//------------------------------//
// Practice Makes Perfect (But First It Makes Passable) 
// Story: My Life as a Bipedal Quadruped 
// by Snakeskin Ducttape 
//------------------------------//

I awoke in my bed at Golden Oaks, feeling more refreshed than I had in forever. My brain felt fresh and energized, as did my coat, and pretty much my everything, despite the bandages that covered my hind leg and forehead.

I sprawled out against the unwrinkled sheets and stretched. ‘Mmm! Marry me or something, Redheart. I don’t care about sick people. I need you for myself.’

I felt a great relief when my back rubbed against the sheets, and a strange, almost obsessive desire to roll around on my back. So I did.

After wrinkling the sheet a bit, I stopped. Then I realized that with unicorn magic, making the bed wouldn’t be much of a chore, so I kept going.

After a while, though, an exception to my general freshness made itself known: My breath, and decided to go get some breakfast.

I was about to magic my wheelchair over to me when I noticed that it wasn’t it in the room with me. ‘Oh, right. We left it at the clubhouse.’

As I pondered whether or not I should stay in bed, reading or something, or try and make my way down to the kitchen, I spotted the collection of gems from Rarity on the desk.

‘Well, might as well occupy myself with magic until… heeey!’

I projected myself into my horn and took a "look" around.

Something I hadn’t noticed before was that Armor and I spent the nights less than a body length away from each other. He was lying on his back in his bed, wall-to-wall with my own, in the other room, with a foreleg behind his head and a book propped up against a hind leg.

“Hey, Armor,” I tried in a conversational volume. There was no reaction.

“Armor,” I insisted, louder, but not shouting by any means.

Wondering if he couldn’t hear me or if the book was just so engrossing that he didn’t notice, I felt curiosity get the better of me and I tried making out what he was reading.

Viewing magic was really useful for a lot of things, but reading was tricky. It was still possible, though, but since things weren’t obscured by their position, I had a bit of trouble figuring out which page I was looking at. Still, with some practice, I figured it would be a neat trick to be able to read closed books.

Giving up on reading with magic for now, I simply knocked against the wall.

One of Armor’s ears swivelled around to try and locate the sound, but rather than having fun with the ridiculous adorableness of it all, I decided to not tease him and knocked harder.

Armor got out of bed and briskly marched out of his room and up to my door.

“Gabe?” he asked.

“Yup, I knocked,” I said.

“Do you want me to come in?”

“Yes.”

Armor opened the door softly and walked in, not one hint of irritation or impatience on his face. “Good morning,” he said.

“Morning,” I said. “Sorry to drag you away from your reading, but I’m kinda hungry, and the chair is back at the clubhouse.”

Realization and embarrassment showed on Armor’s face. “Oh, right,” he muttered and clopped himself lightly in the head. “Duh. Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “At least now you haven’t broken the Crusaders’ rules.”

Armor gave me a small smile as he walked up to me, rearing up and letting his wings support him instead.

“Kitchen?” he said, and offered his forelegs.

“Kitchen,” I confirmed, and scooted into my secondary transportation.

“How did you know I was reading?” he asked, as we slowly floated through the halls and down the stairs, while I forgot to grab an eyepatch.

“I woke up and did the whole magic sense thing to figure out where you were,” I said. “Couldn’t make out what you read, though. And I guess I should apologize. It’s not cool spying on people in bed.”

“I’ve mostly lived in a barrack the last few years, I’ve had ponies all around me when I was in bed,” Armor smoothed over. “Trust me, this is nothing compared to surprise inspections.”

I chuckled at that. “Well then, at least sorry for dragging you away from your book.”

“Technically, I’m on the job right now, so it’s all well and proper,” he said, as we flew into the empty kitchen. “Her highne– ehm, Twilight and Spike went out for a short errand, but she told me that we have unlimited access to the pantry.”

“Well, let’s have a look,” I said.

Armor held me up so that I could have a decent look, and I used my "arcanokinesis" which I preferred to just call "magic" like most other ponies, to rummage through the contents.

“You know how to make something with eggs?” I asked Armor.

“I do, I’m among the ponies who rotate through kitchen duty,” he said.

“And he cooks, too,” I said jokingly as he gently put me down on a chair, before I remembered what I did yesterday. “You know, about when I kissed you last night, if you wanna call it that…”

Armor opened his mouth before immediately shutting it.

“I can imagine it’s complicated to change from adult to child,” he thoughtfully said after a while. “Changing species on top of that has got to be mind boggling.”

“Sometimes it’s more complicated than other times, but yeah;” I said. “Look, just imagine that I’ve thought up a smooth way to say that, uhm… I’m not hitting on you, but I would very much understand why someone who’s, uh, compatible would.”

Armor bobbed his head in consideration. “All right,” he said with a hint of amusement. “I’ll take it.”

I giggled lightly at his reaction. “And to be fair, you looked kind of heroic yesterday.”

He smiled at that. “And to be fair in turn, you are a very cute filly, and I think you’re gonna have to work really hard to not become a very pretty mare.”

“Good morning. What are you two talking about?” Twilight’s voice sounded behind us. She was standing in the doorway with Spike on her back and several large packages floating around her, wrapped in plain, brown paper and a violet magic aura.

“Good looks as a pony,” I said quickly, before anyone had the chance to fluster. “I’d like to sound modest, but I looked pretty good as a human, so I was curious about how I look now. Anyway, good morning.”

“Good morning,” Spike and Armor echoed.

“Well, you could use Rarity as a reference point, she’s the prettiest pony in Equestria,” Spike said as he hopped off from Twilight and took a seat by the table. I saw Twilight rolling her eyes and smiling as she set the packages down by the doorway.

“Well, I have the same, I guess… phenotype as her sister, so that’s speaking in my favor, I would think,” I said.

“In this case, yes,” Twilight said. “But having a pretty sibling doesn’t mean anything. Don’t tell him I said this, but Donut, the owner of my favorite cafe in Canterlot, doesn’t look like much next to his brother, Cotton Eye. By the way, you got something.”

Twilight floated up two of the things that had obviously come in the mail to me, one was pretty big, while the other was the size of a shoulder bag.

“Again?” I asked, and started magically tearing the paper from the smaller one placed on the table in front of me.

“An attaché?” I asked, confused.

“It’s from Prism,” Twilight said, as I opened the case.

I nearly recoiled out of my chair in horror, just as Twilight’s words registered. Looking back at me from the inside of the case was rows and rows of what looked like eyeballs.

“Yeah. I think you should try one out right now,” Spike said, and I realized that my right eyelid had jumped up from the reaction.

I brought my eyelid down and floated one of the prosthetic eyes up. It was completely blank, giving it away as a lifeless, inorganic fake, and not something more sinister as it first looked like. “Uhm,” I said unsure. “This is an orb.”

“Well, yes,” Twilight said, sounding unsure as well. “Isn’t it supposed to be?”

“I’ve only used lenses,” I said. “Are you sure this is okay?”

“Ehm, yes,” Twilight said.

“Well, okay,” I said, and floated it towards my eye socket.

I couldn’t really bring myself to insert it, though.

After a while, Armor came up to me. “Would you like some help?” he asked.

“I… yeah, I think so,” I said. 

‘Come on. It can’t be that bad, and it’s not gonna get stuck in there if you can pull it out with magic.’

“Okay,” Armor said, and walked over to the sink and washed his hooves. “Lean your head back.”

I did, closed my real eye, opened the other one, and simply waited while it felt like Armor was very, very slowly inserting the orb.

“You can open your eye again,” Armor said.

“Huh?” I asked, opening my eye to see Armor standing in front of me, the orb nowhere to be found.

I levelled my head and felt a small, gentle weight in my eye socket. I closed my right eyelid and softly poked it with my hoof. Sure enough, it didn’t give away, and instead pinched against something.

“Wow,” I said in wonder. “I barely felt that at all.”

“It looks good,” Twilight said. “You wanna see it?”

“Please.”

Twilight’s horn lit up and a small mirror floated into the room and up to me. I looked like a comic character or something, with one eye milky white. I turned my head in different directions, trying to see how well it followed my movements, and groaned at myself when I realized that that wouldn’t work with a blank eye.

“How does it feel?” Twilight asked.

“It feels good,” I said. “Or, actually, I can barely feel it at all. I thought it would be cold, at least.”

I put my hoof on the orb and turned it a little bit. It was noticeable, but not intrusive in any way.

“Well, guess that goes to show how good Prism is at this,” Twilight said.

“I guess it does. Alright, I’m gonna try it myself, this time.”

I closed my actual eye, projected myself into my horn, and powered it up. It was another strange experience which I hadn’t had yet. "Looking" at your own face with, well, another part of you.

I lifted the prosthetic eye out of my socket and noticed that it was enchanted.

“Twilight, Spike, I hope you’re feeling up for sending a letter, I just remembered that I should probably write to Princess Luna. I remember parts of a very strange dream.”

“Oh? What about?” Twilight asked.

“A voice that taught me enchanting,” I said, and inserted another eye.

“Really? Interesting,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said, and tried doing the thing with the mirror again. The eye followed my gaze almost perfectly, unless I leered too much. The pupil was painted on, though, and didn’t react to light. “I wonder if it’s strange for me to be able to tell that these things are enchanted to not cause friction and always feel warm.”

“Well, you have a cutiemark in enchanting,” Twilight said. “But yeah, we should keep Luna updated.”

I experimentally tried pulling my eye out with my lid in a neutral position. It was sitting there pretty firmly, though, and the light weight lessened the risk of it popping out from moving my head violently.

When I tried fluttering my new eye, I realized why Prism had included so many blank orbs. The pupil wasn’t painted on with a white board marker, but was a material laid on thick enough to tickle my eyelid.

“Now what’s this?” I turned my attention to the other package, and levitated it towards myself for closer inspection. It had an icon of a corpulent and jovial looking gryphon in a chef’s hat, with a label underneath that said, "Metzger and Cubs".

“Hold the phone, Armor,” I said, and levitated the package towards Armor, while fighting to keep my smirk down. “I may have something to augment the breakfast with.”

Armor reared up and held out his forelegs. “Alright, what’s phoney about it?” he asked.


-


“So this voice didn’t seem malicious in any way?” Twilight asked, not looking up from the parchment in front of her.

“Not really,” I said with a shrug. “I can’t remember word for word what it said, but it was male, calm, confident, and kind of fair-spoken when it wasn’t to-the-point.”

“And it didn’t ask or tell you to do stuff?” Twilight asked, while the quill was still moving.

“No. Or, well, uh,” I said, giving this some thought. “Maybe it did, but I think it was in a lecturer-asking-for-your-attention kind of way.”

“What about environment?”

“An empty void is all I can remember,” I said with a shrug. “But not unnerving or anything. Sometimes I think I saw enchantment patterns, but it might have just been me visualising them.”

“And what did it teach you?”

I shrugged again, somewhat at a loss. “Magic, I guess,” I said. “Mostly enchantment, but I guess some other magical theory was in there as well, unicorn spells, the relation with physical stamina and magical reserves, the stabilising effect pony presence can have on background magic…”

I shook my head, feeling a bit drowsy and realizing I was almost talking to myself.

Twilight was looking up from the parchment at me with carefully observant eyes. Spike was looking only kind of bored, and Armor was observing me keenly.

“Was there anything familiar with the voice?” Twilight asked.

I rested my chin on my hoof.

‘Maybe…? It’s like I’ve heard it before, maybe in a dream or something...'

I almost clobbered myself in the head at that.

'Of course you’ve heard that voice in a dream! We’re talking about one right now, dummy.’

“I dunno,” I said after a while. “It’s hard to say. Maybe… I’ve just… it taught me things, and maybe I just assume it’s got a voice like a wise mentor or something.”

Twilight scribbled some more on the parchment. “Alright, anything else you can think of?” she asked.

“Well, nothing that hasn’t been said already. Like I said, it’s a bit fuzzy, now that I’ve woken up, but I can’t remember actually learning anything from a dream like this before.”

Twilight spent a few more moments writing on the parchment, before handing it to Spike.

“Here,” she told him, before turning back to me. “Don’t worry, Gabe, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“It’s okay, it’s weird, but I’m not worried,” I said, as Spike opened the window by the kitchen table, then torched away the parchment.

“That’s good,” Twilight said smilingly before, fishing out another parchment and magicking it over to Spike. “Now! I thought we could make a schedule about all the things we’ve got plans for.”

Spike let out a small groan, and I soon sympathised. Those were some very long twenty minutes, and I was impressed by Armor’s ability to nap while looking like he was standing at attention. I woke him up by magically tickling him in the ear whenever he let out a small snore.

While I was making myself presentable in the bathroom, Armor was off fetching my wheelchair, and after promising Spike that I’d show him my computer when we got back, we found ourselves outside of Scrap’s house. I had brought my goggles, just in case.

Armor simply knocked on the door to the conservatory/workshop, and walked in.

“Hey, Scrap!”

Scrap was standing by the forge, which was surrounded by a large, shadowy sphere. When he looked at us, his face lit up with a smile that looked strangely wry for its wideness.

“Heya,” he said before turning back to the strange orb in front of him. “Don’t touch anything just yet. I’m cleaning this thing.”

I noticed that the forge had a metal slide sticking out near the bottom, pointing downward, and tied around it was a large sack being filled.

It took a few moments of observation before I realized that the orb was a field that seemed to be holding copious amounts of soot inside it, and Scrap was levitating a broom inside of it, shoveling ashes down into a hole at the bottom of the now cold forge.

“I was thinking up a plan for teaching you two yesterday,” he said. “So I thought I’d let this thing go out and cool off for a day before cleaning it out.”

He magicked a hatch at the opening for the slide shut, then levitated the almost-full sack of ashes to the corner of the room, before he attached a new sack and continued.

“I don’t wanna use too much water, so it takes ages before it’s cold enough for me to be able to do this. That is, without brooms, sacks, and everything else going up in flames,” he continued.

“Wow, that’s very thoughtful of you,” Twilight said. “Thank you.”

“Hey, my pleasure, your highness,” he said, before turning to his nephew. “Hey, Stud, a little wingpower here, alright?”

Armor walked up to the other side of the forge and started hovering in place, strongly beating his wings towards the forge, but instead of launching himself into the well, he caused a strong wind to blow against the orb surrounding it. It was fascinating to see pegasus magic in action, but my attention was split between that, and what I now realized wasn’t unicorn magic, but an enchantment.

The soot and ashes from most of the orb were ripped away by the wind and caught in the far side, forming a sort of slowly shrinking cap. Armor slowly circled around the orb, slowly moving it around and concentrating it into a small pile near the bottom.

Scrap levitated another open empty sack beneath the pile. “Alright, thanks,” he said, and when Armor touched down, he pulled a chain, which released an up until now seemingly pointless ratchet hanging from the chimney. The magic that formed the invisible orb vanished, and the pile landed inside the sack. Within minutes, the forge and the surrounding had gone from covered in a thick cloud of soot to not-quite-clean enough to eat from, but close to it.

“There. And the kicker is that now it’s time to do it all over again,” Scrap said, dropped the broom into a barrel of water, and started whittling a log with a large knife. “By the way... Miss Desrochers, correct?”

I nodded. “Yes, but just ‘Gabe’ is fine.”

“Right, well, Gabe, I have to say that it looks very good. Very genuine,” he said and nodded towards me.

“Thank you,” I said with a smile and absentmindedly touched my new eye. Once upon a time, I might have been offended and thought that he meant that I needed fake parts to look good, but I knew what he meant, and he seemed genuine too, in his blunt way.

“And you don’t seem too worse for wear,” he said, gesturing towards my bandages. “After what happened last night.”

I looked surprised. “Oh, you saw that?”

He nodded.

“Oh, well, no, these are just bruisings. Your nephew made sure of that,” I said, and Armor shifted slightly.

“Yeah, I didn’t see all of it, but I saw that. Or at least parts of the tail end of it. I was in full gallop out by the bridge over the west stream with Hot Pink here,” he said and gestured to a rack with a giant, quad-linked arbalest with ropes woven between the bolts. He slapped Armor on the back with a big grin. “But you had ‘em, Stud. I stuck around until our princess here and Dash was back, but I knew I didn’t need to.”

Armor looked at his uncle. “You didn’t help?”

“Like I said, I was about to. But you had him,” he said with a laugh. “I remember when you and Dress were little foals, running around with wooden swords and buckets for helmets. Hard to think that was only some forty years ago, and now you can bring down dragons by yourself!”

Armor shifted again. “Well, he was alone, and I’m trained, he wasn’t.”

Scrap let out another, louder laugh. “Of course he wasn’t trained! It was a dragon!”

Armor just waited while his uncle finished laughing.

“Don’t try and be modest here, Stud, dragons are fearsome, period,” Scrap said, and shook his head. “Luna’s stars, imagine a dragon with royal guard training.”

“He’s right, Armor,” Twilight said. “That was very impressive.”

By now, Armor wasn’t just shifting uncomfortably, he was blushing too.

I decided to help him out. “It’s true, but I gotta ask,” I said and turned to Scrap. “Hot Pink?”

Scrap’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, there was a flood about, mmm… thirty years ago, and this cragadile started loitering by the edge of the Everfree in a pond that formed there. I made her just in case,” he said, and floated the giant weapon over to us, the edge carefully pointed away from us. “It’s a heavy-duty net launcher.”

I was about to ask if we could see it in action sometime, before I realized some other ponies who’d want to do so as well.

“Be careful not to let the Cutie Mark Crusaders near this thing,” I said.

“Don’t worry, I know about them as well,” Scrap said, and went back to whittling firewood. “So, shall we get started?”

“Yes please,” Twilight said happily.

“Alright what do you know about the subject?”

Twilight and I looked at each other, I shrugged and gestured for her to speak.

“Well,” she said. “I know quite a bit of theory, but I have never created anything really complicated.”

“Ah,” Scrap said. “That’s good, I’d hate to bore you with knowledge you already have.”

“Oh, that’s okay, I’d love to learn about it from an expert anyway.”

“Mmm. And what about you, Gabe?” Scrap said and started building a little tower of firewood with the kindling at the bottom.

I shrugged. “I’ve only ever tried it once, but I’ve read a bunch of theory as well, and it all seems so natural.”

“That’s good,” Scrap said, quickly starting a small fire with a rock and a fire striker, and turned some knobs on the pipes of the forge. “Well, if Princess Sparkle doesn’t mind me taking it from the beginning, how about I tell you about my trade in a somewhat more straightforward way than dry tomes?”

“Just Twilight is fine,” Twilight said. “And personally, I think that sounds great.”

I shrugged, feeling as if this was gonna be progress in any case. “Sure.”

“You wanna stick around, Stud?” Scrap asked Armor. “The pantry is fair game.”

“Well,” Armor said and turned to me. “I might have some errands to fly, if you don’t mind. For example, I think the tools you used yesterday are still lying around over at the gem field, I might as well take care of that.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mention it. I’ll be back.”

With that, Armor took off and left us around the slowly building fire. There was only one open window, but the pipes above the forge seemed to be really good at venting the smoke. Another enchantment, I assumed.

“So,” Scrap said as he piled some more firewood against the slowly building fire and levitated a sack of coals over to him. “Have any of you ever heard that enchanting is the ‘trade of flanks’?”

‘Pff, what?’

I hadn’t. It wasn’t mentioned in the books. Twilight’s eyes lit up, though.

“I have, and I’ve always wondered why,” she said.

Scrap chuckled. “Well, it’s an inside joke in the trade. Don’t worry, I’m gonna explain it. When you tried enchanting before, Gabe, what did you make?”

“A levitation enchantment on a topaz,” I said. “Or, well, I tried imitating Twilight’s enchantment, and it… well, it became enchanted, but it just rolled around on the floor.”

“Hmm,” he said neutrally and looked at me for a moment.

“I didn’t do very much,” I said. “We were just testing my magic and my special talent. I had come down with…” – I looked at Twilight – “ Wisp-Shimmer Syndrome, right?”

“That’s right,” Twilight said with a nod.

“Ah,” Scrap said. “Well, we can try it again, it’s a very good example, both for teaching and demonstrating.”

Scrap’s horn lit up and he floated over a bronze ingot to us. “Let’s start with this. Twilight, could you enchant this with a levitation enchantment? Don’t bother making it powerful.”

“Uhm, okay.” Twilight said and lit her horn up. A few moments later, Scrap "let go" of the ingot and it fell about two inches before settled to gently floating above the ground.

Scrap gave it a light slap and it lazily bobbed like corked up glass flask in water. “Good,” Scrap said, and turned to me and brought another ingot over to the workbench beside us. “I would like you to give it a try, Gabe. I wanna see both of your levels of proficiency.”

“Hmm, okay,” I said, a bit skeptically and turned to the ingot.

Scrap gave me some quick instructions on how to infuse a physical object with magic, and change it, rather than just momentarily influencing it.

I projected myself into my horn and took a "look" at Twilight’s work. The swirls of colors and the gently pulsating lights seemed easy enough to replicate, which was definitely part of my magically provided talent. I could tell that I would’ve needed to study it for quite a while if it wasn’t.

Trying to infuse the ingot with magic, though, was tougher. It felt like trying to paint barely solidified grease with a white board-marker. Or like trying to teach me math. It just wouldn’t stick properly.

“A little more push,” Scrap said. “A little more power.”

I deprojected myself and rubbed my right eyelid. I had scrunched up my face in concentration and they weren’t used to current position. “I’m not sure I can,” I said.

“Oh, you definitely can,” Scrap said. “You have the capability, you just need to learn how.” Scrap looked up in the ceiling. “Imagine that… ” he said, waited a moment, and let out a deep breath. “Oh, what’s a good analogy?”

Here, Twilight stepped in instead. “How about this? I’m gonna hold the ingot down, and you try and lift it?" she said and enveloped the lump of metal in her purple magic grip. “Don’t try and sense the magic, Gabe, just imagine that you’re filled with magical power.”

“Okay,” I said after a while. “Now what?”

“Now, point your horn towards the ingot, and imagine that the magic inside you flows into your horn.”

I did so, and my horn lit up, noticeably brighter than before, and feeling like someone was holding balloons charged with static electricity by it from all sides. “Whoa, okay, and then?”

“Now imagine that it reinforces your arcanokinetic magic, and lifts up the ingot.”

The purple glow by the bottom of the ingot was pushed away by my own blue one, and the ingot slowly started to lift.

“Great,” I said, my face scrunched up again, and my barrel tense from concentration. “Uh, am I doing it right”?

“Very much so,” Twilight said with a smile. “I could let go and show you, but I don’t wanna ruin the ceiling.”

Scrap’s face lit up. “Oh! Hold that thought,” he said, and floated yet another ingot directly over the one my and Twilight’s magic were contesting over. “Hmm, hm-hm hm-hm,” he hummed a random tune as he worked another enchantment into it.

“There, let go, Twilight,” he said.

Twilight did so, and it felt like someone had yanked a weight away from a limb that I didn’t know I had. I tried steadying myself in my wheelchair, like I had taken a step too far while walking some stairs, despite being completely still.

The ingot I had held in my magical grip flew up into the one Scrap had enchanted. They collided with a loud clank, like someone had tried opening a dumpster from the inside by banging it with a hammer. Twilight caught the rogue ingot, which had bounced off Scrap’s enchanted one, in her purple magic, before it could do any damage to the workshop.

Scrap’s horn lit up again, and after a moment, he floated his ingot down for inspection.

“Hm,” he said, in a somewhat impressed tone. “Not to brag, but my material is definitely fit for Canterlot’s finest, and you still did this.”

He floated the ingot over to me. It had a small but clear dent in the bottom. Not enough to warp the entire piece, but definitely bigger than I thought I’d be able to do by throwing it as a human.

“Oh,” I said, and shook my head, fighting off a mild wave of drowsiness.

“Yeah. Have a break for a minute. I’m gonna get some more coal from the basement,” Scrap said and walked out the door. He paused before walking out of sight. “Want anything to drink, or something?” he asked, looking over his shoulder.

“No thanks,” I said.

Scrap nodded and continued on.

“Your magic is developing really nice,” Twilight said.

“Thanks, it seems so,” I said. “Though that was kinda tiring. Was that how I ended up with Wisp-Shimmer Syndrome?”

“No,” Twilight said and shook her head. “Or, well, yes, in a way, but it would’ve taken a lot more effort, and you would need to be suffering serious physical fatigue beforehoof. There’s also an element of chance, so you’d need some bad luck as well.”

I considered this for a moment. “Well, it helped me and Zecora with those wolves, so it feels like a fair trade to me.”

“You two really saved each other out there,” Twilight said.

“Yeah, though she started it,” I said a bit playfully.

“Mmm. That was pretty awful, what that diamond dog did to you,” Twilight said.

“It was only one?” I asked.

“Well, the one who abducted you and told the others to leave you in the woods were the same one.”

“Oh. How do you know that, by the way?”

“Luna went and had a word with the one responsible,” Twilight said. “That word was ‘behave’. She can be pretty intimidating when she wants to.”

I thought back to Princess Luna’s dark majesty. Yeah, intimidating… and awesome.

“Anyway, you should start feeling more spry now,” Twilight said.

She was right. Just a short break later, and I was ready to have a go at magic again.

Scrap came back into the workshop, weighed down by several bags of coal slung over his back, and several more of them magically floating in front of him.

“And, there!” he huffed as he dumped the many bags of coal in front of him and crouched down to slip out of the ones hanging from his back. “Phew! Alright, how are you feeling, Gabe? Ready for a shot at enchantments?”

“Yeah, feeling fine,” I said.

“Okay then,” he said. “Now, magic is all around us, but that fact means next to nothing, for there are so many different forms of magic. We ponies, and other magical beings, use our magic to influence the world around us, consciously or not.

“We enchanters use a complicated art to infuse the physical world with our will, and make it last.”

I nodded slowly as I took it in. “Mmm, this is kinda what it says in the books on magic, and the ones on enchantment.”

“Hmm? Have you read a lot of books on enchanting?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve read the intro of about four different books. Though they weren’t as concise as this.”

“I suppose they’re not. Enchanting is a very personal craft, where everypony adds their own flavor,” Scrap said. “It’s not like math, where there is one truth, the end. Like an art, enchanting can differ quite a bit between individuals, which makes it a bit tricky to write universal rules about.”

“They said something to that effect, too,” I said and shook my head. “Anyway, sorry. Continue.”

Scrap nodded. “Like I said, we all use our magic to shape the world. A while back, a pair of unicorns came into town with a cider machine and tried to trick the Apple-family out of their farm.”

Twilight’s eyes darkened at this. “Oh yeah, those two,” she said.

Scrap nodded and looked thoughtfully out in the distance. “I don’t think they’d have gained much in the long run. I’d bet my right hoof–” Scrap eyes widened in shock “ – Uh! I mean… uhm…” he stammered, not quite being able to meet my eyes, whether natural or not.

I waved it off. “I get it. Continue,” I said, far too interested in the subject matter to get hung up on something I try not to get hung up on in most situations.

“Alright,” Scrap said, sounding a bit relieved. “Anyway, I don’t think Sweet Apple Acres would serve them all that well. They weren’t farmers, they were tinkerers and business ponies to a degree, but most of all swindlers.

“Now, the Apple family are farmers. They can take care of an apple orchard. Their magic helps them. If they’d have left, their magic would’ve faded or gone dormant from Sweet Apple Acres, and without properly cared for apples, that unicorn duos’ cider-machine would’ve churned out swill.”

Twilight nodded at this. “I think you’re right, and that almost makes me more angry about it,” she said.

“Understandable,” Scrap said. “Well that’s one example of pony magic, and as enchanters, we can take that magic, our magic, and pour it into a vessel.”

Scrap paused, and I let the knowledge sink in. “This all makes it sound like mechanized mass production isn’t possible with magic goods.”

“It’s possible,” Scrap said. “Though very tricky. We’re artificers, not… ” he waved his hoof in the air as he searched for words. “Machines, I suppose.

“Alright, you know how to levitate an object in place,” Scrap said and magicked over another bronze ingot to where Twilight’s was floating. “Now to make an enchantment out of that. Ready?”

I nodded. “Yes, I can see how Twilight’s is enchanted, should I try and do it like that?”

Scrap raised an eyebrow at me. “You can see it?”

“Well, sort of. I can project my senses into my horn and sense magic around me, and it’s easiest to describe as sight,” I said.

Scrap let out a low whistle. “Imagine if I could do that when I was starting out. I have to make due with these,” he said and gestured to the goggles resting on his forehead. “You could do that, but if you want, I can show you how to do it the way I learned.”

“Okay,” I said. “I could try that.”

Scrap nodded. “So, you already know arcanokinesis. Imagine isolating the aspect of arcanokinesis that holds something in place vertically.”

I slowly nodded. “Okay,” I said, somewhat hesitantly.

“Now, reach out for this ingot, but instead of biting down on it, infuse it with your wish for it to float in the air,” Scrap said as I reached out for the piece of metal. “You don’t hold the outside with your magic,” Scrap continued. “Your magic enters the ingot. You meet resistance, but you know how to get past it. A dumb piece of bronze can’t keep you out.”

The hard surface of the bronze put up some resistance, but it still made way for my magic. Its hard shell became a net that I could reach through, and manipulate the magic inside of as I saw fit. The ingot didn’t feel as inviting as a gem did to me when it came to magic, but it was a very basic thing I was trying to do. Compared to enchanting a gem, it felt like trying to type at one of those split keyboards. (a configuration that never spoke to me) Just a little more deliberation behind it all, and it was smooth sailing.

“Good,” Scrap said. “Since this is a simple enchantment, all you need to do is fill it with a piece of the same type of magic that you levitate something with, and leave it there. When you’ve infused it, hold it there as you pull away, don’t let it leave.”

It felt a bit like trying to pull your finger out of a water-filled balloon. Doing so without spilling any was tricky, at least with the amount of control over magic that I had.

In the end, though, enough of it stayed inside for the enchantment to work, and when Scrap let go, the ingot floated in place.

Scrap poked it lightly, and just like Twilight’s, it bobbed a bit before settling. “Good,” he happily said, and bobbed Twilight’s ingot one more time. “Now, these aren’t very powerful, are they?”

Twilight and I shook our heads.

“But! You can make them more powerful, yes?” He said and floated two more ingots over to us.

We nodded.

Scrap smiled. “Then do so, and don’t worry, we’re getting to the point of this, soon, and the reason for the flank thing. I’m not gonna be cryptic like this all day.”

Twilight and I set to work while Scrap tended to the forge. Like the books had taught me, and like what seemed to be obvious, I simply poured some more magic into the ingot, making the swirl faster, brighter, and more pronounced. I had to be careful not to go too far, though. Not because it was dangerous, at least not in this case, but because too much and the magic would just disperse or implode in on itself, like a satellite escaping orbit.

When I opened my eye, Twilight had also just finished her enchantment, and Scrap had apparently enchanted one as well.

Scrap inspected the floating ingots through the loupe on his goggles. “Hmm. Very good,” he said.

He turned his attention to the first two ingots. “These are not very powerful, and their enchantments will fade in time, correct? Not that we were trying to do anything else,” he said and lightly bopped them downwards. They slowly floated up again, like weighed down corks.

He then magicked the two newer specimen beside each other, along with his own. “These are more powerful, as was intended,” he said, reared up and leaned with his forelegs around mine and his own. “Twilight’s especially. It’s very impressive, more powerful than ours.”

“Oh,” Twilight said with a very small blush. “Thank you.”

I wasn’t put off in the least by Twilight outperforming me, after all, she had been studying magic long before I was born, and I was too absorbed by the fact that I was finally learning sophisticated magic that I could perhaps one day excel at.

“But if you’ll forgive my bluntness, your highness, that doesn’t necessarily make you a better enchanter than me, or even Gabe,” Scrap said.

Twilight nodded. “I had figured that much, from what I’ve read.”

Scrap started hanging sacks of coal around the three ingots. The first ones couldn’t handle much more than their own weight, of course, but the second batch could handle a lot more.

“Weak enchantments,” Scrap said and gestured to the first ingot. “But, you can make them more powerful.”

Mine was the weakest of the new batch, only supporting two sacks of coals before it started sinking. Scrap’s could handle almost twice that, while Twilight’s was so powerful that Scrap couldn’t fit enough sacks around it to weigh it down.

“Mmm,” he said in approval. “Like I said, very good. But! There are ways around a simple enchantment.”

“I poured all the magic I could into this one,” Scrap said, shook his head, removed the sacks from Twilight’s ingot, and then poured the contents of one of them into the forge. “Almost forgot,” he muttered to himself. “It’s not as powerful as yours, Twilight, you’re simply too powerful when it comes to raw magic.”

I was utterly entranced by the lesson, and when Scrap floated a sixth ingot over and placed it on top of Twilight’s, I instantly projected myself into my horn to see what he was gonna do next.

“Observe,” Scrap said, and started weaving a new enchantment. “I’m making another enchantment, this one is almost an exact reverse of the floating enchantment, so instead of floating, it’s for weighing something down.”

Scrap gently flowed magic into the ingot, but it didn’t look very impressive, at least at first.

True enough, it started pushing down against Twilight’s floating specimen, but not enough to move it. So Scrap kept working on the enchantment.

“I’ve left room for additional, amplifying enchantments,” he said, and true enough, he beamed more magic into the ingot, the new addition surrounded the previous magic, flowing with it, forming a sort of shell that floated around it like a planetary model, either pushing or dragging the magic within it faster, or perhaps both.

“And so,” – the ingot on top of Twilight’s became heavy enough to push both of them downwards – “Raw power puts up a good fight, but it doesn’t top experience and knowledge.”

Twilight’s ingot gently touched the floor. “I could’ve made it quite a bit more powerful, but I don’t wanna scuff the floor more than necessary.”

I noted how Scrap wiped the ingots of enchantments, one by one. It was difficult to describe, but it was both like blocking a whirl of water, and brushing away figures from a whiteboard. Only, it was magic, so I would’ve liked a less banal way to describe it.

I de-projected myself and opened my eye. Twilight looked contemplative as Scrap floated the ingots back to the table he got them from.

“So, that was basic, and advanced, enchanting in a nutshell,” Scrap said. “Do you know what I was trying to teach you?”

Twilight and I looked at each other again.

“Uhm, that raw power doesn’t make an enchanter?” Twilight asked.

Scrap bobbed his head in consideration. “Not quite,” he said. “As we clearly saw, with basic knowledge, raw power can lead to a very potent enchantment.”

“But you were still able to, uh, outperform it,” I said.

“True,” he said. “And we’re getting closer. I did it because I can go further in what enchanting is all about.”

Twilight and I looked at him, eagerly scarfing down every bit of knowledge he had to offer.

“Alright, let’s take what we learned from the top,” Scrap said as he emptied another bag of coal into the forge. Despite the glorious sunlight flowing in through the window, I embraced the feeling that the gentle light from the flames formed. You want dark, cosy places with warm candlelight when learning magic, and Scrap Armor’s workshop was strangely ambient.

“We started with enchantments,” Scrap continued. “They were weak, but we made them more powerful. Then I tried outperforming Twilight’s with raw magic, but I couldn’t. So I made a weaker enchantment, but I used another enchantment to amplify it. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?”

We nodded, and Scrap continued with a smirk on his face.

“You can augment a weaker enchantment, but it requires a more deft hoof. Amplified enchantments are less stable and decay quicker, but that can be solved with other enchantments, but you can only squeeze so many enchantments into one object, but with enough skill you can overcome that as well. And that’s enchantment. It’s an endless parade of obstacles, but the more skilled the enchanter, the more of these obstacles can be overcome.

“Power might be limited, but there’s ways around that, but it makes things unreliable, but there’s way around that too, but it’s hard to make things that are too complicated, but it can be done with enough skill. And that’s it, a bunch of ‘buts’, and an enchanter’s skill can be measured by how many ‘buts’ they can overcome. But-but-but-but-but, always a bunch of buts. Hence:” – Scrap’s grin widened – “the ‘trade of flanks’,” he said, and broke into laughter.

Scrap laughed long and hard. I let out a tired smile at the whole thing, while Twilight struggled to not do the same.

Scrap finally stopped laughing. “Ahaaa. Normally, I’d rear up and smack somepony’s flank right now, but since we’re the only ones here, I thought it might be best not to.”

“I should hope so,” sounded Armor’s stern voice. “I don’t wanna have to arrest you,” he said with a small, wry smile.

Armor stood in the doorway with one of the bags that the crusaders and I had filled with gems yesterday.

“Ah, Sergeant Sourpuss!” Scrap happily said, and started walking towards his nephew with a raised hoof. “Perfect timing! Turn around, so I can demonstrate on you, instead.”


-


It was a few hours of practice that followed, and it took a while for it to sink in for me just how good Scrap was at this. The Armors of the royal guard didn’t really seem to cover all that much, but seeing just what Scrap, and presumably all the other creators, made caused me to rethink just how effective they might be.

For starters, just because the material didn’t cover the entire barrel, didn’t mean that the uncovered parts were unprotected, and seeing just how impressive the enchantments on the spears looked, I was very curious about what exactly would happen if their wielders swung them at something at full force.

The specialised equipment, the kind of things that Twilight’s brother was capable of handling, was nigh-indestructible by conventional means. I suspected that even a human military would have to roll out their larger pieces if they wanted a piece of Prince Shining Armor’s armor pieces. It was an expensive armor to piece together, though, so production was slow in peacetime.

Twilight was indeed a monster when it came to raw magic, but I was making a lot of progress when it came to the technical side of the subject, and using my gems that Armor had returned with, I was able to squeeze quite a lot of raw magic power into my enchantments, too. While Twilight’s simple enchantments were absolute juggernauts, I was having an easier time when it came to more advanced stuff, like adding advanced functions to simpler formulas.

“I’m not sure how to say this in a diplomatic way, Twilight, but Gabe is the more proficient enchanter between the two of you,” Scrap said, after I made a double enchantment that transferred heat from one gem to another so effectively, that you could toss the transferrer into the forge, and it would cool down to room temperature within seconds of picking it out of the fire.

The corresponding gem had left a scorched depression on Scrap’s workbench, though.

“I figured,” Twilight said. “Still, this was pretty fun. I hope you think so, too, Gabe. It would be awful if you didn’t appreciate your special talent.”

“You kidding? This is great,” I said with a big, goofy grin on my muzzle.

‘Humans can make long-range communication with only electricity and conductors and some junk, if I can apply some good old human ingenuity to this, well, perfect prostheses are not even an end goal anymore.’

“Oh, good. I was a bit worried, seeing how you used to not be a pony,” Twilight said.

“I think you might even be sharper than me, given some time. You seem to pick it up faster than I did, when I started out,” Scrap said.

“Really?” I asked.

“Mhmm. Even if you didn’t have the Crowns’ support, with this, you’re gonna have a skill to make a living out of before long.”

“Wow. I thought I was pretty decent at this, but that’s really impressive, Gabe,” Twilight said, and put her hoof on my shoulder.

“You’re more than ‘pretty decent’, Highness,” Scrap said. “Don’t think you’re not, because you’re standing next to a veteran and somepony truly talented.”

I felt pride swelling in me. It contrasted with the compliments I’d received back at my old job, which were nice and all, but, well… it wasn’t magic.

“Thank you,” Twilight said. “But still, I can tell that you were good at this, Gabe. I feel like a lumbering hydra compared to a Wonderbolt.”

That golden glow of accomplishment kept yeasting in me, making words a bit difficult to choose. Scrap spoke before me, though.

“Eeeh,” he said. “I’d say it’s more like the iron pony competition between Rainbow Dash and Applejack.”

‘“Iron pony” competition? Darn, seems like I can’t have that as my superhero handle when I actually get those legs.’

“Pretty good analogy, too, now that I think about it,” Scrap continued. “Applejack did a really good job with that raw strength of hers, while Rainbow is more nimble and specialized athlete.”

Twilight put her hoof on her chin in consideration. “I think I see what you mean,” before she turned to me and Armor. “Do you guys want lunch?”

Armor looked up from his book, but waited for me to speak. “Uh, sure,” I said, shaking myself back to the present. “I could go for some.”

“How about you, Scrap?” Twilight asked. “It’d be the least we can do for today. Or, is this okay with your curriculum?”

“Oh, yeah, this seems like a good idea to hold for today, and don’t worry about me, I’m gonna take an hour by the forge, work up my appetite a bit.”

“Well, thank you so much for today, Scrap,” Twilight said.

“Yeah, thank you,” I said, before something struck me. “By the way, do you have any plans written down for the guard sabatons?”

“I do, gimme a minute” Scrap said and went into the house.

He returned with a waxed felt folder case, filled to the brim with coffee-stained papers.

“This is my old collection of plans,” he said and floated it over to me. “I’ve made copies of all of these, so don’t worry too much about being careful with it. The sabatons are somewhere in here, up to and including my latest models.”

“Wow. Thank you,” I said, trying to sound as reverent as I felt, considering the scope of information contained within here, by what I could glimpse from the papers sticking out.

“Don’t mention it,” Scrap said with a wave. “Now keep this safe, I would still like to have this returned, because I wouldn’t give this out to just anypony. But seeing as how you’re a diplomat in company with both Princess Twilight and my nephew, I’m gonna make an exception. These are… not quite military secrets, but very close to them, and I could get into serious trouble if these fell into the wrong hooves.”

Twilight nodded. “Don’t worry, Scrap. We’re gonna take care of them.”

“I’m sure you will,” he said. “But don’t worry, if this folder leaves Ponyville, I’ll know.”

I projected myself into my horn again, but I couldn’t really make out the enchantment that was on it.

“Look at the bell above the doorway,” Armor said with a sly smile. “And you might recognise the heat transferring enchantment connected to the piece of slag in that drawer over there.”

“Oooh. Clever,” I said.


-


“I just don’t see what’s so strange about it,” Twilight said. “A ‘watering hole’ is a normal way to refer to such an establishment, joined with a common slang for donkeys, the primary clientele.”

“Well, alright,” I conceded. “It’s just that, our languages are pretty much the same, but sometimes the small differences have some strange results. In this case, a donkey pub with a very crass name.”

Spike let out a very loud belch, covering the plates by the table in a sparkling green flame, and making me happy that I had finished my lunch. Then, a scroll materialised in front of him, and I wondered if Celestia received her scrolls in the same way.

“Letter, Twilight,” he said.

“Oh, it’s from Luna,” she said, and cleared her throat. “Dear Twilight Sparkle. We are pleased with your swift response concerning the matter of Gabrielle Desrochers’ dreams. While we have not discovered any signs of alien influence, which the content of dream from the night before this one seemed to indicate, this most recent one might provide some insight into the matter.

“Bear in mind that this is a personal observation, little more than an educated guess, but I suspect that the reason for Gabe’s strange dreams could be her subconsciousness responding to the presence of magically provided knowledge.

“Allow me to expand on this: ponies’ magical talents often provide them with insight beyond what external influences, such as book learning, offer in itself. If humans do not have these special talents, this kind of self provided knowledge might seem to be received externally.

“It could easily be imagined as an unnerving experience, but a pony rejecting their cutie mark, or being harmed by their special talent, is vanishingly rare. Our magic is for our benefit, it wishes us well, and I suspect that it may have created an avatar of sorts in Gabe’s subconscious, to provide her with knowledge more aligned with a human mind’s frames of reference. Whether it is her magical talent taking on this shape, her subconscious mind interpreting it as such, or both, I cannot say.

“Please enquire with Gabrielle about whether or not she feels that this could be so. Without the firmer knowledge that I can normally provide in these matters, Gabrielle’s feelings on the matter could prove vital, and I will continue to monitor her dreams, fruitless as my endeavors seem.

“Despite these choice of words, please do not mistake this for alarm. This seems like a joyous development, and I would congratulate our guest on her progress in her field. Please offer my best wishes to her, and to Private Armor.

“Your friend, Luna.

“P.S, I should also report that a dragon known as ‘Jethro’ arrived here in the early night yesterday, sent here by the three of you. He is currently loitering in the crystal caves beneath Canterlot while we’re considering fitting punishments or occupations. I am also saddened to report that while you no doubt greatly appreciate a chance to learn more about wyrms, Twilight, Jethro is, while in possession of a mediocrum of charm, astonishingly oblivious in close to all subjects, and nearly so in the rest. I doubt he will be much use in any research.”

Twilight put the letter down and everyone around the table looked at me.

“Well,” I said. “Uhm. I’m feeling kinda… I feel like I’m taking up a lot of everyone’s time.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Twilight said. “Luna’s just very dedicated.”

“Well, alright,” I said, not entirely convinced. “So, uh, I guess that’s good. I mostly thought the whole thing was curious and…”

I stopped to give this some thought before continuing. ‘Yeah… I guess it kinda makes sense. The deep, smooth voice of a wise man, or whatever. He seemed slightly smug, too, like he’s waiting for me to figure out stuff from cryptic lessons, and all that.’

“Yeah,” I said and slowly nodded. “I think that with all the movies and stories I’ve seen, that could fit my image of a mentor… figure… archetype, or something.”

“You have movies about that?” Twilight said.

“I don’t know if I have a movie specifically about a wise mentor,” I said. “I’d like to see one, though, but yeah, I have movies with wise mentors in them.”

Twilight looked curious about that. “Perhaps you could show me?”

“Sure,” I said and shrugged. “I promised the Crusaders to show them some, too. It seems we got a movie night in the making,” – Spike looked up at that – ”, but we’re about to have a self-defence lesson next, right?”

“That’s right,” Twilight said. “I hope you’re ready.”

“Only one way to find out,” I said.

“Let me help clean off the table,” Armor offered.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Spike asked.

“You are gonna go fetch some issues of your favorite comic,” I said.

“Alright. Why?” He asked.

“Because I wanna check something,” I said, holding back a smug smile.

“Okay, gimme a minute,” he said and walked out of the room, returning half a minute later.

“Here you go,” he said and held out a comic to me.

I magically grabbed it and started quickly scanning the pages.

.Colorful tights, masks, superpowers, kinda weird to have comics with that in Equestria, but whatever, underwear on the outside, overdramatic villains. Yeah, this’ll do..

“Thanks,” I said and floated the comic back to him.

“Uh, no problem. Did you… find out anything?” He asked.

“Yeah, I know you’re curious about my computer, and now I know exactly what to show you on it,” I said, and gave him a sly grin as Armor started wheeling me out of the room. “Laters.”


-


We made a short detour around parts of the town, with me riding on Twilight’s back and Armor carrying my wheelchair. We set down on a hill, not far enough to actually have left Ponyville as a community, but far enough that some noises and flashes wouldn’t cause any disturbance, or really be noticed.

“So,” Twilight said. “Are you ready to learn about unicorn combat?”

I bobbed my head in consideration. “I think so,” I replied.

“Alright then,” Twilight said. “Can you think up a way to magically attack me?”

“Uh, well, I–” I started.

“Uh, Your Hi– Twilight,” Armor interrupted. “Can I ask something?”

“Of course,” Twilight said.

“Alright, well, uh, you see… Our first drill sergeant, Misty Rock, talked that way to us when we were recruits. I come from a military family, so I didn’t do this mistake, but when we answered ‘yes’ to that question, she offered, or rather, encouraged someone to take a swipe at her, and then she just beat up whoever did that,” Armor said.

Twilight looked at him in surprise.

“I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t do anything like that,” he said, a bit embarrassed.

“Oh, no. No, no, no,” Twilight said and shook her head. “I just thought we’d take this slowly, and from the beginning.”

“Oh, okay,” Armor said, clearly relieved.

“Aaw,” I cooed and gave him a smile. “Thanks, Armor.”

He coughed into a hoof. “Don’t mention it,” he said in a small voice.

“I know life for a military pony can be tough,” Twilight said. “But that doesn’t sound very productive.”

“Mmm, yeah,” Armor nodded. “My cousin, Gambeson, has always had confidence issues, so Grampa Plate showed her how to beat Misty Rock, and then she made her go see your brother and describe her training methods.”

Twilight’s face lit up in recognition. “Oh, I think I remember that,” she said. “Yeah, he was all grumpy one day, said he had to re-educate some trainers. Complaining about old ponies set in their ways and things like that.”

Armor nodded. “Yeah, Gambeson was a bit of a hero in some circles after that. That was good too, she needed a bit of confidence that matched her skill,” he said with a smile.

I looked at him, but he seemed oblivious to my deadpan stare. ‘Look who’s talking.’

Twilight looked vaguely pleased about that, too. “Small world,” she said. “Anyway, unicorn magic. Can you figure out how to hurt somepony with your magic, Gabe?”

I opened my mouth to answer, then shut it again. After a while, I shook my head. “Not really, no,” I said. “I know I did something pretty bombastic when I first got to Equestria, but planned? I can’t think of anything except arcanokinetically throwing things at people. And even then, it wouldn’t be any big or heavy things.”

Twilight nodded approvingly. “I’m impressed. Most unicorns would rely on a common, instinctive form of magic, even more instinctive than arcanokinesis.”

“Oh, uh, what is that, and what was impressive?” I asked.

“The impressive part was that you first thought about using your environment for physical force,” Twilight said. “The other type of magic is rarely dangerous in its basic form.”

I opened my mouth to ask a question, but realised that it was the same one I had already asked.

“Like arcanokinesis, it is instinctual, and a bit primal. Another mix between sorcery and a spell,” Twilight continued. “You charge up your unicorn magic in a sort of raw form, and launch it against a target.”

“And what happens to what you hit?” I asked.

“That depends,” Twilight said. “The form of it that most unicorns use has a dispersing effect against the type of magic reserves that living beings have, so if you hit an inanimate object, nothing much happens.”

“And if you hit a person with it?” I asked.

“Unless it is very powerful, the victim’s magical reserves are scrambled, leaving them tired, and if applied enough, unconscious,” Twilight said. “Much like what happened to you, when you first arrived in Equestria. Except it would be depleted by outside influence, rather than by yourself.”

I rested my chin against my hoof as I considered this. “Hmm, but using this magic also spends your magical reserves?” I asked.

“Yes, so unicorns interested in combat wants to build up their resistance against such magic, build their magical reserves, and train themselves to use their magic as effectively as possible,” Twilight said. “Much like any other field, I suppose.”

“So it’s a matter of exhausting your opponent before they exhaust you?” I asked, getting some amusing mental images.

“Yes,” Twilight nodded. “At least when using basic unicorn magic.”

I snorted in amusement. “That reminds of this thing,” I started, trying to figure out how to best describe this to a pair of ponies. “Back on Earth, Terra, we have this thing where you climb into these really heavy and clumsy suit that you can barely move in, and try to wrestle.”

Armor raised an eyebrow at that. “What’s the point of that?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s a game,” I said, deciding not to go into the actual wrestling it’s based on. “Where you try and wrestle in the most awkward way ever. It’s actually kinda hilarious.”

“You’ve tried it?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, ages ago” I said.

“Oh. So it was before…” Twilight said and tapered off.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said and waved it off. “Though it was a bit scary, because there was no way I was gonna be able to get out of that suit on my own. From what you’re saying, unicorn combat reminded me of that, with opponents that can’t hurt each other.”

Armor was looking up in the sky, contemplating what I just described, while Twilight shook her head patiently. “Oh, don’t let Applejack and Rainbow Dash make you think that all earth ponies and pegasi are as strong as they are. We unicorns also have plenty of heft in our hooves,” she said and shook her head. “You unicorns. I keep forgetting that.”

“Can I see? You shooting, I mean,” I said.

“Sure,” Twilight said, and turned toward a boulder. “Now, I’ve practised this quite a bit, so I can shape it into different shapes, like bursts, or a continuous stream.”

“What’s it called, by the way?” I asked.

“Arcano-dispersive shock,” Twilight said.

She lit up her horn, and a small, bright, lavender orb shot out from her horn and hit the rock. The magic’s impact created a small explosion, but didn’t seem to do much, physically. It looked cool, though, and sounded cool, too. A bit like I always imagined a magical burst of energy to sound.

‘Huh, video game sound designers were pretty close to the mark, who knew? Thankfully it didn’t sound like those toys I remember from when I was a kid, with that cheap sound chip that was in every other piece of plastic with five looping sets of beeps and explosions or whatever. Man, those were annoying.’

“Awesome,” I said. “So unicorns have a sort of built-in stun gun?”

“I’m not sure what that is,” Twilight said. “But judging from the name, yes, or well, in a sense. You’ll want some practice to be able to use it efficiently.”

I turned to Armor. “So that’s what your colleagues do?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “Practice makes perfect, though they learn how to do that against physical targets as well.”

“Can you do that?” I asked Twilight.

“Yes,” she said. “I thankfully haven’t really had to use it much, but I’m guessing you want a demonstration?”

“Kinda, yeah,” I said, a bit sheepishly.

“I must admit that I’m curious about this as well,” Armor said.

“Alright,” Twilight said, took off, and had a look around. “Nopony else is around. I picked this spot because nopony is gonna mind some rocks spread across the landscape, and the hills absorb a lot of the sound. Now, if you would take cover behind there,” she said, and pointed towards a small, sandy ridge, large enough to cover all three of us.

I scooted up on Armor’s back as he grabbed my chair. Behind the ridge, we poked our heads up to see what Twilight was gonna do, with me leaning my right side against Armor for balance, and my goggles lowered over my eyes, old and new.

Twilight gestured to the same boulder she demonstrated on last time. “Alright, look at the boulder,” she said, and took off, landing on a small, stray cloud. “I’m gonna start with the most overcharged version I can of the arcano-dispersive shock before I show the physical version.”

Three real eyes and one cosmetic were locked on Twilight as she charged up her horn again. This time, the glow was intimidatingly intense, and brightly glowing sparks emanated from it, like cinders from Scrap’s forge.

Twilight shot down at the rock and there was a huge, purple explosion as it hit. I could understand why she told us to take cover, because the blastwave felt like it would have been enough to knock us out, if we had been standing in the open.

‘Kings of Hawaii, Twilight! You could bring down a tank like that!’

Armor and I shook our heads and tried to regain our bearings, as Twilight floated down to us on the cloud.

“Are you two okay?” she asked

“Uh, yeah, I think I’m fine,” I said.

“Yeah, me too,” Armor said, though I can tell that he would need a few minutes, like me, if he was gonna do any fancy flying.

“Alright,” Twilight said, conjured up a mostly transparent purple screen between us and the boulder, and hopped down beside us. “Maybe I should do this from here this time, so we won’t get as much debris over us.”

I quickly forced myself to focus again. “Okay, cool,” I said, eagerly.

Twilight did the same thing as earlier, but I thought I could see more of a bluish tint to the magical glow this time.

When she let loose the magical energy, the results were spectacular. The rock was mostly vaporized, and the parts that weren’t were launched far into the distance, where they quickly vanished from sight. Left was a cone-shaped crater, partially smoking from the friction.

‘… Nevermind tanks, Twilight. You can bring down a battleship with that.’

Twilight’s screen dispersed, making me realise how effective it had been at blocking the sound. She then magicked the cloud over and stabbed it with her horn, which made a sizzling sound.

“Oooh,” she said, looking relieved.

I looked at the smoldering crater, and back to Twilight. ‘Heh! Happiness is a warm unicorn horn.’

“Aaah,” Twilight breathed as the sizzling died down. “That’s what I mean when I said I didn’t have enough control for my raw power,” she said. “It would’ve been more effective if I had been trained in this, like my brother.”

I looked at the crater again. “I dunno, that was pretty impressive.”

“Thanks, but I would’ve been able to do this without overheating my horn if I was trained in this,” Twilight said. “It helps being an alicorn, but still.”

“So raw power can blow away a boulder, but you need control to not hurt yourself?” I asked.

“Well, I didn’t really hurt myself, more strained myself than anything,” she said. “Those were a bit too big to be this close to each other.”

I laid back against the dune and waved away the vapor from the cloud with a questioning look.

“Well, you know how they say that your muscles burn if you overexert yourself?” Twilight said. “Sometimes it’s a bit more literal when it comes to unicorn magic.”

“I’ll say.”

“And that wasn’t my horn actually being frying hot,” Twilight said. “That was an arcanic energy burn, or simply a ‘thauma burn’.”

“And that first version wasn’t physically dangerous?” I asked.

“Not directly, but you remember when Scrap said that unicorns tend to have an advantage against pegasi in combat?” Twilight said. “Well, that’s because their magic requires a lot more precision when they’re flying than earth ponies’ magic, so you have to be careful not to make a pegasus lose control if you’re fighting them with magic, unless you actually wanna hurt somepony.”

“I never had a reason to fight anyone back home, but you never know. Especially with hungry dragons flying around,” I said.

“Hmm, well,” Twilight said skeptically. “Dragons are tough. Even without training, they’re so tough that it’s really hard to disrupt their flying magic for very long. It’s not impossible, though, so it’s a good idea to start practising if you’re worried it’s gonna happen again.”

“So they’re like crocodiles? They can just float around for months at a time and still be freakishly strong and quick whenever a wildebeest comes close to them,” I said.

“That’s a bit morbid, but yes” Twilight said. “You know a lot about crocodiles?”

“Not really,” I said. “I don’t have high thoughts about the state of television today, but sometimes you can’t help but learn a few things when you’re home with the flu, stuck on the couch.”

Twilight looked at me in confusion for a moment.

“That’s another thing to learn about when it comes to Terra, I think,” she said.

“Judging from what you’re saying,” I said. “Can pegasi and earth ponies reach the same power with their magic?” I asked,

“Sure,” Twilight said. “You should see Rainbow when she goes all out. Or Pinkie’s sister, Maud.”

“So an agriculturally oriented earth pony’s magic can be as powerful as that?” I asked, and gestured to the crater.

“Yes. Look at Sweet Apple Acres,” Twilight said. “Those orchards are huge, and it’s pretty much only Applejack and Big Mac that does most of the heavy lifting on that farm.”

“Huhuh!” I said in a dumb-sounding voice. “That puts a new spin on the term ‘hedge wizard’.”

Armor snorted in amusement, and Twilight rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Now, there is one thing I’d like to try,” Twilight said.

“What?” I asked.

“Well, since I’ve never met anypony with as much control over their hoof-fields as you, I’d like to see how efficiently you can reform them?”

“Reform them? Are you gonna blast them with your horn?” I asked.

“With your permission, yes. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna knock you out, and with your control, you should be able to reform them again in no time,” she said.

“Well, alright,” I said, and tried rolling over to show my hoof. I ended up falling over, though, but Armor was there and propped me up against him. “Thanks,” I said and gave him a smile.

“Alright, here we go,” Twilight said, and lit up her horn.

I closed my eyes and projected myself into my horn to watch the magical fields around me again. My "hand" was resting out of my hoof when a bright beam shot out of Twilight’s horn. My eyebrows shot up as I watched in morbid fascination as most of my hand looked like it was forcefully dissolved, leaving only parts of my thumb.

It felt like I had just sat on my hand until it went numb as I wiggled the small remains of my phantom-like hand.

“Uh, are you sure this isn’t permanent?” I "looked" at Twilight and asked worriedly. I realised that I didn’t seem to move my head much when I was projected into my horn, probably making me look pretty cool in circumstances other than this one.

“Yes,” Twilight said confidently. “Try and channel some magic into your hoof the same way you channel magic into your horn when you’re using a spell.”

I did so, and the hand practically exploded into existence like an airbag going off.

I watched in fascination as I turned my reformed hand around.

“That’s a good example of magical control,” Twilight said as I deprojected myself and observed the world around me again. “You have a great control of your hoof fields, and can do very efficient work with a very small amount of magic. Conversely, my brother, for example, isn’t really as powerful as me when it comes to magic in general, but he would be able to do this without straining himself,” she said and gestured to the crater.

I nodded slowly, understanding creeping in.

“So, you wanna give it a try?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, enthusiastically.

Twilight floated my chair up from our cover while Armor lifted me up into it.

“Now, like Celestia said, I haven’t been formally trained the way a royal guard has,” Twilight said and walked up a bit. “I think that would involve a lot of force field training and dodging.”

“It does,” Armor confirmed.

“But I thought it might be best to stick to target practice,” Twilight continued, a bit nervous. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to train combat maneuvers.”

“That would indeed be kinda tricky,” I said, with a small smirk. 

‘For now…’

“So how about you try and hit this?” Twilight said and conjured up a transparent orb a bit in front of me.

“Alright,” I said. “So how do you do this?”

“Well it’s… it’s often a natural, instinctual response. Imagine something big and scary coming at you, what’s the most natural for you to do if you’ve been cornered?”

“Eeh,” I said and let out a contemplative sigh. “I dunno. Maybe punch around myself wildly? I was right-handed before this, though,” I said and shrugged with my right side. “So… I would like to think that I’d do something clever, but I’d probably just collapse and beg for my life.”

Armor put his hoof on my shoulder. “You’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical about that. You were very collected for somepony being abducted and then dropped by a dragon yesterday,” he said calmly and reassuringly.

I managed to fight down a blush at that.

“Agreed. Well, how about you try it anyway? Just imagine that you have to defeat this… mighty foe,” Twilight said and gestured towards the purple sphere. “Channel magic into your horn, but instead of reaching out and biting do– grabbing something, kick it.”

“Hmm, I think you mean punch it,” I said.

“Erm, yes, punch it.”

“Alright, here goes,” I said, closed my eyes, channeled magic into my horn, and… kinda did nothing.

“Try it again,” Twilight encouraged. “And try imagining yourself in different situations, all dangerous."

And I did, over and over. Sam Raimi captured trying to figure out how to activate a new natural ability pretty well in Spider Man. There was a long montage with no progress, and I was growing pretty frustrated after only a few minutes.

“Well, I can imagine this is pretty difficult,” Twilight said. “I had a lot of trouble controlling my wings when I became an alicorn, and Cadence told me it was really tricky to learn unicorn magic when she became one. And since I guess that you’re mentally a human…” Twilight trailed off.

My face was a mask of stony calm, but an attentive observer might have noticed that the keyword was "stony".

‘A human, am I!? A human, indeed!’

I did a mighty headbang just as I channeled another round of magic into my horn, a bit stronger than I intended.

A wave of blue light emanated from my horn as a large wave of magical energy shot towards the target and utterly obliterated it.

At least, that’s what I’ll assume happened. I didn’t see any of it, since I was shot backwards in my wheelchair, over the edge that me and Armor has been hiding behind not long ago.

“Whoa!” was all I managed to yell before I found myself flying through the air, the wheelchair at first rolling smoothly across the grass, and then coming to an abrupt halt as it bit into the sandy ground by the cover, catapulting me onto the ground.

I picked myself up from my faceplant in the sand and shook my head.

“Gabe! Are you okay!?” Armor shouted.

I spit off some sand from my lips. “Pah! Pfff! Pfuf!” and on in that manner I spat before looking up at Twilight and Armor flying over to me. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Well, it worked, eventually.”

Armor came to a halt in front of me. “Close your eyes, Gabe,” he said.

I complied, somewhat confused, as he picked me up and placed me back in my chair. “Can I open them now?”

“Yeah,” he said, and I saw him flying over to where I had been launched from, and returned with my new prosthetic eye in his mouth, which hadn’t left the launch site with me.

“Oh,” I said.

He set down and I closed my eyelids as he gently started dusting my face off with a wing.

Afterwards, he dropped my new eyeball in his hoof and looked at it skeptically.

“Uh, yeah, you can put that down for now. I think I’m gonna go with these instead,” I said, and lowered my goggles over my eye and socket, thanking Rainbow for the gift and congratulating myself for my foresight, twice in a row.


-


I was too young to have have grown up with the sound of chalk being dragged across blackboards to form any particular feeling about it. Growing up, my main feeling about blackboards was confusion, as they were, like the ones Twilight had set up in the basement of Golden Oaks, invariably green.

I wrapped my hoof around the neck of the ukulele, and gently strummed the strings with my magic. As I plinked the individual strings, one by one, a smile started growing in my lips, slowly reaching my eyes, the right one having been cleaned and reinserted. I was getting better.

“You’re gonna help us if Twilight doesn’t get anywhere with this, aren’t you?” Spike asked, and Twilight shot him a scowl.

“Sure,” I said, continuing to strum at the strings.

Twilight let out a small, “Oh,” Followed by a frustrated, “Hhrrm,” as she struggled to navigate my computer, all the while taking notes on what she was doing, written ones on parchments on the table, and illustrations on the blackboards.

“Having trouble?” I asked innocently.

“I… yes, a little bit,” she said. “I entered the wrong folder and now I don’t know how to get out of it.”

I smiled to myself, noting how easily Twilight had projected herself into the what she saw on the screen. She didn’t just "open" folders, she "entered" them.

“What was the word you used, again?” Armor asked. I was kinda happy how he had taken a seat next to me and watching what Twilight was doing, rather than standing at attention, trying to look stony like he usually did. I hoped I wasn’t giving him habits that would get him into trouble with future assignments, though.

“User interface,” I said. “To differentiate it from how the components communicate with each other, I suppose.”

“That’s a funny word,” Spike said.

“I know lot’s of funny words,” I said in an easy way as I kept strumming the ukulele. “Like ‘trinitrotoluene’, or a personal favorite of mine, ‘polychlorotrifluoroethylene’.”

I didn’t need to look up, I could feel Armor’s confusion radiating from his face. “Is that really a real word?” he asked.

“It’s a kind of plastic,” Twilight said. “Anyway, I give up. I need help with this.”

“Poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide,” I said to Armor as I floated the ukulele over to the table, and rolled up beside Twilight. “Alright, noticed how this bar changed as you opened the folders?” I asked.

Pretty soon, we were watching a comic book-movie, though I had to pause the beginning of the video to let Twilight take some more notes.

“This is absolutely amazing,” she said, and managed to tear away her eyes from the screen to look at me. “How does it do this? Can you show me?”

I chuckled. “I thought you’d be more impressed by how I played a game the last time I showed you this.”

“But that didn’t look as real,” Twilight protested.

“Interactivity is still more technologically advanced, as far as I know,” I noted. “But, well, while I don’t know the actual technical specifications behind this whole thing” – I gestured to the computer – “In fact, I don’t think all that many people do, I guess I can show you what the inside looks like.”

“Yes!” Twilight insisted almost maniacally.

This seemed to wake Spike up from his trance-like state. “Hey, no!” he said, tearing his eyes away from the screen. “Not yet! I gotta see how this ends!”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “If we’re careful, I think we can open the chassis while it’s running. We’ll need some tools, though.”

Armor reluctantly turned away from the screen. “Do you, uh, do you want me to go over to Scrap and see if he’s got any?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Take a look at these screws and see if he’s got anything that could fit.”

“Alright,” he said, and gave the screen another look as he slowly started moving towards the stairs.

“Hey, we can pause it while you’re away,” I said.

Spike opened his mouth to protest, but reluctantly closed it again.

“How about you make some snacks in the meantime, Spike?” I asked. “I’ve got a bag of gems upstairs, you can have some if you want to.”

“Hmm, alright,” he said, and I paused the video.

Spike went upstairs with Armor after they had taken a look at the back of the chassis. I tried magicking some of them out, but it only worked with two, the rest were attached too firmly, and I couldn’t get a very good "grip" of them with my magic.

Twilight was busy making illustrations of the computer, display, input devices, and so on, and I decided that to not disturb her with opening the chassis. Instead, I went back to the ukulele, making pretty good progress at picking out old video game tunes.

“So you can travel among the stars?” Twilight asked.

“Nah,” I said, figuring that she was referring to the movie. “Or, well, not really, in practice. We can launch things and people into space, but as I understand it, it’s really difficult to move people far away from Earth.”

“How so?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, well,” I started, and let out a long, contemplative huff as I considered the answer. “For starters, it costs a fortune to just leave Earth’s atmosphere.”

“‘Earth’ is the same thing as ‘Terra’, right?” Twilight asked, having started scribbling down things on parchments again.

“Yeah,” I said. “I imagine that it’s close to impossible to get a manned rocket with enough supplies and fuel to get to another planet, let alone another solar system, and if we manage it, how would the people going there talk to us? I’m pretty sure that going into space is exclusively for scientific purposes, and if someone travels too far away from the planet, I don’t think we can communicate with them properly, so we can’t know what they learn.”

Twilight’s scribbling slowed down for a moment. “That does sound like a big problem,” she said, with a touch of sadness in her voice.

“Yeah, and then there’s a lot of health issues when traveling into space,” I said. “Being cut off from our home’s ecosystem, lack of sunlight, lack of gravity, perhaps even a lack of friends.”

Twilight paused for a moment, looked up at the wall with a thousand-yard stare, then continued writing.

“But we fantasise a lot about visiting other worlds and travelling through space,” I said, going back to the movie and its settings. “Perhaps someday we will, especially if ponies can help.”

“It all looks so real, though,” Twilight said and looked at the frozen image on the screen.

“It does,” I said. “But it’s all illusions, and not even magical ones, at that.”

Spike and Armor came back, the first one with a bowl of nachos and one with a sparkly cream, the latter with a felt kit full of tools.

I unpaused the movie and started going through the kit, eventually finding something appropriate.

Eventually, the plate covering the chassis was loose, though I had to use both my hoof and my magic at once a few times.

“Wow. This looks really complicated,” Twilight said as I lifted off the plate. “I figured that there would be more moving parts, though.”

“There are a few,” I said, and pointed to the hard drive, keeping my voice low to not disturb the movie-goers to the side. “I think that one’s got little tools to write and read from the disks.”

“Disks?” Twilight said in confusion.

“Yeah, there are magnetic disks inside that thing.”

“What do they do?”

“They store the data in binary forms,” I said.

Twilight looked at the screen, then at the hard drive, and then the screen, and back to the hard drive again. “How much data?”

I let out another contemplative sigh as I strained to remember what I had picked up about computers over the years, then strained even more to remember the terminology. “Uuh, one binary value is one bit, and eight bits is one byte, and this thing can technically store, uh… one thousand kilos is one mega, then giga, ten digits… one million, times one million, times eight, times four, binary values.”

Twilight looked at me in disbelief, then to the hard drive, then the screen that still captivated Armor and Spike, then back to me again. “That’s…really impressive,” she said.

“It is,” I agreed. “When there’s money to be made in technological progress, we humans can do some pretty amazing things.

Twilight turned back to the inside of the computer, and one particular object caught her attention. “What’s this thing?” she said, and pointed at a bunch of cables.

“What?” I asked.

“This thing,” she said, tugging carefully at the piece of plastic holding a bunch of cables together with her magic.

“Oh, that’s a cable tie,” I said.

Twilight tugged a bit at the piece of plastic again.

“Hold on,” I said, and started rummaging through the tools again until I found a thin enough piece of metal. Like playing the ukulele, it was pretty good practice to undo a cable tie with both arcanokinesis, and your magic hoof field.

After a while, though, I managed to loosen it up. “Here you go,” I said, and hoofed it to her. “If you have something to replace it with, that’d be great.

Twilight absentmindedly floated a piece of string over to me as she took the cable tie and studied it.

There was a series clicking sounds as I finished fastening the string over the cables, and I looked back to see Twilight engrossed by the small plastic device.

I looked back and forth between Twilight and the computer, and snorted in amusement, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘Alien technology indeed.’

Twilight tugged at the cable tie, then floated over the piece of metal I had used earlier, and loosened it. “Can I keep this?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said.

Twilight started sketching images of the inside of the computer and the component on a blackboard again, and I rolled up beside Armor and Spike to watch the movie. Spike was partially brought out of his trance when I reached over and grabbed a few nachos from the bowl in his lap, reminding him that he had snacks.

After a while, Twilight joined us.

“Hey,” she suddenly said. “There’s a blue human there. You said that humans weren’t blue where you were from.”

“They’re not. That’s supposed to be an alien,” I said.

Twilight snickered at that.

“What?” I asked.

“It just reminds me of somepony with an infatuation,” she said. “You can’t travel to other worlds yet, but just like us, you still have these exotic ideas of what you want to see there.”

I felt mildly offended for a moment before also laughing at the strangeness of the whole thing with imagination.


-


Spike was in high gear after the movie had ended, so we ended up staying up for longer than usual.

I wasn’t holding it against him though. Because after I had cleaned myself and gotten rid of the bandages I had worn all day, I was sitting in front of my desk, also bleary-eyed and excited.

I asked Twilight to remind me to show her a movie with a wise mentor in it, though.

Four books on enchanting, my own notes, and Scrap’s case of blueprints and formulas, were scattered over the desk, together with a bunch of scattered gems.

‘This is it, I can feel it.’

It wasn’t the grand epiphany, but it was a step on the road to one. Elements from the parts of bodily interaction, the movement part from Scrap’s gear enchantment, and a bit of magically granted instinct, had given me an idea for enchantment that was a big piece of a magically complicated puzzle.

I pulled my magic out of the piece of lapis lazuli on the desk, observed my magical phantom limb, and gently swiped at the gem.

My limb met a strange form of resistance, like it had suddenly gained a weight, and power to move the weight at the same time.

The gem rolled across the desk.

I watched it for a moment, then doubled over and grinned into my hoof.

After a few calming breaths, I rolled over to my bed, scooted into it, and finally let my tiredness turn into sleepiness.

“Well done,” the voice of my unseen mentor sounded, in a satisfied tone.