Upheaval: Reckoning

Chapter 27: A Great Enough Need

"I'm telling you, that cellar you have over there is disrupting this entire farm's ley network. Especially the ones that affect fortune," Copper Mane insisted. "So long as it's there, your farm will always suffer from a shortage of money, even if you have a monopoly over high demand products."

"And I'm telling you that we here at Sweet Apple Acres are doing just fine without your "ley watchamahooey"!" the yellow earth pony filly replied. She looked over to her companion, a large, red earth pony stallion who stared at Copper Mane with a mild hostility. "Ain't I right, Big Mac?"

"Eeyup," the stallion replied.

Copper Mane shook his head and turned away. He had come to Ponyville with high expectations when he heard that it was an earth pony settlement, but, upon arriving, the dismay nearly made him want to leave at once. It was true that there were plenty of earth ponies in the village and he was heartened to know that its leader was one. However, there was also a sizable population of goats and birds in the place.

"It's a dangerous journey you're undertaking, Copper Mane. The earth ponies of the Heartland do not have access to Rock Maven's teachings. Be wary during your travels there. It is likely that our kin are still slaves to goats and birds."

Elder Scatter Scree's warning seemed more and more apt as Copper Mane explored Ponyville. These earth ponies were not wearing chains, but all the trappings of slavery were there. Earth ponies pulled the wagons and carriages, worked the farms, and did all the manual labor while the goats and birds made themselves comfortable. This was a massive problem that he was attempting to attack and he really had no idea where to begin.

"You are young, Copper Mane, young and arrogant. You will soon learn that there is no helping the earth ponies who refuse to follow our ways."

Copper Mane scoffed at the idea. The elders insisted on remaining completely isolated despite the great changes occurring throughout Equestria. Celestia's barrier had come down, opening a clear path to the Heartland and its inhabitants. He had argued before the elders that it was the time to make pilgrimages to the Heartland. The chosen had had no access to Rock Maven's teachings for hundreds of years. The True Earth Ponies should go out of their way to bring the chosen earth ponies into the fold. For his troubles, Copper Mane received nothing other than scornful reproaches. That didn't hold him back, however. He went on his own pilgrimage. If he returned to the Great Delve with a group of earth pony converts, he'd prove that he was right and more pilgrimages would follow in his wake.

As a start, Copper Mane chose a small earth pony settlement instead of one of the cities. Ponyville was a strange sight to him. It sat on acres of arable land. It certainly had farms but, somehow, it didn't seem like a farming community at all. When he passed by the center of town, there seemed to be a lot of idle earth ponies, birds and goats. He surmised that this place likely started as a farming community and then later lost its identity when the birds and goats settled. He had gone to one of the farms in hopes of using his knowledge of ley lines to help improve its lot but, so far, he met no success. He made his way back towards the center of the village to see what else he could do.

"Let go! I still have to see my family's rock farm!"

"And I've told you that we'll take care of it! You've caused enough problems as it is, Pinkie Pie!"

Copper Mane turned towards the sound of the high-pitched shouting and found a pink earth pony mare being lifted by magic. Several other ponies stood around and watched. He recognized the Legion's barding on some of them while the others, mostly earth ponies, looked like ordinary villagers. "Let go of that earth pony, goat!" he shouted. Seeing the inaction of his kin towards such obvious oppression inflamed him within. He pulled out his channeling tablet and pointed it at the floating pink pony, focusing his mind on harnessing the power of the earth itself.

The telekinetic hold around the pink pony broke at his sudden attack. Before anypony could react, he had placed himself between the pink pony and the legionnaires, one of which was a dark blue goat who was maintaining the telekinesis. She shook her head in surprise at his interference, a few of her mane's ringlets falling across her face. She studied him for a while and seemed to recognize his clothes. "This is Legion business, true earth pony," she said sternly. "Back away and keep your weird magic to yourself!"

The pink pony, instead of running away as Copper Mane had expected, stood behind him. "That stone!" she said. "I got one just like it! Are you one of those 'True Earth Ponies'?" He looked behind him incredulously. A stone just like his tablet? Why would a Heartland earth pony possess a channeling tablet?

Before Copper Mane could even say anything, however, he suddenly became aware of what a horrible mistake it was to take his attention away from the goat that was oppressing this pink pony to begin with. Something struck his face hard, sending him sprawling against the dirt.

"Oops," the dark blue goat said. "I meant for that to be a warning tap. You really shouldn't ignore me right after attacking my spell." Her voice lowered to a menacing hiss as she walked closer towards Copper Mane. "I have bad reactions to being ignored."

Copper Mane shook his head, trying desperately to clear it before the goat attacked again. "You don't scare me, goat," he said defiantly. "I will die before I watch your kind oppress earth ponies and not do anything!"

The goat raised an eyebrow. "Oppress?" she asked. "I wasn't oppressing anypony! Celestia drill my backside, you true earth ponies are so twitchy that you'd cry oppression if somepony reached out to hug you!" She moved past Copper Mane and went over to Pinkie Pie. "Get to the Night Skimmer, Pinkie Pie."

The earth pony behind Copper Mane, "Pinkie Pie" as she was called, took another step back. She looked pleadingly at the goat, who was having none of it. "But my family!" she said.

"And what do you plan on doing once you make it there?" the goat asked in exasperation. "Take on Sablesteel in single combat and win? You think they're in danger? You're putting the Elements of Harmony in danger right now by being far away from them!"

"I…I…!" Pinkie Pie tried desperately to remain defiant but her lips quivered. "I can't just do nothing, Nightcanter!"

By the time Copper Mane recovered, he was already surrounded by legionnaires. He tried to take another step towards the goat, but several hooves held him in place.

"You won't be 'doing nothing'," Nightcanter said, her tone taking a more comforting pitch. "Leave it to us. We'll get your family, the Cakes, and whoever else you think is in danger of being assassinated. We'll send them to Canterlot or wherever you think is the safest."

Pinkie Pie still looked deflated, but she nodded slightly and then walked towards Nightcanter who began to walk somewhere. Nightcanter paused for a moment and then glanced at Copper Mane before motioning for the other legionnaires. "Oh, and arrest that idiot will you? Interfering with Legion business and all that."

The legionnaires shoved Copper Mane roughly. The bird among them pulled out a crossbow and aimed it at him.

"Wait! I want to talk to that pony!" Pinkie Pie told Nightcanter. The dark blue goat let out a sigh. "Fine, toss him inside the Night Skimmer. Confiscate that tablet though."

The other legionnaires saluted and led both Copper Mane and Pinkie Pie away.

Despite Captain Nightcanter's reassurances that her family and friends would be protected, Pinkie Pie found it impossible to sit still inside the Night Skimmer. She had barely slept a wink since last night, despite her fatigue. Every time she closed her eyes for too long, the image of Sablesteel's wasp-like form standing over those twitching, half-melted corpses jolted her awake. She paced around the hold where Nightcanter's Squad had tossed in the true earth pony who had tried to "save" her earlier. His forelegs were bound with rope and his stone tablet had been taken away. When Pinkie had asked to be allowed to talk to him during the trip, Nightcanter had agreed reluctantly before going off to her family's rock farm.

"There's no doubt in my mind that you're an idiot, Pinkie Pie, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as to whether you're a suicidal idiot. You watch yourself around that true earth pony."

The hold's stifling heat and cramped space suited her current mood at the moment. Though the Cakes were secure above decks, she felt as if all her worrying was smothering her. Sablesteel could be anywhere, doing all sorts of evil things while she was stuck here unable to do anything while other ponies set out to protect her family and friends. It was the same thing that had been happening to her ever since she followed Twilight into the Barrier Lands. While she watched from the sidelines, all her friends did their part to protect what was important. She recalled everything that went down when Nightcanter first burst into Sugarcube Corner looking for her.

"Do you have any idea as to the sort of trouble you've stirred up, Pinkie Pie? Special Operations has enough on its plate without having to track you down every time you get it into your empty pink head to run off somewhere!"

"But Sablesteel said that she was going to kill the ponies who are precious to me!"

"I'm hurt that you're not worried about me then," Nightcanter said flatly. "Time to get back to Canterlot."

"No!"

"I wasn't asking!" Nightcanter's horn glowed and Pinkie quickly found her forelegs pressed against her sides in a tight, telekinetic grip. She rose several feet in the air and remained suspended there. Nightcanter walked closer, her face dead serious. "Maybe you haven't noticed, Pinkie Pie, so let me clear things up for you. You're not Pinkie Pie the rock farmer's daughter or Pinkie Pie the baker's assistant anymore. You're Legionnaire Pinkie Pie, Bearer of the Element of Joy. You are expected to be there when called upon, ready to be at Equestria's disposal when the time comes. You mess around like this and you'll be lucky if the only casualties are a couple of families." Without another word, Nightcanter and her squad began to leave the bakery with Pinkie floating helplessly after them.

"Wait," Carrot Cake protested. "There's no need to be so rough! Pinkie Pie came back here because she was worried about us!"

"Good that you're so concerned about her because you're coming with us," Nightcanter replied. "Pack your essentials and let's go, all of you."

Both Cakes's jaws dropped. "What?" Cup Cake exclaimed. "We can't just close on the spot! And how long are we supposed to stay in Canterlot?"

"Until we can make sure you're not being targeted." Nightcanter looked back to Pinkie. "So who else should we uproot from their lives and send to Canterlot?" she asked.

Pinkie's lower lip stuck out as she glared at Nightcanter. Tears threatened to burst out of her eyes. "You're a meanie," she said. "I thought you were nice when we went to the Everfree Forest together!"

"Why all the anger, Pinkie? Isn't that what you came here to do? You brought this on them, take some responsibility."

Pinkie Pie pressed her lips together. Responsibility. There was that word again. She thought that responsibility meant being able to take care of the Cake twins and running the bakery while Carrot and Cup Cake had to be off somewhere. Responsibility never included ponies getting hurt and dying. She couldn't deal with this responsibility with what she had.

Not only that, Nightcanter was right. By sending her loved ones to Canterlot, she was going to uproot them. But she didn't want to uproot anypony. She just wanted them safe. She wished with all her heart that neither the Cakes nor her own family had to be involved in all of these things, that she could be cast a magic spell like Twilight Sparkle and keep them all safe without making their lives harder. Or she could cast a spell to make Sablesteel not want to hurt anypony. But she wasn't a unicorn or even a pegasus. She wasn't even a strong earth pony like Applejack. All she had was…

"Um…do you need something?" the true earth pony asked.

In the blink of an eye, Pinkie was right in front the true earth pony, grasping his head with her front hooves and shaking him. "You're one of those true earth ponies, right?" she asked. She showed him the tablet that had confounded her for several days already. "Can you tell me how to work this thing? I saw you use one! Can I do magic stuff with it? Something like those shields that Twilight makes? Please, please, please show me!"

The true earth pony tried to speak, but the constant shaking made it all but impossible. "Hold…on...ow!" He yelped in pain when his teeth clamped down on his tongue.

Pinkie Pie let go and back away slightly. "Sorry, true earth pony," she said. "Will you show me how to work that tablet now?"

The true earth pony steadied himself and then examined his tongue. "First of all, my name is Copper Mane, not 'true earth pony'. Second, how did you get a channeler's tablet? Are you a true earth pony? Has a sect of true earth ponies actually developed here in the Heartland?"

"I'm not a true earth pony!" Pinkie Pie replied. "Wait, I am an actual earth pony, but not a true earth pony like you. I mean I am an earth pony like you except not like you with the masks and the weird magic and the thinking unicorns are goats thing."

"Then how did you get this tablet?"

Pinkie Pie quickly narrated her encounter with the true earth ponies back in FangBreaker Fortress. The mention of a stone-faced mask caused Copper Mane's eyes to widen in recognition. "An elder," he said. "You said FangBreaker Fortress. That is all the way up the Northern Barrier Land. You must have met Elder Treefield. He answered the call for reinforcements to that place."

"Yeah, he was kinda creepy with that mask and he was always whispering to his friend instead of talking to me. Do your elders-?" Pinkie stopped and shook her head. "What am I doing? No time for random questions!" She took a step forward, making Copper Mane shrink back in fear. "Tell me to put up a shield or be able to tell if somepony's going to get attacked! You true earth ponies have that weird magic right? Elder Treefield said that I was some kind of channeler or something. Teach me!"

"I will if you promise not to shake all my teeth loose!" Copper Mane exclaimed. He threw his forelegs up in fright and kept them there until Pinkie Pie backed away. "I'm going to teach you because I respect Elder Treefield a lot for venturing forth unlike the other elders. He must have seen a great deal of talent in you, but apparently couldn't follow through with teachings. I warn you though, I'm still a student of ley channeling myself. All I can offer are the basics."

"Okay," Pinkie Pie said seriously. She sat down and held the tablet Treefield gave her. "Let's start with a basic shield then!"

Copper Mane looked at her disapprovingly. "Let's clear some things for you first, Pinkie Pie," he said. "For one thing, we're not goats."

"Duh! Of course we're not goats! We're ponies! Wait…you mean unicorns don't you? Why do you keep calling unicorns goats?"

Copper Mane frowned and tried to loosen his restraints. "Because 'unicorns' are a type of goat."

"No they're not. They're ponies!"

"They resemble earth ponies only in the same way lizards resemble dragons. Regardless, keep in mind that we are not like them. 'Magic' is what these goats do. They possess a personal store of power which they use to bend nature to their wills."

Pinkie Pie was listened quietly for a while, her brow furrowing in thought. "You think lizards are dragons?" she asked.

Copper Mane ground his teeth so hard that Pinkie could hear them. "Fine!" he said in exasperation. "For the sake of moving past this point, I'm going to call them 'unicorns'! Will that make you happy?"

Pinkie Pie nodded eagerly just to please this grouchy pony. She couldn't understand why he was so hung up with names, but she needed a way to protect her loved ones. Captain Nightcanter's earlier words had stung her badly because they were right. What was the point of getting to her loved ones if she had no way to stop Sablesteel?

Copper Mane cleared his throat. "As I was saying. Unlike go-unicorns, we earth ponies do not have this personal store of power. What we haven instead is a natural connection to the vast amount of power that flows through the earth through ley lines. Through this connection, we can direct the flow of energy to help us. This is why we do not 'use magic', we 'channel ley energy'. Magic is selfish and unnatural, channeling is harmonious and part of nature. Do you understand that?"

Pinkie Pie nodded again. She didn't really understand, but she was anxious to get to the part where she could defend her friends. She was beginning to think that these true earth ponies may not like unicorns as much as earth ponies so she guessed that it was important for Copper Mane to say that what he was doing wasn't magic, but something else.

"Alright then," Copper Mane continued. "Why don't we try some basic channeling? Hold the stone that Elder Treefield gave you."

Pinkie sat up straight and did as she was told. "Okay, what's next?" she asked.

"Concentrate on your connection to the earth."

"My what?"

"Your connection!" Copper Mane said impatiently. "Surely, you must have felt it at least once when you accidentally channeled! How else would Elder Treefield have known that you had the gift?"

"I dunno, he just came out of nowhere after I saved Sharpfangs from having a jar of salt land on his head."

Copper Mane looked at her suspiciously. "And how did you save this Sharpfangs from getting hit by a jar of salt?" he asked.

"Oh, that's easy" Pinkie said with a smile. "My Pinkie Sense warned me!"

"What in the hay is a Pink-"! Copper Mane stopped himself. "Never mind what you call it," he said. "Concentrate on it, try to will it to happen."

"But I can't just make it happen!" Pinkie Pie protested. "It just does when-!"

"Hush! Forget about what you think triggers it!" Copper Mane stared intensely at Pinkie, his eyes suddenly knowing. "You've had this 'Pinkie Sense' all your life, correct? For all that time you must have thought that it was just some random, amusing thing that happened to you and it happened to be useful. You've never found a need to find out more or develop it. It was some quirk and you were fine with it being that way. Now you need it to be more than a quirky, helpful thing. You need it to be effective against your problems and, most of all, you need it to be there on command when you want it, not when it wants to."

Pinkie Pie pouted and avoided looking at Copper Mane. The nearness of what he was saying to what really happened made her uncomfortable. It didn't help that it was only a few minutes ago that Nightcanter was telling her something similar. "Twilight tried to find out more about it," she said quietly.

"Hmph! Let me guess, this Twilight isn't even an earth pony is she?"

"She's a unicorn."

"How sure are you that she didn't find out anything then? She may have found out a lot of things and refused to tell you for fear of you surpassing her power!"

"That's not how Twilight is at all!" Pinkie protested. "You haven't even met her!"

"I don't need to meet her," Copper Mane said as he turned up his nose. "Goats are all alike. "

"You're doing it again! Unicorns aren't goats!"

"We'll get nowhere with that. Go back to willing your power to come forth. Concentrate!"

Pinkie held the tablet and stared at it hard. She stared until the muscles in her face ached from the constant frowning and drops of sweat dripped down her chin. Nothing happened. "Nothing's happening," she said at last.

"That's because you weren't concentrating," Copper Mane retorted. "You were just staring at the tablet and trying to frown your eyebrows off. Try to recall the last time you used your power: the sensations, the state of your mind…try to will them forth."

Pinkie's mind was about to go back to the salt jar incident when she suddenly remembered that something more recent had happened. There was that time inside Clover the Clever's home. The tablet had activated and she was seeing these strange colors. What had she been feeling back then? There was a deep curiosity for what was going on and this heightened awareness of all those beautiful colors. There was…

"There!" Copper Mane said.

Pinkie looked down and saw that the gems embedded onto the stone tablet were indeed glowing. As soon as she looked down, however, the light faded and the gems became inert once more.

"Don't stop!" Copper Mane said excitedly. "Keep doing what you were doing a while ago!"

Pinkie tried again, harder this time. The floor beneath them suddenly lurched. "Did I do that?" she asked.

Copper Mane looked around him. "Perhaps," he said. "Or this vessel is moving." He hopped over a nearby porthole and saw that the ground was rapidly becoming farther. He swallowed nervously, beads of sweat already forming by his forehead. "We're flying," he said. "Nopony said anything about flying!"

"Duh!" Pinkie Pie said. "We're in an airship. Relax! Tell me what to do next!"

"This is unnatural!" Copper Mane said. He huddled by one corner of the hold. "Birds fly, not earth ponies!"

It was Pinkie's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Are you scared of flying?" she asked.

"S-scared? No! I'm indignant! This is no way to transport a true earth pony!"

Pinkie shrugged her shoulders and went back to concentrating on the tablet.

"It's useless now," Copper Mane said. Pinkie glanced at him briefly and saw that his eyes watered a bit. He looked a little green around the edges as well. He was obviously trying to compose himself and was failing for the most part. "If we're flying, we're far away from the ground. You can't channel here."

The words of discouragement threatened to smother the sliver of hope that Pinkie had been nurturing. With a defiant shake of her head, she concentrated even harder. She was starting to get what Copper Mane was talking about. It was like…it was like moving a limb she never knew existed, like a fifth leg or an extra head. She was getting somewhere now and she didn't want Copper Mane's pessimism to ruin things.

Then, as if answering her stubborn optimism, the entire hold began to glow softly. Faint rainbow colors, just like the ones she saw back inside Clover the Clever's refuge, lingered around the wooden walls of the airship's hold. Unlike the previous time she saw them, the colors didn't flow like water and seemed barely there. "I did it…" she whispered. She looked at Copper Mane, unable to keep her face straight as excitement flooded her. "I did it!" she cried out. The gems on her tablet shone brightly.

In return, Copper Mane stared at her with his mouth hanging open. "That's impossible," he said. "Miles from the earth, what could you possibly be channeling?" He dragged himself forward and then looked down when his forelegs struck the wooden floor. "Of course," he said. "Ley energy flows into trees and small quantities are retained in the wood…" He looked around. "Probably in the metal too. But I've never heard of being able to channel with such minute quantities." He looked at Pinkie, his eyes narrowing. "Try to do something with the ley energy," he suggested.

"Do something?" Pinkie asked. She was put at a loss so suddenly that the gems on her tablet began to wane. With a gasp, she concentrated again for an entire minute before daring to say anything else. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Look down," Copper Mane said.

On instinct, Pinkie did as she was asked. The wooden floor swirled with faint colors as if she was standing on a very shallow pool. Suddenly, the colors directly below her face seemed to ripple, gently at first and then more violently as it went on. Her tail began to twitch and, on impulse, she moved her head slightly to the side before staring at it. It seemed that some of the ripples somehow climbed up her leg and was flowing through her tail.

Copper Mane's drinking glass struck the floor where the rippling was and shattered.

Pinkie's eyes widened. "What was that for?" she asked Copper Mane indignantly.

"Well, you can now replicate what you did before," Copper Mane said.

"I can do that without the fancy swirling colors!"

" You've barely scratched the surface of what you can do,"

Pinkie Pie grabbed Copper Mane's head with both hooves again. "Then help me scratch the surface!"

"No shaking!" Copper Mane exclaimed. He put his forelegs up before she could even begin. "I'll help you. It's my responsibility to make sure a channeler with so much potential will grow in the true earth pony way."

"Wait," Pinkie said with a tilt of her head. "Does that mean we're friends now?"

Copper Mane looked at her suspiciously, his lips seemingly halfway to "yes" when he stopped himself to think. "You are friends with creatures that I do not wish to be friends with, Pinkie Pie," he finally said. "But I think I can be your friend." He put an emphasis on "your".

Pinkie Pie answered with a smile. "Well, it's a start!" she said cheerily. The cheer quickly melted into fresh worry, however. "Oh no…that means Sablesteel will try to kill you now as well…"

Copper Mane stared at her in alarm. Before either pony could say anything, however, they heard a pony call out from above decks. "Canterlot in sight!" one of Nightcanter's squad members shouted.

Pinkie dashed towards a nearby porthole and poked her head out. The white spires of Canterlot were indeed already by the horizon. She let the breeze blow her mane about, reveling in the wave of coolness that blew away the stagnant heat of the hold.