//------------------------------// // The Spy in the Sky // Story: Ace's Spell Shop // by Aceofgods //------------------------------// Chapter Ten: The Spy in the Sky Ace and Twilight sat at one of the spotted mushroom tables outside of Horte Cuisine’s Ponyville Café, each enjoying their daffodil and daisy sandwiches. Having accidentally angered the waiter, Ace was being wary with each of his sandwiches, making sure that none of them had any… ‘Extra ingredients.’ Satisfied that none of his sandwiches had been tainted by outside contaminants, Ace started to enjoy his meal in earnest. Twilight ate her food slowly, enjoying each bite as Ace ate at a startling rate, and having already ate two of the five of his sandwiches before Twilight had ate half of hers. While the pace was swift, Ace was by no means making a mess or being disgraceful. Ace chewed with his mouth closed, kept his hooves off of the table and wiped his hooves in his napkin between each of the morsels. Twilight swallowed her latest bite as Ace picked up his fourth sandwich before she spoke. “Why do you eat so fast? Not to sound rude, but you also have quite an amount of food, as well.” Ace laid the half of a sandwich he was eating before he took the napkin in his magic to dab gently against the corners of his mouth before he spoke. “’Tis not rude to speak the truth, my student, do not let anypony tell you otherwise. Yes, I do have a habit of eating quite fast, and I do often eat more than I should. "Answering the former first, it is just something I am in habit of doing. Many times I would be more concerned with what I was doing than the need to sustain my body with things such as food, or water. To meet the middle ground, I would often eat quite swiftly to return to the matter at the forefront of my mind. In addition, I do not need to eat slowly to enjoy food, as my perception is distorted by the extrasensory spells. "Essentially, to my view, I am chewing no faster than you are. As for the amount, I just enjoy food.” Twilight shook her head, stifling a laugh as Ace shrugged with the short, simple answer, Twilight unsure of what she had expected. Without warning, Ace took Twilight, her sandwich, his water and his sandwich in his magic and moved all of them away from the table as he put the last of his sandwich into his muzzle while he leapt away from the table as well. No sooner than Twilight had opened her mouth to question what was going on, something streaked by in her vision before the table they were at mere moments ago exploded into a puff of dirt brown smoke as somepony nearby yelped out in pain whilst there were shocked gasps around the restaurant. Ace, putting his last sandwich in his mouth and washing it down with half of the glass of water, proceeded to the edge of the cloud of smoke, pressing his hoof into its depths. Not long afterwards, as the smoke started to thin a bit, Ace managed to fish something out of the smoke, but couldn’t tell what from where she rested, barely realizing she was sitting on bale of hay a short ways away. “Thanks," spoke the cloud. "I guess that I should probably stop trying out new tricks above town…” Now assuming that whatever had come falling out of the sky was a pony, Ace nodded to it and offered it the half-full glass of water as he finished chewing his sandwich. The smoke finally beginning to clear enough to see through, Twilight could make out the silhouette of the mare as it began to come into color. Twilight had to focus her eyes, but could only tell that the mare had a tender blue coat, and soon noticed she also had wings, though that was already apparent given the young mare’s entrance. The mare started to clear the smoke with her wings, giving them two swift strokes before tucking them softly back against her side as many of the restaurant’s patrons resumed their meals after seeing nopony was hurt. Her line of sight clear, Twilight could much more easily make out the multiple colors of the mare’s mane and tail: a red brighter than either of Ace’s, a sweet orange, angel’s strand gold, a soft green, shallow-ocean blue and a deep violet. Realization came to Twilight’s face, knowing only one pony in all of Ponyville who had such a colorful mane and tail. Advancing toward the Pegasus, she could more clearly hear the conversation that had quieted, no longer needing to speak through the dust or over the mutters of the other ponies. “...then I was trying to do a triple corkscrew dive into a loop-de-loop followed by a free-fall with a breakneck recovery, but when I pulled out of the third corkscrew, I musta lost balance or something ‘cause I ended up here,” the Pegasus said as Ace nodded, listening quite intently. Ace looked as though he was concentrating a bit as he looked at her, “Well the momentum from the triple corkscrew wouldn’t tie into a loop, so you’d need to do a wide-berth recovery before going into the loop, but it wouldn’t look too flashy by itself. Perhaps instead of doing the loop-de-loop, you could do an airbrake backflip into the freefall instead? You can use the airbrake to stop the momentum from the corkscrews and it’d tie into the dive.” The Pegasus’s bright purple-pink colored eyes lit up as she ran through the tricks in her head. “Yeah… Yeah, that might just work! Stay here, and prepare to be amazed!” The multi-colored Pegasus darted high into the air, preparing to try out her new short routine. Ace and Twilight kept their eyes locked on the event that was about to transpire as they spoke in her absence. “That’s Rainbow Dash, if I had to make a guess. She certainly matches the name perfectly, I must say,” Ace commented as the Pegasus started to spiral down towards the two, doing three wide circles as she flew towards the ground. “That’s right, and she truly does love flying, specifically speed and tricks.” Twilight mentioned with a smile before her mouth formed into the shape of an ‘O’ when Rainbow Dash spread her wings wide to slow her descent, and before she could lose control and stall, she kicked her hooves with her wings still stiff, causing her to pivot in place as she did a no-wing backflip that led her to face the ground before tucking her wings in and freefalling to the ground muzzle first. “She also enjoys spying on her friend and her new tutor, as well.” Twilight started to look shocked, but before she could glance at Ace to determine if it was another one of his jokes or if he was quite serious, her gaze was stuck riveted to Rainbow Dash as she neared the ground, and just before striking the dirt, she nosed-up and spread her wings wide, causing a wave of dust to kick off the ground with how close she had been before her hooves graced the ground as her wings flapped one last time and tucked themselves away. The trio trotted towards one another, all of them bearing large smiles after the extravagant show while several ponies at the restaurant applauded and some others cheered, a few doing both. “Did you see that?! Don’t try that at home, colts and fillies, I can only do it cause I’m totally awesome! Thanks for the advice, Ace; I couldn’t have done it without you!” Ace nodded as he replied. “I’m always happy to help, miss... Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met,” Ace said as he dipped into his customary bow, “my name is Ace Deus Fenrir, but you seem to already know me as Ace.” A knowing smirk spread across his face as he used the proper name and common interpretation. Rainbow Dash started to look as though she had been caught stealing in the market. “Oh, yeah… I guess I must have heard it somewhere… Um, my name’s Rainbow Dash, but you can call me whatever ya want.” Ace nodded as he put a hoof to his chin as though he was lost in thought. “Then it would be alright if I called you Rainbow Spy? Rainbow Dash is a beautiful name, but it doesn’t cover all of your talents, it would seem.” Rainbow Dash visibly winced. “How long have you known?” Rainbow Dash was clearly caught, and Twilight and Ace were both watching her as though she really might have stolen from the market as well. “’Twould be a conundrum to say the whole time, but I can easily say that I’ve known you started following us shortly after we started to leave the Apple family farm. I’ve known you were following and spying on us, which was why I sat up while Twilight rested along the road to see Fluttershy. "I would do anything to protect Twilight Sparkle, so losing a little sleep is of little consequence. Perhaps you would like to enlighten us as to why you were following us?” Ace asked the question pointedly, but Twilight could tell he was just more curious and wanted to appear intimidating, but wasn’t really angry or upset. Now that Twilight had thought of it, Ace hadn’t slept since he arrived in Ponyville, and likely hadn’t rested much at all since he started the experiment that had brought him to her. Rainbow Dash let out a sigh as she nodded. “Yeah, that would really be the whole time. I saw Ace fall out of the sky when I was resting on a cloud nearby when you two were at Sweet Apple Acres. Wondering what had made a strange Unicorn fall out of the sky, I started to follow you two around. "I could only hear what Twilight was saying though, like Ace wasn’t even talking back. After a while, I started to assume it was some sort of magic.” Ace nodded with another smirk as he motioned for the curious Pegasus to continue. “After a while, I thought I should stop, but there was no way I was going to miss out on watching Twilight going on a date with her boyfriend! Speaking of which, where did you two meet, anyways?” Twilight’s face lit up with a blush as she looked over to Ace, expecting him to say something to her assuming friend. However, instead of speaking against the thought, he looked Twilight in the eyes deeply as he wiggled his eyebrows at her. Blushing even further, Twilight closed her eyes and charged her horn with magic. “He’s my new magic teacher!” she exclaimed as she prepared a force spell to push Ace away. Ace’s eyes lit up with fear as he started to reach up with his left hoof, but was too late. Twilight cast the spell, and Ace went flying harmlessly down the road toward the marketplace… Or at least, he would have, if he hadn’t had a reflection barrier cast around himself; a self-defense he had prepared as he was protecting Twilight under the tree before should the spy have malicious intentions. Twilight’s senses started to come back slowly. She couldn’t feel anything other than the pulsing pain both in her head and her horn. She could feel her eyes opening and closing loosely, like leaves shaking in a breeze, but couldn’t see anything clearly. Her ears were ringing, but she could hear the muffled sound of other ponies around her. Shaking her head from side to side, she was able to reclaim the use of her eyes at the cost of her headache worsening, but it had felt like her horn was getting better. With her eyes opened, her vision was still strange to her. She looked around, and she could see everything fine, but there was a darkness around everything. Is it nighttime? Have I been unconscious the whole day? What even happened?... Twilight’s headache was debilitating, and the recovering use of her hearing wasn’t making the headache any more friendly. She could see Ace, tinted a much darker black as he stood over her with Rainbow Dash hovering behind him as she watched over the two. Ace’s hoof started to wave in front of Twilight’s face, and Twilight reached up to grab it, but with the lack of feeling in her muscles, lightly hit him on the side of his muzzle instead. Unfazed by the lighthearted blow, he took her hoof in his as he started to talk, but Twilight couldn’t make out what he was saying even as the ringing was fading. “…eat this un… I am go… can hear…” Twilight shook her head, worsening the headache but feeling the pain in her horn was almost entirely gone. “…you can hear me. I am going to repeat this until you can hear me. I am going to repeat this until you can hear me.” Twilight finally could hear what her mentor was saying. Finally hearing what he was saying, she was able to reply. “Okay, I can hear you. Please say something else, but say it quietly ‘cause my head is killing me…” Ace only nodded as he and Rainbow Dash helped her back to her hooves, Ace keeping hold of her until he was sure she could stand on her own. Fortunately he did, cause Twilight couldn’t stand straight, instead deciding to sit down. “What happened? Why is it so dark?” Ace nodded, his horn ceasing to glow – Twilight hadn’t even realized that it was to begin with – and the world lit up in Celestia’s daylight. “Sorry, I had to refill your magic with my own. Your body used the last of your remaining magic to block the spell. Tell me, what is the last thing you remember? Please, take your time. You took quite a blow, and there’s no need to hurry. Dash, would you be so kind to bring her some water?” Rainbow Dash nodded once before bolting off towards the restaurant… Which was much further than it should have been, all the way on the other side of the market. Looking around to see where she was, Twilight saw that there was a store right behind her, with a large section of wall that was busted in, and looking as though it might collapse at any moment. Between her and the market, there was a knocked over stall of flowers - which the owner was not very pleased about, but didn’t want to come bother the injured Unicorn until she was well, - and a number of ponies who were watching her concernedly. Looking herself over, she could see a few places that were still being mended by whatever spell Ace had used to recover her strength. Twilight closed her eyes as she probed her mind, throbbing in pain, for the nearest memories. “I… I was eating and talking to you, and then Rainbow Dash came crashing into the table… You helped her learn a new trick, and then…” Twilight’s head was starting to feel a little clearer, the regeneration spell likely making its way to her head after mending her other injuries. She could feel Ace rest his hoof on her shoulder to remind her to take it slowly, but she wanted to remember what had happened. “And then… We were talking to Dash, and I got embarrassed. You said something that made it worse, and I was going to use a kinetic spell to knock you through the market, and…” Ace rested his other hoof against the side of her face, then started to feel around her head with both hooves as he spoke. “After that, you cast the spell and hit a reflection barrier I had erected to counter any attempts to attack us while we rested near Fluttershy’s house. What I hadn’t known is that the spell misfired and caused the reflection barrier to become a combination of reflection and amplification. "The level 3 kinetic force spell you used was amplified to either a level 5 or 6 and redirected back at you. I attempted to negate the spell with my bad hoof, but I failed to react swiftly enough. I would have used magic instead, but to do so may have only caused the spell to amplify further with the charge of magic within the shield.” Twilight finally opened her eyes as the headache faded, but was greeted by Ace being only centimeters in front of her as she blushed. He concluded checking her for serious injury and sat back. “How do you feel? Anything hurt? I do mean anything; even the slightest pain right now could mean serious damage after the spell wears off.” Twilight looked over herself as she tried all of her limbs and joints. Noticing her mane and tail being a mess, she started to work at it with her hooves, but Ace straightened it in his magic instead. Rainbow Dash came up alongside the two, a glass of water in each hoof, which she held out to them. Twilight lit up her horn to take the water offered to her, but stopped when she saw the aura that matched Ace’s take over the glass instead. When she had cut off her magic, apparently Ace had done the same, as the glass fell to the ground. Not being sure Ace would catch it in time, she quickly caught it herself, but was amazed when she saw that Ace was watching her, his black horn not glowing in the slightest, as the glass glowed black while the water flowed back into the glass under Twilight’s magic. Taking the glass in her hooves, she looked to Ace to see if he could explain what was happening. Ace nodded before taking his own glass from Rainbow Dash so she could land and sit down beside the two. “For a little while, your magic will take on the glow of my own, as it is my magic that is inside of you for now, until yours has been given time to recover. "While you’re close to me, you’ll be using the magic from me through your horn’s ability to control it, so feel free to use your magic like normal. However, if we become separated before you recover, do try to use it sparingly, as you’ll only have as much as your body could hold normally, and it won’t recover again until your close by me once more. Worry not, by the time you wake up tomorrow, everything will be back to normal.” Rainbow Dash, seeing that her friend was going to be okay, reverted back to her chaotic-prankster alignment as she spoke, failing to hide her smile and barely stifling her laugh. “So, how does it feel to have your boyfriend’s magic inside of you, Twilight?” Twilight, blushing at the comment, as laced as it was in innuendo. Wanting to experiment with her newfound wealth of magical power, she decided to cast a powerful spell she had learned combating Discord – a Draconequus and powerful user of Chaos magic, - but was never able to cast on her own. Twilight’s purple horn lit up with Ace’s black-colored magic before it spread to Rainbow Dash’s wings until they disappeared. Ace at first looked with shock between the two ponies, before nearly falling over as he started laughing his flank off when he saw the pure look of ‘why!’ on Dash’s face as she looked back and forth between her wings. “You know, it feels pretty good, actually.” Ace, laughing further, had to wipe a tear from his eye, making sure his left eye was closed as he lifted the glasses away for a moment. “Bravo, Twilight! That was quite the spell. However, I should technically reprimand you for using your magic frivolously, I should also commend you for so swiftly grasping the situation and taking advantage of the circumstances to conduct an experiment. As it is, I’ll just pretend this didn’t happen, but do be more careful with my magic, please.” Rainbow Dash, having tried to jump off the ground and fly away, instead ended up landing flat upon the ground and was starting to become quite delirious. She started to look at Twilight with true sorrow and remorse as she laid on the ground. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry! Please give me my wings back!” Twilight’s horn lit up, the black color of Ace’s magic flowing through it as Rainbow Dash’s wings started to form, growing out feather by feather in a stream before fully forming and flapping once, twice before she leapt into the air and started doing all sorts of aerial acrobatics. Twilight, it’s Ace. I’m using our connection through my magic to communicate with you, Ace’s voice echoed through Twilight’s mind. Brace yourself; I have withheld using my extrasensory magic so that you could recover your physical ones. I am telling you this because, through our connection, you will see what I see with my senses. It will likely be quite debilitating, so I’m going to try and take it slow. Twilight looked to her magically-bonded mentor with an uneasy nod to signal she was as ready as she was going to be as she closed her eyes. The dark world behind her eyelids lit up all of its surroundings in a dim gray-black, but despite the near-matching color, it was still bright and distinct, perhaps even more so than Twilight’s purple-laced magical senses. The near-black lines first appeared around Ace and Twilight, but slowly expanded meter by meter. It passed over the damaged section of building, then into the building to reveal the sofas that were for sell inside, then the quills that were on the shelves on the opposite side. The magic passed over the pony who minded the shop, who was assessing the damage to his store. The magic began to give form to the earth pony who had started to approach the two in near-slow-motion as the magic passed beyond her and over the lilies, petunias, and roses of the flower stall that Twilight had recently been propelled through. Ace’s magic began to envelop the entire marketplace in its light that only the two of them could see, flooding her mind with information with each new element that lit up with its glow. High above the market, she could tell the difference in each of the clouds before Rainbow Dash came bolting through the magic in slow motion before slowing further to land next to the two ponies. Twilight opened her eyes to greet her friend, but immediately regretted the decision… “Twilight, are you sure you’re okay? You look like you’re about to spew that sandwich back up.” Twilight put her hooves over her stomach as she winced at the overload of information that was flooding her senses. Up until now, Twilight had managed the information by shutting out her physical senses when she had to use her magical ones, but it would be impractical to do that now, as use as she was to her physical senses. She would ask Ace to stop using his magical senses, but she knew that he relied on his magical senses as much as she had on her physical ones, yet knew that he would gladly go through the nausea she was feeling to prevent her from suffering if she had asked. Ace wrapped a hoof around Twilight’s shoulders to keep her from swaying with the nausea he knew was overtaking her. “She’s having to share my magic, and it’s making her feel unwell. Sorry to depart so briefly after meeting you, Miss Dash, but I need to take Twilight home.” Twilight could only nod as she rubbed her stomach. What made her nausea even worse was that she could feel the feeling of the feeling of the nausea through the sense, perpetuating the feeling. Ace’s horn lit up as picked up his water and enchanted it before offering it to Twilight. Drink this. I’ve enchanted it to help ward against the nausea for so long as it’s in your system. It should bring a few hours of relief, and perhaps by then you’ll be more accustomed to the senses. Twilight greedily reached for the glass of water as though it were her only lifeline in an open ocean. Despite her desperation, she made sure not to drink the water too swiftly, lest she spill any of the precious contents. Rainbow Dash started to feel uneasy watching her friend suffer and having no way to help her. “Well, I hope you get to feeling better, Twilight, and it’s nice to meet ya Ace, but I need to go to a Weather Patrol meeting.” With that, Rainbow flew off, stopping only for a moment to wave goodbye. Twilight set the now-empty glass aside as she looked over the damage the trio had brought to the marketplace as the flower merchant, Horte Cuisine, and the pony tending Sofas and Quills started to come towards the two with a sour look on each of their faces. Ace sighed, using a reparation spell on each of the three afflicted establishments before flash-teleporting a coin pouch onto his good hoof, opposite Twilight, and took his other off of her shoulders. It truly was debilitating using magical senses on objects immune to the effect, as Twilight had entirely forgotten the hoof was draped around her until it was pulled away again, unable to feel it through the dominating magical senses. The three continued to approach, glancing at their individual claims before two of the three softened, the third being Horte Cuisine, who was the waiter for their lunchtime mischief. Told you he didn’t like me. Ace negotiated a price to account for the damages Twilight and her friends had caused, then Ace had paid their price with a fifty-percent mark up to ‘cover for any unforeseen, unaccounted damages that had occurred.’ Needless to say, this was more than sufficient to get the three to return to their businesses while Ace looked over Twilight to be sure she could move. Twilight got up on her hooves and started, quite slowly, down the road towards the library. Every step she took cycled the elements her and Ace’s senses spread over, bringing in and removing pockets of information of everything around them for what had to be more than twenty meters around. “I’m sorry, Twilight. ‘Tis by my negligence that you were hurt, and because of it you have to suffer the painful stress of my own magical senses.” Twilight looked at her mentor, knowing his apology was sincere through their joined magical senses, as well as the connection that bound them itself. “It’s as much my fault as it is yours. I shouldn’t have cast a spell on you, even if it wasn’t meant to hurt you. Because of it, you had to spend a lot of bits to fix the damage I had caused, as well. I’m afraid I don’t have the money to repay you…” Ace shook his head with a smile. “Twilight, money is of little concern to me. So long as I have my magic, I will always be able to live a comfortable life, with or without money. As such, I can only imagine how it must feel to be without magic, and since it is partially my fault that you are in this situation, I am happy to share my magic with you, Twilight.” Twilight blushed deeply, more because of a pony couple were ‘enjoying each other’s company’ a bit too passionately as Ace and Twilight’s senses flooded over them. Ace, a blush reaching his cheeks as well as he made it a point to focus the magic away from the couple. “Yes, that happens on occasion. Magic knows no privacy, I’m afraid.” Breaking their eye contact, Twilight turned her eyes ahead, away from Ace’s, as she started to move ahead as swiftly as was socially acceptable to try and be away from the loving couple as quickly as she could, wishing to afford them privacy as Ace followed behind her. Race you to the library! Ace’s voice echoed through Twilight’s head as her face went up with shock as he ran past her. You’re gonna have to go faster than that if you wanna beat me! Twilight kicked it into gear as she caught up to Ace, and then the race truly begun.