecora stared back at him with all her might, searching for any flaw. After a minute, she found one.
"Your voice does shake. But I say make no mistake. If the light of the rifts begin to glow, the forests will be among the first to go. You know that no matter what you do, there is always a chance that war will be forced upon you."
The rustling of many sounds could be heard in the trees, feathers flapping, leaves stirring, dead twigs snapping. Meanwhile, the one visible Fey hesitated for a moment.
"Then you see why I need to know. Will you at least help me see if this creature is friend or foe?"
The one visible Fey listened intently to his hidden brethren, taking in the decision his people were reaching.
"Our answer is final: We will not aid the Æther users. You, being a servant of our surrogate mother, may study it on your own, but we will tolerate no Æther user in your company while in our forest."
The shaman gave a disgruntled sigh. She then gave a bow to thank the Fey for their audience as she felt their presence vanish from her senses.
Zecora managed to track the creature to Ridge Tear Lake just before dawn. Speaking with the local crows she had befriended over her years in the area, she managed to get them to agree to watch the creature and tell her anything of interest. They wouldn't be as thorough in scouting or in judgement as the Fey, but any extra set of eyes helping was welcome.
Just as dawn was starting to come forth, where the light was allowing her to get a good look at the creature, she found him to be bipedal, like a diamond dog, but perhaps more so. He was also shivering, like he was having trouble staying warm in spite of the many fur wrappings he had on him.
There wasn't a whole lot she could determine with an initial look, but if she could get his sent, it would be easier to track him with greater detail later.
Just as she got a good whiff of his sent, the creature tensed. He had woke up from her breath. A long moment passed as Zecora read every bit of the creature's body language. She could tell a lot from this: He was scared, hungry, and lost. She almost felt sorry for him when she suddenly saw its upper leg shift ever so slightly.
In her many years of experience, she didn't have to guess what that meant and jumped away out of reflex. Narrowly missing the creature's weapon, Zecora managed to find cover in the nearby bushes before the creature could stand.
The creature stood there, looking every which way in search of her.
With her natural coat camouflaging her in the underbrush and a safe distance established, Zecora watched him further. The creature's aggression wasn't out of malice, but simply fear. he was trying his best to survive and didn't look too powerful.
She called upon the Animus Mundi to help her read the creature to get a better feel for it. Was he a beast? A poninoid? A merfolk? What kind of magic did he harbor in his blood, if any?
When it came up as poninoid, she cocked her head slightly, but then again diamond dogs and griffins came up as poninoid by this technique as well.
She checked to see if the creature had spotted her before continuing. Deepening her concentration, she focused, half expecting the solid white/blue energy of the fallen star, or perhaps a relatively near transparent color of Æther. What she found though, was startling.
While it seemed to have a trace level of the fallen star's energy, it was more prominently a solid green energy with a slightly darkened overall aura. The green energy was coming out of the ground, caressing and enveloping him, not too unlike how a young servant would be treated by the Animus Mundi in their first years of training.
Zecora's jaw went slack and her eyes widened upon seeing this. Without making a noise, she promptly ran away quick as a flash to rethink her approach.
The next afternoon:
Blazing Stars searched around the area alongside the unicorns and the draconequus aiding them.
The crash sight was uncannily close to the rift, or so the unicorns said. Being a pegasus, Blazing Stars couldn't detect magical stuff and could only play a support role in the order, but it was a family tradition and he held it with pride none the less.
"That is very odd," the draconequus mumbled as he held his ear to the ground. "No matter how hard I try, I can't find a flaw. It really did seal up the rift good and tight."
Standing back upright, the draconequus snapped a floating piece of paper and an animated quill into existence, which promptly started taking notes for him. He then put his paw on his chin and continued with furled eyebrows. "If anything, I'd say this little booster shot has made the fabric around the rift strong enough to rival the days it was first created, maybe even slightly more so."
Blazing Stars swooped down as something caught his eye. Pulling the lump out of the ashes, it appeared to be the charred remains of a wooden shield of sorts. He couldn't see if it had bore a crest at one time, it was nothing more than charcoal on the surface now. Promptly, he brought his find to the team leader, Sea Spiral.
"Thank you Blaze," the unicorn scholar said as she took it from him. Just as she was about to set it down, she did a double take between the shield's shape and the thing she had been studying.
"Blaze! Where did you find this!? Show me exactly where!"
With a quick zip back to the spot, Blazing Stars showed Sea Spiral where he found it. She promptly did calculations, tromping all around the excavation site, and even to the large stream a little ways outside the excavation site.
With her mutterings coming to a close she gave a gasp. "I knew it! It was a stasis pod! The thing inside was blasted away and into the stream!" She half trotted, half skipped like a giddy school foal over to the main table. "We need to get this information to the princesses right away!"
With that, the draconequus, as well as the rest of the research crew, drew together and loaded down Blazing Star as well as his two wing ponies with documents of the day's findings, and were promptly sent on their way to deliver their cargo to Ponyville Castle.
"So The Fey have chosen to not help us, but they have allowed Zecora to study the creature so long as nopony else assists her. She has also made contact and confirmed that there is indeed only one." Twilight summed up the report from Zecora.
"What about the other danger? How are the other rifts around Equis?" Sunburst asked the local rift team, which basically looked like a standard meeting of the princesses and a few members from the counsel of friendship.
"Sadly, what reports we have found seem to indicate that the fabric keeping the the LosPegasis and Appleloosa rifts have taken serious damage and are further weakening faster than we can repair them given our current number of veil weavers." Celestia answered the guests of the rift counsel.
"Rarity, Fluttershy and Spike are speaking with the dragons and the breesies on new methods to make the future weaving longer lasting, but I fear these rifts will tear open before the new methods are finished. The one good note, however, is that the team has come back from the Everfree rift and Discord has confirmed it is firmly sealed and seems to be staying that way. Likewise, all remaining rifts inside and outside Equestria have been accounted for and do not seem to have any particular decay that the local teams couldn't fix. We've asked other rift teams to send as many experienced weavers as they can spare to help stem the tide of losing the seal on the LosPegasus rift."
"Applejack," Luna called from across the table. "I know this sounds bad, but if we had to abandon one rift to preserve the other, it would be far more practical to evacuate Appleloosa than LosPegasus. Please work with your kin in Apploosa and the local Buffalo tribes on ways to evacuate the area's around the Appleloosa rift in case this proves necessary."
Sunburst chimed in at this, "And I know you aren't the best with filtering your words, Applejack, so if anypony asks just say that it's a precautionary exercise ordered by the princesses for potential magic fluctuations that might occur in the area. It's an honest enough answer that won't cause a major uproar."
Applejack managed to get her kin rounded up well enough while Rainbow Dash was able to relay the message to the Buffalo Tribes.
Rainbow Dash's job didn't take much convincing on her part, but rather tallying up all the separate herds and tribes of the Buffalo as she zoomed across the plains to make sure none of them missed out on the message.
"We know of the place that has the feel of wild magic that you speak," The chief of the last tribe on her list spoke, "It has become more vibrant the last few moons, and already knew we needed to stay away. If ponies say it could cause trouble, buffalo know how to move quickly away when we see your signal in sky. Go focus on little pony friends in apple tree town."
"Aw yea! One side down!" Rainbow Dash cheered after flying off, "AJ probably is still in the middle of a big speech."
"Just keep the speed down there, Rainbow Crash," Rainbow Dash's squadron leader, Spitfire, called as she grabbed Rainbow's hind leg to slow her down. "Your sonic rain boom is the primary signal. You could cause a huge false alarm if you pull one off by accident. For now, unless it's to give the signal, speeds approaching the sonic rain boom are off limits. That's an order, newbie."
Just as Rainbow Dash and her Squad came flying into Appleloosa, Rainbow Dash saw the streets were bare and the train at the station was absolutely loaded to the brim with citizens.
"Gosh darn it!" an elderly stallion declared as he threw his hat down. "I know, I know Rusty. I owe you a round at the salt lick."
"Hey AJ!" Rainbow called out as she landed on the platform. "You know we were only supposed to tell them to be ready to evacuate, not evacuate them today, right?"
"Yea, I know. But when they found out that this was an order from the royal sisters, they got all patriotic on me, and when they found out the wonder bolts were rounding up their buffalo neighbors for the same thing, they got real competitive and wanted to be ready to pull out before you came to check up on us."
"Looks like they are ready." Sorin called out.
"Hehe... not quite." Applejack said with an uneasy face and a shy rub of one hoof on the back of the other leg. "The engine had a little trouble and we've been sitting here for the better part of an hour waiting on it getting fixed. Looks like we're going to be docking a spare train from Ponyville here just in case after all."
"Well, it looks like were ready, girls," Twilight called to them from the ticket booth that the Appleloosans insisted she sit in as they showed her their evacuation attempt. While stretching her stiff form from sitting down for so long, she continued, "Let's just hope Fluttershy, Rarity and Spike are making as much progress as we are."
"I must say, Rarity!" Sea Breeze commended, "I have never seen a pony come so close to replicating a briezzie's tender love und care ven weaving de fabric of da vail. Usually it takes years fer ponies ta be trained in vail weaving!"
"Humph!" Garble grumbled as he sat there beside Spike. "I don't see why we can't just blast the rifts with fire and fuse them shut!"
Sea Breeze got right in Garble's face. "Because, not only do da rifts not work like dat, but de equivalent kind of patch would be far too rigid! It vould only make de rifts bigger and harder to control in de long run! Dere's a reason vhy de breezie rift has kept de strongest of all seals through de ages, and it's finesse in our weaving, not raw force you brute! Be grateful dragon magic is being considered as a component at all!"
Garble simply responded with a nasal puff of smoke, sending Sea Breeze spiraling. "And I have to be the 'lucky' dragon stuck here providing that dragon magic..."
"Well it wasn't my idea for you to spy on our meeting with Dragon Lord Ember anyway," Spike said as he flipped the page in his comic book. "Be happy she just stuck you with this duty until the prototype is done as punishment instead of for the whole time of production too."
"Yea yea," Garble responded just as he threw too much fire breath into Sunburst's device, blowing its fragile components. "Why can't you do this again, runt?"
Spike put down his comic. "Lets see: A, I have duties elsewhere which I'll be getting back too just as soon as Princess Luna finishes fixing the emergency back door to the breezies' domain open. B, I'm not old enough to hold the required amount of fire in my belly to supply the entire experiment. C, because your trouble making tends to put you high on Ember's list of dragons she really doesn't want around and sends off to do 'lame' tasks. And D, by promising you can go home as soon as they record the correct calculations for quality veil thread from dragon fire you'll have motivation to cooperate with us and get it done faster."
With the device being set aside by Garble, Spike wandered off with his comic book in hand.
"Mamby pamby ponies with there mamby pamby princesses..." Garble rambled as he picked up another of the many devices set aside for him, this time feeding his fire breath into it very lightly, blowing it after a couple of seconds instead of instantly.
"Don't worry little breezies," Fluttershy Called through the three inch hole in the wall. While you're protective wall is open, we have many ponies standing guard, each well trained and aware of a breezie's needs. And if a mean old monster does slip by one of them, Angel will help you drive them out, right Angel?"
Angel only answered by squeezing through said hole with all sorts of colors in his normally white coat, and several breezie children following him to the edge of the hole. "Aww..." the children cried in unison before turning back.
Angel then promptly went to a supply chest and found a rubber stopper. He took the stopper and hopped up to the hole, firmly planting it into the hole. As he landed he gave Fluttershy an "Ain't no way I'm going back in there," look.
"There," Princess Luna spoke, shutting off her magic. "That should last for a few moons. Naturally you can collapse it from the inside if you need to, as agreed."
Zecora sat idly on her meditation mat. Her mind's efforts split between continuing her communications with the other servants of the Animus Mundi and observing her new acquaintance.
<Whether we should teach this creature is unclear. I ask for the help of any who are near. The weave of his energy is quite bizarre. I fear that he is what came from the fallen star,> Zecora pleaded as she saw her guest doing his best to chop firewood for her, and failing horribly.
<But eventually it will learn to do so, whether we teach it or not,> Another servant broadcast in a light, almost squeaking tone. <For better or worse, the Animus Mundi's will is not set against this creature and from what you've described it is already showing the signs of accepting it like it does with a fledgling servant who is nearing the completion of their first meditations. While we will try to help where we can, our duties prevent us from being there in person. You will have to be ready to do this on your own or not at all.>
The axe that the creature was wielding hit the wood at a weird angle yet again. Only this time it bounced off, twisted around and hit one of the creature's back paws with the hammering side, gave the creature horrible splinters on its front paws, and probably gave a solid twist to the poor thing's front ankles. Zecora could feel the agony in his cry before he even started.
<Sadly I also cannot leave my home until my current task is done.-> A deep, bellowing, but reserved voice of a powerful creature called, <-And I agree. Even if it is not of Equis and has the taint, we cannot change the fact that the Animus Mundi has accepted it as one of its own and is granting the strange creature the right to call upon its power. The Animus Mundi's will cannot be pleaded with. All we can do is work with the choices it makes. The true question is not if we should guide its growth, but how.>
The creature twirled around on his one good hind paw, screaming with as much agony as Zecora expected. Finally, the creature regained his composure and glared at the small log, as if it were mocking him by still sitting pristine and unharmed on the stump. He used the bizarre ability that the Animus Mundi had granted him to shift into the shape of a bear and quickly marched back over to it.
A crackling voice, like that of the cawing of a bird spoke up, <You have always been the one able to move around the most freely and aid our charges when our power alone was not enough, Zecora, and I am grateful. But I cannot leave either. I will send one of my students along with whatever supplies you ask for if I can spare them. He is a high spirited boy and I find giving him tasks aids in his studies. You are welcome to use him to assist with your work when he comes and you may seek my counsel in this endeavor whenever you feel the need. I too find that leaving the creature to learn of its power with its own devices could spell disaster. At the very least we need to keep an eye on it and guide it away from destructive paths if possible.>
Zecora braced herself for the words she new were coming.
<And learn what it can do so that we can exterminate it like a parasite if its nature proves to be as such.>
She had to shut her eyes as she saw the creature dig its borrowed claws into the log and tear it in half with a fit of rage. Keeping her eyes from watering up as she did so took all the willpower she had to spare.
<Then I'll trust the rest of you will attend well to the important duties that keep you away.> She used her sadness to fuel the sternness of her next statement. <But if I must be the one to teach him, then the servants will trust me to teach him my way.>
Zecora forced herself to keep composure as she closed the link to the other servants. To be honest, she expected them to be unable to aid her in any real manner, but needed to contact them anyway. It wasn't that she felt the other servants were incompetent. Far from it. They were wise in their own ways. It was just that they had grown accustomed to simply protecting the races of their regions, instead of teaching them ways of how to protect themselves.
In turn their charges had grown to become dependent on them, generally tying them down until l they could sufficiently train apprentices to take over. The method of only teaching their personally picked apprentices and leave the common people without even basic understanding had its upsides in some ways, but it also had its downsides.
As the creature shifted back to what appeared to be his natural form she could see a look of shame he had on his face. She lowered her ears and face into an uneasy but understanding smile, then went over to treat the creature's wounds.
A few weeks later, at the castle meeting room in Ponyville, Twilight and many others were meeting up to discuss the rift crisis. Twilight was sharing Zecora's report.
"-and she has her suspicions of the newcomer. She thinks he's faking being incompetent with his magic. She's doing her best to decipher what his true intentions are, but she still hasn't managed to properly get past the language barrier. She has, however, managed to convince him to stay with her for a time and will continue to learn what she can from him. She will try to see if he's associated with the forces trying to break open the rifts from the other side and gather whatever intelligence on them she can."
Twilight set down her notes and turned to Starburst, granting him the floor.
"Sea Breeze is a little late, but I am just now getting a response from him and he will report on the dragon veil thread project momentarily."
Alongside a scroll from Los Pegasis, Sunburst reported in real time from the words being written in his twinned journal he had linked to Sea Breeze's counterpart.
"Sadly, as predicted, the seals on the rifts are still decaying faster than we can repair them despite the reinforcements the other teams could spare and the new research hasn't provided a functioning prototype yet, but they are getting close. The conversion of dragon fire to veil thread has proven to have the qualities we were hoping for and we are nearly finished fine tuning the converters,"
A few moment's pause was given as he waited for the tiny breezie on the other end. The poor guy couldn't write in the miniaturized but still oversized journals as fast as Sunburst could read.
"We just need to overcome the complications of weaving such a robust thread. Sea Breeze says that while it's difficult for him and the other breezies to work with, he has no doubt that they will be able to adjust the known methods into a much sturdier weave for the new thread and be able to show other teams how to do so as early as..."
Sunburst paused as he double backed on the next line to make sure he was reading it right. His ears went down and his face grimaced.
"...Six to eight weeks if all goes well."
Princess Celestia did a comparison to the reports on the rifts that were being weakened from the other side.
She put on a brave face and kept her tone calm in a way only she could. "Adding the time it would take for the breezies to retrain our current weavers after they get the prototype done, there is no way we will have time to apply it to either of the weakening rifts before one of them gives way. We will have to pool our current teams to a single rift."
She turned to Applejack and spoke in a sincere and apologetic voice. "I'm sorry, but I fear we will have to evacuate Apploosa's citizens and the buffalo tribes after all. Please go and see to it that their affairs are in order and they start evacuating as early as possible."
Princess Cadence spoke up with a reassuring voice, "The Crystal Empire is ready to accept refuges and so many of our citicens have volunteered to assist that we did not need to draft." She gave an embarased smile. "apparently they still have strong feelings for what Equestria has done for them in times past. I lost count of how many times I heard the call, 'Celestia! Luna! Spike! We will be there! We are coming!' in the streets."
A slight prideful titter could be heard at the same time a quill stopped writing for a moment.
"I've also trained the volunteers that were already active troops in tactics relevant to the heat of the Apploosa area," Shining Armor chimed in. "If you need them on the front lines along with the allied troops instead of just filling in for the equestrian guards, they shouldn't be slowed down too much from the major shift in climate. The Yaks have even volunteered to help patrol our lands for security if our troops are spread thin."
Shining Armor blushed a little as Applejack coughed. "We told them we'd consider assigning up to one yak to each patrol squad if it got that bad and sent a few drill instructors to them 'Just in case' it comes to pass."
Dragon Lord Ember picked herself up off the wall and finished off her crystal snack. "My dad has got me up to speed with the finer details of the situation and the history and I've separated the dragons into tactical groups. My first force is in charge of keeping my homeland safe from native threats, primarily made up of land dragons-" Ember looked over at Spike, who was documenting for the meeting, "-with a few sky claws and deep bellies for scouting and backup."
She came up and placed a few carved rock figures of dragons on the map, the bigger one in the heart of the dragon lands, and two more at the border of her lands.
"The second group is made of a large portion of my deep belly dragons and they will be sent to assist with mass production of the new veil thread as soon as you say when. If veil thread didn't need to be woven as it's being made, I'd dedicate more of them to the third group."
She pushed the medium sized figurine rock towards the middle of Equestria and the smaller, more agile looking figurine towards the southern part of Equestria, near Appaloosa.
"My third group will assist the front lines. I won't be able to add a lot of sustained fire breathing to the front line with so many of my deep belly dragons being tied to veil thread production, but the ones I am sending will lend you their flames with the fury of a storm. Only a bout half a dozen of my more timid land dragons were safe enough to fight on the ground beside your forces without risking squashing them, so I won't be able to give a whole lot of raw muscle for the ground forces. However, the vast majority of my sky claws will be at the ready to support you by bolstering your air forces."
With Ember backing up, finished, everyone turned to Celestia. While she was technically just another attendee of the meeting, she was the most senior member and the most experienced by far. Nobody pretended that she wasn't the one that was going to be making the final shots, but she still wanted them to remember she was just the first among equals and not their superior.
After a long moment, she made her own report. "The Queen of Seaquestria cannot send Seaponies to the Apploosa rift, but she has agreed to cooperate with us and has prepared her people provide naval support should the fight spread backwards to the sea."
"Well why can't she-" Applejack tried to ask, but a solid telekinetic tug of her chair promptly landed her on the floor, interrupting her.
"Applejack..." Celestia all but growled, "While seaponies can breathe air, they are hardly mobile on land and would dry out quickly in the Apploosa area. They would be a liability on land, not an asset."
Applejack got back into her chair as Celestia continued, "Likewise, while a small number of hyppogriffs have been spotted recently, attempts to reach out to their queen-" a subtle spell from Sunburst enhanced Applejack's hearing for a moment while he also levitated his water glass to take a drink. "-have failed. We cannot even find her. We will have to presume they will be unable to aid us in this fight."
Applejack's eyes widened slightly as Celestia continued. "And finally, the changelings are still too newly reformed to contribute directly to the fight without risking what little tranquility and infrastructure they have only recently gained. Instead, I've asked them to help in indirect ways. A few of their braver souls will be learning emergency field medicine for later on. But for now all the rest of them can do is act as an emergency workforce for whatever task the war effort proves to be lacking in. Their adaptability to different situations will let them respond quickly to unforeseen events until more fully trained workers can be brought in."
Sunburst spoke again once Celestia was finished. "It seems all our forces are as prepared as we can have them then. Princess Celestia, what wisdom would you suggest in coordinating them?"
Celestia lowered her head ever so slightly, closed her eyes and gave a huff. "Ember, I ask that you send your deep belly team to start practicing making veil thread as soon as you can deploy them. I think it would be best if we avoid as many delays as possible in training our weavers to handle dragon veil thread and in order to do that we need the dragons trained to spin the thread first. The fine tuning of the machines will be done soon enough and you can have them start on the basics until then."
"Shining Armor, I think you should to send any special forces you have trained to the Appaloosa area immediately to build onto that climate training and get the lay of the land, but send the rest of your troops to replace the troops in Equestria we will be sending. Your troops may have basic training for hot climates but the time it will take to move the full army won't leave them enough time to get used to the hot climate. Sending them down to battle before they get hooves on experience with warmer climates will still hinder their performance. If they train more while acting as the local guard then they can be quality reinforcements later if need be.
"As for the rest of you, we should prepare our troops and supplies to move in the moment the Apploosa area has been evacuated of civilians. The moment our troops arrive, we need to get them used to the area and building as much as a home field advantage as we can. Once we have a military presence established, I can withdraw our remaining veil weavers in the area to aid with the the Los pegasis rift and have them train with dragon veil thread as soon as the breezie weavers are ready."
She looked around the table at each delegate and attendee. "After that, there will be no turning back, the Apploosa rift's seal will fail quickly without being attended and their forces will be able to pass through the rift, onto Equis. We will have to hold possession of the rift until we can get our weavers trained to maintain the Los Pegasus Rift and have enough forces to seal up the Appaloosa rift again at the same time." She gave a pause and visibly faltered into weakness for fraction of a second. "This is it. In a few short weeks, we will be at war."
A few weeks later, at the Apploosa rift.
The seal on the rift finally finished unraveling and the slight glimmer that faded in and out in the middle of the air that had appeared an hour before became a pure slit of light several meters tall, jagged and frayed, like the tear in a piece of fabric.
The squadrons of dragons, ponies, the occasional high priced griffin mercenary holding a powerful bow in the back rows and a single elder yak waited in an eerie silence around the rift. Deadly traps lay strewn in the immediate area around the rift.
Soon, creatures started poring out of the rift, immediately setting off the traps. Poisons acted quickly, bones broke and spikes impaled. The few creatures that were lucky enough to make it through the areas that the traps had already been tripped by the end were felled by griffin sharp shooters, and only a single spear needed to be used by an infantry troop.
Finally, silence fell again. A small, two legged creature mildly resembling a diamond dog in both stature and hygiene came through the rift, saw the ambush and swiftly ran back, with a heavy arrow knocking it through the rift.
A few moments later two more figures walked through. Both were well dressed. The leading one had a thin set of robes with armor underneath and the second was in a set of ordinate black robes. The armorless one easily knocked the arrows aside with a magic field when they were lobbed while the armored one simply took one in the shoulder and kept walking forward, over the dead bodies.
"Behold, natives," the figure called out in a thickly accented but still clear and understood Equestrian, "I am Arch Priest Challock. Humble servant of the great god, Bane. I come as his missionary to this world so that his glory and prosperity may be spread unto you."
He then promptly kicked aside a corpse to stand on the slightly elevated stone it was laying on. "You have followed heathen ways for too long and Bane is willing to pardon your crime that you committed in blind fear." He pulled out the arrow and dropped it on the floor in front of him. "He will overlook the slaughter you made this day if you simply kneel down with no further bloodshed."
The yak stepped forward towards them. He stopped only when he felt another step would keep him from seeing both of them at the same time. Raising his head high, he recited a speech he had committed to memory, one he had practiced for days on end. He yelled it with more feeling than anything he had yelled in his life.
"We care not for you or your gods, silly creature! Never again will we hear your lies and let you drain our world blood as your gods did in days past! We tell you only once! Go back through your magic door and never return! This day we stand together and nothing will shake us! For we are the children of Equis!"
The priest was not shaken by his blood shot eyes or the earsplitting volume of his voice. Instead, he simply pulled out a claw shaped amulet and held it towards the yak as it illuminated for a moment. "You will be an example for the others."
The second figure stepped forward and pointed a wand at the yak. The hair on the back of the second figure's neck raised for a moment and the spell activated.
A thin green ray came out from the tip of the second figure's wand while the yak glared at him. He could recognize an attack when he saw one, but still chose to not give up even an inch.
The next instant, the yak was nowhere to be found. Instead, a small pile of grey dust sat over top the sand where the yak had been standing.
"Let it be known" the priest shouted out, turning around and strutting a short distance, "this is the fate of those that degrade Bane's word and so actively oppose the prosperity we bring."
He lightly giggled to himself then waved his hand to those behind him. "But Bane still has patience. We still are not angry with you. You may kneel now."
Arrows flew and killed the priest instantly. The second figure quickly scampered back to the rift with a teleport and barely made it through with an arrow in his leg.
A dragon officer picked up the clawed amulet of the priest, snapped each of the fingers off and threw them one by one back into the rift as the rest of the troops worked hard to retreat and set the next wave of traps a bit further from the portal.
With all pieces of the broken amulet tossed into the portal, the sky claw dragon spent most of his limited fire breath melting and carving the armor the priest wore. Once he was finished, he tossed what was left of the priest back into the rift.
A few minutes later, on the other side of the rift, a follower of Bane cast a spell to allow the reading of what was on the defiled priest's still hot armor. While reading the melted indentions, the follower spoke it aloud to those around him, "Equis belongs to her stewards and her children, not you. Stay out!"
