“Down!”, a booming male voice rang out through the Everfree Forest to his companions. As soon as they heard the shout Rarity and Spike ducked under the swiping claws of a timber wolf. A moment later a combination of shields and spear work extinguished the creature trying to slay them.
“Thanks Shining.” Spike called to Twilight’s brother as Rarity set to work casting the spells she would need to in order to extract the force animating the living wood.
“That is alright, Spike. I’m sorry that I almost didn’t catch that one.” Shining said to his sister’s assistant. As Rarity’s horn lit up in a black aura and her eyes shifted to red and green Shining Armor himself turned a bit green at what she is doing. “Are you sure this is the only way?”
“What? The soul extraction? Yeah. We are going to need them to help attune the gems we are going to use to Twilight herself. Don’t worry too much about it. We have the okay from the princesses after all.” Spike himself was only slightly less disturbed by the dark magic that was being practiced in front of them.
An orb seeped out of the wooden predator and into a jar Rarity was carrying in her saddlebags. “Four down one more to go. Cheer up Captain Armor. We’ve almost finished what we came here for. As for the necessity of what we are doing, I can assure you it was the least messy method detailed in Craving’s enchantment manual.”
“If this wasn’t for my sister I’d never help do something like this.”
“If you think you are bothered by this, imagine being the one having to cast the spells. Only reason I’m holding out against how wrong this magic feels is the fact that it will help my friend.”
Nearby some bushes began to rustle and the hunting party got ready for another run in with the local wild life. So far they had not had to kill anything but their target wild golems but that did not mean they had not already ran across a manticore or cragodile on this venture. After a moment an equine head poked through the bushes which was welcomed however though this one was odd. They had never seen a pony with stripes like that before.
“Okay Twilight, are you ready?”
“Are you sure about this Rarity? I’m not comfortable with what we had to do to make these.”
“We’ve been over this a few times already, Twilight. We only used the souls from the timber wolves. Nothing else was killed to make this possible.”
“Alright.” Twilight gulped before applying the choker Rarity had made for her. It was a lovely thing created of several strands of interwoven alloys that should have been used to armor air ships than make a small band to sit around a unicorn’s throat. A small piece of azurite sitting in the middle to decorate the band.
“How do you feel?”
“Strange. There was an odd sensation the moment I put it on.”
“That should have been the enchantment syncing with you from what we’ve been reading. Now, just put on a bangle for each leg and then we’ll find out if they will do what we hoped.”
“Right.” Twilight tried not to go cross eyed as the bands of metal were slid over each of her hooves and up her leg. Each had reacted oddly in her magic field and feeling them resize so they would stay in place was odd. All four had been made up of the same metal as the choker with decorative bits of ivory laced within on advisement from their new zebra friend, Zecora.
“There. Now for the real test. Come on Twilight, let us see if these will do their job.” Rarity fretted about whether or not her creations could hope to hold up. It was not every day someone retro-engineered an enchantment to sync the growth of a unicorn’s reservoir with their mana generation. Doubly rare when the rates were so skewed from one another.
“Now then, let’s begin the tests, shall we?” Celestia stepped into the room followed by some of her experts.
What followed was a few hours of tests to confirm that their hopes were well placed. Twilight’s ability to contain her power was now growing at an exponential rate to match her ability to generate it. While this did not save her given that there was a vast gulf between the two it would buy her some hope. If they could do this then they were on the right track to saving her.
With tears in her eyes Twilight thanked everyone there and made a note to send thank you letters to Zecora and Maud as well. Without their input and help she was sure she and Rarity would still be spinning their wheels. “Thank you all so much. This is wonderful. Thank you Spike for taking a chance. Thank you Rarity for all you have been doing for me. This is a great anniversary gift of our meeting.”
Rarity herself was surprised to realize that Twilight was right. It had been a year to the day since she had been roped into all this but figured the awe at how much time had passed was less important than the fact that she had brought her friend hope. If she had anything to say about it Twilight would be able to leave this room in another year. “No worries, dear. We are just glad you are nearly free to move about again.”
“You are welcome Twilight. I just figured it was time to search in a different direction.” He kept it to himself he had been looking into some other information that Rarity had shared with him. The metal those bands were made up of would work for now but even they would be so much slag if she exploded like she did against Blueblood. It was time for him to contact some experts on odd and rare metals. It was time to talk to some dragons.
A cultured masculine voice could be heard in the office after the servant delivered the news to its employer. “I see. Continue to monitor everything. Let me know if they make any more progress.”
The servant nodded and left as Blueblood turned back to look out the window of his office. “I’ll have to make some plans. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to resort to these methods after I got rid of her parents but it looks like I’ll have to once again hire a ‘contractor’.”
Spike, trying to hide his blush because of the guest he was leading to Twilight’s room, spoke to the one he was guiding. “So Ember, you say you have what Twilight will be needing.”
“Yes, Spike. My father has given the okay to share the knowledge with your employer and even deliver as much as she needs assuming she agrees to help smooth things along for our peoples to get along.” The older teenage female dragon looked onto Twilight’s assistant.
“They’ll love to hear that.” Spike opened the door and lead her inside the antechamber which now looked more like a massive workshop suitable for a dozen ponies. The tables covered in books and scrolls, testing equipment of all sorts whose use was lost on the dragons, Rarity’s jeweler’s workstation and the enchanter’s alter near the edge of the room leading into the bed room.
“Okay, I have to ask what you two are doing.” Spike forgot about his guest for a moment in shock at seeing Rarity and Twilight in the middle of the room twisting around.
“Oh Spike darling, I’m helping Twilight here. Zecora suggested something her peoples had developed to cope with when one of their shamans got a little too in touch with the spirit world. It helps split them off from the spiritual plane so they will return to this world. From what she described it should help keep Twilight from building up such a surplus of power.” Rarity stepped off from Twilight with a bit of a blush. How was she to know Twilight was ticklish. It had been hell wrestling her to the ground to apply the solution. ‘Thankfully I grew up in an earth pony town.’
Twilight stood up mortified that she had been in such a position and that a guest had seen it. As she stood all in the room could see where Twilight’s body was covered in splotches of some sort of azure paint. ‘Oh, we are having words later miss experiments on her friends.’ “Ah, Spike, who is your friend?”
The purple dragon had to do everything he could not to laugh at how Twilight looked. “Ah, yes. This is Princess Ember. She is the daughter of Dragon Lord Torch. She is here to negotiate a trade deal. She has a most wondrous thing to offer us in exchange for House Star’s help in paving a path for such agreements between our cultures.”
“Oh? Well then let us see about making this friendship official.”