It had been a few days since Twilight had been in the human world and she had gotten used to adapting her morning rituals to her new environment. It wasn't that difficult to find a coffee that made her think of home, and besides her seemingly deadly brew of blackness that nobody else could drink, she was dealing with being in a world not catered to ponies. Though the cursed shower mechanics she still was rather confused about. For she could never turn on the perfect balance of hot and cold water in her morning cleansing. She wasn't completely inept at cleaning like Rarity insisted, she was just too often focused on the task at hand.
And Twilight grumbled that mirrors were a bit too high when compared to Equestria. She wondered if the world she came from was a bit smaller than some others.
Sighing she trotted into Star's room to wake her up for school. It was Twilight's first day after all- the idea of a magical unicorn lounging around the house all the time until the magical mirror device was fixed or something happened in Equestria made Twilight's head spin. She loved the idea of relaxation but putting it into practice would drive her mad and the human world had so many interesting ideas about technology and science that she couldn't just sit around all day wasting time.
Though the talk with the school's principal for letting her transfer in was a strange one. Twulight just had to turn lead into gold and he let her in without even blinking an eye. Really? Was gold that scarce in this dimension. Twilight chalked it up to magic changing the building blocks of matter easier than most scientific processes.
"Star, time to wake up."
Star, for her own part, was doing better than a week prior when Marco was put in the hospital. She was at least mostly back to normal. Though she had been watching a lot of tv- especially this weird tv show about a person who got a werewolf liver transplant. Tv here was weird. At least when Twilight had watched the tv shows in Canterlot High, it was about going to school.
Twilight stopped thinking about "As The Bell Rings" when she noticed that somehow Star had not moved from her comfy chair in her room since she last checked last night. The tv blared some "Banagic Wand" type nonsense. Earth really had no magic so Twilight doubted the slogan, a little bit of banana a little bit of magic- The Banagic Wand!!! Buy Now! At your best mall type area. Buy our things get a Pretty Pretty Banana Ranger outfit (if you sell your soul and swear fealty to the demon overlords! Oh and Star Butterfly, go out with our fantastic manager to the Bloodmoon Ball.
Wait.
What was that last bit?
Star moaned in her seat. "Not him. I thought I blocked him on my magic mirror. Couldn't he take the hint when I launched him into the Ninth Circle of Dis? Really?"
Star rubbed her eyes and slowly stretched moving her arms up and down and shaking her head to wake herself up more. Noticing that Twilight was in the room, she smiled and quietly shut off her tv that was still blaring that commercial.
"Hey."
"Hey."
Twilight could feel the awkwardness ooze from the two word conversation that they were having. Star was rubbing a hand through her hair as she tried to figure out how to say that somehow there was something she was keeping from Twilight. Twilight cursed that Conscience wasn't there to speak some sense into Star or at least that it couldn't help Twilight with the situation of silence that came with the territory of introversion.
"So. . .Twilight, um, Janna just texted me on the thingamajig doodly and her and her friends want to go shopping. Yes."
Strange. Now Twilight guessed that cell phones and whatever were a new thing to Star but she hadn't heard Star talking to any person before she walked in and it seemed too perfect. Well, knowing how Rainbow Dash usually spilled a major secret by accident, Twilight ran with the probable excuse. Plus, Janna had been coming over a lot since Marco was hurt and Twilight liked her. But this was a world of humans and Twilight had one major problem.
"Star, you do know I'm a unicorn."
"Yeah, sure, what's your point exactly?"
Twilight sighed. Sometimes Star reminded her a bit too much of Pinkie. "Well for starters, the idea of me going shopping for clothes or anything seems problematic with how the world is made for bipeds. Also while I like that the hospital didn't freak out about a magic talking horse creature- that doesn't mean that everyone, is it everyone, in the world is so understanding about the whole magic pony princess thing. Even most of Equestria was a bit weirded out when I grew wings."
Star grinned and wrapped a hand around her second pony friend (the first one with a complete body and not just a floating horse head Princess). "Don't worry, Twilight. I know everything about human culture. Like how the spinny things makes bikes go and that the yard box that sacred scriptures are kept gets raided by a post office gnome. And anyway Janna and her posse are going to be there? What's the worst that could happen?"
"A lot actually."
Carefully sidestepping clothes that had piled up since the last time she had washed her laundry, Star Butterfly just hummed a catchy yet somewhat ironic tune about a spacefaring unicorn while getting dressed. Twilight silently grumbled to herself about how catchy the song was. After what sounded like a giant explosion, Star walked out in her normal clothes.
"Sorry. My wand's been acting up a little bit when I try to change my hairstyle, Twilight. I wonder if its the battery that needs changing. Oh well, we can always head on over to the magical superstore later."
***
Even though Twilight thought that Star had come up with a fake reason for her to get out of the house to go shopping, the three other girls stared at the magical pony princess. In short, somehow Star hadn't been lying about getting Janna, Hope, and Jackie Lynn together to have a girls day out.
Now if they weren't fangirling over her mane and wings that would be nice too. Well Janna wasn't at least.
"How are you doing?"
"Pretty good Twilight, not much on my end and I thankfully didn't get forced to dress up for a family outing to the beach or something. Dunno what's up with my mom sometimes but she just loves to go to places at the spur of the moment." Janna breathed a sigh of relief. The last time her mom had one of those moods they drove all the way to Oregon to go Bigfoot hunting.
"Well that's good." Twilight felt a sharp yank as Hope unknotted a particularly matted piece of her coat. While she got that this reality thought of unicorns as completely feminine and perfectly okay to freak out about- Twilight wasn't a big fan of makeovers. Even if Rarity had tried to force her to get dolled up for every Princess duty.
"Dude. I was really doubting that you had a magical friend Janna but this is totally awesome!" Jackie Lynn, Marco's crush, stood smiling at Hope's handiwork. Her skater chick personality extended to her ripped jeans and t-shirt. Twilight hadn't tried to accidentally find out about Marco's crush but after a hasty search for a hospital, sometimes some extra personal info was brought up.
"No problem. Hey Hope. can you stop brushing Twilight's hair? We are in the middle of the mall. I think some of the people are freaking out."
"But I captured it with my pure intentions and she will serve me. And then I can get my family back together and stop my parents divorce!" Hope just laughed maniacally for a bit. Janna and Jackie just looked at Twilight and shook their heads. Hope was in counseling for the whole messy divorce. The family issues right there were too much to handle some days.
"Sorry. Okay. Well we can always go that way!" Star just tried to diffuse the situation by pointing at the largest stage she had seen so far in her Earth adventure. A crowd of a few hundred milled about the structure as it completely made that section of the mall nearly impossible to navigate. Pulling on Twilight to get Hope's attention, the three girls and an alicorn walked over to the most amazing thing ever known to the mall.
An "As Seen On TV" demonstration.
"Come one come all to the Banagic Wand demonstration. Remember after the great demonstration to order your very own wand and make your kids watch the tv show." A short demon with a cute nametag with Azazel written on it stepped out while giving the speech. And Star recognized him.
Star froze for a second. Oh crud. He's here.
"On second thought, let's go completely the other way. This is totally unimportant."
With a great fanfare, the manager of the Little Shop of Wondertainment stepped out. His boots clacked on the stage's floor and left a contained bit of fire floating on top. His red polo and khakis cut a nice figure and many in the audience swooned as he smiled. Including all of Janna, Hope, and Jackie Lynn.
"Great." Star just groaned and pulled Twilight closer as the group of girls slid up to the stage.
"Now imagine a world filled with magic. Where every wish you need is just a spell away. Friends, money, power, love. Anything is possible. Now since we are a company and spurious and false claims are fraudulent- that is all a great hypothetical situation. But the Banagic Wand, is a great and fun party starting tool to get your friends a hot summer's day. And with your fantastic turnout in Echo Creek, the Wand can be yours for just $19.95- along with other shipping and handling fees! Now who wants one!"
A flurry of cash was thrown at the stage as people furiously wanted the greatest tool ever known.
With that Tom Walker, Demon Prince of Hell bowed and went backstage. He had noticed a face that he hadn't seen in quite a while.
Star was rather mad. She had wanted to spend a nice day with her girl besties and second pony bestie. But no, she had stayed up all night when her tv set and magic mirror had replayed a message from Tom about the Banagic Wand. Sure maybe she would have loved the idea of Earth Magic if Tom wasn't involved, but nope. This was all a scam to get what demons termed "stupid Midgardian Souls" into a contract. Demons were the first and best scam artists.
So seeing her girl friends just swoon with how nice and charming he was rather made her a bit miffed.
And Tom just nonchalantly grinning while lazily having his feet up on the desk made it ten times worse.
"Why it's just so good to see you Star. Did you like the whole presentation? My advisers told me to play up the selling souls bit but I thought, why not have a fun jab at these humans and make the shipping and handling fees be all inclusive and have the contract be a costly one. Aren't I just grand?"
"No. Not really." Star just crossed her arms and frowned.
Twilight, for her part, was mostly confused and still trying to process the whole demon bit. She had fought a demon Sunset in her first excursion into the human world, but staring at a demon that was a natural one really made her rearrange her ideas about this world. Taking a few deep breaths she began to talk slowly so the other girls would understand.
"Now, Tom was it, this Wand is all magical and everything. Or that's what I'd think would be correct. But did you predict any problems during testing?"
"Sure there's always problems- no souls for one thing, but disfigurement, possession, and localized explosions were just some of the more problematic ones. What's your point. horse?"
Twilight let that insult slide by. He wasn't worth a lot of her time overall. Sure he felt super powerful with the wave of aura that let most people fall in love with him, but she was trying to prove a point. His idea of ultimate wish granting potential had some dangerous implications.
"Now your claims are that it could do anything you wanted it to do, but there's a major problem. Wishing to fix a problem and getting it without effort is hollow. Wishing for friends could be seen as brainwashing, and any love potion could also be seen as forcing your will onto another. Money and power can't be made from nothing- money would need a material to be made from, and power would mean something would have to happen to rise to that position. Your wand is a complete scam since any magical artifact usually needs to work under equivalent exchange and it breaks about four or five different magical laws in ethics alone."
Tom just stood in silence, his eyes flaming with fire and his desk calendar saying "150 days anger free" exploded in a living inferno.
Star just yawned. She'd seen this side of Tom too many times to count. When he was stuck in a corner or just angry with some little thing he went at the problem with the mantra of "please burn because I'm a little baby with anger issues."
He was a young demon. Though Star just thought that maybe he had gotten some help with his anger issues, she was probably wrong. Or if he did, it really wasn't helping all that much.
The girls all came up with a similar plan. Run as far away from Tom as possible. As the whole stage caught on fire, all the girls just kept running. The mall was rioting. Most of the town had learned that random fires were much more common nowadays ever since the school almost burned down thanks to a small flaming rainbow a week back, but still malls weren't supposed to have raging infernos.
Star was frantically trying to get her wand to start as the battery flashed red. Oh Mewni, she had actually forgot that her wand needed to get a new charge. Did that make her completely useless? Not really since she did know how to fist fight wild animals for fun, but magically speaking she was rather at a loss.
And that was when she ran into a tendril of pure darkness.
Twilight was alone. She had felt her friends run away. She was pretty happy for that fact since just making sure the mall wasn't going to become a burned out husk because of some stupid demon having a temper tantrum was taking up a lot of time. Which was stupid since she had been right about the complete terrible idea of wishing wands and morality clashing.
Breathing a sigh of relief for a few seconds she turned and saw the mall's floor become a writhing mass of black magic. She could feel the taint cloud the air with darkness and quickly dodging a tendril the size of a small tree try to crush her in anger. she began teleporting into a safer area. Skating around on hooves charged with mana, she noticed Tom just lazily sitting on a chair eating popcorn as a large tendril dangled her friends nearby. Great. Now Twilight was having flashbacks of Discord. Quickly stopping her skating around, she blasted a tendril and stopped near the food court. Glaring up at Tom, she just yelled at the high level demon.
"Tom! Put down my friends!"
Stopping to yell at him was a terrible idea. A large tendril threw Twilight into a nearby jewelry store. And all she could feel for a minute was shards of glass and extreme pain.
Star Butterfly was not having a good day. While she was currently being used as a glorified hostage and the whole reason why the mall was currently on fire, she stared at the destruction in mall and the purple pony that was fighting against it. From Janna's awkward staring at Star's ex boyfriend to finding out that the Banagic wand (and therefore its related anime tie ins, clothing line, and cosplay contest) being a plot of Hell to ensure the power of friendship to taint the minds of little kids. She had just wanted to relax with friends and try on clothes, not destroy the mall.
"So Star-"
"No Tom, I still won't go to the Ball with you. Ask someone else."
"I mean I'm open for a dance. And my mom won't mind me dating a demon, she's rather open to strange things like that." Janna just grinned at Tom and winked at him.
"I'll keep that in mind." Tom and Star groaned at the prospect.
Twilight was fuming. She couldn't see straight and her tired body had been tossed through a nearby jewerly story when Tom had felt that she was a dangerous wild card. Or something like that. Either way it caused her a whole lot of pain. Her mind was controlled currently by instincts and training. Her wings lay limply at her sides. Muscle tear? Bone problem? Twilight's mind didn't care about it and she had to think of how to beat Star's deceptively annoying ex boyfriend. He reminded her of Sunset. Though that was more because of his cocky demeanor and demonic powers. And Discord. Because he wasn't taking this all that seriously if the bickering between him and the girls were any indication.
Good thing she generally knew a few spells to reset broken bones and regrow teeth. This world made her lose her powers of regeneration that alicorns naturally had thanks to its generally lower density of mana- but there was one thing about this world that was rather nice.
Twilight didn't have to hide her alicorn strength. Twilight channeled her best cocky Rainbow Dash impression and glared up at the lazing around demon.
"Hey idiot! You let go of Star and the others right this minute or I might have to actually get serious."
Tom just laughed. "Really? It doesn't even look like you can stand at this point. Sorry. But I think I got what I wanted- though I think it's not exactly who I expected to go with to the Bloodmoon Ball."
Janna just tried to fist pump in excitement. "Did you hear that Twilight? I'm going to a dance! Now Tom what's your phone number?"
"Well I have a magic mirror, so I don't know if that will work."
Twilight's eye twitched. Somehow Janna had enjoyed the smooth demon and now was trying to exchange numbers with him. This day was completely confusing and strange.
"Oh. Sorry Janna, I forgot I might have to show off for you because you'd need to know how completely awesome I am." Tom just grinned and Twilight rolled her eyes as he lazily floated down to the floor. "Now I haven't released my full power in a year or two so it might be a bit flashy. Twilight felt the air in the room fill with power as the whole mall began to raise in temperature. Tom breathed in air and breathed out a blue flame that ignited the air around him into a bright blue ball of fire. A clawed hand shot out of it and the whole ball imploded back into Tom's mouth. Tom smiled and cracked his knuckles.
Twilight just stared at the demon in front of her as Janna swooned. His horns that showed that he was a demon had grown longer and twiled around his head like a crown, and his whole body was now encased in blue flames as armor. He turned and waved at Janna and Twilight saw that his back held two pitch black wings.
Twilight didn't know what to do. Her normal strength that she held was probably not enough to hurt him as he had felt the black magic ooze off of him in waves. She knew that she was at least gifted in magic, but still that didn't always make up for differences in power if the enemy had a released form. It'd be the difference between Discord fighting normally and him becoming serious. The idea of an enemy hiding a portion of their strength to seem weaker was a common idea in magical combat. It would make the opponent become confused when their attacks stopped having an effect. Princesses needed some kind of power boost when things looked rough.
Twilight don't release your power unless you feel like you have to." Celestia stared down at the newest princess of Equestria. Beating Tirek and holding the powers of three more alicorns had sped up her true alicorn powers and the idea of holding one of the largest mana levels in Equestria had scared the youngest princess. Celestia had just told her that a Princess had to know when to use their full power to conserve their resources and how dangerous a full strength release could be to the user.
"Dont worry. I have total restraint." Twilight looked up to her mentor and smiled.
"THIS. IS. COMPLETELY. STUPID.
Star and Tom looked at Twilight as she began to glow pale white. The ground shook as the two conflicting powers in the mall vied for space. Twilight's white light versus Tom's dark blue aura flared up on the ceiling. It was rather pretty and something that nobody was expecting. Wings of light extended from the dome of light that Twilight was in and the group could hear the bones of Twilight be healed back into place with some painful sounds that accompanied it. If the group had sat outside of the mall, they would have noticed a growing storm react to the changes in pressure.
"Magical Release Heartsong Activate! Tom let go of my friends you complete and utter moron!!!"
Twilight charged out her eyes glowing a determined pink. Teleporting all over the field in the blink of an eye, Twilight launched a beam of magic that Tom tried to catch to defend against the new barrage of signals that he was getting. Somehow he couldn't touch it as when he even got close it began to burn him. A demon getting a burn, that was definitely a new one. Shaking his hand to try and stop the pain inching up his arm, he spread his wings and shot up into the air. If this horse didn't want to play fair with her magic, he wasn't going to play fair with the temperature.
"Heat Wave."
The idea of heat was that the hotter it got, the more dangerous it was to use for the user. But Tom didn't care. He had already got what he wanted- a date. This was just going to get messy. Summoning the next hottest thing he could think of that was easy to summon, he thought of lava- it wasn't anything like plasma, but there's a certain level of power that would be classified as overkill.
That's when it began to rain lava.
Hope, Janna, and Jackie Lynn just watched as the mall became a battlefield. Star was just relieved that in a way she hadn't set the mall on fire. Sure he was her ex boyfriend- but she actually hadn't summoned something that set things on fire. Though she wondered how Marco would take the mall being completely destroyed. Well it would be an interesting story to tell him.
Hope was super excited. "Janna, your new boyfriend is super mega cool."
"Well he is a demon."
Twilight knew what she had to do. Even though it was completely untested, she remembered that through her studies with chemistry, that water existed in the air. And so she shot a blast of ice magic into the surrounding air to hopefully survive the blast of heat.
The world exploded as the two temperatures collided.
Twilight couldn't move much anymore. Sure the power boost of having the mana reserves of four alicorns was nice, but she had already been using her magic before she switched to her powered form and so she was exhausted. And as the smoke and ice cleared she noticed the same for Tom- while he was very powerful, he also had been using magic more than usual.
The two magic users stared at each other and fell over laughing before their bodies realized how much power they had both used and fell asleep.
"So is it a draw or something?" Jackie Lynn asked as the black tendrils began to disappear.
"Probably." Star massaged her head. This was going to be a pain to explain to her parents.
An eye shaped device that had watched the whole battle lazily floated into a nearby portal that winked out of existence again. It looked like the things that watched Mewnian culture but only because its current user had stolen it to make it easier to spy on the human world.
The robotic voice box that he had attached to it began to monologue while floating into the portal back to the castle.
"This is quite interesting. But no matter. I am the greatest and most evil overlord in the universe and once I have Princess Star Butterfly's wand I will be able to conquer the universe and- and- no actually that's pretty good. Though maybe I could also be an evil lifeguard and be completely super cool that way. What ever I choose, I will be known as the one that steals Star's wand to have nigh ultimate power. Or else my name is not Ludo- which it is Ludo!"