Twilight's Pupil

by Mod On Death

Twilight Goes with the Flow

"Hey Miss Sparkle!" Diamond Tiara said as she entered the library. Twilight had gathered up her books into a pile and was sitting next to them with a smile on her face.

"Good evening, Diamond Tiara," Twilight replied. "You seem to be in a good mood today."

"I am! I was about to have a magic attack and I managed to control it!" Diamond Tiara pranced around with joy.

"That's wonderful! Sounds like we may be making some progress," Twilight said as she levitated the books in the pile into a line. "Now, today I think I've come up with a new method that could help us really get to learning some stuff."

"What's that?"

"Today, YOU pick what we'll learn," Twilight told her. "Here are the books that I have. You can look through them and then we'll work on it together. After all, most of the stuff I've tried to teach you've already known. This way I don't have to worry about organizing lessons that just get thrown out."

"Wow. There's a lot of books here. How can I figure out what I don't know?" Diamond Tiara glanced over all of the covers and tried to figure out what was in each of them simply based on that.

"Well, how about I list off some magical categories and you tell me if there's anything you'd like to know in that field? We can then go through several other topics in that category until we get to something new. Sound good?" Twilight asked.

"Sure," Tiara replied.

"Alright. Astronomy," Twilight started.

"Don't you mean Astrology?"

"No, Astronomy. Astrology is just a bunch of nonsense. Astronomy however helps with ponies knowing the position of planets and magnetic positioning." Twilight thought over what she said before saying, "Well, yeah, it's actually not magical whatsoever. It's just something to put on the backburner. Okay; Dowsing."

"Yeah. That's using magic to locate objects. I did the exact thing yesterday with the enchanted item," Tiara reminded.

"Oh. Then how about Elemental?"

"I'm decent with that. What about you?" Tiara noticed Twilight shift a little when she asked that.

"Well, to be honest, I've never been too good at that. Zecora would be one to know more of that. Actually, she knows a lot more archaic stuff I've never heard about before her."

"What kind of magic knowledge do I need to know in order to control my magic?" Diamond Tiara asked, trying to get to the point.

"That would be more arcane than anything. Honestly, if you can control that then you might be able to reign in control of yourself."

"Okay. What is important to know is that this kind of magic depends almost purely on your own magical energy. You already know this, but I'll go through the basics to clarify. It's pretty much pure energy put into form. You've seen this happen with your Destruction Magic, so I think that you know how strong it can be. This energy can also be converted for Conjuring Magic. That's what we were doing with the water yesterday. One other thing that you can do with all this energy is that you can manipulate objects and move them, just like I did with these books. Pretty much, the biggest thing you have too do when you have all this energy is develop focus." Twilight took a deep breath after saying all of that at once.

"What about reflecting?" Tiara asked.

"Reflecting? Huh. I've never really done something like that. I mean, you can interrupt a spell sometimes, but I've never actively redirected a spell." Twilight thought over her adventures and realized that was one spell she'd never done.

"I think that's one I'd like to try. I've heard of it before but never had somepony to practice with. You wanna try it out?" Tiara asked, flashing her eyelashes.

"Well, alright. I'll try out something simple though. A small Magic Missile will be fine. First, let's read it over, alright?"

"Alright," Tiara agreed. The two looked over the section in one of the books Twilight had and studied the lesson. It took them two hours to fully study the lesson and the other materials that were associated with the spell. After that, they began their practice.

"I think I can do this," Tiara said nervously.

"Don't worry about it. Just focus on the spell and the materials and you'll do fine. I'll be easy with it so you won't have to worry about what happens if you fail. I promise," Twilight told her, trying to reassure her pupil.

"Right," she said, assuming the stance. "Do your best...or whatever you're trying."

"Here we go." Twilight's horn sparked and let out a small shot of magic at Tiara. Tiara closed her eyes and her horn glowed brightly. Twilight's magic bolt was held in place for a moment, but soon started to grow as Tiara's own magic began to fuse with it.

"Tiara? I think that-" Twilight was cut off as her spell finally reflected. The wall behind her was disintegrated behind her, along with scorching the other wall on the other side. "Woah."

"I'm sorry! I'm really, really sorry." Tiara said, pleading. "I just used my energy to reflect yours and I guess it was just a whole lot."

"Well," Twilight thought for a second about how to turn this around. "I guess we can try out Reconstruction Magic now."

"I can do that!" Tiara said excitedly. She got in her position and cast a bolt that hit where the wall was. The wall suddenly came back into place as if nothing had ever happened. "Oh, the scorched wall."

"Don't worry. I can handle that. You've done well tonight. I'm proud of you, Diamond Tiara," Twilight told her. Tiara looked happy to get such a compliment. She felt like she really learned something new and actually did it correctly.

"Oh wow! I need to head home," Tiara said, looking at the clock. "Thanks for the lesson once again, Miss Sparkle!" She ran off, leaving Twilight at the door waving her goodbye.

"Ah. That was a really good lesson," Twilight said, realizing that today she actually managed to teach something new and have her pupil learn it correctly. "Well, I guess I should clean up that scorch mark in the other room." Twilight went into the other room and noticed to her surprise that the scorch mark had disappeared. "Wow. Her spell also fixed this wall as well, even though it didn't hit. I guess that time spell actually reverses all effects of the spell."

"Hello?" Spike yelled out as he came through the door.

"Hey Spike. I'm in here," Twilight yelled back. Spike entered the room to see Twilight looking intently at the wall.

"Uh, Twi? What are you doing?"

"Diamond Tiara cast a Reflection Spell to my Magic Missile and blew up the wall and then scorched this wall," she explained. "She used a Reverse Time spell and fixed not only the wall she hit, but the scorch mark as well."

"Wait a second! How powerful was the spell you cast at her?" Spike said, worried about what was going on.

"It was almost nothing! The extra power came from the magic she infused with it. That was how the Reflection Spell works. Her basic magic level is just really high."

"Oh man! That sounds intense! I can't believe I was out for this lesson. I'll need to stay and watch next time."

"Hey, Spike. If you're interested in magic like that, you can watch me practicing," Twilight told him.

"Nah. The way she does it is way cooler," Spike told her. "I actually think I should invite some other ponies to see her do something awesome."

"Oh. Alright," she replied. Spike walked out of the room, leaving Twilight alone. Her happy expression became sour right as he left. She thought about how good at magic she was at Tiara's age and began to shudder at how inexperienced she was then. She could never have done that well. "Well, at least she's doing better," Twilight told herself as she left the room.