//------------------------------//
// Chapter 7 - I do NOT have a fetish for ponies! 
// Story: Shackles and Friendship 
// by Zaibatsu 
//------------------------------//

Shackles and Friendship
Chapter 7 - I do NOT have a fetish for ponies!

AN: By now some of you may realize I choose whatever I like for the chapter tittles. 




Once breakfast was done we went about our ways, Celestia had court duties and the like while Blueblood was already being a pain to everyone’s existence, before Twilight and I even left the room he was already complaining about his food or some other nonsense. 

‘I’m surprised they haven’t tried to poison him yet.’

‘We’ll change that.’

Twilight lead me to a room which, except for a few chairs and tables, were completely empty, only the walls had any form of decoration. On one table stood several small stacks of books and on another table was a pile of random items ranging from rubber balls to sticks and even a deck of cards. 

“That’s for later, first we need to go over the basics. Now then,” several thick tomes glowed purple and levitated towards a table in front of me and fell in a neat stack, “ready?”

“Twilight...no.”

“What are you talking about? We haven’t even started.”

“And by the looks of things we won’t get started for several months.”

“What?”

*sigh* “Let me guess, you're going to educate me in the entire history and theory of magic, including every known significant person and how they revolutionized modern magic as you know it.”

“Well, yes. And that’s ‘significant pony’. You need the basic knowledge and theory to how magic work before we can get to the practical side of training.”

“Twilight...NO!”

“Why? Do you have a problem with books!?” from the way her left eye is twitching this must be a touchy subject.

“No nothing, I love them in fact. It’s just know from experience that going things by theory won’t work for me. I’ve always been the type to run first before I can walk.”

“That makes no sense!”

“How’s about a compromise then? We’ll go straight to practical training,” ‘cause we can’t wait to deal with Blueblood.’ “and I’ll hit the books at night. Its always been easier for me to learn from books that way, reading under the stars just feels right.” Twilight placed a hoof under her chin as she considered my proposition. 

“I'll accept under one condition, during the start of every session I’ll quiz you in order to keep you on track.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” she nodded in approval.

“In that case, the next item on the checklist is learning control.”

“Wait, I thought the entire point of this was to learn control.”

“True, but what I meant was your ability to drain in particular. The only way for you to do magic is to first take it. That is why you’ll be taking some of mine during our sessions. And the main idea is taking some of my magic. From what I can conclude based on your track record you have control over who to take it from but not how much, you just take it all.”

“And how do we go about doing that? If I practice on you I’ll have to wait until you recover everytime I make a mistake, that’s just wasting too much time. Unless you got a group of ponies who volenteer to have their magic drained by an unknown creature that nearly wiped them out.”

*giggle* “Simple,” her horn glowed and slowly her aura started to expand from the tip into a small purple mass, eventually it drifted apart from her and floated towards an empty space in front of me where it stayed still. “that is what you’ll be working on. Try to only take some of the magic, the target for now is to take only a quarter(1/4) of it. I made this spell specifically for this purpose so I’ve design it to change color to green if you reached the exact mark and red if you failed, plus the spell allows me to replenish it automatically that way you can go crazy with it."

“I’m impressed you’ve prepared this far, and I’m grateful that you went so far just for me. I doubt the spell you made would have any other purpose other than for my own benefit. Thank you Twilight. ”

“Uh...your welcome?” I must have caught Twilight by surprise with my sincere gratitude. Had I looked longer I would have seen a small tinge of red grow on her cheeks. “Well, what are you waiting for? Get to it.”

“Yes ma’am.” 





Initially I had constantly failed at every attempt, no matter how gently or little I reach out, it was either too much and I absorbed it entirely, or too little and nothing happened. I tried using my 'Sight' to try and see the magic in the spell hoping to see if it would help. Unlike the 'fire' everyone has that burns like a candle, Twilight's spell were like wild flames flowing about like a breeze trapped in an invisible sphere. 





With some visual help I tried picturing the mass to be cut and divided up to equal pieces and focused on absorbing only that piece, which is impossible since the 'flames' inside kept moving about. After a fail attempt I was surprised to 'see' a white trail of flame flowing from Twilight's horn and began to replenish the spell with more magic. So even though my 'Sight' didn't help, it did show me what actual spells looked like. 

'Think! What do you need in order to take a specific amount of magic from the whole?'

'That's later, for now we need to figure out how to take only parts of it. Well move on to how much later.'

'And it isn't working! You have no control once we start absorbing.'

'So instead of trying to control it after....'

'Yeeeessss.'

'...I need to have control before I try to take it.'

'Warmer.'

'And in order to do that I need to first now exactly how much I want to take.'

*sniff-sniff* 'They grow up so fast.'

'What's with the attitude?'

'I'm your subconscious, your id. I'm you without the morals and crap that would restrict our inhibitions. And to keep things in perspective even with those restrictions you're still a jerk who likes pulling lecherous pranks on ponies, which by the way is the focus of your new fetish, so bite me!'

'I do NOT have a fetish for ponies!'

'Helloooo! Subconscious? I am constantly reminded how fucked up we are as a person, even if you don't.'

'Can we please just get back to the main issue here?'

'Fine, ignore me and just avoid facing the truth as usual. Pussy.'

'ANYWAY! I tried using 'Sight' but it's impossible to measure it by visual, I don't even know how to measure something gaseous. As far as I know you need a machine to do that.'

'Then simply try measuring it in a different way.'

'What else is there? All I can do is 'see' and........really?'

'Just get this over with, imma finish up our plan for Blueblood.'

I had overlooked that fact that I could also ‘Feel’ magic, I was aware of Twilight's 'fire' as well as several ponies around me, but I never actually focused on 'feeling' the heat from the spell itself because I could barely feel it. There was heat radiating from the spell but it was so pathetically weaker than a 'fire'. It's like having a candle burn next to a bonfire, you can hardly feel the candle's heat from the bonfire's. Following the advice of my id, 'douche' 'prick', I began to focus entirely on the spell alone. Soon everything I 'sensed' other than the spell started to become muddled in the background until I barely register them. I pushed every cell and nerve to open up to the sensation, I then began to feel pressure as well as the heat radiating of the spell. To be more accurate the sensation was more like a weight pushing to me. It was similar to holding something and feeling it's weight only this time the weight was upon your entire body, like a heavy blanket. 

It was like holding a cup of water in your hand, by the weight you can judge approximately how much water there is. I imagined on what felt like a quarter (1/4) of the total weight and concentrated on that imaginative sensation, then I reached out and touched the spell. And presto that was the trick, the floating purple aura was still there but visibly smaller than before. I was also startled when I could actually feel the magic going in me unlike before when I felt nothing, it was like warm water spreading from inside my chest outwards till the tip of my arms and legs, and with it I felt the exact amount of weight I concentrated earlier on. But what surprised me even more was that the spell was now glowing green instead of red. I seriously doubt that I had understood everything that just happened, I am after all dealing with powers completely unknown so I guess most of the actual work is done subconsciously or instinctively. ‘Your welcome.’  I looked over to Twilight expecting her approval but she was busy reading a book larger than her head, completely obscuring her view. I was about to announce my success but the spell had stopped glowing green while the mass had already swelled up to its original size, it appears that Twilight had rigged the spell to constantly replenish despite the outcome.

'Let's practice a bit and really impress Twilight.'

'So that we can see her dislocate her jaw again? Hells yea!' 



[Sometime later......]



“Done.”

“Hm?” she peered over the rim to see the mass smaller and her spell glowing green. “ Excellent, now do half.” I waited until she went back behind her book and without giving her a chance to continue reading I interrupted her again.

“Done.”

“Huh?”

“Done.” I repeated. Twilight peeked again and sure enough the mass was half smaller and her spell was glowing green again. 

“Oooookay, then do a fifth.” this time I didn't even give her a chance to look away.

“Done.”

“WHAT!?” Twilight had discarded her book on the table and walking over to inspect her spell, probably thinking there's something wrong with it, 'oh ye of little faith.' “How did you...?”

“Once I figured out the trick it was easy, hardest part was going through trial and error to find the trick.” 

“Then do three-fourth(3/4).”

“Done.”

“Two-third(2/3)?”

“Done.”

“One-sixth(1/6)!” 

“Done.” by now it became a sort of challenge Twilight was more than willing to help.

“Three-seventh(3/7)! Five-eighth(5/8)! Two-twelfth(2/12)!”

“Done, done, aaaaaaaaaaand done!”

“Ugh, a hundred and twenty eight of one sixty(128/160)!”

“Really?” she just stared at with a smug smile just daring me to do it, and I wasn’t the type to turn down a challenge. Now I may not be the smartest guy in the world, especially with how much weed I smoked, but even I realize there's no way I can concentrate to such a detail. Luckily I know math. (AN: 128/160 = 4/5)

“Done!” and just as the spell glowed green Twilight’s flank and jaw both drooped to the floor.  ‘Were never gonna get tired of seeing that are we?’

‘Nnooooope.’

“Ho-how did you do that!?”

“It’s called skill.” ‘Nice.’

“But you were supposed to take longer than that!”

“What?”

“Now I have to completely redo my schedule!”

‘What?’

“I was hoping to catch up with my reading while you train but you just had to breeze through it don’t ya? *inhale-exhale* Ok, no worries. I’m sure I can fit this to next month’s schedule.”

'What?'

“Soooooooo, do you want to call it a day then?”

*sigh* "No no, its fine. Let’s move on to the next control exercise."

“Alright, but is it ok if we take a break first? I'm starting to have a headache.” the training wasn’t physically draining, but it did take a lot of mental work and it was starting to strain. 

“Oh really? A headache? Is it bad? On a scale of one to ten how painful is it?”

“Uuuuuh not much really...probably a two-wait. Why?” based on her voice this was more than just simple concern.

“Oh sorry. I kinda forgot to mention earlier but headaches are kinda expected. Heh...sorry.” I was about to question her but Twilight continued on before I could even start. “Remember what Princess Celestia said about ponies with larger ‘containers’ for magic?”

“The more one has the harder it is to control?”

“Correct, and by the looks of it you're near the limit on how much you can control. Siphoning any more could cause you to accidently start releasing excess magic, and without actual knowledge or skill to properly channel them out, the results could be violent.” 

“Can’t I just go and ‘release’ it on Blueblood?”

“Well maybe if-no! Rodney, NO!”

“Hahahahaha relax Twilight, it was a joke.” Twilight didn't look convinced.

‘That's because it wasn't a joke.’

“Anyway, it looks like we should postpone the next control excercise and start with practical applications of magic.”

“Wohoo!”

“Don’t get too excited, I’m only going to teach you basic spells. Just so that you can have a proper and safe method to release magic.”

“Aaaaaww, so no ‘wrath of the elements’ or world ending chaos magic?”

“How did you know about Dis-nevermind. NO!”

“Can't you at least teach me how to start lobbing fireballs?”

“Rodney!.”

*sigh* “Fine.” ‘you just lucked out Blueblood.’




[Thirty-seven minutes later....]




BOOOOOM!!!!!
(AN: An audio and visual representation.)

*cough cough* "Rodney!" *cough* "What did you do!?"

*cough* "WHAT?" I heard nothing but a ringing sound from the sudden explosion.

"What. Did. You. DO!"

"Exactly what you told me!" *cough* "You said it was safe!"

"It was!" *cough* "At least it should've been."




[Twenty-five minutes earlier...]




"So basically imagine a faucet, and I have to let the magic flow out of it?"

"Correct, but afterwards you must also contain the magical energy. In order to cast spells you have to first collect the needed amount of magic to cast it."

"The same way your horn glows?"

"Exactly, for unicorns like myself we first gather the needed amount of magic to our horns and contain it there until we're ready to cast. My 'aura' as you call it, prevents my magic from leaking out but its also used to mold the magic. That is essentially what spells are, molding magical energy to act in certain ways that help us accomplish specific tasks. By properly molding the magic in particular ways it can create near limitless reactions which we take advantage of."

'So its really just like how we use science, it just follows a different set of rules then the rest of the universe.'

'Different rules yes but still rules they obey, so if we master the rules...'

'We master magic.'

"Now there are three different types of spells: actives, passives, and constants. You can study these later on in the books I've prepared. We won't be doing none of them, in order for somepony to cast spells they need to learn how to bring out their magical energy, its the first step to learning magic. Any questions?"

"One, I understand what you meant when trying to visualize a faucet to control the flow of magic, but exactly where should I plug the faucet to?"

"That's a bit tricky since nopony have ever studied a human before, yet." a jolt of frost shut down my spine.

"What was that?" 

"Hm? Oh nothing. But like I said, nopony knows anything about humans, so really I can't confidently answer. However it's definitely somewhere in your body."

'Let's hope it's nut in my nuts.'

'Why? I think it would be awesome! Imagine controlling the powers to bend the laws of the universe to our will all from our junk.'

'True but considering how close Luna came to destroying it, might as well be defective.'

'Good point.'

I closed my eyes and dove into my memory, specifically those in the interrogation room. I analyzed every sensation I could remember when I threw that guard across the room. 'I swear if I ever see that guard again I'll-' 

'They all look the same, so unless you want to take on the entire army I suggest you...actually can we do that sometime?'

'Let's just focus on actually finding a way to fight them before we go charging to the barracks.' I focused again into my memories towards the particular moment just before my balls shot a Hadouken. I tried bring out the same surge of heat I felt inside me, even tried to immerse in the same feeling of panic and fear, but nothing changed. 'Wait a minute since I did that instinctively you must know how to do it.'

'Sorry pal but I wasn't around when that happened, I'm as much in the dark.'

'Dammit!' I let out a long sigh.	

"Anything?"

"Sorry Twilight, guess I'm just good at taking things."

"Don't say that, c'mon you've only been at it for a couple of minutes. Keep trying." giving her a grateful smile, I closed my eyes and tried again. Then the idea hit me, 'if I can take magic in, maybe I can take magic out.' With renewed vigor I focused on my 'Sense', however instead feeling outwards I blocked out all other sensation and focused entirely inwards. Slowly I focused on every single part of my body, every fiber and cell for any hint of 'heat' I felt from everybody else. It was when I concentrated around my stomach did I begin to feel a small radiating heat. I then tried using my 'Sight' but saw nothing but darkness as I stared down to my belly. 

'Maybe I was wrong...' but I wasn't willing to give up just yet, the sensation of the 'heat' was all too familiar. I kept looking while keeping my focus and 'Sight', and very slowly I saw a dim azure glow. It was barely there at first but it came again stronger. In the blackness of my vision it looked like a single star blinking in and out, but glowed stronger and stronger. Soon enough it was strong enough to shine a brilliant light azure without blinking out and it still continued to grow. The anticipation was agonizing, it was like watching the birth of a star somewhere of on the other side of the universe. It continued to grow until it was just smaller than an apple, and the heat I felt was just as strong as other's, 'maybe even stronger, though still not even close to Twilight's.' 

I waited a bit longer but my 'fire' didn't grow any larger, I felt the same surge of heat somewhere in my stomach but its like that itch you can never really tell where it's located, it's just somewhere there. As Twilight suggested I imagined a faucet attached to the 'fire' and slowly opened the flow. Small licks of flame started to leave and was flowing outwards randomly about and I can feel the same warmth spreading out across my body. I remembered how I felt the heat all over my body coverage to my groin, as much as that would be to repeat I doubt Twilight would enjoy it. So instead I imagined a hose attached to the faucet going upwards to my chest and to my right shoulder, eventually ending at the palm of my right hand. The flames continued to flow out and like water followed the path of the hose, I stretched out my right arm and 'looked' at my palms where the fire started to flow out. 

"Good, now imagine wrapping the magic in a small bubble and once it's filled shut of the faucet." I'm not sure what Twilight saw exactly but I wasn't willing to risk opening my eyes and losing focus when I was so close. I imagined holding a glass sphere, similar to that of Twilight's spell from earlier, and stuck it with the hose. The flames poured into the sphere and started flowing about inside it. It was beautiful to say the least, how the azure flames flowed about like there was a current inside the sphere and danced to it. As if agreeing I heard Twilight let out a gasp, but it wasn't in fear or being startled, it was a pleasant one that comes from someone enjoying a surprise gift. Soon the sphere was filled to the brim and the flames inside were dancing all around in unison. I let out a long sigh of relief and opened my eyes. 





"Wooooooaaaah...." at first I thought my 'Sight' was still on. But by the looks of Twilight's face she was as hypnotized by the dancing flames as I was. We just continued to stare at it lost in it's otherworldly beauty until Twilight spoke, though it was more to herself. 

"I've never seen magic look like that before." her voice snapped me out of my trance. 

"So what do I do with it?"

"Uuuhh....throw it."

"What!?" the thought of trowing away something like this, and the fact that I made it, was preposterous. 

"Look your not ready to go into practical spell molding, you haven't read the theory behind it and you need to rest." I was about to argue that I felt just perfectly fine but she wouldn't listen to any of it. "Look we'll continue tomorrow and it's perfectly safe. Since you never tampered with the magic its still in it's raw form, it'll just go and get absorbed to the land or one of the equipment in the castle design to take stray magic." I looked down to the sphere in my palm, the flames dancing hypnotically. 

"Well, if you say so."






[Back to the present....]




"Rodney did you do anything to it?" she looked at me suspiciously.

"No I didn't! I don't even know how. Why did you think I wanted to blow myself up?"

"Because you just said you wanted to 'start lobbing fireballs' a moment ago!"

"Why would I want to endanger you," I pointed to her. "...or myself," I pointed to my chest. "...or redecorate the castle!" I pointed to the gigantic hole in the wall that used to be half the wall and some of the floor and roof. From the hole I could see a pony shaking in his seat looking as if he was just about to write stamp a document before the floor inches in front of him blew up, burnt documents were slowly falling about the place like leaves.

After several more screaming and yelling, and getting tackled to the floor by a few guards, I was escorted back to my room and told to stay there for the rest of the day under guard. I sat on the bed and slowly the shock started to ware of and I came to fully realize what I had just done. With a smile I walked out to the balcony, I was too happy to even care about how stupidly high I was or how immature I was going to sound, I sucked in and with all my might shouted.

"I THREW A FIREBAAAAAALLLL" *inhale* "YOU BETTER WATCH YOU ASS BLUEBLOOD!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" I walked back panting and out of breath but feeling like a million bucks. It was then that I realized several folded clothes on the table, it was a simple white shirt and long pants and a jacket similar to my hoddie which, coincidentally, was light blue resembling the color of my 'fire'. I took the shirt and pants and took a bath and spent the rest of the day reading some of the books Twilight had given to me.






[In Twilight's room...]


Observation Report 3,

Subject shows and amazing level of adaptation to magic despite having no prior experience with magic. First day of exercise and he has already advanced to the second level of control training and was even able to show some skill in magic use. What's interesting is that his magic reacts differently to what we know, for reasons unknown his raw magic caused a violent reaction when released resulting in damage to Canterlot property. 

Note: apologize to Princess Celestia for the hole in the wall.

However despite the many unforeseen events subject has shown visible signs of the band's influence. It would appear that the band is working flawlessly and the subject remains unaware of it's presence. Will continue to monitor his progress during tomorrows session, hopefully without blowing anything up. Or anypony

Note: keep subject away from Prince Blueblood and vice-versa. 





















AN: 	Oh god! This chapter was a pain. I've discovered that one of my biggest weakness is trying to properly write my imagination in detail, I had to re-write so much I've basically written about two chapters of work. I tried to properly explain how magic works in Equestria and to Rodney, but as I've said it was hard. So I understand and apologize if anyone is a bit confused by it, I will elaborate further in the next chapter but if there's enough people confused I could write a special chapter explaining it. 

Luckily for this chapter I found some pretty good pics that fit perfectly with what I had in mind. Hell that explosion was perfect. And as usual please leave some some C&C, especially if anyone is confused in any way.

Now then, has anyone seen Pinkie? I haven't seen her since-oh there you are.

Pinkie: Hello Rodney. I see your back.

Uuuuhh you ok there Pinkie?

Pinkie: Me? Yes I'm quite alright, in fact I'm just PEACHY!

Woah!

Pinkie: You've been such a bad boy, leaving me alone all by my lonesome. I had no one to party with.

I uh, I'm sorry? A-are you sure your ok Pinkie?

Pinkie: Oh please dear, *evil laugh* call me Pinkamena.

Oh buck me...

Pinkamena: I'm sure your very tired from your trip, let Auntie Pinkamena take care of you. 

*whimper*