Shadow magic was this really weird and tedious thing that I could do with some proficiency. You didn't really control shadows since they are an absence of light, which is something that exists, but what you could control was the magic in the shadow and small particles in the air that you could arrange into shapes that would cast the shadows you needed. Magic had this property where it was both a wave and a particle, much like light, except that it had some other attributes, one of which was photoactivity i.e. it behaved differently in the dark that when it is in the light and this was integral to shadowmancy.
To even begin your career as a shadow mage, you needed to learn a incantation that, while stupid in my objectively right opinion, was necessary to get the degree of control one needed to move around tiny particles in the air. Once you got that down, you could move onto the actual good stuff, like making a funky little shadow guy, much like I was doing right now.
You could do other stuff as well, such as making a three dimensional shadow by making a light proof shell out of particles, turning that into a golem using shadow runes, and then making a shadow portal to enter the shadow dimension and deploy the shadow golem in the house of someone you don't like. Unfortunately, you couldn't really use shadows to physically harm someone like I had imagined, unless you scare them into falling down the stairs, and the learning curve was a cliff when it came to the stuff that wasn't just making shadow puppets. Plus, some of it was illegal, like entering the shadow dimension.
But all that's beside the point. Right now, the important thing was making sure that I had a decent hiding spot. I had woken up very early thanks to a nightmare and I couldn't really go to sleep after that. I figured that I'd just spend the two hours I had before work on practising shadowmancy and I had figured out the 'making a shadow using dust in the air' part and that was when I had this really cool idea.
I was going to prank Twilight.
I had no real reason to prank her specifically, or to prank someone at all, but where was the fun in that? Twilight was the unfortunate person since she was the only other person I thought of, other Brush who got a pass since she's my good friend. I had then set out to the library at like 5:50 in the morning, hoping to get there before Twilight woke up.
The library was still closed and there were no lights on in the building, meaning that I was on time. I unlocked the door and slipped in without making any noise. I had turned on the lights and then hidden myself among the many bookshelves of the library. All I had to do was wait for Twilight to come downstairs.
That wait was only five minutes.
Twilight was coming downstairs, looking like she just got up judging by how her eyes were barely open and how her mane and tail looked like bushes.
"Anya, are you here?" she called out as she walked to the front desk, looking more awake with every passing moment. She hadn't seen or heard me ducking from one bookshelf to another and now was my time to strike. I said the incantation for control in my mind and a slight ache in my horn later, I was able to feel all the particles in the air with my magic. My horn lit up and the particles started moving.
The lights in the library made Twilight's shadow appear in front of her and that was perfect. The particles gathered up between her and the ceiling light into an almost invisible cloud, casting a shadow on her back. Twilight was none the wiser and continued looking over the front desk, trying to find clues about whether or not I was in the library.
Her shadow started growing visibly and within a second, she was aware of it.
"What the?" she said as she tried stepping back from her shadow unsuccessfully. When I was happy with how big the shadow was, I moved onto the second part of my plan. The invisible particle cloud started shifting at my command, making it look like Twilight's shadow started morphing. Twilight charged up her her horn, probably to attack the shadow. The shadow morphed, getting a large body with four wings, one pair bat like, the other bird like. On top of the body sat a head with two circles of light for eyes.
It wasn't as scary as it was in my head but Twilight was definitely terrified.
"What do you want?!" she shouted at the shadow. I started the last phase of my plan and started moving a lot more particles to start making a three dimensional shape. It took a good ten seconds to do that and each second, Twilight grew more and more scared.
When she was about to repeat herself, the shadow sprung forth, leaving the wall and jumping into three dimensions, or atleast tried to. It wasn't a really great looking transition since you need at least three lights, one for the x-axis, one for the y, and the last for the z, to make a proper three dimensional thing, and I only had one light on the ceiling. However, that worked in my favour as it made the shadow look a lot more like a big scary pile of darkness.
Twilight jumped back with a yelp as the shadow moved too fast for her to run away from, and enveloped her completely except for her head. I then used my magic to turn off the light, and cut all the magic from the shadow monster, making it look like the shadows had consumed Twilight. She screamed like a little filly and I giggled at my successful prank.
Now all I had to do was leave the library under the cover of darkness. I took one step, and suddenly, the lights were back on. The library doors were wide open and Rainbow Dash was there, looking as if she were ready to fight. Twilight was laying on the ground, covering her head with her hooves, and I was just frozen there next to a bookshelf mid walk. We all looked at each other for one second.
"What happened?!" Rainbow asked, her voice full of concern. "I heard Twilight scream."
The mare in question was no longer cowering on the floor and instead stomping to me, looking furious.
"What did you do?" she asked in a really angry voice as she got really close to my face. It took me a moment to formulate an answer that'd get me out of trouble.
"I pranked you," I said since I couldn't get out of this one. Twilight was less angry and more annoyed now while Rainbow seemed interested.
"How'd you prank her, Anya?" Rainbow asked, getting out of her fighting stance.
"She used shadowmancy to make a monster thing," Twilight huffed. Rainbow probably didn't know anything about shadowmancy and probably decided that I was doing something evil since shadow monster sounded evil.
"What the heck, Anya, you summoned a shadow monster?" she said pointing an accusatory hoof to me.
"Nuh uh, I made a shadow that looked like a monster," I defended myself before giving a demonstration, "Like this."
A shadow appeared on the wall next to us, looking much like what I had made to scare Twilight. Rainbow jumped back at that, making Twilight rolled her eyes, but she took a closer look at the shadow on the wall.
"Huh, this does look scary, not that I was scared," Rainbow said, before a smile formed on her face, "But I gotta admit, this thing is pretty good for a prank. How'd you make it?"
"I did the control incantation in my head, which gives me the ability to move around small particles in the air, which I then arrange into shapes in front of lights, which makes them cast a shadow while not being seen by anyone meaning, there isn't any shadow monster but rather, just a normal shadow that looks like a monster," I explained. Rainbow definitely lost interest halfway through but was still impressed.
"And this is for scaring me," Twilight said with a devious smile as she teleported a rolled up newspaper and smacked me in the head with it.
It was a decent start to a Wednesday.