Twilight once thought she knew everything there was to know about cutie mark magic. She was wrong. As it turns out, there is a lot more content out there when it comes to cutie mark magic, unlocking that potential is something not just any pony can do, much to the frustration of a certain white-coated alicorn princess.
This is a dumb one-shot vaguely inspired by a writing prompt found on Reddit, and was a caffeine fueled midnight adventure into the wonderful world that is fan-fiction.
As my second ever fanfic, first ever completed fanfic, and first upload on this site, I don't expect greatness, but what better way is there to learn and improve?
Feel free to point out any errors I might have missed, as well as anything that is particularly irritating to read, or that doesn't make sense grammatically. Most of all though, hope you enjoy!
Teen tag is for the use of a naughty word or two (depending on what you consider naughty or not)
Cover is by the ever amazing Evehly, used with permission.
Source: https://evehly.deviantart.com/art/Art-663778952
Edit: Featured? Thank you so much everyone, this is heaps more than I had hoped for, I really appreciate that!
Dip into the pegasus tree and fly faster than Rainbow Dash.
I think she would dip into Luna’s tree. Dream magic would rock.
Darn it now I want to see what skill options she has.
so does that mean pinkie competed the skill tree?
8536034
IKR! I want to see them so badly!
8536194
That makes sense because she is constantly embracing her destiny (Fun, laughter, and parties). BUUUUUTTT it would be even funnier if she hadn't unlocked level two yet and that she just does ... Everything she can do just because. What would happen if she did unlock it though?
8536034
When I was at work last night I was thinking about how this could work in a bigger, multi chapter fic.
I'm probably not going to be doing that any time soon, what with school, work and other stuff going on, but consider it a definite possibility!
8536090
I'm glad you liked it!
8536288
My idea is that she just started with everything unlocked, either through sheer force of will, 4th wall breaking, or a combination of both
8535993
I agree, that would be super cool
8536072
That pinkie pretty accurately sums up my face when I saw it in the feature box!
But yeah, I'm super pleased you guys like it, I had a lot of fun writing it
Wow, that was awesome. She should spend her first point on affinity boost, that way she earns them faster.
I would love to see a whole fic to see where this could lead as well as seeing what discord did to ruin it for everyone?
What would derpy's tree look like? Think she would be able to pop people into bubbles? Or be able to view in higher dimensions?
Each point on the tree is another aspect of the mark, so of someone has an entirely different possible interpretation of the mark, would that different mark skillset become available?
THE POSSIBILITIES WILL LAST FOREVER!!!
Clever and funny; this was a nice quick read. Congratulations on making it to the featured box!
Now, is Twilight's going to want to specialize, go for completionsim or min-max? Decisions, decisions...
Wow! First fic and made it to the feature box! You sure you aren’t the kid from Aouth Park: The Fractured But Whole?
8536570
Maybe I am
You get a follow.
I had an idea similar to this once. But I am no good at writing so it never came to fruition. In a way, this fic gives me a sort of satisfation. Thank you.
8537016
you're welcome, I'm glad you liked it!
Really?
....
i dont know if this was Awful or decent
8537373
I'm very new to writing, what didn't you like about it?
Silly twilight, you MUST put all the points in spookyness
I'd say steel smithing, sneaking, pickpocket, or the magic school of preference. Those'll make the early game a lot easier.
... wait, that's Skyrim, nevermind.
That was just beautiful!
Oh, this was a good one. Have an upvote!
Oh, and if you didn't know it, you made the feature box. Congrats on that.
8536359
Most likely scenario for Pinkie: she pre-ordered (bonuses) the Day One (more bonuses) Special Collector's Editions (even more bonuses) at all of the locations that had the game (retailer-specific bonuses), and got all the Season Passes (therefore all of the DLC) that were available. She then found whatever guides were available to power min-max as much as possible, and found several exploits to jack up her EXP, money, and skill points at such a rapid clip that the system probably won't even be able to catch up. She power leveled and ground out the system so hard, she's able to actually (probably) jump to other's skill trees and start picking up stuff from there.
Pinkie Pie found a way to break the system and just be massively over-leveled for ALL of the content. She's probably farming the endgame bosses for loot on a hourly/daily/weekly basis, depending on progression lockouts and server resets/maintenance.
This will only end badly, for you see... Twilight will become the Princess of Min-Maxing! Go for the Meta, Sparkle!
8537518
The power to spook is the strongest of them all
8537552
I'm now imagining Celestia trying to sneak around stealing stuff, and it is amazing.
8537679
Simpler explanation: She found the dev console.
8536359
More likely Pinkie Pie has no special power other than maybe [Luck]. She's a cheater and figured out how to enter a tilde key to get at the command console, giving herself NOCLIP for funsies and occasionally GOD mode before something squishes her dead.
8537680
Twilight's gonna sim the hell out of all her talents and gear while working on her optimal rotation.
Good job! I too have just finished my own story, called The Cuddle Of The Night. since I have no clue how to link stuff, just press my profile and I forget what you have to do after. MARBLES!
Wat.
On a more detailed note, I feel lile this could be the start of a truly memorable adventure-comedy, especially if Twilight finds a way to respec and this explore all the possibilities. From there, she could confront Discord and make him lower the XP-per-level rate, or at least get him to give her access to console commands.
All told, you could do quite a lot with this. I'm not sure if it would kill the joke or not, but I'm seeing a surprising amount of depth in the concept. The story itself is rather shallow, mostly just talking heads discussing the idea, but you have some great ideas. Now you need to work on better realizing them, which is a lot trickier.
Well, Twilight's gonna be grinding for the next few millennia now. Hopefully she doesn't put all her points into the dark magic school. That ended very badly for Luna.
Dang it Discord did you have hack the game so the xp is annoyingly low?
This is a really well written piece. I’d think it was amazing if it wasn’t your 50th story, never mind first.
Later...
"I just don't understand," said Twilight Sparkle, nearly inaudible due to the amount of frosting on the cupcake. "There are so many options with leveling up, which I didn't even know was possible. I could have even picked Increased Cupcake Consumption to go up the Cake tree, which I noticed Celestia had cleared right up to the top."
"It's a mystery," said Pinkie Pie from behind nearly a dozen cupcakes crammed into her face.
Twilight stopped, then very slowly turned to her friend. "Wait a minute. I recognized some of those points as things you do. There's even an Unexplainable Precognition talent, but it's several links up the chain. How--"
"Cheat codes, duh!" Pinkie Pie finished stuffing the rest of the cupcakes into her mouth, gave a massive swallow, and bounded up onto Twilight's back. "Let me see here, since you're got a horn, this should be easy. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B--
"Ow!" Twilight winced at the hoof in the eye she had just gotten.
"--and A," she finished with a boop on the nose.
One explosion of confetti and familiar fireworks later, Twilight found herself staring at the skill tree with "Level 100' floating above her.
"Oh, nuts," she muttered when Celestia's tree flickered into life nearby. "How am I going to explain this?"
Thank you for creating this masterpiece.
8537949
I can admittedly say that your little mini-story makes flawless sense. Pinkie Pie is a fourth wall breaking physics defier. So obviously with a game feature world she would have the cheat codes. Discord could never hide them from her or stop her from using them. I don't think he reasonably could anyway I mean when you think about it if he took away those aspects of Pinkie Pie that would allow for her to find and use the codes it would only cause chaos for her but it would subject a lot of order into the world by removing the random and chaotic nature that is Pinkie Pie which would go against his very nature as a being of chaos. Alter her personality is the most he can likely do to her but can't take away the other parts that make her Pinkie Pie. It's basically a sort of law for us all by this point. Pinkie Pie will never make sense and can do whatever she wants. Don't argue or question our logic just accept it.
Now as for this little story itself I have to say this is a nicely written little story and could either be the start of a good fan fic or the basis of one.
8536194
Pinkie Pie's skill tree has only one entry: "Be Pinkie Pie".
Either that, or she found the dev console.
(I'm kidding. She's clearly leveled up and spent points on parties rather than rock smashing; the question is how come Celestia did not notice. )
8537820
Yeah, I think it could work as an epic adventure, but I'm not willing to tackle something that massive just yet, as a very new writer and all.
It is definitely a possibility for the future though!
8537949
This is actually perfect omg
8538355
DO IT. DOOO IIIT!
I saw a Pokemon ad under this. Literally. And how appropriate it seems... Anyway, nice story man!
8538355
I also recall in “My Little Investigations” Pinkie possessed ‘a walkthrough’ for the game. So there’s also that option.
Featured first try on first completed story ever? Damn. That's got to be some kind of record. Can't wait to read this!
i.imgur.com/EEfHUhx.gif
Pinky is obviously a dev and opened hers all the way
hopefully this leads to a quick surge in popularity of similar type fics. I'd be down to read a few more like this.
Neat.
"Really? How?" Twilight tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. "I mean, you're immortal. You've got all the time in the world to work on it!"
"Time isn't the limiting factor..." Celestia shifted uncomfortably, then shook her head and murmured, "It requires the most unholy, detestable practice known to ponykind. Even the Eldritch Lords beyond the veil of existence tremble at the mention of its name."
With each passing word, the very sun itself dimmed, until it looked as if they were in the middle of a solar eclipse. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Twilight shivered when she felt goosebumps popping up underneath her coat and whispered, "What is it?"
Celestia cast a scowl out the window, presumably in Discord's general direction, gritted her teeth and growled, "Microtransactions."