Twilight Sparkle has been waiting for this day. Her dream to get into Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns finally has came true. Almost. She just needed to pass entrance exam to get there, which should not be a problem.
She woke up earlier than usual and started her preparations. Checklist was prepared for current ritual. Wake up? Check. Make bed? Check. Brush teeth? Check. Repeat book material for magic? Check. She placed ticks on a piece of paper as she completed her tasks.
Now it was time to wake parents. Early.
"Twilight! It’s just 4 o'clock in morning! Go back to bed!" Twilight’s mother, Twilight Velvet, shouted with annoyance in her voice.
Wake parents early? Check! Another tick appeared on white sheet.
Wait was unbearable for her, she reread her magic related books. Books in question were "Advanced Magic for Grade 5", that was much more interesting than recommended "Basic magic for Foals", which she could recite completely, word for word. Other literature included "Practical uses of magic", as expected, it covered everyday use of magic in usual lives of ponies. The last book on list was "Magic Engineering (Second Edition)" sparkled more interest in Twilight than any other book. It described in detail how new spells are created and how they can be reverse engineered for improvement.
In spite of such vast knowledge for filly of her age, she could only cast very simple spells, such as telekinesis, otherwise she could only cast "sparkles" rather than coherent advanced spells. Useful for campfires or just to start any fires on flammable materials, learned from rich Twilight’s experience. It was one of reasons why she was hated by fireponies and public in general. The other reason was "unintended" destruction of property as result of Twilight's attempts to learn magic.
* * *
In Canterlot's central area where Twilight was living, it was not uncommon to find houses that had shop or cafeteria at ground floor and living quarters in above floors, every building had small backyard for foals to play and recreational area for other ponies. It was only common for older areas of Canterlot, as new developments were made for newer buildings, New areas had buildings with high tower appearance, since unicorns discovered “it’s-bigger-on-inside-than-outside” enchantments, they could in fitmany families, but still had maximum size limitations and had worse height space compression.
Twilight was in backyard of house she was living in, but particular shop was enough unfortunate to be located in same house in which Twilight lived. Fireworks shop. She was trying to learn cast illumination spell that evening. She tried to build up magic energy at her horn, but instead of light at tip of her horn, bunch of sparks shot out and flew in parabolic trajectory into window of said shop. The explosion showed itself instantaneously. Twilight saw amazing display of light, screams, debris and ponies running out of shop with their manes and tails on fire. Twilight made self-note for later: send letter to publisher to change “…focus and build up energy in your horn…” to “…TRY TO SQUEEZE YOUR BRAINS OUT THROUGH YOUR HORN…”
Later, Twilight's family and other families living same house had to move to new dwelling as old house was nearly destroyed and deemed unsafe for living. Their new address was at edge of city, with recently built houses in shape of towers. One tower could fit eight families for each floor and had ten floors. Towers were coloured white with cone shaped roofs, usually yellow in appearance, rarely red or purple. Buildings itself had golden intricate decorations painted on its’ walls. Neighbourhood had nice additions, such as playground for fillies and colts to play around, mini supermarket and entertainment centre (both located in different buildings), where ponies could watch movies, play table top games or just relax in cafe with live band and stand-up comedians. Just paradise, if not for Twilight Sparkle terrorising entire area within her reach.
Playground had seesaw, sandbox and other attractions for fillies. At side of playground, stood wooden gazebo. Twilight liked that area as site for magic practice. She had no interest in playing with other ponies of her age, but preferred to read books or trying to practice magic in shade of gazebo, sometimes trees. Only friend she had was mint coloured filly unicorn, Lyra Heartstrings. Twilight met her often at playground, Lyra was telling interesting stories about distant stars and bizarre stories about aliens called something alongside “humans” or so, but Twilight ignored her stories further, however they were sharing common interests in astronomy and could talk about it for hours.
This time, she was attempting to cast levitation spell to lift an apple from table in gazebo, but instead of her breakfast taking to air, roof started straining under unknown force and subsequently collapsing. She was able to escape gazebo just in time, but not all ponies were that fast to escape, especially when they expected it at least. Twilight was presented with a folding process of feeble building into pile of rubble. Fireponies arrived quickly and guided by screams of trapped ponies in rubble, rescued them from ruins of former gazebo. Twilight started making internal count of "unintentional" damage made by her “spells”.
Ponies in gazebo witnessed Twilight casting spell briefly before incident and reported that to her parents. After that incident Twilights parents hired foalsitter and gave Twilight lecture about casting spells in public places without supervision. Twilight had suspicions about foalsitter and her brother connected someway, but she was somehow forgetting it each time. Now, Twilight was limited to casting spells only in open and clear areas, in presence of foal sitter or adult. Since then, there were no catastrophic incidents, besides occasional burned trees and missing patches of grass in park area, which we too insignificant and numerous to record.
* * *
She finished reading her books. It was 8 o'clock and her parents just woke up. After breakfast and brief preparations, Twilight and her parents took carriage cab to school. Trip was lengthy, considering carriage traffic that day, as ponies were heading to work or for some odd errands.
They arrived to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. School was done in tower-ish style as rest of city, consisting of multiple white tower buildings and round saucer-like pavilion building, it reminded Twilight of alien spaceship told once by Lyra. Twilight still wondered if such structure could fly.
Buildings were connected by concrete tile walkways, with unicorns of various ages could be seen walking on them. Space between buildings had flowers planted with accurately trimmed bushes in various shapes, mostly in shapes of important ponies from history, but most worth of mention was huge flowerbed with yellow tulips planted in shape of sun, just like Princess Celestia’s cutie mark.
Twilight and her parents proceeded along wide main walkway to “saucer” building. They approached reception located after entrance of building. A white coated clerk unicorn was sitting at counter and making notes in fat counter book, wrapped in hard cover.
“Good day! We are here for entrance exam,” Twilight’s father, Night Light, said. “Name is Twilight Sparkle.”
“Good day! Let me see…” Receptionist pony replied, smiling and looked at rows of writing in counter book, moving her hoof down page to find a match in records. “Here it is! Please proceed to auditorium A5 located in this building, straight ahead and door on right.”
“Thank you!” Night Light replied.
Group went further into building through wide corridor with student ponies, some walking and some rushing, likely running late. Corridors had yellow hinted carpets, walls were decorated with different plaques of best learners and teachers, group photographs of students that finished school and chandeliers hanging from ceiling, however corridors were lit by outdoor light through sunroofs located along entire length of corridors.
Following signs on walls, it was not difficult to find auditorium A5. It was a large room with big panoramic windows, giving expanse view of school grounds and sky above. It had seats for students, but instead of students there were four examiners seated with very strict faces. Twilight didn’t want even to ask how was their day.
A tray was rolled in with a big purple egg with lighter round spots on its shell, carefully resting on pile of hay.
“Miss Sparkle!” Said one of examiners with harshness in her voice. “We know your game! We giving you something you will not break: a real dragon egg! You may start.”
Twilight felt a bit uneasy. She was expecting exam for basic spells or theoretical knowledge which were in her competence, but dragon egg was something different. She tried to cast a spell that could crack open egg’s hard shell. Few sparks fizzled out of her horn in attempt to cast “wielding torch” spell, but nothing happened. Egg was still intact and rock solid.
“There should be a way to deal with that blasted egg,” thought Twilight. “I must try from other side or maybe cast a bit harder!”
She went to other side of tray and applied more force to her magic, she thought that her head would explode from such effort. Something unforeseen happened… With foreseen consequences.
A sudden loud wave of thunder from outside blasted glass windows of auditorium to shards. Somewhere a lot of windows were broken that day and speeding fine ticket issued. Everypony was shocked by such sudden noise, except for Twilight, who was too concentrated on casting, she was used to such incidents and nothing could stop her from reaching the final goal.
Twilight’s casting suddenly surged with powerful beam of magic directed at the egg. The egg was split open and dragon has appeared from it. No, dragon grown from egg and rapidly increased in height, outside of building’s parameters. As expected, a new hole has been made in roof. This wasn’t end to unfolding disaster. Twilight has lost control of herself and magical beam hit her parents which were turned into plants. Next were examiners, who were levitated into air.
Her magic surge was fading away and its effects: dragon decreasing to normal baby size, her parents turning back to ponies and examiners dropping to floor. This will need trauma counselling for two parent ponies, various medical treatments for four high education examiners and one explanation from Twilight Sparkle.
* * *
*Somewhere in Cloudsdale...*
“Rainbow Dash!” A traffic pony shouted, crossing brows and approaching Rainbow Dash as she was landing on cloudy ground. “Do you know at what speed you were going!?”
“It is racecourse,” replied Rainbow Dash puzzled. “Isn’t it?”
Angry ponies were gathering at scene and more approaching from below, likely those who were in neighbouring towns located at ground.
“Eheheh…” Rainbow Dash looked at her onlookers with apologetic smile and rubbing her neck with hoof, attempting to look as cute as possible.
“Yes, but it is also training grounds for juniors,” explained traffic pony, continuing frowning. “You could have hurt somepony! Or worse, hurt yourself! There is a reason for those rules! And look at what have you done: you just destroyed all windows in surrounding area!”
“This is last straw. Sorry, I have to report this to your parents.” Concluded traffic pony, writing down a fine ticket. ”This is for breaking rules. Rules are rules. Congratulations on your first ticket!”
“I hate you.” Said Rainbow Dash with venom in her voice that dense, so she could kill surrounding living creatures with just one her breath.
* * *
Events have not gone unnoticed by Princess Celestia. She rushed to source of damage and former mayhem. Considering earlier episodes, it came that Twilight earned reputation being blamed for any magic related damages or damage that is impossible to make by hoof.
“What has happened here?!”Asked Princess Celestia, glancing over broken roof, then stunned examiners, shocked Twilight’s parents and Twilight herself, along with newly hatched baby dragon. “Twilight Sparkle!”
“I’m sorry!” Twilight sparkle tried to defend herself. “I didn’t mean to do that at all!”
“I have seen enough,” said Princess Celestia with stern voice “But this is last straw. You are not accepted to my school. I don’t want my school to become barren land.”
It felt like a machinery which suddenly jammed and stopped. World around her has stopped. Or entire universe.
“B.. Bu.. Bu.. But…” Stuttered Twilight, with growing shock in her face. “It can’t be!”
The death glare Twilight given Princess Celestia, was remembered forever by all attendees in auditorium this day. The glare was so bright with hatred, so Celestia’s sun and other 999 suns could be put to shame. Movie directors still trying to work on this.
“You will pay for this.” Hissed Twilight Sparkle and dashed out of auditorium with tears running down her cheeks.