By the time Veretus had gotten back, which was ten minutes at his full speed, which also included spending a fair bit of that time in freefall, he was witness to what could only be described as pandemonium. The town looked like it was the scene of a horror play that a child had written. The town was covered in a purple mist, and as it highly contrasted with the landscape, Veretus could see that the area it covered was spreading.
He thought this was ridiculous, one unicorn couldn't possibly contain all this magic, could they? This was enough magic to fuel an entire Golem army and it was still increasing. Of course, if he was a fool, he would land outside town and walk inside, but he was not. He landed where he remembered the front of Twilight's abode was.
The mist was warm, and sent tingles along his exposed skin, but it did little other than that. He feared for what had happened to any ponies who were caught within this mist, as this was directionless magic, or as sorcerers called, wild magic. the front door hung ajar, most likely the handle couldn't withstand the mist as it was trapped inside the library.
He entered inside, it was always a surprise that these ponies always built their doorways so that even Celestia could walk inside. The entrance was chaos, as the front door apparently led straight into a library, where books were migrating from shelf to shelf, flapping their covers like wings as they constantly reorganized themselves according to some esoteric sorting system. He ignored the small platoon of cupcakes rolling upon the ground trying to lob icing at him that just slid right off.
He did not think that Twilight would perform such an ill-thought experiment upstairs, so he refrained from seeing what the mist had done to the objects up there. He looked for some stairs or a door that led to a basement. A minor search in which the cupcakes, eventually realizing the futility of their assault against him, went to harass the book birds. He didn't find a basement, but he did enter another room which contained both twilight and spike, and some machine reminiscent of something Cillen, the Lich god of progress would create.
Spike was being strangled by a long sheet of paper that was coming out of the machine. Ineffectually, he might add, as Spike's scales prevented papercuts, and paper was never an effective means of trying to kill a creature. But it did mean that he was unable to help twilight, whose horn was glowing with at least three layers of purple shades, she seems to be grimacing, whether in pain, or in an effort to stop or continue on this experiment he did not know, but both were unaware of his presence.
He sighed, walking up to twilight, he took a hold of his central green horn, before cracking it off. Of course, it had started regrowing at a speed visible to the naked eye. With horn in hand, and after an application of aggressive telekinesis to hollow out the horn, he not too gently fitted his horn over twilight's.
The mist didn't disappear of course, magic didn't work like that. But Twilight stopped grimacing as her spell could no longer work, for he had turned his own horn into a magical item that prevented a unicorn from using magic, she looked up at him.
"V-Veretus?"
"Calm yourself Twilight, I have stopped whatever experiment you were failing to contain, let us not see if we can fix the results." He calmly soothed her, or atleast he hoped he did, Ponies responded to his assurances differently than his own subjects did.
"I- Alright, how do we- Spike! Oh hang on!" Twilight most likely tried to free spike from his paper prison with her magic, but scrunched her face in confusion when nothing happened.
"my magic, it's-"
"Suppressed, I had to quickly stop whatever you were doing, do not take my horn off in case your experiment resumes." He quickly said before she began panicking. He went over to spike and ripped the paper from his form, the dragon fell to the ground and landed on his rear. The machine decided to try and strangle him with its paper, he decided to break the machine by squeezing the opening the paper was coming out of shut. Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but deciding against it, shut it.
"W-What's going on Veretus? This didn't happen when you made liquid magic." Twilight was scared, and probably for a good reason, she couldn't perform any magic, What was happening with her machine was happening to all of ponyville, and all of this was her fault.
"You didn't make Liquid magic, you just made slightly unstable gaseous magic. Thankfully it is not as bad as some sorcerers I have seen, but I know of no way to fix it aside from waiting for it to stabilize and return to a higher energy state." He shook his head, thinking, If what was happening to ponyville was the same as what was happening here, he doubted they could wait for it to just go away, that could take minutes to an hour.
He decided then and there he was going to have to teach Twilight Sparkle how to complete the spell. He hoped against everything in this reality and his that he could do it, because he had never taught another person how to perform magic. Not even his own son needed instructions on that, as dragons instinctually knew how to use what they were capable of.
"Take off the horn Twilight." Veretus said calmly, his inner turmoil hidden.
"but you said-"
"I know what I said, but the only way we are fixing this quickly is you completing the spell." he interrupted her. He didn't wait for her to struggle with removing his horn with her hooves, taking it off of her swiftly himself. The spell resumed, her scared face was aglow in the shine of her horn.
"Calm yourself now Twilight. This magic is yours, it will do what you say, what you command! Force it to gather, force it to take the shape you desire." The mare struggled, scrunching up her face and concentrating. Nothing happened for several long seconds before she stopped, panting.
"I can't do it... I'm just not powerful enough..." Veretus paused at that.
He did all his magic by brute force, Magic would bend to his will, and if it didn't he would make it with overwhelming force, but he forgot that he achieved that via his divine spark, and twilight was no more a god than he was still a champion. He had forgotten that after seeing her overwhelming display of magic. He had to give her a shortcut, perhaps one day she would be strong enough to do this with pure force of will and intent, but today was not that day.
He thought on what Twilight most valued, Spike for one, for she was almost willing to kill to keep him safe. She had those other five mares around them when they first met, and they seemed quite close. It was with them she activated the Elements of Harmony against him.
"Forget what I told you twilight." he began, confusing the mare. "Think about how your friends are dealing with this disaster you have made."
While she thought of that, he took the time to scrounge up the names of the other four ponies aside from rainbow dash in his memory.
"Think of how Rarity is dealing with this, rainbow dash as well. Pinkie Pie, and Applejack? And finally, Fluttershy. I suspect they are fighting the effects this wild magic is causing, but they will fail without you." he could see her worry, but soon it changed to determination.
"Now, do not let your friends down, this magic is yours, and it will obey!" her horn glowed brighter in one uniform color. No longer did she struggle as she held her head high, a smile on her face. The mist began receding to a point above her horn, fast and faster until there was so much it started swirling into a ball.
Smaller and smaller that ball shrank until eventually, it was the size of a bird egg. this part she struggled at, gritting her teeth as she shrunk it even smaller. Veretus held out his hand underneath it, as soon, it fell like droplets of rain, creating a small river of purple in his gauntlet. Twilight opened her eyes panting, before staring at his palm in shock.
"Thats it!?" she breathlessly yelled. "But... there was so much mist!"
Veretus chuckled.
"Twilight, to create the cascade I made, required enough magic to create twelve artifacts. Usually, wizards don't actually use the amount of magic you've just used unless they were casting quite a strong spell."
"but... how do they turn magic solid then?!" she yelled franticly.
"They don't use brute force like we just did, most transfer the energy with finesse using their own meager reserves. As magic is formless and massless, a skilled magic user could use these thirteen drops of magic to drown ponyville in a tidal wave before it returned to a stable state."
Twilight just sighed before lifting up the liquid magic in her aura and dropping them into a jar.
"Thank you anyways Veretus... I shouldn't have tried that without somepony... somecreature experienced." The mare corrected herself, and Veretus was surprised. the ponies loved using their own racial pronouns and were quite instinctual for them after doing it all their lives.
"It was no problem-"
"Twilight, you in here!" the scratchy voice of rainbow dash came from the other room. Most likely they were here to check up on Twilight. He had other things to discuss, so he grabbed spike and they both disappeared from the Library.
And appeared outside on the bridge. Many ponies were out cleaning the streets which looked like a band of raging elementals had swept through.
"What's the big idea Veretus." spike asked when put down. "You can't be shy can you?"
"Of course not spike. But dealing with this has already taken up enough of my time, Luna will be waking in an hour and I must be getting back to canterlot. The dragon migration will be happening in a little more than a fortnight." Spike nodded at that.
"Yeah, I know, Twilight has made plans with her friends to watch it as the dragons will be passing over Ponyville." The dragon seemed to have a reserved enthusiasm upon saying so.
"Then I shall know where to find you then, as we'll be joining them in the flight."
"What?! Are you serious?" Spike was filled with excited surprise at that announcement.
"Both you and I must learn more about the dragons of your reality. Quite frankly, the ponies know little about them, and my innate knowledge of creatures only goes so far in this reality." He doubted that spike heard his reasons why, as he was lost in his imagination once more.
"But wait." spike suddenly snapped out of it, turning towards him. "It's going to take a long time to follow them on foot."
"Spike, I said we will be joining them on their flight, I mentioned no walking amongst that. I will be carrying you as I fly."
"But what if they attack us!?" Spike asked, beginning to panic at the thought. He swore the dragon had too much imagination.
"Spike, unless a dragon on par with myself exists, we shall be fine. Now I must truly be getting back to Canterlot, we shall discuss the journey during your next training session." He barely listened to Spike's response as he took off into the air.
Perhaps he'd try the sandwiches that Celestia had been eating when he dropped in on her earlier.