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Divine Intervention

by Orthoros

Chapter 5: 3. The Big Revealski

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“Twilight Sparkle!” Atlas shouted militaristically, accusingly. “You are responsible for destroying everything I have worked for in the past one-thousand four-hundred and thirty-six years!”

Every set of eyes in the room shifted towards the purple alicorn who was having trouble processing the words she had just heard. “Excuse me,” Twilight eye twitched. “Could you repeat that for me?”

“You are responsible for destroying my life’s work,” Atlas repeated. “And by proxy might have doomed us all.”

“So what you’re telling me, is that I somehow destroyed what was probably the most complex spell Equestria has ever seen… Without even knowing how I did it?”

“That is correct,” Atlas nodded.

“Huh,” Twilight smiled at Atlas before promptly falling over.

“Twilight!” Celestia and the rest of the element bearers called out, immediately swarming around the prone alicorn.

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity said, cupping Twilights head in her hoof. “Twilight, can you hear me? Are you okay?”

“It looks like she might have fainted from the stress the news brought unto her,” Celestia said from the sidelines, giving Atlas the stink eye.

“I knew she was an egghead, but come on,” Rainbow Dash said while rolling her eyes. “Just because she broke some kinda important spell.”

“While I will agree that she might be overreacting a bit,” Atlas said. “It is definitely an appropriate response to being told something of that magnitude.”

“Should we bring her to the infirmary?” Fluttershy asked timidly, looking worried at her friends' state.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, dear Fluttershy,” Celestia replied calmly. “Just make sure that she’s comfortable and that her legs are slightly elevated, here, you can use these pillows.”

Celestia levitated over some of the cushions that decorated the twin thrones and handed them over to Fluttershy, who promptly started working on her assignment. Before long, Twilight was comfortably resting on the floor, almost looking like she was asleep.

“Have you done something like this before?” Atlas asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“I have seen many a pony faint in the throne room, yes,” Celestia said. “As well as Twilight several times. If you make sure they didn’t hurt themselves during the fall and elevate their legs, most of them come right back to their senses, actually.”

Celestia’s statement was immediately followed by a low groan from Twilights direction, much to everypony’s relief.

“Oh, Twilight,” Fluttershy said. “Are you okay, how are you feeling?”

“I feel a bit sluggish…” Twilight moaned. “What happened?”

“I’m afraid you passed out, dear Twilight,” Celestia explained. “It would seem that my father’s news was a bit much for you to handle…”

“News? What kind of news?” Twilight lifted her head to look around, until Atlas entered her line of sight, causing her to remember. “Oh… right…” Her head dejectedly fell back on the pillow.

“Now that this little episode is behind us,” Atlas cleared his throat. “Why don’t we continue where we left off?”

“I think it would be in all of our best interest to wrap this up quickly, yes,” Celestia nodded. “I’d say we could all use a little bit of rest.”

“Alright then, that’s fine with me,” Atlas confirmed, shifting his attention once again towards the prone Twilight. “Now, I did say I that I do hold you accountable for the destruction of my work…” Twilight flinched a bit, not daring to look at Atlas. “Yet, it would be a bit unfair of me to put all the blame on you alone. Tirek is just as accountable for this as you are.”

“Tirek?” Luna asked. “What does he have to do with this?”

“I guess I’ll have to explain just what I’ve been doing before we can go to assigning blame,” Atlas said. “You could say that I was working on the biggest runic array that has ever existed, and possibly never will be recreated.”

“The biggest array ever?” Celestia said with a cocked eyebrow while Twilight’s ear twitched a bit in their direction. “How big are we talking here?”

“Do you remember the mountain range that is technically my land?” Atlas asked. “You know, the one you pretty much pushed on me without ever asking if I wanted it?”

“I do yes,” Celestia rolled her eyes.

“I pretty much hollowed out five of these mountains, riddled them with caves and then inscribed every bit of available wall space with arcane runes,” Atlas explained.

Celestia and Luna looked at Atlas incredulously and Twilight finally propped herself up with an agape mouth. “But… But wouldn’t that mean…”

“Yes, exactly,” Atlas nodded. “The rune array I created was several square miles big, if you add them all up.”

“And… And you say I helped destroy all that?” Twilight asked, already dreading the answer.

“Yes,” Atlas nodded.

Twilight seemed just about ready to faint again before a green glow surrounded her head for a moment, which seemed to rejuvenate her somehow. Twilight noticed the mana’s color and furrowed her brows, nobody in the room should possess an affinity for life, including Atlas who already proved that he had a magic affinity as well. But just before the spell ended, she caught a glimpse of Atlas horn which sported the same color.

“Can’t have you faint again,” Atlas said. “We already wasted enough time as is.”

“Thank you,” Twilight nodded gratefully. “Do you possess a twin affinity?”

“That would be putting it lightly,” Atlas chuckled, momentarily flashing every type of mana with his horn. “I got ‘em all. Also, are you emotionally unstable or something? If you faint like this often you should really go see a doctor,” he added after having to stop Twilight from fainting yet again. “This is getting old.”

“You must excuse her, she is very emotionally invested in her studies and you’re basically shattering everything she thought she knew about affinities,” Celestia clarified. “Also, she was already tested for any illnesses, but there seems to be nothing causing her episodes, aside from extreme emotional stimuli.”

“Alright, if you say so,” Atlas shrugged. “Twilight, I need you to understand that I am not even close to anything you think you know. I’d be grateful if you could just assume me the same as an alicorn, but better. That way we could maybe avoid any more… incidents?”

“I’ll try,” Twilight said baffled.

“Alright, then back to topic,” Atlas said. “The array I had been building had two main functions. The first one being the actual array which would execute the spell. The second was supposed to gather and store an absolutely ludicrous amount of mana, which would be needed to power the actual spell.”

“What kind of spell could possibly require this much mana?” Luna asked. “You once mentioned that the crystal tree which stored the elements mana could blow up the whole planet if misused. This sounds like you gathered more than enough mana to fill a thousand trees several times over.”

“What the spell actually is for, I am not willing to share,” Atlas said. “Just know that it isn’t intended to destroy, but much rather save the planet. Anyway, as you can imagine, an array of this size would be extremely intricate. And the more intricate something gets, the easier it will be to destroy. Of course I, had taken more precautions than you could possibly think of, amongst them, wards against the local fauna, like tatzelwurms, or even wards that would stop ponies from getting too close to the mountains, or, god forbid, actually start mining for ores there.”

“That would certainly explain why nopony seemed willing to settle over there…” Celestia murmured.

“The one thing I hadn’t thought of, was somebody actually simply ploughing straight through the whole mountain, punching a quite literal hole through the thing,” Atlas shook his head. “Of course I also erected barriers against physical attacks, but I didn’t think that Tirek and Twilight would just fling each other around like that, aimlessly shooting pure mana at each other like idiots. Which reminds me, considering how much you’re into magic, Twilight Sparkle, your combat spells are severely lacking to the point that a foal could probably outspell you.”

“I am not too fond of the school of combat…” Twilight pawed at the ground. “For some reason the spells just never seem to work for me.”

“Bullshit,” Atlas called her out. “You are an apparent magical genius with an affinity for magic to boot. There can’t be any other reason other than you simply not wanting to learn.”

“Alright,” Twilight sighed. “I absolutely despise violence, so I just didn’t want to learn, okay? Are you happy now’”

“No, I am not,” Atlas denied. “You seem to have inherited Celestia’s foolishness. Peace is an illusion and if you don’t prepare for war, you’ll be overrun once it comes knocking on your door. Similarly, if you had taken your study of the arts seriously, you probably could have overpowered Tirek like he was nothing and I wouldn’t have to stand here and tell you just how much you suck.”

Twilights mouth was agape. Never had somepony reprimanded her this harshly and what made it worse was that she knew that Atlas was right. “I’m sorry,” Twilight said, not knowing what else to say.

“A ‘Sorry’ isn’t going to fix my array and save the world from destruction, Twilight Sparkle,” Atlas said, clearly annoyed. “Instead I expect you to follow up with actions. I’ll need all the support I can get in the days to come, and you should be a valuable asset.”

“I understand,” Twilight said monotonously. “I’ll do everything in my power to make amends.”

“Good,” Atlas nodded. “Due to the massive hole that was punched in my array, it started to unravel itself at an astounding speed and I’m sad to say that the actual spell part was completely lost, with me unable to do anything. Fortunately, I was able to save at least a part of the mana storage.”

“At last some good news,” Celestia interjected.

“You bet it’s good news,” Atlas nodded. “If I hadn’t been able to contain it, there would have been a good chance that the massive amounts of mana that were stored would have started to expand and escape rapidly, which would’ve meant game over right then and there. But even if I managed to save about eighty-five percent of the stored mana, if you consider how much that actually is, I still lost a metric shit-ton of mana.”

“His language certainly is colorful…” Rarity whispered towards Applejack, which nodded with a slight smile.

“And with this we come to my problem,” Atlas said. “I originally had more than enough time to prepare my spell, but now, the deadline is way too close for me to simply gather the mana I need. I’m definitely able to recreate the spell-part in time, but if I don’t have enough mana to activate the array there’s no point in even trying.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask, but how much time do you have left?” Celestia asked nervously.

“I’d say three weeks… one month, at most, but I wouldn’t want to risk it,” Atlas replied.

“That is indeed not a lot of time,” Luna muttered worried.

“Is there any way to gather the required mana in time?” Celestia asked.

“There is a chance,” Atlas nodded. “But honestly, it’s little more than a gamble.”

“Whatever it is you require, if we can provide it, you shall have it,” Celestia said.

“Thank you,” Atlas said gratefully. “I know this might sound a bit insane, but I’m quite literally going to need every single sliver of mana I can get my hooves on. Which means I’m going to need the help of not only you two, Discord and the Elements, I’m going to need every single pony in Equestria to chip in or I’ll never have enough mana to support the spell.”

“What do you mean by every single pony in Equestria?” Discord asked.

“It means exactly what I said,” Atlas said. “Everypony has a mana pool, even earth ponies and pegasi. Collectively, the population of Equestria, combined with our own mana pools, should theoretically be able to supply me with the mana I need… barely.”

“That sounds almost impossible… How are we even going to organize something like this?” Celestia said with furrowed brows.

“Look, as long as you can gather everypony in one place, I can take care of the rest,” Atlas said. “If I have to travel from city to city and set up places for them to gather I’ll make it happen. I can redirect the mana towards one focal point, so not everypony needs to be exactly in the same spot. Although if you can gather mages that know how to share their mana into a spell at the actual spell location to support me when the time comes, that would be even better.”

“It’s going to be difficult…” Luna said, staring at the ground while running calculations through her head. “Organizing this many ponies at once will be just short of a bureaucratic nightmare…”

“I know I’m asking for a lot here,” Atlas admitted. “But the fact is if I fail here, we are all going to die, no exceptions. In fact the whole of Equus will be just… gone.”

Atlas’ proclamation earned him a few uneasy stares. Everypony clearly heard what Atlas just said, but none of them really processed it.

“Hard to swallow, isn’t it?” Atlas chuckled. “See, Celestia, Luna, this is why I never really wanted to tell you what I was up to. And if I could help it, I still wouldn’t. As things stand, though, I feel like I need to reveal at least this much for you to understand just how dire our situation is. We either give it out all in these coming weeks, or the world will quite literally end.”

“I’ll... We’ll make it happen…” Celestia said with a slightly pale face, which was an accomplishment, considering her fur was a pure white. “I doubt you’d lie to us about this, so whatever it is you’ll need, we’ll get it to you somehow, we’ll spare no expenses.”

“Definitely,” Luna confirmed. “Saving money would in no way help us if we’d just get wiped out afterwards…”

“If we can help in any way,” Twilight nodded determined. “Let us know.”

“Don’t even have to ask me,” Discord said.

“It’s good to know that I can count on your support,” Atlas said relieved. “I will most certainly need it.”

“We’re going to have to start organizing everything immediately,” Celestia nodded. “We should probably hurry and start on that as soon as possible. It’s probably best that we start moving things in the generally right direction today and start going more into the details of your plan tomorrow. Is there anything that you need immediately before we disperse here?”

“Not immediately no,” Atlas shook his head. “But I’ll need quite a lot of space next to major cities, and even more space for the actual spell location, please keep that in mind. I’ll have to do some slight terraforming at each location, so it’s probably best if these spaces are unused fields or something of the sort. The gathering spaces next to settlements will have to be big enough for every resident to gather there.”

“You could probably set down the spell array next to Ponyville,” Twilight said. “There’s a large field that is relatively flat behind my castle that isn’t used for anything. You could stay there as well, if you’d like, and Ponyville is pretty close to Canterlot, so traveling between them shouldn’t be an issue.”

“I’ll make sure to come check out that location then, and a place to stay right next to the array would certainly help,” Atlas said. “As for transportation, I have no problems teleporting all over Equestria, so that won’t be an issue.”

“Is there anything else you need?” Celestia asked, which Atlas denied. “Then I’d suggest that all of you get some rest while Luna and I start on getting things ready.”

“In that case, please excuse us,” Twilight bowed to Celestia out of habit and left, her group of friends close behind.

Atlas waited until they had left the throne room, before turning toward Celestia once more. “I’ll say this right now, if you can get any of the other races to come over here to help us, I would be grateful. They shouldn’t possess nearly enough mana in their bodies compared to us ponies, but in this situation we can’t really be picky about our sources…”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Celestia said. “But considering the situation, I can’t imagine they’d just sit idly by and do nothing.”

“Just make sure to not tell them too much,” Atlas nodded. “Also, now that the elements are gone, can you finally tell me where Starswirl is? Having him by my side would be invaluable.”

“Oh…” Celestia’s face fell a little. “You see…”

Author's Notes:

So there you have it. That's what he's been up to and what he'll have to do going forward. It will not be easy to pull off, but as Atlas already said: They have to, whether they want to or not.

Once again, thanks to my editor ScootalooFTW, as well as my proofreader Soren Mercer.

Today's chapter was brought to you by this song.

Come join us in the Discord channel! Lonk

Or the official Divine Entertainment group! Divine Universe

Next Chapter: 4. The Beginning Of A War Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 43 Minutes
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