Tales from Mystika: A My Little Mages Book

by Yondy


Chapter 1: Twilight's Task

Tales from Mystika

Chapter 1

Twilight's Task

THUD

Twilight jerked awake at the sudden thump against her door. Either a giant had stubbed its toe on her house or some projectile had come to an abrupt halt against it. Twilight rubbed the bags under her purple eyes. She pushed her tangled purple and blue streaked hair out of them while she was at it, nicking her index finger on the amethyst gemstone in the middle of her forehead. The stone had been there as long as she could remember, a sign of natural mystical ability. As she gave her fingertip a brief stint in her mouth to keep it from bleeding on her bed sheets, she pushed her other hand through her hair. She winced. As if catching her finger wasn’t enough, her hand kept getting caught in knots. She gritted her teeth as she pushed through the discomfort and the tangles. The question of "why did I do that," entered her brain, to which she answered almost immediately, "you didn’t get a good night's sleep and you aren’t thinking straight, Twi."

At a glance, one wouldn't think that Twilight was hailed as one of the saviors of the realm. While new half-written histories painted her as a graceful young goddess, in reality she was just a small, awkward, twenty-something twig currently trying her best to roll herself out of bed. Well, that was on the agenda, but first she rolled towards the window next to her bed to look down at her front stoop. She peered over the edge onto the concrete step below and saw that the noise's source had been the newspaper. She had no idea why it had arrived so loudly today when it had done so silently since she came to town.

“Maybe the paperboy doesn’t like the new paint job,” she mused to herself.

With the warm sun invading her tired face, Twilight accepted the fact that the day had begun. It was time to get up and get back to work. Rolling to the other side of the bed, Twilight swung her thin legs over the edge in an exaggerated heave and spread her ten toes on the cold floor, each of them retreating for a second from the near icy wood. Once she got all of them down again and took a step forward, her feet adjusted. Taking another step, she nearly tripped over the robe she'd left in a heap the night before. Twilight threw it on, more to avoid hanging it up than to combat the cold. After all, she reflected, the sun was doing just that as it came through her large bedroom window.

The house Twilight lived in was perfect for her, textbook example of a dedicated arcane mage that she was. Bookshelves surrounded the living area six stacks high. They were filled to the brim with books, tomes, and ancient scrolls. With only so much room in her satchel (and her brain, for that matter) for runes and spells, the library provided her with a more than effective arsenal for any occasion.

Take for example the wilderness monster she'd battled in the outskirts of the Everfree Forest last month. Fire, geomancy, and a couple of exploding runes strategically put on trees to slow the creature's onslaught until she baited it into her nullify magic circle. Without its magic bonds keeping it together, the beast collapsed into its constituent weeds, sticks, and moss. Although cleaning up the debris had been a massive undertaking, Twilight had put on a smile and talked up how it would make several month's worth of great compost for everyone’s gardens. This kept complaints about the cleaning to a minimum.

Even with an endless supply of books and tomes, any great arcane mage would be nothing without her staff. Twilight's was a five foot tall wooden rod holding two large crystal stars side by side on top. The rod was made out of an ancient elm tree. Elm was a strong, balanced wood that conjured both offense and defensive energies to compliment both Twilight’s destructive projectiles and her often lifesaving runes of protection. This was exactly the kind of magical flexibility that Twilight needed. The staff was a gift made to replace her old staff of crooked oak tipped with simple, unrefined quartz crystal.

The new staff was sanded and polished to a near perfect sheen that maintained its shape no matter how Twilight or the rest of the world mistreated it. This staff had a quartz crystal on top as well, but this quartz was perfectly refined without the slightest bubble or blemish, allowing it to more effectively enhance Twilight’s healing and defensive runes. It was shaped into a flawlessly symmetrical six-pointed crystal star. On the other side of the quartz star was its identically shaped sister crystal, made entirely of a beautiful rose opal that augmented its mistress's illusions. Pressed against its twin, each of the opal’s points stuck out precisely between two its sister’s. Twilight had named this staff Leda’s Children, or just Leda for short. Astronomy was a hobby of hers and so she thought it was clever and appropriate to name it after the mother of the Gemini twins for the two stars that stood atop it.

Normally, Leda saw plenty of use, but Twilight’s research had put her in a temporary hermit status. Subsequently, Leda was collecting dust with a couple of umbrellas under the coat rack near the door.

As Twilight came down the curved staircase from her second floor bedroom, her shoulders began shivering under her thin wool robe and her even thinner marigold nightgown. The shiver traveled all the way down Twilight’s back and she found herself stopping and shaking in a single violent twitch as the cold of the floor and air took turns raising the bumps on her skin.

The cold jerked her fully awake and she shuffled, hunched over, to the wood stove. “Please don’t tell me I worked all night and forgot to light you…”

She jerked her hand away from the icy touch of the iron that answered her question. “I told you not to tell me...”

Twilight sat uselessly huddled in a ball in front of the stove, not ready to give up on the warmth her chest was giving her legs.

Even though the wood stove was the central source of heat for her house, she had to be very careful of how she positioned it so the carpet wouldn’t catch fire from any escaping embers. If it did, fire would spread to the books and the dry wood walls a matter of minutes, lighting up Twilight's house like a match. Before she moved to Magiville, the house had belonged a druid. This wasn’t unusual; druids were closer to nature and a tree offered the perfect place to commune with nature and keep animal familiars in the branches and roots below. Luckily for Twilight, this druid had been an avid reader and had turned the den into a library. So, when the druid left to expand her teachings in the mountains, Twilight moved right in and felt at home in no time. She always wondered how the druid transported all of her books out of the house, but then again she wondered how the druid didn’t freeze to death in this uninsulated ice box.

With a growl, Twilight called over her shoulder, “Spike?" She sounded much worse than half-asleep. Her voice was so gravelly, it sounded more like she was half-dead.

Spike, her five-year old dragon, was still curled up in his own bed as he heard Twilight calling from the room below. He looked vaguely like a purple iguana the size of a cat. Green spikes stood roughly an inch off of the top of his head, gradually becoming smaller until they disappeared into his tail. Spike was barely awake, and Twilight's call was so quiet that the little dragon decided that he was, in fact, still dreaming.

“Spike?!” Twilight called again.

The second call made Spike realize that he was not dreaming. Still, the basket was really nice and warm and Twilight was up way too early for his liking.

Twilight, in a combination of irritation and desperation not to freeze to death, took to the stairs in doubles. She quickly approached Spike’s basket and snatched the blanket off of him.

“Spike! The wood stove is out!” Twilight barked with the frustration of a mother calling her child to do something yet again.

Spike flew up and out of the basket, eyes half open. He hovered in front of Twilight for a fraction of a second and, as if on auto-pilot, snatched the blanket back from her hand and curled up once again without so much as simple eye contact.

“It’s cold, Twilight...” Spike grumbled. To the untrained ear, he merely uttered a collection of grunts and tiny roars fitting of his stature. Twilight had spent the past five years learning and teaching Spike the Draconian language and she was able to understand him perfectly.

“Yes Spike. That’s why I need you to start the wood stove up again,” Twilight said matter-of-factly.

“But we did that yesterday.” Spike’s speech slurred as he slowly ran out of excuses.

“Spike, I know you’re tired but I can’t work while the house is freezing! You can go right back to bed afterwards,” Twilight bargained.

“But it’s cold downstairs,” Spike absently told his pillow.

Twilight rolled her eyes. This was a bad combination. She was over-worked and exhausted, and Spike wasn’t much better off at this point. As considerate as Twilight usually was, it was cold and she was angry. Twilight picked up the basket, dragon and all, and dropped it over the balcony to the floor below, hearing it land with an even louder THUD than the theoretical giant’s toe. After Twilight’s wide eyes stopped seeing red, the gravity of what she’d done sent her into a state of panic. Horrified, Twilight scurried back down the stairs, her robe streaming out behind her, and made a beeline to Spike’s basket.

Afraid that she’d hurt Spike in the careless toss, she was both relieved and almost annoyed that not only was he uninjured, he was still asleep, hovering an inch above the basket. Twilight puffed out a small sigh and shook her head.

“Dragons do sleep in the air sometimes.” Twilight mused as she picked up Spike, blanket and all and opened the door to the stove. It still had the coals and untouched wood from the night before.

Twilight held Spike up to the open door. “Go ahead, Spike. Just a little puff should do it.”

Spike didn't respond, not even after Twilight shook him after a moment of inactivity. His head flopped back and forth and then finally down again, still asleep. Then, inspiration struck, Twilight's mind as desperate to avoid freezing as the rest of her. Draping Spike over one arm, Twilight pinched some of the ash from underneath the wood and sprinkled it onto his nose. The resulting sneeze was accompanied by a brilliant swirling emerald fire that engulfed the inside of the iron structure. The subsequent force knocked Twilight straight to the ground. As she sat up, the flaming whirlwind took the stove by storm, sending wood, coals, and paper up the shuddering chimney and shaking the whole house. When it reached the chimney cap, Spike’s flaming tempest erupted in a cloud of green fiery brilliance, raining down its emerald embers onto the roof. To anyone passing by, it looked like Twilight had been trying to burn the house down from the inside out. With the recent troubles, she might have even been questioned.

Spike shook his face like a dog does when you blow on its nose. Wriggling out of Twilight’s arm and his blanket, the fire lizard fell on his back, rolled onto all fours, and roared at Twilight. He roared as loud as a baby dragon could, a giant hellcat voice trying to coming out of a tiny purple iguana. To anyone else in the room it’d just be noise. Tiny, adorable, demonic noise.

To Twilight, it was “WHAT THE HECK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!” She couldn’t help but stifle a giggle. This was her sweet revenge.

“I’m sorry Spike, but it was the only way to get started today. My joints can barely move in this cold.” Twilight said as warmly as the heat emanating from the newly lit furnace.

“I was gonna be just fine without it!” Spike growled as he sauntered away.

Twilight closed her robe and tied the sash up in a bow. “Too bad dragons are coldblooded, Spike. You would have frozen with the rest and the best of us,” she said walking to the door.

“You’ve gotta stop learning things about me before I do.” Spike groused as he crawled away into the kitchen, scaling the pantry to get at the quartz crystals Twilight kept for him in a jar.

Twilight, as a pure academic, felt it was her duty when Spike hatched to learn as much as she could about dragons so she’d know how to deal with him as he matured. She also felt it important that Spike be taught his own language so when he finally did interact with his own kind, he’d be able to communicate. For the first year, this was torture on Twilight’s voice. Draconian consists of growls, snarls and a wide range of tonalities. "I’m hungry" is one upward inflection away from "I’m hungry and I want to eat you."

Not only was Twilight learning the language herself, she had to teach Spike as well. Being in the royal city of Chantalot, she was fortunate to have the best private tutors in Mystika. She used this opportunity to enroll Spike in a Draconian grammar class which she sat in. It turned into a very nice bonding exercise for the two of them. Even though Spike mainly used pointing and grunting in order to get what he wanted, mostly food, their tutor said something along the lines of, “He knows how to talk. Don’t feed him until he does.”

Spike was all but reciting poetry by dinner time.

It still didn’t reduce his love of gem shards, which though unhealthy were his absolute favorite snack. Spike dipped his claw into the jar, and Twilight heard his talon scrape the inside all the way from the front door.

“Spike. No sweets for breakfast.” Twilight called over her shoulder. “Wait a bit. I’ll put on the oatmeal.” She finally opened the door to meet her thunderous alarm clock face to face. The latest edition of the Mystika Daily stared her in the face from the stoop and as Twilight bent to pick it up, the front page headline stopped her hand in mid-reach.

“Silent Intruders Strike Again.”

Twilight’s heart sank. There hadn’t been another attack in weeks and even though she knew it was only a matter of time, having it inked in front of her drove the tragedy straight home. She brought the paper over to her desk and put it next to the rest of the recent clippings she’d been deciphering. The kettle that Spike had put on was whistling on the newly warm wood-stove and Twilight went to retrieve it to make her morning tea.

As Twilight got her tea, Spike slowly munched on the forbidden quartz. He did it extra slow, thinking that maybe in some way, the slower he chewed it, the less likely she was to notice. Twilight glared at him. Through a gem crusted smile, Spike gave a little shrug. “I made you tea?” he said innocently.

Twilight rolled her eyes and smiled, respecting Spike’s strategy. She poured the hot water into her mug, complete with dried herbs in a small metal ball which evenly distributed the flavor over time. Now that the house was warmer and she had a cup of sweet smelling herbs, Twilight was as comfortable as she could be to continue her work. And in order to handle the weight of it, she needed to be as centered as humanly possible.

There had been a recent surge of seemingly random crimes in the outskirts of the cities in Mystika. Normally this would warrant investigations by local authorities, but the crimes were so widespread across so many districts that they couldn’t keep up. Some people called it a curse, some called it a phase, Twilight called it inevitable.

It had been a whirlwind of endless adventure three years ago. Before the second peace, as people have grown to call it after the Nightwatcher was rescued from her demonic possession. Though evil was quelled, Twilight knew it wouldn't last. Logically speaking, on a long enough timeline there was only so much that could be done to keep evil out. Eventually, it would break through efforts to contain it and would need to be pushed back again. A tutor’s words echoed in her mind: "Evil doesn’t sleep. It waits."

Sipping on her tea, Twilight put on her glasses and pulled her long hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her face as she examined the articles from past editions of the paper with precision and scrutiny. The natural pink streak in her hair shone in light from the windows. After poring over the articles with similar themes of silent invaders and murders, Twilight turned to the wall in front of her which held a map of her world. Mystika. On it was marked Magiville, her home village, as well as Chantalot, the royal capital. Far to the west was Cumula, City in the Clouds, home of the flying skyborn. Her elbows on the desk, cradling her mug with both hands, she once again looked over the areas around Chantalot, Magiville, and even under Cumula that were covered in pins. These pins were how Twilight marked “incidents.”

The key criterion for documenting a reported crime as an incident was the sighting of a dark group of identical figures with choreographed movements who then disappeared in shadow. Twilight would put a pin in the map to mark the area, date the incident, and color the pin based on the nature of the crime. Green for burglary, yellow for kidnapping, red for murder, orange for other.

There weren’t many yellow tacks on the walls. Most, if not all of them were replaced by the red tacks when the bodies of the missing were found.

When Twilight tried to think about all the individual victims, her heart exploded for every loss, every missing person, every mutilated body. The colors helped her stay detached. The system also kept her sane. The Archmage Celestia had said “My most faithful student, your mind has saved our land from its end as you see the things that most of us don’t. Will you do this?"

What do you say to that? When the Princess who has been alive for thousands of years, when someone with that much experience and absolute power delegates that to you? Twilight’s mouth had hung open looking for a way to say no, but she had said to herself, "She wouldn’t ask this of me if I couldn’t." So she'd accepted, and the only way to handle it was to compartmentalize the attacks. She had to stop the fear, stop the murders, stop the rapes. That was more than enough to motivate Twilight to take a swig of her hot tea and get back to her clippings.

The only issue was that this was almost a year’s worth of attacks now. The first couple months they'd been constant but localized, then came a lull. Then another surge of activity, this time all over the map. Whoever they were, and it was always the same shadows, they'd gotten braver. By now, the map was becoming be a cluster of dots. However, there were patterns.

The shadows stayed away from major cities. They moved and attacked in a group. No reports of any single units.

The witnesses said they’d come in without a sound, too dark to see but with the gleam of some sort of gem in their shadowy sternums. They then disappeared when they got what they came for, or who.

Twilight looked at the map again and shut her eyes to it. This assignment was taking too long. She felt like she was back in grade school with busy work. Instead of "Do these forty problems" or "Write ten pages theorizing how the Skyborn were made," it was "Find these killers" and "What do they want?!"

Twilight involuntarily threw her hands up in frustration and knocked some papers to the ground. She then put her head in her hands. The stress of the constant emotional bombardment was really starting to get to her. "I need to go for a run or something," she said to herself, but she knew she wouldn’t.

Spike picked up the clippings and crawled up Twilight’s dark tanned leg, gripping onto her nightgown to get his leverage and then hopped across her back onto his usual perch on her right shoulder. He threw the clippings over her shoulder and back onto the desk. “Or at least a bath,” he added, flecks of quartz on the side of his mouth. “Dropped something.”

Twilight, still wracked with the responsibility, managed to huff with contentment. He might be lazy sometimes, but Spike always made her feel better. “Why are you still here?” she joked.

Spike answered her rhetorical question. “Cuz you hatched me and I’m not cute enough to make any other dignitary want to feed me every day.”

Twilight rubbed her cheek against Spike’s. He let her. He knew that this is what the mage needed when she had bad days. And this day was just starting. He dropped down and walked back to check on the stove, knowing she’d need more later. Warming himself by the fire, Spike propped up on his hind legs and admired his work. “I do pretty good work.”

Twilight plopped back down into her chair. “I haven’t frozen yet, so you must have done something right.”

Spike turned around and walked towards her. “And why are you doing this again?” he asked.

“Because I was asked to,” Twilight said, multitasking through the snippets.

“And you know that people go to schools for years and years to be detectives for this kind of thing.” said Spike reassuringly.

Twilight continued with her work and sighed. “I know, I know. But the Archmage said it was something far more sinister than a crime spree and I believe her. Plus the locals don’t need to be bothered. They might start a panic.”

Spike took the kettle off the stove. “That’s all she told you,” he said in disbelief as he took the kettle in his mouth and bounded it back to the kitchen counter.

Twilight pushed the chair out from behind her and looked again at the map. “That’s all she said they knew,” she justified, more for herself than anything.

Spike leaned up against the far wall. “That’s all fine and good, but you know she knows more.”

Twilight's shoulders sank. “The thought crossed my mind, but why would she do that?” she asked, still wanting to trust the royal order.

“People have been talking about the Shadow Blades again.” Spike said matter-of-factly.

Twilight paused. The facts she already knew sounded more real coming from Spike. “I’ve heard. But I don’t want to say anything about the Shadow Blades until I’m absolutely sure. No sense in causing panic.” Twilight put another red pin in the map, right outside of the village.

“The people are almost there already," noted the dragon. You wouldn’t have to push them that hard."

“People are very sensible, Spike. We just need to gather all the data and present them with our best theory.” said Twilight with false confidence.

“And what happens if that theory ends up being the personal evildoers of our fearless Nightwatcher?” Spike asked in seriousness.

Princess Luna was redeemed and cleansed of the dark teachings she had used to gain the terrible powers she'd wielded millennia ago. Since then she’d ruled by her sister’s side as if nothing had ever happened. If the entire country heard that it was the younger Princess’s old personal enforcers looting their houses and murdering their families, the question of her treachery wouldn’t just be a spark of irritating possibility, it’d be a powder keg.

If ever there was reason for a cover up, Twilight couldn’t think of a better one. She had to be absolutely sure.

“But on the other hand, it could just be monsters coming out of the lake again.” Spike theorized. This made Twilight giggle. When Spike was a year old, he chased a couple of ducklings into the water only to be chased back by a huge mallard. Every time he told the story, the duck got bigger and bigger.

“Very funny, Spike.” Twilight went back to her work, thinking out loud. “Territorial? Can’t be. Too widespread. No holding points,” with only Spike and her in the house for the past few weeks, sometimes talking to herself was the only way to have an intelligent conversation.

“No, seriously, this is the first time you actually told me what those pins are for. Until now, I thought you were just putting dots around the lake.” Spike said absently.

Twilight looked at the area surrounding the lake and saw smatterings of tacks, staying away from the major cities on the other side, but no rhyme or reason in the colors or dates. “Spike, I appreciate your help, but there’s no circle around the lake.”

Spike took Twilight’s hand and led her out of her chair. Twlight humored Spike’s little game until he jumped up onto her shoulder, moved her head to see the map and took off her glasses. “I meant all the big ones.” Spike said, finally making Twilight see his point.

With her vision blurred and standing this far back, the separate pins all blurred together to form large circles. Twilight’s mouth dropped open as she raced to her writing desk for a quill. Quickly picking up the quill, she started digging through the drawers for an inkwell all the while mumbling to herself. “Stupid…stupid…stupid…”

She rescued an inkwell from the bottom of the desk and ran back over to the map on the wall. Being relatively short, Twilight had gotten used to standing on certain bits of furniture to get things accomplished, so it wasn’t odd for Spike to see her climb up onto the table and start drawing on the map. She had been looking at the incidents separately, or worrying if they were getting too close. She ignored the clusters. Spike was right, they were around the lake.

Twilight began to circle the clusters, periodically hopping down from the desk to lug one of her eight satchels of clippings back up on the desk. She had one for each month of attacks.

“Early March, five attacks in the Peren region.” Twilight circled the cluster, talking to herself.

“Mid-March, six attacks surrounding the Krell Temple.” Twilight outlined a second cluster, nudging and making a jagged line around the pins in the way.

It was as if they had set up camp, moved against their target and then disappeared. Rinse and repeat every month. Spike was right. They were near the lake and moving further out every month. But how were they happening so far apart? Twilight went back to the clippings and almost banged her head against the wall when she saw that there were many attacks that weren’t consistent with the dates on the actual papers. The attacks were back-dated which meant some of the attacks happened on the same night, simultaneously.

“Stupid…stupid…stupid!” Twilight had grouped them by crime, by village, by date and had come up with nothing. It wasn't until she stepped back from her drawing and saw the radius and the precision of multiple units acting as one.

Twilight ran past Spike and up the stairs so fast Spike spun around and nearly collapsed. She went into her closet and threw her clothes on her bed. “Spike, stay out of my room. I’m changing.” Twilight called over her shoulder.

“What’s the occasion?” Spike growled from down below. It would be the first time in days she’d actually gotten dressed to go out. It was a good thing too. Twilight was running out of clean nightgowns.

She slipped her nightgown off and let it fall to the floor, putting her arms in her tan under-clothes sleeves and with one swift motion, slid it on. “We’re going to Chantalot. I need to tell the Archmage that we’re dealing with an organized army constructed of multiple units and I need to know what’s going on in or around the lake.” Twilight threw herself on her back to get her pants on both legs at a time and then bounded up from her bed, landing feet first on the floor. Twilight then proceeded to hop up and down to tuck in the undershirt while Spike made his way on top of the counter to help himself to more gem shards.

Twilight threw on her royal blue overcoat. The dazzling gold trim down the sides was made out of actual gold from the Chantalot mines. Beautiful as the cloak was and even though she’d had it for a year or so, Twilight could still not for the life of her get it clasped. She fiddled with the clasp around her waist for the belt behind. Twilight cursed as she caught the same finger she’d caught on her gem in the morning on the hooks of it. She shouted down to Spike.

He crawled up the wall and flipped himself over the edge to the top floor above “The clasp again?” He smiled.

“Please?” Twilight asked as she held the coat together wincing.

“I should just lump this in with the rest of my chores.” Spike joked as he climbed up her back again and hung upside down from Twilight’s shoulder to get a good enough grip on the clasp. The overcoat Twilight wore was a gift from the Princesses for her assistance in the Second Nightmare Conflict. It was tailor-made to fit her, which was nice because for Twilight standard shirts and jackets were either too big around the shoulders or too short on the sleeves. Twilight grimaced as Spike clasped it.

“My body’s so weird.” Twilight sighed, Spike blinked at her and rolled his eyes as he dropped down.

“If you say so. We we're going all the way up to the palace to tell the Princess’ to go to war with these bandits?” Spike asked.

Twilight slipped her boots on and tried to sum up what she had figured out. “It’s not just a group of bandits, Spike. It’s an army. They’re fast, they’re good, and they’re on a mission.”

“So it is Shadow Blades.” confirmed Spike.

Twilight knocked the toe of her boot to snug it down. She winced as her toenail hit the metal toe of the boot and realized that in her excitement, she forgot to put on socks. Twilight paced around the room talking to herself again. “It’s looking more and more like it. I originally assumed these bandits had camps in the woods or were coming out of the city at night. The incidents were moving towards the city but the point of origin…So blind... How could I be so…”

“If you say stupid one more time, I’m going to sing.” Spike threatened. Twilight stopped and chuckled, relaxing a bit.

Spike singing was like if you took a whale song, distorted it, and operated at a pitch so high your eardrums felt like they were about to burst. As Twilight put her hand out, Spike crawled up her arm to his perch on her right shoulder.

“Don’t forget to stop by the jeweler’s in Chantalot. They said they’d have a Tart Ruby for me next time we showed up.” Spike reminded Twilight, almost sounding giddy.

“I remember. I had to translate. Just let me get my staff.”

Fully dressed, Twilight went to the coat rack to finally give Leda some exercise and put on the crème de la crème of her arsenal. It was a magic amplifier in the form of a golden circlet, with a six inch cone made of a fine amethyst, polished to a point. This amplified Twilight’s natural raw power, her birthright as a Magicborn. Fitting directly over the gem in the middle of her forehead, it seemed to make a CLICK as it bonded with the jewel.

“Twi?" piped Spike. "Aren’t you gonna warm up before you go? Don’t wanna run into anything nasty on the way to Chantalot completely cold. You haven’t used any heavy magic in weeks.”

Spike was right. Twilight had only done minor exercises to keep her loose, but nothing major. Usually the backyard was littered with protective circles, scraps of pages with runes and incantations scribbled about them, and various scorch marks, frost burns, and lightning char on rocks, trees and patches of the grass. Twilight actually had to hire a druid to come by and raise some trees after she got a little trigger happy with a new libram of fire spells. The druid performed her work, but gave Twilight the "trees are people too" lecture with an undertone of "if you mess with my babies again, I’ll sink your house into the swamp it was built on."

There was sadly no time for a morning workout, so Twilight ran downstairs to her map and summoned it off of the wall by pointing Leda at it, enveloping it in a purple glow. It wasn't much of a mystical stretching, but it would have to do.

The map pulled itself off of the four tacks holding into place one by one and gently, neatly folded itself into eighths, keeping all of Twilight’s incident tacks in place. To further her exercise, Twilight’s unicorn circlet began to glow and moved her satchel towards the map, parking the bag underneath it. The satchel opened itself, the map obediently slipped itself inside and the satchel clipped shut. Twilight summoned the suede bag toward her, but as it traveled through the air it knocked over the new Mystika Daily and the paper spread itself out on the ground. Twilight ignored the mess, but as she moved towards the door to make her way to the capital, her hand stopped on the knob. She went back to the paper’s front page to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her.

Twilight was halfway there to double check the picture below the headline when her heart stopped. She hadn’t even opened the paper until now, mainly because there were already so many victims. Twilight had to start seeing them as numbers in order to handle the mental stress. They’d all been strangers up to this point, but sure enough there was a picture of a poor girl on the front page who witnessed the whole ordeal the night before. Twilight recognized this girl. She was no older than ten or eleven years old wrapped in a blanket looking at a reporter in shock. The caption below the picture flipped Twilight’s stomach upside-down.

“Murder in the orchard. Youngest Apple sister tells all.”