I was surprised to see the god of chaos running around free again, especially with nothing going out of control in the area. Watching him slowly climb down from the roof after sneaking up on him again was fun though. I wondered how he was able to escape from his stony prison this time and how long it would be before he’s put back again.
“Really now I show up here again just for you to sneak up on me again? Can’t you think of something new to- Hello, this is definitely an unexpected occurrence.” His train of thought is interrupted as he turns around to see me sitting behind him in my kitsune form. He actually looks a bit frightened for some reason though it is quickly replaced by a cunning look.
“Well now I wondered why I had so much trouble around here when I last came a calling. I thought something felt off about you before, but for you to be one of that race of beings, well I wonder what dear old Celestia would say about you being here.” I just roll my eyes at him as he obviously doesn’t know that she has known for a while. “Well I’m not supposed to hurt any ponies anymore, but I can’t see her objecting to me removing a pest like you now can she?”
I narrow my eyes at him as he says this and I can feel him build up power like last time. He looks confused as I sigh and shake my head before twisting his powers against him once again. He realizes he made a mistake as his eyes open wide. “Oh snickerdoodles...” He is then flung off towards town as a square of ground under him launches out using a giant spring before returning to normal.
“I wonder when he will realize exactly what I’m doing. Of course I’m not even fully sure but at least him being around will let me practice it some more.” I head inside my home to find that everyone is still out so I head to my room to clean up. While not as luxurious as the spa, the tub in my room is still better than most, and using some bath mixtures from the spa improves it even further.
As I finish up I hear somebody knocking at my door so I head down, expecting Discord again. I’m surprised to find that it was Fluttershy that had arrived, and made note to keep better track of the area. “Oh Flarenza, I didn’t know you were back home again. Did you happen to see Discord wandering around here recently?” I raise an eyebrow at this as I would have thought that Fluttershy would have been hiding from him instead of searching for him.
“Well he was here earlier, but why would you be searching for him alone after what he did last time?” Fluttershy looks at me oddly before coming to a realization. “Oh that’s right, you haven’t heard yet.” I am then treated to an explanation about what went on while I was gone and how Discord is now ‘reformed.’ I catch a key word during the explanation that tells me a bit about his recent attempt to attack me.
“So he’s promised to use his powers only for good, did he? Well you might want to let him know about things he might know nothing about that causes him to do what he thinks is good but may not be.” Fluttershy just looks at me oddly after I say this and I just point towards the oncoming object Discord is riding. This time he is riding some giant machine with two giant cylindrical wheels that looks like it is made to flatten things.
Fluttershy just stares at it in shock while I just use a bit of energy to collapse a tunnel that is in the things path, causing it to crash into the resulting pit. “He seems to think that I am a threat that the princess doesn’t know about and is trying to remove me, though I suspect that there may be other reasons as well. Still, this is entertaining but it would get annoying to have to do this constantly.”
Discord slowly climbs out of the pit and marches his way over, looking a bit annoyed with me. “I had forgotten how annoying your kind was at stopping me, it was why I was happy to see Celestia drive you all out. I never could figure out how you always could stop my powers and it always annoyed me. Maybe I should just let Celly and her ponies know about you and let them deal with you again.” I just yawn at his little rant before pointing a paw towards Fluttershy who looks to be getting a bit angry.
Discord looks over to where I was pointing and begins to turn really pale at the sight. “Err, Fluttershy, how nice to see you again. What brings you out to this neck of the woods, eh he?” He looks back and forth between the two of us before his eyes widen in shock. “Oh, Celly already knows about you, doesn’t she?” I almost laugh at his disappointed tone before I just nod at him and Fluttershy flies up into his face and starts lecturing him.
I decide to head inside to give them a bit of privacy though I leave the door open for them for if they need me. I decide to prepare something for lunch while I wait and I chuckle at some of the things I hear float through the open doors. I finish preparing some food and tea and load them onto a tray as things finally quiet down outside. I find the two waiting inside the entryway and I just nod over to the sitting room as I head over with the tray floating behind me.
As we sit down I pass out a plate to everyone and interrupt Discord as he is about to say something. “Look, you don’t have to say anything as you didn’t know what was going on around here yet. You’re probably lucky this happened anyways as I have no idea how what I was doing was even working. Who knows what could have happened if things continued.” Discord just seems to scoff at the idea while Fluttershy looks a bit worried.
Soon enough Fluttershy remembers why she was looking for Discord and escorts him off to do whatever it was. As they leave I leave a message for the others stating that I am back and I head down into the basement towards my underground lab. My little trip out as well as the recent fun with Discord had given me a couple ideas I wanted to try with the fireworks. I made sure to lock and barrier every door to the room for safeties sake, as well as throw up a couple around me as well as have a couple shielded gems handy.
I first warmed up by trying to improve some of the things I learned out of Trixie’s books. It was nothing really major, just a shape here or a color there, until I started adding multiple colors and shapes to them. It worked relatively well with a few false starts, but in the end it would save bits spent on powder as I found ways to do more with less.
Once I had finished a few of those new fireworks and stored them in a safe area away from the lab I moved on to the big project I had been working on. This was going to be harder to do as it is something that hadn’t been done before or even tried so it was all work from scratch. Some of it was going to take a while to test as the preparations would take at least a day, but luckily there were a few things I wanted to try.
The quicker ideas turned out to be complete busts as the scale model tests didn’t give of the effect I was hoping for. So after setting up the concoctions I was planning to test tomorrow I made my way back to the manor. None of the other occupants had returned yet so I started working on a good sized dinner for when they returned. Luckily I made some extra as when they returned they also brought Applebloom and Sweetie Belle along.
Watching everyone at the table made me realize I had been ignoring Selene and Scootaloo a bit more than I should have. Sure I was mostly just giving them a place to stay and helped them out occasionally, but I probably could do more for them. I made note to try and fix that after I finished this latest experiment and just let things settle for a bit.
Dinner was a lively affair with all three Crusaders there, but I had come to expect that when seeing all of them around. I found out that they decided to have a slumber party at Scootaloo’s place tonight, without asking me not that I really minded, so I made sure to sound-proof my room before heading to bed that night.
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The next morning I decided to pass the time walking around town while my experiment was still in the waiting stages. While there I found that Discord may have given up on being really dangerous, but it didn’t stop him from trying to pull little pranks occasionally. He was surprised when he was able to hit me with a balloon full of cake, which was cleaned up with the help of Pinkie, but his next attempt backfired like usual.
It did give me a bit more insight into my abilities so I didn’t complain too much. Apparently I could still sense him doing things in a very tiny area around me while on neutral ground but beyond that I couldn’t prevent him from using his magic without a lot of luck. Seeing him about to start experimenting I decided to take cover in the library.
Twilight was surprised to see me as I hadn’t announced my return yet, though she did seem a bit pleased to see me. She rolled her eyes at my reasoning for being there so early in the day but took the opportunity to remind me of her wanting to perform a few exams on me. I agreed not seeing any problems with that, but I was starting to have second thoughts after being strapped into her chair in the basement with various wires attached to me.
“Is all of this really necessary for your tests, Twilight?” I watched her as she was fiddling with various nobs and dials wondering what all this equipment is supposed to accomplish. “Of course it will, how else am I going to find out how strong your magic is as well as what wavelengths it works on?” I just shake my head and hope that it doesn’t do something unexpected since I doubt she would notice right away with how focused she is.
I wonder how accurate her readings even would be as the equipment was meant for ponies, but I channel my magic into what would normally be over a horn when she asks me to. I sit there for a while wondering what she is getting from the machine, but Twilight just sits there scribbling down notes and not saying much. “Soooo what does it say?” I ask her after a couple minutes of her quill scratching on parchment.
“Hmm? Oh, well some of these reading are a bit odd and I need to cross-reference a few things to verify what they mean. Actually almost all of the readings seem off so I may need to recalibrate the machine to see if anything is wrong with it. It does state that your power range is about a 2.9 though which seems to be pretty accurate though.” I shake my head as that doesn’t really tell me much so I decide to go for the only part I would probably get an answer on.
“And is a 2.9 good or bad, and on what kind of scale?” Twilight pauses for a second as she considers how to explain this. “Well it is a 10 point scale, though anything above 10 is really difficult to get a real reading on. A 1 would be your average pony while a 2 relate to your average unicorn without anything affecting them. As an example the Princesses would be a 10, though I haven’t had the chance to test that, while I have recorded between a 4.5 and 5.5 depending on the circumstances. The one time Rarity let me test her she showed a 2.5 so a 2.9 isn’t too bad really.”
I try to process all of this as she continues. “Of course the score is really an average of a few different things as well. While I can do things that require much more power than Rarity, she does have me beat when it comes to how many things she can do at once.” She sounds a bit sheepish about this. “And of course you seem to have founds ways around certain limitations with those magic circles of yours. I heard about your teleporting accident you had before and usually it takes a pony of a 3 rating to successfully complete one of that distance.”
I sit there in silence as she continues taking notes as I think on what she had said. I had noticed it was easier to do many things using a circle than without one, though I could still do the same things with more effort. This got me thinking a bit more into it until I thought of something else that could be useful. “So if those numbers are just as an average, what would you say Rainbow Dash’s little Rainboom trick would require to pull off for power?”
This gets Twilight’s attention as she looks up and considers the question. “You know I’m really not sure about that since I can never get her to sit still long enough to get a regular reading on her. It’s not just power for that though as there seem to be other factors but I’d say she could probably hit a 2 or higher. I wonder if I could make a portable sensor for something like that.” From there she is completely lost in her thoughts and after a few more minutes of her rambling off topic I decide to sneak out.
I try to spend more time in town but with Discord being as annoying as he is I am forced to make my way back home. I do get a fair bit of revenge as turning his magic back on him when I enter my property starts him on fire, which oddly enough seems to be covering him in ice at the same time. Getting the last laugh I make my way into the manor and just sigh at the mess I find.
I had no idea what they were doing to cause these things to happen but from the results I bet the Crusaders could really give Discord competition in the chaos field. Shaking my head I work on getting the couch off of the ceiling and clean up the rest of the place. I make note to try and get him to agree to watch the three sometime and then supply them with coffee or mass quantities of sugar and see what happens.
Laughing at the absurd idea I finish cleaning things up and head down to check on my experiment. It isn’t quite where I want it to be yet so I decide to test out a couple more ideas I had gotten recently while I wait. I manage to get some small results through this before I decide that it had been waiting long enough.
Turning to the beakers containing everything I examine the solution one more time before I proceed. Having decided to see what kind of reaction I could get from adding powdered poison joke and liquid rainbows, as well as a couple other things, I found that it seemed to do make a rainbow powder once all the liquid had been removed from it. Adding fire to it didn’t do much beyond making a rainbow colored smoke, and while that was still progress it wasn’t what I wanted to achieve.
Fortifying my barriers around the place I decided to try a couple more things before quitting. Considering what I had found out today I figured that there is one thing that could potentially cause the reaction I was searching for. Separating enough to fill a vial I drew up a small focusing circle around it and started to concentrate.
I channel my magic into the vial at a steady rate and watch to see what results from this. Nothing happens at first and after a couple minutes I am about to give up until I see the mixture start to sparkle a bit. Taking this as a good sign I begin to increase the power I pour into it steadily as the sparkle turns into a shine, and then into a glow. I’m not sure if this is the reaction I want, but it is something new and I start to cheer to myself a bit until I notice the vial starting to shake.
My eyes widen at this and I cut off the power flow into it, but not before a crack appears in the vial. Seeing this I dive away and try to take cover before my entire world vanishes in a rainbow explosion of color.