The Next Generation: Superheroes Continued

by Accordant Author


The Story Spell

The Story Spell

The light was annoying.

Illusion groaned. He loved his mother dearly, but he sometimes wished she was less insistent about waking up bright and early. The light kept scratching at his eyelids, however, and soon there was nothing for it. Illusion opened his eyes and rose to his feet, resigned, if not eager, to greeting the new day.

Whereupon he promptly decided he actually really was eager to greet the new day, as it would surely have been better than this.  

It was immediately apparent that Illusion was not in his bedroom, or in the guest bedroom of the Boutique, or in any other place he typically woke up. The place he was in, truthfully, could have been described as exceedingly atypical,  as far as waking spots went.

There was nothing around Illusion except white. A featureless plane, illuminated by a directionless but omnipresent light source, surrounded him, totally devoid of variation. A quick glance towards the sky and the ground confirmed that both where similarly blank.

Illusion had only to realize this before he also realized that he wasn’t actually standing on anything, at least not exactly. He couldn’t feel anything under his paws and hooves, but they acted as if they were resting on a solid surface. As if in response to his thought, that invisibly surface-force vanished. Illusion didn’t fall, but his hooves moved through the formerly solid “floor” effortlessly, leaving him floating without reference in the blank expanse.

Fortuitously, Illusion was used to dealing with odd circumstances. It was inevitable, really considering who his parents were. So, rather than freaking out, Illusion put his paws back onto the “ground”, which reappeared the moment he stopped actively thinking about it, and started trying to remember if this scenario was, in fact, his own fault.

After that it wasn’t long before his impromptu enchanting lesson came rushing back. Right. Not my fault, then. Though I probably should have guessed that’d be coming. But now… Illusion looked around for Discord.

It took him longer than gathering his thoughts. Illusion had no idea where to even start searching, until he saw the formerly white landscape being marred by large splotches of color, forming around a narrow, line-like figure far in the distance.

Illusion started to walk towards the disturbance. When that proved too slow, he switched to flying, his large, fluffy wings erupting from his shoulders.


It still took about five minutes to get to Discord. The Master of Chaos was surrounded by a patchwork of crude chalk drawings, imitations of what he had described as his “usual fair”. Pink chalk cotton candy clouds, brown chalk buffalo, and black chalk fish encompassed him, moving in a poor facsimile of their abnormal style.

Discord himself stood in their center, mercifully still real. He was drawing with some aggression, chalk in each limb, including his tale and both legs. Unlike Illusion, he was not even attempting to maintain the appearance of gravity, and was floating perpendicular to Illusion’s “ground.” He was also scribbling furiously, more horrible chalk drawings taking shape every second. His face was a rictus of concentration and what Illusion thought might have been slight panic.

Illusion moved slightly closer, then cleared his throat. “Uh, Father? Is everything.. okay?”

“Oh, Illusion, hi!” Discord exclaimed in a frazzled voice. “Don’t worry, everything’s going according to plan! If I had a plan, this would definitely be following it! Just wanted to, you know, spruce up this place a little. Sorry for not finding you, but I didn’t think it would be so uniform here.” Discord shuddered.

Illusion relaxed; this was, for Discord, a fairly hopeful sign he that knew what he was doing. But it still raised some questions.

“Dad?” Illusion asked, more strongly now.

“Hmm?” Discord replied, his drawing continuing at Rainbow-Dashesque speeds.

“We’re in the scene you drew on the blackboard, right?”

“Yes. This is why you want a base with a decent story. A pocket dimension without anything written into it is just, just… clean.”

“Okay. Then, why can’t you just make everything chaotic by snapping your fingers?” Illusion liked being able to snap his fingers– Discord had taught him how to do it after his first really big pranking spree. Illusion felt it added a truly chaotic flair to his bigger illusions.

“Hmm? Oh, you can’t change an enchanted story from the inside. Or, well, you could, but then you’d break it and probably make it spit everypony out. What you can do is write ways to change things into the story itself. Your girlfriend’s little cousin might call them “cheat codes”. Spike would probably call them “superpowers”. Here.” Discord threw a piece of chalk at Illusion, then drew another from… somewhere and carried on drawing.

Illusion looked down at chalk stick. It was a light purple that reminded him of Claire’s fur. He looked up at Discord again, shrugged, and raised his hand. Moving deftly, Illusion started to sketch, years of experience with chaos magic allowing him to ignore how one should not be able to draw in three dimensions or against what was more or less thin air.

Before long, Illusion had made a crude image of a bird, which, as its limbs took form, started moving about on its own, opening its beak and flapping its wings. It made it difficult to continue drawing, but Illusion managed, and before long the bird took off, joining what was now essentially a river of creations pouring from Discord’s blurring limbs.

Illusion looked around at what his father had drawn. In addition to his more traditional designs, there were also upside-down dogs with pianos on their back, various strains of dancing asparagus, a jazz quartet of pink and yellow penguins, and dozens of other whimsical creations, each drawn with crude lines that somehow gave them an aspect of depth.

“So,” Illusion started again as he continued to draw, “you can write stories that give ponies new abilities? Magic?”

“Not magic, but yes. How did you think the Elements of Harmony got their superpowers? Though, some of them lost as much as they gained. Her Friendliness lost most of her magic, Flutters couldn’t chat it up with the woodland critters, even Rarity probably some of her dressmaking spells. And you, of course, can’t make any illusions. When you’re in a story, you can only use what the story gives you. And before you ask, no, I can’t really take away their magic. Keep in mind this is actually just a little bubble of space the size of a broom closet, and everything you perceive isn’t really there. That’s how I took the Element’s magic away: made it seem like it wasn’t doing anything when it was used, so there was no reason to use it.” Discord concluded his lecture just as his arms started to become visible again. The formerly white field around Illusion and Discord was now filled to the brim with crude drawings, so many that they hid the endless plane from view.

“Whew. That’s better.” Discord discarded his chalks, now ground down to nubs, then clapped his paw and claw together. “Okay! So, you wanted to know how the grand adventure of the Power Ponies didn’t descend into anarchy and jelly rolls until Spike made his debut?”

“Yeah.That, and how you made the Mane-iac and everypony in the comics talk and think.”

“Excellent! You already have all the answers, so this should be short!” Discord promptly plopped down and smiled benignly.

It took several seconds before Illusion realized he was expected to respond. “I don’t. Have all the answers, I mean. I have no idea how I could make something that thinks for itself.”

“Then you aren’t looking at it right.” Discord flipped upside down to illustrate his point. When Illusion didn’t respond, he rolled his eyes and asked “Fine, riddle me this: what defines thinking?”

“…Being able to use one’s mind to consider or reason logically?” Illusion asked, raising an eyebrow.

Discord frowned at him. “You’ve been hanging out with Her Purpleness, haven’t you?”

Illusion shrugged. “A little?”

Discord sighed. “Well, you aren’t wrong. Okay, new question.” He pointed to a chalk drawing of a dodo with ridiculously large wings, which was steadily rising far above them. “You would agree that that isn’t thinking?”

“Of course not. That’s just something you made, a really elaborate, temporary spell. Or whatever the equivalent of that would be in chalk. It’s just following instructions.”

“Okay. Then how about this.” Chalk abruptly reappeared in Discord’s paw, and with a few deft and physics-defying strokes, he created a rough sketch of a pony.

The pony had a black mane and a red tail, with a white coat that was only visible against the background of Discord’s other innumerable doodles. Its eyes were odd, red with yellow irises… it took Illusion few moments to realize he was staring at a sketch of himself.

As if reacting to his realization, the sketch cocked its head, looking over the original Illusion with consternation and perplexity.

“You’re me.” Illusion facehoofed, then growled with annoyance when his doppelganger did the same.

“You’re not me, you’re made of chalk!” Illusion said. The duplicate only copied the first half of his sentence, and this served to break the symmetry.

“So what?” The chalk Illusion asked. “I can do everything you can do. Look.” Snatching the piece of chalk from Illusion’s paw, the sketch started to draw, creating what Illusion realized was a replica of the bird he himself had made minutes ago. “I’m just as good as you. I’ll be just as good a ruler and a magician. I’ll be just as good a boyfriend to Crys-”

That caused Illusion’s head to snap to his father. “Not funny,” he growled. “That… caricature isn’t thinking, you’re making it do all those things. You’re doing all of its thinking for it, and chaos magic is filling in the blanks.”

Discord smirked. “Can’t. I can’t make chalk creations directly obey me, it wasn’t in the rules for this story. You’re welcome to try if you don’t believe me.”

Illusion didn’t, but rather looked back in confusion at his duplicate. The faux-Illusion was halfway through the bird, and was looking smugly at the real Illusion, as if daring him to try and out-draw a master.

Illusion didn’t like that look; it reminded him of Prism Bolt. He looked back to his father. “If you aren’t controlling him, then who is?”

“Oh come on! Think.” Discord twisted over until he had his lion paw slung around Illusion’s shoulder and his tail slung around Illusion’s other shoulder. “If I’m not doing that ‘caricature’s’ thinking, then, by your logic, who’s the only other pony who could?

Illusion looked at the clone, then looked at his father. “Are you saying that I’m making him do that?” The chalk Illusion and the real Illusion looked equally affronted by the notion.

“Well, not deliberately.” Discord levered himself off of Illusion’s back and paced forward. “That Illusion is just acting like what you would expect yourself to act like.”

“What? I don’t act like a jerk!” Discord snickered into his claw, then took out another chalk stick. Within seconds, Illusion and his father were encased in a train car, which trundled away from the Illusion sketch with some speed. When Illusion peered out the window, though, he could still easily see his double, bird now complete, moving on to another sketch of what looked to be a large pony.

“Well of course not.” At Discord’s voice, Illusion turned and brought his head out of the window. When he looked at the interior of the car, he realized it was clearly intended to be a replica of the Ponyville Express. “It’s just, faced with another you, that Illusion reacted like how you would react. Or how you thought you would react, which is fairly accurate considering that you’re yourself.” Discord had resumed his lecturing tone.

Illusion’s expression turned thoughtful again. “So… the Mane-iac, and the henchponies, they weren’t, really, sentient, or intelligent? They were just doing what Spike and the Elements thought they were going to do?”

“Well, they had to follow the story. With this setting–” Discord gestured around himself “–there isn’t a lot of story to build from, but with a comic book, there were rules about how the Mane-iac would act, what kind of plan she would concoct, the sort of witty banter she would try. The story you use doesn’t just tell you what you can and can’t do in your dimension, it also pretty much is the dimension. The settings, the characters, the Heroic Monomyth and all that. Spike and his pals, though, they filled in the small stuff, the second-by second, meshing their beliefs about what a supervillain would say or do with what the base said the Mane-iac could say or do.”

“Wait,” Illusion said, raising a paw. “That makes even less sense. Spike and his friends were– why did it start? If Spike and the Elements were making everything happen, how did you get this bubble or world or dimension to not fall apart when they weren’t in it? Would it just be an ordinary comic book?”

Discord grinned. “Yup. Pretty much.”

Illusion blinked. He was reeling; even for Discord, this was a lot of information that didn’t quite fit together.

After some thought, Illusion spoke up again. “Okay. So this place–” He gestured around himself “–is being created, essentially, by me–”

“You and I. I’m here too, remember.”

“By both of us,” Illusion corrected, “and also by a base, which here is very simple, and in something like a comic book is very complicated. The base defines all the rules, and we define everything in between the rules. Um. We aren’t really here, we’re just in a little fold of space where we’re seeing all of this, and… Okay. Wait. How does it work when multiple people are in the same story? Wouldn’t their beliefs, I don’t know, cancel each other out? Make things not act consistently?”

“No, apparently not, given that Spike and the Elements got through it no problem. I have no idea why, of course, though Her Sparkliness would probably go on about the Magic of Friendship. I intended for only Spike to get into that comic, for exactly those reasons, but apparently they weren’t worthwhile worries. Ah, this is our stop.”

The train ground to a halt, making a remarkably accurate screech. The door opened, and Discord stepped out. Not entirely sure what to expect, Illusion followed him.

They were surrounded, once again, by white. Illusion was about to ask what they were looking for, when he noticed it, lying a few yards away: a chalk drawing of a comic.

Discord walked over, twitching a little as he took in the blank world, and picked the book up, riffling through it. Without turning, he asked “So, how are you feeling? Confused, but on the brink of understanding? Bewildered, but one puzzle piece away from the solution?”

“Erm, sure. Let’s go with that.”

“Great! The last puzzle piece is this.” Discord flipped over the chalk comic, holding it open over the ground. Out spilled a wave of watercolor, a nonsensical rainbow mix that pooled at Discord’s feet before spreading out, running forward as if a wall had been raised inches in front of Discord’s toes.

“Everything else was chalk.” Illusion’s tone was perplexed.

Discord’s, by contrast, was loud and bold. “Oh come on, that’s what you notice first?” He rolled his eyes. “That isn’t even the important bit! And I’m the Lord of Chaos, I’ll use paint on a chalkboard if I feel like it!” Shaking his head, he continued in a more patient tone. “Look at the paint. What do you see?”

Illusion did as Discord instructed. The paint was forming images, which Illusion belatedly realized were of the cityscape he had seen way back in Discord’s office. As the blot spread, the riotous colors separated, first forming into distinct blotches, and then into clear shapes. The street and bank came into view, then the skyscrapers that surrounded them. As the backdrop of the city overtook the skyline, the paint resolved itself further, allowing Illusion to make out the individual windows of the bank– and the Power Ponies engaging a trio of unicorns casting elaborate spells, the amulets they wore glowing with energy. Illusion could also make out Spike, clad in a domino mask and cape, fighting alongside the heroes.

Illusion watched as Spike backflipped over a pair of swords conjured by one of the villains.  He was fighting with a brilliance far beyond what Illusion was used to– even the Royal Guards lacked his agility, lacked the speed of his reflexes. Illusion became so focused on Spike that the rest of the city started to blur.

Illusion blinked. It wasn’t just him, the comic actually was blurred; as he looked further away from Spike, the cityscape became increasingly less defined. The fight in front of the bank, even, was flickering: A thin cone of clarity was surrounded by colorful blurs, which occasionally resolved into sharp edges when they got close to Spike. Looking closer, Illusion realized what was happening: Spike’s field of vision was the only thing in focus. Where the drake looked, the city was crystal clear, and within a sphere around him, likely his range of hearing, one could make out blurry shapes that roughly followed the lines of the Power Ponies, their enemies, and a few features of the street, like an overturned cab. Beyond that, there were only the vaguest impressions: the outlines of buildings, the general shape of the night sky.

Illusion looked at Discord, who wore the type of expression that only he could pull off: a paradox, both challenging and fatherly. It was a look Discord only ever gave him, to Illusion’s knowledge: one that said ‘I’ve given you all the pieces, son, now put them together.’

“The spell was only interacting with the ponies inside the bubble.” Illusion tapped his hoof against the floor. “You created your bubble dimension, and it was really small, but it didn’t generate a world, exactly. It was more like… a story. You made the bubble have an illusion of the story inside it, obeying people’s perceptions, because they were in the bubble, but following the storyline, with everypony acting like they should inside a story. That’s why the illusion didn’t wreck itself, when nobody was inside it. Because it wasn’t going to tell a story if it didn’t have a main character to tell the story with.”

Discord grinned. “Precisely.” He indicated to the fight still going on inside the watercolor city. “I enchanted the comic to do what it was already supposed to do, tell its story, only I left a hole in it after I got about halfway. It wasn’t that I cut out dear Humdrum from Spike’s comic, more that I added a Spike-shaped space on top of Hum-drum. Or maybe an anypony shaped space on top of the whole shebang, given that the Friendship Brigade got sucked in too. Oh well. Chaos is flexible. But yes, without somepony in that new space, the ‘story spell’ couldn’t really get on with its storytelling, because it needed all the pieces or the story would fall apart. It relied on the pony in the bubble to play the part of at least one character, so until that space was filled, it was on pause.”

“So all I need is a story, and I need to create a pocket dimension with an enchantment in it to tell the story? Plus an extra space?”

“You make it sound easy!” Discord complained. “Its quality work, but not quite, erm, unorthodox enough for me. I never liked reading. All that linearity and continuity and cause and effect– seriously, I don’t know what Her Nerdiness sees in it. Oh, and incidentally, don’t enchant anything that doesn’t have at least one clear character and an actual narrative. No math textbooks or self-help manuals. I tried to enchant a cookbook once, for Celestia, and it was… bothersome. Interesting, and kind of funny, but… bothersome. Actually, you probably want to just stick to comic books for now. They work best for this, and I’m not sure how long it would take for someone to adventure their way through a Daring Do novel if you included the two sentences that sum up a month of trekking through the jungle.”

“Makes sense. Though that reminds me, how do we get out of here? Did you have a story in mind when you made this chalkboard?”

“Of course! A real bestseller, too. I think I’m going to title it ‘Illusion Learns How to Enchant a Comic.’ Speaking of, have you?”

Illusion blinked. “Well, yeah, you just told me. Except for how to get out, but I guess if this is all just a story, the enchantment should end when we get to the conclusion–” There was a flash of brilliant white, and before Illusion knew it, he had been ripped from his feet and vacuumed into a tear in the world’s fabric, Discord cackling madly as he followed.

...

Coming out of the pocket dimension was easier than going in. Illusion only took a few seconds to realize he was back in Discord’s office, the haddock still lying limply atop the remaining stack of paperwork.

Discord himself had reappeared to Illusion’s left, but he lazily curved through the air to his desk, picking up the haddock and turning it into a small mace.

“So that’s it?” Illusion asked after a few moments. “The story ends–”

“–when the story ends, basically. Fairly intuitive, I should think, given the entire enchantment is really just a top-notch video game. Oh, but I should tell you: conclusions are the most important piece of the story this enchantment works off of. If whoever you send in has no idea what they’re trying to accomplish, they’ll be all the more likely to fall out of the piece prematurely. You ought to leave some clue as to how they can end the story, even if it’s just a cryptic little post-it note.”

“You never told me how to end the story just now,” Illusion said peevishly, looking for the blackboard. It seemed to have disappeared while he had been getting his bearings.

“Nope, because I knew the ending perfectly well, thank you very much.” Discord started macerating another court petition. When Illusion didn’t respond, Discord looked up, then followed his line of sight. “Ah yes,” Discord sighed, standing up and walking over to the spot the blackboard had once occupied. “That’s the big downside of the enchantment. You remember the only rule of chaos magic, son?”

Illusion’s head snapped over. “Yeah. Nothing created by chaos magic is permanent.” This fact was the largest limitation of chaos: everything it created would decay, returning to how it was. It was the reason Discord couldn’t simply end world hunger by snapping his fingers: his transfigurations couldn’t be maintained, and using chaos magic a second time was liable to create something completely different. Illusion’s constructs were ephemeral in a different way, leaving no effect on their surroundings once he let them go.

“Indeed. It’s a pain. And since the Story Spell follows a single, clear narrative, it will collapse once it’s complete and the story is told, taking whatever the story was on in the first place with it. A lesson for you on the downsides of planning, son.”

Illusion nodded. “So that’s it, then? Is there anything else I need to know?”

Discord fixed Illusion with an intense gaze, which only just failed to conceal the glint of mischief in his eyes. “Only what you’re going to do with this great and powerful spell, son. I hope I don’t need to tell you the correct answer?”

He didn’t. Illusion grinned. “Prank as many ponies as I possibly can?”

“That’s my boy! Now get out there!” Discord roared, waving as he feed another petition into a toaster. Illusion leaped through the window and flew down to Canterlot proper. He had some shopping to do.

Powered Comics Fun Fact: There are a myriad of ways the superheroes of Powered Comics can receive their abilities, but a relatively common one is through the Transpony Phenomenon. Transponies, in Powered Comics canon, are ponies whose inner magic has been altered due to exposure to an unusual form of energy, such as ionizing radiation, lasers, alternating currents, or other types of energy only produced on Equestria through artificial means. When ponies are in dire straits, suffering from serious injuries or trauma, their magic will often “panic”, working with greatly enhanced strength to preserve the life of its host. This can allow ponies to perform feats of magic they normally would not be able to. During a transpony trigger, however, this magical reaction is complicated by the addition of one of the forms of energy described above. When a pony’s magic is panicking in the presence of these unfamiliar energies, it might attempt to absorb or use that energy to save the pony’s life. This occurs very rarely, but when it does, it results in a transpony, a pony who possess a magical ability to manipulate some type of energy affecting their own body. Many major Powered Comics characters are transponies, including both heroes, such as Fillisecond and Laserlance, and villains, such as Beatdown and Heatseeker.