A Primer on Magic

by SuperTaster

Chapter 10: Acceptance

The group walked through the halls, amid more talk of “multiplying”. Now there was a pink horse! Goodness. They came in so many varieties.

Sam had a thought. “Speaking of prisoners, did you deal with our little kidnapping friends?”

Twilight looked down at the ground a little. It had been… awkward.

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“Please! You can’t let it end like this!” John was yelling at Twilight as guards held him down.

“I told you. One mess at a time. I’m not going to start throwing about strange magic just because you want to.”

“Reconsider! Earth needs this!”

Twilight jammed a hoof in her face. This guy just didn’t get the hint. “If I make you a pony, will you shut up?”

John was blindsided by this. He had been thinking of some way, any way to convince Twilight to mutate the human population into monsters and such. This was a bit out of left field. Surely he wasn’t that petty, right? He looked up at her, and saw a bit of disdain in her eyes. Sigh. There wasn’t going to be any grand deal with the pony. She wasn’t going to listen. Earth was doomed, and John might as well get something out of it.

“Yes.”

The guards stared in utter bewilderment as a unicorn colt wearing an army jacket went galloping down the halls in a bundle of excess energy. They did not understand what was going on, but then again, neither did John. He would figure things out eventually, probably around the time someone led him to his cell. For now, he would gallop.
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“He’s under watch, at the very least.” She neglected to mention the part where she got exquisite data on the spell she had been preparing to fix Sam with. A win-win situation, so long as the colt was happy. Though on second thought, Twilight mused, she really didn’t care if he enjoyed it or not.

They entered into a sealed room similar to Sam’s resting area. This one instead had a bed and table set up, at which sat a very curious creature. It was human, for the most part, though he reeked of magic. The color had bleached out of his hair, and wings of black and white feathers stretched from his back. He was slightly emaciated, with adorable little horns on his head, and his pale eyes suggested both that he could not see, and that he did not need to see. “Good morning.”

Twilight was exuberant at the sight of the teenage mutant. This was a new species! Or perhaps a sub-species of human, now that such things were possible. Oh goodness, the Science. He seemed younger than the other humans, and with a stringiness to his build, as if he had been stretched out slightly. “So, how did this happen?”

O’Hare looked at a little file hanging on the wall. “We were kind of hoping you could give a hint on that. He got magic, like others, but it’s way overblown in him. Like, magic on your level and such.”

“Well, I can certainly take a look.” Twilight’s horn glowed, and she concentrated for a bit.

The boy looked back at her, still unsure of the fact that his magical doctor was a talking horse. “So… is it bad?”

“Hah! I’ve seen this before.” Twilight was very pleased in this regard. “He’s a concept!”

“Congratulations?” Sam wasn’t entirely sure this was a great birthday present.

“No no no, like with us! See, a pony might be tied to a specific concept magically, but a proper princess is one that’s actually a manifestation of that concept, and generates it on their own.”

“So he’s a concept battery.”

“Well, it’s like how I generate a little bit of magic on my own, being tied to magic and such. Not anywhere on Celestia’s level, mind, but it’ll grow with practice. Same with him. He’s an embodiment of a magical concept on your world.”

“I thought that was a careful and controlled process.”

“It can be, but it can also happen naturally, like with Celestia and Luna. In this case, our friend here is Balance.” Twilight stopped pacing about in her geekery, and turned to the boy. “Oh right, I never did ask your name.”

“It’s Devon.”

“Devon! I’m Twilight Sparkle. Anyway, Balance! You can see it in the coloring too, he’s got the black and white going on.”

Sam hopped up on the bed to relax a bit while they talked. “Not to mention the angel and demon motif.”

“The what?”

“Different cultures. Continue.”

“Right. In any case, he serves as a manifestation of Balance. Similar to the Elements of Harmony back in Equestria. There’s no real demand that they be those six specifically, you can come up with lots of combinations that would promote harmony. Hence, Balance is one that is applied in your world.”

The boy raised a hand. “Great. Can we use it to stop the giant explosions?”

Twilight, Sam, and Cadence gawked a bit. “The what?”

O’Hare kept flipping through the file. “That was his initial problem. Magic going everywhere, blowing things up and crap. He’s calmed down a little, but it’s still rather chaotic.”

Twilight was a bit worried at this, but pondered. “Chaotic. I see!”

“Well I don’t,” Sam erked. “Isn’t it just a matter of too much power?”

“No no no. Well, yes, but that’s not the main reason. Magic is in chaos right now, right? Everything’s trying to get situated, people are being chaotic because of magic, and so forth. There’s going to be a backlash.”

“Ah good. So now we have a metaphor for the human race right now in front of us. Good to note.”

“That is what I was trying to explain, yes.”

Cadence stepped up. “Twilight. If he’s as you say, then couldn’t we use him as a test for the harmony spell? If it works to calm the chaos in him, it would work on a larger scale too.” Devon looked around with worried eyes. Now they were talking about using him as a guinea pig. He knew it! This was a bad idea.

“Yes! Yes yes yes… we fix his problem, and use the method there in the final spell to calm the chaos on Earth. I like it.”

O’Hare put the file up, and wandered over. “All well and good, but how are you going to fix him in the first place?”

“That… is a good question. I suppose we can start by taking a look.” Twilight stepped up to Devon, and started glowing again. “Just relax. I’m going to do a simple vision spell.”

“I don’t think looking inside him will help, Twi.”

“Not inside physically, inside magically! We take the magical connections in him, and display them out here for us to look at and interact with. Like… so.”

The world became frightfully colorful. The walls and features of the room faded into a sense of many floating islands in technicolor space. Blobs of energy and light floated about as if they had little else to do. This was the life. Meanwhile, the ponies were more concerned with the fact that where Devon had been, there were now two Devons. The white one was very avian, angelic, and rather peaceable. The black one was demonic, lizardlike, and generally scruffy looking. The white one was viciously pulling on the black one, who in turn was pushing the white one away. “Oh goodness. That doesn’t look healthy.”

Sam thought to poke the combating Devons, but decided against it. Surgery was best left to the professionals. “So, how do we get them to stop fighting and make friends?”

Cadence looked over the scene. “Well, we need to know why they are fighting. What do they represent, and what brought this on?”

Twilight thought for a bit. “Well, I don’t think they represent anything concrete. They could be all sorts of things. Good and evil, law and chaos, what have you. Any sort of dipole. The point is that they’re suddenly aware of each other, and can’t get along.”

“So they just need to accept that they’re going to live with each other, yes?”

“Hmm… that could work, sure. If we assume that this is because his mind is trying to cope with suddenly being attached to magic, then we need to give a bit of Acceptance to ensure that it can deal with the new paradigm. That sounds like something up your lane, right Cadence?”

Cadence walked forward. “I’ll try. Granted, I’d like to know more about the particulars of this case, but…”

“No! That’s not the point.” Twilight interjected rather sharply, but backed off upon realizing how loud she had been. “It needs to be abstract. If we can do it without getting personal, than we can do it for everypony. It might not be the best fit, but I think he’s strong enough to deal with the aftermath once we’ve got the general effect in place.”

“If you say so. I’ll give it a try.” Cadence began to float in the air slightly, and Sam felt a deep sense of peace and connection with the universe. Everything was going to be all right. Even the painful parts. Yes.

She snapped back to attention as the spell ended. What? Oh, right. Magic. Brain altering magic was very trippy, but in this case it seemed to be for the best, as the black and white Devons were amicably chatting amongst themselves. It was gibberish, as dreams were like to be, but at least they weren’t beating each other up anymore.

“Well. Let’s go outside and see how things went.” Twilight ended the vision spell, and they warped back into the holding area. Devon looked at them with dazed and confused eyes, though they seemed to see a bit more than before. “How do you feel?”

“The headache is gone, and it doesn’t feel like everything’s trying to break out anymore.”

“Yes!” Twilight did a little dance, which the others raised eyebrows at. Sometimes you had to let people have their little celebrations, though, so they didn’t interrupt. “Excellent. Well, if we can apply that on a grander scale, we should be good!”

O’Hare laughed. “And you’ll be doing that millions of times over?”

“Oh goodness no. We just need a way to insert it into the magical field in general, and let it spread like magic has been already. Might need a few kicks in the areas where we… well, kicked things into high gear already, but hey! It should work, and that’s better than not having a clue.” Sam had to agree. This had all the makings of a cunning plan, and this time, no one would have to be given contaminated donuts.
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“So can you actually tell that it’s spreading?”

“Oh yes. It’s not outwardly obvious, since these people aren’t problem cases, but I can definitely sense the concept spreading among them. We might have to do another bunch of portal hopping to instill it directly at the previous launching points, but we’ll get to that after lunch.”

It was the next day, and Sam, Twilight, and crew were busy enjoying the worst of army food. They would have to find a way to get the portal jumping going again, as Earth governments hadn’t quite been keen on the idea of more jumps after hearing what had happened last time. Still, having a fix on hand would definitely help conversations in that regard. Sam, for his part, was very pleased at learning of Twilight’s other success. She noted that lacking proper information on what he had looked like before the normalization process, Twilight couldn’t actually change her back to human properly. Still, some parts needed to be returned post haste, and Sam was very proud of this fact. Now if only he could find some pants.

“Aw, cmon. Why’d you do that?” Rainbow Dash was floating in the air, looking over the new male sphinx.

“Beg your pardon?”

“You looked good as a girl! Don’t go around changing the mood just because Twilight wants to throw magic everywhere.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Sam, for his part, did not equate such things with a simple ‘changing the mood’, as if he were a lightswitch. “In any case, I guess this means you’ll get your wish.”

“Huh?”

“Well, we have a brand new pony in the detention block, so clearly that works. If someone wants to be your new flying buddy, all they have to do is ask.” Rainbow Dash goggled at the idea of millions upon billions of new flying partners, but Twilight was aghast. Surely there would have to be proper immigration procedures. No, even before that, a way to automate the process. One princess was not suited to handling the affairs of polymorphing every stranger who thought it would be peachy keen to try being fluffy for the week.

“One step at a time, little ponies.” Cadence was back, carrying bags full of various battery and portal amulets.

“Is that going to be enough?”

“It better. I’d hate to have to go back and pack more.” Vacations were always a strange exercise in geometry.