//------------------------------//
// ... Her Little Sister Somehow Got Caught Up In The Mess,... 
// Story: Yeah, It Needed More Ponies 
// by Shadowflame 
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	Liz sat on the edge of Angela's bed, while the blonde witch and Ben stood looking down at her. The three of them were currently in Angela's room, just outside the main part of the basement, where the strange glowing circle had been.

Right now, Angela and Ben were in the middle of explaining what the heck was going on to Liz.

Liz frowned at Angela, "So... You're a witch?"

Angela smiled nonchalantly, "Technically, yes. But I'm not public about it."

Liz glanced towards Ben, "Are you a witch, too? Er... whatever a male witch is called...?"

Ben sighed, "No, I'm-"

"He's my assistant!" Angela butted in with her wide grin. Before Ben could protest, she began to gently pat him on the head, "Poor guy comes looking to help me in witchery, so I decided to make him my apprentice."

An awkward silence passed through the room as Ben just gave a confused stare to the girl who was still patting his head. "Okaaaay..." Ben shook his head incredulously, "Putting that aside for later discussion, yes, Liz, we both have dabbled in supernatural forces on our own free will."

"So, both of you can use magic?" Liz asked.

"Yup." Angela nodded, "To an extent at least. I mean, neither of us can make something burst into flames with a single thought, cause that's really kind of impossible as far as I know."

"We rely on tools like runes and rituals to use magic," Ben added, "but even then, we can't use it that often."

Liz frowned, to herself mostly, "Magic... it really exists?" She shook her head in wonder, "Seems sort of... I don't know, unreal."

"And a glowing circle of chalk seems real enough?" Angela asked, causing Liz to freeze.

"Speaking of which, what was that?" Liz asked, "Why was it glowing?"

"That was a full-body transformation circle." Ben replied, "When used, the ritual can slowly transform any target into a desired creature. The spell itself is supposed to be long range, and given the size of the circle, we could use it on just about anyone in town if they're in range."

Angela promptly added, "Of course, we can't use it all of the time. Like anything, an action requires energy to complete. The same is true for magic, and the energy we use is called 'chi', or inner magical energy." She giggled to herself, "But I personally like to call it pink soda!"

Liz just stared at her in confusion.

"That's because my chi is colored pink." Angela explained, "Whenever somebody uses their chi, you can see what color theirs is. It's different for everypony."

Still wondering whether or not Angela was truly insane, Liz nodded, "Right, but why was the circle glowing? You never answered me about that."

Ben answered for her, "The circle normally glows like that when it's being used. It only lasts for about two minutes tops, right when the transformation process of the target begins."

Angela's smile disappeared as she joined in, "But... the circle out there has been glowing all day, ever since Ben and I used it early this morning. We had no idea why it was still glowing when we got back from school, and up until we found you, we were trying to figure out why it was still glowing." She shrugged, "But since it's stopped now, I guess we don't have to worry about it right now."

...

"Wait..." LIz's eyes widened, "You said that circle could turn anyone into anything, right?" Both Angela and Ben nodded. "And you said Emily was turned into a pony..." She gasped, "You turned my sister into a pony with that?!"

Angela smiled proudly, as if she had won the Nobel Prize, "Yup. I designed the pony transformation myself, but Ben helped me design that particular circle."

"You do realize that almost every single brony on the planet would die for something like this, right?" Liz asked.

Angela shrugged, "Yes. But, oh well. It's their loss for not knowing a friend like me."

Liz paused, "... So how do you use it?"

Angela proceeded to dive into full geek mode, "Well, once you've drawn the precise circle, after modifying all of its working attributes, you need an activator to pour their chi into the circle. Almost every time I use a circle ritual, I'm the activator. Although the activator is feeding their chi to the spell, they get to choose who it's used on. All they have to do is have the targeted person in their mind in order to transform them."

Angela hesitated slightly, "Of course, the original design for the transformation circle was limited to only being able to transform one person, and even then it'd cost me almost all of my chi with each use. I'd have to wait a full 24 hours before I had enough chi to use the transformation circle again. But..." Angela trailed off, as if the right words weren't coming easily to her.

"But what?" Liz asked.

Angela visibly cringed, "Well, the plan for Emily and Lyle, her date tonight, was that they'd both transform into ponies, so they could enjoy their night even more. But I couldn't quite do that when the original design of the circle was limited to one transformation. So, Ben and I modified the circle by adding a whole other circle into the ritual design, so it'd double the number of targets."

"What happened?"

Angela sighed, "Well, it worked, but not quite in the way we were expecting it to. We doubled the circle to double the number of targets, but a lot of things started doubling as well. The transformation speed was doubled, the amount of chi needed doubled-..." She shook her head, "Heck, it required all of both mine and Ben's chi to change Emily and Lyle."

Liz froze as a thought came to her mind, "And you did that... by just touching the circle?"

"And by thinking of somebody as well, but yes." Angela replied.

Liz bit her lip in uncertainty, "I... I think I might be in trouble then."

"Why's that?"

"Well... The circle stopped glowing after I touched it." Liz proceeded to tell Angela and Ben about what happened with the transformation circle, without missing a single detail. She told them about everything, from the sudden white flash of light, up until the point where the light faded.

"If the circle stops glowing after it's used..." Liz wondered, "Then wouldn't that mean I had used it? And the last thought I had was, 'Why am I doing this?', so wouldn't that constitute as me thinking of myself? Wouldn't that have made me the target?"

Angela frowned a bit, folding her arms across her chest as she thought, "Hm... we weren't sure what was going on with the circle, though..."

Liz felt her expression droop, "So, you're not sure?"

Angela shook her head, "No, not right now I'm not. But there's one way to find out. Hold on a sec."

Angela walked over to her closet, flung it open, and began rummaging through a corner of it. After a few moments, Angela withdrew from the closet, smiling as she now held a pair of bright pink, fake-lens glasses, with oversized lenses that each were about half the size of Angela's head. The glasses looked like a cheap prize you could win at a carnival game, as a low tier prize.

Liz frowned, as did Ben, "What are those?"

Angela smiled innocently, "Well, they used to be toy glasses I got a few years ago. But once I needed something to help me actually see chi in motion, I figured they could be put to use."

Ben blinked in surprise at the giant pair of glasses in Angela's hands, "You can see chi with those?"

Angela nodded, "Yup. I enchanted them to help me in witchery when I was testing out circle magic, to see if my magic was actually working or not." She turned towards Liz, "The ritual you supposedly set off works by surrounding the target in your chi, and the energy will slowly change their body. If I use these glasses, assuming you cast the spell on yourself, then I should be able to see your chi surrounding you."

Angela then proceeded to push the glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, before giving another glance towards Liz through the pink-tinted lenses. Immediately as she did, Angela's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and her jaw went slack.

Angela gasped as her gaze drifted across the room, but mostly upwards, as if she were seeing a swarm of flies buzzing around her room.

"What? What is it?" Liz asked worriedly.

Angela didn't respond, as she continued to stare into open space. But Ben at least knew that she was seeing something much different through those glasses.

Angela breathed somewhat in awe, "But... that doesn't make any sense..."

Ben put a hand on her shoulder to bring her back to reality, "What is it, Angela?"

Angela bit her lip as she glanced back at him, "Well, I saw a bunch of white chi around Liz, probably her own magic energy, which confirms her theory about using the spell on herself... but..."

"But what?"

Angela grimaced a bit, "But I can see that same chi surrounding me as well."

Ben's eyes widened in astonishment, "What... But that's impossible! How did she use the spell on both you and her? It took both of us to transform two people, and we were practically drained afterwards. But she managed to do two at the same time?"

Angela paused, taking a moment to take off her glasses, before glancing back at Liz, who wore a worried grimace, "What's going on, Angela?"

"Well..." Angela meekly chuckled, "It turns out that both you and me will be full ponies in a few hours."

Liz frowned, "Both of us? But... how... did I do that?"

Ben frowned in thought, "I gotta admit, I'm not sure how that works either... unless-"

"Unless Liz actually has twice as much chi in her than the average human." Angela finished.

"I- what?" Liz asked

Slowly, Angela felt the corners of her mouth perk up into a grin. It didn't take a genius to know why she was smiling right then. First of all, she'd found someone who had more potency than herself in witchery, who could definitely help her in her experiments in magic.

And second of all, she was slowly turning into a pony again! Who wouldn't love that? And better yet, she now had Liz along for the ride.

Angela giggled as she returned to her perky self again, before walking up to Liz and throwing an arm around the younger girl's shoulder, "Come on, Liz! We've got about three hours to figure out what's wrong with that circle out there, before you have to learn how to get used to your hooves!"

Liz yelped as she found herself dragged off, mostly carried off, of Angela's bed and out of the room, "Wait! What?! What about Emily?!"

Angela only laughed in reply, "Don't worry! She'll be back at your house later tonight after the transformation wears off! Now, let's do some witchery science!"

Ben facepalmed as he tailed the two girls out of the room, sighing, "Angela is going to have way too much fun with this."