//------------------------------// // Just a Fun Tour of the Mage Tour, nothing else. // Story: Source Code // by Nugget27 //------------------------------// As we walked up to the Mage Tower, and I had been properly given instructions on where to go to obtain some good mash potatoes, I stopped and let my mouth drop. As it turned out, the Mage Tower was as far away from the castle as it could get on Mount Canterlot without being, y'know, off the mountain. Okay, it was actually off the mountain. Like it sat on a floating island, that I assume is usually cloaked in an Invisibility to not obstruct the view of Canterlot that greets a lot of tourists when visiting the capital of Equestria. The floating island it was on wasn’t tiny either, it was actually pretty sizable. Well, that’s because it was only big enough to hold the foundation of the Mage Tower, and the tower itself was fucking huge. It was almost as big as just a tower in the castle, while being no less prestigious. Proudly colored in Equestria’s Flag colors, pink, white and gold, the foundation was made of solid blackstone, which slowly transitioned into these colors. There were plenty of huge, towering windows that looked to be the size of Celestia when she’s standing up. The doors looked to be actual, dark oak, and not… wait, no, that’s not a door, it’s a fucking Barrier Spell designed to look like a door. Two guards, who weren’t wearing Equestrian Military gear so I assume that they were hired, or were the tower’s personal guard, were standing on either side. They took a glimpse of me, and lit their horns. “Source Code, we see that you’ve accepted the Nine’s invitation; they will be down shortly. For now, you may wait in the lobby and help yourself to any refreshments.” They both took a glance at Fleur and Fancy Pants, who I guess opted to be on ‘guard duty’, or rather, were just wanting to get to know me, and smiled. “The Celestial Knight Duo… You both are always welcomed.” We stepped inside shortly after that. Walking out through a Barrier was kinda weird, but I suppose… Somepony has to keep that Barrier up all that. That’s a flex, right there. There literally weren't even door hinges. By no means was it big and grand, it wasn’t a Shining Armor Shield after all, but keeping perpetually keeping up a Barrier was by no means easy.  “Darn,” I hummed. “You two get a free pass, while I don’t?” I asked.  “Well, those guards were going to let you pass, even if they could not read your mind. Don’t worry, they just see what your intentions are, they won’t know whatever weird fantasies that you have,” Fancy Pants chuckled. “I know that they were given a description of you, on top of that, with unicorns, the Mage Tower doesn’t use Telepaths, as a magical signature, or your aura, is yours and yours alone. So they just let you in, but they were probably just making sure you were who you were.” “And as Celestia’s knights, we’re allowed in most cases; despite the Mage Tower being its own thing, almost separated from Equestria, they do keep a close relationship with the Crown. One of the ‘Nine’ has tea with Celestia regularly, often with us present.” Fleur added, “I believe I know why they summoned you here, but I think pointing out why would be minute.” “It would; I know why I’m here. I’m the Princess’s ‘plaything’ so that puts a target on my back. On top of that, I’m a semi-competent mage, and I’ve developed a spell system, well, three, but only ever let it out that I made one system.” “Wait, what?” Fleur asked, with wide eyes. “Three systems?” “Yeah. One was made as a joke to fuck with Twilight, but turned out to genuinely be useful for practicing magic dexterity, and the other is basically the original version of Python, but tailored very, very heavily towards my needs. Mixed into it are some elements of Dark Magic, and I’ve been hoping to see the Elements of Harmony in action so I could possibly run a diagnostic spell and see if I can’t recreate a weaker version of whatever those do to whatever national of the year is.” I shrugged. “I know Spike and Twilight said my spell systems, or rather me developing them, was supposed to be pretty hard, but I think nopony’s tried to make a new system.  “Like y’all are so damn complacent. The trains here are still pulled by earth ponies, which should hopefully change since I told somepony about steam engines, and trains have been pulled by earth ponies since rails were laid out. Y’all never bothered optimizing any spells to make them easier to cast, technology’s so out of date compared to what I’m used to that it’s almost sad. But then in some places the technology is almost on par with what I would’ve seen back home twenty years ago. Even Celly and Lulu, the way they run the government is rather dated. I get the saying ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, but then you guys take that like it’s the fact of life.” “...You aren’t wrong,” Fancy Pants nodded. “From what the Princess has told us, of things from your world, your race sounds beyond what ponies will achieve in the next thousand years.”  “Meh, I still like Equestria, but I want to implement small things, like trains actually pulled by the locomotives they’re attached to. Just small stuff. I refuse to introduce television to Equestria, because that would cause some problems.” I shivered… Some powerful ponies just walked into the room. Like Twilight and Celestia were clearly stronger, but I think a pony can control just how much ambient magic they let out… Twilight and Celestia are actual monsters when it comes to magical prowess, Luna too, actually. I know Celly and Luna actively stop their ambient magic; if they let that loose it would make everypony fear them. Twilight probably does the same thing, and so do most of the more magically gifted guards. Nopony that I know of likes being feared. Except these nine guys and girls, apparently. “Ah, Fancy Pants and Fleur De Lis,” the lead unicorn, a rather… average unicorn. He wasn’t tall, wasn’t short, had a sleek, light gray mane and tail, almost silver, that matched his black coat very, very nicely. Aside from that… he wasn’t too notable from any other unicorn I’ve met. Granted, the sheer amount of ambient magic this guy’s letting out of his body is insane. Like it is almost on Twilight’s level, though I think Twilight could still find some way to kick this guy’s ass. She’s only insanely smart, and unreasonably strong with magic. “Greetings, Bolt.” Fancy said. Fleur simply stood at the flank of her husband. Ah darn there goes the ‘cool guys’ look they had; now they both looked incredibly professional… “Incase you’ve not noticed,” Fleur whispered. “These nine are… as Celestia said you’d call them… ‘Douchebags’. Do not be surprised if one of them requests to duel you, namely that bright orange mare over there. My husband and I act like this with most nobles, who are also… not very savory individuals.” I hummed. Damn. I am not going to like these guys then. “And there’s the stallion of the hour!” The black stallion simply known as ‘Bolt’, said, walking up to me. “How is the Princess doing? Bet she must be getting a little desperate for students if… you are currently her star pupil, what with Twilight Sparkle being shipped off to Ponyville to study… Friendship? I get that that mare is a bit of a shut in, but c’mon! Imagine being so shut in that her teacher tells her to go touch grass?” I blinked. I blinked a few times. What the fuck is this dude’s problem? “...Did you invite me here to show me around? Ask about something, or are you just gonna bitch and moan about how Celestia secured a unicorn much more magically gifted than yourself, and decided to let that unicorn live her own life with her friends? While giving said unicorn something to write to her teacher every week or so? Like yeah, friendship’s a bit odd to be studying, but I ain’t one to judge.” I tilted my head. “Also letting all that ambient magic out, mate?” I laughed. “Are you compensating for something? Like Jesus Christ’s mother on a bicycle, it’s annoying.”  I am talking so much shit to a guy that can obliterate me in a heartbeat. Fleur and Fancy just sat there, slack jawed, as were the other eight of the ‘grandmasters’ of the Mage Tower.  “Oh please, at least I don’t need to make a spell system to make up for being a weak punk. Seriously, you have zero talent-” “If that spell system was worthless,” Fancy Pants stepped in, having quickly recovered. “Why did you open up a branch specifically for Python, hmm?” Bolt shot the stallion a death glare. “As much as the nine of us dislike it, we cannot ignore just how important Python actually is. If somepony like this,” he gestured to all of me. “Can compete with the Captain of the Royal Guard with it, then surely it has some worth. Even if its creator is a creaton.” “Hey man, you started bad mouthing Celly, and talking some serious smack about Twilight.” I shook my head. “Dickhead’s runnin’ offa power trip if you ask me. You’d probably piss yourself if Celly went hard on the gas pedal and opened a can of ass whooping on you, mate? Fucking christ, I would legitimately rather spend a night with Prince Fucking Blueblood than your sorry ass. So what if you’re magically gifted, doesn't mean shit if nopony likes you, does it?” I could feel Fleur and Fancy getting shield spells ready. Bolt looked too mad to be flabbergasted by my ‘weird’ language. Before Bolt could respond, the doors slammed open, and Twilight and her friends started walking in. “And this is the mage tower,” the unicorn in question stopped when she saw me. Rarity’s jaw fell when she noticed Fleur and Fancy, while the others were taking in the sight of the Mage Tower lobby, even if it was more underwhelming than a dentist’s office lobby. “Source? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked, walking up to me to give me a nice, big hug. She didn’t even flinch at the ambient magic, whereas Rarity seemingly just noticed it and shivered more than I did. Everpony else was unaware. “Hey Twi, I was just getting ready to take a tour of this place, because I thought Bolt, over here, wanted to give me one or something.” “Ah, Twilight Sparkle! What can I do for you and your friends today?” Bolt asked. You two faced, son of a bitch! He’s being polite now… Oh, Twilight’s letting off some ambient magic. I shivered, no, I shook… holy fuck, I knew Twi had some magic, but like… it dwarfs Bolt’s by a lot. “Twilight,” I said, interrupting their conversation. “You are a fucking cheatcode; how the fuck do you have so much magic just sitting around?” “Uh… I don’t know.” Twilight obviously lied. I gave her my best The Rock Side Eye, and she started explaining it in full. “I know magic has to do with something in the cells,” she went on to describe what basically sounded like a midichlorian. It was long, nerdy, and winded, but basically… Small, single celled organisms give ponies magic. For unicorns, they can have varying amounts of these things in them, and higher amounts means stronger magic. Aside from Starswirl the Bearded, Twilight has the highest count of these little things in her. “Twilight,” I said, pausing. “What the fuck.” I chuckled. “Ah shit, I was right about Bolt.” “What?” Twilight asked. “So far, he’s always been polite with me.” “Uh…” I shrugged. “Bolt just greeted me, made a jab at Celly, and then at you. It wasn’t pleasant, and I won’t repeat what was said, only because I so, so strongly disagree with what was said.” I will admit, Twilight when I first met her was a bitch, but now that she’s opened up? She’s quite pleasant to be around, even if she’s a bit eccentric and probably has a few mental illnesses. Seriously, the new Twilight is hard to hate, and Twilight already knows she wasn’t the most pleasant mare to be around before she moved to Ponyville. She even apologized to me for being a bitch. Bolt’s hoof came down with a thundering crack. “That’s it,” he said coldly. “First, you come in here and complain about me pointing out your inferiority,” he all but growled. “And then you go and spread false information about me to the Princess’s Prized Pupil?” I lifted a hoof, pulled a spell crystal out of… Nevermind, Pinkie had a spell crystal in her mane for some reason. It didn’t take me too long to replay the moment I met Bolt to the moment that Twilight walked in. Twilight slowly went from curious, because she definitely will be asking me how I did this, or at the very least be proud of me for doing it, to slightly annoyed. Then she got mad. “Why are you talking poorly about the princess? She hasn’t done anything to you!” Twilight growled. Bolt glared at me, as did the other eight who have yet to speak.  “You, me, the dueling arena, now.” Bolt growled. “Or are you a coward?” “You know what, my guy?” I chuckled darkly. “You’re on.” I am going to show him why we humans do not bow down to prey. The dueling arena was a simple, white room, padded walls with enchantments make them more durable, and what looked like marble flooring. It had a viewing room window, where everypony else was sitting and watching. Both Bolt and I were standing on opposite sides, rather, I was, since I wasn’t taking this guy seriously. This would be an excellent time to test out the Light Shield, and also be a good opportunity to also test out dark magic and its other elements I’ve been working into Python Plus. And I’m now pissed off. So I handed my whisky off to Rainbow Dash, since I knew she’s loyal enough to not drink a bro’s booze, and went into this room. I Skywalked to where I was now seated, and haven’t moved a muscle. Twilight was down here with us, to make sure we weren’t doing anything too bad- no, that would mean that Bolt wouldn’t get a shot at ‘accidentally’ killing me. She was sitting in the viewing room, looking kind of nervous.  I would be too, but I’m pissed off, and frankly, was looking excited to test out a lot of combat tricks I’ve developed on somepony I didn’t mind hurting. I didn’t want to hurt Shining Armor, so I didn’t go full tilt. There was supposed to be a countdown, but Bolt didn’t even hesitate. As soon as Twilight had begun counting down, my opponent immediately launched a strong, telekinetic blast. I just sat there and let the Light Shield take it, which it quickly did, and my eyes went cross eyed as the spell forced me to do an actual Shield designed to break down the spell and dissolve it, while blocking off any residual force from said strike. I blinked and cheered. “WOO!” I laughed. “Ah shit, that was kinda scary,” I continued laughing darkly. “Oh shit, that is broken as fuck. I didn’t even need to think of how to use that shield, and it was incredibly effective!” Another spell hit my light shield and my horn teleported me away. I blinked and chuckled again as another spell lashed out at me, only for the Light Shield to go and just straight up make me absorb the spell into myself. In simpler terms, it just fueled me up for a counter attack. Oh. Oh my god, that’s a spell that I was working on, that used a few elements of dark magic. Instead of it taking life, it simply absorbs magic, and uses what was thrown at me to counter. Of course, this can be overloaded, but this guy is a lot tougher than Shining Armor, and it just absorbed the spell. I immediately blasted a telekinetic blast with the absorbed magic, while mixing in some of my own power into it for some extra ‘oompf’ to it. Bolt was more than capable of blocking my counter, but… he didn’t account for something. You see, the Light Shield can force me to do a lot of things when it’s in use. So at some point it could just make a mirror and blast back a spell… “Oh shit!” I rolled out of the way of a lightning bolt. Only for another one to strike me… well, it hit the light shield, and a portal opened up… What? I blinked a few times. I don’t know how to actually use portal spells, what the heck? Luckily, the diagnostic spells that Light Shield needs to operate told me how it happened. I shook my head to rid myself of the hornache I was starting to develop, before I reopened the portal… behind Bolt, who was too busy gawking at my sudden use of Portal Magic. The Lightning Spell came in from behind, striking him in the rear… and frying him. Now, I had a crispy, unconscious Bolt lying on his side. Holy shit. The Light Shield is broken as hell, made me use a few spells that I’ve developed with dark magic in it, and forcibly taught me how to make portals to temporarily catch spells and launch them, the actual spell and just not just a spell with some absorbed power, at back at ponies. Holy smokes… Granted, it seems like it is not a light spell to run at all. My horn hurts like hell, man, and it doesn’t feel good, and that was just from five different attacks being thrown my way.  Running it passively, as I have been until I got here, wasn’t bad. When the Light Shield did work, as in actively tell you about spells and force you to counter them, due to the nature of it being almost random, even if it’s a very well calculated defense system that reacts to the specific spell used, nature, it can make you cast spells that are rather taxing, force into using spells you don’t know. In other words… Huh. I need to test this more, but not right now. But that is a good note. Light Shield on ‘Passive Mode’ is good on magic reservations. Light Shield being put into ‘Active Mode’ will make your horn ache from heavy use. So I suppose it stops me from getting surprised or attacked on the first blow. After that I should probably quit using the Light Shield, and just fight normally. For ending fights quickly though, it’s good. The door to the dueling room slid open and Twilight and her friends rolled in, along with Fleur, Fancy, and the other eight old unicorns. “Howdy,” I said, rubbing the base of my horn. “Source,” Twilight said. “Is that another spell for Python?” She asked. “Yeah. Pretty damn awesome, if I must say so. I’m calling it Light Shield, a reactionary based shield that’s really only good for stopping magic attacks in various means, but doesn’t actually work like a Barrier. I can’t even remember the…” I paused. “Holy shit, it made its own spell matrix and forced me to use a Portal! I can’t even remember the equations or Runes for it!” I laughed like an idiot. “Oh god dammit, I accidentally used Python to make a Shield, a Shield that somehow has its own micro spell system in it!” I kept laughing. “God, if that’s what I can do while drunk, I need to get drunk more often and let Jesus take the wheel!” “...What?” One of the other eight unicorns asked, stepping forward. She’s a middle-aged mare, fair, white fur, light blue mane and tail. I could tell that even at her almost advanced age, that some would still consider her attractive. “Your… spell has its own spell system in it, is that what I’m hearing?” “Yeah. That’s really cool, I don’t mean to toot my own horn, since it immediately makes you forget how to use anything it forces you to cast, if it uses this micro spell system to make you cast a spell, but it’s cool.” Oh, I’m teaching this to Button. I shrugged. “It could be a microspell system, I dunno; this is the first active field test of Light Shield that I’ve managed to perform. If this," I motioned to a Kentucky Fried Bolt with my head. “Is the result of me using it, I may only use it as a first response thing, before I either engage or run away.” I flinched. “Say, y’all know how to stop a hornache?” “Cut it off,” Fleur said. “Your horn.” I stared at her like she was an idiot. “Darn, so you know that’s fatal for a unicorn?” “Well, it would make everything stop hurting…” I hummed. “No, Celly would bring me back to life and kick my ass for getting myself killed.” I looked at the rest of the Nine. “So can I get a tour of your tower? I do genuinely wanna see what this place is all about. It sounds cool, but it looks like the big boss here,” I pointed at Bolt again, before he was levitated away by… what looked like Mage Tower branded medics, and out of the dueling room. “Is an asshole.” “Well, of course,” the middle aged mare nodded. “I would like to apologize for my husband being… unsavory as you said. I’m still trying to file a divorce with him. And while I’m not saying all eight of us are saints, we can at least try to be more pleasant around you. Assuming you can show some respect?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “Depends, treat me nicely, and I’ll reciprocate it. Treat me rudely, and I’ll just go home.” “Well,” the mare smiled. “I suppose we’ll get started on a new hoof. I am Exo, the Grandmaster of Portal Magic. I think you’d like a tour of that first?” I quickly nodded. “Well, come along, Ms. Sparkle, if you and your friends would like to join us, you may. Fleur and Fancy, care to join as well?” “Of course,” Fleur nodded. “As I said, your husband is an asshole.” “I know. But the court-” “I’m Celly’s consort. I can literally get her to sign the papers off, and you two would be separated. Or you go to day court and get her to do it.” Exo nodded. “I’ll consider going to day court. Thank you for telling me, Source Code.” “No problem, just please don’t be like your husband. I bet what he’s packing was too small to be of any use to you?” Exo started choking; she just took a sip of water when I said that. “Oh-” Exo coughed. “Oh sweet Celestia!” She coughed again, while doing a half giggle, half cough. “Don’t do that when I’m drinking something!” She just started gasping and giggling at the same time. “That caught me so off guard… but yet, my husband is awful in bed, and not because his package is tiny. It still is, mind you, he’s just an asshole.” We left the dueling room and made a right turn. We quickly found ourselves in a magically operated elevator. When we got to the Portal Room, I just stopped and took a moment to admire everything. It was simply… awesome. Even the less magically inclined ponies of the group, namely just Twilight’s friends, took a moment to drink it in. Strewn about the room looked to be a lot of lab ponies, a few machines, and namely… well, portals. The room itself was already pretty cool, it was fully metal, and almost, almost looked like that generic computer room in every government building in every movie where they showed a generic computer room. It was dark, dimly lit, with red and blue lights. The portals themselves gave off lights, various lights.  “Holy fuck…” I said, smiling slightly. “I wanna learn, like legitimately learn how to do this stuff, not do it on the fly.” I sat down on my rump, watching as ponies were trying to decipher where each portal went. The portals themselves were colored orange and blue, kinda like the Portals from… Portal.  “We can teach you, you know,” Exo said, sitting beside me. “It would be an honor; you’d technically be the first pony to learn from the Mage Tower without directly being a student, or being practically born into it.” “Mmm…” I hummed. “Why are you offering me this?” “...Okay, before Bolt decided to try and ruin any chances, we were hoping to induct you into our school. You’ve made your own system of magic, you made another system for the general public, and then I hear talk of you possibly making a third. With you, we could give you a strong foundation of everything here, and then you can work your magic into simplifying everything; I’ve read your textbook, and the Teleport in there is so simple and basic, yet… it still works like a regular Teleport, even if you, yourself, claim that it’s not as useful as just using ‘DragonFire’.” “That’s because it isn’t as versatile as DragonFire. DragonFire can teleport stuff directly to certain ponies if I know their magical signature, or I can travel with it, and while it’s not instant, like Teleport is, I bet I could almost go as fast as Dashie over there,” I said, tapping the pegasus beside me. “Almost. Dash can apparently break the soundbarrier, and has a trick basically named after her because of that. Plus DragonFire is so light on magic use, that I could probably go to Baltimare and into Manehattan as well, and then come back to Canterlot. That's me being kinda shit with raw magical output, by the way.” “I see… DragonFire itself is an anomaly, Source. Somepony like you, helping the Nine develop spells and whatnot… and Bolt probably ruined that, didn’t you?” “Depends, are the rest of you Nine likable? You’re not too douchey, even if I can tell you are just a tiny bit entitled.”  Exo blinked. “...That is the first time anypony’s had the gut to say that to my face…” She giggled. “I see why the Princess likes you; you’re braver than you are intelligent. Given how you’re apparently intelligent enough to work out a whole system of spells, one spell in particular has a sub-system that nopony can decipher, apparently, that is saying something…” She shook her head. “If only my husband was more like you, and more loving.” “I’m a one mare stallion, Exo. No trying to touch my booty; Celly does that enough already with a stra-” I stopped myself. “Okay, I should not make that joke. But you get the point.” “I do,” Exo giggled. “I know what you were going to say, you crass, crass stallion. But to answer your question… Most of the Nine are only going to be polite with you because you’re you. And also they just watched you hoof-handle the most skilled magic user in our academy with an experimental version of a shield and nothing else. And I will want to be given the spell’s Runes and equations at some point; it seems so useful for even just the average unicorn to learn, as it could legitimately keep them safe.” “I was gonna release it as an expansion, you bought a Python book? I’ll release a boatload of spells in small, mini-textbooks based on self defense, utility, all that fun stuff. If you own a Python text book, all you’ll be paying for is how much it costs for me to profit from the printing process of the textbooks themselves, not the work put into the spells I developed. If you buy a Python book in the future, you pay for the book and then choose one of the min-textbooks to get deeper into whichever thing you prefer.” “Huh… that is a bizarre way of doing yearly textbooks.” One of the other Nine, the unimportant one that I haven’t gotten a name from yet, said. Very descriptive, I know, but like, the only two that matter to me right now is Bolt, who’s knocked the fuck out in the med-bay, and Exo. “So, what are some of these portals?” I noticed a really fancy mirror in the back of the room, almost hidden by how poorly lit that specific spot was. “These are all portals to… we don’t know where. They could be to random places on Equus, to other worlds… anywhere, really. This branch isn’t really known for having any powerful unicorns here, but we’re trying to discover how portals work, and how to tell where they’ll go. If we knew that micro-system portal, you could be very useful to us, since that’s the only controlled portal we’ve seen since the mirror in the back, and we don’t even know how it works. The Princess just gave it to us to test on one day, saying she’ll be back for it in a year or two. It still hasn’t opened, and if it has, it wasn’t while anypony was awake or in this room.”  “Darn,” I walked up to the mirror and tilted my head. “Say, what if I touched the mirror?” I wasn’t going to, I didn’t wanna go to another world, but… I could touch it. “Nothing will happen; we’ve all tried it.” The mirror was a huge mirror, sitting on a bit of a pedestal of a simple design, most of it was rather simple. There was a small, cartoonish-looking pony on its hindlegs in a horseshoe on the top. I looked at it, before seeing myself wearing my trench coat, standing tall and proud, with a pair of wings. I stared for a moment later and chuckled. Me growing wings? Yeah, right. I turned around and walked back to the center of the room. “DON’T STAND THERE!” Exo shouted. “THAT’S WHERE WE OPEN NEW PORTALS!” “Oh shit.” I began to trot over to where everypony else was, only for some tired, seemingly overworked teenager’s horn lit. A portal opened up at my hooves as I slowly looked down, and back at my friends. “NOT A FUCKING AGAIN!” I hit the ground with a thud, am… I am human again at least, right? I moved… oh, my hooves. I tapped my horn and flinched. Ow. It still aches a little. Uh… maybe I just ended up in some random place on Equus?My ears were ringing. I lit my horn and levitated a nearby stick and examined it. I simply stared at it, before looking up… The portal’s gone. Fuck me in the ass, man! I… snapped up and onto hooves. Oh god. I was gonna have dinner with Celly and Button tonight! I was going to spend next week in Ponyville with my students! Where am I? I’m still in Equestria, right? I looked around… noting that there was just a pillar smoke off in the distance. I stared at it, long and hard… I took a deep breath. Okay, the wind’s flowing away from me, or I would be smelling some of that. My ears, once they stopped ringing… ponies are in trouble. Not ponies, people. On one hoof, I could get myself killed, but if all that screaming- “WHOA!” an explosion went off in the same direction as the pillar of smoke and the screaming stopped. I watched as a dark blue figure with night-like hair and a pure white figure… with a pastel flowing mane… That’s Celly and Lulu! Maybe… the smoke stopped. The smoke stopped, but there’s no cheering, and after that explosion… I stared as two other figures, a pink one, and a purple one, both lacking flowing manes, rose up to meet the Sisters in the sky.  Wait, the screaming stopped. I stared at the four figures, trying to figure out if… ponies would be cheering if they were just saved by four alicorns, yet there was pure silence. My blood ran cold. That silence is so… unlike ponies. Sure, they would make sure that everypony is alright, but only after taking a moment to cheer about being able to live another day. Maybe… I should get out of here. I started slowly backing away, until I realized… I wasn’t in a very heavily wooded area.  I was in a field with a few trees, sparsely littering spread throughout it. There was a bush here and there, but for the most part, with my blue coat and bright yellow mane, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I need to run. I may have gone through a portal, and I could be on Equus still, I definitely am, but it’s definitely not the Equus I know. I turned to run, but then a pruple blur slammed into the ground in front of me, causing a small boom and a cloud of dust. I could hear three other ‘booms’ happening around me, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I got a Light Shield ready and got ready to even DragonFire my way out if need be.  “Looks like there’s a survivor,” I did not like the sound of that voice. It sounded… like Twilight’s voice. I could sense Celestia, Luna, and Cadance were on my left, right, respectively. On instinct, I almost immediately stumbled over to where Celestia was, even if I knew it wasn’t my Celly. The alicorn jumped when I suddenly bumped into her side, before cackling madly. …Why did I have to get part of another magical accident? All I heard was laughter, not the kind hearted laugh that Celly always had, this one… was downright maniacal laughter that sent a shiver down my spine.