Silver strode alone through the streets. Without his wives around, more of the crowd shied away from him. He paid them little mind, carrying a large basket in the air, hoisted by a silvery hand only he could see. He ascended the stairs to the academy that had briefly been his home. He moved to the office he had begun his journey to higher education in. The earth pony was still there. She seemed surprised to see him.
"Oh, hello. You withdrew, didn't you?" she asked, "What's the basket for?"
Silver shook his head, "I'm not here for class. I did withdraw. Is Professor Thetics in?"
She nodded softly, pushing some papers around with a hoof until she found something, "He has a class finishing up. He's in room 209. Ten minutes, give or take."
"I'll wait," said Silver as he trotted out into the hallway, "Thanks!"
Silver quickly found the room and parked himself beside the door. He pulled down the basket to himself and sifted through it, hoping he had chosen correctly. The class let out shortly, with many ponies leaving the room. Silver used the basket to conceal his face. Despite his cutie mark on full display, this was oddly effective. Ponies. Once the class was emptied, he rose to his hooves and stepped in.
Professor Thetics was seated behind a desk, scribbling something. Without looking up, he said, "I'll see you tomorrow."
Silver shook his head as he approached the desk, "I'm not a student."
Callis' eyes shot up to lock on Silver as a scowl rapidly formed, "You! What are you doing here? Are you here to mock me, or attack me? I stand by my original statement, you are an unprepared and dangerous colt!"
"And you are right," said Silver, moving the basket over and setting it gently on Professor Thetics desk, "I'm sorry."
Callis Thetics took the basket out of Silver's grip with his own magic, "Is this to get me to sponsor your re-entry? Don't bother. They still want you. Bunch of fools, their eyes full of nonsense and easy acclaim."
Silver sat in front of the desk, "I mean it. I was awful, just awful. I never should have reacted the way I did, both times. You didn't do anything more than be a jerk." The teacher frowned. "And that is subjective," added Silver quickly. "I want to make it up to you, somehow."
Professor Thetics snorted, "I imagine asking you to leave is not one of the options?"
Silver rose to his hooves, "If you really want me to, I will, but I mean it, so if there's something a bit more?"
Callis sighed and set the basket down in front of himself. Easily he peeled away the sparkly wrapping and revealed the gift basket of candies and writing implements hidden within. His magic waved over the basket, likely inspecting it for enchantments.
Silver raised a hoof, "The quills are enchanted to run twice as long without running out... I looked it up and did it myself."
Callis cracked a soft smile, "So you can use your magic in a civilized fashion." He drew one of the quills out, dipped it in ink, then began to scribble with it, "The enchantment is a little sloppy, but not bad for a first year."
Silver smiled hopefully, tail swaying, "I really am sorry. You're not a bad pony, and I was pretty mean. Can we put that behind us?"
Callis pointed the wet quill at Silver, "You are still a cheater."
Silver's ears went back, "I really didn't ask her to. She cheated for me and I didn't even know until it was all over. I want to earn my achievements, not have them thrown at me for free."
As Silver's mouth opened mid 'free', a small chocolate ball landed on his tongue. He reflexively closed his mouth. Mmm, it was delicious.
Callis took one himself and chewed it thoughtfully, "Which test was administered?"
Silver thought back, "The tester put their heart crystal inside of my shoulder by a teleportation magic without telling me what they had done, and I had to identify it. I was able to figure out where it was, and how large it was, but forgot how large their heart crystal was, so I couldn't say what it was exactly."
Callis raised a brow, "You might have been ready next year, and we could have avoided a lot of trouble."
Silver shook his head quickly, "But I met my wife, this year. Either way, I don't want to be a cheater."
Callis nodded, "Well, alright, tell me what changed."
Silver blinked, "What?"
Callis waved the still wet quill at Silver, ink splattering a little, "I have changed something in you, identify it."
Silver felt a thrill of excitement and apprehension as he let his magic flow powerfully as Nightwing had shown. He found the blockage and snorted, "Is this revenge for my prank?"
Callis looked at him evenly without a word.
Silver flopped over, "You've stuffed a quill where it has no business being. I don't suppose you could take it out?"
Callis shook his head, "Fair is fair. I'll take it out when you visit tomorrow."
Silver rolled back upright, "I was wrong, but two wrongs don't make a right. Don't become what you don't like."
Professor Thetics frowned, "What a tongue. Fine." The quill vanished from inside Silver, "You have passed, legitimately."
Silver clopped his hooves together, but Thetics continued, "You are still a danger to ponies around you. Your mind is a devious place."
Silver nodded slowly, "I'm... still learning to be a good pony." He half-turned to the door, "If you need any help, send word to the human embassy."
Professor Thetics returned to his writing, but nibbled on some candy while doing so. Silver decided to accept this exchange as a good one, and left with a smile.
When Silver arrived at the embassy wing, a messenger was waiting for him. The pegasus extended a letter held in her feathers by some pegasus magic he did not understand. He accepted the letter and nodded as she fled to other deliveries.
Silver curiously tore open the seal and opened it. The writing was precise, but foreign.
Dear human,
Your talents are very dangerous to our own. Come to the Badlands, alone. Or take those delicious wives with you if you prefer. I'm certain we can find a use for them in the hive. Before you consider running off to your little princesses about this, your precious parents are our guests already, and if you don't come, they never leave, at least until they are emotionless husks.
Fondest Regards,
Queen Chrysalis
XOXO
Silver dropped the letter in shock and anger. He grabbed it from where it fell and stormed to his room, where Night had been sleeping, but was quickly roused by his stomping.
"Huh, what's wrong?" she asked, reaching for the glasses on the nearby dresser and slipping them on. Silver offered her the letter and her eyes swept over it, "There's a hundred percent chance this is a trap."
Silver raised a brow, "I thought you leave off ten percent?"
Night tapped the paper with a wing, "Not this time. Come on. We should tell the princesses right away."
Silver looked less than certain, "What do you think they'll do? If we show up with a ton of guards they'll just hide, and maybe hurt Rough and Trixie."
Night frowned, "And if you go, they snatch you and we never see you again. How is that better?"
Silver tapped the ground as he thought, "What about... something smaller?"
Night raised a brow, "I'm listening."
Silver nodded, "The warlocks? They're smaller, less obvious, more stealthy. They could come with us without the changelings knowing at a glance."
Fast seemed to come around, "That makes sense enough, but you won't get them to move without Celestia's direct order. Even Luna can't unleash them on Equestria, a matter that does not please her one bit."
Silver considered approaching them directly, skipping Celestia entirely, but the thought crashed to a halt. No. He was done being a bad pony. "We will show her the letter, and explain, and hopefully she will understand."
Night softly rubbed her cheek against Silver's, "You have no idea how happy that makes me."
Silver looked... confused, "Huh? That's what you said."
Night set the paper aside, "Nothing. Let's go."
Silver could tell Night was hiding something, but he let it go, instead grabbing the letter and trotting with her through the castle to day court. Day court was held in the same place as night court, with Celestia presiding. There were many more ponies here, awake and doing business during the daylight hours. Celestia didn't even notice Silver coming in, not that he blamed her. He was just one pony among many.
He approached one of the more official-looking ponies, "Can you add me to the queue?"
She raised a brow, looking him over, "Ah, the Ambassador. Please, have a seat." She gestured to a row near the front, "The Princess is quite busy today but we'll see what we can do."
Silver and Night moved to settle and watch the ponies argue in front of Celestia about various things. Silver leaned in closer, "I hope you're not mad I'm breaking my promise."
Night perked a tufted ear, "What? Oh. It doesn't count if I'm next to you. If I hear you start going to court on your own, we'll both be on you."
Silver whispered, "Is this something we should parade in the open?"
Night shook her head, "We can ask for a private meeting, when it's our turn."
Silver dug through his pouch and pulled out his magic-color identifying spell. "I need to get an actual spell book," he said to himself as he played the magic faithfully. He put in a faint trickle of magic, so the light shafts that emerged were faint, even to his own eyes. Nopony else immediately turned to him, so he guessed it was working. Many colors reached from the crystal, but he only looked for one. Two of the ponies sitting there had a specific green hue going towards them and he frowned, leaning in towards Night.
"There are two possible changelings in here," he whispered.
Night wriggled her nose, "You were always perceptive. What do you want to do about it?"
Silver squirmed in place, considering possible actions. "We make it look innocent as possible, but we can't go accusing random ponies of being changelings or tackling them."
Night shook her head, peering at Silver through her glasses, "No, no we should not do that."
They waited impatiently, well, Silver was the more impatient of the two. Night's seeming calm only made him more agitated, though he struggled to keep it under control. When his name was called, he hopped to his hooves and trotted quickly up to the podium.
Hooray for peace.
5773892 Well, some peace.
5773914
Hooray! Ambivalent peace!
There's no hyphen in "higher education."
There's an extraneous quotation mark at the end of this sentence.
Not a real error here, but the typical axiom is "two wrongs don't make a right."
To be clear, "officious" means "meddlesome" or "aggressively offering unwanted help." I suspect you'll want to swap this out for "official."
Also, whichever word you go with, there should be a hyphen between it and "looking."
5774016 Tweaked! I do hope this chapter flies better than the last.
silvers too nice. so nice, it could be evil
I wonder if Silver will ever pull the I am human, bane of everything/we are humanity, we come to eff shit up!
Because while being good is... good, there is a time when enough is enough, I have had it with this mfing snakes on this mfing plane!
5774028 I certainly liked this chapter quite a bit more (though I feel compelled to reiterate that I'm just one fan among many, stating my opinion - just because I don't care for a particular chapter doesn't mean that it's bad; just not to my particular tastes).
I didn't care too much for the beginning sequence with Professor Thetics. While I know that several other readers have expressed some degree of sympathy for the character (in that, while he "struck" first, Silver's reaction was worse, making Callis seem to be the victimized party in comparison) or frustration with that he's a "stereotypical 'arrogant-noble'" character, neither of those were a problem for me. In fact, the character's original appearance worked very well, in that he served as a vector to precipitate the disaster with Silver's fireball, and then served as a sort of "reverse scapegoat" to clean everything up when Silver made his speech.
Really, the only issue with the character was that his reintroduction, when he entered Silver's room, seemed somewhat lacking in purpose. In that regard, he was still a stereotype - hideously arrogant and condescending without even seeming to realize how much of an ass he was being - who got what he deserved; I didn't care that Silver cast a humiliating spell on him, since he was clearly asking for it. The issue I had was that his appearance there didn't really advance anything; there's nothing wrong with having characters that are less than three-dimensional, but that's largely because such characters move in service to the plot. By contrast, Silver giving him a short-lived urinary tract infection didn't really do anything for the story besides being a bit of humor, unconnected to the wider narrative (that he delivered the message that Silver was readmitted to the academy wasn't really relevant, since that has yet to have any practical impact).
All of this is my long-winded way of saying that I didn't really see any need for Silver to try and make up with Callis, at least from a meta-contextual point. Unlike several other readers, I don't think that Silver owes him an apology for what happened at the school, nor do I think he owes him one for the events in his room. Now, I can see Silver thinking that he owes the Professor an apology - that's the sort of pony that Silver is - but I don't see what precipitated that line of thinking on his part. Clearly, Silver is on some sort of kick to reinvent himself as a "good pony," but I'm not sure what drove that particular urge. The last that we were told, Silver seemed just fine with what he'd done to the professor, so why the sudden desire to mend fences?
Man, I'm really bitching a lot for having said I liked this chapter more...
All of that said, I did like the new revelation that was then revealed regarding Rough and Trixie's disappearance! Now we suddenly have the plot kicking into high-gear again! This leads to several questions, such as how Chrysalis was able to kidnap Rough and Trixie in the first place (did they also clear out their house, since unless I'm misremembering (though I may be) their house was empty when Silver and co. checked it), what she wants (I suspect something about him being able to break their disguises), and what she'll do when her guards in the court report that Silver is seeking Princess Celestia's help despite her note (though they might not get the chance).
Engaging the warlocks seems like a good idea, but I'm a little worried that they'll make the fight too one-sided. While we haven't seen them in action, the warlocks have been implied to be pony-commandos, able to get in fast, quietly, and then wreak extreme havoc. The changelings, by contrast, seem like extremely weak creatures, only able to win with surprise and overwhelming numbers on their side in an actual battle, rather than using subterfuge. I say that because we saw the Mane Six - who at that point had zero experience in physical fighting - take out so many of them before being overwhelmed. To put it another way, the warlocks versus the changelings seems like it'll be the former massacring the latter.
I'm also a little nervous about the idea that Night is hiding something from Silver, regarding his decision to enlist Princess Celestia's help. Secrets destroy marriages, and if it turns out that Night has accepted some sort of mission from the Princess to monitor Silver for Celestia, that would be (to me) a major betrayal of trust. Being married means that you put your spouse(s) first - spying on them for somepony else, no matter how benevolent they are or how righteous their intentions, is not only an act of disloyalty, but one that would shatter being able to trust them, and without that there is no marriage (and how much worse would that be now that she's pregnant). Silver is weak-willed enough that he'd probably forgive her, and perhaps even think so little of himself that he'd be convinced that he deserves to have his own wife spy on him, but that'd just be pitiful.
Ahem, having said all of that, I'm definitely looking forward to how the forthcoming showdown between Silver and Chrysalis takes place!
O finally we are back to the intrigue and mystery of the story.
this chapter has something to get my teeth in I love a good misery.
expellant chapter a really good beginning with a strong finish.
now I am sitting hear on the edge of my chair wanting more.
Harts Fire
You know, something else that occurred to me about why I have zero sympathy for Callis Thetics. He's still hiding the totality of his culpability with regards to what happened with Silver's fireball. Specifically with regards to rendering Silver unconscious, which caused it to be unleashed after Silver conjured it.
Seriously, in every instance where Silver remembered or described what happened, he was under the impression that he just passed out, and that's what unleashed the fireball. In fact, that's not what happened - the Professor saw Silver conjuring the fireball and panicked, knocking him out using his magic...which then caused the spell to be unleashed. So you have a certified professor of magic, with years of experience and all sorts of spellcasting knowledge, completely losing his head and making the situation worse...a situation that he precipitated to begin with.
No, this doesn't completely excuse Silver - he shouldn't have conjured the fireball in the first place. But that's the thing: Silver panicked. He was suddenly and immediately robbed of autonomy over his own body, by someone who then began ranting about how they didn't like him and were going to make him miserable. Of course he felt like he was under attack, and would react as such. Even then, he aborted his attack halfway through. It was only because the older, supposedly-wiser, more experienced professor also freaked out and knocked Silver out that caused the fireball to be released...which so far, nopony else seems to know about.
So yeah, Callis did not deserve Silver's apology, since he's still hiding the full extent of his involvement in what happened.
5774823 I'm not sure 'hiding' is the key word there. Silver's not shared his perception with Callis, so why wouldn't he assume his actions were known? Heck, he was thanked for his 'quick thinking', so why wouldn't he think they are referring to the abrupt knock out spell?
5774133
Good analysis as always but
the girls are extremely potent in comparison with the rest of the characters, regular ponies always seem surprised at its capabilities
would not be unusual in terms of brute force exceeding the royal guard.
twi up is the strongest Unicorn born in the last 1000 years,rd is extremely fast one of the few to break the sound barrier
aj has much brute force is very skilled physically,rarity has excellent fine control of his magic,pinky is a force of chaos
flutershy can be very brave and frightening
about chargeling broke the shield with their bodies and fell from a great height without taking damage, seem more powerful than the average pony but weaker than the protagonists
Didn't he say as part of his speech that if he was ever seen without his wives he should be reported to the police?
Did you mean "subjective" as in "my opinion"?
I think I know who sent the mysterious letter in A Dangerous Sparkle. It's good to know Rough and Trixie didn't just leave in a huff or something silly like that.
5776667 Luna countermanded his words when she said 'that wouldn't be neccesary' and inducted him into the warlocks. Otherwise fixed!
In the middle of the relationship drama, I was a little worried that you had lost some of the unique things that made your stories so special in the beginning. This is not the case. You are showing a level of connectivity and continuity that is rarely seen. Plus, you seem to have fixed the pacing/tone difficulties I mentioned earlier.
I'm glad he managed to make things right with the ass hat teacher. He should not have enchanted him before. Beyond that, I found no fault. A wholesome if ominous chapter.