It had been another week, and with the completion of the final tests to ensure that the mixing of their magic had no ill side effects, and with a greater understanding of how to handle her modified geode, Twilight had finally decided it was time to break the news of her and Sunset's innovation to the rest of the group. So here they were, all seven of them, gathered in front of a PowerPoint presentation that Twilight herself was giving, using a projector on the wall behind her.
"Okay, for starters, I'm sure you're all wondering why Sunset and I have you here today." Twilight said, addressing the remaining seven friends gathered in her basement that day. While they were all at least aware of the project after Rainbow had become involved, the exact details remained a mystery to them, and so Twilight's statement was met with a confused murmur among them. When it died down, she continued.
"As I'm sure you all know, seven weeks ago we encountered a threat the likes of which we've never seen before. A being from another dimension, one that had no connection whatsoever to this world, or to Equestria for that matter. Not only that, but they weren't exactly here to make friends." She paused to gauge her friends' reactions, which were, as she expected, uncomfortable and disconcerted.
"In light of these events, I decided something must be done if we ever face such a threat again. I realized how far our magic lags behind what's possible in Equestria, and I wanted to find a way to replicate it. Building on the work I'd done to create the Amulet in the past, I designed and built a prototype of a device that I hoped would allow us to do just that." She pressed a button on a small remote she held, and a picture of the prototype appeared on screen. "Long story short, I achieved teleportation."
Her friends' eyes widened.
She continued: "After that first success, Sunset discovered my work and offered to help me. Without her help, I couldn't have gotten anywhere near where I am now and for that I'm grateful." She glanced over to the corner of the room where Sunset was standing. She smiled and gave her a thumbs up.
"After some more development, and with Rainbow Dash's help, we were able to create a shield similar to Rarity's Diamond Shield power. And we finally figured out the best way to replicate each other's powers." She changed the slide again, revealing a picture of her modified geode, zoomed in to make it easier to see the new red and blue whisps that were circling her cutie mark in the center.
"By embedding samples of each other's magic into our geodes, it will be possible for the recipient to wield a slightly nerfed version of the replicated power." She turned to Sunset. "Sunset, a demonstration, if you will?"
Sunset smiled. "Gladly." She said, raising her hands. A red aura enveloped her hands, followed by the remote in Twilight's hands. The remote left her hands and floated across the room in a near perfect replication of Twilight's telekinesis. Her friends erupted in celebration.
"Twilight!" Rarity exclaimed. "This is unbelievable!"
"I told you guys it was going to be amazing!" Rainbow said to the group.
"Now now hold on for just a sec." Applejack interrupted. "I can't be the only one wondering if this will have dire consequences or something."
"An excellent point, Applejack." Twilight stated, floating the remote back into her hands fron Sunset. "And that's what I'm going to be talking about next. Since the magic that we embed in each other's geodes simply acts as a blueprint for the native energy to replicate it, it means that the use of these additional abilities is a great drain on our power. Using it for too long will cause the energy in our geodes to run out, and when it does, you won't be able to use any more abilities, and the one you already had will become weaker for an indeterminate amount of time. Also, the more abilities you try to use at once, the more effort and focus it takes. However, I've come up with a workaround. I'm sure you've all noticed the watch-like devices that Sunset and I have been wearing. These devices act as a sort of conduit to help our geodes cope with the extra workload that comes with having more abilities to use. They are what make new abilities like shielding and teleportation possible, and because I used the same technology that went into the Amulet, they allow energy to be stored, which brings me to my workaround. Remember when Rainbow used her superspeed for everyday tasks, and because all our geodes are connected, it caused a power surge that made our abilities uncontrollable?"
All of her friends looked at Rainbow with varying degrees of judgment, and she scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.
"As it turns out, such overuse of our powers is precisely the solution to always having enough to power the replication process. By wearing these devices, I'm actually encouraging you to overuse your powers, because then the devices can drain the excess, store it, and feed it back into our geodes as needed to power the use of other abilities; that way we can always have enough power without worrying about the otherwise detrimental side effects of overuse."
"Okay, okay, enough explaining! I want to get to mixing!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"Yeah, what she said!" Rainbow followed. The others followed in agreement. Twilight let out a resigned sigh before she walked over to the device they were going to do this with and pressed a button on the side of the machine to activate it. Five more devices, one for each remaining friend, lay on the left side of the machine. In the final design, Twilight had taken the time to integrate smart functionality into them, making them just like any other smartwatch you could find in a tech store. She had also engraved her cutie marks into the top latch. The end result was a circular smartwatch with a transparent display that could be flipped open with a latch to access their geodes when needed. A circular row of lights, similar to those used in the Amulet, accented the background.
"Okay, who wants to go first?" Twilight asked.
Rarity and Rainbow were the first to raise their hands. They both walked over to the machine and placed each of their geodes into the two storage cells it had. Twilight pressed another button and the process began.