> Atomic Will
>  by Conglomerate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Building Blocks of the Universe
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What do you mean you’re demoting me?!” Scott asked,

“I’m sorry Scott, but you have proven yourself to be an unnecessary risk to others in the workplace.” The director explained, folding his hands together.

“What is that supposed to mean?” He demanded,

The director pushed up his glasses, and tapped a stack of reports together on his desk.

“Well Scott, your methods of experimentation do show results, though usually at a tremendous loss. We as a company have a reputation to upkeep, and with so many incidents occurring we might soon find difficulty finding new employees. Not to mention all those hospital bills.” The director explained.

“But Director Breen, we are running out of time!” This caused him to look up, so Scott continued, “The sample we have is decaying, rapidly. We’ve only learned so much, and if we don’t move forward faster, then we are going to lose the opportunity to study it forever.”

Director Breen leaned forward with a small bit of interest.

“Oh? And what, pray tell, have you learned about the sample?” He asked,

Scott brought up his briefcase, and clicked it open, he then pulled out various notes and data sheets.

“It’s amazing sir, it’s completely unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.” He began,

“Get to the point, Scott.” Director Breen interrupted,

“Right ok,” Scott straightened his notes on the desk, “The sample seems to hold a charge, similar to electricity but not exactly the same. Upon viewing a smaller sample of it under the electron microscope, we noticed a particularly dense electron cloud.”

“Which means?” Director Breen asked,

“It means that there is possibly more than just electrons orbiting the nucleus,” Scott explained,

Director Breen leaned back in his chair, “Interesting, very interesting, and what do you call these… pseudo-electrons?”

“Magicules sir.” Scott said,

“Magi-cule?” Director Breen raised an eyebrow.

Scott sighed, “One of our interns came up with the name, one of the younger ones, and it just stuck.”

“So these so-called ‘magicules’ are orbiting the nuclei as well as the electrons?” Director Breen deducted,

“Yes sir,”

“But you said they were decaying.” Director Breen reminded Scott.

“Decaying in the sense that we are losing them.” Scott clarified,

“Explain,”

“Well, similarly to electrons, they have a charge, whether it’s positive or negative or something completely different is unknown, but because of this charge, the whole world acts as a ground for it, so the magicules are dispersing from the sample into the environment.” Scoot explained.

“Like radiation?”

“No sir, like electricity. Everything we’ve tried to contain it with is at least semi-conductive to it, even suspending it midair only slows down the decaying process by a little bit.”

“How much time would you say we have left then?”

Scott reviewed his notes once more, “Camera footage showed a twenty three percent decrease in total lumen output over the past three days. So I’d say in the next week we would most likely lose about ninety percent of the magicules permanently.”

“I see,” Director Breen said, leaning forward onto his desk, resting his chin on his folded hands.

“So please sir, allow me to continue experimenting, I’m sure that I will find a way to store the magicules for future research and use.”

Director Breen held up his hand,

“Let me ask you one question, Scott. What use are these ‘magicules’ to us?” He asked, “Why should I spend time and resources on something that might not even matter.”

Scott stared at him for a moment.

“Director Breen, these magicules could revolutionize electronics, it could provide new aspects in chemistry, it could even unlock areas in brain science. They could even give the power I’ve dreamed of-” Scott clamped a hand over his mouth, he didn’t mean to let that slip out.

Director Breen’s expression hardened,

“And that, Scott, is another reason why I’m demoting you.” He said slowly, Scott slowly sank in his chair. “Your thirst for power got you this far, don’t let it drag you down further.”

“Yes sir…” He mumbled,

“Now get out of my office.” Director Breen commanded.

Without another word, Scott collected his papers and stuffed them haphazardly into his briefcase. He got up from his chair and silently stepped out of the office, where he waited for the door to fully close before slapping his face with his hand.

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why did I say that?” He said to himself.

Scott clenched his fist, and started stomping down the hallway and towards his office. Other employees gave him a wide margin as he passed through. When he reached his door he threw it open, stepped inside, and slammed it shut behind him. He was done with this crap, he chucked his briefcase across the room and onto his desk, it slid across and knocked his monitor off.

Scott was breathing heavily, but he forced himself to calm down. He slowly walked to the other side of his desk and picked up his monitor. It now had a huge crack in the screen, but he still placed it back on his desk and sat down to think.

It was over, he was done. He didn’t have authority over the experiments anymore. Scott put his head in his hands, how was he supposed to accomplish his goals now? 

Then he had an idea.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, and right now it was as drastic as it could get for Scott. He stood up from his desk, determined to finish what he started, and exited his office.

Now walking down the hallway at a brisk pace, Scott arrived at the security checkpoint. He would have to find some way to get past security. It was possible that word hadn’t gotten out about his demotion yet, so he would use that to his advantage.

“Hey Scott.” The security guard greeted him, Scott never cared to find out his name, “Going in for another experiment today?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, we’re testing out some new form of containment.” Scott quickly made up an explanation and smiled.

“Sounds fun. Well I won't stop you, just go ahead and scan your card.” The security guard directed.

“Oh uh… Sure,” Scott said, and pulled out his ID.

He flashed it in front of the scanner, which beeped twice, but nothing else.

“Try swiping it a bit slower,” The guard suggested,

“Yeah…”

Scott tried again, the scanner buzzed, and flashed red. He tried again, another flash of red.

“C’mon. Work dammit,”

“You ok?” The guard inquired,

“Yeah yeah, it’s just…” Scott trailed off.

He was already locked out of the system, which meant that his plan had already failed. He couldn’t believe how fast they were with it. Scott was about to turn away in defeat when the security guard stepped in.

“It’s okay man, that thing has been acting up all day, I’ll put in a note to fix it. Here, I’ll let you in.” He said,

Taking one of the many keys from his keyring, the security guard unlocked the scanner’s box, and flipped it up, revealing a keypad underneath. He inserted an eight digit code, and the scanner beeped and flashed green. Scott heard the lock disengage from the door.

“Go ahead,” The security guard waved him off.

“Thanks.” Scott replied quickly, and pushed the door open.

He quickly passed through, and closed the door behind him. Scott waited until he walked around a corner to breathe a sigh of relief. It was sheer luck that the security guard let him in, now he just had to suit up and go into the containment room.

Thankfully there weren’t any personnel wandering around to see him creeping through the hallways. It wasn’t a far walk, but Scott was sweating by the time he reached the dressing room. He pushed open the door and walked inside.

“Nobody, good,” Scott said aloud after a quick inspection of the room.

Inside there were rows upon rows of lockers lining the nearest wall, while at the far wall there were several cabinets placed evenly. Scott didn’t bother going to his own locker, he didn’t have anything to lock up. Instead, he went straight to one of the cabinets, and opened it.

There, a yellow rubber full body suit hung on the wall, along with its sealed face mask and Oxygen tank. Scott began the long process of donning the hazmat suit, boots first, then the pants, coat, then gloves, and finally the mask with the hood. He strapped the tank to his back and connected the hose to its input, he waited a moment for it to cycle, and to make sure it was completely sealed, before exiting the dressing room.

Scott was glad the suit obscured most of his face, he didn’t have to worry as much about being recognized, not that anyone would think anything was out of the ordinary... Yet. He quickened his pace back through the hallways and towards the location of the sample. Then, right outside the airlock for the containment area, the worst thing possible happened.

“Hey! What are you doing out here?” An agitated voice asked behind him.

Scott whipped around, and saw the one thing he didn’t want to see today.

It was Dana, another scientist gunning for his position, and not to mention his worst nemesis. If word had gotten out about his demotion, she would’ve been the first to hear about it. She was borderline obsessed with taking Scott’s position, and she would do anything to get promoted.

“There were no new personnel authorized to work on the sample. What are you doing here?” Dana asked again, extra bossy. She clearly hadn’t recognized him in the suit.

“I uhhh…” Scott quickly thought of an excuse, “I was in earlier, I just left to go to the bathroom.”

Dana walked up real close to Scott, and while he was a bit taller than her, it didn’t make her any less intimidating as she stared into the visor.

“Where is your nametag?” She demanded,

Scott reached up and felt around the chest area with his glove, and didn’t feel a nametag. That was probably a good thing, since it would’ve given him away.

“Uhh, I forgot it.” Scott explained truthfully, before adding, “I’m new here.”

Dana smiled, it did nothing to alleviate Scott’s fears

“So you made it with the big leagues huh kid?” She asked, “What’s your name?”

“Uhhh… Scott,” Scott answered in a panic, and immediately regretted it.

Dana’s smile faltered a bit, “Okay... Scott.” She said suspiciously, “Make sure to wear your nametag at all times.” Dana turned and walked down the hallway.

“Yes ma’am,” Scott nodded, which probably looked really dumb from outside the suit. He turned around to enter the containment area, only to be interrupted as Dana yelled at him again from down the hallway.

“Oh, and next time, Scott, use the dedicated bathroom inside the containment area.”

Scott just gave her a thumbs up, and when she turned around, he flipped her off instead.

Now that that distraction was out of the way, Scott quickly entered the airlock and pushed the scan button.

The doors automatically closed behind him, and he heard the vents start to cycle the air. His suit ballooned out a bit as the pressure changed, but quickly deflated as it returned to normal. Then the scanning started, Scott stood still with his arms out as he watched the multi-camera search every inch of him for anything not whitelisted. He knew it wouldn’t find anything, but it still made him anxious nonetheless.

It beeped when it was done, and Scott heard the doors on the other side unlock, so he moved to open them.

Walking through the doors, Scott was greeted with a relatively empty room. There were no science personnel immediately in view, but the armed guards were. They wore a similar getup to Scott, protective hazmat suits, but colored black and layered with body armor. What was probably the most intimidating thing about them however, were the MP5’s that they were currently carrying. One glanced at Scott for a moment, but quickly returned to surveying the entire area.

Scott did his best to look like he was supposed to be there, and approached the sample. Several catwalks and ladders were stood up next to it, allowing personnel to access several different parts of the sample. The entire thing looked like some sort of science fiction scene, a massive glowing blue crystal sat floating midair in the middle of a laboratory, and here Scott was decked out in a hazmat suit approaching it.

He only made it halfway to the sample before an alarm blared. Scott stumbled in shock, but quickly picked himself back up. Then an announcement came over the intercom.

“Attention all personnel, an unauthorized intruder has been detected inside the facility. Report any and all suspicious activity.”

Scott froze, and he turned around just in time to see the guard level his weapon at him.

“Don’t move!” The guard shouted, though it was muffled a bit by the hazmat suit.

Scott threw his hands up, and stood still.

“Stay there!” The guard commanded, and held up his hand, which he then used to communicate with the other guard using hand movements. The second guard nodded and began to approach the door on the other side of the room, that was probably where the rest of the scientists were.

Scott then realized that the guards didn’t think he was the intruder, but as soon as the other scientists saw him he would be immediately found out. Thinking quickly, he waited until the second guard disappeared behind the door before dashing towards the sample.

“Hey! I said stop!” The first guard shouted at him, but Scott just ignored him.

He continued to run, which wasn’t very fast in the hazmat suit, but it was fast enough to make it across the room before the guard could do anything. 

Then, when he was only a few feet from the sample, he was punched in the shoulder. Scott stumbled forward from the blow, and fell face first onto the floor. The suit protected him from any serious injury, but he still felt the mask press uncomfortably onto his face. He pushed himself up, and he felt some odd resistance after moving his arm. Then he felt something warm run down his shoulder inside the suit.

Tentatively reaching behind him, Scott felt up the area on his back with a gloved hand, and when he pulled it back, he saw that the glove was covered with blood.

He had been shot, not punched. The security guard shot him, and he didn’t even hear the gunshot. It didn’t hurt, but Scott didn’t know how much longer that would last. He felt blood begin to trickle down his arm and pool inside of his glove. He tried to push himself up using his arm again, but met the same resistance, the bullet was most likely embedded in his shoulder blade.

That was when the pain arrived, it started as a dull throbbing, then it stung badly, and then it felt like his shoulder was burning. Scott clenched his teeth in pain, and grunted.

“Stay down!” The guard shouted from behind him.

Darkness began to encroach on Scott’s vision, and his other arm gave out from underneath him, he fell to the floor. Over the blaring alarm he heard the guard step closer to him, most likely still aiming towards him. This was it, he had failed.

…

No.

Scott had already come this far, so he wasn’t giving up now. It was now or never.

Using his good arm, he pushed himself up with great effort and managed to get into a sitting position.

“Don’t get up!” The guard yelled at him, sounding closer.

Scott knew that if he tried, he would be shot again, he just wasn’t fast enough to cross the small distance between him and the sample. He needed some sort of distraction.

The door across the room flew open, and the other guard ran out and immediately saw what had happened.

“What did you do!?” He asked the first guard.

In the instant the guard turned around to respond, Scott sprang into action. Adrenaline pumping, he stood up, and dove towards the sample. He rolled painfully onto his wounded shoulder, but managed to land in a good enough position to get back up. He now stood right in front of the sample.

“Stop!” The guard demanded, weapon raised and finger on the trigger.

Scott just ignored him, instead he tore off his glove, blood spilling out of it, and threw it off to the side where it splattered across the floor. He shakily raised his bloody hand, and slapped it onto the sample.

In an instant, the vibrant glow of the crystal nearly disappeared while Scott’s own hand began to glow, or maybe it was just his blood. An alien sensation traveled up his arm and towards his bullet wound, and as soon as it entered it the pain left, and his whole body was overwhelmed with the feeling. Scott began to feel numb as his whole body was saturated with magicules.

Two gunshots came from behind him, but he didn’t feel any impact, whether he was just completely numb and couldn’t feel anything or somehow the bullets were stopped he didn’t know. What he did know however, was that he now felt cool, but also warm, and incredibly comfortable, all of his muscles relaxed as his body was enveloped in a soft glow, which only shined through his visor and uncovered hand.

Everything else in the world seemed to fade away, leaving only Scott and the sample. He stared at it for what seemed like forever, feeling the power it once held coursing through his body.

Power…

It was power, the magicules brought power, and Scott wanted more.

“...more…” he whispered,

In a flash, he was gone, leaving a darkened crystal with a single bloody handprint on it.





Scott felt the magicules, they were all throughout his body, he could feel each one moving to and from. He felt them gather around his core, and then he watched as they left his body. He saw actual individual subatomic particles moving around, with his naked eye. He didn’t know how it was possible, or how he could even comprehend this, but nevertheless it was still happening right in front of him. 

The ball of what was a ridiculous number of magicules moved further away from Scott, and he watched it begin to flatten out in front of him. Even though there was comparatively infinite space between each particle, they still worked in tandem with each other to slowly form into what looked like a doorway in the middle of the void.

What?

For the first time since he got there, Scott looked around at his surroundings, and noticed nothing. Or more specifically, the lack of anything. There was no light, and there was no dark, it was just... nothing, and the only two things that were in this void were Scott, and the portal that had just appeared. So he chose to watch it more.

It was circular, and shaped like a whirlpool, the magicules that formed the edges seemed to spin slower than the magicules in the center, which appeared to be sinking backwards, giving the portal depth. Straining his eyes, Scott tried to look behind the portal, and noticed a line of magicules stretching far past what he could see in the void, who knows where it was going.

He looked back at the portal, which did nothing but simply spin in place, it was almost like it was beckoning him. Scott carefully reached out with his bloody hand, and despite not feeling any effects of gravity, Scott’s whole body began to inch closer to the portal. He pulled his hand back, and he stopped in place, and when he reached forward again, he started moving once more.

The portal soon took up most of his vision now, its soft blue glow reflecting off of his hazmat suit, he could see a slight glare coming from his visor. Cautiously, Scott reached out further, his hand nearly touched the portal before he stopped. He wondered if this really was the best idea, looking behind him, he saw nothing but the void, it was just him and the portal.

Scott went to take a deep breath, but realized there was no air to breath, and while the tank on his back might have held some, his suit was breached, so it wouldn’t last long. None of that seemed to matter however, as he wasn’t suffocating, just sitting there. Scott tried again, and he felt his diaphragm contract, but felt no air enter his lungs. It was an alien sensation, not being able to breath yet also not feeling trapped or suffocating.

There was nowhere else to go, only forwards. Scott reached forward and touched his bloody hand to the portal.

In an instant, Scott’s hand was yanked forwards with speed and strength he didn’t expect. It was enough that he felt that it should’ve dislocated his shoulder, but it didn’t, nor did it hurt any, despite Scott feeling the bullet lodged in his shoulder being jostled.

In only a few seconds, his hand and arm had been dragged towards the center of the portal, and Scott tried as hard as he could to pull his arm back. Then, his hand began to distort and stretch, but it wasn’t an illusion. Scott watched in horror as his hand was compressed and stretched to an impossibly thin line, and then it was sucked through the portal, most likely traveling down the line he saw earlier.

Just like always, it didn’t hurt, but it felt incredibly strange to be warped in such a manner. By now Scott’s forearm was being “unwound” and threaded through the portal, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He pulled and pulled, but couldn’t get any leverage in the void, Scott began to worry if he had made a mistake.

The process was slow, but it was up to his shoulder now, and Scott couldn’t move much more in fear of touching the portal with another body part, so he just sat there as the portal sucked up the entire right side of his chest. Scott leaned his head back as far as it would go, but it only delayed the inevitable as the portal pulled on both his suit and body.

When his head touched the portal, his vision distorted, then faded away as his eyes were unthreaded and pulled through. Soon enough, his whole top half had been pulled into the portal, and despite losing almost all of his senses, Scott remained conscious. It was strange, not being able to sense anything but the twists and turns as he was pulled through the line, almost like electricity.

That was it!

The magicules somehow unwound his body into a singular line of atoms, and then forced it through a tube like electricity. Now normally whole atoms are much, much larger than electrons, and they shouldn’t be able to adopt the same properties that electrons have, but with the amount of empty space in each atom, it was theoretically possible to do what the magicules just did. But how? And why? It would take an incredible amount of energy to shrink an atom, and the known laws of physics prevented that from even happening, yet it was.

These magicules were incredibly useful. If Scott could learn how to transport things using the magicules just like how he was being right now, he would go down in history as hands down the best scientist in the world. But that wasn’t everything, there is more than one use for electricity, how else could he exploit these particles? Especially for his own benefit.

It was incredibly exciting, this is just what Scott had always wanted, fame and glory, but most importantly, power. He would have jumped for joy if he could, and then he felt his hand close, that got his attention. He still couldn’t see, but he could flex his hand and feel it moving, which meant it had reformed at the opposite end of the portal. Scott became worried again, just where would he end up?

More of his arm began to form at the end of the portal, and Scott felt his hand begin to sink downwards, which meant there was gravity. Then the blood on his hand started to dry, and he felt both a cool breeze and a slight warmth, like he was under the sun, which was probably a good sign, probably…

It all went wrong when his shoulder formed however. Whatever the magicules were doing that blocked his pain disappeared at the other end of the portal, and when his shoulder reformed, the bullet wound reformed along with it. Pain flashed across his shoulder, and only grew in intensity. Scott had never been shot before now, and he never wanted to be again.

Scott could do nothing about the pain however, as the rest of his body was still forming, he could only hold his arm limply and just bear through the pain. He would have to treat the wound as soon as the rest of his body formed, as he could feel fresh blood begin to drip down his elbow.

It was agony trying to ignore the pain for what seemed like forever as Scott was forced to wait for the rest of his body to exit the portal. His chest began to form, and then his neck followed, along with the beginnings of his head. Scott’s ear was the first to form with his head, and though still muffled by the suit, he heard the breeze, and the rustle of grass, along with... the chirping of birds?

He was outside... somehow.

His eyes then formed, and for the first time in a minute or so, Scott viewed where he was. He was in a field, with small hills and several trees appearing further out. In the distance he could see several mountains, some even peaked with snow. That was what was visible in one direction however, but Scott didn’t dare turn his incomplete head in fear of what could happen, so he waited.

When the rest of his head formed, he turned it, and saw more trees, hills, and grass, and what looked like the edge of a dense forest. There were more mountains, and something on one of them interested him greatly. A city, built on the mountain side, mostly colored white with highlights of both gold and purple. It looked like something out of ancient Greece, only much more flamboyant. Scott certainly didn’t recognize it, which gave him the impression that he was much further away than he originally thought.

Another flash of pain distracted him from that thought however, and he quickly tried to look over his shoulder, only to be stopped by his hazmat suit. By now his other arm had formed along with his right leg, which left only part of his lower body and his left leg. Scott used his uninjured arm to rip off the helmet and look again. He could barely see the wound, but he could tell it was gushing blood. He could feel the bullet inside of him, which had thankfully been stopped by his shoulder blade, which was now most likely fractured, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with a collapsed lung. He would still have to get the bullet out soon, but first things first.

Scott let his Oxygen tank drop to the ground, and then he proceeded to unzip the suit from the back. When he pulled the sleeves off he noticed that blood had soaked the side of his shirt and had even made it down to his pant legs. Both pieces of clothing were ruined, but that wasn’t important right now. Scott at least knew basic medical training, thanks to all the years of his unique methods of experimentation, it became almost second nature for him to treat a critical bleed out.

He took his shirt off and ripped it into strips, he was thankful he had worn a tie, as that could be used as a stronger binding. Unfortunately though, due to where he had been shot, he had to use almost all of his shirt just to get a mediocre bandage over the wound. It wasn’t exactly easy to dress oneself, especially when you can only really use one arm, but Scott got it done, and he eventually stopped the bleeding.

Trying his best to ignore the pain, Scott figured it was now time to figure out just where he had ended up. He didn’t know any mountainside cities, much less ones that looked like that, but it was somewhere to go. Scott could just go there, get some better medical attention and possibly some directions, simple as that. So he started the trek towards the mountain city.

Scott stopped when he noticed something, something very interesting. Everything was glowing, more than it should normally glow in the sun. From the trees to the grass to even the flowers springing up every now and then, all except for the forest nearby, which looked darker than it should. Other than that however, the world was shining brightly, almost like the…

“No way…” Scott trailed off in realization, his injury completely forgotten.

Like the sample. Everything around him was glowing like the sample. The sample that was filled with magicules, that meant… Everything here was filled with magicules. Scott held up his arm and looked at it, even he was shining brighter than usual in the sun, which meant he had magicules in him.

Scott realized this meant he probably wasn’t on Earth anymore, as only the single sample they had actually held magicules, any other traces of them were simply from the sample diffusing into the environment, and given enough time to disperse, they would become completely undetectable. But here was different, there were so many magicules in the environment that it was all glowing like the sample.

“Amazing.” Scott said, “But how can I use this?” He asked himself.

Then he remembered what happened in the lab, he had touched the sample, and somehow all of the magicules in it flowed into him. That didn’t seem right, as normal electric charges always try to equalize themselves. Not to mention that Scott himself was grounded, he was standing on the floor when he touched the sample, but he didn’t lose his charge. It just didn’t make any sense.

Then Scott remembered what happened afterwards, his desire for power, and how he wanted more…

“...more…” Scott repeated,

Immediately, Scott felt the same feeling he had felt when he touched the sample, as well as a bit of tension on his mind. He looked down at himself and saw that his skin was glowing even brighter. What was more interesting however, was how the grass under his feet looked darker. Scott began to form a hypothesis.

“The magicules follow my words?” He wondered,

It was time to test his hypothesis. Scott bent down and picked one of the darkened blades of grass, he held it up to his face in the sunlight.

“Return.” He commanded,

Scott felt a bit of the feeling leave him, and he watched as the blade of grass regained its previous luster.

“Fascinating,”

Then, Scott had another idea, so he spoke his command,

“Burn.”

Once again he felt the magicules leaving his body, but he ignored it and instead watched the blade of grass intently as a dark spot appeared on it. It steamed a bit, then it started smoking, but that was all it did. Scott furrowed his brows, but then realized something. The grass was wet, which made it harder to burn, he would need something much dryer if he wanted it to burn well.

Scott plucked another blade of grass from the ground,

“Dehydrate.” He commanded.

This time, he felt a lot more magicules leave his body, and he noticed his skin return to its normal, non-glowing state, he was out of magicules. The other effects were immediate however, and Scott watched the blade of grass he was holding shrivel up, now devoid of all moisture. Scott smiled, and spoke another command.

“More.”

The feeling returned to him, he could definitely get used to this, but he still had one more test to complete.

“Burn” He repeated.

The dry blade of grass burst into flames in his fingers. Scott dropped it in shock as it burned him slightly, and he watched it turn to ash before it even finished falling to the ground.

“Amazing.”

New theories and hypotheses began to form in Scott’s mind. These magicules could do so much, from simple chemical reactions to transportation, like the portal he had entered. Speaking of portals, Scott had something else he wanted to try.

“Portal.” He ordered.

Nothing,

“More” Scott repeated, and felt the familiar surge of magicules.

He tried again,

“Portal.”

Again, nothing, not even the feeling of losing magicules, clearly that wasn't going to work. Perhaps it was just too complicated to be properly formed with just words. That was Scott’s hypothesis at least, so maybe he could form it manually, that would be his next test.

First things first, he needed an endpoint, somewhere for the portal to exit, he simply chose a few feet in front of him. Now he actually had to create the portal, which was certainly more difficult. Scott tried to remember how the first one looked and operated.

It was a vortex, composed of an insane amount of magicules, some far off number with like thirty zeros at the end. It was hard to comprehend, but possible, this entire place was saturated with magicules, surely there was enough to form a portal, a small one at least. So Scott got to work.

From what he could tell, at the very basics it was a tube, with some force acting as some sort of suction, that was most likely the rotation. Seeing as the previous portal ‘unwound’ him, Scott theorized that the tube rotated like a screw, and it simply pulled him along with something akin to friction.

Scott tried to raise his arms, but immediately dropped his right one in pain as he agitated his gunshot wound. He clenched his teeth and hissed as he waited for the pain to die back down, which it did only after an unbearable amount of time. When the pain finally ebbed down into a slow throb, Scott tried again.

Raising just his left arm this time, he began to focus, which caused the magicules in his body to begin to congregate in his fingertips. Then, he began to rotate his arm, and much like that one superhero movie he had seen, his fingers began to leave a trail of glowing magicules in the air, like a thread.

This thread of magicules seemed to be unaffected by gravity, or the wind, but after only a short time of sitting in the air, it began to dissipate. Scott redoubled his efforts, and began to spin his arm faster, hoping to catch the trail again before it disappeared. His efforts were rewarded, as a glowing blue circle appeared in front of him.

“Nice” He said, and continued to rotate his arm.

Scott began to weave a tube of magicules in the air, and as it became longer and longer, Scott began to taper off the end, creating a sort of funnel shape. When the diameter of the tube got to the size of someone’s ring, Scott pulled it towards him, causing it to stretch a bit.

“Okay, now I just have to…” Scott said to himself as he performed his next action.

Grabbing the tube with his hand, Scott twisted it using his wrist, trying to give it some sort of rotation force. Surprisingly, the tube started and continued to rotate even without Scott’s guidance, becoming self-sustaining.

“Yes!” He shouted with joy. 

Then the newly made portal flickered and disappeared.

“No!” Scott exclaimed, “What happened?”

Scott looked down, and noticed his lack of luster, he had run out of magicules to sustain the portal, causing it to collapse. A new theory came to mind, his body just couldn’t hold enough magicules to properly sustain higher tier constructs. Scott would need some sort of storage or battery if he wanted to keep experimenting. He would need something that could hold a lot of magicules, something large, and especially something that was naturally occurring, since he was out in the wilderness.

Scott’s mind began to wander, what was the most energy packed, largest element he could think of. His first thought was Oganesson, but that wasn’t plausible, considering it had only been made in a lab before, he would have to backtrack across the periodic table until he found a suitable element.

“Tennessine, Livermorium, Moscovium…” Scott began muttering to himself

“...Hassium, Bohrmium, Seaborgium…”

“...Fermium, Einsteinium, Californium…”

“...Plutonium, Neptunium…” Then he had it.

“Uranium.”

It was the largest naturally occurring element on Earth, or at least the most common largest element on Earth, and while it may be entirely possible that Scott wasn’t on Earth anymore, it looked similar enough, he should be able to scrounge up some Uranium somewhere. In order to do that however, he needed more magicules.

That was a problem however, seeing as how the immediate area around Scott was now devoid of any magicules, most likely from his constant experimentation. The grass was dark, the tree close by was darker, even the flowers had become dull and depressing, just like the dark forest in the distance. Everything in the area was now bleak, but not dead, everything except…

“A butterfly?” Scott wondered,

Said creature was as bright and vibrant as the area was just moments ago, it must have been outside of Scott’s magicule vacuum radius and had only flown in recently. Scott watched it as it flew closer to him

“Curious,” He commented,

On a whim, he held out his hand and stuck out his finger, and surprisingly, the butterfly landed on his finger. This prompted Scott to inspect it closer. It looked like a monarch, or maybe a viceroy, but that wasn’t important. What was important about it however, was how much it seemed to glow, as if it was filled with magicules. That gave Scott an idea, a very less than ethical idea, but an idea nonetheless, an idea he would experiment upon.

The butterfly sat there, unassumingly, simply flexing its wings back and forth, none the wiser.

“More” Scott spoke.

He once again felt the rush of magicules, not as much from when he drained the plants, but certainly more than he expected. In turn, the color drained from the butterfly’s wings, leaving them dull. It stopped flexing them, and simply let them hang limply from its sides. Its whole body seemed to sag, now devoid of energy. The light twitches of its antennae revealed that it wasn’t dead, but Scott was done with it. He blew lightly at it, causing it to fly off of his finger before falling to the ground, not even attempting to fly.

“Very interesting,” Scott said, new theories coming to mind.

The boost from the butterfly was certainly welcome, but still not enough for what Scott had in mind. He walked out of the circle of depraved life he had made, and found a newer, more fresh area to experiment with. There were more trees, flowers, and a few more butterflies fluttering about, all vibrant with magicules. Perfect.

This time Scott chose to test another theory. Instead of speaking his command, Scott Reached out with his mind and tried pulling on the magicules in the area with simply his willpower. It took a bit of effort, but after some time he was rewarded with the familiar feeling of magicules returning to him. Scott opened his eyes to see himself glowing, along with the now darker colors of the immediate area.

Now that he was fully recharged, it was time to experiment, and this experiment might provide a great boon.

Focusing hard, Scott gathered all of the magicules in his body, condensing them into his core. He felt some phantom pressure on his mind, but chose to ignore it as he compressed the magicules even more. When it was under enough pressure, Scott began weaving several lines into the condensed magicules, creating something similar in design to a parachute, just compressed to the extreme.

Satisfied with his work, Scott focused harder, pressing the magicules together even more, and right when the pressure felt like it was too much to handle, Scott let go.

A wave forced itself out of Scott and into the world, expanding in all directions, searching. To the naked eye it was almost invisible, appearing as nothing more than a slight distortion in the air, but Scott sensed it, and almost every other living thing in the vicinity could sense it as well.

The wave continued to expand, passing through the ground, air, and everything else. The whole time Scott maintained a connection to it, and listened carefully as it passed through all manner of things. Only a few moments had passed when it pinged, something small lit up as the wave passed over it, but Scott didn’t just stop there, he needed more.

There was another ping, in the opposite direction of the first one, it was larger, but still not enough. Scott continued to monitor the wave as more and more pings came across it in every direction until there was way more than enough for what he needed. Stopping the wave, Scott reaffirmed his grip on the lines he had wove into it, each one now connected to the pings he had felt, most were quite a distance away, but that didn’t matter.

Scott pulled, each line went taught as whatever they were connected to were suddenly yanked towards Scott. Some came freely, but others showed resistance, and Scott expected this, which is why he waited for the wave to find extra. Still, he pulled equally on each piece and waited patiently as the first started to arrive.

Flying in at incredible speeds, small chunks of rock and stone landed directly in front of Scott, each one spraying bits of dirt and grass as they impacted the ground with force. Smiling, Scott watched as more pieces began to arrive, forming a loose pile that got larger with every addition.

After several moments the pile grew to be pretty large, and even showed signs of civilization. Several pieces were carved and polished, and a few shards of green tinted glass littered the pile from when they flew in and shattered. Scott wasn’t too excited about the glass however, as it didn’t have much use to him. The rest of the pile though, was very useful, especially one piece that Scott had seen fly into it earlier.

It was a ring, grey like everything else, but clearly more polished and cared for than the rest. Scott bent down to pick it up and wiped a bit of dirt away with his finger. Upon closer inspection, Scott realized it was actually too big to fit around his finger. Which was unfortunate, but it would still suffice for his needs.

“Ah… Uranium,” He spoke as he held it up to the sunlight,

Time for experimentation.

Having used the last of his magicules in the wave, Scott still needed to recharge. The environment still had some left over, which he quickly took for his own, but it wasn’t enough for a full recharge. It was enough for his experiment however, which was what he needed them for the most.

Focusing hard on the ring, Scott sensed how it’s magicule count was about equal to what the environment around it once was, he would be changing that. Channeling the magicules once again, Scott focused on pushing them into the Uranium ring, and soon enough they flowed from his body and into the ring, which began to give off a soft blue glow.

Scott held it in his palm for a moment, admiring his work. Then a wave of nausea came over him, Scott stumbled, but managed to stay standing, but then his hand started to burn. In surprise, he dropped the ring which bounced softly on the grass and almost immediately lost its glow. In turn the grass looked to have absorbed the lost magicules and regained some of its former luster.

Weakly clutching his hand in pain and still a bit nauseous, Scott barely noticed this transpire. He began to feel sick to his stomach, and was unsure if he would vomit or not. It took several moments to recover enough to think clearly. Scott then realized what had happened.

Of course it would become radioactive, every known isotope of Uranium is unstable, and while the decaying process took millions of years, adding magicules only seemed to accelerate the process, similar to a nuclear reactor. If Scott was going to use Uranium as a storage he would need some way to protect himself from it.

Then he remembered his suit.

But there was a problem. The suit was breached, and while a bullet hole was easy enough to patch, he had stupidly thrown away his glove before he arrived here.

Scott glanced at his injured shoulder.

Then another idea came to mind.

Perhaps he didn’t need to protect himself, he only needed to contain the Uranium. Since his suit couldn’t be used on him, maybe he could use it to carry the Uranium, like a satchel or backpack. He would need to go back to get it however, since he kind of just dropped it when he took it off.

With a sigh, Scott started backtracking to where he had first arrived. It wasn’t a long walk, since he hadn’t moved very far away to begin with. It was a bit annoying, but that’s just how science is, and once he was done with this minor annoyance, he would be able to do so much more.

His suit lay where he left it, a pile on the ground. Scott hadn’t been away for long enough for anything noteworthy to happen to it, so he went to pick it up. It was a bit much to carry with just one arm, but Scott didn’t need all of it, just enough to fashion a makeshift backpack. The tank wasn’t necessary, but the jacket, pants, and mask would all be needed to create a sealed environment, so Scott carefully folded and picked them up to take back with him.

He was certainly not expecting what was waiting for him when he returned to the Uranium pile.

It was obvious by now that Scott was no longer on Earth, as the inhabitants of this world were incredibly strange. It looked to be a mismatch of several different creatures, it had wings, a horn, and looked way out of proportion, not to mention the vibrant color scheme. Purple, purple, and more purple. But most of all it looked a bit like a…

“A pony?” Scott asked himself as he approached.

It’s back was turned to him, which was probably a good thing, and it sounded like it was calling something. It certainly had a strange voice, it almost sounded like a human.

“Discord! Discord! Where did you go?” It spoke,

Scott froze, that pony thing had just spoken language, actual comprehensible language. Scott wasn’t exactly sure what to do right now, just a moment ago he had assumed that it was just a wild animal and that he could scare it off, but now that was off the table as an option.

“The map chose you remember? Do you want to help out or not?” It called out again.

At the very least Scott could speak with it as it did show intelligence, but he didn’t know its intentions, nor did he know what this Discord or map were either. What he did know however, was that he both wanted and needed that Uranium, so it was a risk he had to take. He stepped closer to the creature.

“Ugh, how could you just run off like that!” The creature continued.

Scott stepped closer.

Snap!

Like a cliche, Scott proceeded to step on a twig, snapping it. Immediately the ‘pony’s’ ears perked up.

“Discord! Why did you just disappear like tha-” It stopped speaking as soon as it saw Scott, it certainly looked surprised to see him. “Oh um… Hello.”

Scott was also surprised, this thing’s eyes were huge, like it was trying it’s hardest to look cute. They both stood there for a moment, staring at each other. Then Scott decided it was probably a good idea to respond.

“Hello…” He said simply.

The creature looked at him strangely.

“What uhh… What are you doing here?” It asked,

It didn’t seem to be hostile, which was good, so Scott answered it.

“Working.”

“Working on what?” It asked,

Scott moved closer to the pile or Uranium.

“Working on experiments.” He replied.

The creature looked from him to the pile, then back to him.

“You’re experimenting with Mythril?”

“Mythril?” Scott stopped and looked at the creature.

It made sense, these things probably wouldn’t call Uranium by its human given name. But Mythril? How unprofessional. Still, Scott would humor this creature.

“Yes, the… Mythril, I am experimenting with the Mythril.” He felt weird saying it.

“The stolen Mythril?” The creature asked with a raised eyebrow.

Scott froze in realization, he looked back at the pile, which was made up of a lot of refined Uranium. He had probably stolen thousands of dollars worth of the stuff, from an unknown civilization nonetheless.

“Uh…” Scott tried to think up an excuse.

Maybe this Uranium wasn’t as valuable, the presence of the glass supported that idea. Perhaps these creatures haven’t found out about the incredible uses for it, and therefore it wasn’t as expensive in their eyes. That brought the price range down to maybe a couple hundred dollars, if these creatures even used dollars. Then Scott spotted something else in the pile.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to steal it. Look, this chunk came straight from the ground,” He held up a particularly dirty chunk of Uraninite.

The creature just looked at him with uncertainty,

“Stealing is wrong,”

Scott resisted the urge to face palm. Of course these creatures had a sense of morality, which meant they were probably not going to condone his methods of experimentation. This was becoming a major problem.

“I don’t have time for this.” Scott deadpanned as he set down the hazmat suit to work on it.

The creature watched him carefully but didn’t respond. Scott began by unfolded the suit to set apart the pants, jacket, and helmet. Thankfully everything was able to be connected with a zipper, so Scott simply attached the pants to the jacket and the jacket to the helmet. Once it was all together, Scott opened up the jacket to place some Uranium inside, which is where he ran into his first problem.

Uranium was incredibly dense, which naturally made it quite heavy. That was a problem, but make no mistake, Scott was in no way weak, he could probably lug around fifty pounds or so of the stuff without much issue, but his shoulder was injured, which severely impacted his ability to actually lift anything. He gently touched his bandaged wound, and winced a bit.

“What happened?” The creature asked from behind him, having also noticed his injury.

Scott sighed, did he really want to tell this thing what happened? He supposed it would be best not to ignore another sapient being questioning him.

“I was shot,” He began

“With an arrow?”

Scott stopped and looked at the creature incredulously, “With a bullet.” He corrected,

“A bullet?” The creature asked confused, it even tilted its head.

Scott didn’t answer, and returned to stuffing the suit with smaller chunks of Uranium, it could certainly fit much more, but the weight of the Uranium prevented it from holding it. He tied the sleeves and pant legs at their base to prevent any Uranium from falling into them, and then tied the sleeves to the pant legs to form rudimentary straps.

“Why?” The creature continued.

Scott stared at the creature this time, who just looked at him with interest, and maybe a bit of concern. He zipped the suit up and then stood up, he began to test the weight with his good arm.

“I was shot simply because of who I am, and if I stayed, I’m sure I would’ve been killed,” Scott explained.

This caused the creature to gasp in shock, Scott simply ignored this. He tried to lift the suit up to put on his back, but stopped, as the same problem appeared once again.

Because his shoulder was injured, he couldn’t actually wear both ‘straps’ of the containment backpack, which wasn’t good. There was one solution, which was to simply hold the Uranium with magicules, but that gave it a constant drain, which was something Scott didn’t want to have on at all times. 

“I’m sorry,” The creature said, interrupting Scott’s thought process.

“I don’t need your sympathy,” Scott spat, which certainly surprised the creature. “Besides, with this…” He held up the Uranium filled suit, “I can go back and show them just who I really am.”

Holding the Uranium with magicules was only a short term solution, as eventually he would heal and be able to carry the weight of the Uranium on his own. So Scott decided it would be worth it to spend some magicules to carry more.

“Wait, you’re not going to…”

Scott just smiled, and reached out with his mind once more to look for more magicules to pull upon. That was when he noticed something interesting. There was an intense glow coming from the creature he was talking to. He stopped, and inspected it closely, its whole body looked to be saturated with magicules, but there were several spots that stood out as they were brighter than the rest. There was an area in the chest, one in her head, the bases of its wings had one, and its horn seemed to be glowing especially bright.

It was intoxicating, seeing so many magicules in one place, but Scott decided it maybe wasn’t the best idea to forcibly take them from an unknown life form that may or may not be able to feel it. So he had to look elsewhere to find magicules.

The area they were in was now almost completely devoid of magicules, save for the immense reservoir from the creature, but that was off limits for now. Scott began dragging his backpack behind him as he ventured out of the darkened radius.

“Hold on!” The creature called out to him, “What are you going to do?” 

Scott laughed, “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to get revenge on all who have wronged me.” He said,

“Wait!” The creature said,

Scott kept walking.

The creature huffed, and jumped into the air, its wings propelling it in front of Scott. He stopped and stared, those wings were in no way large enough to do that. Perhaps it was using magicules to enhance its flight ability.

Still, the creature landed in front of Scott and held up a limb.

“Stop.” It said, “Take it from me, I’ve met some very unsavory characters, and I know more than most that revenge is not the answer to your problems. Forgiveness is a major part of friendship.”

Scott leered at the creature for a moment,

“Forgiveness? Friendship?” He asked in a huff, “Friends are tools, you give them something and they give you something in return. Law of reciprocity and all that. But it works both ways, I have something taken away from me, so I take something back. If I were to forgive anyone for what they’ve done, I’d lose something, and I don’t intend to lose anything.”

That certainly got the creature thinking, it paused for a moment to think about all that Scott had just said, allowing him to pass by it.

By the time he made it to a more magicule saturated area, the creature seemed to recover from Scott’s outburst. It flew in once again to stop him.

“What?” Scott demanded.

“That is a terrible way of thinking. Friendship isn’t all about giving and taking, there is so much to it.” It explained,

“Oh? Like what?” Scott asked, folding his arms.

“Tell me you’ve never given somepony a gift, and tell me that when you saw their reaction you didn’t feel good about yourself. You aren’t going to lose anything by using forgiveness, you will still gain from it, just in a less physical sense.”

Scott’s expression hardened.

“So what? I’m just supposed to feel happy that I let the people who have wronged me go? I don’t think it works that way.” He argued,

“Of course it doesn’t!” The creature exclaimed, “But when you forgive those who wronged you, you let go of the anger that they brought, which will allow you to gain more happiness from other things.”

“And what of the people who did wrong, do they just get set free without consequence?!” Scott nearly shouted, “You’re telling me to let go and feel better about myself, but what’s to happen to those that deserve to have things taken away from them?”

The creature was a bit taken aback by his outburst, but kept up the argument.

“You can’t do everything yourself. Justice will come to those who deserve it, whether you are involved or not.” It explained.

Scott was getting mad, “I don’t know what kind of world you're living in, but that doesn’t happen. If I don’t take back what was taken away from me, then they get to live freely with more than they deserve.”

The creature clearly looked like it wanted to argue more.

“Stay out of my way, this never even concerned you.” He shut it down.

It just stared at him with a frown, but Scott chose to ignore it. Instead he reached out once more with his mind, and began to pull on all of the magicules in the area. This time, instead of filling his body, he transferred the magicules through the makeshift backpack and into the Uranium. The whole process of this caused the creature to look at him in shock.

“Woah! Where did you learn to use magic like that?!” It demanded.

“Magic? Hah!” Scott laughed, “That’s what you call this phenomenon? How utterly ignorant, yet not entirely inaccurate.”

The creature was obviously infuriated by this.

“What’s so wrong with calling it magic?!”

“Heh, words like magic, sorcery, or even supernatural are used to define things that are unknown. You clearly don’t know much about it if you still call it something as archaic as magic” Scott said in a mocking tone,

The creature stomped its hooves in anger, “I’ll have you know I’ve spent most of my life studying and defining magic as a whole. I am adept in almost all forms of it, and graduated at the top of my class from the top school of magic. Just how long have you been studying magic?” It demanded

Scott could count it on his fingers, so he did.

“Five days.” He answered smugly, holding up his hand.

The creature stared at him blankly, “You’re telling me that you’ve been studying magic for less than a week and you already have that fine control over it?”

Scott just smiled, “I guess that just shows the difference between you and I.”

“But…”

Scott ignored the creature, and instead focused back on the process of collecting magic… Great now he was calling it that. Shaking his head, Scott reached out once more on his mind and began to pull magicules from the environment and into himself and his backpack.

The pack started to increase in temperature, but not by much, that made Scott glad that he would only have one type of burn today. Not only that, a bright glow began to shine through the protective layering, the clear mask especially shined like a beacon.

In response to his actions, the immediate environment started to darken, losing its vibrance and luster. The creature soon took notice of this.

“Stop,” It said.

Scott didn’t stop.

“I said stop.” it repeated, a bit firmer.

With a reluctant sigh, Scott stopped, “What?”

“You can’t just recklessly take magic out of the environment like that!” The creature scolded.

“Why not?”

“It needs it to survive!” It exclaimed.

Scott looked back at the dull trees, the grass, and then he remembered the butterfly.

“No it doesn’t, this grass is still growing, those flowers are still blooming, and even the butterfly was still alive.” Scott pointed out.

“Wait…” The creature started. “You didn’t forcibly take magic from another living being did you?”

Scott didn’t answer, which seemed to answer the creature's question.

“How could you?!” 

“Simple,” Scott said, “I needed the magic more than it did.”

“That’s horrible!”

Scott just went back to sucking up any leftover magicules in the surrounding area.

“Hey!”

…

“You have to stop!”

…

“If you wont stop, I’m going to have to force you to stop!” The creature said.

Scott stopped, and looked back at the creature with a raised eyebrow.

“And just how are you going to do that?” He asked, looking as intimidating as possible.

The creature flinched a bit, but quickly regained its composure.

“I’ll uh… I’ll take back the Mythril!” It said, then its horn lit up with magicules.

Scott watched as what looked like a blob of magicules reached out and enveloped his makeshift backpack, which began to glow a light purple color. Then it was pulled in the direction of the creature. How sloppy.

“Hey!” Scott exclaimed, and grabbed the strap of the backpack, pulling back.

There was a surprising amount of force behind the creature’s pull, and Scott soon found himself in a losing battle. If he lost the Uranium he wouldn’t be able to continue experimenting, he needed to secure it for himself.

Thinking quickly, Scott pulled magicules back out of the pack and into his body. Focusing hard, he formed a blade of magicules, it was a simple flat surface with a beveled edge, which he made sure to reinforce with more magicules. It took a moment to complete its form, but when it was ready, Scott raised it up, and sent it down onto the connection the creature had made.

“Ahh!” The creature reared back in shock as the blade sliced right through the magic field.

The magical blade continued downwards into the ground, but simply passed right through the solid earth, dispersing back into the environment. The pulling force on the backpack was immediately alleviated, and Scott pulled it up onto his shoulder with some effort.

“How did you do that?!” The creature demanded.

Scott scowled at the creature, “Do not try that again.”

The creature shook its head, “I have to stop you.”

That was worrisome, Scott hadn’t meant to make an enemy of this creature, but it looked like that was unavoidable now. He would have to deal with it right here and now, as while he was confident in his own abilities, there was no telling what else this thing had up its sleeve. Scott readied another blade of magicules as the creature lit its horn. He knew it probably wouldn’t cause any physical damage, but Scott wanted to know just what would happen if he interrupted the magicules inside of a creature.

Before the creature could amass enough magicules in its horn for whatever it was doing, Scott launched the blade right towards it, intent on severing its connection to its horn. The creature’s eyes widened as the transparent blade rocketed towards it, there certainly wasn’t enough time to dodge it.

Just as the blade was about to cut into the creature, there was a flash of light, forcing Scott to shield his eyes. He felt the magicules in the blade break and split apart before his connection to it was lost. He was surprised when he opened his eyes, the creature was still standing there, completely unharmed. But that wasn’t what was surprising, as floating mid air next to the creature was what looked like some problem child’s imaginary friend.

The first thing Scott noticed was that It was even more of a mismatch of different animals than the first one. There was a complete disregard for symmetry and logic as scales melded with both fur and feathers. Given different circumstances it would certainly be a frightening sight, but as of right now Scott was beginning to be desensitized to strange looking beings. The second thing Scott noticed was just how brightly it glowed, obviously it was chock full of magicules, and could probably swing them around with ease.

The first creature, or pony since Scott had to refer to two different creatures now, soon noticed the amalgamation as well.

“Discord? What was that all about?” It asked.

That was Discord? Then perhaps Scott didn’t want to find out what the ‘Map’ was.

“Oh wow, no thanks for saving your life?” Discord asked while twirling in the air. “I thought we were friends Twilight.”

Another name for another strange being, this Twilight frowned a bit at Discord, “Why did you just disappear earlier?”

“Why do I do anything?” Discord laughed, “But if you must know,” he disappeared and reappeared next to Scott, “This little friend here is why.”

“What?”
“What?” Both Scott and Twilight asked,

Discord just smiled, “You reek of chaos, delicious delicious chaos, wherever you came from must’ve been wrought with it, and I wanted to see just what you would do in these lands of harmony.”

“Discord? You brought him here?” Twilight asked, looking at them with shock

“Oh heavens no! I did nothing of the sort, I do have a reputation to upkeep after all. No, I simply wanted to see where this little interaction went, without my interference of course.” Discord explained.

“Then why did you intervene?” Scott demanded.

“Well I can’t have you harming my friends now can I? And since the map chose me I have to be here. I had to show up at some time or another.”

“Is this some game to you?!” Scott yelled out.

“Yes,” Discord answered simply, “Well it was… until you tried to kill Twilight here, or at least sever her connection to her magic.”

“What?!” Twilight exclaimed, and looked at Scott in shock.

“I told you not to try again,” Scott said simply, he took a few steps back from the two. “Now leave me be.”

“Oooh, sorry, but the magical map of destiny won’t allow that.” Discord said, “We’re here for a reason, and you’re that reason.”

Scott grumbled, “Oh today is just full of setbacks. Why do I never get what I want?” He said quietly to himself, before speaking up. “Alright, fine! If you won’t leave me be, I’m going to have to take you both out!”

Scott formed another blade.

“Wait! We can still talk this out!” Twilight desperately tried to ease the tension.

“It’s too late for that!” Scott shouted, “You already made it clear that my ideals do not align with yours.”

“Tsk tsk tsk. Jumping right to violence are we?” Discord said in an almost taunting demeanor.

Twilight nervously looked back and forth, this definitely wasn’t how she wanted this to go. 

Scott lowered into a fighting stance, the makeshift backpack weighing heavily at his side. He was certainly at a disadvantage with his injury, especially against two opponents, but he had to triumph. Then, without warning, Discord snapped his claw, and a surge of magicules travelled down a now visible line towards Scott.

He tried to dodge, but the surge was too quick, and it seemed to follow every move he made. It hit his foot, and in an instant an invisible force yanked it upwards out from under him. Nearly dropping the backpack, Scott was launched several stories up into the air. He flailed as all sense of direction was lost to him, but then gravity took back over, and Scott soon found himself falling to the ground.

In the few seconds he had left of air time, he desperately tried to right himself mid air so he could at least land on his feet, as anything less would most likely result in major injury. Scott stuck his feet out and braced for a landing.

Crunch

Pain flashed through Scott’s foot, and the rest of his body crumpled to the ground, the backpack falling off to his side. His foot was most likely fractured, or maybe his ankle was broken, whichever it was, it hurt. Scott was lucky the ground was so soft, it absorbed most of the force from his fall, but not all of it.

Thanks to the second rush of adrenaline Scott had today, the pain was already fading, which prompted him to try and stand back up. It was difficult, but Scott could do it if he didn’t put much weight on one foot, he would most likely be limping in the foreseeable future. He reached down and picked the backpack back up, its visor still glowed brightly, but a bit less than earlier.

Looking back up, Scott noticed he had actually been flung a considerable distance away from the two abominations, but they were closing in on him. He tried to stand up fully and step away, but accidentally put too much weight on his injured foot. Another spike of pain made the message clear enough. Do not let that happen again.

There was no way for Scott to outrun them, so he would be forced to fight them. He readied another blade, and then formed another one, keeping concentration on the first one so he could continue to create more. Once he had made a few blades, his targets got within range. The amalgamation was obviously the more dangerous of the two, so Scott decided to aim for Discord first.

He sent three blades in a row at Discord, then two at Twilight, and then one more back at Discord. They were both expecting the blades, Discord snapped the first three out of existence, while Twilight chose to raise a shield, which the blades embedded into before dissipating. However the sixth and final blade, which Discord was not expecting, soon hit its mark and slashed through his shoulder.

With a hiss, Discord grasped his shoulder in pain as a large gash appeared in it, but it didn’t bleed. That certainly surprised Scott. Perhaps this Discord being was so saturated with magicules that cutting them also cut his physical form, an interesting theory. Nevertheless, Discord fell back to recover from his injury, leaving the Twilight alone.

Magicules once more gathered up in its horn, and after a few seconds several bolts flew out towards Scott. Focusing once more, Scott forced the magicules into a flat plane in front of him, acting as a shield. The first few bolts impacted it, but did not break through, but towards the end of the volley enough damage had been made to the shield for the last couple of bolts to break through.

They were hot, like having boiling water thrown on you, and with the heat came force, Scott was knocked backwards nearly off of his feet. Managing to stay standing, Scott quickly tried to rub away the residual heat as it started to burn him, and cooled himself enough to focus back on the fight.

The Twilight creature had closed some of the distance during the volley, and since Scott couldn’t move too well, he was forced to push Twilight back somehow. Perhaps magicule based projectiles held some merit. So instead of forming a blade, Scott formed a multitude of small magicule balls. Then he gave them a more pointed shape, very similar to bullets.

In the next moment Scott sent thirty or so of them flying towards Twilight, who brought up another shield. It did not last long against the barrage. It only managed to stop the first few bullets, with each one severely damaging it. The shield shattered, which left Twilight unguarded against the rest of the attack.

Scott wasn’t sure whether the bullets would physically damage Twilight or not, especially since her composition was much different than Discord’s. It was a bit of a disappointment to see nothing change in her outward appearance, but Scott could sense major damage to her inner magicules. Whether or not it would affect her control over them Scott didn’t know, but Twilight still reared back in pain, and the concentration of magicules in her horn seemed to dim.

Wanting to keep the advantage, Scott formed more magicule bullets, and was about to fling them at Twilight again. Then an overwhelming sense of dread fell over him, and Scott lost focus on the bullets, causing them to dissipate. He whipped around, and saw Discord standing there menacingly. Then Scott saw it, a singular line of magicules, connecting his chest to Discord’s claw.

The moment Discord snapped, a familiar surge of magicules zipped down the line, straight at Scott. Panic filled his mind, and Scott scrambled to form a blade. Time seemed to slow as he watched the surge make its way down the line at an alarming speed. The moment the blade was finished forming, Scott tried to bring it down to cut the line, only to realize that the surge was too close for that. So instead, Scott slashed the surge in two in hopes to stop it.

As expected, the dense ball of magicules was split down the middle, but it didn’t stop, instead, the two parts diverged, one hit his left shoulder while the other impacted his right hand. Just like before, an invisible force grabbed onto both areas of impact. His arm was yanked forwards while his shoulder was pushed back, causing him to spin out of control. To make matters worse, the action caused his wound to flare up once more, not to mention he had to step on his injured foot to stabilize himself.

Scott was engulfed in pain, which was just barely dulled by the adrenaline, he clutched his shoulder, and dropped to one knee. After several agonizing seconds later, Scott looked back up. Discord was no longer focused on him, more in favor of checking to see if Twilight was alright. She looked fine from the outside, but Scott could still see some damage to her inner magicules, though it seemed to be mending.

Checking his backpack, Scott noticed a now much duller glow coming from the visor, meaning he had lost more magicules during the altercation. He would have to end this fast, as he probably wouldn’t be given the time to recharge.

Focusing hard, Scott gathered a very large amount of magicules in front of him, so much that almost all of the light from his backpack disappeared, leaving only a dim glow. The absolutely massive ball of magicules Scott held was immense, but Scott managed to hold it steady. He divided it into two, then again and again until he had thousands of magicule balls within his grasp.

It was hard to keep concentration on so many projectiles, but Scott painstakingly gave each one a pointed shape. By now, both Discord and Twilight had noticed what Scott was doing, but it was too late to do anything.

With just a flick of his wrist, Scott sent a wall of death towards the duo, there was absolutely no way for them to dodge that many bullets, let alone stop them in any way.

There was a flash of purple light, and both Twilight and Discord were gone. Scott watched in confusion as the wave of projectiles flew past and into a tree, causing it to develop several dark spots.

“What?”

A noise, a pop. Behind him.

Scott whipped around, just in time to see a single thread attach to his forehead.

Snap

A single flash of pain, then all other feeling was gone, no more pain, no more touch, Scott couldn’t even feel the temperature. One moment he was looking at Twilight and Discord, next he was looking back at the now black spotted tree. Scott realized he couldn’t move when his vision wobbled, even when intense dizziness overcame him, he could do nothing to counteract it. He started to fall backwards, and couldn’t stop himself, Scott barely felt the impact on his head as he crashed to the ground.

His vision was forced to the sky, which revealed both Twilight and Discord looking down upon him. Twilight looked shocked, while Discord looked stern. Scott wondered just what had happened.

Then it all came crashing down on him.

His neck was broken.

He hadn’t fallen backwards, he had fallen forwards, his head was just the wrong way around!

A single thought went through his head.

He was going to die.

But...

He was still conscious? He could still think!? What could he possibly do now!? He probably only had a few precious seconds of life left before he died. Scott’s thoughts began to race, trying to think of anything that could help him now.

…

…

Magicules!





An unbearable amount of silence was present over the pair. Nobody wanted to say anything at that moment, then Twilight decided to break the silence.

“Why did you do that?!” Twilight demanded, she was mad, but also still shocked at what had just happened.

Discord was silent, 

“You killed him!” Twilight exclaimed,

“He would’ve killed us!” He shot back.

“We don’t know that!”

“You saw what he did, that attack would have killed you! Maybe even me!” Discord argued.

“But we dodged it!” Twilight explained, “And look!” She gestured to the backpack, trying desperately to not look at the gruesome sight attached to it. “He was almost out of stolen magic, there was no way for him to do something like that again!”

Discord looked at the pack, while Twilight continued to berate him.

“I thought you were reformed Discord! Maybe even ready for a map mission, I can see now that I was wrong.”

The dim glow disappeared from the pack.

“Uh… Twilight.” Discord tried.

“We don't kill Discord! We never have, and we never will! I can’t believe you would even resort to that!”

The body shifted.

“Twilight.” Discord tried again.

“No!” Twilight interrupted, “I don’t even know what we are going to do now! I have to inform the Princesses, or something!” 

“Twilight!” Discord shouted.

“What?!” Twilight shouted back.

“Look!” Discord pointed at the body.

Twilight whipped around and saw something she never would have expected in all her life.

“Oh my Celestia.”






A few moments earlier.






First things first, Scott was not a doctor, well he was, just not a medical one, he was a master chemist, and had a PhD in Atomic Theory. Which meant he didn’t know how the brain worked, only a little bit on how the body functioned. Really it was all chemical reactions, something that was usually automatic, but since his body was no longer up to the task Scott had to do it manually, and fast.

In order to keep his brain alive, Scott needed to somehow imitate the natural functions of his body, he would start with that for now. It was certainly possible, thanks to a certain Sergei Bryukhonenko, so Scott knew that all he needed was blood, a way to move it, and a way to oxygenate it, simple enough, especially because his body came equipped with everything needed to do that already, he just had to start it back up.

Scott began to feel a pressure in his head, the lack of blood flow was starting to make itself apparent, he was running out of time.

Focusing once more, Scott pulled more magicules from the pack and managed to create some form of phantom limb to probe around with. Moving through his own body, Scott went to work on trying to preserve his life. His spinal cord was completely severed, which meant that there was no way to restart normal body functions, he would have to operate everything using only magicules. That was inefficient, but necessary. Probing further, Scott found that his carotid arteries were still intact, since they were flexible enough to survive being jerked back and forth.

Scott followed the arteries, and eventually felt his way to his own heart, which sat still, yet was still warm. This was his chance, once he got his blood pumping again he could regain control over his lungs, and from there he could survive long enough to find a more permanent solution. All he had to do was move it.

Gripping his heart in the magicules, Scott compressed it, then pulled it, and continued this motion several times before speeding up. In just a few seconds the pressure he felt eased a little, but that was just the first of his problems. Without his lungs, his blood would quickly lose its oxygen supply and then he would surely die.

Scott tried to pull more magicules, but was stopped. The pack was empty, there weren’t any magicules left in it to use, Scott only had a relatively small amount to use. There was probably barely enough to pump his heart, let alone move his lungs. It was a gamble, but it was either that or death. Scott focused, and separated the magicules in two, one to keep pumping his heart albeit at a slower pace, and the other to work his lungs.

The magicules slowly enveloped his lungs, and Scott tried to force them to expand. He hoped to God that nothing was blocking his airway. Eventually, slowly but surely, Scott’s body drew in new breath, and even despite suffering from a broken neck and a complete spinal cord separation, Scott had survived.

There was a problem however, there was literally no more magicules for Scott to use, all except for those in the immediate environment. It was lucky that he was flung so far, as if he had stayed in the drained radius he surely would have perished. So with much difficulty, Scott was able to pull just a smidge more magicules from the environment in order to fuel his own life.

What was probably the worst part about this entire predicament was that Scott had to remain concentrated in order to continue pumping his own heart and lungs. That one little thing severely hampered his own ability to function, much less fight. Speaking of fighting, Scott could still see and hear, and it appeared that Twilight and Discord were arguing above him.

Their conversation was irrelevant, but it meant that Scott wasn’t being watched, so he was in a better than usual position. He would definitely use this to his advantage, but first he needed more magicules. Scott couldn’t exactly put all of his attention to pulling however, so it was a very slow process as magicules began to trickle into Scott’s body.

There was still no feeling in any of his limbs, but Scott could sense the magicules in his body, and when he felt he had enough, Scott decided to finally make his move.

A sneak attack was a bad idea, as forming more magicule based weapons would be too expensive. Scott still had barely any magicules to use, and based on his rough calculations the amount he had right now would only sustain him for a couple of days at least, maybe a few hours if he used them to move, but he would be reduced to mere minutes should he choose to fight right now.

What Scott needed was a large amount of magicules, which equated to several acres of land, several hundred butterflies, or…

One larger creature…

Scott looked back up at Twilight, who’s attention was still focused on Discord. The glow of magicles was ever present in her body, and any damage that Scott had caused earlier looked to have mended itself. Still, there were a lot of magicules in one place, he just had to access them.

It was time to move.

Making sure to keep his major organs running, Scott focused on converging magicules in his arms and legs. It would be easier to stand up since he was technically laying on his stomach, even though his head was looking straight up, he would have to fix that later. Still, Scott gathered the magicules into his arms, and gripped the bones inside. He would have to be fast, as any movement would probably be immediately noticed by the pair above him, he just had to close the distance in that time.

Scott could tell that his arms were in a bit of an awkward position, going limp then flopping over would do that, so he needed to maneuver them in a way that would allow him to push himself up. So Scott went through the actions of pulling his arms to his side, hoping that his opponents wouldn’t notice him doing this.

If he still had feeling in his body, Scott was sure that he would be engulfed in pain right now, as the action of moving his shoulder was sure to agitate the bullet wound. Now though, he could do it without a second thought, so he did.

The argument continued above him, giving Scott the confidence to continue his actions. He forced his arms underneath his chest, causing his whole body to rise off the ground slightly. Next, Scott pushed his arms out with the magicules, and his point of view started to rise up further and further.

Now onto his legs, he pulled each one of his knees underneath him so that he was now in a sort of prostrating position. All he needed to do now was to push himself the rest of the way up into a kneeling position. Which was simple enough to do, now he just needed to stand fully.

Bringing one knee up, Scott forced his leg downwards, and saw his whole body begin to be pushed back as his second knee was lifted off the ground. He had done it, Scott was standing, but his head was still the wrong way around, he couldn’t actually see where he was going.

It was a simple fix really, just twist his head back around, and while it may look like a very macabre sight, it was really the only thing he could do. Scott gripped his own head with magicules and carefully rotated it 180°. His vision was forced back around the right way, just in time to see Twilight staring at him in complete horror.

“Oh my Celestia.”

Crap, they noticed.

It was now or never, just like back in the lab, if he didn’t act now he would lose everything, and Scott certainly didn’t intend to lose.

Using what was most definitely more magicules than necessary, Scott launched his body forwards with his hands outstretched, right towards Twilight, who was frozen in terror. The lack of support in his neck was made obvious as his head immediately tilted upwards, obstructing his view but not his senses.

The massive reservoir of magicules was right in front of him, he only had a small distance left until he made contact with it. Scott forced his hand out towards the brightest part, the horn.

The moment he made contact with it, Scott pulled as hard as he could with his mind, even forsaking his vital organs, as he could survive a few seconds without them. The resistance he found was intense, far more than anything he was expecting, but it made sense, Twilight was sentient, and was slightly aware of how magicules worked. It was like playing tug of war with a brick wall, but Scott wasn’t going to lose this battle.

He pulled harder with his mind than he ever pulled before, and with sheer determination and wit, Scott began to feel the wall give a little. A slight trickle of magicules began to enter his body, but it wasn’t enough. With newfound vigor, Scott pulled even harder against Twilight’s will, and felt even more begin to give way.

The trickle turned into a small stream, and then a mild flow, and by the time Scott’s body was completely filled with magicules, the flow had turned into a current. Scott had successfully broken through the barrier and now had access to Twilight’s immense reservoir of magicules. Scott began to fill the backpack with magicules now, and the bright glow had returned to the visor.

Being so busy with taking as many magicules as he could, Scott didn’t notice a string of magicules attach to his arm, and a moment later Discord snapped. Scott’s arm was thrown off of Twilight, breaking the connection. Twilight slumped to the ground, looking incredibly drained, while Scott’s body followed suit with his arm, flying backwards away from the two.

There was no way for Scott to act fast enough to land properly, so his body simply crashed to the ground in a heap. Thankfully his head was relatively safe, as for the rest of his body… Not so much.

His chest area was relatively fine, which was good, but a quick inspection of the rest of his body revealed that his arm was now broken. It was an open fracture too, which made it even worse. There were also several new gashes down his leg, all of which bled. This presented a new issue for Scott, who just remembered to resume breathing and pumping.

If he were to keep getting damaged like this, he would run out of blood, something Scott definitely didn’t want to happen. But just how could he prevent that?

He could patch his wounds, but that takes time, and bandages, two things Scott didn’t have.

Simply avoiding taking damage would help, but it was almost guaranteed that Scott would sustain more damage to his body, especially if he kept up the fight.

Isolating the vitals might work, since he didn’t actually need blood flow to his extremities now, he could simply focus on pumping blood straight to his brain.

Scott wasn’t too fond of letting the rest of his body die, even if he couldn’t control it very well anymore, but he was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish his goals. Besides, he probably wouldn’t even be able to stop his own necrosis anyways.

With his mind made up, Scott just had to figure out how to do it. Last time he checked, he still wasn’t a medical doctor, and he barely knew anything about the cardiovascular or respiratory systems. He did know that the pulmonaries connected the heart straight to the lungs, so those were essential, and that the arteries directly below the heart led to his lower body, which made them non-essential. But there were still several veins and arteries that Scott didn’t know what their purpose was. From what he could sense around his heart, there was only one more vein and artery respectively, which obviously led to his brain, something he needed, but they also led to his arms, something he didn’t need anymore.

He would have to find where they split and safely disconnect them, something easier said than done, as any mistake would surely result in a critical bleedout. Scott looked up from his position on the ground, his lack of movement seemed to fool Discord enough to take his attention away from him again. That would give Scott enough time to give himself a minor surgery.

Following the vein and the artery upwards, Scott found where they diverged, each one split off and into both of his arms, one of which was rapidly losing blood, he would have to be fast.

Normally surgeries required speed, precision, and skill, things Scott didn’t have a lot of. First things first, he would clamp the unnecessary veins and arteries shut, then he would have to find some way to cut them. That was a problem, considering his magicule blades didn’t cut physical objects. It could burn things however, so Scott could possibly cauterize the wound shut easily enough.

A plan of action was forming within him, and Scott began to focus magicules in and around his heart. The action had to be quick, and Scott could even stop his heart for a moment to reduce blood loss. As soon as everything was in place, Scott started, he simultaneously clamped all of the blood vessels down, and immediately felt the change in pressure in his face. He lowered the pumping of his heart to compensate for the change, then moved towards the next phase.

A single thought,

Burn

Making sure to use extra magicules to facilitate the reaction, the clamped vessels raised in temperature, but they couldn’t actually burn considering the environment they were in, still, it got hot enough for the vessel walls to begin to collapse and meld into each other. It was a simple procedure, especially because it was on such a small scale, and at the end of the reaction, all the unnecessary blood vessels were closed off, though it was yet to be determined for how long.

Scott released the clamping force on the blood vessels, and was delighted to sense that they didn’t immediately reopen. The surgery was a success, Scott had isolated his vital organs, this caused both the bullet wound and the open fracture to stop bleeding, but it also caused the rest of his body to turn a ghastly pale color. He could now afford to play a little more rough.

Again Scott went through the process of standing back up, but since one of his arms could no longer support his weight, he was forced to use just one. That didn’t matter much however, as the strength of the magicules was far greater than the original strength of Scott’s arm. At least that was the thought before hiss other arm snapped from underneath him. His body smacked loudly to the ground, most definitely alerting Discord to his survival. It took a moment before Scott realized what just happened.

He no longer had the normal inhibitors that prevented him from overexerting himself, he only had his magicule senses, no pain or reflexes to speak of. He had pushed his body too hard, and it broke, a whole world of issues would now come from that. Now in an even worse position, Scott would have to think up something fast.

His body was failing him, he needed something stronger, more resilient, and something that could hold more magicules.

The Uranium!

Scott had gathered a lot, so much in fact, that it was too heavy for one person to carry it all. So maybe there was enough for a new body. Right now Scott held the cream of the crop in his bag, but there were definitely still some more pure pieces in the pile. He could use it, shape it to his will, and create a new body for himself, he just needed to get to it.

Scott turned his head to look at where he had landed, he was a fair distance from his opponents, and an even further distance from the pile, but that didn’t matter, he had gathered the pile from a large distance, so he would pull the pile from a large distance as well. Scott reached out with his magicules, forming tendrils that extended far further than he had done before. It took a moment, but the pile that was far off and nearly out of sight was grabbed. Scott immediately began to pull it towards him. Chunks and pieces of Uranium flew across the field, it only took a few seconds for the entire pile to arrive at Scott’s feet, it was time to get to work.

Slowly but surely, individual chunks began to levitate up into the air, and a moment later Scott’s body followed suit. This massive action caught the attention of both Discord and Twilight, who had seemingly recovered enough to stand back up. It was almost pitiful looking down upon her, the previous bright and vibrant purple color scheme she once had was now almost completely grey. Still, Twilight looked defiantly up at Scott as more Uranium pieces began to almost orbit him.

“What are you doing!?” She shouted up at him.

Scott couldn’t speak, though he desperately wanted to. He wanted to say I’m throwing away my humanity! Or something similar to that, but he couldn’t thanks to those two.

Glaring down at them in anger, Scott continued lifting up more and more Uranium until a tornado of chunks was surrounding his body. It was then when he had enough to continue.

In a flash, every single piece rocketed towards Scott, slamming into his body with enough force to puncture some places. Twilight gasped in horror as Scott mutilated himself with the Uranium. More chunks were added, and continued to be added until almost every square inch of Scott’s body was covered, almost like a makeshift set of armor.

But Scott wasn’t done yet, with a single thought, each chunk began to glow, not the traditional light blue, but an angry red. As the temperature continued to rise, the Uranium began to burn away any extra material, smoke burst out of any opening it could, and it billowed out of the most prominent opening, a set of eyeholes in the Uranium at Scott’s head. Ash sprinkled down to the ground, forming a small pile below Scott. His body appeared to shrink inside the Uranium, but was actually being burned away and compressed. The Uranium turned from red hot to white hot, and each chunk began to fuse into each other, this caused anything trapped inside to sputter and spew out of any remaining openings as they were put under pressure.

When the process was finished, a devilish looking form stood floating midair, it was smoking lightly, and the Uranium was still glowing hot, though it was obviously cooling. It was similar in stature to Scott’s original body, but with a few key differences. There were no joints, every segment of the body was held in an invisible field, everything save for the neck and head, which appeared to be connected with some stretchy yellow material. There were several additions as well, claws appeared where fingers once were, and several spikes jutted out from various places, from the shoulders to the back of the head. Twilight and Discord looked at it with both amazement and fear. Never had anything like this ever happened in the history of Equestria, Scott was quickly proving himself to be a tough opponent.

The new metallic form dropped to the ground, and landed upright. The grass beneath it burst into flames, and Scott looked at the two creatures standing before him.

“What did you do?!” Twilight demanded, looking at him with wide eyes.

Discord didn’t speak, just stood there for a moment.

Scott also didn’t speak, he still couldn’t, but he could still look around.

For a moment he ignored the two, and instead the metallic head slowly turned left and right, surveying in the landscape, the magic filled landscape. The process of forging a new body took a lot of magicules, and in order to test out his new capacity, Scott would need to refill. He held his new arms out, and reached out with his mind, far further than he had ever done before.

The area he was in was almost completely untouched, only the slight dents he had made earlier showed up on one side, but the rest was entirely ripe with magicules. Scott pulled, and once more the magic of the land began to flow into him, or more the Uranium, but that was a part of him now. The Uranium body began to glow light blue as magicules flowed into it, and when the environment was completely drained, Scott’s new body radiated, with power.

Discord chose this moment to attack, a singular thread once more attached to Scott, this time right to his new chest. This time however, Scott felt it, and before Discord could even snap, Scott cut the line with a newly formed blade. This action surprised Discord, but it didn’t stop him as a whole web of magicule lines soon attached themselves to Scott’s body.

Another snap of his claws sent a single surge down one of the lines, but it was different, it was still made of magicules, and it looked the same, but it felt different, as if the intent was different. It was impossible to tell just which line it was travelling down, so Scott began to hastily cut and slash as many lines as possible, trying desperately to avoid getting hit with another surge.

It was all for nothing however, as before Scott even finished cutting half of the lines, the surge made it all the way to him. It impacted his new arm, and in a flash of light, it changed. Where there was once pure Uranium there was now transparent rubber, it was red in color and it flopped to and from. It looked like a giant slap hand. Panic filled Scott’s mind at the sight of it.

Transmutation?! That was possible?! 

Scott had to fix this, if this Discord being could change materials at the snap of his fingers Scott would be done for. So instead of focusing on the battle, Scott felt the area with his magicules.

His magicules were still there, but so were Discord’s, they appeared to be lingering on his arm, forcing it to stay the way it was. Upon even closer inspection, to the atomic level to be specific, Scott noticed the cause.

Discord’s magicules were forcing the Uranium to act like rubber, it was still Uranium, but it was in an unnatural state, and it looked like if it was left like that for too long, it would become permanent. It should be possible to undo the change, all he had to do was remove the magicules in time and the Uranium should revert to normal. That was something easier said than done though, as while Twilight’s will was like a brick wall, which could be broken down through a variety of methods, Discord’s was more sporadic and hard to understand. It would take a lot of time to figure out just how to remove one magicule, and then there were the trillions of others to remove after that.

Or perhaps he didn’t need to do all that, life was full of shortcuts, maybe Scott could find a way to circumvent the whole problem. Every one of Discord’s magicules was completely random, but they all held one similarity, Discord, so maybe Scott could use that to undo the entire transmutation.

Gathering a large amount of magicules at the base of his arm, Scott began to form a sort of filter. It would detect and force out any other magicules that didn’t fit a single value, that value simply being magicules under Scott’s control. Any others, including Discord's, would be forced out.

It was unknown whether it would work or not, but it was worth a try, especially since all kinds of new rules were being defined with every passing second. That was why experimentation was important. Scott tried to push the filter down his arm, but immediately ran into a problem, for each one of Discord’s magicules he ejected, Scott had to use one of his own. He would have to equal every single magicule that Discord had used on him, which was a lot. But that was just the law of equivalent exchange, and every chemist worth their salt knew about that. It would just have to be a sacrifice Scott had to make.

The filter started stripping his arm of Discord’s magicules, and as that was happening, the once transparent rubber arm slowly shifted back into its original dull grey color. The next moment his arm retained its original shape, though it was slightly warped. The entire process only took a few moments, but in those few moments Scott had done what very few had done before, revert a chaotic change.





Discord gawked at just how easily and fast their opponent had reversed the change, and realized something frightening. 

They couldn’t win this fight anymore.

Twilight was devoid of magic for now, and Discord’s magic was quickly becoming useless against the threat; they couldn’t do much of anything against it. A quick look towards Twilight revealed that she had realized the same thing, though it was much more prevalent in her expressions. Her eyes showed fear, and she took a step back from the entity.

They were running out of options. Nothing offensive would work, and nothing defensive seemed like a good idea anyway, they needed more time, they needed more magic, they needed to run.

“Twilight!” Discord called out, “We have to leave!”

“What?!” Twilight shouted back, “We can’t just run away!” She said very unconfidently, and it looked like she was seriously considering the idea.

Discord looked back towards the newly made monster, and noticed something terrifying.

Magic balls, thousands of them. In an attack much similar to earlier, it had summoned forth a barrage of piercing pellets. They were set in a wide arc, some even settling behind the metal monstrosity; clearly it had learned from last time. Before it could even send them flying, Discord wrapped Twilight up in an arm and snapped his fingers.

The next instant, they were in the center of Ponyville, a whole crowd of ponies looking at them in confusion. Only a few minutes ago it was just another normal day, then when the whole town's supply of Mythril disappeared, there was confusion as ponies wondered what happened. Then the map activated, choosing Discord of all people to help with whatever friendship problem was happening. He and Twilight embarked not long after, promising to resolve the issue and following the trail of the missing Mythril.

Now they were back, running from an increasingly powerful threat that they couldn't stop. At least they had some time to prepare some sort of counterattack.

A portal appeared to their side, growing from the size of a coin until it equaled Discord in height.

"Get back!" He shouted, turning to face the crowd. "Run!"

The crowd of ponies backed away, but only a few left entirely. It wasn't until a metallic claw reached through the portal that they began to disperse in a panic. The rest of the monster stepped through, glowing a light blue as it gazed across the fleeing ponies.

In an instant they felt it. The overpowering will, the need for more, greed, avarice. Ponies stumbled and fell, the coats quickly losing their coloration, buildings dulled and sagged, and the whole world around them seemed to have the life drained out of it.

"Stop!" Twilight gasped out, "Please!"

It turned to look at her, a bright blue glow coming from its Mythril body. There were no words, just an everpresent feeling that nagged at the back of her mind.

Perish.

The glow disappeared from the Mythril, converging into a single point in front of the monster. It lengthened, forming a gigantic spear that began to rotate and spin. It was pointed right at her.

Twilight barely had the strength to stand, and Discord was now struggling to stay up. Both were unable to get out of the way.

The feeling came again, much more pronounced, a steady ticking of joy, satisfaction, laughter.

There was a bright flash of light, and everything went still. Twilight shielded her eyes, bracing for an impact that never came. It took a few seconds for her to realize nothing happened, and she looked back towards the entity.

It was still, the glow gone from its body, the spear of magic dispersed, returning to the world around them. It teetered slightly before falling forwards, shattering to pieces across the ground. The yellow sack inside sagged, a frothy red liquid pouring out of any openings as steam rose around it.

Twilight felt her magic begin to return to her, and Discord regained some of his vibrancy.

"What... happened?" She asked,

"We couldn't stop him." Discord muttered, "So the world did."

"The magic fought back..." Twilight realized, "Is he...? Dea-Gone?"

Discord stood up, walking over to what remained of the creature. "His body was destroyed, but... That was before he was stopped."





An innumerable amount of magicules, borderline infinite, ebbing and flowing throughout the world. Travelling across great lines that spanned the planet, dispersing to every corner of the globe. Though there were so many, the distance between each one was insurmountable.

And yet, one magicule drifted towards another, bonding together as a third drew closer. Similar actions were happening all across the world, slowly but surely piecing back together a mind that was once scattered. One day, he will return.