//------------------------------// // 7) Magic // Story: Just a Thought // by Chinchillax //------------------------------// The safest method of suicide would involve him disappearing completely without a trace, ideally destroying the fact that he had ever existed in the first place. He had done too much good in his life so far, so going back in time to cause himself to never be born was out of the question. And well beyond his magical skillset. The only spell he ever really learned was to send and receive letters. It happened so subconsciously that he hadn't been aware that he even was using dragon magic to unleash it. Magic could do incredible things. And if he cast the right spell, it would leave him to disappear completely. It was in this state of pondering that a thought that had been sequestered away for a long time bubbled to the surface: How to cease to exist: just go to the end. The end of existence was a real time when the entire universe would die, when all stars have long since died and nothing but blackness envelops existence. He had read about the place before in Star Swirl's journals and other time related books that Twilight had had him study. It was extremely easy to mess up time magic. And "The End" technically encompassed the vast amount of the lifespan of the universe. If "The End" was anything like space itself, it would be incredibly cold, nearing absolute zero. So the cold should kill him. And if that didn't do the trick, then the lack of oxygen certainly would. Barring that, he wouldn't have food or anything. Death was the only way for a visit to the end of universe to work out. The idea gave Spike the main goal he needed to accomplish. He just needed to learn enough about time magic to completely botch it—just go into the future by the maximum amount he possibly could. The next month of Spike's life was spent casually biding his time doing chores and other tasks from Twilight while he covertly studied dragon and time magic. Of course he botched being covert almost immediately. He accidentally sent a large chunk of his bookshelf to Celestia and then had to awkwardly explain in a letter what had happened. Celestia had actually been quite excited to see Spike experimenting with the lost art of dragon magic and sent Spike every scroll she had about pyroturgy. Spike felt really bad about deceiving her, but the letters really did help him figure things out faster. Dragon magic mostly involved the breath. His own letters always produced a green flame, but trying to perform any kind of time magic created a light blue flame. He ended up practicing on a few small spells first, some tiny bits of telekinesis (yellow flame), a heating spell (orange flame), and even a light purple flame that he could control after he casted it, which created a lilac stream of fire Spike played around with for hours. He kept practicing the time spells though. He only needed to cast it once, and that was it. No going back in time—that was WAY too complicated—just enough to get to the end. Most of the books on time magic emphasized fine tuning it, like making sure the caster arrived at the very moment and second he or she was supposed to. Or to emphasize the teleportation aspect of it, ensuring that the location of where they were in space would properly land them on the same planet as before. Equestria sure did like to move around the cosmos, constantly falling somewhere. But that kind of stuff didn't matter to Spike. No pinpoint accuracy. No teleportation. Just the edge of infinity. After a month of practice, Spike got a letter from Princess Luna. She asked him why she hadn't been able to see his dreams in a long time and her personal desire to help him out. It really was a touching letter. But Luna had been through so much already. These suicidal thoughts that Spike was having, they had to be contagious. If he accidentally shared his thoughts and dreams of suicide with the Princess Luna, she'd probably be infected by his line of thinking. No—he had to keep Luna safe from his own thoughts. It's why he couldn't leave a letter or anything behind to explain what had happened. When he committed suicide he would cause others to contemplate their own mortality. He couldn't do that! He had to protect them from his own thoughts. They were toxic and were his own demons to fight, not anyone else's. What if—by other people knowing that he had died by suicide—he accidentally encouraged other suicides? That would be utterly terrible. No—keep everything hidden. He was a good actor. He had even left Key rather fooled about his plans. To the phoenix it just looked like Spike had taken by a new obsession with magic. He didn't expect a thing. No—Key would let it slip that Spike committed suicide. But still—disappearing would leave a less drastic impact to Twilight and the others than seeing a bloody body on the floor. He kept trying to think of a good response to Luna's letter. But could never make any headway in actually answering it. Another two weeks flew by as Spike poured his heart and soul into draconic magic. Only the few annoying interruptions by language lessons from Fluttershy or banal life things kept him from his practice. And practice he did, spitting out all kinds of sky blue flames in an attempt to get something working. And a month and a half after he started, a genuine sky blue inferno of appeared in front of him. The fire swirled in sky blue and turquoise with deep navy lightning snaking it's way across the flames. The portal and it's haze of fire magic beckoned him inside. He could only say yes. It was all he had ever wanted. It was the culmination of all his practice, effort, and dreams. He stared at the portal in disbelief, and then smiled. It was over now. He was over now. He entered the portal.