“The fact that it was doing semaphore with its legs was probably just a huge coincidence Rainbow.”
“What about the butter knife? It attacked you with that, which proves it was intelligent right?”
“Actually there was a sharp knife on the counter and a block full of knives right next to where the butter knife was. If it was truly intelligent it would have gone for those.”
Tress stirred at the voices.
“I guess your right then. Still though, why did Tress ask you to do that? Don’t you know much trouble that thing caused us!”
“I’m a believer of seconds chances Rainbow and Tress was willing to give you more than several. With the spells I’ve recently learned from our trip back to the castle of the two sisters, things will turn out for the best. Look at it this way; it was an adventure we’ll never forget and you got to play a heroic role.”
“Still doesn’t feel right Twilight, we didn’t necessarily finish the story in an epic way.”
“I went back and checked the keys on the pipe organ. One of the fourteen you missed on the ‘Organ to the Outside’ would have actually warped us ten feet outside of the castles front door.”
Tress twitched some more and her eyes opened.
“Twilight, Rainbow, where am I?” Tress was nearly blinded by the light in the room, after a moment her eyesight adjusted to the two ponies sitting at her bedside. She could see a dozen flowers, one from each one of the friends her and Twilight recently became acquainted with. “Also how long have I been out?”
“You’ve been out for the last seventeen hours and we’re in Ponyville’s hospital. I’ve had time to get some sleep and go exploring the castle; I even found Celestia’s old diary there. I think Celestia was very irresponsible with what she left behind.” Twilight was glad to see Tress wake up; she was cleared for leaving as soon as she awoke. The doctors were trying to find a way to hold her for more testing and without consent from Tress’s closest guardian or friends they couldn’t hold her here. They were trying to figure out how Tress was miraculously recovering from having so much muscle and nervous tissue related trauma and damage done to her body.
“I made sure nothing attacked Twilight when she went back there; I have to watch out for my buddies backs after all. Glad to see you’re doing alright. I still don’t entirely understand why Twilight had me hit you with a lightning bolt, but I guess everything is cool.” Walking a nearby window Rainbow thrust it open and looked back to them. “I got to jet; see you at the party in two hours!”
“Okay, I take it that after last night Rainbow still won’t leave us alone? Also why do you think the solar princess is irresponsible?” Tress came from a world without a sun controlling princess, she really didn’t think either way about the current monarch and ignored her existence as she had no importance to Tress’s everyday life.
“To answer the first question, probably not but at least Rainbow helped us out of a dire situation and she saved your life. The castle of the two sisters is where we were last night and I’ve learned a lot of disturbing things about it.” Turning it over in her head Twilight decided to answer the last question. Celestia was a pony to look up to as long as you take in all her flaws alongside her good points, at this point she didn’t think she would have done too well under her tutelage. Lighting her horn she levitated out a pet carrier and set it on the bed next to Tress and opened the door. “This is why I think Celestia is irresponsible. She left behind spells that if they were to come into the wrong hooves, they could cause devastating problems.”
Out of the pet carrier crawled a cat with light brown fur with yellow, red and green spots. Tress just stared at it in awe and looked to Twilight with a small frown.
“How many ponies exactly know that this was the thing that attacked yesterday?” The cat rubbed up against Tress’s chest and she shakily lifted a hoof to pet him, the cat purred at her gentle touch. “He kind of looks cute now, but I really should hate his guts knowing what he was. After all that trouble, misery and pain he put us through.”
“Not many. He actually passed as sentient enough for the spell to work, he literally is a cat right now and he is still getting used to the idea of it. I left him with Fluttershy for a few hours to teach him a lesson and he should know better than to hurt any pony anymore unless it’s warranted.” Twilight actually wondered if Tress had ever wanted a pet. “He’s ours now, unless you want him to stay with Fluttershy that is.”
“What did that spell that turned him into a cat exactly do and how does it work?” The cat purred and crawled around in Tress’s lap before curling up there. “Hard to imagine this thing was so ferocious barely a day ago.”
“The spell is a metamorphic spell. The important part is that you require a template to be present and then you can use anything else as a target to change into a version of that template. The spell doesn’t work on morphing small things into larger things unless it was their normal form or animals that are magic immune. Basically I can morph into anything smaller than your general everyday pony, but if I wanted to morph into something large like say an Ursa Minor or Major. That is thankfully impossible.” She thought that she lost her friend at some point, Twilight just decided to continue anyway. “I can also carry only one metamorphic template of said smaller animal at a time to use later. Our fruitcake monster here was still bigger then a cat after I fished him out of the river because you asked me to. He was a perfectly contained test subject for the spell. I used Opal as a template and here is your new pet cat.”
“Do we seriously have to keep him? Why did I even ask you to rescue him, why do I even bother having a conscience if I’m going to get saddled with more weird stuff like this? It must have been the pain talking that I asked you to save him! I’m beginning understand why exactly your parents act so normal compared to all the crazy stuff that goes on around them.” Tress was acting rather melodramatic even as she hugged the cat to her body and gave him a painful smack to the head causing the cat to meow pitifully. “Quick question why aren’t I seriously in pain right now? I still doubt even seventeen hours could help me recover from feeling like my body was on fire, stabbed with a hundred knives and then promptly covered in acid, after the jagged knives are all ripped out at the same time of course.
“It’s because I figured out how your super powers work and you’re on a lot of pain medication right now. You’re healing just fine; I’m surprised you’re not acting really loopy at the moment. Other than that can you truly tell me that you don’t enjoy all the weird and wonderful things life can throw at us?” Twilight even knew what life was going to throw at them in two years. It’s been nine hundred and ninety eight years since that day she read about.
“Yeah, the joys of pain and suffering are never ending with you. Any idea what’s coming at us next? As I’d like an advanced warning if I’m going to be abducted by aliens, mole cats or slave traders.” Tress wouldn’t put it past Twilight to somehow arrange for something like one of those things to happen by complete accident. “On the subjects of my powers what do you know?”
“Well, we might or might not be dealing with a powerful and insane super villain alicorn who’s the sister of Celestia in two years. Her name is apparently Luna and she turned into Nightmare Moon because ponies started ignoring her nights in comparison to her sisters’ days. She’s currently the image on the moon as that is where she’s sealed away by the elements of harmony, which were last used by Celestia on the day of the summer sun celebration hundreds of years ago.” Noticing her friends grimace at having to fight a pony with all three races combined into one powerful package, Twilight decided to move on to Tress’s powers. “As for your powers, I think your hair was the mane attraction. It was not all that you could do and you certainly had a few more abilities then you realized.”
“Okay, do you want me to ask what I missed when I was still Mane-iac? Also remember to mark down on the calendar the day we have to face down Nightmare Moon as a busy day for us. I thought my world was weird being a comic book and everything, but you’re world takes the cake in the week we’ve been having in a place that looked so quiet from the outset.” Around this time Tress actually tried sitting up and she felt slightly woozy, the cat scampered off to her side staring at her with its red eyes.
“I just wanted to know if you were curious or not about it.” Twilight inhaled and then started to regale Tress with the knowledge she had learned about Mane-iac’s physiology based on what she knew.
Apparently Tress’s eyes do have an incredible function, one that’s highly dangerous to her body. A normal pony can only use only so much of their brain and muscles at once, what her eyes do is take in information at double or even triple the rate they’d normally do. This did not make her more intelligent; it just heightened her reaction speed and reflexes.
Tress’s brain was also boosted to a degree and always at the same time her eyes activate. The unfortunate drawback is if she is injured while she’s like this it really comes back on her in a largely inescapably painful way. This boosting broke the restrictions a normal pony’s body would have and it allowed her to use her muscles to their full capacity, which is a really bad thing to do and why they previously tore themselves apart. The pain was likely more indescribable then Tress made it out to be without the particular buffer her Mane-iac form provided.
Tress’s Mane-iac form had the general super powered comic character traditions. The form had a resilience to pain, heightened damage tolerance and was capable of handling heavier amounts of stress to her muscles. It did not increase her strength by too much, it just allowed her to use more of her muscles with far less strain. Her body basically had an exponential increase in efficiency.
What Tress didn’t lose being as she was now was some minimal regenerative properties and the ability to absorb lightning or any energy relatively close to it. As long as her body had at least some form of electrical energy in it, she could regenerate from any injury short of an immediate killing blow provided she had enough energy to deal with the damage.
When Tress first became the Mane-iac she was at full capacity and her mane was constantly writhing about and had arcs of energy coursing through it. The reason for this is because every hair on her body can constantly recharge her body with static electricity, it wasn’t much but it added up over time.
Mane-iac’s mane didn’t use up her electrical energy. Neither did her eyes or more efficient full body transformation. They only needed a certain amount of energy to stay activated and that energy can be fully pulled back into her. The only energy loss Mane-iac would have ever suffered in her conservative fighting style against the Power Ponies is a direct blow to her body or overexerting her muscles to the point where her regenerative properties would kick in. She could stay as the Mane-iac indefinitely once she got her full form going.
“Wow… if you put all of that together I actually make for a good villain and much more powerful than I initially came off as when we met.” Tress really hadn’t been using her abilities to the fullest had she?
“It’s not that surprising as all of your abilities are that of an earth pony's pushed to extreme levels, even your hair control is an earth pony related ability. What is not related is that you have the ability to channel and possibly fire lightning bolts from anywhere out of your body. Maybe you could even create a biological electro orb bomb.” Twilight knew that electrical powers weren’t Tress’s strongest abilities; they’d be more of a last resort kind of thing. “I’d assume abilities like that would put a massive drain on your Mane-iac powers. You’d quickly lose your full body transformation first as it requires a huge build up for you to even fully transform and hold that appearance.”
“So… we still have time to get me into the dress Rarity is likely finished making and get to the party while picking up your daughter and Zecora on the way?” As Tress asked this she wondered about the strange things that went on with her body and how long Twilight fretted over every single aspect of it.
“Yeah we do, I’ll help you stand and walk a bit.” Twilight shouldered Tress and helped her walk. She noticed her friend was limping and looking drained. “You’re truly amazing Tress and not because of your super powers either. I wonder if you’re muscles are constantly locked up from the electrical energy and that’s why Fluttershy’s massages make you feel so good.”
Tress blushed vibrantly. She hoped not as Fluttershy would be constantly on top of her if that were the case, then again it wouldn’t be so bad a prospect.