The Quest For The Past
Chapter 86: One Bad Apple (Celestia's POV)
Previous Chapter Next ChapterI was in my two hundred and sixty seven thousand, eight hundred and eighth study on the other left and had just finished playing extreme blackjack with Luna. Watcher lay on the ground twitching and bleeding from unusual and interesting areas, making me the victor of the game. I pulled out a barrel of magical healing salve and poured it all over his body. His wounds quickly healed as I turned to Luna.
"Well, my dear sister," I started slowly through clenched teeth, "this would seem to make our victories even." Luna leaned over the table and glared into my eyes.
"I may have lost the battle, but I will win the war!" She snarled.
"Same time tomorrow?"
"Yeah, okay." Luna walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Watcher groaned in pain.
"I know, Watcher, I know. My victory shall be great." At that moment, Cloud Calculation came smashing through the window standing on an Arcane Circle. I repaired the window as he landed, gasping for breath. He was wearing his saddlebags. One of the bags was full and near bursting, but the other seemed empty. "Hello again, Cloud. What can I-?"
"...CELESTIA...!" He yelled through ragged breaths.
"I see you're out of breath and tired again."
"...YEAH...!"
"Has Pinkie Pie been racist again?"
"...NO...! ...WORSE...!"
"What is it?"
"...THE... ...OTHER... ...WEEK... ...I..." He coughed and collapsed onto his stomach. "...Give me a minute..."
"Take your time. Butler!" Back Scratcher came running into the room. "Bring my guest some potions to revitalise him." Scratcher nodded and ran out again. Cloud stood up.
"Alright, so; about a week ago Discord sent me back into the Dongverse to see Vesper be born."
"He made contact?"
"Yeah, he said he was doing it to repay me for freeing him. When Vesper was born, I took some of her DNA to use in a new transformation potion to turn the Vesper here back to normal."
"Good idea."
"Thanks. This morning it was finally ready so I went to pick it up. Then she drank it, and... Well..."
"What?"
"This shit happened," said Vesper from inside his saddlebag. The saddlebag jerked around until it opened, revealing- Oh my...
Vesper had become a foal. A seemingly newborn foal. Must... Resist... Urge... To... Squee...!
She was holding a strange metal object in her mouth.
"Fix me!" She somehow exclaimed without dropping the object or moving her mouth at all.
"She's... A foal?"
"Yeah," Cloud sighed. "Can you make her an aging potion or teach me an aging spell or something to finally turn her back to how she normally is?"
"I'm afraid an aging spell would be too advanced, even for you."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, they are very difficult. I may be able to get you an aging potion, however..." Scratcher came back into the room with a platter of potions. I floated them over to Cloud and waved Scratcher away. "...You will owe me a favour."
"What kind of favour?" He asked as he drank from one of the bottles.
"Nothing much, really. Just a little DNA from you so I can do a few small tests-"
"No!" Yelled Vesper, cutting me off. We looked towards her. "Whatever you do, do not give her your DNA!"
"Why not?" Asked Cloud. Vesper glared at me.
"I don't trust her." Is she still mad about the Changelings?
"Why don't you trust her?" Vesper narrowed her eyes before answering.
"I just don't." I sighed.
"Let me tell you a story," I said. "When Canterlot was first built, it was little more than a camp for outlaws. There was no castle, city or even outhouses. The leader of the brigands, Pipe Blocker, had a large bounty on his head. At the time, my subjects were beginning to lose faith in me so I took the head of Pipe and used it as a hat for a while to show it off. It was about a year after I'd sent Luna to the moon and the mixed work of moving the moon, doing my own taxes and ruling the government by myself had driven me a little crazy.
"For some reason, the sick, depraved and fun act inspired my subjects to believe in me again. They built a castle over the graves of his comrades that was far, far too big for me to properly use. I took it anyway of course. The castle was so large that it took me an entire month to count how many rooms it had. The total number was five hundred thousand.
"In truth, I only needed about two hundred rooms to have an actual use, so I changed the spare four hundred and nine thousand, eight hundred rooms into studies." There were a few seconds of silence before Cloud spoke up.
"That's, uh... Nice... What does that have to do with what we were talking about?"
"There was a point to the story, but I forgot halfway."
"Oh." There was more silence. "Why were there no outhouses?"
"Pipe greatly hated any form of plumbing. He even insisted to me that if he couldn't destroy all the pipe systems in Equestria, a far descendant of his would."
"I see." He sipped the potion. "Are you sure the spell if too complex for me right now?"
"Yes. You would have to age her by twenty one years." He nodded.
"Then I'll just have to train until I'm strong enough." He stood up and levitated the spare potions into his empty saddlebag.
"You don't understand, to cast that kind of spell you would need the power of an Alicorn."
"Then I'll train really hard." He created an Arcane Circle underneath himself and flew towards the window. "Can you send me the spell through Spike?" I sighed again.
"Fine, but I'm telling you now; it's virtually impossible for a Unicorn to learn that spell."
"It's also virtually impossible for a normal Unicorn to beat up gods, travel across the multiverse and be this good looking, but I've done pretty well so far."
"Besides the third one."
"What was that?"
"Oh, nothing. You had best be on your way."
"Yeah. See you whenever." He flew threw the window, creating another Arcane Circle in front of him to shield himself from the glass.
Next Chapter: Magic Duel Estimated time remaining: 5 Hours, 12 MinutesAuthor's Notes:
Bog Clogger's legacy must continue through Celestia chapters!