Twilight had received gifts from her parents, brother and Barb yesterday. So now it was time to catalogue everything she had gotten as she was only allowed to quantify her feelings on everything she received the day after she was treated like royalty by her family.
She received a personally signed picture of Fleur De Lis; it was from her mother and the picture did focus on Fleur's rather wondrously extravagant beauty. Twilight wondered how her mom knew that she had an interest in Fleur, much less got a signed picture from the up and coming premier Canterlot supermodel. It was as interesting as the message that basically said, never give up on your dreams or your heart, also don’t change who you are to please others since there is no pleasing every pony.
One would think that Fleur got as far as she did on her looks and they’d be very much wrong as she didn’t sign contracts with any pony if they so much as tried to alter her to their world views and in Canterlot… that was a bit of a big problem considering how many unicorns tried to do that. Fleur was a smart and intelligent role model, but she got more accolades for her looks and many wouldn’t even think of the merits of her magical expertise in some fields after she graduated from Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns. In fact Twilight was pretty sure ponies forgot how high Fleur’s IQ level actually was by judging her based on the cover of her outer appearance, kind of like how she was prepared to judge a book by its cover without reading it first.
Fleur proved a fact that a pony could be both beautiful and intelligent like Celestia; Twilight places the picture on the nightstand next to her bed.
Speaking of school for gifted unicorns, Twilight would only spend two more years going there. She’d be sixteen when she set out to make a place for herself in this wide open world, she hoped Barb would go with her as her favorite daughter. Barb would probably say that she was Twilight Sparkles only daughter.
Her father got her several sets of scissors, combs and brushes in all kinds of colors and personalization’s. Twilight didn’t even question why her father got them for her, but she liked the presents all the same, most likely it was to play with Smart. She still didn’t understand why her father snickered at her after she opened her present, much less her mother giving her a silly smile.
She stowed her father’s gifts away, in a meticulous manner in her nightstand sorting the scissors, brushes and combs. If only she knew her parents caught her staring at other ponies manes.
Her brother being the protective guy that he always was sent her a gift through the mail, of course it arrived sometime yesterday during lunch and was delivered by one of Ponyville’s delivery ponies which was rather odd. At least they made up for the mix up, especially when a young wall eyed blond mare also left her a warm muffin alongside her brothers present wishing her a happy birthday and to ignore any future versions of her that they might run across that day.
Ignoring that the mare might be a time traveler and it was actually feasible with magic artifacts, Twilight had started to look over her brothers’ two gifts in the one present. First part of the gift was that her brother sent her notes on how to perform a barrier spell like his that earned him his cutie mark. The second part was a book of spells that all centered around protection magic.
Twilight smiled at the notes as she read them, she also hoofed through the first few pages of the barrier book. She was going to cherish her brothers’ gifts, who knew you could do so many things with barrier magic including use it offensively? Her brother was trying to help her defend herself even when he couldn’t be there to do it himself.
“Hmm… SMART!” Twilight yelled wondering where the pixie pony had gotten to since yesterday, Smart knew that she knew that the day after her birthday was a time to catalogue her presents. She was supposed to be here with Twilight to go over these things.
“You called Doctor Light?” The pixie said cutely, she was carrying a small present in a levitation field. Limited levitation capabilities were not beyond Twilights personally enchanted assistant which was basically her. She plopped the package on the bed and fluttered around Twilights horn and face playfully nudging Twilights bangs around.
“Oh great now I’m getting myself birthday presents. I really need to make some friends... I mean meet some ponies to be friends with me to spend time with; so far too much of my time already goes into studying magic. Also I’m not a doctor anything yet Smart.” Even as she said this Twilight studied the small present and looked quizzically at the small smiling pixie pony that had a rather devious look on her face. The reason why she backtracked on the make some friends’ statement was because she very much could make her own friends using copies of her own memory and specific parts of her own personality through enchanting. Smart was one friend literally made by her hooves too many and would have commented on Twilight literally making more pixie ponies from the other toys that Twilight hoofed down to Barb. “Okay what is it and why are you smiling like that?”
“Well your enchantments professor would like to argue with us about having a doctorate in enchanting. Anyway go on and open the package!” Noting the high pitched voices eagerness and the sweet little innocent eyes dancing with amusement, Twilight wondered why Smart just defined the gift as a package. It certainly looked like a present considering the wrapping paper and the bow.
Opening the present Twilight balked at what was inside, she levitated out a doctorate for enchanting written up by her professor and acknowledged by several ponies in the field.
“How…” Twilight started slowly feeling an eye start to twitch a little in consternation.
“I asked him to slip you a doctorate level exam into another one of your enchanting exam papers; he knew you’d be too nervous to actually apply for the doctorate. He wanted you to earn this considering how good you are at modifying my magical core and enchanting stuff given your massive amount of magic. Heck he was impressed that you even gave me the ability to even grow hair and even become self sufficient considering my base is our childhood toy.” Smart smiled up at Twilight as she settled on the nightstand and looked at Fleur’s picture for a while, admiring it for what it was. She even spoke an aside to Twilight while staring at the picture. “You certainly deserve it or my name isn’t Smart Esmeralda Pants Sparkle! Oh and our comprehensive demonstration on the knowledge of enchantment was me, since I was already there to do the exam while you were busy enjoying your day. I completed the comprehensive examination portion of our exam for us with flying colors and rubbed it in their faces. They said they are sorry you’d miss receiving this doctorate on your birthday and wished you well.”
Twilight face hoofed. Did Smart have to use her full name to get the point across, much less do things that she wasn’t supposed to? Well Smarts design was complex enough for her to earn the doctorate in Twilights stead apparently. After a moment it finally sunk in that Twilight earned a doctorate at fourteen… she wondered how her parents would take this.
She earned a doctorate… in a skill she really wasn’t going to further very much, but she had it. She just wishes she could be more proud of the accomplishment considering it was Smart who forced it to come about. Nonetheless it was useful and looked good on a resume that she was exceptionally talented in a field of magic other then general magic.
“Okay putting aside the fact that I’m now a doctor in enchanting… which is giving me a headache since I can’t invalidate it by saying I wasn’t there for the comprehensive portion. I’ll set this aside next to my hair brushes where I can come to terms with the fact that I actually earned it later and don’t feel slightly jaded by the fact that it came about because of you.” Twilight rolled the doctorate up and placed in nightstand where she said she would and then she curiously picked over her last gift she had from her daughter Barb.
Never judge a book by its cover Sparkle, even if the cover was really interesting. On the cover was a mare with a wild look in her red and green eyes, a strange flamboyant yet well tended to green mane in two tones of color flailing everywhere and dark bluish grey coat. She was wearing a purple suit, black hoof boots and two gold colored stripes around the boots and neckline.
The cover was very interesting as it presents said mare over a city in a presumably night time scene, the comic book was labeled ‘Power Ponies’. What was the more interesting thing about this book was that it was an enchanted comic book.
Twilight Sparkle was already intrigued by the character on the cover of the comic and the idea of the enchantments the book held. One would have to read it to find out where the enchantments were because they weren’t all on the cover.
The purple pony started to read the comic book and the artwork was quite astounding. The six pony heroes and humdrum, each with unique abilities… abilities that normal ponies could have earned through training except for the Saddle Rager or Filli-Second. She thought Humdrum was a quirky character and a goofball, but you couldn’t doubt the guy put his heart into assisting others.
So far the comic book had yet to address the character on the cover. It thus far seems like it was setting up the characters and information about them, she could see each character had their own enchantments magically enwrapping them. Reading the Masked Matter Horn made it glow; the enchantment seemed to be a selector as the same thing had happened when she read Radiance’s profile. It gave a small comic of their origins and how they all came together to fight for justice.
What followed was the chilling story of the mare on the cover and how she came to be, apparently they didn’t give the mare a name but the story is that a supposedly corrupt business pony or pony suspected of bad business practices had an accident.
The accident entailed the pony with a beautiful blue mane, tail, eyes and a pink coat falling into a vat in a shampoo factory and followed by it being electrified with a lightning cable. What crawled out of the vat was a mare with wildly altered mane and crazed look in her eyes.
Then she, the now named Mane-iac, went after some power orb for some convoluted plot and the power ponies appeared, that’s when the comic book ended. If Twilight hadn’t been relatively knowledgeable in enchanting and hadn’t known that the comic book was stated as being an enchanted comic book, she would have felt ripped off.
Instead she studied the magical words in the bottom right corner of the last page and knew better then to read them out loud. Only an idiot would read enchantment magic out loud even if the worst that could happen to you is something unexpectedly annoying and unintended if you were not expecting it. Enchantments could be dangerous, but only to the one doing the enchanting.
“Hmm… let’s see….” Smart said standing on the book looking at the small print and was about to read it out loud only when she received a glare from Twilight and quieted down.
“Smart… don’t you dare read that out loud.” Twilight said tersely at the pixie pony. “Especially before I’ve had a chance to study it!”
“Oh gee, studying magic. Didn’t you want to get away from that?” The pixie pony was looking to have her mane chopped unevenly and really short if she kept that up if the glare Twilight was sending her meant anything. Smart just knew she would temporarily lose the enchantment that allowed her to even grow a mane if she continued to step over her boundaries, but even being punished could be fun once in a while.
“Yes, but I’m not about to go into this blindly without knowing everything that will happen because of whatever this comic book was enchanted to do.” Twilight sat down and started studying the enchantments throughout the comic book, Barb wandered in just when Twilight was finished copying the enchantments down for further study with Smarts help.
Barb thought her gift was pretty nifty, although she did require the help of grandpa and grandma to get it.
“Hey mom, you finished reading it already? You certainly didn’t waste your time finishing… huh what’s this? You can return to the place you start… defeated… take a closer look to join the adventure in this book? What in the world does that even… mom why are you looking at me like that?” That’s when Barb lost her mother to a magical vortex, having been pushed to a safe distance by Twilight’s magic leaving her alone with Smart who barely avoided being pulled into the book as well.
“No…. MOMMY! ”