//------------------------------//
// Higher Education 
// Story: My Twilight Facade 
// by axelsempai 
//------------------------------//

Bon Bon stirred the mixture in a trance.  Glowing fluid of mixed reds and blues swirled in the pot at the circular motions of her wooden spoon.  Far be it for a candy maker to experiment with magic brews, but Bon Bon was a bit revolutionary in that regard.  Why make chocolate when you can make magic chocolate?

Not that these were going up for sale.  She'd never sell something so crucial.

Yet as important as it was to make this brew just right, Bon Bon zoned out.  The motions were familiar to her.  She would have a harder time getting it wrong than accidentally succeeding at this point in her life.  She just kept stirring, staring into the pot, letting her mind wander.

Did I leave the porch light on last night?  Ugh, it figures that I would.  Top of my class in the greatest academy in the world, yet I can't remember to leave myself a note to turn that light off.  While I'm at it, I shouldn't forget to give Lyra those mints I've been telling her about.  Perhaps Lyra will be loitering in the park, again.

The mixture settled into a pale purple solution, still glowing.  As expected and desired, her job here was done.  She placed a lid on the pot and lowered the heat to a simmer.  Another batch of her specialty formula was just an hour from completion.  All she needed now was to pour a little bit into some truffles and the rest into vials, and her monthly routine would be set.  All that remained was for her to avoid getting distracted for the next sixty minutes.

There was a heavy knock at her front door.  She sighed.   Please let it be mailpony being a ditz, again.

She opened the door, taking in the visitor.  A beige pegasus with dull yellow eyes smiled nonchalantly at her doorstep.  He reached back to his saddlebags and pulled out a scroll tied by a single red string.  "Miss Drops, I presume?"

Dang it, this was important.  Bon Bon widened a fake smile to hide her irritation.  "Oh, I'm sorry, but I believe you have the wrong house.  Are you speaking of Sweetie Drops?  I get her mail an awful lot.  If you'd like, I could hoof it over to her for you."

The stallion's gaze went critical.  "Only if you know what must be done in the dead of night."

"You prepare for the coming dawn."

The stallion relaxed at the odd response.  "Well, I suppose I could let you hang onto it.  Here you go."

Bon Bon took the scroll.  "Okay, I'll make sure she gets this right away."

"Thanks a lot!"  The stallion waved farewell and trotted merrily away.

She looked at the scroll in her hoof.  Ugh, figures it would be red string.  It couldn't be something less important like brown string, or less time-consuming like blue string.  No no, it just so happens to be red.  She sighed and closed the door.

Whatever problem deserved the red string, it couldn't wait.  She pulled off the string and unfurled the scroll.



Sweetie Drops,

Our apologies for the sudden assignment, but you are the only agent we have available in the area.  There is a potential large scale threat in Ponyville that requires your surveillance, that being a dark magic user.  She is not an immediate threat, but we have reason to believe that there is more to her than her appearance and behavior would suggest.  She may be living in disguise.

Your target is the librarian Twilight Sparkle who resides in the Golden Oaks Library.  You must gather any information on her that you can. Spy on her and report any suspicious behavior and information you can find.

This assignment will be a prolonged effort on keeping tabs on a potential threat.  Equestria is counting on your success.



Bon Bon, or Sweetie Drops if you were a co-worker, twitched her eye.  It was kind of hard to believe that the librarian was a dark magic user, though it was probably a matter of time with her anger-issues.  Though that bit about her living in disguise was worrying.  Why would anypony believe Twilight was anything more than a slightly angrier than normal pony?  She guessed that was what she was supposed to find out.

So Sweetie Drops had to get something incriminating on Twilight and report it.  Simple stuff.  Nopony ever caught on to Sweetie's work before, so this should be no different.

She only needed to burn this scroll and suit up.





The page flipped to the second page for the excessively long paragraph I needed.  How complicated was this spell?  This wasn't just another spell that I could cast and forget; this was a sustained action that would take two full minutes before the deed was done.  Geez, it was like this spell would completely redo the musculature of my ankle.

"Any luck?"  Spike asked as he left the kitchen.  He just finished putting away the dishes, so he came out to see if I made any progress.

"Yeah,"  I finished the paragraph, finally, reading aloud the last paragraph that seemed almost like an afterthought.  "'Make sure to have the subject restrained while the spell is completed.'"

"What does that mean?"

I set the book down and pursed my lips with unease.  "It means this is going to suck the big one."  I sighed.  "Alright, let's improvise some restraints."

We found some rope in the basement.  It's almost as if we need to give that place a good look-over sometime.  In any case, we fastened my leg on a table and kept the book nearby.

I took a deep breath and went over the spell one more time.  I didn't recognize some of the dweomers used in the spell, so they were probably from an unknown school of magic.  I would have loved going into that mystery, but I knew it was just an excuse to delay the inevitable.  My hands lit up with arcane power.  I muttered a quick prayer for mercy and directed the energy to my ankle.

My prayer went unanswered.

I threw my head back with a scream as pain shot through my leg.  Our little set-up tumbled back with me; I fell back in my chair and the table tilted back to keep my legs secured.  I had my back on the floor and my legs held up at an angle with pain in my ankle and my now sore back.  As I thought, it was a great day.

"D-Dusk!  Are you okay?"  Spike rushed to my side in worry.

"Urrgh, son of a bitch..."  I sat up and applied some pressure to my ankle.  "That hurt worse than I thought."

"Are you sure we shouldn't just go to the hospital?"

"I'm not paying a thousand bits for something I can do myself for free."  I argued while trying to steady my breath.

"Healthcare is free in Equestria."

"Whatever."  I powered up again.  "I'm just going to go for it.  Bear with my screaming, it's only because I'm in agony."

Swirling energy pushed into my ankle, painfully pulling and stretching torn ligaments and muscles or whatever it was doing.  It certainly felt like it was stretching out my ligaments.  Maybe that's what it was doing.  The spell itself said it was going to "[blank] subject's internal injuries and [blank]."  Who knows what that means.

This is all to distract you from the fact that I spent a solid two minutes screaming at the pain.  It was just one solid yell from start to finish, and I ran out of air about halfway through, so it was more of an expression of purest agony with a wispy squeak on the second half.  Poor Spike was pressed into the corner with terror on his face.  It was like he witnessed a gruesome ritualistic murder, and as far as he knew, that's exactly what happened.

The pain subsided after a while.  With the pain receding, I took that as the sign that it was all over.  The magic died in my hands, and my breath heavier than its been in my entire life.  I blinked my eyes a few times, making my vision's clarity go from "accidentally poured bleach on my smartphone" to "windshield during rain without windshield wipers".

"Is- is it over?"  Spike hesitantly, fearfully, asked.

Without the breath necessary to vocalize a response, I gave him a half-hearted thumbs-up.

He took the hesitant steps necessary to kneel next to me and look me over.  "Your leg is all better.  That's good, right?"

I took a large breath.  "Yeah,"  I lost my breath again.

"Are you okay?"

Large inhale.  "I guess."

Spike awkwardly avoided my eyes.  "Do you need a glass of water?"

I tried to sit up, but I only managed a half-crunch before my head went woozy and I collapsed again.  "*Gasp* Dammit.  I-"  Wheeze.  "I got this."  I tried again, but it was pretty hard to sit up when my leg was still bound.

Noticing my plight, Spike sauntered to the rope and casually scratched the rope with a single claw.  The rope snapped easily and completely unraveled.  The table, circular in shape, rolled away.  I sat up properly this time and felt another wave of blood rushing to my head.  My eyes spun in their sockets.  "Okay," I began weakly.  "Let's break in my newly healed ankle with a nice, easy walk to the kitchen."

"Are you sure you don't want to just lie down for a bit?"

"Nope, just give me a minute."  I sat perfectly still and regained my bearings.

I stood up and rolled my ankle a few times.  There was a numb feeling to it I can't really explain.  Maybe I just needed to give it a good stretch?  I walked to the kitchen while Spike just shrugged behind me.  He began his work on cleaning up the library's main room and I opened the door to the kitchen.

My day was just getting weird.  A pony ninja froze like a deer in the headlights half-way through my window, climbing in.  Her face and mane were covered with a black mask that only revealed her blue eyes.  Various espionage tools were wrapped around her midsection, acting as a belt for her black full body suit.  I could still see her tail:  It was dark blue with a pink streak in the middle.

We held eye contact for a little while before I spoke up.  "Er, you know the library is a public building, right?  You could just use the front door."

The ninja mare's eyes shifted either way.  "Uh... right."

"Well, I doubt you're here to return a book.  Are you a spy?"

"... No."

"Celestia sent you?"

She gasped.  "How did you know?"

I gave her a deadpan frown.  "Lucky guess."

Spike shouted behind me.  "Who are you talking to?"

"Celestia sent a spy to keep tabs on me.  I mean, I'm already used to the idea of the government invading my privacy, but..."  I held back on completing that thought for obvious reasons.

"Aw, seriously?"  Spike groaned.  "When did Equestria get a secret service?"

"I dunno."  I turned to the kitchen.  "Hey, when did-"  The ninja disappeared.  "Huh.  Well, I guess I'll just do what I came here for."

I opened the cabinet where we keep the glasses.  I found the ninja in there huddled into a ball.  She got that shocked look in her eyes again.

I sighed.  "Can you pass me a glass?"  She hoofed one over.  "Thanks."  I closed the door on her.

I returned to the living room to find Spike had moved some of the furniture to give us more space.  I wasn't sure how necessary that would be, but it was good thinking.  I sat cross-legged in the middle where Spike joined me in doing the same.

"Alright, to discover your inner magic, we'll need to determine how you channel your power."

"How do we do that?"

"We think it through."  I began.  "Unicorns are obvious; their magic is channeled through their horn.  Humans can cast from their extremities; their arms and legs.  One is a four-legged creature and the other is a two-legged creature.  Despite your bipedal movement and behavior, dragons are quadrupeds.  To test this, I want you to concentrate on your solar plexus.  There's a bundle of nerves there that's basically where your central ethereal core resides, or the base of your soul.  I'll need you to flex that core."

Spike was looking a little overwhelmed.  "How do I do that?"

"Find your core and tell it to expand.  Force it to grow and engulf your body."

"Like, by speaking?"

"Not unless you're performing an incantation.  Just make it a mental command in the same way to control your breathing."

"Oh, I think I know what you mean!"  Spike breathed in deeply and held out his arms.  His breath released slowly as a soft glow emanated through his torso.

I looked over this curiously, noting a few details.  Spike knew exactly what I meant when I mentioned breathing and immediately glowed.  That told me a few things about dragon magic.  "Alright, try to force that energy to your claws."

"Okay,"  His face scrunched with effort.  Try as he might, the glow stayed in his chest.

"Hmm, I think I got it."

Spike dropped his effort and smiled hopefully.  "You do?"

"Yes, a dragon's magic comes from their chest, rather than their limbs like a human.  Somewhere in their chest resides the organ that channels their energy.  The only thing I can conclude is that it has to do with dragon breath.  Only dragons can breathe fire like they do, and it's certainly not a natural occurrence if your use of it is any indication.  If you can send scrolls with your breath, then my assumption that dragon magic is based on dragon breath must be accurate."

"So I've been using magic this whole time?"  Spike asked.

"I guess so.  It turned out to be really simple, huh?"  We laughed uneasily.  "In any case, there must be more you can do with it."  I conjured a tiny box with a simple lock.  "There's a simple spell I want you to try: Lock.  It's a simple three word spell that even a novice can do.  Here,"  I grabbed some parchment and a quill and wrote down the spell.  "Try to memorize this and use this as a filter on the way you unleash the magic."

"Um, won't that just burn the box?"

"Not if you cast the spell correctly.  Think of your magic as a beam of light and the spell as a translucent prism:  applying your magic through the spell will alter its effects."

Spike nodded and read the spell.  With it in mind, he breathed a green stream of fire onto the box.  The flames covered the box entirely and covered it from sight.  When the fire cleared, all that was left was the box's lock itself.

"Ah, that could have gone better."  I said.  "That, and I'm sure it's still unlocked."

"Uh, I'll try again."  Spike breathed more fire.  Well, it was more like a little puff than the previous stream.

"You'll need to put more power into it.  Don't be afraid to apply that energy of yours; nothing can go wrong that I can't fix."

Spike's mouth twitched uneasily.  He blew again, but the fire spread wide and didn't even hit anything.  Mostly because it still fell short.

"You're still holding back."  I noted.  "I know you're nervous because you burned the box last time, but I need you to go all out here.  Don't be nervous; stay focused on your goal and your spell and let loose."

He took a deep breath and blew very hard.  The flames danced around the lock, and I noticed a slight key shape among them, but little else happened.

"Come on, one more time; full power!"

Spike pulled back for the longest intake of breath he could manage.  He shot himself forward and let loose the most flames we've seen all day.  This latest attempt was the largest cone of effect I've personally seen from a dragon, nearly reaching past the lock sitting between us.  The spell was still unfocused, obviously, but his power was pretty decent for his age.

I frowned a little, though, when he didn't stop breathing the flames.  In fact, the flames were growing stronger.  Spike just wasn't giving up.  He was determined to get this right.  His eyes erupted into color.  Green light filled his eyes and shot outwards like twin spotlights.  The flames surged forward like a wall seeking to destroy.

I noticed the encroaching fire slightly before it reached me, covering myself in a flame-proof aura before I got roasted.  The flames reached past me and arched towards the front door.  I looked back to see the fire slam into the walls beyond me and set it alight.

I spun back to Spike, calling out for him.  "Spike, stop!  You're overdoing it!"

It wasn't so loud in there that my words were drowned out, yet he didn't hear me.  Spike pulled back and sprayed fire straight up, holding his throat as if he was choking.  Meanwhile, his actions spread the fire throughout the room.  The library living room quickly became an inferno of magic flame that burned even through my fire resistant ward.

It was obvious to me that Spike was no longer in control of his actions.  His magic was going wild and was destroying everything in the process.  I lit my hands and swung them around in a circle.  An icy chill swirled around the room and weakened the fires started around the room.  While my storm was doing a good job with the fires trying to spread, it did nothing to stop Spike's sudden and continuing surge of magic fire.

He swung his head and body around, thrashing about in obvious pain.  I grit my teeth at the sight.  I wouldn't permit his suffering!  I needed to fight this surge and end it now!  I had only the idea to cut off his supply of magic, if only for a short time.  I stopped sustaining the snowstorm and focused nullification magic in both hands.  I shot them forward, sending my magic aura to encompass the entire event and stop this.

The flames were strong enough to resist my initial push.  My magic only weakened the closest part of the fire.  Damn it all, I had to use everything I had!  I pushed again with full strength.  Every ounce of power I could muster surged into the firestorm and surrounded the entirety, effectively keeping the magic flames from spreading.  It didn't extinguish the other flames from their consumption, but that could wait; Spike needed me more.  I maintained my push, intent on ending this.

Progress was slow at first.  My magic pushed his back bit by bit, reaching ever closer to Spike himself.  But this was when I was going full force, and I felt the strain immediately.  I could give out at any moment, but Spike was still going strong.  I squeezed my eyes shut, ground my teeth and dug my feet into the floor.  My mind felt like it was slipping already.

All progress halted, and all I was doing was keeping things from escalating.  I couldn't hold out for long.  Already bursts of flame shot through my spell and lashed out at the bookshelves and myself.  It wasn't just the room; my entire body was burning from the effort of keeping this up.

I peeked out at Spike, still struggling to keep his own magic under control without avail.  He was in so much pain and his eyes were drooping.

My heart shook.  Spike was fading!  I glared harder than before.  Black tendrils of energy coiled past my arms.

I won't lose Spike!

The black energy swirled around my aura and consumed it.  Immediately, the black energy that coiled around myself and the flames constricted around Spike.  With a final shout, I shoved the black energy down Spike's throat.  The magic died down shortly afterwards.  The light faded from his eyes, leaving the dilated slits I remember.  No more emerald fire left his body.  Spike's eyes drifted shut and he collapsed on the floor.

I retracted the energy as soon as it ended.   I sent my magic out to snuff out the remaining fire and rushed over to cradle Spike.  "Spike!  Are you okay?  Come on, say something!"

His only response was a wheezing inhale.  I winced at the sound and laid him to the floor.  I leaned in to hear his heartbeat, quick and erratic, but still there.

I squeezed the side of my head in panic.  Passing out from lack of oxygen was not a good thing, even if he was still breathing.  I had to heal him somehow.  I darted eyes across the room to find the book I needed.  Stacked on a table, mercifully untouched by the fire, was the book of medical spells.  I threw out my hand, a black tendril shooting out and retracting with the book in its grasp.  I flipped through it in a hurry, searching for that spell used on ponies with breathing problems.

Found it!  Oxygen Transfer was a simple enough spell.  I threw up my hand and condensed a ball of breathable oxygen in my power.  I gently lowered it over Spike's chest as he made that all important inhale.  The ball dissolved into him progressively with each breath.

His breathing steadied.  I listened in on his heartbeat again, hearing it regulate on a strong, steady beat.  I closed my eyes and let out a calm breath.  The black coils receded into my chest while I just sat there smiled contentedly.

I pushed my hair back and looked around the room.  Nearly everything was charred black from heat, but nothing was completely destroyed at least.  I shook my head at it, though.  I wasn't really worried about any of that.

I lifted Spike onto my shoulders with his legs draped over them and his head leaning against the back of mine.  I felt his heart beating against my head, the satisfying rhythm that promised his well-being.  I wasn't going to take the chance, though.   He had a rough morning, and I had to make sure that he was taken care of.

I pulled the door open and strode forward with Spike's legs in my hands and a slump in my gait.  Even though we were going to the hospital, I was happy with the way things turned out.  Spike was alright.  I knew he would be just fine.

Nearby ponies gathered around to ask what happened and if everything was alright.  I was silent with a calm smile on my face.  The only things that mattered at the time were my destination and my charge.





Bon Bon shook her head from her hiding spot around the corner.  What kind of insanity was that?  The dragon just went crazy and tried to destroy Twilight and the library!

She whipped out a piece of paper and a pen.  She had to make note of this.  Even though Twilight was the dark mage, she wasn't the real danger here.  That dragon was a ticking time bomb!

Bon Bon wondered why Twilight fussed over the unconscious dragon, though.  Didn't it just try to kill her?  Twilight was awfully forgiving to excuse such an attempt on her life.

But what about that weird energy?  Wasn't that dark magic?  Bon Bon never saw it before, but it had to be.  Was dark magic really that bad?  It just saved two lives today, after all.

She shook her head again and concentrated on her notes.  She could ask questions later.  All that mattered now was what she was going to say in her report.  Hopefully she could find something substantial in the library while they were gone.