Weiss frames the mountain between his fingers, with one eye shut and the other glaring at the mountain as if it would change to suit him.
"Well, there's not that many mountains near the Everfree, so I guess I can't be picky. This one should do just fine," He says, pulling out the Minish Cap and the Krak Pot, plopping one on his head, and the other in front of him as he holds his arms out dramatically.
"Flames of disaster. ~ The rage of the volcano. ~ Flaring up and out."
A red crystal appears from nowhere, shaped like swooping flames. It drops into Weiss's first hand, which clenches around it.
"Ice and snow and ice. ~ The cousin of heat, gone away ~ The cold shares itself."
A blue, diamond-shaped crystal appears, slowly drifting into Weiss's second hand, where he grips it carefully.
"Violent Lightning. ~ Light and Science born anew. ~ Violet Lightning."
A crystal made of blue, yellow, and purple splinters welded together slips into Weiss's third hand, which tightens around the gem involuntarily as sparks crackle across its surface.
"The Boulder drops down. ~ Then the boulder crashes down. ~ The Boulder drops down."
A large brown stone drops into Weiss's fourth hand.
"A Bomb! It's a Bomb! ~ Death in a tiny package. ~ Gone with the blast wave."
A black sphere appears, Weiss grabbing it gently out of the air with his fifth hand.
"Wooden thorns strike true. ~ Attacking the attackers. ~ When the tree prepares."
A tan crystal appears, this one covered in eight distinct spikes. Weiss's sixth hand pinches it by the sides.
"Cutting blade of steel. ~ All elements as your sire. ~ You honor them here."
A glittering crescent crystal, pure white in color appears, Weiss grabbing it in the grip of his magic before it can fall into the pot.
His eyes begin to burn, quite literally, as they ignite with flickering white fire.
He lets go of each of the elemental gems, where they hang in the air, and lazily begin to spin around the mouth of the Krak Pot, which bubbles with the power of Alchemy.
Weiss's teeth grit, as his horn ignites, layers of spells being drawn out of it.
"Miracle Matter. ~ It's time for you to be born. ~ Miracle Matter!" Weiss shouts as the seven gems sweep into the pot, turning into pure light as they sink into the pot's boiling rainbow liquid.
The Krak Pot shakes and shudders before a loud oven-timer ding rings out from it, and a beacon of magical energy erupts from within the Weapon of Light.
The end result is a floating white icosahedron, roughly as large as Weiss Noir himself.
As Weiss's eyes reopen, recovering from the magic he had infused into them, the alchemy result, Miracle Matter, opens all twenty of its own glowing red eyes. The first ten of them focused on Weiss himself, their creator and master.
Weiss smiles fondly at the alchemical creature. "Miracle Matter! Carve out this mountain. Go forth, and do my will!"
With his words spoken, the alchemical mass shudders, it's eyes sweeping randomly in all directions as it changes forms, transforming into a gigantic metal drill. Miracle Matter then slowly begins to float down the Everfree Forest trail, towards the mountain less than a mile away.
As Weiss looks on at his new creation floating merrily down the trail, his smile widens further. He goes on to pull the Minish Cap off of his head and looks down at the gold-bound purple hat for a moment. "Two Relics of Darkness complete. Two to go."
"Alright Twilight, it's really important that I stay focused, Ok?" Spike says, squinting his eyes while Twilight takes notes dutifully.
Spike holds his claws out and wiggles them at a large diamond, which sits on the grass in front of them, doing nothing of any particular interest.
"Come on..." Spike mumbles, focusing as hard as he can. Emerald sparks begin to jump from between his claws.
Suddenly, a shout from Pinkie Pie nearby makes Spike flop onto his rear in shock, a tiny bolt of lightning flying up into the air.
"Dang it! And I had it that time, too!" Spike complains, snapping his fingers with exasperation.
Pinkie Pie zips from under a wagon to over by a tree, the large mirror strapped to her head tilting dangerously as she looks up with worry.
"Looks like it's just Pinkie being Pinkie. With extra Pinkie on top..." Spike says, befuddled at the earth pony's behavior.
Pinkie cuts her eyes left and right nervously before her tail begins to shudder and shake. "Twitch... Twitch!" she shouts, dashing over to a giant boulder, slipping under it before dashing back out, leaving the rock to collapse down to the ground with an earth-shaking thud.
Suddenly, Pinkie dashes over to the two of them, standing perfectly balanced on Twilight's back and holding Spike in a football carry under her foreleg.
"Wha- Pinkie! What the heck are you doing!" Spike says, wiggling around in the Earth Pony's surprisingly strong grip while Twilight stumbles left and right in confusion.
"Well, my tail's a twitchin', and that means my Pinkie Sense is telling me something's about to fall!" Pinkie shouts, nervously looking up once again.
Twilight hums at this, looking up as well. "Well, there's not a cloud in the sky, what could possibly end up falling?"
The answer, Twilight, Pinkie Pie and Spike discover, is the bolt of Dragon Lightning Spike had accidentally flung into the air, which arcs back down, crashing into the mirror on Pinkie Pie's head, and bounces off into the distance, narrowly missing Fluttershy and Gilda, who had been flying by with two carts of frogs.
"Oh my!" Fluttershy shouts as the bolt whizzes by.
She blushes apologetically while flapping to gain a bit of extra height for her and the cart trailing behind her. "Sorry for getting in your way, I just couldn't stand to see the pond getting so over-populated, what with the frogs all hopping into each other and all, so I decided to fly as many as I can on over to Froggy Bottom Bog with Gilda's help."
"Yo," Gilda says, waving.
"No, I'm sorry, that was my bad, that could have hit you two!" Spike says, scratching his arm nervously.
"Don't worry about it pokey, we're tough and it missed anyway," Gilda says, before turning and flying away with Fluttershy.
As the pair of them give their goodbyes on the go, Twilight turns to Pinkie, a curious gleam in her eye.
"What's this about a Pinkie Sense?" Twilight says, remembering Celestia's impromptu lesson on Equestria's other two tribes of magic.
Weiss taps his hooves impatiently while fiddling with a Rubix Cube, eradicating the puzzle in a fit of spiteful fire when he consistently fails to figure it out.
"Number twelve?" Ditsy Doo says, clicking the waiting number forward while Weiss walks into her cubicle.
"Hello! Sorry for bothering you again, I need to move my mailing address back to The Tower, will that be a problem?" Weiss says politely, sitting down to face the mailmare.
"Not at all, that's what we're here for," Ditsy says, pulling out some papers and beginning the process of stamping them and signing them.
"So, anything new lately, M'am?" Weiss says, waiting patiently for the mare quietly preparing his papers.
"Not really." She says, her lazy eye pointing at him as she stamps the last paper, and shuffles it all together.
"Look." Ditsy starts, making Weiss pause as he gets up to leave, business concluded.
"It's not my place to say this, but I'm not sure you know about this, just going from the rumors.
"Equestrian Law can be extremely lenient, as long as a justifiable cause can be found that an act was taken in the defense of children."
Her lazy eye remains focused on Weiss, while the other one wanders aimlessly around the room. "So you really shouldn't threaten any more fillies."
Weiss's confused expression stays with him for at least half an hour after leaving the Post Office.
What the hell was that about?
Twilight rapidly jots down notes while Pinkie rambles on about her Pinkie sense.
"Oh, and sometimes, when my left hoof shakes twelve times and my knees itch and I almost sneeze, but can't quite manage it, that means something really mysterious is going to happen," Pinkie says, sipping on a glass of lemonade.
"And what exactly are you feeling when you do this?" Twilight asks, poking her chin with the tip of her quill.
Pinkie tilts her head. "Well, usually, right after I get a Pinkie Sense, I feel all giggly. Why, is that important?"
Twilight balks at this. "After? Are you sure you don't mean before? Emotions have to occur in order for a spell to be cast, they don't happen after the spell is already cast..."
Pinkie shrugs. "Sorry Twi, I meant what I meant," she giggles.
"I always feel really giggly right after my Pinkie Sense goes off. Never before."
After a few moments of pondering, Twilight groans. "I'm not sure I'll be able to learn much more here, Pinkie. Whatever magic you're using, it's as eccentric as you are."
It's at this point that Applejack walks by, a cart of apples trailing behind her.
"Howdy Girls, Spike." the orange mare says, tipping her hat to them.
Twilight's eyes light up. "Applejack, are you busy right now?"
Applejack looks unsure. "Uh, yeah, sorry Twi, I'm just droppin' off produce, then it's back to the farm. Got lots of work needs doing."
Twilight nods. "Perfect! Do you mind if I make some observations? I'll stay out of your way, I'm just curious about Earth Pony magic is all."
Applejack's eyebrows quirk. "Ain't no magic spells on my farm Twi, just hard work, I figure."
Twilight shakes her head. "No, you see, I found out from the Princess that there are some spells that are impossible for a unicorn to cast, because Earth Ponies and Pegasi are the only ones who can! There might be more magic going on than you realize, even with your everyday chores and I've been incredibly curious about it all."
Meanwhile, poor Applejack is still trying to plug together "Earth Pony" and "Magic", as she hadn't really considered any of what she did to qualify. Of course, growing plants requires Earth Ponies, so there's obviously some magic going on there, Applejack thinks.
Considering Sweet Apple Acres' reliance on mundane hard work, the idea that they might have been doing some kind of fancy magic this whole time irks Applejack for reasons she can't quite put her hoof on.
"Well, I guess you've got me curious too, Twilight," Applejack says with the barest trace of suspicion.
"Fizzlepop, report," Weiss says, his fingers templed on the table in front of him. Some sort of deep Everfree Oak that he had harvested on a whim when he saw it spit out flaming thorns at him as he passed.
A nostalgic taste of home, all things considered.
Tempest Shadow smiles. "Us and the new guards occupying Star Road have reached an agreement. We stay out of Star Sanctuary, and they stay out of our own base. I won't have to move my men out."
Weiss's eyebrow raises, the flame flickering softly as it shifts up on his forehead. "Was it the threat of a beatdown, or did you have to specify that it would be an embarrassing beatdown?"
Tempest looks to the side, smiling aloofly. "Well, the word I used was 'Humiliating', but they got the message regardless.
"I'm just glad we won't need to move. Morale has been improved with a stable location to call home," Tempest admits.
After a few moments, something occurs to Tempest Shadow, dampening her mood. "Have you put any thought as to what you'll do about the Storm King if he or his own troops come? I know things that he most certainly doesn't want to be revealed, I have to warn you."
Weiss's scoff serves as the backdrop for his response, alongside his unimpressed expression. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll take care of him after my business is concluded in the Frozen North. I'm almost prepared to make the trip. I just have a few more things to finish up before I go clean up that mess."
Tempest looks seriously at her current employer. "I wouldn't underestimate the Storm King, Weiss. He's a madman, and he's in charge of a country. Those two things don't coincide for as long as they have without him being dangerous."
Weiss chuckles at this. "Oh I know, I practically starred in that parable. He might be the next best thing, but he's not quite me.
"I'll begin preparing countermeasures, just in case."
He rubs his hands together joyously as he walks over to a window and stares out it at the slowly reforming mountain at the edge of the Everfree Forest. "I'm so excited, most of my plans to combat magic-eaters, I was saving for someone else."
Applejack slightly regrets giving Twilight free reign to "observe" her doing her chores.
The metal scanning wand pokes her in the rib while she's trying to lift the barrel of apples up into the cart, almost making her drop them.
"Dang it Twilight, 'observing don't involve poking anywhere I heard of!" Applejack shouts at the cold implement jabbing her by mistake.
Twilight has the decency to look sheepishly embarrassed as she rapidly pulls the device back towards her in her magical grip.
"Sorry! Sorry..." Twilight says rapidly, looking at the tablet in her hands that reads out data about Applejack's musculature and organs, scanning them for magical movement and active enhancement.
Applejack finishes putting the last barrel up onto the cart with relative ease, despite the anxious knot in her stomach from Twilight's observations.
"Alright Twilight, that's the last of my chores for today. What's the verdict?"
Twilight sweats slightly as she looks through the tablet's recorded data.
"I- Uhh. I don't think you want to know."
Applejack shakes her head. "I'm a big pony, Twilight, I can take the truth, I bet it was moving the logs, right? That's the toughest job on the farm, other than removing stumps, but we gotta get Big Mac to do those, so I ain't counting it."
Twilight sighs. "Applejack... Every job you've done so far used magic at least equivalent in power to a unicorn's Telekinesis spell."
Applejack's veins flood with ice. "That ain't a funny, Twi."
"I'm not joking Applejack, I swear," Twilight says, at the same time Applejack plants her rear on the cart, staring at the ground.
"That's pretty heavy, Twi," Applejack says.
Twilight clamors up onto the cart as well, taking a good five seconds longer than her friend did.
"Are you going to be alright, Applejack?" Twilight says, looking at Applejack.
Applejack shrugs weakly. "I dunno Twi. I just feel kinda sick. Walkin' around proud of how Sweet Apple Acres' runs on good hard work, when I been cheating this whole time."
Twilight looks incensed at this. "Applejack, you aren't cheating, magic isn't cheating! It comes from within, and nowhere else. You're still doing the same hard work you've always done, Applejack, that hasn't changed!"
Applejack takes a deep breath, bracing herself. "Yer right, Twilight. I gotta pony up and deal with it. You mind putting some pen to paper? I want some proof I can mail off."
"I'll have to tell the rest of the family about this, iffin every Earth Pony's doing magic all the time. Can't keep bragging about keepin' magic off the farmwork if it was there the whole time," Applejack says, hopping off the cart while Twilight carefully stumbles off of it herself.
"Uhh, sure thing Applejack. Anything for a friend."
Applejack nods with determination set in her face. "Bein' honest ain't easy, but it's worth doing."
Fluttershy smiles as the last frog hops into the murky swamp water, Gilda slightly less happy with the situation.
"Man, this place is so plucking hot," Gilda says, rubbing her neck.
Fluttershy nods, her ears twitching with the tiniest hint of displeasure at Gilda's harsh language.
"Well, all the cute froggies are safe and sound in their new home, so we can go now, if you like."
As the pair turn to leave, strange green smoke begins to emerge from the swampy depths, making Gilda's feathers stand on end.
"Something's wrong," the griffon says, making Fluttershy stop to look at her friend.
"What do you mean, Gilda?" Fluttershy asks curiously as the bog around them begins to shudder.
Suddenly, Gilda whips around, fist cracking a gigantic head to the side that yelps in confusion while the other three rear back in shock.
A gigantic hydra, and a hungry one at that.
"We need to go, Fluttershy," Gilda says quietly, backing away from the hydra while Fluttershy panics.
When one of the heads snaps out to devour the pegasus whole, Gilda's wings ignite with purple light as her fist snaps out harder, diverting the monster and coloring a bruise on its cheek.
"Fluttershy!" Gilda shouts, snapping the shy pegasus out of her stupor.
The pair turn and run, taking to the skies while Gilda's sight remains on the monster dragging itself out of the swampy depths, eager to obtain a pair of snacks.
A head flashes towards Fluttershy again, but narrowly misses hitting her. The wind from the hydra's attack sends the yellow pegasus tumbling through the air for a few feet before she rights herself.
"This thing's going to keep chasing us all the way back to Ponyville unless we do something about it," Gilda says, halting in midair.
"Fluttershy, get out of here, I'll stay and try to beat it down."
Fluttershy is tempted to take the obvious out, to get out of danger and let Gilda take care of this while she runs away.
The problem with that plan is how sickened that makes her feel.
The Star Rod of Wishes appears in her hooves in a flash of sparkling yellow stars. "No. I'll try to help."
Gilda looks mostly confused at this. "That's a flocking hydra, Flutts!" Gilda shouts, cutting her eyes at the pegasus.
"I wish Gilda was safe!" Fluttershy suddenly shouts, making Gilda return her focus to the hydra just in time for it to completely enclose the griffon in its maw.
The other hydra heads look jealous, while the one currently trying to chew looks smug, and then extraordinarily pained, before it yelps, Gilda flying out of it's forcibly opened mouth with a pointy, star-shaped shield in her talons.
"Yeah, that's right, punk! You gotta work for your meal!" She squalls, nervously brandishing the shield.
The hydras who aren't busy whining about their hurt mouth glare at the duo, making Fluttershy meep with fear.
"You don't want this, punks." Gilda glares back, prepared to fight with her new shield.
Fluttershy takes several deep breaths, before Gilda shouts back. "Flutts, back off. That fancy stick doesn't need you to be in biting range for it to work. Got it?"
Fluttershy nods, flapping away while Gilda smashes another head in the face with her shield in a flash of purple, forcing the hydra back.
"Step off!" Gilda shouts suddenly, swooping down in a low arc, dodging the various snapping heads before she crashes into the hydra's stomach, making it reel back, nauseated from a lucky blow to the kidney.
Fluttershy gasps at this. "Oh dear." She says as the hydra glares at them, before one of its heads suddenly ralphs into the swamp water.
They look violently angry, before a tiny green bolt of lightning hits one of them on the head, singing it.
This seems to be the straw that broke the hydra's back, as they slump bonelessly and grumble at Fluttershy and Gilda before turning around.
Slowly, the hydra begins slogging back into the water, it's prey proving entirely too much work to be worth pursuing.
"That poor thing," Fluttershy says sadly.
"It probably shouldn't have tried to eat us."
Gilda snorts at that, snickering uncontrollably. "Y-yeah! I guess!"
The pair flap their way home unaccounted, one making crass jokes, the other one quietly giggling at them from time to time.
Applejack takes off her tiny glasses, finishing her letter to Sour Apple Island, and the last letter she had composed, pinning a copy of Twilight's scientific records of Applejack and the rest of her family performing unconscious magic when attempting to do jobs.
The apple-flanked mare sighs. "That's the last one."
Twilight pats her friend on the back. "I'm sure it won't be that big of a deal, Applejack. I mean, it doesn't change anything. It just makes ponies more enlightened about what it is they're doing."
Applejack nods. "Yup. We'll just have to rebrand a lot of our products. Our apples are still grown with nothing but hard work and passion. It's jus' that that's a little more magic than ponies figured."
Suddenly, a letter comes back, in the hands of an exhausted premium air-mail air-mare.
Applejack, slightly befuddled at the rapid response, cracks open the golden wax seal and opens up the letter, putting her reading glasses back on to read it.
Every single line makes Applejack's face grow angrier and angrier. By the end of it, her face is pulled together in a genuine snarl.
Twilight looks nervously confused as Applejack throws the letter to the ground, growling.
"That darn weasel!" Applejack shouts, frustrated.
Twilight picks the letter back up. "What's got you so angry?"
Applejack scowls. "Golden Apple says he ain't rebranding, cause we can't prove his farm's using magic. An he's telling the other farms to do the same thing! It ain't right!"
Twilight gasps. "Chancellor Golden Apple? I thought he just dealt in shipping?"
Applejack shakes her head with disgust. "Yeah, he does. But he's got a hodunk little 'Premium Apple Garden' up in Canterlot. Don't even use real sun for the trees or nothin, just those freaky lamps. It ain't natural."
Twilight scratches her head. "This letter is very vague, how'd you get all of that from this?" Twilight says, trying to piece out the hidden meaning among the bland legalese and murky statements.
"Oh, I know his type. He done threw up a fuss a few years ago when we didn't let him use enchanted pesticides and still keep the 'Magic Free' label," Applejack says.
"So I don't have a high opinion of him anyway," she finishes.
Ditsy Doo finally returns home after a hard day's work, and when the door opens, her drained metaphorical batteries are instantly refilled when her little filly runs up for a nuzzle.
"Hi mom! Back so soon?" Dinky says, stumbling along smoothly as the two walk into the kitchen, Derpy plopping down in a cheap wooden chair once she obtains a glass of milk from the fridge.
"Yeah, work was light today, and I decided not to do my volunteer hours. You're looking a lot better, Dinky." Ditsy says, relieved that her daughter is recovering from her illness.
"Yeah, I bet this Cutie Flu is as good as gone, see? Not a mark on me!" Dinky says, proudly showing off her blank rear.
And indeed, a few weeks ago marked the start of a harrowing blend of nightmares and disease, in the form of Dinky coming down with the cutie flu, swapping between cutie marks for the following weeks, and complaining that she had been having feverish nightmares about the Sage of Darkness, after the Cutie Mark Crusaders had been telling stories about the pony at school.
Princess Luna herself even had to come at one point just to dispel the phantasms, despite looking very overworked.
Derpy smiles, nuzzling Dinky's head again. "That's good. You'll get your real Cutie Mark when the time comes, don't you worry."
The unicorn filly nods "Yu huh! And it won't be something dumb like dolphins either." She pouts.
Zecora stares at the Krak Pot in shock, walking around it with eyes wide. It's perfect... Impossibly perfect.
She checks the inside, which is the most important part of an alchemy pot. Perfectly... Perfectly smooth. She taps it with a hoof, and it rings like a bell, the tone ringing out of it for over a minute.
Finally, she pulls an herb off of her shelf, rubbing it onto the side of the Krak Pot, as a final test.
The herb transforms into a glittering cloud of green sparkles, making Zecora's eyes widen even further. Spontaneous alchemy!
"I can make Unicorn Crystal with this pot at my disposal. ~ If this is the tool with which you make your proposal," Zecora says, her magic involuntarily popping up just from standing near it.
Weiss chuckles, staring out the window.
"Fraid not, Zecora, ~ I have something else in mind. ~ And this tool ain't it."
"The Krak Pot will help, ~ But as a measuring spoon. ~ The actual pot..." Weiss trails off.
"Measuring spoon? Are you daft? ~ A bigger pot, well, I'd need a raft!" Zecora says, staring at the Krak Pot, and trying to imagine what sort of structure would use this as a mere spoon.
"Look outside, it's there. ~ Out there on the horizon. ~ Mount Krakatroda." Weiss finishes, gesturing for Zecora to look out the window, as Weiss uses a touch of magic to clear the brush out of the way, providing a clear line of sight.
Zecora's jaw drops when she spots it, almost hazy in the distance.
An entire mountain, carved into one, gigantic alchemy pot.
"Well, what do you-" Weiss starts, before Zecora's eyes roll back into her head and she passes out.
She wakes up minutes later to Weiss frantically fanning her face in a mild panic, muttering curse words under his mouth.