//------------------------------//
// Of Men and Magic 
// Story: You Only Live Twice 
// by makey101 
//------------------------------//

Twilight took a while to set up the various magical paraphernalia to assess the extent of my magical ability. "Now I'm sure you have already done this in 'A-mare-i-ca' but I want to see the extent of your Mana reserves." 

"Hold the phone! Mana? That is so awesome! Please tell me there are Mana potions!"

"You seriously don't know anything about magic do you?"

"Narp." Twilight facehoofed. "OK! Lets do this from the top!"

"I guess we have to" Twilight took a long breath. "Each unicorn has a specific amount of Mana within them. This reservoir replenishes over time, but the power of a single spell cannot surpass the amount of Mana inside the unicorn. as such, the more Mana a unicorn has, the more gifted they are in various schools of magic. Unicorns all have basic levitation as a spell, but tend to lean towards spells that directly effect their special talent. Speaking of which, what does your Cutie Mark represent?"

This was a lot to take in, but I think I understood it. However I had no clue what a Cutie thingie is. 

I cocked my head in confusion. "Whats a Cutie-mabob?"

Twilight gave me a frustrated and confused look. "You know, your Cutie Mark. The oar on your flank."

"Thats what that is? I was really confused as to why that was there." I looked at my butt and lone behold there was the image of an oar. Why an oar? the last time I came in contact with an oar was..."Charon." I barley whispered his name. I swear I could hear him laughing somewhere on the Styx.

Twilight didn't quite catch what I said. "What did you say?"

"O-oh I was a ferryman before coming here." Twilight gave me a perturbed look.

"You keep saying this 'man' word instead of pony. Why?"

"Just a colloquialism. The Northwest is a strange place. But we should get back to the matter at hand." Twilight's eyes narrowed at the word 'hand'. "How do we see how much Mana I got?"

Twilight snapped out of her mulling. "Oh! Right! All you need to do is put your horn into this hole and the rest should take care of itself! And stop snickering!"

"But thats what she said!"

In any case I put my horn into what appeared to be a bowling ball crossed with a magic 8 ball. To my understanding, the amount of Mana I had would be displayed on the flat section. Oh gods I am excited.

With only a little more adieu, I stuck my horn in the bowling ball section and awaited Twilight's analysis.

Her smile turned from shocked to puzzled, to worried, and finally to sadness. "Ed.....I'm so sorry."

My stomach seemed to drop. "What is it?"

Twilight looked at the ground morosely before quietly saying, "I've never seen a unicorn with as little Mana as you do. I don't think you will ever do any magic more complex than telekinesis."

Well this sucks. Looks like magic ain't my gig. this is mostly dissappointing due to the fact that I wanted to become the most powerful Jedi unicorn ever. However there is a single silver thread in this. "I still have magic!"

Twilight was taken aback by this. She gave me a confused look with watery eyes. "but you can only cast telekinesis..."

"Tell me Twilight," I said, draping an arm-leg around her,"Does telekinesis require magic?" she nodded. "And as such, would that cause telekinesis to be a spell?" She nodded again, obviously not seeing where this was going. "Therefore," Pause for effect, "I can cast a spell and therefore have magic!"

Twilight gave me a warm smile. "I don't understand you, Ed. Most unicorns would be devastated."

"I am obviously not most unicorns."

She gave me a look that was a cross between being glad and... hunger?

"Shouldn't you be teaching me magic?"

"Oh! Right! Magic! Well," She cleared her throat, "Magic is Mana given form. The more form you give a spell, the less Mana is required to fuel it. think of it like spreading butter on toast. If you have a lot of butter, you can spread the butter around and cover everything and if you-"

"Have a thin slice of butter in the shape of your toast, there is less butter required." Twilight got a glimmer in her eye.

"Very good! now, lets focus on tapping into your Mana pool."

"Ok, as long as I don't have to tap my lands for it." She cocked her head. "I'll tell you later."

"In any case, magic is most easily influenced by our emotions. What I want you to do, and I am serious, is to think of something that makes you happy. And I mean really happy. You should feel something in your chest, and it should feel like it is moving." (Authors Note: This is real stuff. Like seriously, minus the magic part. Try it. It's crazy)

At first I thought she was going to give me a pair of green tights so that I could learn how to fly. This just seems so...fruity. Magic is about fireballs and magic missiles, not happy thoughts and friendship. Oh lawdy what a world it would be if friendship was magic. I suppose I should humor her and do it anyways. So I began to think of barbershop music.

And to my surprise I did feel something. It felt like discovering a new game is coming out and obsessing over every facet. It was the fanboy in all of us and I could feel it moving.

"Do you feel it?" I nodded. "Good, now take your hoof and trace where it is moving."

I pointed at my chest and followed a clockwise pattern the feeling was spinning in.

"Excellent. Now speed up your hoof." I did and was surprised that the feeling intensified as it sped up with my hand. I felt a bit jittery and out of place, but it certainly felt good. "You are doing great. Now slow back down and widen the circle." 

To my surprise the feeling followed my hand-hoof. I started to trace the feeling up and down myself (I'm sure it looked a bit strange).

"I was about to tell you to do that! Outstanding! Now I want you to reverse directions."

The moment I went the other direction, the feeling turned sour. It felt somehow perverted, like going to a class that you forgot the assignment for. I didn't like it.

"Does it feel bad?" I nodded. "Good. That tells me we are working with your Mana and not your emotions. Spin it back around correctly and move the Mana to your horn."

To my surprise it worked. I mean really really worked! my horn was glowing an earthy forest green. This got me excited. The feeling in my chest was swelling again. And this is when I got an idea. I took my hand-hoof and brought that feeling to my horn as well. I must be getting the hang of this because my horn became quite bright. It is a good thing that it is in my blind spot or braille may become important to me.

Twilight seemed to become much more worried about my magic because she dove behind a couch. The feeling in my horn, while pleasant, seemed to want out. It was funneling to the tip of my horn in what felt like an amorphous blob I tried to keep it from escaping, but it felt like trying to keep a Newtonian fluid in my hands.

There was one more thing to note: releasing magic into the air is... inadvisable. The light off my horn expanded in all directions forming all sorts of waves. There were electromagnetic waves, sound waves,and shock waves.

I was thrown against the wall with a lot of force, knocking the wind out of me. the entire bookshelf seemed to dump and endless supply of books on top of me.

"Why did you do that!?" Sparkle angry. "You could have hurt yourself!" A purple aura snatched all of the books off of me and set them aside.

At this point I stopped listening to her. My head hurt like the dickens. I just curled into a ball and held my head. Twilight seemed concerned, but I couldn't really tell up from down. My headache lessened when Twilight did magic on my horn.

"Next time don't put all of your magic into a spell! Mana Burn is a serious condition!"

"W-w-whats Mana b-burn?" I said as I slowly shifted onto my four legs.

"It is where you expend all of your Mana in your Mana Pool and start absorbing it from the ambient Mana."

"Are you sure you haven't played MTG?" I was met with a confused look. "In any case I think I am going to turn in for the evening. The sun is going down and it feels like I've got a hangover."





As I approached my door, I noticed it was ajar. The issue was that I had closed it beforehand due to paranoia. When I got inside, I saw spike holding a large book. As I approached, I saw that it was, in fact, my old yearbook from my highschool days. Spike was looking at the page of seniors in the "A" section.

This would normally not have been an issue if my name hadn't been printed below a rather non-equine photo of pre-Styx Edward.

Spike stood frozen. When he heard my hoof-falls, he slowly looked up at me with fear in his eyes.

"Ά-Ά-Άνθρωπος!" (pronounced anthropos) He spoke as if speaking louder would awaken a sleeping beast.

"Say what?" Spike flinched at the sound of my voice. 

"Anthropos! You are an anthropos!" He said, pointing at my old picture. The word rang a bell deep within me. This word kind of sounded like...

"Does that word have anything to do with anthropology?" 

The study of humans.









Authors Notes:

This chapter was a blast to write. I LOVE to go into the details about a world. I have other plans for how Ed will use magic in creative ways. I also put a bit of drama into the story. Thought that it will make my story have some tension. I'll try to bring the rest of the characters in soon. I think he should at least know magic first.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I certainly know I did.