Sins of Harmony
Volume 1: Balance of Power
Chapter 37: Harmonic Disturbance.
March 27th, 1005 ANM
Tree of Harmony general area, Everfree Forest
Sunset
The forest suddenly began to grow darker, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the moon began to slowly rise after it.
Kynok saw the sky darken slightly, even though it was light enough to see slightly. Lucius muttered:
"Anyone need light?"
"No, we all can see well enough in the dark. And the dragon might see a light if we have one out." Ohmen urged. He slashed another vine that was strewn across their path, as they cut deeper into the forest.
Kynok added coyly: "Yeah, it'd be a shame for it to see how long we've not found it."
Razak grimaced, the dragon having stepped in something wet on the path. He hopped along as he dragged his foot, scraping off the mud as he trailed behind the three in the darkened forest.
Clearing the leaves before him, Ohmen's eyes widened as he saw a sheer vertical cliff before them. Even in the darkness of early night it loomed before them.
A deep ravine, leading into much thicker forest below, darker than the early night sky above it.
"Where now?" Lucius asked. He's wandered up to the edge of the ravine cliff, looking down and along in confusion.
Ohmen pointed along a pathway, hugging the edge of the cliff as it gradually descended down towards the forest:
"This way, follow the path. We definitely need to search down there."
Trekking along, Razak muttered loud: "I thought we'd have seen, or heard that dragon by now at least. Its been 3 hours, and we've not seen any trace of it."
"Arghhh... Are you sure the recon plane hasn't seen it?" Kynok asked ahead.
"We're in the interference. If they have seen it, they can't call us. But it would have released a trail of red smoke overhead or flown low if it saw it." Ohmen reasoned, losing his patience with this aimless search himself.
After a while, after the cliff top path descended, they were back in thick forest again. There seemed to be a definite clearing through the forest however, and Lucius suddenly stopped when he sensed something just off the path.
"Wait!"
Running over, Lucius used a dark aura tendril to dig into the ground slightly, and uncovered a whitish-blue crystal of sorts. Walking over, Kynok dismissed it:
"Its a crystal. Big deal."
"I've never seen one like this before." Lucius said. He excavated further, seeing it was a very long one that stretched deeper into the dirt. The dark Unicorn shone his red horn's light on it, sensing it went very far among the dirt.
Ohmen looked around the forest, and asked: "Lucius, are there any more?"
"And how did you know that was there?" Razak asked.
Lucius wandered over, shutting his eyes briefly, as he said: "Something, a lot of energy. The crystals seem like part of it, like hairs of a creature."
Ohmen remembered what else was in here: "Or like roots of a tree. I think I know where we are roughly."
Looking about, Ohmen said: "The Tree of Harmony must be nearby."
Razak said: "Yes, and we should stay clear. That's what's causing the interference on our radios."
"I have a hunch, that maybe the dragon knows that too." Ohmen said.
" I feel like you're not telling us everything that goes on in that head of yours." Kynok commented. The Wyvern had little patience left by this stage.
"Think about it. The odd, collared dragons show increased awareness, and attacked specific targets they knew would be most effective in the town. If there is an outside force influencing them, or commanding them, hiding there would be the smartest option." Ohmen reasoned.
Thinking over it for a few moments, and none of the clones could come up with a counter argument. Razak said:
"So, lets head there. If the tree's hidden in the forest, and the dragon could be using it, it explains why the recon plane hasn't seen it."
Kynok muttered as they began walking further, with Lucius's higher magical senses leading the way: "I'll kill it myself for making us walk so far."
Tree of Harmony alcove, Everfree Forest
Early night
Razak walked ahead, and his claws and dragon feet felt the usual moss and dirt of the forest ending as the trees began to clear.
Greyish-blue rocks covered the area, and a large rocky formation rose before them. More forest covered the formation behind and around it. Before them, leading into a cavern beneath the formation of rocks, was a natural stairway of rocky ledges and platforms.
Inside, a bluish glow emanated from the cavern, potted by odd purple of bluish crystal formations.
"The Tree of Harmony." Ohmen breathed. In his time as Celestia's student, Charge Bolt, he'd only ever read about this place, and what power it held. Everfree forest was a natural defence for it that was worthy of it.
A shadow shifted inside the cavern, slowly obscuring some of the glow from the cave. Pulling back, Razak and Ohmen looked at Kynok and Lucius. Razak whispered, in case the dragon had good hearing:
"I think we found it."
Nodding, Kynok said: "Someone needs to go in, and scope it out. We'll follow."
Kynok looked at Lucius, who also got looks from Ohmen and Razak. The dark grey and black Unicorn quietly swore as he turned to a black mist, and snaked down the stairs to discretely spy on the cavern in his mist form.
"After you." Razak offered. Kynok shoved past him and quietly climbed down the stairs, ducking behind the cave's mouth when he reached it.
Razak and Ohmen hid on the cave's other side, while Lucius had formed on the cave's ceiling, looking inside.
The Dragon checked more of the connections, and had made sure the small hole's he'd dug into the main roots of the tree, at its truck base, were deep enough. The wires he'd placed inside, filling the holes around the thick wires with a conductive gel from his collar pack.
The cables linked to the grey, bowling ball sized container he was carrying. Inside it, linked to the circuit by its own imbedded wiring, was a single, faintly purple crystal. This one however, was more dull in appearance than the ones around the cavern, and if one could see like a microscope, small traces of organic cells would be found inside the crystal fragment.
The dragon briefly used the small shocker he'd been provided to test the circuit to the tree's roots, seeing it briefly flash as the conductive gel let it pass from the shocker, through the gel and into the tree itself.
The Dragon pulled from his collar bag the last of the equipment, a large battery pack, which would allow him to get it started.
Linking the battery pack up to the circuit, the dragon almost smiled as his task was nearly over. He looked at the tree, then at the grey sphere holding the crystal, muttering:
"Garnet's payment better be worth this."
He flipped the switch, the battery beginning to charge the circuit, linking the crystal chunk and the Tree of Harmony by an electric current.
The Tree of Harmony began to flash, pulsing, like a heartbeat. Silently it brightened and dimmed.
The Dragon now stood guard, the last part of his task before he had to flee. He'd been told he'd know when it was done, as the place would radically begin to change. By the time the battery ran out, the unique crystal he'd linked would begin siphoning power from the elements themselves, and self sustain the electric current, for whatever outcome it would bring.
All the dragon mercenary knew was that he had survived alone among the more important agents Garnet had sent out, so he would, by contract, collect their payments.
This would be his last job, yet it was so unknown in what he'd been tasked to do exactly.
1 Hour later
Ohmen, Razak, Kynok and Lucius had regrouped atop the cavern step ledge, inside the forest edges. After an hour, the Dragon had simply stood there, inside the cavern, guarding whatever was happening with the tree, that unknown sphere and the circuit he'd set up between them.
The Tree of Harmony had begun pulsing in its glows, like a heartbeat, and Kynok had quickly checked the radios to find that the interference grew and shrunk in sync with the pulses. Even from here, the cave mouth flashed noticeably as the night drew on.
With the stars overhead beginning to appear, and the last light falling, they had the pulsing glow of the Tree's odd behaviour as light in the forest.
"What's the plan?" Razak asked.
"I'm all for going in, gutting that Dragon and shutting down whatever he's doing." Kynok said. He had his wing blades ready, but Lucius said:
"No, area's too enclosed for such fighting. If we're going to attack, I suggest a quicker method. There are plenty of crystals I could skewer him with in there." The dark Unicorn's suggestion brought a smile to Kynok's face, and he added: "On second thought, lets go with Lucius's plan, along with shutting down that, thing he put there."
"No. We should take him alive, interrogate him. Find out what that device is before we execute him." Ohmen said.
"Interrogate? We don't have the equipment to capture him, we were told to find and kill him!" Kynok hissed. Razak said: "The dragons with these collars have shown to be willing to kill. I don't think he'll submit to questioning."
"Besides, we can take the equipment back with us and get somebody who knows more to look at it." Razak said.
Ohmen thought for a moment, and agreed: "Alright. Kill him, an we'll take the equipment after disabling it. Before we take it, we'll have a look ourselves."
Lucius turned to dark smoke again, while Kynok and Razak leapt down. Ohmen stood by and watched, calling after them quietly: "Not too messy! We'll need to be in there after you're done!"
As they leapt down, a strange sound started emanating in sync with the tree's flashing pulses. A groaning, croaking sound, fractured, making the tree's current behaviour seem all the more like a heartbeat.
The Dragon mercenary heard the noises the tree was making, and saw that the battery on the circuit was dead. Yet the reaction in the circuit continued.
The circuit was now self sustained by the tree, just as Garnet had briefed him in the task report.
Now he just had to wait for whatever big change was set to happen, guarding the tree and the sphere.
Suddenly, amidst the tree's pulses and blue glowing and dimming, a burst of gunshots sounded at the cave mouth.
Swiftly turning around, the Dragon saw a Purple and green spikes Dragon, and a Black Wyvern, standing at the cavern entrance, at the base of the rocky stairs. A smoking sub machine pistol was in the hand of the Dragon.
"A bit far from the battlefields aren't you?" Razak yelled into the cave.
The Dragon hissed, replying: "You were idiots to come here armed with so little against me."
He unsheathed the electric prod he had been using, extending a spear tip at the end. The much larger dragon readied his fire breath, knowing his contract called for defending this site.
"Science project's over. Now, indulge us, come out of that dank hole and play!" Kynok antagonized the dragon, flexing his wings with their blades over them tauntingly.
Angrily, the dragon knew that fire breath wouldn't do much good against these two. Even so, he charged, breathing a plume of flame out of the cave at the two of them. The flames and smoke clouded the space between them, and the dragon charged, mouth open and electro spear ready.
Out of his own smoke screen, a purple crystal shard, formally much deeper underground, shot out like a missile. The Dragon's own momentum carried him forwards, mouth first, into the sharp crystal as it also shot towards his roaring maw.
A spluttering, wet stabbing sound occurred inside the smokescreen the dragon had put up as a defence, right before he charged. A loud thud of something hitting the ground followed later.
As the smoke began to clear, Razak grimaced at the sight, while Kynok slowly applauded Lucius as he formed beside them from a shadow on the ground.
Ohmen leapt down the rocky stairs, and saw the dragon's state. Finding the words, he finished: "Well, at least he's in one piece."
"And he can rest that way." Kynok said.
The crystal spear had impaled the dragon through the mouth, carrying on through and out the back of his head and neck. On the soft inside of the dragon's mouth and throat, it had severed his spine, killing him instantly.
The Dragon had fallen forwards, mouth not quite closing as the large crystal had not cleared his teeth fully where it went in.
Walking past into the cave, Lucius slowly retracted the long crystal into the ground again, leaving the Dragon lying on the ground where he fell, the crystal no longer protruding from his neck.
After 20 minutes, they had run over the strange setup the dragon had done, but couldn't figure out for the life of them what it was for.
"I don't get it. He did all this, just to get this crystal in sync with the energy from the Tree here?" Kynok looked between the sphere container, where they'd opened it to find the odd, faint purple crystal chunk inside, now connected to the tree's roots by the electric current the tree now sustained itself.
Lucius had sensed the energy, and said: "Its pulsing, but its not rising or falling. All it did was get that piece linked. I can't sense anything unusual, except that the chunk has similar magic to the Elements up there."
Lucius pointed to the tree, where the 6 elements, the star shaped magic element at the centre, and the other 5: Generosity, Loyalty, Kindness, Honesty and Laughter, were positioned around it on their own branches.
At the base, the sun and moon marks were imbedded on the trunk of the crystalline tree.
Ohmen was curious: "Similar how?"
"As if, it had the same energy as the elements give off, but, inactive for many years. I can't say exactly how long, but it wasn't too long ago. Maybe even a pony's lifespan." Lucius said, still trying to get a sense on the strange chunk the dragon had linked.
All the while, Razak saw the tree pulsing, the croaking, groaning noise with each pulse happening each time.
"Anyone think those pulses are getting faster, or is it just me?"
Looking at the tree, Lucius muttered: "Yes. They haven't changed strength, but they have been getting slowly faster."
Ohmen thought for a moment, and said: "Best I can say, they were trying to affect the magic here somehow. If this much magic gets disrupted somehow, who knows what could happen. And unlike Discord, Celestia, Luna or others, this can't be reasoned with."
"Okay. So, as nobody speaks crystal tree here, lets go and unhook this stuff." Kynok said. Ohmen directed them:
"Kynok, try and unhook those cables from the tree."
The Wyvern grabbed the twin cables leading into the tree, straining to pull them out. Letting go, Razak felt around the holes, feeling how hard the conductive resin had become.
"No good. Its like superglue now."
Kynok got out his wing blades, and said: "Well, those ends can stay." He slowly hacked through the cables, until both metal cables severed with a foot protruding from the tree roots.
The tree's flashing behaviour changed, the pulses and noise diminishing as they began to slow down. Smiling, Kynok wrapped the cables around the sphere container with the crystal chunk.
"There, problem solved."
The Wyvern clone stood back, as Ohmen pointed to the sphere container.
"Razak. You carry that crystal shard container."
Nodding, Razak picked up the container, shutting the lid on the shard. He huffed as he lifted it:
"Uughh! What's this thing made of?"
Ohmen looked over the container, and felt how heavy it was when Razak put it on the floor briefly.
"Lead."
"Dammit." Razak muttered.
"Well, it explains why I couldn't sense that crystal very well in there. Lead blocks all radiation, and magic gives off a sort of radiation that it messes with." Lucius said.
Ohmen tried to use his magnetism, his magic a key to unlocking this doorway of abilities. But it had its limits.
"No good. Lead's not a very good conductor."
Kynok suggested: "Just get it out and carry it back in your bigger mode. We have no dragon to worry about now."
Nodding Razak decided to slowly roll the sphere container out of the cave, while Lucius pointed to the battery pack.
"Want me to take this?"
"Its a battery pack, what else is there to know?" Ohmen said.
Kynok picked it up with his magic, saying: "Well, best not piss off anyone by leaving this just lying here. We've had enough trouble from the nags to get stick for leaving litter lying about."
Walking out the cave, Ohmen noticed the one big thing that they had forgotten. The dragon's corpse was still there, lying on the ground but thankfully not bleeding out too much.
"We'll have to get some guards. We can't lift him out ourselves." Ohmen said.
He then remembered: "Wait, his collar. Caarim might want it with the others" Ohmen felt with his magnetism, and the collar ripped out of the dragon's neck with a wet tear, to come flying to Ohmen's feet on the ground.
Opening his own utility belt around his waist, Ohmen levitated the collar to strap onto it for carrying. Nearby, Razak used his own collar to morph to his larger size, suddenly finding no trouble in carrying the lead lined crystal sphere.
"Alright, we're done here, let's get back to the camp." Ohmen said.
Before they had even got halfway up the rock stairwell from the cave, something crashed behind them from above, and the whole world suddenly turned bright blue.
A loud buzzing noise, like the groaning croaks from the pulses before, had begun screaming from the tree of harmony, and the top of the rock formation had exploded, rocks raining away like an erupting volcanic mountain.
"GET BACK!" Ohmen yelled. Razak scrambled up the alcove to the forest edge, while Kynok and Lucius quickly followed. Ohmen was last up, right as a bright blue/white beam fired skywards like a geyser of pure energy.
The night sky, once clear with the half moon among it, was coated with a blue and white aurora where the stream of energy surged upwards.
Shouting, as the earth was trembling from the energy released, Kynok shouted: "What did this stuff do to the tree!?" He gestured to the cables and sphere on Razak's back pouch, while Lucius said aloud:
"It's going into some sort of overload!"
All around them, and as cracks formed in the rock formation over the tree of harmony, the earth tremors slowly grew.
All the way in Ponyville, and for dozens of miles around, the aurora and blue/white light pillar from the site lit up the night sky. From a distance it was beautiful.
Up close, it was about to become something not so worth beholding.
The Tree of Harmony's odd behaviour will have a payoff, but it will be down the line, in the sequel. The Rabid Migration served a few purposes for many, including the mysterious people behind the more engineered virus, the Oceanic Alliance in helping justify their technology growth, and helping Varkan and the Hephaestus Research Company prove the point about a need for control methods. More secretly, it was to draw attention while some work was done on a site usually very highly guarded and watched in Equestria.
Review/critique of this story would be appreciated as usual.
If anyone thinks Lucius seems overpowered at times, just know that without crystals around him for use, anyone fighting him would face less risk.
A thanks to user YOUR M0THER, for submitting an OC suggestion, the mentioned mercenary Dragon employer Garnet. He will see more usage in the sequel, and a slight tease in a later/final chapter of this story.