Spike was stressed from the earlier shenanigans, after calming Twilight down he went to read some comic books while Twilight took a walk to cool off. She didn’t come home until late, but Spike was already asleep, so he didn’t see the giddy look on Twilight's face when she came racing in.
“Mmmhh…. Sure Rarity… I’ll marry you…” *snore*
As Spike was dreaming of romance with Rarity and his hero persona, He barely heard the sounds of an eager unicorn gathering materials out of their bedroom before rushing out to start setting up for a spell downstairs.
---meanwhile downstairs---
Twilight was getting all of her necessary materials together. She couldn’t believe her luck! The spell she found was going to help give her the wisdom needed to master the spells of Starswirl’s tome as well as fill in the blanks the book has.
---1 hour prior---
Twilight finally returned home and sat solemnly on her chair glancing over at the book before bowing her head in shame.
“I’m the student of magic, and I can’t master this spellbook due to 'lack of experience'… I’m an alicorn now! Shouldn’t I be powerful enough!?.... I thought I was worthy, but if I’m an alicorn and can’t master a type of magic then… are my goals- NO! this is just a minor setback! I'll try… studying some other subjects for now and see if it’ll help me get focused again…yeah…” Twilight finished with clear misery.
Twilight went downstairs to her new hidden archives where she found Starswirls legendary spellbook and skimmed the racks for anything to take her mind off of her woes.
“Hmm… there are more rare books here, let’s see if any of them can take my mind off of… well, that book…” Twilight mused
“Ancient gardening arrangements… no, I don’t even have a garden… how to train your…. No, Spike wouldn’t appreciate the reference, the Aether and how you can use it to clean your kitchen? How bizarre… next up is “Spells for struggling scholars”?... hmm Nah I’d-.” suddenly Twilight paused and grabbed the dusty green book with her magic.
“Spells for struggling scholars? A guide to getting ahead when you hit a snag? Huh… how convenient, I’ll read it I suppose”. Twilight sat on the ground and lit a candle and began looking through the pages as she looked through the passages however she was mostly unimpressed at what she’s seeing. It looked more like a cheat sheet, and she may not be the element of honesty, but she wasn’t crude enough to exploit her luck like this, as she was about to close it, however, she spotted something.
“Huh? What’s this?” upon close examination it was revealed to be a passage speaking of a ritual that involves temporarily filling one’s mind with selected knowledge in a simplified and listed way to help center one’s thoughts and allow one to take notes of said information to help them catch up later when it wears off.
Twilight skimmed the page thoroughly, and her expression was joyous. “A thought boosting spell??... It sounds sketchy but… It might work! I have to gather some materials! Starswirl I’ll master your most prized tome yet!" Twilight said reenergized by this discovery.
With renewed vigor Twilight quickly memorized the spell and put the book down and then ran off to prep for the spell as the book laid there.
In her haste, she forgot to check for warnings… specifically the warning on the back of the book that bore a single message
Warning:
Please do NOT use the spells listed in this book without clearance/assistance from the Royals, highly experienced magic users or higher powers as they are dangerous and difficult to control! If done incorrectly it could lead to death, damage or mind loss.
----now----
Twilight had eagerly gathered the necessary candles, drawn the symbols on the ground with chalk and [just for precaution] moved the closest books downstairs as the spell could be dangerous to the current surroundings…
‘I’m not going to risk any more books after what Tirek did.’ Twilight thought to herself as she carried the last few books from the surrounding shelves downstairs.
Twilight set up a pedestal with a large emerald surrounded by smaller emeralds and using her photographic memory looked back at what she read.
“I wonder if I should have brought it up with me… no! I have this memorized! I can do this! An avid student of magic should be able to remember complex spells even if it was a skim… right?” Twilight hesitated but shook her head clearing the doubts, she was ready to take the next step, and this was a stepping stone to that.
She then glanced at the emeralds making sure their properly arranged “I sure hope Spike is ok with me borrowing his lunch” Twilight said as she adjusted them with her magic.
She then set Starswirl’s spellbook in the center of the circle of runes, just in front of the pedestal mentally reviewed one more time and stood in a runic circle and lowered her head to the book and lit her horn, focusing she pictured the tome in her head.
“Ok… focus on the knowledge you wish to obtain.” Twilight picture a random one of the spells and their complicated intricacies and blanks
“Ok good, now imagine yourself casting it…” she focused harder and saw the spell she intended being cast “I’m almost there! Now I need to project the image onto the crystals.” Twilight whispered softly
She focused the thought into her magic and projected it onto the emerald an image flashed on the emerald. “Now hold for…. 20 seconds?… No wait, maybe it was 10?... darnit Twilight! This isn’t the time to lose focus!” surely enough the image grew foggy as her focus wavered, she gasped and focused intently, and the image cleared having to guess what the time of waiting was she held the magic for 30 seconds
‘Better safe than sorry, right?’ she thought hesitantly. As she did this the emerald began to grow hot as the magic in it was becoming slightly unstable from the extended containment in the vessel and upon realizing this Twilight braced herself for the knowledge intake.
“Sure hope this works.” She released the magic, and it unexpectedly exploded out in what seemed to be a yellow-ish stream of magic that flowed into her head causing her to instinctively take a step back as though she had been struck.
Twilights eyes went wide as a peculiar sensation overcame her “Whoa! I-is it working?” Twilight said nervously
Surely but slowly the images of the instructions simplified in a much less bizarre way we’re filling her mind, she began to feel the knowledge that she couldn’t see through the books age smears filling her mind and she laughed with triumph.
“Yes!” Twilight laughed “it’s working! I can feel new knowledge seeping in! Now I need to note it down, allocate the ingredients and draw out the circles and then I’ll be able to-” suddenly the stream began to pause and the information slowed to a crawl, and she paused in her speaking.
“Huh? What’s happening? The transfer can’t be complete already. I mean the image it was projecting doesn’t look-“ suddenly the information stream began to recede instead of flow forward and the image in Twilight's mind quickly faded.
“What the? Where did the image go? This wasn’t stated in the book.” Twilight sighed and prepared to try the spell again when suddenly she found she couldn’t leave the circle she was in. And not only that the stream continued to pour from her head which caught Twilight's attention.
“Huh? W-what’s going on? It should have finished receding by now!” she noticed something else the information regarding the spell itself began to leave her as well, and a fog began to enter her mind.
“Th-this isn’t right… it should have ended by now!” the information continued to flow and as it continued Twilight began forgetting other spells as well, and she felt as though she couldn’t think straight anymore. Idea’s and thoughts began to go quiet in Twilight's head.
At this point, the alicorn began to realize what was happening.
“No… I-it’s absorbing my thoughts!...ngh!…” Twilight grunted as an unbearable headache began moving through her head and she puts her hooves to her head trying to will it to stop, but the stream only grew in size as Twilights thoughts left her. She tried to summon her magic to stop it, but she couldn’t summon up the concentration. So she attempted to crawl over to manually interfere but was still unable to leave the circle, already years of experience were dwindling away.
“Agh!….Spike… Spike!....” Twilight moaned in mental agony, she focused with all her willpower and used her royal Canterlot voice “SPIIIIIIIKE!” she called out and then collapsed.
---In dreamland---
Spike the brave has just vanquished the horde of 10,000 zombie ponies, and he is standing atop the pile of dead undead’s, sword in hand and the damsel standing before her hero showering him with thankfulness.
“Oh Spike the brave! I commend you for rescuing me from those awful zombies! My hero!” the white-coated princess Rarity leaned in “I wish to reward you, my valiant knight…”
“Very well my princess, might it be a kiss?” Spike the brave inquired
“Something even better my prince…” she leaned in closer and just as Spike the brave was about to make a second guess she suddenly screamed in a loud voice that sounded like Twilight right into his ear.
“SPIIIIIIIKE!”
“GYAH!” Spike the brave shouted in surprise
---real world---
“GYAH!” Spike the dragon yelped jumping out of bed and onto the hard ground.
“Ow!… What the heck Twilight?! I-” Spike only then notices Twilight isn’t around.
“Twilight?” Spike asked before suddenly he heard crashing noises downstairs, and he realized that the voice came from downstairs as well. “oh no… TWILIGHT!” Spike leaped from his position on the floor and ran down the halls.
By the time he got downstairs and into the library room he saw a weak and pained Twilight struggling to stand back up and only succeeding in raising her front end, and a strange yellow stream was flowing out of her head and into a gem.
“Twilight!?” Spike screamed in shock “wh-what’s happening!?”
“Spike?…” Twilight replied weakly “T-the spell… it’s…it’s gone horribly wrong… I’m- I’m losing everything…. I-I can’t remember…agh!... help… me…” Twilight groaned as the stream seemed to speed up and grow larger. Spike moved to get the gem off the pedestal in hopes it would help, but Twilight quickly stopped him by shouting briefly
“S-STOP! If you get… too close it might hurt you!...” Twilight managed to croak out, sure enough, the gem was giving off electricity.
“W-WHAT DO I DO THEN!?” Spike began to panic
“T-there’s a book…. It can fix this!... It’s called……. It’s called…” a look of confusion crossed Twilight’s face.
“Called what?” Spike demanded
“I don’t remember... I-it’s taking all of my other memories too!” Twilight said looking even more fearful than before.
“Then what else!? What color was it!? How thick was it?! What page!? Twilight, please answer!” Spike said growing more desperate
“The-…ngh!.... the c-color was!…. th- the color was… um… the book was thick! N-no it was… medium?......grr!...it was medium I think! And…and…” the stream seemed to grow larger and become even faster like a final burst, as it did Twilights eyes became more vacant and glazed over.
“I think…the….page was…one hundred and…..one hundred and…… hundred and……hun…dred…a..nd…….…..a…n…..d….” the stream began to shrink and slow to a trickle. Twilights eyes began drifting in two different directions becoming wall-eyed, and her mouth slowly hung open.
“Twilight?” Spike nervously looked at Twilights vacant expression
“…uuuuhhh...” she droned, the stream broke off and flowed into the emerald and the green emerald became a purple-colored crystal. A line of drool left Twilights mouth, and she groaned weakly as her eyes became half-lidded and she proceeded to sway a little before passing out on the ground in front of Spike who immediately ran to her side and shook her.
“Twilight? TWILIGHT! Wake up! Please! TWILIGHT!” Spike exclaimed as he shook her.