//------------------------------// // (Present Chapter 51) Ten-Tenths // Story: The Unique Properties of Dark Magic // by Shadestyle //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash recognized the duo who approached her. It was those ponies who made all that tasty cider! "So, you see, Miss Dash, I and my brother noticed the wonderful machine in your possession, and we believe we can repair it in full, given your blessing of course," Flim said diplomatically. Flam interjected. "Of course, all we're asking in return is the right to operate the machine, you see, we've got some plans revolving around our cider production-" he attempted, only for Rainbow Dash to suddenly zone out at the word 'Cider' "Yeah, go for it, you two can have the thing for all I care," she waved flippantly. The brothers shared a shocked look. That was a lot of hardware to just "have for all she cares" Out of a more honest pony's mouth, the words 'Are you sure?' would have been inevitable. The Flim Flam Brothers, however, were more graceful towards their gift horses. Neither had any interest whatsoever in looking into this particular one's mouth. That said, the weathermare still noticed their look. "Well it's not like I'm going to use it. That thing nearly got me and my friends killed. You aren't planning on doing anything like that with it, are you?" she raised an eyebrow. Flim and Flam shook their heads frantically. "Perish the thought! We were planning to simply repair and refit it for farm usage, cut down on our work," one of them responded quickly. Rainbow Dash nodded. "Yeah, I figured. Go for it, dudes, I guess just make sure you don't break it? The guy who made it can be a bit..." She searched for the right words. "Well, he made a giant flying death machine and randomly gave it to me for no reason after somepony tried to kill us with it," she shrugged, trying to play it off cool. The brothers shared a look. "Perhaps we could be a bit more conservative with our modifications," Flam mused. "Right, conservative," Flim agreed quickly. Neither one was keen on angering the apparently still-living creator of such a magnificent and terrifying machine. Flim and Flam stood before the Great Sacred Treasure once again, surrounded with parts and mechanisms. "Alright, let's get this old gal put together, but good!" Flim exclaimed, smacking one of the plates with a loud clank. The plate promptly fell off, and he chuckled nervously for a few moments. "Let's just... Get started," he finally said, levitating an enchanted horseshoe out of the pile. "So, the first thing I think we need to address is the controls. Without a proper enchantment, anypony who would want to fly this thing would need an intimate knowledge of all things flight just to get it in the air, much less use it well," Flam interjected, stopping his brother from opening up one of the power supply units to replace it with the horseshoe. "Hmm. You might be right brother. Do you have any direct control enchantments handy?" he asked. Flam waved the antennae. "I have the one from the SSCS, keyed to our magic, of course. No need to have this delightful device stolen for a joyride," he exclaimed, passing the antennae over to Flim. The Great Sacred Treasure creaked and groaned as levers, buttons, switches, dials, and nearly everything in the entire cockpit was unbolted, unwelded, cracked free of its crystal housing, and tossed aside in favor of a pair of seats and an antennae buried in the floorboard. "Now we just need an intuition broadcaster," Flim muttered. Unfortunately, their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy hadn't actually had one, the ground-vehicle didn't need to feed the two brothers information on things like its speed and all the other values, but for a vehicle meant to fly?! It was mandatory for the riders to have the knowledge fed into them directly. Something that, for modern enchanting, was standard issue on any respectable invention that required fine control. "I still can't believe anypony was meant to fly this thing as it was. It's no wonder she had an open cockpit, you'd need one just to see out of it!" Flam shook his head. "Well, it looks as though we'll have to make our own intuition broadcaster, so I suppose that's our next job." Flim said, pulling out a copper necklace from the pile. One thing that was common with modern enchanting was to start with jewelry, even if the object you were creating wasn't meant to be worn. Some quirk of magic meant that it was simply easier to enchant a necklace, than, say, a support strut. That you planned to embed the necklace in a dashboard and cover it with a metal plate was irrelevant, after the fact. Taking deep breaths, the two brothers focused on sensations of understanding, intuition, agreement, and of course, change. With these emotions and feelings combined, the two could create a spell of empathy, which, when embedded in an enchanted item, could be used to have it broadcast what it knew to the one using it. A wand of flames could broadcast how much fire was in it, and how hot it was currently set to burn, a magic mirror could broadcast all the zits it reflected, and, in this case... A gigantic magical flying machine could feed its rider everything from yaw to altitude, all in a form as instinctive and animalistic as a bird in flight. The two brothers sweated heavily as the necklace glowed and floated in the air, surrounded by their magic, until, with a final flash of light, it fell to the ground, shimmering. Flim rubbed his horn. "We were off again," he mused. His horn tended to overheat whenever he and his brother worked on enchantments together. Whenever one or the other made a mistake, the backlash tended to go straight for him. It was annoying, and led to constant overheating whenever they worked on something big like this. For any pony not wearing an Element of Harmony, there was no convenient bond between ponies that helped them cast spells together. Not that any ponies save perhaps the princesses even knew about that fact. Flam shook his head at this brother. "We got the job done, didn't we? It's as they say... Sloppily complete is hardly unique-" "But finished at all is magnifique," Flim finished with a small smile. With that, they got to work, putting together enchantments that were good enough for what they were doing, and took pride in the fact that at least their work wasn't quite as bad as the magnificent beautiful dinosaur they were repairing. "Oh my goodness brother, look, it's actually using reactors and... some kind of portal-based antigravity for lift," Flam noted with dawning horror. Why didn't they just use a levitation charm? Even the youngest most ancient unicorn could manage some basic ordinary magic like that, right? "Still using Prestidigitation for everything, huh?" Eclipse asked, sparring with me in my tower. I hesitantly flung another boulder of black crystal at her, using the frustration powered magic to lift and fling the rock. She smashed through it with what appeared to be ease, but I could tell her armor was beginning to strain a bit. "You're a bit stronger than I remember, though. The Weiss I know couldn't have done that without at least muttering a Vance," she said, dodging my slow swipes as I clawed at her, quietly allowing her to take a measure of me through our battle. The crucible of combat was one of the best places to talk, I had found time and time again. I halted, and the spear of white crystal that smashed me into a pillar exploded into sparkling dust as Eclipse ran towards me in a panic. "Oh crap, I didn't think that would get you! Are you alright?" she asked, helping me out of the rubble. She saw something that made her uneasy in my own distracted face. "Eclipse, am I going too easy on you?" I asked genuinely. I had tried so hard in the past to give my student every last ounce of power I could, but here... I was honestly frightened I might kill her by mistake, if I didn't play softball with her. She leered. "My lord-" "Weiss will do, Eclipse. I'm not the lord of anything, anymore," I insisted. She rolled her eyes quickly enough that it seems she might not have thought I saw it. "Yes, my lord. That said, I really do not want you holding back against me. I need you good and tired out before we get started. I find that's the optimal state for anypony trying to learn about the Equestrian Legal System. Especially this modern one," she mock-frowned. I blinked. She was trying to tire me out? "I'm not sure that will work, but..." I was doing this because I trusted her. Even if it didn't, she would learn something. "Alright. I'll stop holding back," I said quietly as she poised herself to stand against me. 'Weak,' a voice inside me suggested. Instincts honed over decades telling me to toy with my opponent, to both humiliate and protect them from the alternative. I forced the instinct down, and drew out eight swords. One for each claw, one in my telekinetic grip, and the last between my teeth. Eclipse rolled her eyes. "Don't let Iron Diamond see you doing that," she smiled, her armor hissing as grown ice turned to steam from sheer pressure inside the chambers within. I didn't say anything. I didn't feel anything. I just fell upon her, moving in ways that surely must have been sickening, disturbing to watch. I had spent years refining it to that state of vile spectacle, from where once it was merely perfect. It was roughly thirty seconds later, surrounded by broken and discarded crystal swords, that I decided to stop thrashing and whirling like snakes and snapping power lines. I made sure not to do any permanent damage to my student, but I was fairly impotent in actually teaching her anything. She wasn't able to keep up enough to improve, and I wasn't skilled enough to teach her without holding back. A failure on my part. "I'm sorry, I don't think this will work, if you want me exhausted," I said sadly, holding out a hand to help her up. I was happy in a way, seeing the fear as she slowly let me help her up, her power armor sparking and leaking all over. Happy that she had indeed learned something by fighting me as I am. I could tell, even as short as the rest of the fight was, that she had gleaned something from my movements, understood something about me as we spoke of things with blades that could never be properly spoken of with words. In the same way one couldn't properly speak of business without a suit and drinks, to get the true measure of someone, you had to fight them. "Maybe you're right. But for the record... Don't go easy on me anymore," she said, hardening her resolve. Ha! I remember what that emotion looks like! She had courage. Maybe if I hadn't already slated out Twilight Sparkle as the Master Sword's true wielder, it could have gone to her instead. "Come on, let's see if you can remind me how to abide the law before I commit another war-crime. Or I guess, in this case, a regular crime?" I asked politely, hiding my mirth. She somehow sensed it, though, and smirked. "Fine. I've got to get payback somehow, for you ruining my armor," Eclipse Flash said, a hint of malice in her tone that made it that much more delightful. Later, we were going over how to accuse Golden Apple without throwing him at the hooves of Princess Celestia ("Or Luna!" Eclipse insisted), when I got an interesting message from one of the Eyerocs I had spying on Ponyville. "I haven't reached that part yet, but I'm fairly confident spying is illegal as well, my lord," Eclipse said tersely, flipping through holograms to find the part that would ruin my fun. While she did that, the synthetic bat-eyeball landed on my arm, and projected a screen of light displaying something quite interesting. Two familiar ponies, repairing the Great Sacred Treasure? I frowned, but when I saw the Apple family greeting and supplying them with snacks, some of the tension left me. "Hold on a moment, Eclipse, I need to take this," I said, snapping my fingers and creating a portal from here to there. "Hello boys, working hard or hardly working?" I said through the portal, to the two suddenly shocked and afraid scam-artists. "Er, hello? And who might you be?" Flam asked, only to get elbowed by his brother, whose eyes were wide. "Haven't you heard, dear brother? This is none other than that rather impressive sage that has been making the rounds about Equestria. Might I ask why you're er... Visiting?" he ventured. I waved my arm disarmingly, and Eclipse watched with interest as I spoke to the pair. "Nothing much. I'm just the assembler of that rather wonderful piece of technology you seem to be twiddling on. I do trust your intentions aren't..." I searched for the right words. "To piss me off?" I attempted, shaking my head. "No, sorry, I meant to say 'untowards'. Sorry again," I apologized. "No, of course not! We were just modif-" Flam said, only to be muffled by his brother again. "Repairing! We were just repairing it, with both the Apple Family and Rainbow Dash, Element of Harmony's blessing! And we figured, well, while it's here, we could give it a few upgrades as well! There's a lot of er... things that need touching up on?" While they were afraid, what impressed me the most is that they were still playing me. Or trying at least... Damn, that's actually really impressive. They were pretending to be more scared than they really were, and Flam was playing up the whole "say things unintentionally" bit to make them seem less competent and less threatening as a result. The only reason I could tell is because of the knowing looks they kept shooting each other, even before Flam pretended not to know who I was. I sighed. "Look, I'm a big fan of scams. Me? I fought a damn war with them, more or less. I like the two of you, Flim, Flam. You're likable ponies. I'm just going to ask three things, and they aren't that big of a deal," I responded, holding up three fingers. "Leave the weapons on. It needs to be ready for combat in case the Element of Loyalty has to fly it. I suppose I don't care if you put some sort of scam accessory on the dashboard or tie a winch to it to steal whatever it is you're going to steal." Finger one went down. "Don't steal the Great Sacred Treasure itself. It belongs to an Element of Harmony until further notice, and they kind of need it. If you do steal it, I'll find you and you'll wish a great many things that you'll wish you weren't in a position to wish for." Finger two. A pulse of killing intent had them shivering unconsciously, without knowing why. "Finally, bring it over here for me to have a glance at it at some point. Maybe I'm an old fogie, but I've got some advice here and there for you. If you're doing this pro-bono, getting paid, whatever, I don't care. Just know your limits, because you're skirting around several, modifying a Weapon of Light." The two glanced at each other. "Of course!" I clapped my hands and smiled. "Thank you very much. You two may not know it, but you inadvertently saved me a lot of work with whatever bullshit you're pulling right now! If you even manage to repair it, at least," I whispered the last part quietly enough to make it seem as though I hadn't meant for them to hear it. The statement would motivate the pair to do my work for me, and get the machine halfway ready for its owner. "Ta for now, boys. Again, I'm very grateful. Don't forget to repair the hellfire vents! They cease to be over time!" I shouted one last time, before closing the portal. Eclipse gave me a look. "What? What?! I didn't hurt them or overtly threaten them, just a few implicit ones!" I whined. Flim and Flam swallowed heavily, and shared another look. "You want to tell that pony that the previous owner gifted it to us of their own free will, with no intention of accepting it back, or shall you do the honors?" Flam smartly insisted, not actually including any clause in his words that would imply he was willing to do so himself. Flim just shook his head. "Absolutely not." "Well, somebody's going to have to do it..." Flam frowned nervously. Neither of them were anxious to discover how the hyperviolent, intently malicious sage who had featured in many frightening newspapers would react, or how large the grudge he held would be if he found that out.