Cause, Effect, and Consequences

by Coltsguy

Lots of Kinks to Work Out

If you've never had magic then I really ought to describe it more. First off, it's awesome. Well, my brand is for sure. You can do all kinds of things with it. It's like the warmth that a good blanket or a tender embrace gives you. The feeling is wonderful. Just like those things, when you haven't had either of them in a long time, then the feeling you have when you get to experience them again is downright joyful.

That's the kind of feeling I had while I was exhibiting my magic inside of Twilight's place. I'd been there for about a couple of hours just doing random feats with my recently revitalized magic power. Sure, it seemed like a bit of a show-offy gesture, but I had just gotten it back and I was feeling frisky about it. Then again, Twilight had asked for it. Literally.

It goes like this; the two of us teleported straight over to the library. The first thing that she did was get Spike. She transcribed the fact that I had regained my magic and wanted to get some advice from Celestia about how to handle the situation. I didn't think that anything really needed to be handled, but whatever. The interesting part was how Spike commented on how he was glad that I got my magic back. It turns out that while I hadn't remembered to retrieve his memory, Twilight had actually managed to do it on her own this morning without me. Of course, Spike then asked if I would conjure him some more gemstones. I'm not a jerk and I like the little guy so I went ahead and gave him a pile of random gems on the floor for him to eat. He paused before digging in to listen to Twilight tell him to deliver the message to the princesses, but after that he attacked those gems like he was famished.

Twilight's message sent, the mare then proceeded to take me down into the basement, or perhaps dungeon might work, and began trying to run tests on me to see what was making my magic tick. Why she didn't do this back during the last time I was there I couldn't tell you. Still, she had me hooked up to some cliche machines that measured something about me. I honestly didn't hear what she was saying. I was too giddy about having my magic again to notice. Instead, I was letting my imagination run wild. I never really, truly understood why they said power corrupts until I actually had it. I went pretty crazy in my head with it. I'm talking golden castle with scantily clad maids serving me with anything I desire, and with this type of magic it was very much possible. It must have shown on my face because in the middle of my little daydream I was interrupted by Twilight giving me a hearty shake. A light scolding was given and we started out the tests.

I basically just started using the spells that I had already used back at the house. Some levitation, invisibility, illusions, and some random conversions with the snap of my fingers were the basics of these tests, but they were pushed to my limits. It was rather interesting to see some of said limits that I had for my restored powers. For instance, the weight limit of my levitation was 3,500 pounds. Knowing I could lift that much was pretty cool.

According to Twilight, my invisibility could spread out over a surface area of 160 meters squared. I couldn't convert that in my head and Twilight moved on before I could ask her. She also figured if I could set my sights on a more tangible goal then the area might actually be more expansive.

After quite a bit of testing neither of us could find a limit on my ability to create illusions. I managed to make a multitude of jungle sounds while simultaneously singing 'Welcome to the Jungle' in perfect pitch and displaying an image of a jungle in every direction to block out the view of the basement. We both agreed that if I could think about it then I could project it.

Conversions using magic really had no tangible conclusions to it. Apparently, whenever I snapped my fingers to manipulate the environment around me the only thing her machines could tell was that magic was being used. It wasn't even sure what the source of it was. That confounded her for quite a bit.

We didn't end up testing out my shield other than to manipulate it's form. I managed to create the shield in many different forms and also figured out how to make it a one way shield as well. Stuff couldn't go in, but it could get out. Pretty nifty if I do say so myself. After that, we agreed that we shouldn't test out energy beams, although I did managed to coalesce the energy into my hands freely enough.

When we were done, the two of us went back upstairs where Spike was waiting for us. He informed us that Celestia had gotten our message, but was in the middle of day court and couldn't give an observation on this development. For some reason, Twilight had a thirty second freakout over this until she realized that she was also a princess and should learn to have better self control. Control of what in that situation, I do not know. That was when Spike mentioned that Luna was not busy and would arrive instead at her earliest convenience.

That was about an hour ago. In the meantime, I was entertaining myself by creating and dispelling random objects. Twilight suggested it originally to see if we, being me, had some kind of limit to how much power I had at my disposal. I just took it as a chance to goof off for a while.

"You know Twilight, there are very few books in this library that I'm capable of reading," I said as I levitated a row of books in front of me.

"I could teach you how to read them all."

"Between the books that look like chicken scratch and the ones that have symbols where I believe letters and words should go, I really don't know just how long that would end up taking."

I sent the row of books back to where they belonged with a gesture of my hand.

"Any changes yet?"

"None that I can tell Twilight. I know I'm supposed to run out of magic at some point, but it doesn't feel like it at all right now. I feel pretty good."

"That's the chaos at work my dear boy."

I looked off to one of the shelves as a book came flying of of the shelf. As it went flat and opened up, a pop-up version of Discord sprang out of it. Of course, it was also comically over-sized for the book it popped out of. It was also gaudily drawn and barely recognizable as Discord.

"You look even more ridiculous than usual dude."

"Says the walking descendant of apes," he countered dryly.

"You sound kind of grumpy. Something up?"

"Oh, nothing in particular," he said while turning back to normal with a flash. "I just usually am like this after my special trips."

"Special trips?" Twilight and I both asked.

"Nothing you two need to concern yourselves with. Now!" he exclaimed while rubbing his... appendages I guess, together. "I can give you a basis on the magic you have. I gave it to you to begin with after all."

"That's good-"

"It is, isn't it?" he interrupted. He then started floating in the air; trailing a lazy circle around the table in the middle of the room. "Let's see. I know that you have the same capacity as before if what I could sense was true. The coin generally will give you it's magic automatically when you don't have a full supply though you can draw it out yourself faster if you wish to. It usually flows at a small pour unless your life is at risk. It will also stop doing so when it's reserves are at five percent or lower. Judging from the fact that you had almost no power, the coin holds about three times as much magic as you do," he said while then punching numbers into an adding machine while wearing some goofy looking thick glasses and a visor. Oh boy. "If you carry the seven, then you have about two more hours remaining if you constantly are using it, barring any acts of chaos that would charge you both while it was happening. The two of you starting at maximum capacity can produce power for just over seven hours continuously."

I think we both stared in shock for a bit.

"I think that might be the first time I've heard him explain something where it didn't sound like he was gloating," I said.

"Oh? What about this morning?"

"That was a mastermind gloat and you know it," I stated bluntly.

"Yes, I do love a good ramble. This wasn't any different you know. I gave you these tools so why shouldn't I tell you how they work?"

"Because you always act this way all the time," Twilight said.

"Tis normally what we expect of thee," a new voice chimed in.

We turned to see Princess Luna standing in the doorway to the library.

"Princess Luna!" Twilight exclaimed followed by quickly bowing to her.

"There is no need for you to bow Twilight Sparkle. After all, we are of the same station."

I followed that by teleporting over to Luna's side and gave her a big hug.

"Hi Luna! How are you?" I asked cheerfully.

"We do suppose that this might be too friendly on the opposing side of the issue."

Discord started laughing heartily.

"Aww, come on Luna," I whined a little.

"Personal space please," she said with more authority in her voice.

"You're not being any fun right now," I pouted as I released her from my grip.

"That's what I keep telling everypony," Discord chimed in.

"Seth, we didn't perform any tests involving your ability to teleport."

"How would we? I'd teleport right out of your machines."

"Not if you took them with you," she replied like that was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm not really sure where I should start picking apart that argument. Nah, I think I'll just leave it alone."

"Agreed," said Luna. "Tis a discussion for another time. We came to discuss the situation at hand. That being the restoration of magic to Seth."

"I don't really see a point to that. I just thought it would be prudent to let you know about the fact. Everyone seems to think that me getting magic might be some foreshadowing of the apocalypse."

"We are merely concerned since it was part of the vision that thou had while we were visiting upon your dreams."

"What? What dream?" I asked.

"Dost thou not remember?"

"One, I'm terrible at remembering things sometimes and two, I can almost never remember any dreams I've had except those which come true later and I only remember those when it happens."

"It appears that you have no recollection of the dream in which I visited. A shame since it is quite relevant to this situation. However, since thou hast no memory of the situation, a fact that does amuse us greatly considering the past several days, we feel that until there are more facts presented to us this will be looked into more carefully until we can garner a more complete understanding."

"Um, sure?" I said not completely understanding what was going on.

"I swear, you humans can be so oblivious sometimes," Discord chimed in.

Ignoring my shout of indignation, Discord then proceeded to float over to Luna's side opposite of me.

"Still, there is one more thing I should mention to you to help you with your new magic. The tattoo on your hand should begin to fade when you're about to run out of magic. Just a helpful little tidbit from yours truly."

"Terrific. Any other little notes you want to give me on what's going on?"

"Well," he said while rubbing his chin in thought, "I don't have any proof of it, but I believe that the coin might actually be intuitive of your thoughts. It's just a hunch I have considering the fact that you never go anywhere without it."

"But it's a coin," I stated oh so eloquently.

"And that is the kind of attitude that makes using chaos so much more difficult. With enough magic and the right mindset, anything is possible."

"Is that how you're capable of the feats accomplished by your magic?" asked Twilight.

"That's certainly a part of it," he stated while creating a black top hat. "A true magician never reveals their secrets my dear."

He punctuated this by reaching into the hat and pulling out-

Me? What the hell? My world view was weirded out by suddenly finding myself peering out of the hat he produced. I even looked out at where I was and was slightly mortified at the sight of myself headlessly standing in place. I didn't have enough time to see if I could still move my body before I was back in place. I patted myself around my neck for a bit to check if everything was where it was supposed to be. I honestly wanted to say something cocky back to him, but I just couldn't come up with anything.

"Okay," I started with, "that was definitely a way to validate your point," I said while fishing out my coin from my pocket. "Still, I'm not sure how intuitive the coin might be. I mean, if it really was as intuitive as you say it is then wouldn't it be a hot young woman or something?" I asked jokingly.

Then, like it was waiting for me to say something to that extent, the coin suddenly started to glow intensely and began to expand.

"Oh crap."

Comments

[D48]

Dat ending.

Also, I like Seth's reaction to Luna's arrival. When in doubt, hug a pony.

[Coltsguy]

4343355 Roll with it if you want to. It'll make my ending look all the more possible.

[Grtgfbll]

Seth, stop tempting fate.

[Starlight Nova]

Did I already ask if Rainbow Dash will be beating anybody up in this story?

[Coltsguy]

4345274 No, you didn't. I'll check on it.