//------------------------------// // First Lessons // Story: A shell, a spell, and...wait, what the..?? // by MrWriterWriter //------------------------------// "All right, Spike; are you ready for your first magic lessons?" Celestia asked. Though, by the way the young kirin was bouncing on his hooves, the answer was pretty evident. She couldn't help chuckling at her son's antics. "Well, first off: magic is something of an extension of yourself." Spike tilted his head to the side. "An...extension of...myself?" "Yes. It's shaped by your mind, allowing you to directly manipulate your environment. Telekinesis is the basic, and easiest, method of experiencing it." She demonstrated by making the nearby table float a few feet into the air. "The energy follows your thoughts and intentions, shaping itself around whatever you choose to manipulate far more accurately than is normally possible even with the best hand-eye coordination, assuming you've developed enough mental discipline.. "So...it 's kinda like an extra tail?" He wrapped it around the leg of a chair and pulled it beside him. "Except it's coming out of my head instead of my butt?" It took her a minute to fight back the gigglefit she got hit with by him saying that. "Well, as far as telekinesis is concerned, yes. The rest of magic can be explored from that basis, as it involves manipulating one's environment in manners other than movement. There's also teleportation." She vanished in a flash of gold, reappearing beside him. "Transmutation." Snapping her fingers, she changed the chair into a potted plant and back. "And various other applications." She finished by making a stuffed ursa major appear in the seat. "For now though, we'll work on the basics." She moved a plastic cup in view. "Now, look in to feel your magic, and picture your 'head-tail'...*snort* picture it reaching out to tip that cup over." "Ok." Spike took a deep breath, and started focusing. "Don't try and force it, it'll come to you." After a second, his horn started emitting a flame-like jade green light. "I got it!" "There you go, sweetie. Hm, interesting aura style. Now, picture it tipping the cup." Closing his eyes, he pictured his magic reaching out to the cup. 'Tip it over...tip-' *BANG!* They both jumped when a blast of light shot from his horn, sending the cup and everything within two feet of it flying off the table. "Ok...not quite, but it's a start. Let's try again." She put everything back and set the cup back, moving things away to see if that'd help. "Give it another go." *four tries later* "Huh..." Celestia scratched her head after taking the cup off her horn where it landed from its recent flight. "I don't get it...I'm focusing on the cup...!" Spike said, starting to get upset about the constant failures. "It's ok, honey." She hugged him. "Maybe we're going about this the wrong way." She continued when he gave her a perplexed look. "I mean, technically this method is the usual teaching style for unicorns. But, you're not a unicorn, so maybe there's something we're missing." "Thank you for coming, Professor." Celestia greeted the aged unicorn as the guards escorted him inside, a large case floating in beside him. "Is Nien problem, Your Highness." The old stallion responded, setting his cane aside to adjust his lab coat. "So, you are vishing I see vhy Herr Spike's magic is being...?" He waved his hand to try and find a proper term. "Too enthusiastic?" "Ja, zat." They headed to where Spike was sitting. "Spike, this is Professor Zungenbrecher." Celestia introduced him. "He's one of Equestria's foremost Arcane researchers." "Can you really find out why my magic keeps overdoing stuff?" He asked, looking unsure. "Young man, ze day I meet ze magic problem that can get one over on me is ze day I make strudel out of mine diplomas." The professor replied, opening the case to reveal a complicated-looking computer. "Granted, examining Kirin magic is a new one for me, but magic is magic, Ja?" He took out several sensors and started attaching them to his hooves, side, ears, horn, and had him hold one in his teeth. "Now, lets have a touch of ze magic and see vat we get." Spike set his horn glowing, and the professor started checking the readings, tuning knobs and pressing buttons every now and then. "Ja, Ja, heh, boy's got ze kick!" He chuckled, before he tilted his head in confusion. "Acht...vas zis?" He adjusted a few more dials, then gave it a light smack. "Ok, zat's new." "What's wrong, Professor?" Celestia looked over his shoulder at the screen. "Vell, unless my arcanascope is malfunctioning...and it better not be if it knows vat's good for it...Herr Spike has an inverse magic frequency." "'At bad?" Spike asked around the sensor in his mouth. "Bad, no. Unexpected, very." The professor replied. "You zee, at your age, unicorn magic is a bit like zose leetle reflex mallets zey use on your knee; fairly precise for leetle things, though practice is needed for ze larger, more complex stuff. Ze Kirin magic...is more like a ball-peen hammer. Good for things like moving larger items, but he'll have to start big zen go smaller." "So, tipping the cup was starting too small for him?" Celesta asked, looked almost as confused. "Pretty much." He began removing the sensors from Spike. "His magic couldn't target something that tiny just yet, so it reacted and....you saw vat the result vas several times. I suggest rearranging furniture vould probably be a good start." "A little bit to the left...little more...no, back to the right some." Celestia said, watching the couch float along some. The last couple of days had proven to be really fruitful for the control. She figured he could move to blankets and sheet soon. "Moom...!" His groan broke her out of her musing. "We've been at this for over and hour!" "Ok, ok..." She watched as he set it down, before taking another look at the room. "Hm, you know, maybe this'd all look better in the west-" "Mother, finish that sentence, and I'm gonna spend the rest of the week learning a spell to turn everything puce!" "Kidding! I'm kidding!"