L21.2
“So you’re saying I’ll be like a cup, and there’s a hole in the side near the bottom. But because it’s not at the bottom I’ll always have a small bit of magic?” Sweetie tilted her head, it made sense. Twilight nodded, glancing to Celestia for confirmation.
“It would be too risky if you lost all your magic. Chances are extremely likely that would make the magic that is causing the loop to think you’re dead.” Celestia’s horn glowed yellow as she finished casting the final spells on the large room. They all knew what happened if the loop thought Sweetie was dead.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Sweetie bit her lip, feeling unsure about her decision, now that it was time to actually go through with it. What if it turned out badly? After all, Sweetie had drained a lot of magic from ponies due to her reset outside, surely that might be more than Celestia can handle?
“Do not worry. While I did not have the chance to take such measures when Twilight surged, there are many spells to reduce the damage it can do. One of these will funnel your magic into Luna, who has the highest tolerance for foreign magic. This way, once the surge is over, we can return what you lost, circumventing most of the problems Twilight had when she began to yearn for more complicated spells.” Celestia gently levitated Sweetie Belle’s bags off her back.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Sweetie held out a hoof in objection, and Celestia quickly brought up a new pair of saddlebags. These ones appeared smaller, and was made of a black material with pink lines going down it, the same color as Sweetie’s mane. Sweetie glanced inside, and gasped, it was nearly twice as big as her old saddlebags inside. But, how?
“During olden times, we often had to carry an army of paper with us. Saddlebags didn’t have enough room, even with how much we could carry. So we convinced Starswirl to invent a spell to help. So he made a spell to make the space inside saddlebags twice as large as the space outside, give or take a bit depending on the skill of the unicorn casting the spell.” Celestia paused, and put a hoof to her chin, glancing to Luna.
“Come to think of it, didn’t Starswirl say he had gotten the idea from a colleague of his who was in town for the week?” Celestia waited as Luna shrugged, and waved the issue away, returning her attention to carefully repacking Sweetie’s new bag. Sweetie smiled, this was great news! Not only would she now not have to carry such bulky saddlebags, they were pretty too.
“No matter, back on the the topic at hand. Even if Luna gets overwhelmed and is unable to handle the magic being sent her way, we have set it so it will instead be sent to the moon to be divided between the stars. I expect, depending on the amount we receive, the night sky will look vibrant for centuries to come. We have made every certainty in ensuring your safety.” Celestia bowed her head, Twilight looking over her notes.
Sweetie breathed in, “Alright, let’s do this.” Sweetie stepped into the center of the room, feeling the magic vibrating in the air. Forcing herself to remain calm, she waited as the other three got into position, Luna and Celestia in front with Twilight behind her. They hadn’t told her what the test would require, so Sweetie was confused when they brought in a metal pole.
“Using levitation, bend this pole.” Celestia and Luna looked seriously at Sweetie, so she picked up the pole in her magic. Maybe the test was to overcome her limits, and that would bring on the surge. Concentrating, Sweetie poured all her magic into trying to get it to bend. Grunting as the metal refused to budge, Sweetie glanced sheepishly at Celestia and Luna’s disappointed faces. Trying again, Sweetie gritted her teeth and concentrated so hard, she was giving herself a headache.
KABLAM!
Sweetie jumped, hearing something explode behind her. Giving a cry of fright, she glanced behind her to see Twilight holding a popped balloon, and quickly realised she no longer had control of her magic. The fright had removed a force she hadn’t been aware existed. Sweetie cried out, tears streaming from her eyes as a corona of energy burst out of her horn, surrounding her.
Sweetie couldn’t see, there was magic in her eyes, and pain erupting from her horn. Sweetie felt no control over her own body, and she realised exactly what a foal she had been to think this was a good solution. Her horn felt like someone was tearing it off, and her body was spread out like she was on an operating table, her voice no longer working.
Then all of a sudden, Sweetie felt something slide over her horn. It was done slowly, and Sweetie realised something she hadn’t been aware of in her head was there. It was like a-well it was as if there has been something blocking her horn that was currently locked in an upward position that was currently being forced back down.
Sweetie supposed another way of explaining it was that it was as if someone was turning a handle she had only just become aware of, that was attached to her head, and limiting the flow of magic coming out of her horn. Sweetie realised, with shock, that as the force slowly closed it, she was gaining control of it. Almost like she was growing a second horn.
As the force finally closed over her horn, and the handle clicked, telling her brain the flow was almost entirely sealed off, the magic holding her instantly faded. Sweetie felt her body slowly lower to the ground, feeling as if every nerve was alive with energy. Shivering like she had just gotten out of an ice cold shower, Sweetie looked to Celestia, whose horn was glowing.
“Stay still, we’re almost done.” Celestia’s horn gained a second aura, and Sweetie felt the force holding her ‘handle’ vanish. For a brief moment, she was worried her ‘handle’ would immediately slam back to open, but it stayed inert. Very slowly, Sweetie felt the trickle of magic being returned to her body, and looked over to Luna to see a thin stream of magic connecting hers and Sweetie’s horns. After a moment, it faded, and Sweetie felt exhausted, but not, at the same time.
“Alright, take as long as you need to recover. We can talk after.” Celestia’s words swept the breath out of Sweetie, and she fell into a sitting position. Her entire body ached, and she closed her eyes as the familiar headache returned. Sweetie didn’t want to risk casting magic just yet, so she decided to grin and bear it for now. As her head metaphorically cleared, she stood back on on shaky limbs, and nodded.
“I was quite surprised, the amount of magic being expelled was quite a lot...less than what I was expecting.” Luna glanced toward Twilight, who nodded, joining them in front of Sweetie.
“Yeah, it was less than my surge too. Uh! No offense intended.” Twilight sheepishly smiled at Sweetie who discarded it. Sweetie knew she was never going to be ‘magically talented’ like Twilight, but that was ok with Sweetie. Celestia was the only one who looked grave.
“Twilight, didn’t you say Sweetie got out of a death loop somehow?” Celestia waited for Twilight’s reply. Pausing, Twilight tried to catch up with her mentor’s thoughts. After a moment of thought, she gasped.
“Wait, are you saying that what got Sweetie out of the death loop might also be taking what energy is drained each loop?” Twilight bit her lip as Celestia nodded.
“It is the first explanation that comes to mind when I consider the fact Sweetie does not have any of the magic she should contain from draining multiple ponies for...ten loops?” Celestia glanced toward Sweetie, who smiled sheepishly.
“Uh, this is loop 21.” Sweetie saw their mild shock, and looked away. Now they probably wanted to know what she had been doing those twenty loops. Surprisingly, they simply moved on.
“So, the real question is; what do we do about it?” Luna glanced between Twilight and Celestia, and both sighed. Shaking their heads, all looked toward Sweetie Belle.
“I guess you could try to find who it is. I mean, that might even be the way out of the loop. Maybe your loop is different to Starswirl’s. Still, that presents the problem of finding them. Apparently they are also not affected by the time loop.” Twilight began to write down her notes.
“We mustn’t forget there’s the chance this entity is not actually alive, and is just the spell’s design. I understand it’s difficult to not want to put the blame on somepony but…” Luna trailed off, and Twilight nodded, putting down Luna’s notes as well.
“Either way, we are forgetting the most important aspect here; dear Sweetie had just gone through a surge and is likely worried about using magic.” Celestia had seen Sweetie holding her head, trying to ignore the headache. Smiling gratefully, Sweetie forced herself to listen despite the pain.
“It is perfectly safe to use magic, just be aware you will have trouble managing how much to put into a spell while you learn how to control your magic. Be careful of putting too much in and getting a spell to explode in your face. The same goes for putting too little. As always, we will be here if you need us.” Celestia smiled, flaring her wings as she looked between Luna and Twilight.
“Alright, thank you.” Sweetie cast the force field spell, wincing as her horn wanted to gush out all her magic. Thankfully, the spell soaked it up while Sweetie slowly reduced the amount to what the forcefield actually required. As her headache faded, Sweetie was able to fine tune it even more, relishing the control she had now.
“Thank you,” she spoke to the three Alicorns, who smiled warmly in response.
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The only way out of the loop ... pay Derpy her weight in muffins, and a side of frosting. Seriously good chapter. Still say either Derpy being the other looper (since Sweets lives up stairs and Dr. Whooves is an Earth Pony) ... the not living entity might be cool. Like Star Swirl's ghost. Wonder if Sweetie Belle is his reincarnated form mixed with the mind transfer thing (like The Sage of the Six Paths in Naruto, or Cain / Naoya; Abel/MC in Devil Survivor.)? That'd be cool if he'd reincarnated as Sweets, or his presence is what put Sweetie Belle into the loop as wel as saved her from the death loop. Welp, we'll find out more eventually.
Wibley Wobley Timey Wimey!!
"of fright", right?
5405635 Huh,,, The Doctor seems to be becoming more frequent in my web browsing... or likely just confirmation bias...
So escaping the death loop took some of her magic reserves is what you're saying?
What else can I say about this chapter other than that I liked it...? It's nice to see the alicorns caring about Sweetie.
5405635 I was thinking the same thing through this entire thing!
Even if Luna get’s overwhelmed
1. Gets.
Sweetie grows stronger. Soon she shall take over the world, just for a week or part of at least. We know she want to. She want to pinkify the world. Maybe she could... Nah, I don't think the other princesses would let her go full tyrant mode even if for almost a week. Cue epic battle.
I find it interesting that this book is going loop-by-loop rather than skipping over them. Many books (and movies) skip over dozens, even hundreds of loops.
Interesting indeed.
5406342 Well that's usually because the parts being skipped at the same thing over and over with very little changing or lots of mistakes happening. For example is the Twilight Loop story with the Elements exploding. That one she needing to get all the settings right to have the right events play, so skipped hundreds of loops of her practicing and memorizing everything that needed to happen to get the events to happy. If it went threw every loop, there would be hundreds of chapters, where only 1-2 paragraphs would be different in each chapter. It would be pointless to have you re-read every chapter with very little minor changes.
Here tho, there is none of that. There hasn't been any repeating, and the things that have are used to set up different settings. For example is Sweetie waking up in the morning. If it's the same with no change, then like this loop it is ignored and skipped. However it might be needed to set something new up, like the loop before this she talked to Rarity to go to Manehatten with her. It's the same with the Conversation of AB telling Sweetie Belle they aren't friends. That happened once, then is skipped or glossed over the other times.
Each full loop however, from start to finish, is different for Sweetie, each one has something unique. From her prank of being a princess, to magic lessons from Twilight, to her going to Manehatten. Only the very first ones are 'repeats' and even then Sweetie Belle does different events in them too to try and understand what is going on.
The 'loops' so far that are 'skipped' are the Death Loops from the Pheonix, which is just her resetting and then dieing a minute or two later from lack of air.
I did the math, assuming each loop is seven days long(may be six I am not sure) sweetie has currently spent 147 days looping. That is just under six months.
If it is a six day loop she has been looping for 126 days.
5406712 It's a 5-day loop — Sweetie never gets to weekends.
Slight problem here. Doesn't Sweetie Belle drain magic when she loops, much like Starswirl said he did in his letters? If that is the case then the spell would most likely fail as soon as the loop resets and her bags would burst.
--Sollace
5407567
Yeah. It was the reason she drained a tree but not milk
>It was like a-well it was as if there has been something blocking her horn that was currently locked in an upward position that was currently being forced back down.
I think you be usin' the wrong dash type, and this sentence seems awkward anyway
5407792 I thought I would never hear this sentence.
I see they finally employed that timelordian technology... And sun space pockets?
dat authors note!
AN ARMY OF PAPERWORK
5407056 it a 105 day loop thats just over 3 months
You know,
If at the end of the loop Sweetie Belle would just take all of Rarity's money and repeat this every loop
she would get rich!
Very rich..
_____________________________________________
So her bag, I- It's bigger on the inside!
Sounds familiar..
The references.....
The motif is building.....
The thick plottens....
Wait, wouldn't her new magic saddlebags just be disenchanted between loops? Also, this is the second time I've caught that the Doctor has shown up. Could he be the one who opened the door?
6022952 It's stated somewhere, but yes they do.
5412815 Gallifreyan?
6097867
No, no. Gallopfreyan.
Ooh. The doctor shared his Timelord science. But they said it is magical... Does that mean it will lose it's magical abilities when the loop resets?
Oh yeah, I meant to ask last chapter (or maybe the chapter before that, but I think it was last chapter), how did Diamond's father cross his arms? Did he sit down first, or did he just defy physics?
Saddlebags of holding? Interesting.
I have read multiple stories where Starswirl knows the good Doctor.
I am not one to refuse a common headcanon (unless I have a conflicting one, CircuitScratch for life sukaz!)
5450038 I promised you muffins...