Chapter 52: Closed Circle
- - - - - - - - -
Later that day...
The deepest sub-basement of the Golden Oaks Library was locked down tight. A large array of equipment hummed and buzzed, including a small ward generator (which in and of itself was warded with a variant of one of Shining Armor's barriers) and quite a few diagnostic machines of the librarian's own devising. The doors were locked and barred, the shelves were covered with large protective sheets, and the floor was heavily reinforced.
And on the floor Twilight Sparkle and Spike (the Dragon, Spike for short) were circling each other carefully, preparing to strike. Unicorn magic hummed and twinkled along Twilight's horn as she readied another attack, but Spike stayed on the defensive for now. After all, a large part of this was aimed towards improving his defense against projectiles. With each volley Spike was learning to dodge, and dodge effectively. It had initially been a mystery how to avoid such long-range attacks, since the Crusaders hadn't been able to prepare him for it. Now after a few rounds?
He was getting the hang of it, and at this point he was able to use minimal effort avoiding the bolts of fire that snapped through the air around him. The trick was, unless an attack could move mid-air or seek in some way? You just had to angle yourself away from the trajectory. If the attack comes from a long distance, even a tiny adjustment in its origin or the target's position could make a huge difference. It was just like one of Twilight's math problems!
Of course that math was complicated by the huge difference between yesterday morning's Spike and today's Spike: Namely the fact that he was a lot taller now. Adjusting to his new height was certainly going, but not going fast enough for his taste. That lack, and the loss of speed and grace were evident in the wide variety of cracks and scorch marks on his scales. Well, the places where cracks and scorch marks should be but strangely weren't: The Gamer's Body made it so that injuries just... didn't. He took HP damage, but the aftermath was secondary.
Across the room his unicorn opponent was preparing another new spell, and Spike switched on the magic-perception of his Dragon's Mind to try and parse it out. He didn't have a lot of practice interpreting spell circles yet (he certainly hadn't found any books on the subject, which was odd), but the distinct field of jagged-edged twinkles definitely meant 'lightning-power': He had watched Twilight powering all of her research devices before the fight, so that much was familiar. Before the spell finished he tossed a half-bit coin from his Inventory into the air a few feet away, letting the conductive piece of cash eat the attack for him as he dodged.
The massive stroke of electrical energy whipped out at a speed he couldn't even understand, but what he did know was that they were both functionally blind for a moment afterwards. It was just like staring into the sun or seeing a real lightning strike from waay too close for anypony but the pegasus triggering it. Spike took the opportunity to rush forwards, acting on the assumption that his target was being cautious and wouldn't move until their sight returned... And he was right. A blind sweep through the air sent his claw clattering (without much force) against Twilight's horn.
Defeated for the fifth time in under an hour, she sighed and fell back onto her rump. While he moved to clean up the area and recover his money, she blew a strand of stray mane out of her face. She didn't say anything after that, which Spike took as a sign that their practice was done.
"Seriously Twi, for somepony more than twice my Level you don't put up much of a fight."
He didn't even have to look to know she was glaring at his back.
"Spike, as much as I am sure this is helping you and as fascinating as the data might be... I'm not a combat caster and I don't have any intention of learning to be one"
"Why not?"
The second time in as many minutes where she didn't have a response... He was on the way to setting a new record! Plus, her silence left plenty of room for him to keep talking.
"Well I mean, a subject being useless day to day hasn't slowed you down before, Twilight: Never stop learning, knowledge for knowledge's sake, all that jazz. Remember the week we spent reading up on historic Yakistani tax codes?"
His (complex interpersonal relationship for which there is no word yet) tried to hide a blush and failed, while Spike lamented that they still hadn't settled on a good word for their bond.
"I suppose that's a fair assessment. But why are you so interested?"
He ticked off the reasons on his claws, figuring she'd either see it or not care. It made sense to him either way.
"First, Rarity and her aunt offered to train me in ranged attack magic. Can't pass that up! And second, my game system has lots of combat stats with an emphasis on HP and recovery... If my experience with Shining's RPGs and the arcades is anything to go by, a game that focuses that much on combat stats and mechanics is going to HAVE a lot of combat."
A bit of companionable silence passed after that, before Twilight stood up and nodded to him. The room was back in order, everything as good as new... Well, as good as it was before they started sparring. Even Spike's own body was fully recovered from all the dings and scrapes.
"...alright, that is a fairly convincing argument. To be honest, bettering my ability to handle myself in danger is... attractive."
"Awesome! And that's a good segue: It's an attractive idea that might make you more attractive yourself! I mean, you've already bagged yourself a Princess for a girlfriend but-"
Spike's head whipped back against the wall and the rest of him shortly followed: Twilight had cut off his off-color joke with a concussive knockback spell so strong that a normal pony would be unconscious at best.
"I deserved that one!"
"I'll say: Round seven starts now. And while you get up, tell me again about that dream you had."
- - - - - - - - -
Retelling his disturbing dream was a long affair, given the constant interruptions of their ongoing battle: He didn't finish until sometime during Round 14 (current score was Spike 9 Twilight 3, one draw). And while many ponies had trouble remembering dreams, his new Eidetic Memory made it as simple and accurate as describing what he had eaten for lunch the day before.
Spike ducked the volley of tiny purple-pink concussion bombs that came alongside Twilight's words, one with each syllable in a steady thump-thump cadence. She frowned in a mix of concentration and frustration, an expression that got deeper with every miss.
"So you think it was actually Discord in your dream?"
Twilight twisted her body to the side to try and present a smaller target when he approached... But that just put her horn closer to his reach. After weaving through the last trio of bombs, he had a clear opening to tap the spire of bone before she could start another spell. Spike 10!
"It would honestly be weirder if it wasn't, yeah? Also, good game."
Twilight sighed and backed up a step, shaking her head: She was getting the hang of it, but Spike had a lot of advantages from his new skills, even if she in return had a lot of age and a few cases of live combat experience over him.
"I was just in Canterlot you know. I saw his statue: He's definitely still imprisoned."
"Right, and I get that. But... come with me on this mental journey."
That got a quick nod as Twilight finished the automatic reorganization spell to counteract the effects of her own explosive spells: She'd developed that particular trick after one too many Rainbow Crashes through the skylight undid hours of work. Now the books (the ones that weren't under glass already, mostly the reference manuals for active devices) just calmly danced back towards their usual shelves. A secondary kick into the spell and they unruffled their pages and slotted back into their proper places.
"Sure! I'm always willing to entertain a reasonable hypothetical situation. Emphasis reasonable."
"OK, so... Discord isn't awake in that statue, right? There's no way he's just constantly screaming into the void, paralyzed and unable to interact with a world he can perceive but never touch."
He could see that Twilight was making a mental note to check what disturbing content he'd been reading lately, but he shrugged that off: Lovecolt had been her recommendation to begin with.
"You're right about that: It wouldn't be very harmonious of the Elements. No, he's probably... oh."
Spike snapped his claws.
"Asleep! Exactly. Exactly. And we already know that he can mess with all sorts of things that are normally reserved for the Princesses, like moving the Sun. And thus..."
"He could be dreamwalking. Spike that is disturbingly possible! We need to compose a warning and send it to Celestia and Princess Luna right aw-"
When she looked back towards him, he was already blowing the last few gouts of green fire across the edge of a scroll, which dissolved into sparks and travelled out the window to Luna, CO: Celestia.
"You were saying?"
Despite the bruises and battering they'd given each other over the last hour, Twilight's smile was as bright as ever.
"Oh Spike, you really are my #1 Assistant."
"Heh, yeah... Speaking of which, I should probably 'assist' you with double-checking the checklist before we run out of time."
They were on a deadline, after all... A looming, pink deadline.
- - - - - - - - -
Earlier that morning...
A faint blue glow permeated Spike's mind, or rather... He had a feeling this had happened before. Spike flicked back one set of eyelids, seeing that his Gamer menus were indeed open: In fact, his first memorable (thanks, Dragon's Mind) dream in weeks had been interrupted by them. It wasn't an accidental opening like yesterday: He had set this up on purpose! As he settled into bed last night he had decided to chuck his alarm clock into a slot of his Inventory. The time was already set, and he figured the alarm part (his menus already had a clock function even without it) would work through his menus... somehow.
The test was a success: Rather than the ringing coming from thin air, or his body? He just woke up at the right time, instantly jolted into consciousness as if he had never been asleep. That was going to be real useful in the future, if only to avoid annoying Twilight after a long research bender. Using this as a precedent, he'd have to think about checking out the Library's 'Map and Atlas' section, see if he could cheat out some advantages there.
He had a feeling the day ahead would be packed again, but hopefully not as bad as yesterday: That had easily been the longest day of his life, even counting the whole Discord incident... Which brought the dream back to the engine position on his train of thought. He'd definitely have to talk with Twilight once they were both up and fully conscious. But before that, they went to bed abruptly last night and he'd missed out on all his self-care. Good thing he'd set the alarm real early!
Checking his bed for shed scales took longer than usual because there weren't any to be found. Come to think of it, maybe there never would be again: The Gamer might not shed. He was still laughing about that idea by the time he hit the bathroom, although he had to stop giggling in order to brush his teeth (and he had a LOT of teeth to brush) without choking.
After that came a quick dry bath and brush-down: Showers were more of a luxury for him, and as far as he was concerned dragons and sit-down water baths didn't need to cross paths. With that, his morning routine was pretty much handled! Well... evening routine done in the morning for a change, potato potato.
"Spike, are you up?"
"Walkin' and talkin'! And cleanin'. And... runnin' out of thematic rhymes."
Twilight stepped up to the door with a smile on her face.
"Well if everything is taken care of, are you up for breakfast?"
"Oh sure! We can finish talking about the whole 'you and Celestia' thing over some hay bacon."
"...Maybe we could save that for another time?"
He tried not to growl in frustration, and was surprised to notice that while he still felt the usual reflex, it didn't go all the way through: Maybe his Gamer's Mind or Body was keeping him from embarrassing himself?
"Are we really going to push this off again?"
"I have a good reason this time! Or at the very least some sound logic. We can talk about that over breakfast, alright?"
"Fine, fine."
- - - - - - - - -
Breakfast that morning was far from simple: Spike knew in the back of his mind that he still had last night's dishes to take care of on top of the mess he made now, but he couldn't help himself. Access to Dragon's Kitchen and an audience willing to try out gem-infused food (for science!) meant it would have been very silly to hold back, honestly.
He did his first experiments quickly, using shaved curls of gemstones incorporated into very small dishes. All of his previous successes had been based on simple associations of color and what he considered to be a gem's flavor (as Twilight had done some past experiments proving ponies simply couldn't *taste* gems), so he kept up in that vein.
"So yesterday's souffle paired with citrine, but I think eggs are so versatile that I should try more."
"Agreed: Looks like we have opal, marble, quartz, amber, garnet, and aragonite if we want to keep working by color."
Spike thought over that list and tried to bring the flavors into line with egg dishes he could cook. At least in the short term he was sticking with adding gems to existing recipes instead of trying to outright pioneer new dishes. And given that selection...
"Aragonite's sort of salty-savory, so that would be pretty likely! Come to think of it I bet actual pearls would be even better."
"Well then I guess you'll have to stop donating them all to Rarity for dresses and jewelry, hm?"
"...Aragonite it is!"
Even with the 'issue' of his affections effectively handled? Spike was still Rarity's friend, and cutting out all the pearls from Celestia's periodic gem shipments had become a tradition at some point. Friend stuff, right? Although maybe he could get some skills for holding his breath so he could dive for pearls himself... Later.
In the end they had enough eggs available that he tried aragonite and opal and marble: Aragonite powdered and used to season a hard-boiled egg, marble sliced into delicate sheets to add crunch to an egg-cup custard, and a few miniscule opals spread through curds of scrambled egg. While those were underway he made a sandwich of wild greens with nephrite-jade and avocado dressing, and a small chocolate lava cake with some iron-laced brown and black obsidian. Then further effort went into making drinks and dry snacks, gems toasted with spices, so on and so forth: All told Spike tested over twenty different small-batch recipes with nearly thirty different gems.
Once they sat down to eat, Twilight had an extra serving of 'normal' food to supplement her small selection of Dragon's Kitchen results. Although calling them results was a stretch: Despite the effort he put into testing, cross-referencing, and flavor-profiling? There were a measly four successes in the entire thing! FOUR! Twilight said she'd gladly eat the failures, to test if Dragon's Kitchen still made them palatable, but he insisted on waiting until they had a safer way to check.
Even with the extra food available for himself, he was still pretty dour before they started eating... But once he actually tried the successes, he had to admit it was worth the effort. A few ways!
"I'm not exactly a gourmand or a gustatory specialist, Spike... But I really think I can taste the gems in these: Perhaps that's a hidden side-benefit?"
He nodded absentmindedly as he quickly started taking bites of every individual dish. When things worked correctly these new Dragon's Kitchen results produced short buffs (portion-size related?) and vivid flavors. Spike just couldn't think of a better way to describe it. The failures had gems in them and he could taste those like usual, but the successes were infused with gem-flavor in a way he'd never experienced before, even with yesterday's forays into the field. And the buffs...
Green Jade and Avocado Dressing: Increased maximum health, 1 hour
Double-Chocolate Felsic-Lava Cake: Increased physical defense penetration, 1 hour
Rose Quartz Rose Water Spritzer: Increased stamina recovery, 1 hour
Mandarin Moonstone Salmon: Increased magical efficiency, 1 hour
Yeah that absolutely made this morning's effort worth it. He'd have to find a better pairing for the moonstones at some point, because fish was definitely a 'sometimes' food, doubly so for salmon (at least on his previous cooking budget).
"Spike this is all delicious! And our success rate is solid, all things considered."
"Thanks Twi. And yeah that's... I had been hoping for more? But I think I'll get better at figuring out good mixes in time. A hit out of every six-ish is pretty good, given the permanent gains involved."
Twilight took a deep sip of her rose water, marking some information into a notepad.
"Certainly! And you said you can apply these 'buffs' directly with your magic now?"
He nodded and flicked open the appropriate skill description again. He hadn't used Layer since refreshing his buffs in the morning, but applying these four only took a minute. The health boost was significant, and seemed to be a percent of his max. The penetration buff wasn't so easily checked, but he could at least use Earthshaper to test the stamina recovery without getting out of his chair... Although maybe 'physical defense penetration' worked on the hardness of rocks and stones?
As for the moonstone... Well, he'd have to figure out the implications and the logistics of spending so much MP on reducing future MP costs later: He had a feeling the math fell in his favor as long as he cast enough skills over its duration... But he didn't need Twilight to remind him to double-check.
Speaking of which, he had a Twilight to grill... Conversationally grill, not the other kind.
"So why are we putting off our other discussions? You said breakfast, it's breakfast."
She tried not to wince at the reminder that she was putting off things again.
"Well remember how last night we were figuring out what to do about telling all of the girls the details of your whole... situation?"
"Eeeyeah."
"And we realized it was probably a good idea to do the same thing with my whole..."
He still had yet to get a 'deadpan stare' skill, much less one for sarcasm, but it was worth trying.
"Right. And I'm going to pass on the chance to make a crude joke there, but be aware that I could have. Phrasing. Again."
"ANYWAYS, after that I got a bit tipsy, as you know, and... I may have executed on a plan to solve both problems at once."
"While drunk?"
"Tipsy! And yes."
"Is this the kind of 'tipsy' problem-solving where we end up having to remove the frog fractions from an orange-animal hybrid, or have you learned to stick to getting produce at the Market? Metaphorically."
"It's the kind of tipsy problem-solving where I teleport a note over to Sugarcube Corner asking Pinkie Pie to join us for lunch so we can plan a full-scale p-word. Teleported, past tense."
Twilight was avoiding saying 'the p-word', but it was late enough in the day that he knew Pinkie would probably be awake already. Plus, he was pretty certain she wouldn't pop over ahead of schedule when they had plans.
"...You volunteered us for party planning."
She jabbed a hoof at him with an accusatory tone, even as she flinched from the p-word.
"You like helping Pinkie!"
"Absolutely, but you volunteered us. And last time I checked you only barely tolerated party planning because it has the word planning in it. Otherwise it's 'just too exhausting', right?"
"I mean, that level of social thinking does take a lot out of me... But it's worth it. I only get to share the news about myself and Celestia with them once, right? Not to mention your big change! So it's going to be a worthwhile kind of exhausting. Fulfilling, as it were."
"...I can buy that. Speaking of which, I was thinking about killing some time before seeing if Pinkie was free regardless: We made a deal to spend today together anyways, so she would have been free even if you hadn't sent her that note. Given all that... Let's head downstairs and maybe tussle it up a bit, get our spar on?"
Twilight was very evidently hesitant about that, but eventually she acceded.
"Alright. But! Let me set up the recording devices first so we have empirical data to work with."
"Only if you let me watch the playback of myself using my new skills... And if I can buff you partway through the session to see how well the Magic Efficiency buff works on somepony who doesn't have discrete MP costs."
"Deal!"
- - - - - - - - -
Stats
Page generated in 0.03 seconds
Total duration
1,030 users online
2,243,699 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Minor note: the non-numbered chapter is apparently being considered as part of the numbering scheme. Experts refer to this as the Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe Problem.
10292610
Wait... are you saying that in the MK vs DC series there was a title that wasn't MK vs DC n[1], and then the next title was MK vs DC m+2[2]?
[1]n is a stand-in for the number of numbered titles.
[2]m as in the memory button on a calculator, here being a stand-in for the number of the last numbered title. So m+2 would be the equivalent of jumping the number that the non-numbered title would have had had it been a non-numbered title.
Honestly, with all the life and death (heck, saving the world!) stuff that she gets up to, I'm more surprised that Twilight hasn't yet taken up combat magic...
It was nice seeing a chapter with Twilight and Spike spending some time together. That's something that I don't think many fics go very deep into. I mean, she's practically raised him, yet during the events of most fanfics? He's nowhere to be found, and any interactions they have are stilted at best. So you did a good job of making their conversation feel natural.
And for next chapter: Yay! More Pinkie.
10292744
No, what I'm saying is that Mortal Kombat games were numbered up to Mortal Kombat 4, then had three more games that were clearly part of the main series, then Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe, then the game that most people call Mortal Kombat 9 to avoid confusion, then Mortal Kombat X which they claim is just an X but fooled nobody even before we got Mortal Kombat 11 next, which we did. This implies that Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe is legitimately considered part of the mainline series, which is self-evidently insane.
Glad to see this returning.. due to excessive thunderstorms over several days, I was lucky to have got this story on the Kindle, and havent caught up on that as yet, but seperate days are easier to handle.
Is Spike gaining any levels in Skill:Dodge etc?.. or is he still gettting skill improvements from the impact damage and heal like what he was doing with the CMC?
Ah, it's back. I can finally get my fix.
Spike bro. Give twilight all the physical buffs possible. For the memes.
Muscle Wizard!
10293567
I CAST HOOF.
You know what this really reminds me of?
It makes me think of a very specific worm-serpent-thing that can also gain powers by devourering other things.
"YOU ARE NO GOD, BUT I SHALL FEAST ON YOUR ESSENCE REGARDLESS!"
and this sounds just as angry as the discord warning...
Kinda curious if he's going to do non-winged flight, as wings are one hell of a weakpoint...
It's a pretty free-form system, not everybody is going to be a combat class by default.
But maybe they can develop into it if they try.
That is some disturbing speculation.
Those are some nice new buffs.
That's a good test.
10292750
My headcanon explanation for the complete disinterest in combat magic is that she still has PTSD from nearly killing her parents and rapidly ageing Spike through the roof of CSGU. Much of Season 1 Twilight's magic prowess was focused on all the tiny, magically insignificant but intellectually stimulating spells. Only when the entire town was in danger (Ursa Minor) did she actually show how much raw power she had.
Only in the Tirek incident did she actually cut loose. (That was with the power of the other Princesses, but still. I don't think she was still unicorn-level, as was usually shown.)
Even in the Changeling incident, she was... really wasteful with her magic. Casting magic-intensive spells to strip a changeling's disguise instead of outright attacking them like the rest of her friends. (Aside from the Pinkie Incident) So she ended up just as exhausted. And got captured.
10302741
her power is downplayed pretty much always. things like the ursa minor are rare, and about the only time we see what she can do. even as an alicorn her power is extremely downplayed to the point of ridiculousness. case in point- fight with glim glam. glim glam is basically handicapped, having to hold herself in the air at all times, and still bests twilight every time..
Um... So what does "CO" stand for? I mean... the list is quite long, and I'm not a native speaker, so small things like these still escape me sometimes...
10369867
'Care Of', it's often used when sending letters to a larger group like a company in order to say "Hey, I am sending the letter to (second person) in the hopes that they will give it to (first person)". So you'd address a letter to a major movie star by saying "To Star, CO: Their Agent", that sort of thing.
Damn...The calm before the storm? ... ... I almost feel sorry for the poor fool getting a smack down from Spike
10395212
Maybe Discord? But it feel like he would be too 'on the nose'
Perhaps someone original?
Princess Party participation pleasuring pink puss