I was anxious to show Twilight Sparkle what I’ve learned. I figured she’d be really thrilled and happy for me. She was the only one who could truly appreciate my magic abilities and share in my joy. Not like other ponies, obsessed with their daily routines. Even Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. They didn’t get it. Non-unicorns often think that if it’s magic, the spell needs no further explanation. What I performed that day wasn’t the simple kind of magic I’d used to play with. It was much more unique and profound—a beginning of something greater. I just knew it.
My legs buckled while I tried to catch my breath from the fast stride. I slowed down to canter. There was no need for me to hurry because I had plenty of time. Not rushing myself would allow me to savor the moments before my big announcement.
A few days prior, I was losing everything along with myself. At that point, however, I felt content. Things seemed to be falling into place. I was no longer bound. The future seemed full of possibilities.
I stayed clear of Sugarcube Corner, just in case Pinkie Pie somehow managed to stay awake. It wasn’t as if I’d tried to avoid anypony; I merely didn’t want to be bothered. My destiny laid before me and walking from its path would feel like a waste of time.
The big smile wouldn’t dissipate from my face. I could feel the wind between my hind legs because my tail stood up so proudly. My body seemed almost weightless. The mere thought of going to a library would usually bring me to the brink of boredom, but at the time, an unyielding force pushed me forward toward the crystal palace. It acted as a beacon among everything common and dull.
I reached my target. The sparkles of the crystals of Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle drew attention to themselves. The old door was bruised and bumped, but it didn’t spoil the entrance into something beautiful in the slightest. It was a doorway to my destiny. A place where I could belong.
Some muffled voices came from within the castle. That wasn’t surprising since it was the middle of the day, and Twilight usually didn’t want to waste daylight. After knocking and counting to one, I got bored with waiting for a response. I swung the door open and perked up both ears. The voices came from the direction of the library down the hall. I drew closer to announce my presence.
“…and she just stood there as if it was nothing and said, ‘Did you think I’d let you get away with it!’” Rainbow Dash pointed a forehoof forth. “And then Arimaspi was like—Oh, oh, you do the Arimaspi part, Twi!”
“No, I’m good…”
“You have to do it! Your evil voice fits perfectly.”
“Ugh! You have spoiled my schemes...” Twilight sighed and telekinetically slipped another book from the pile to a shelf, while speaking monotonically, “Who in Equestria are you, disruptor?”
“I am—Daring Do!” Rainbow Dash spoke dramatically, flapped her wings and floated up with her forelegs crossed on the chest. After holding that pose for a while, she put both forehooves on her cheeks and squeaked, “Daring Do was so awesome!”
“I know, I’ve read her book as soon as it was published. And I do not have an evil voice.”
“I’ve read it twice already!” Rainbow grinned while proudly pointing a hoof at herself.
“So did I.” She sighed unimpressed, stashing another book on a shelf. “I already lent you a book about the countless differences between turtles and tortoises. Is there anything else I can do for you, Rainbow Dash? If not, I need to—”
“Ahem!” I cleared my throat. The stuff they had going on was so very interesting—not, but I was the one deserving of attention!
“Oh, hi there, Sweetie Belle.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “How’s your gem-hunting going along?”
I sat on my tush “Not there yet.” My eyes half-closed as I rubbed my hooves together. “But soon…”
“Hehe! Yeah, right... Anyway; great thing you pulled by concealing your horn. I can’t believe everypony is still obsessing about that more than the storm that I produced out of the blue.”
“What storm?” I raised an eyebrow as I glanced at her.
“Rub it in, why don’t you!” Rainbow dash smirked. “Next time, I’ll produce a tornado or a double rainboom. Maybe that’ll get your attention.”
“Mhm...” I said disengaged while I gazed into a distance.
“Well, if my endeavors are so underwhelming, what is it that makes your mischief so special? How did you hide your horn, anyway? Did you dye it the same color as your mane; is that it?”
My ears shot up. I glanced at her then shied away. “I don’t want to talk about—”
“—Too great of a prankster to reveal your secrets, ey? I’ll have you know that I have a secret of my own. Look here. Now you see my tail, and now you don’t.”
“I can still see your tail.” I sighed.
“Well, I’m not gonna perform it here, obviously.”
“Why not?”
“For reasons…” She faced away from me. “But trust me! It’s a really great trick, my ace in the hole so to speak.”
“If you say so...” I rolled around my eyes.
“I’m gonna fool everypony with it, then we’ll see who they pay attention to. See you on the battlefield, sister!“
“Sweetie Belle,” Twilight interrupted as she put the last book on the shelf. She turned to me, “I need to talk to you.”
Rainbow Dash looked at Twilight, then me, then her again. “Well, er… later, amateurs!” She flew by me through the door that I kept open for her.
I stepped forth and shut the door with a hind leg. When the sharp gaze connected with my new best friend, I spurt out, “I want to learn magic!” The path to the world of amounting laid before me, and I was just a moment away from taking the glorious trot on the sparks of magic. I gazed into a distance, imagining myself as a great and powerful magician.
“Yes… That’s what I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, Sweetie Belle. You should sit down for this.”
I laid my plot on the floor, clenching my teeth to prevent the excitement getting the best of me. I was anxious to get to the good stuff as soon as possible. It takes many steps to become best pony. Such was, surely, the case with becoming a master magician. It probably couldn’t be done in a single day. Maybe by the next full moon… I grinned.
She slowly approached. “I did some checking up on the results and—”
“—I think I’m getting better at it!” I stood up, tapping all four hooves on the floor.
“Look, I’m sorry if I elevated your hopes. That wasn’t my intention. I just wanted you to know that there was still a chance, so you wouldn’t distress before you had all the data.”
“I want to improve even more!” Everything was falling into place. I jumped up and down on the spot with excitement.
“You’re not listening to me, Sweetie Belle!” She thumped a hoof on the floor. “I checked the numbers! There was no echo!”
I stood on my hind legs and spread out my forelegs the way I’ve seen the great and powerful Trixie do on a stage. “Who needs an echo since I have magic on my side!” I cheered. Maybe I could even become the very best in magic like nopony ever was.
“Listen, dammit!” Twilight raised her voice and struck both hooves on the floor. “You don’t have it in you. Your mana pool is empty. You can consider yourself lucky if you manage to produce a single spark in your lifetime.”
I gasped at the harsh words. After dropping on all four, I quickly took a few steps away from the mean alien.
She covered her mouth with a hoof. “I’m sorry; that was too blunt of me.”
My eyes teared up. She ruined the moment. “Why are you so wicked?” I had really hoped she’d be happy for me.
Twilight shook her head, exhaled, put a hoof on her chest and took in a deep breath as she extended the foreleg. “I’m sorry, Sweetie Belle… It seems the stress is getting the best of me. I’ve got things going on, you see? Look! I’d really like to tell you something uplifting, but the facts are as they are. The numbers don’t lie.”
I leaned forward and glared at her. “Your numbers are wrong!”
“I’ve double-checked everything. That bump must have severed your neurological connection to your horn.”
Show her a glimpse of what’s coming her way, a voice whispered inside my mind. I closed my eyes and focused the inner flow within me. It rushed toward the horn.
“I know how all this must feel. I, also, lost my magic in the past. Fortunately, it wasn’t permanent for me like in your case...” Twilight’s voice trailed off.
While I gazed at her with a grin, the channels flared up. A thick, bewitching aura formed around my bony limb. I even saw swaying smoke at the corners of my vision.
Twilight took a few steps back “That darkly glow!” Her tail tucked between both hind legs. “How did you—who… Who showed you that‽ How can you even…”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I just played around and figured it out!”
“No! This isn’t something you just pick up on the way. And your disability… You couldn’t even lit your horn the last time I saw you. And the analysis…” She glanced toward the creepy basement entrance. “No, no, no! Facts don’t lie!” She swallowed. “They wouldn’t do that to me, would they?” Her head violently shook. One hoof struck the floor as the other pointed at the dark light show around my horn. Her eyes pierced me. “That is not possible! Not at such a young age and especially not from a crippled magic bio-conductor!”
“I couldn’t do it before,” I explained. “I only learned of it today, at school.” I sat down.
She took another step back. “In school? In one day?” Her head cocked. “Cheerilee taught you this? She’s not even a Unicorn!”
“I invented the magic myself!” My voice grew louder because of the anxiety. I was hoping for a more cheerful reaction from her. But at least she wasn’t disappointed with me at the time. Maybe I was on my way to the world of amounting. I smiled at the thought.
“By yourself?” She shook her head and walked left and right in an arch around me.
She stopped on the spot, lifted her head, and pointed a foreleg at me. “This makes no sense at all!” She stroked her chin with the hoof. “We need to get you back into the Electro-magic analyzer.”
I took a step toward the door. “You promised! No more!”
“Hmm… I did, didn’t I?” She sighed and bowed her head but quickly raised it again along with a convincing-wannabe hoof. “But that was just an alpha test. I’ve spent some time fine-tuning it since then. Actually, it might almost be beta-worthy by now!”
I took another step toward the door. “No! I’m not getting near that thing again. It hurt!” I pointed a hoof at her accusingly. “And if you use it on me again, I’m telling Rarity about it!”
She leaned back and lifted a foreleg. “Wait! Just... Relax. It’s not as if I’d force you against your will.” She looked to her alien basement, then at me again.
I wasn’t sure if she talked to me or to herself. “I thought you of all ponies would be glad for me!”
“You must have broken through the barrier in your horn. I can see no other explanation.” She shook her head again, which was something she seemed to be doing more than usual. “Yes, I am glad for you.” While slowly taking a step closer, she observed my glowing horn. “In fact, I’m thrilled right now.”
She walked in a circle around me. “You wielding such complex magic is very—interesting. No, that’s an understatement. How could I have missed something so remarkable? Maybe my puppy wasn’t calibrated properly. If only I had more test subjects—” she put a hoof to her muzzle “—Oh, I mean subroutines to—um, something, something… help ponies… greater good.”
I stopped casting my magic. The glow of it was, apparently, distracting her. The black waves in the purple aura spreading toward the tip seemed kind of hypnotic to me as well.
“The magic you performed holds tremendous significance, Sweetie Belle! Have you ever witnessed this magic before?”
“Well, Rarity usually uses magic when she’s working with clothes.”
“No, I mean that special magic. That purple-black bubbling aura. Did you see anypony cast it?”
I shook my head and smiled because of all the attention she showered me with.
“That’s a very specific kind of magic you just used. It takes a very certain focus to form the particular channels that support that kind of magic.”
“So, does this make me special?”
“Um, sure. I guess it does. I only know of one more living pony beside us, capable of performing Alicorn magic. How did you guess the right channel frequencies? This magic is the most counterintuitive of all.”
“I just extended it.” I waved a foreleg forward. “And pushed on it.”
“Yes, but how did you know which ones to combine?”
“Combine?”
“Are you telling me that you just skipped all the steps in between and started off with that kind of magic?”
“Steps?”
“Can you still cast your normal magic?”
I caressed my horn with a hoof. “Are you saying my magic isn’t normal?”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just not usual. Let me give you an example. You like to draw, right?”
“Mhm.” I nodded.
“You know how you get a different color when you draw over an existing one?”
“I usually try not to mix orange and blue together. The color that those two produce is confusing.”
“In theory, you could get a black color if you mixed the right substances together.”
“I’ve never gotten black before. Usually, the more colors I use, the uglier the smear becomes, I try not to mix them too much. I never know what a smudge could evolve into if I would.”
“Well, using magic is kind of the opposite of mixing colors. It’s more aligned with mixing different lights together. The most proficient users can even learn to mix the white light.”
“White? Didn’t you say making black is the tricky part?”
“Making white color from different lights is hard, producing black by mixing different illuminations is impossible. Yet, you achieve the effect by doing it in reverse. Most magicians blend magic together to form desired arcane constructions, but you don’t do that.”
“I don’t?”
“Instead of combining magic frequencies, you annihilate them with the process of resonance. What I’m trying to say is that getting a white color from different lights is hard, but using the magic that you just used is like producing black from different mixtures. Not easy and not intuitive at all.”
“It doesn’t feel so complicated when I use it.”
“That is, indeed, the intriguing part. It shouldn’t feel easy at all.” She stepped in front of me, observing my horn. “I want to sense your primal magic channel and how you mix it with others.
I looked at her. “Primal channel?”
“Yes. All Unicorns and Alicorns have their primal channel, which they use for raw magic manipulation. Mostly telekinesis.
“The advanced magic, however, requires using or even mixing supportive channels for different effects. We don’t have to go into that yet. That’s high-level magic usage. Now, just relax and keep the stream of your inner flows constant.”
I obediently closed my eyes and bowed my head.
“Now feel the flows within you. Focus on the resonating energy in your core.”
That was ridiculous, I felt them all the time. The bowed posture bored me senseless, but I kept at it for Twilight’s pleasure. I didn’t know what she waited for.
When I pinned my ears forward, I heard claws scraping on the floor. I could tell that Spike was about to come from the side room. The door creaked open.
“Mmm, I can sense the vibrations in you,” Twilight said. “You can also feel it deep inside, don’t you? This is what the horn’s versatility entails. Let yourself go in the sensations.”
The door silently closed, and the muffled tapping of Spike’s legs grew distant again.
“Yes, I feel my flows. Now what?”
“Extend forth the channels, just slightly and slowly.”
I lengthened them in the air before me.
“Okay, now focus on the strongest channel. Keep just that one and annihilate the rest.”
I didn’t know what she meant by that. I could thicken or extend it. Make it more powerful. Even curve it on a whim. But all that casting would still be just one kind of channel. I thought that if I made it denser—
“You’re doing it wrong!” she exclaimed.
I looked at her and cut off my magic flow. My horn glow dissipated. “I don’t have any other channels!”
“Hmm.” She put a hoof under her chin. “Maybe you’re right. I couldn’t sense any clear channels, either. I’m no electro-magic analyzer”—She looked toward the basement again, making me take a step back—“But I’m sure I would sense at least something if it was there. It’s as though you’re hard-wired for exactly this channel spectrum.”
“Channel spectrum?”
“I’ll give you the colors example again. Everypony has a favorite color—”
“I like pink!” I exclaimed with enthusiasm. “Apple Bloom once drank a pink potion at Zecora’s and so did I a few days ago.”
Sighing, she closed her eyes then continued, “...But when they draw, they make use of different colors. Maybe they employ their favorite the most, but they utilize other colors as well. You, on the other hoof, don’t.”
“I don’t?” My head bowed. “I like green, as well...” I whispered.
“You just use the one. But that wouldn’t even be that extraordinary. Most Unicorns use their primal channel and only rarely apply the others to flavor the main one. Before you switched to Alicorn magic—which is something I’ll get to the bottom of, even if it kills y… me—your horn aura was green. Like most Unicorns, you relied on your primal channel, so the color of your aura stayed the same. If you’ve been observant enough, you’ve likely noticed that, on most occasions, the aura of your sister’s horn is blue. That’s the color that her main channel produces. Coincidentally that spectrum also resonates with gems. That’s one of the reasons why she’s better than anypony else at detecting them. “
“But you said I’m the special one; not like the other Unicorns.”
“That’s just it. You don’t have a primal channel. You have just the right combination of channels arranged in perfect symmetry with one another. A combination like that forming naturally in a Unicorn is unheard-of at best. The chance of such an arrangement of channels forming due to an accident is—well, before today I would say zero, but I would apparently be mistaken.”
“I can’t use different colors then?”
“No. It’s the opposite of that. You employ all of them in such a way that they annihilate each other.”
“Even the pink one? I kind of like pink...”
“The colors were just an analogy. The channels themselves don’t have any color. Only the effect of channels gaining physical form induces the illumination that we perceive as the color of an aura.”
“So, I’m stuck with just one color then? Is that bad?”
“From the practical point of view, it’s not bad at all. Your magic, being the most unintuitive of them all, is also the most versatile. You can manipulate matter and magic in almost any way possible. Channels, forming the superposition spectrum, have virtually no resistance even when extended by a great distance. They respond to the tiniest stimuli from the flow. It takes very little focus to manipulate them. They are so responsive that they function as an extension of the caster’s cognitive processes.”
My eyes squinted at the big words. “Are there any limits to my amounting?”
She smirked. “I can’t say until I test you for your—amounting potential.”
I looked toward the basement in fear and took another step toward the door.
“Don’t worry, we don’t need any machine for that.” Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof. “It would be faster, though.” She noticed me opening the door and jerked a hoof in my direction. “But there are other, more conventional ways, to test these things out.”
I wasn’t sure if she meant that or was just trying to lure me back in.
“Unfortunately, the endeavor will have to wait. You caught me at a bad time. I’m a busy bee, you know? But I certainly want to see you tomorrow. Meet me at the clearing in front of the castle when you’re done with school. I will make time and preparations for some experim—ahem—training. Yes, more magic training. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She slightly nodded at me. “Can I count on your attendance, Sweetie Belle?”
“Sure,” I said plainly.
“Here’s a book on types of magic you can study until then.” Twilight’s horn glowed and the book levitated from the shelf toward me. “You’ll take good care of it, won’t you?”
While the book approached, I tried to use the opportunity to impress her. I extended my channels, wrapping Twilight’s field in the field of my own.
I felt the energies of Twilight’s channels and the focal points on the book. Her aura felt silky and warm; almost hot to the magic touch. They cut off as soon as I wrapped my shield around the book.
“Ugh” Twilight shook as her horn light dissipated.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Cold... Unclean...” Her upper lip lifted above her teeth.
I gasped at the return of the bully. “Whaa...”
“I… I’m sorry, I merely haven’t gotten used to the flavor of your magic yet.” She caught my glare. “It’s not you, it’s me. Nothing is wrong. Your magic is just—special, and I’m not very familiar with it yet, that’s all.”
“I’m special?” My ears perked up.
“Yeah, sure. Why not. Now if you’ll excuse me, Sunburst was scheduled to arrive at Canterlot from the Crystal Empire this very afternoon.”
“Who?”
“He’s an expert in various magic types. I need to go see him right away.” Her horn glowed ever brighter.
I sighed and pushed the door wide open with a foreleg, so I would save her a bit of time going wherever she needed to go.
She smiled. “That won’t be needed.” In the blink of an eye, she vanished, leaving me alone at the opened door.
I hated how she was able to leave in the middle of a conversation. Or maybe I was just a little jealous. It would be so awesome if I could just blink away whenever Rarity or Cheerilee was about to scold me.
I grumbled as I walked through the door that I apparently kept open for nopony but myself.