//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 // Story: Battle Magic // by Gaekub //------------------------------// "Dusk!" Twilight's heart stopped. "Dusk! That is you, right?" The hint of doubt that had entered the voice gave Twilight a hint of hope. Maybe if she just kept walking, the pony yelling at her would think she was mistaken. "Twilight!" The purple pony's head snapped around. Her eyes focused on an a white pony with a pair of purple sunglasses and a shock of blue hair. Twilight vanished in a blaze of purple light, appeared next to the ivory pony. Her hoof slipped over the other pony's back, and both disappeared and reappeared in a nearby ally. "You can't..." Twilight trailed off, staring at the ponies obscured eyes. "Wait, I know you. Pinkie introduced us. You're..." Twilight concentrated, thinking back to her brother's wedding. "You're DJ Pon3" she finished, pronouncing the '3' as a number. "Actually, it's pronounced 'DJ Pony'," the white mare said with a hint of laughter in her voice. "But you can call me Vinyl. I'm in Ponyville to DJ some birthday thing. So how are you? You're doing well in the arena." "Yeah, that's actually why I brought you back here. You can't talk about my battle magic here," Twilight hissed. She blinked, and a confused look crept over her face. "How do you even know about that?" "Oh, yeah. Guess you wouldn't recognize me." Vinyl pressed her hoof against her throat and coughed, her horn lighting up. "And in the blue corner, the purple pony with the penchant for pain..." Twilight gaped. "You're... But I thought the announcer was a stallion." "Oh c'mon, voice modification? That's easy," Vinyl said with a snort of laughter. "Bet I could teach you how to do it too." She craned her neck, looking past Twilight at the small crowd of ponies in center square. "So still haven't told anypony about Dusk, huh?" "I... how'd you guess?" "I've been in the same place. I don't play any more, but I used to. Ran under the name 'Sonic'. I didn't tell anypony; didn't tell my parents, didn't tell my friends... But they figured it out. Took them about three months. And when they did, they weren't happy." "Is that why you quit?" Twilight asked. Actually, no. They were fine with me doing what I did; it was lying to them that upset them. I quit a few months later. I won a few matches, but I didn't really have the knack for it." She shrugged. "Besides, I fell in love with DJing. I still do the announcing, but I don't fight anymore." "So... you won't tell Pinkie?" Twilight said hopefully. Vinyl shook her head. "Nah. Like I said, I've been in the same place," she said, walking past Twilight to the mouth of the alley. "But, word of advice? Tell them before they find out themselves. And they will find out." Twilight watched her go, caught up in her thoughts. First Spike, and now this pony. Maybe she should tell her friends. "Hello Twilight." Twilight leaped into the air, spinning to face behind her. Some part of her brain noted that her reflexes seemed to be improving already. Her eyes met the top half of Pinkie Pie, her bottom half presumably hidden inside the barrel she was leaning over the lip of (although one should never assume when it came to Pinkie Pie). She was staring at Twilight with her baby blue eyes, a very unamused look on her face. "Oh! Hey Pinkie! How... how long have you been there?" Twilight asked nervously. "Long enough," the earth pony responded gravely. The purple mare slumped over. "Oh, Pinkie, I'm sorry. I was going-" "Long enough to get completely soaked!" Pinkie finished, leaping out of the rain barrel with a splash of water. "You don't have to be sorry Twilight, it's not your fault." "...Why were you in a rain barrel?" Twilight said, her mouth running on auto-pilot as her brain came down from the burst of adrenaline. "I was looking for you silly!" Pinkie answered, shaking herself dry. "Rainbow's taking us all out for lunch. She said she came in to some money," she said with an exaggerated wink. Twilight shielded herself from the spray of water with a halfhearted shield spell. "Why did you wink like that?" "Because that's how Dashie said it!" The perpetually giddy pony hooked one foreleg around one of Twilight's and dragged her towards the lip of the alley. The lunch was awkward to say the least. Rainbow Dash had alternated between making not-so-subtle allusions to her gambling and denying any such thing. The lunch had eventually devolved into a shouting match between the pegasus and Applejack about the morality of games of chance. Meanwhile, Twilight had been terrified that Dash would let the name 'Dusk Shine' slip and one of her friends would put two and two together. She had managed to avoid telling them so far, but she wasn't sure she could lie to them if she was asked directly. However Rainbow hadn't let it slip, nopony had figured it out, and Twilight's secret was safe. The next few weeks faded into a blur. Her headaches and memory lapses cleared up before she ran out of Zecora's potions, and she exercised every day. Contrary to what she expected, it actually left her more energetic then before, a phenomenon she vowed to look in to. It was three weeks later when Twilight came down the stairs to find Spike putting food into her saddlebags. "Spike, what are you doing?" she asked sleepily, rubbing a hoof across her eyes. "Well, you're teleporting to Fillydelphia, right?" Twilight nodded. "Then I'm making you a lunch," the dragon said, pulling the bag shut. "Don't want you to run out of energy again. There won't always be a friendly neighborhood zebra around." He smiled weakly. "Oh. Thanks," Twilight said, slowly lifting the bags onto her back. "...I guess I should get going. Get an early start." Spike nodded. "I'd come with you, but someone needs to watch the library. What should I tell the girls?" he asked, opening the door for her. "...Tell them I went to Canterlot. Some sort of... I don't know, magic thing." The pony smiled. "You'll think of something." "Alright," Spike said uncomfortably. "I'll see you in a few days." "Yup," Twilight said, heading towards the Everfree forest. She hadn't walked more then a few steps when she turned to see Spike still standing in the doorway. "...Thanks Spike," she said. "No problem," Spike said. "Now get going." Twilight vanished. Although she left earlier, Twilight was careful to sustain her energy and the trip ended up taking the entire day. Again she arrived at The Lopsided Pegasus only as the sun was going down. She pushed in through the door, and found Silver sitting at his usual table. He glanced up and grinned. "Welcome back to the big city, Dusk. You did your exercises, I assume?" He said, raising an eyebrow and taking a sip from the mug in front of him. "Hello Silver. Hello Flurry," Twilight said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from the blue stallion. "Of course I did my exercises. Well, not today. I spent the whole day teleporting." "You teleported here again?" Silver asked, a hint of concern entering his voice. "Are you feeling alright?" Twilight sighed. "I'm fine Silver. I rested on the way this time. I'm just going to go to bed, if there's room for me here," she said, the last part of her sentence directed at Flurry. Flurry nodded silently. "Oh don't go yet. Stay and have a drink with us first. I've been sitting here by myself for hours, I need the company," Silver said, motioning for her to stay seated. "You like cider?" Twilight looked up at the clock, and then back down at Silver. "I do, but not tonight. Besides, you're not alone down here, you've got Flurry," Twilight said, standing up walking towards the stairs. "And him," she pointed out, noticing the white stallion dozing on a back table. "Bartenders don't count," Silver scoffed. "Everypony knows that. And if you mean Snoozy McSleepypants back there, he's not exactly a great conversationalist." Silver took a sip from his drink. "Because he's asleep." "I don't know why Flurry puts up with you," Twilight murmured. "Because I'm a great customer," Silver said with a grin. "Another cider!" "Put it on your tab?" Flurry asked as he filled two mugs. "Without the sass please," Silver replied. "And also yes." Flurry finished the drink with a tired sigh, and put it on the counter for Silver to levitate over. It landed next to Silver's empty mug as the unicorn turned to talk to Twilight. "See you tomorrow for training then," he said with a smile. Twilight let out a noise of vague agreement through her sigh, continuing up the stairs. The door to the room she had stayed in last time was unlocked, and she fell on to the bed and fell into unconsciousness. Silver watched her until her tail disappeared up the stairs and he heard the sound of the slamming door. The smile fled off his face, replaced by a sullen frown. He turned back to his drink, and slid it from hoof to hoof, staring at it thoughtfully. "You still want that?" Flurry asked, leaning across the bar. "Yeah, yeah," Silver said quickly, letting it slide to a halt before lifting it and taking a deep sip. "I want it." The next day's training went much the same as it had before, although Twilight refrained from challenging her trainer this time. They were both returning to the inn, each covered in a light coating of sweat, when Twilight asked about her match. "It's tonight, like last time. I've put up the hundred bit entry fee, hundred bits if you win," Silver said. "You're up against a stallion called 'Grenadier'. Rough customer; he launches explosive spells. Can do some real damage." "Have you fought him?" Twilight asked. "Nope. He hasn't been around that long. Seen him fight though, and he's pretty good. One trick pony, of course, but it's a damn good trick." Twilight sighed. She didn't like the sound of that. She'd already had to worry about brain damage. "Any advice?" Silver walked in silence for a few moments, considering. "Hit him hard, hit him fast. Don't let him pin you down, or you're done. Exploit his weaknesses." He turned to look at the purple mare for a moment, and the looked back to his front. "Actually, let's try something. Find my weakness." Twilight looked over at him, surprised. "You... want me to try and beat you again?" Silver chuckled. "No, no, I'm not that cruel. It's just a mental exercise." "Oh. Alright." This was Twilight's strength, and she quickly set her mind to the task. "...your lack of formal training means a lack of discipline, so maybe your spells could be dispelled more easily then most," she said after around a minute of thought. "Who said I didn't have formal training?" Silver asked. "Have you?" Twilight asked, slightly shocked. "I just sort of assumed you were... self-taught." "Not that's it's any of your business, but I have," Silver said. "Point is, you're wrong. Try again. Think more obvious; something you could know if you met me in the arena." Twilight concentrated again. "Well, the large amount of scars on your body indicate frequent and serious injury, which could mean you have weaker bones then average, and hence you would be vulnerable to having them broken." Silver turned his head and stared at her in silence, his jaw slightly slack. "...What?" Twilight asked, uncomfortable. "Did I win?" "No, but that was one of the creepiest things I've ever heard," Silver said in a stunned monotone. He shook his head and continued walking. "Anyway, no. My bones are fine kid. Try again." He turned again to her momentarily. "It's obvious." He winked. It dawned on Twilight, and she suddenly felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. "You're missing an eye. You've got no peripheral vision on your left side," she said. "Which means?" the stallion prompted. "Attack you from your left." "Bingo!" he said, happily. "Took you long enough. You'll have to get faster at that; it's a very important skill to have. But if you can pull something like that on Grenadier, you'll be fine." Twilight stood once again in the tiny room, having gone through her usual introduction, and nervously waited for her opponent to be announced and the match to start. "And in the red corner, the explosively popular pony who always starts with a bang-" Does she write those herself? Twilight wondered silently. "Grenadiiiiiieeeeeerrr!" The door on the other side opened up, revealing a light yellow stallion who looked to be about the same age as Twilight. She stepped out of the room, got into her modified casting stance, and began scanning the pony for weaknesses. The rest of the world faded out as she focused on the figure across from her. Looks about my age, so he's probably pretty healthy, she thought quickly. He's a stallion, and he looks a little taller than me, so I'm pretty sure he's physically stronger than me. She bit her lip, her habitual swaying slowing as her mind dwelled on the puzzle. His hair is short, so I can't blind him with it or anything and OH CELESTIA SPELL. Twilight threw herself to the side, barely avoiding the milky white orb that the unicorn had formed and launched at her. The ball exploded, sending her spinning sideways into the wall in a shower of dirt. She bounced off the wall and rolled across the ground. It took her a few moments to regain her senses and get back onto her feet, and by the time she did, a second orb was already whistling through the air towards her. Instead of rolling out of the way this time, she brought her magic to bear and hastily constructed a purple half sphere shield. She lowered her head, attempting to shield her ears from the imminent boom and shock wave, but was surprised to hear only a gentle bump. She looked up to see the dangerous orb slowly rolling down the outside of her protective shell, accelerating as it moved from the top to the sides. She watched it through the semi-transparent shield curiously, and was just relaxing her grip on the spell when it reached the ground and detonated. The weakened shield shattered under the blow, splitting into a thousand tiny shards. Twilight flinched away, releasing the magic gathered in her horn, and the majority of the razor sharp pieces of shield dissipated a moment before they reached her skin. The few that remained a second longer whizzed past her ears and left a series of small cuts on her foremost leg. Twilight winced from the sudden pain, clamping her other hoof over the blood welling up from the injuries. She gritted her teeth and thought frantically as the pony across from her lobbed another sphere. Can't hit back; the time I take to make any spell but a shield will get me hit. I can't get to him without being hit, and even if I could, it wouldn't do me any good. But the spell only seems to go off when it touches something physical. If I can grab it and throw it back- Twilight could think very quickly, but even for her, that chain of logic took some time, and the enemy spell had reached the peak of its arc. Her horn lit up, and she reached out with her telekinesis to grab the spell. Her magic closed around it, and she was stunned for a second by the feel of the spell. There was so little finesse, and so much power. While she had an idea how she would formulate such a spell, this was so... crude. He had just packed as much powers he could in a small area and fired it. This wasn't the time to be criticizing his technique however, and she turned her mind to slowing the spell down. She pushed back, but found it more difficult than she imagined. The spell was heavier than expected, and she was afraid to push it too hard in case it detonated. It continued down towards her, slowing slightly, and it had nearly reached her head before she managed to stop it, floating gently half a foot from the tip of her horn. She let out a sigh of relief, focused completely on keeping the ball from falling to the ground. So focused in fact, she didn't even register the second bomb Grenadier had fired until it blew up a foot to her left. The shock wave threw her of her feet, and time slowed as she watched the bomb she had been holding so recently fall towards the ground. Her left hoof came up to cover her face. It moved tortuously slow, but she managed to cover her eyes before the orb touched the ground and the world exploded. When Twilight regained consciousness a moment later, her ears were ringing, her coat was covered in dirt and rock fragments, and her left leg appeared to have sprouted a second knee. A strange, twisted second knee that hurt more that anything Twilight had ever felt. It took her several seconds to realize she was screaming, unable to hear her own cries over the high tone that buzzed in her ears. She grit her teeth and looked up through blurry eyes, hoisting her torso off the ground with no small effort. She focused on the unicorn on the other end of the field, just in time to see him form another ball and fire it towards her. Twilight curled instinctively, her magic flowing without conscious thought to protect her fetal form. The most solid shield she had ever made, almost as good as her brother's, formed around her. A few moments later, the spell hit her shield, rolled down, and exploded. Unlike last time, this shield held. Twilght cried into the dirt, biting back against the pain. Spell after spell detonated against her shield, flowing together into a continual stream of noise, but still her spell held. An indeterminable amount of time later, she realized through the haze of pain that her horn was touching the break in her leg. She could feel the broken bone through her skin, not only physically but magically. The snap interrupted the normal flow of magic through her system, creating a strange anomaly she found alien and disturbing. Still keeping her shield up, she reached out and touched it with her magic. Her mind began to return to rational thought as she felt out the injury. It was so... simple. So obvious. She could form the spell that would fix the break in her mind. She knew she shouldn't cast it though. It was too dangerous. Celestia had been telling her that. Hell, Silver told her it was too dangerous, and he got thrown into walls for a living. The only logical thing to do was forfeit. On the other hoof... "Fuck it," Twilight muttered, even in this situation feeling a small thrill at the swear leaving her lips. She solidified the spell she had in her mind, waited for a boom, and collapsed her shield. The energy from the shell, powered by fear and pain, was poured into the healing spell. Twilight had thought the breaking of her leg was the most painful thing she would ever experience, but the high speed healing made that look like paper cut. All the muscles in her body contracted, driving her rigid for half a second. When the pain faded, it faded completely, and Twilight leaped on to her feet with only a twinge from her leg. A plan appeared in her head, fully formed, and she charged toward Grenadier. She was vaguely aware of Vinyl's modified voice expressing amazement at her recovery, but she dismissed it as irrelevant. The opposing pony adopted a look of shock, and fired another ball nearly vertically at her. Exactly as she wanted. The now well-practiced shield took barely a thought to erect, and the spell thudded into it. A moment after it did so, Twilight pulled the magic out of the shield, leaving it hanging midair unsupported for a split second before she hit it with a blast of force and sent it hurtling towards the hapless stallion. Grenadier threw himself to the side, getting flung through the air by the force of his own reflected spell. He slammed into the wall hard, and began to slide down. Twilight decided to hurry his progress to the ground with a hammer of mental force into his side. The yellow unicorn crashed into the dirt and lay still. A few moments later, he started to pull himself to his feet. Twilight hit him again. This time, he stayed down. Vinyl counted the win, and it was only when the voice reached ten that Twilight turned away from the prone form and walked back to the gate, concealing the joy she felt inside. When she arrived back in the entrance room, she was surprised to not find Silver waiting for her. "If you're looking for Silver, he's in the nurses office," one of the other contestants said, pointing down the hall. "Oh. Thanks," Twilight said, heading in the direction she indicated. She managed to find the nurses without getting too lost, and pushed through the door to find Silver staring at her, his face somber. "Did I see what I think I saw?" he asked quietly. "I... what? Did you see what?" Twilight asked smiling nervously. "What the hell do you think I mean?" Silver asked, his voice raising slightly. "Did I see you cast a healing spell out there? On your leg?" He pointed at the leg, which still ached slightly. "Oh... uh..." Twilight stammered. "Yeah, I... I did. I mean you did." "That's what I thought," Silver said, stepping off the bed and walking over to look at the torn skeleton poster. "After I specifically told you not too. You stupid... little... filly," he growled at her, turning around and kicking out with a back hoof that left a hole in the wall. "Hey!" Twilight exclaimed. "Nopony calls me stupi-" "WRONG!" Silver screamed stepping towards her. "That is WRONG! You may have come in first on whatever fucking standardized test they gave you back in Canterlot, but here? This is my fucking domain, and if you do something stupid, I WILL FUCKING CALL YOU STUPID!" "Just because you're training me doesn't mean you can you can tell me what do!" Twilight yelled back, riling against the older pony's anger. "You're not in charge of me!" she said, before being hit across the face with a large hoof. "That is exactly what it means! When I tell you what to do, you fucking do it! And if I ever - EVER - see you doing something so stupid and disobedient again my last action as your trainer will be to kick your ass so hard your horn falls off!" "If I hadn't done that, I would have lost!" Twilight yelled back. "Then you lose! So what!? It's not the end of the world!" "But I did it! It worked! Look!" Twilight replied, holding out her healed leg for Silver to see. Silver glanced down at the leg, and then grabbed it and held it up to her face, twisting it painfully. "You see that?" he asked, pointing his horn towards the site of the break. "You see that little rise?" Twilight tried to wrench her leg away, but when that proved futile, she grudgingly looked where he indicated. He proved to be right; there was a small bump in her leg, as if there was a pebble inserted underneath her skin. "Do you know what that is?" Silver hissed. "No, of course you don't. That, my clever little pony is misaligned bone. You are so, so lucky that I got to you when I did. If it had taken me a day to notice that, it'd be too late. You would be crippled for life. For the rest of your goddamn life. Do you know what that means?" "...yes," Twilight said quietly. "No! You don't! You think you do, but you have no fucking idea what that means. How the fuck could you when you're still a filly!?" He reached up with the hoof that wasn't holding her arm and placed it over the bump. "This is going to hurt. I'd say I'm sorry, but..." He pushed down with one hoof and snapped her arm up with the other, and Twilight felt her bone break for the second time that day. "I'm not," he finished. Twilight screamed. "You... you FUCKER!" "Yeah, remember that pain. That's what happens when you're stupid," Silver said, suddenly sounding tired. "Now go to sleep," he ordered, placing his glowing horn against Twilight's. Twilight felt the cold magic cut through layer after layer of burning pain, and wrap her mind in a cold, dark embrace. The world faded away.