My first taste of real power was intoxicating.
I stand in the dream realm while Dr. Real stands in the real world, monitoring my vitals.
"Now, let's start with something basic. Activating Golem Proxy at twenty-five percent. I'll be attempting a fire spell."
The speakers in the medical room relay my message to the doctor, who nods as he adjusts both the apparatus attached to my horn, and the golem statue of me equipped with a similar apparatus.
The glass bulb filled with Stoppered Time attached to my forehead begins to bubble faintly as I channel my magic in the dream, attempting to cast Prestidigitonium.
In the real world, however, my horn's glow is sapped by the liquefied frozen time, making it change colors, bubbling and hissing as the liquid substance is forced up through tubes by the pressure and slowly drips out into a bottle strategically placed below.
The golem does this as well, though instead of a liquid, it begins producing a gas, prompting Dr. Real to nervously attach a rubber gasket to the bottle to trap the gasses coming out.
Before long, roughly a third of my magical energy is drained into this one spell, prompting me to call it for this particular test.
"Alright Doctor, seal up that bottle, and get a new one ready. Label it 'Fire'."
The remaining two-thirds of my energy will go towards the next bottle's fire spell, followed by a period of recovery.
"We're going to be here a while."
As I stand out in the blistering snow, a table hastily assembled next to me, and large training dummies made of ice arrayed in front of me, I can't help my excitement.
"Sir, I'm not sure what effect will occur if you drink these outright. It could do anything," Dr. Real says, bundled up in his thick coat.
I wave him off. "That's why you're here, to drag my dumb ass back inside and pump my stomach if something goes wrong. Now give me the Vance labeled 'Bigby's Crushing Hand'."
He nervously hands me an ornate, tiny bottle, filled with a glittering, white liquid. Like snow in summer.
Popping the cork out with my teeth, I lift the bottle up, and drain it down.
Instantly, I feel the power overtaking me, burning, like a grease fire inside my lungs.
I take deep, consistent breaths, trying to overcome the bone-deep pressure pushing on me from within.
I can't afford to fall down right now, despite my knees shaking as the liquid courses through my veins, since I told Dr. Real to perform immediate extraction if I actually fell over.
I suspect if it hadn't been my own magic used to create this, it would have been overwhelming. But it was, and it's not. Inch by inch, little by little, I slowly force the magic down, compressing it mentally until, with a metaphorical 'Click!' it settles inside of me, a mass of compressed magic, frozen in time, waiting to be unleashed.
I wait until the feeling of pressure has completely subsided, before looking to my trusted doctor and smirking. "Stage one is complete Absolutely. Are you excited?"
His expression is properly mad with glee, he's always been so weak to my demands when I dangle potential science like this in front of him.
"Are you prepared to begin stage two, Lord Weiss?" He responds. If he were a younger stallion, he might be hopping in place right now, like a child watching his parents bring in an especially large birthday present.
Looking to the first snowpony in the distance, I nod.
"Bigby's Crushing Hand!" I shout, intent filling my words as they mentally unlock the spell I had just swallowed.
My horn instantly ignites, and in less than an instant, the snowpony has exploded in the grip of a gigantic telekinetic hand.
I start to chuckle, and Dr. Real simply stares on in glee and satisfaction.
My chuckling turns into outright laughter for a time.
"Let's go through all of them now. One at a time," I tell him, making his enthusiasm die down.
"Are you sure, sir? Eight hours worth of magic is a lot to contain."
I nod. "If It gets to be too much, then we'll stop at my limit, and mark down how many bottles of Vance I can manage at a time."
Fire, Flare, and Frizz. Three spells containing One-Third of my 'Normal' magical capacity.
Fira, Flara, and Frizzle. Each one with Two-Thirds of my capacity.
Firaga, Flarus, and Kafrizz. These ones containing every last scrap of magic I can muster at my peak.
Fireja, Kafrizzle, Kerfrizz. Measured in time instead of capacity, each of these spells were the work of one solid hour of continuous casting and regeneration.
One after another, I painfully absorb the magic I stored in these potions the night before. For this test, I had only made variants of Prestidigitonium inside the bottles of Vance, as it had the most obvious and measurable effect, and required the least harmful emotion, in case there was backlash.
Each time, the pressure seems to grow, but with each bottle, I become more capable of managing it, and each spell eventually shrinks down inside me, socketing into place as though they had always had a place waiting for them there.
I look at poor A.R Homeopathy, who had been forced to carefully watch me down each bottle to see if I was about to explode.
"It's alright Doctor. That's the last one."
And it's a good thing too, considering just how full I feel now. Though the pressure from absorbing the spells is gone, there is now a weight, not one on my body, but on my spirit. Like some blend between eating too much and carrying every grocery bag into the house in a single trip.
I'll conquer this challenge as well. The power I feel now is too incredible to give up because of something like that.
"Let's stress test this. I'm going to use up one of the D-Tier Vances, so stand back Doctor," I say, pointing my horn at the next snowpony.
"Fireja!"
The next few minutes include some ringing in my ears, and me blinking light out of my vision.
The ripped up landscape and pyroclasm of fire washing out over the land in front of me strongly implies I may have underestimated the yield of D-Rank Vance Fluid.
"Doctor, let's get the fuck out of here. I'm pretty sure Tartarus heard that one," I say as the ringing in my ears subsides.
The stunned and blankfaced stallion just sort of nods numbly, and we trudge through the snow to the nearest fast-travel station.
After I blow up the table and empty bottles with a well-placed "Kafrizz", of course.
I return home to the sight of Celestia and Luna, casually taking up space in my office.
I turn to Tablet, my secretary, with an expectant look.
"They arrived a few minutes ago looking for you sir, I'm not certain why, I'm sorry."
I sigh, glaring at Celestia before shrugging it off. "It's alright, thank you for sending them in, Tablet."
I slowly walk my way inside, transforming my crude cloak of Black Fire into a hazy dress suit with some force of will. Style is worth working hard for, after all, and nothing says business like a three-piece suit made of pitch-black flames.
I take a seat and steeple my hooves onto my desk. "How can I help you fine ladies?" I say casually.
Celestia looks like she's about to say something, but Luna interrupts her. "We hath been keeping our gaze squarely on thee, Lord Weiss Noir. There art few days in memory whence a pony, however briefly, ascends their strength to..." She looks to her sister.
"Three-hundred and sixty times the strength of spells we had formerly sensed thou casting," Celestia finishes for Luna.
The eerily specific number she used doesn't comfort me at all. Neither does the fact that they're apparently monitoring my spellcasting. The fact that they're coming to me for answers, however, presents potential.
I school my expression, and decide to exclusively answer to Luna, before doing exactly that. "Well, Princess Luna, I had warned you that I had been working night and day for the sake of the Shadow Realm."
"Is it any wonder that my hard work in the nights would pay off?"
Luna is unamused. "Lord Weiss, even now, thine body overfloweth with magic. One unexplained by the brief glimpses and snippets we see of thy dreams at work."
I smile faintly. "Luna, I've been practicing magic all night last night. Every spell I have at my disposal now was born from that sort of hard work, and precious little else."
Celestia slams a hoof on my desk, mindful not to break it. Obviously not mindful enough to not crack it, of course, as the gash splintering down it can attest to.
"Thou shalt stop thine idiotic runabout and give us the truth!" She shouts.
"Thou drawest upon the hatred of ponykind for mundane heating, and with thine other face, tell us that thy brutish power here is built on a night's work alone?"
Luna has to calm her sister, because my face certainly isn't going to.
My smug expression gives way to words in a similar tone as I distinctly avoid looking at the solar princess, and answer her sister instead. "I haven't lied since you got here, Princess Luna."
Celestia turns to her sister for confirmation, who I notice has piercing, clearly enchanted eyes poking through me metaphorically.
She shakes her head. "He's right. His tone and words mock us with honesty alone. And whatever foul well from which he is drawing this unnatural strength, he dug it himself."
Celestia's anger comes out with her words. "If we could prove for even an instant that thine power came at the expense of another..."
I shake my head with good humor. "You won't because you can't, Your Majesty. So why don't you get the hell out of my office, if you don't have any good reasons to threaten me today."
She stands up suddenly at that, before an odd smile crosses her face. "Very well, Lord Weiss."
"It may comfort thou to know that a pony's eyebrows do indeed grow back. I hope your newfound power will allow you the basic hygiene we alicorns enjoy, if nothing else... Soot is a poor look for a ruler, after all."
With that, the Diarchs of Equestria leave my office, while I just look confused. What was that about?
I only realize later what she meant, as my potent fire spell being fired off so close to my head had... unintended consequences, according to my mirror.
"That bitch," I exclaim with a grimace, before chuckling involuntarily at just how ridiculous I look in the mirror.
I'm surprised they kept a straight face with me looking like a cartoon bomb just went off in my face.
Obviously, this means I just have to double down and escalate. I wonder if I have enough time to put together a clown outfit before their next "friendly visit".
Priss just stares on, dumbfounded, at Eclipse's idea.
"You know that the mine isn't actually restricted, right? We could just go in and ask."
Eclipse shakes her head. "No way, you're not thinking about the big picture here, if we just asked for some Frozen Stone, then Weiss would know, and he would know that we know, so then it wouldn't be a secret trump card that we can use against him!"
"Look, just help me look for the stuff while Oil Slick keeps watch, Ok?!"
Priss just rolls her eyes, while Oil Slick shrugs.
"If it will shut you up. Why do you need it, anyway?"
Eclipse huffs. "Weiss might know that I know what his new secret weapon is, but what he doesn't know is that I know he doesn't know that I'm going to also use his secret weapon that he knows nopony else knows about."
"You did that on purpose," Priss deadpans, dampening Eclipse Flash's mood.
"Whatever, let's get this over with. I needed to pick up some Rupture Drops anyway. I'll need em to break into Weiss's room and dump more snow in his bed."
Eclipse carefully ignores Priss's ridiculous prank plans and trots into the mining tunnels, intent on fulfilling her own justice-fueled plans.
"I don't get it, it's not supposed to make this junk, it's supposed to make a liquid!" Eclipse shouts, as if she could shout loud enough to turn the result of her experiment into the ones she wanted.
Priss just groans internally, sipping at her citrine juice as she sits on a large rock next to their pile of snacks and trinkets while Oil Slick is napping in a corner, table full of sapphire holocards left loosely organized.
Eclipse pounds her head against the walls of their secret clubhouse, groaning much more audibly.
"Ok! I can work with this, just because Weiss's stupid project folder is a load of lies doesn't mean I can't still do this."
She plants her hooves on the ball of crystal that was left behind when she used black flames to melt it down, and focuses on casting a Lucky Shot Charm into the spherical gem.
"Time freezing liquid, time freezing crystals, what's the difference."
The difference, Eclipse finds, is quite vast.
After watching Eclipse fruitlessly bash her head against this project, she feels the need to interject.
"Maybe you should take Weiss's advice. He's always ranting about how magic is 'Subjective inconsistent bullshit that you just have to figure out'."
Eclipse tilts her head at her cooperative rival. "That sounds vaguely specist, but Ok?"
"The problem is, these stupid crystals aren't absorbing energy like the liquid is supposed to. They're just absorbing the... Imprint."
Priss shrugs, picking up the bauble.
"Just add energy."
The two fillies promptly discover the first use of what Weiss will later call Timeshift Crystal as a result of Priss casting the Lucky Shot Charm bound inside the glittering sphere, her leg jerking out and smacking the pile of goodies they had piled up in their clubhouse over the past week, sending them flying into sorted neat stacks from the magically enhanced impact. She also strikes Oil Slick's table by mistake at the same time, making his cards fly up in the air and land in perfectly stacked decks.
It's an impressive feat considering Priss didn't actually know how to cast that spell.
Priss nods. "Ok, that's pretty cool."
"My system!" Oil Slick shouts, jolted awake to the sight of his reorganized Duel Monsters cards.
"It's going to take me all day to re-sort all of this!"
As my mind relaxes in the grip of sleep, I can feel the mental claws I had wrapped around the spells loosen involuntarily.
"Damn. Easy come, easy go, I guess," I say to myself as I feel my leftover spell slots empty as I slip into the dream realm.
It seems I'll need to be mindful of the fact that the effects of a Vance can't be carried over between days unless I discharge them into new bottles before going to sleep.
Walking to the border of my Moon Crystal, I open the port to Iron Diamond's dream, and zip over there to give him the results of the experiment.
I'm faced with what would be a legitimate nightmare for anyone else, as I watch how Iron Diamond has used his virtual space to turn his dream into a hellish, frozen pit with demonic icy horrors emerging from every wall.
My breath comes out in shrouds of mist as one of the creatures rushes me, prompting me to unleash a wave of fire from my horn.
"Iron Diamond! I'm here to give you that report I promised!" I shout, blasting away another one of the monsters with dismissive ease.
Upon seeing me, Iron almost seems disappointed at the interruption, but forces his dream to evaporate, transforming our surroundings into a simple stone arena, with the moon directly overhead.
"I'm assuming your get-strong-quick scheme didn't work?" He says right off the bat, making me smirk like a bastard.
"Oh I don't know. It didn't under-perform as much as one might have expected," I say, bringing up a mirrored screen showing my memories of yesterday.
Iron Diamond is unimpressed. "Please tell me you can use combat-viable spells with that," He groans in a low tone.
I'm confused at this. "What part of a gigantic fireball isn't combat viable?"
He gives me a hard look. "The part where you spent twenty seconds blinking smoke and light out of your eyes and barely singed the snow because the fire wasn't concentrated or sustained?"
"It blew up a city block worth of the terrain!" I argue.
"It could do more," He retorts. Something I don't have an answer to, other than, of course;
"I'm listening."
As I stare out of the Moon Crystal at Luna's face pressed up against the glass, I slowly close the shutters to stop her from looking in on my attempts to plan out my next batch of spells.
Iron Diamond convinced me to break out the Divine Phantasm project again, despite the Arcana Nox rendering it mostly obsolete. He had a good point, I suppose, in that doubling the effective punch of my spells for free was worth the hassle of carrying it around. Even though it meant I would have to remember an even longer list of code words.
I'll have to dip into my reference material even more, to pick out good phrases to use for combinations of Divine Words and Vancian Spells.
Since I'm probably going to be using these every day for the rest of my life, if I know what's good for me, I'll have to start planning out very carefully what spells are useful for me to keep on hand, for any given situation.
Thankfully, I've got a few ideas.
"Weiss, please let me in. I wish to discuss your new abilities," Luna says, face presumably still pressed up against my window.
I groan, shouting back. "Luna, can it please wait until tomorrow night? I've got to take care of this."
I hear her huff in mild offense, before her presence disappears.
As Priss, Eclipse, and some unknown third colt walk up to me with collective proud looks, I'm prepared for anything.
When I see all of them wearing collars with glowing spheres set in them, my mind instantly shoots to the most logical conclusion available to me.
It's not helped at all when Eclipse opens her mouth.
"Jealous, Weiss? I've already reverse engineered your plans and improved upon them in every way, say hello to the future of spellcasting!"
I wait for her to continue, at which point she has Priss walk up and, with visible force of effort, cause one of the spheres to glow, before she's able to grow a simple, but impressive quartz crystal from the stone floor.
"I hope you're not hoping to have some of these for yourself, because you won't find them in any poorly secured files. They're entirely new!"
"Are those fucking Materia?" I say, staring at them with unabashed hunger in my eyes.
"What? No! I mean, I don't know what those are, but no! They're new!" She retorts violently, stomping her hoof.
Priss groans. "Darn it Eclipse, why did you have to say that, now he's going to start one of his dumb stories to explain it."
"What's a materia?" Oil Slick asks, making Priss's groan increase in volume when I happily answer their question.
"Well, that requires a bit of context, so get comfy. I'll start the story while we head over to one of the break rooms for some seats and snacks. It'll be a long one."
"This story begins in a land called Midgar, and follows a pony named Cloud Strife."
"Why did the lady 'decide' to call it the 'Sister Ray' when they had already been calling it that up until now?"
"How did Sephiroth know about the parts he wasn't there for?"
"Why is the story called Final Fantasy when this is apparently the seventh installment in the series?"
I answer them each in turn. "Continuity Error, Sephiroth was in Cloud's head, so he knew stuff like that, and the writers didn't realize they were going to strike gold with the first one."
Eclipse suddenly returns to her surly mood, where she had previously been enthralled by the tale. "Well, I'm still not calling these Materia."
I shrug. "I'm still going to call them Materia."
Priss and the teenage colt (named Oil Slick apparently), nod in agreement, making Eclipse squeal with outrage.
"I brought you two here for backup! Don't agree with him!?"
Oil Slick just chuckles nervously. "It's kind of a catchy name, though, and you gotta admit, these things work almost just like in the story!"
Before Eclipse can pull out more of her hair in frustration, I feel the need to confront her.
"Eclipse, whether or not you share your secret new tool with me, you really should share them with others who need them. The soldiers and workers alike could use what you've invented. I expect you to work out what you feel comfortable sharing with the public, and providing a list to an authority figure detailing the discoveries you feel warrant sharing."
"Are we clear?" I finish.
Eclipse nods. "Well of course, I've got to give the rest of the ponies as much as I can to get a leg up on you."
"That's all I ask. Good work you three. Now If you'll excuse me, I've got business to attend to."
They nod, and upon leaving, I think about what it might do for the Shadow Realm for every one of my soldiers to be as magically capable as the strongest link among them.
Even if Eclipse holds back the lion's share of her discovery, It's almost as tasty a potential boost in power as my own personal one was.
If I knew how they worked, of course. They could be borderline useless, for all I know.
With a stock of Vance carefully stored in my personal safe, I feel comfortable skipping a night to quell Luna's endless desire to pry into my business.
As if sensing this, the Lunar Royalty is already waiting for me as I fall asleep.
Words unspoken, I manifest the airlock and let her in.
"So, what's the trick?" She deadpans, clearly unwilling to engage in banter.
I try to come up with something suitably clever to say, but she raises her eyebrow and interrupts my thinking.
"Come on. I am being serious."
I sigh. "Improved magic control. Does that explain it well enough to get you off my back for now?"
She giggles slightly as she gets comfy on my dream couch. "It will do."
"You know, you really shouldn't provoke my Sister like that. She is still very capable of squashing you."
I have no choice with how I respond to that. "At this point, it's a game. If she gives in, I win. And she knows it."
Luna outright guffaws at that, rolling around. "That she does... You should be more wary, Weiss, she has been playing games longer than you have been walking," Luna says lightly, humor tinting her tone.
I just shrug, bringing up a few of my less-secretive projects to work on while I engage in small talk. "Luna, I hate to say it, but in a battle of wits, your sister should mind that she hones her weapon rather than merely shining it."
Her boisterous laughter forms a suitable backdrop for my next project.
Dear Weiss Noir
Today I learned a valuable lesson in Foeship. Even your friends can be totally willing to flake on you if they think it would be funny. 'Materia' my flank. Just because I didn't have a good name yet didn't mean they had to leave me hanging like that. Although I guess it's made up for by the fact that they're willing to help me organize a conspiracy against you and help me with my magical studies in actually creating the things. Still going to replace their Materia with all 'Coat-pinkening' ones.
Your Traitorous Student, Eclipse Flash.