Chapter 3: September 27-28; 30, The Last Unicorn
YAHES 2: Season of Chaos
By: Bardic Knowledge
Chapter 3: September 27-28; 30, The Last Unicorn
I know I briefly covered the awards ceremony as part of the last chapter, since it's part of that episode, but while we were waiting for the ceremony to be set up, we spent a couple days in Canterlot, where I received some good news:
The Anthropomorphizing Spell was finished.
Immediately after receiving the news, Trixie and I made a beeline for Canterlot University. I was floating my way there because I was still giddy over having the magic to do so, but I wasn't really up to anything flashy with it just yet.
I landed as we arrived and just as we walked in the door, I was hit by a unicorn stallion who had been examining some papers, which scattered everywhere. I waved my hand and collected them, grinning as I did so, and handed them over to his yellow magic.
“Thank you- Oh! Are you the one who was after that transformation spell?” he asked, in a disturbingly familiar voice. In fact, he even looked like John de Lancie's ponified self from the documentary.
“Ah, yes,” I said, guardedly. No reason to believe this wasn't an actual pony, but the fact that he sounded like Discord had put me on guard.
“I'm Professor Quantum, the new theoretical physics teacher. I happened to find the research on it while I was here for my interview and managed to spot a couple flaws in their equations.” He chuckled, still sounded vaguely like Discord. “Apparently, that was enough to get me hired!”
“Well... Good on you, then. Would you mind directing us there?”
“Oh, it's no trouble at all! I'll even go with you, my office is in that direction.” We made the walk in silence, as he shuffled his papers about (I even had to keep him from ramming into a few others on the way), and as we walked, I felt my apprehension fade, though it didn't vanish. The only way to confirm it wasn't Discord would probably be to smack him with the Elements, but that would be a bit extreme to do on such a small hunch.
It's not like Rarity is Princess Luna just because they have the same voice actress, after all.
“Here you are,” said Professor Quantum, “the research department. Have a good day, you two!” And with a brief wave, he continued down the corridor.
After a moment to steel ourselves, we opened the door and were greeted by a completely unknown pegasus pony in a lab coat.
“Ah, hello,” he said, “you must be the one who commissioned this project.”
“I am, indeed,” I said. My stomach was starting to feel a little queasy in anticipation.
“Well, follow me, and we'll get you right to it.” A few seconds after we started walking, he started up again. “This was a particularly challenging experiment. If it hadn't been for the new professor, it might have taken another two years!” He laughed, and Trixie and I both chuckled nervously. “One of our stumbling blocks was that we were trying to change the target's magic as well as their shape, but every effort to that end went... poorly.
“Don't worry,” he continued, not even having seen my eyebrows rise for that very reason. “Nobody was seriously injured, we just had a few odd transformations, like a pegasus we tried turning into a unicorn got a wing on his head instead of a horn.”
“I thought this spell was just to turn a pony into a human and vice versa,” said Trixie.
“Oh, that was the original goal, but we found it easier to expand the end result into a template transmutation spell. Basically, the spell has two targets: what you're changing, and what species-slash-tribe you're changing them to. As I said, we tried to change their magic with their shape, but one of Professor Quantum's fixes showed that we didn't need to do that. I guess we just needed a fresh perspective on that front.”
“So now when someone is changed, it leaves them with their original magic, I presume?”
“Indeed it does! It does make for an interesting sight, watching a pegasus-turned-unicorn pony feather-fall onto a cloud without use of any spells, but it did prove the spell worked without problems. Ah, here we are.” He walked behind the desk and unfurled a scroll before us. To me, who wasn't well versed in Equestrian magic-language, it looked like so much gibberish. Fortunately, Trixie did know how to read it, even if she didn't have much experience in constructing with it.
Holding up the scroll, she mumbled what was written on it, and I felt a tingling sensation run through me as a beam from Trixie's horn swept over me. The spell then enveloped her and I averted my eyes as her shape flowed into a human form. Without looking, I snapped my fingers, and Trixie's gala dress flashed into my hand. Without a word, she took the dress from me and slid it on, though I did have to lengthen the hem a foot to keep her modesty.
She did still have her unicorn magic, but there was nothing to channel it through.
“Well, I must say, I am glad to see that it didn't just make her a copy of me,” I commented.
“It is a template-based transformation, not a clone transformation,” said the researcher, irritably. I took a glance at his desk's nameplate, getting a little tired of not knowing his name, reading it as “Dr. Thought Bubble, Th. D.” (Which meant that he held a doctorate in thaumaturgy, rather than medicine or a philosophy).
Trixie stumbled a bit as she attempted to walk. “It's quite different from walking on my hind legs as a pony. The balance is a bit off-putting.”
“I may have an idea for that,” I said. I placed my thumb, index, and middle fingers on the side of her face. “Your mind to my mind. Your thoughts to my thoughts.” With that mantra, I opened a connection between our minds, sharing basic physiological and cultural information between us.
After a moment to process the new data, I laughed. “So that's why the tail extension thing was scandalous, they're analogous to breast implants- Oh, ew.” That thought immediately made think of when Rarity cut her tail short over a year ago during the Summer Sun Celebration. That suddenly took on a new, squicky, light.
Trixie, meanwhile, was taking a walk around the room to get used to the new instincts that she had gained. “The wind on my skin is a new sensation,” she commented. Then she glanced in my direction. “I see you implanted more than motor skills.”
Dr. Thought Bubble looked intrigued. “Implanted? What does that mean?”
“I used a technique known to my world as the 'Vulcan Mind Meld,'” I replied. “Basically, we shared some info on our worlds and forms. Including, cultural standards of beauty.”
“And I have to say, that regardless of what your culture says, you are handsome to me.” I blushed lightly.
“Fascinating,” Dr. Thought said. “Regardless, there's also a reversal spell that removes the template.” He placed a new scroll on his desk.
“Thank you,” I said, and picked up the other scroll.
“No, thank you. This was an interesting project to work on. It's not quite a 'walk a mile in another's hooves' spell, but maybe someday we'll manage it.”
“Perhaps.”
Trixie and I left the research department, though that took a few minutes. The place was much bigger than it should have been, though the existence of Time Lord Technology spells made the reason fairly obvious.
“Can you teach me how do read magic-language?” I asked.
“Of course, though there's really not much to it. Some spells are simpler than others, but...”
After some time, I managed to cast the reversal spell without trouble, and then the template spell on myself. Fortunately, the mind meld gave me pony motor skills, so I had no trouble walking alongside Trixie as a pony.
And, yes, just like Trixie, I had gained the other culture's standards of beauty, and she was quite beautiful. Almost enough to make me feel inadequate, but considering we were already dating without that info, I left the feeling behind.
Not much later, I found myself with a need to toy around with my magic. I had already hovered some, and I had learned how to cast spells like a unicorn, so now I was going to try something a bit more freeform.
So I lifted off the ground and flew into the air above Canterlot by will alone. One of the many reasons I had always wanted telekinesis was this. The power to lift myself into the sky. The cold was a bit annoying, so I excited the molecules in the air around me for some heat. To amuse myself, I gave the area of effect a slight glow, making me look like a character out of Dragon Ball Z.
I was already loving magic.
“So you can fly now,” said a voice behind me. I looked to see Rainbow Dash, smug look on her face. “I wonder how fast.”
“No idea. Why don't we find out?” I grinned and flared the aura I had created, which wasn't quite white, but some kind of off-colour rainbow.
With a flap, she took off for Ponyville. I blasted off as well, the aura of warmed air moving with me as I flew. I quickly caught up with Dash, but she increased her speed, forcing me to increase speed as well to catch up. After a while, the wind started tearing away at my warmed air, so I had to put a bubble at the front, which I quickly streamlined to a bullet shape. Dash was still ahead of me as we approached the Ponyville town hall, and she whipped around it, making a u-turn back towards Canterlot and I followed.
The rush was exhilarating. I knew now why Dash liked flying so much. Before I knew it, we were already halfway back, still accelerating, when Dash broke into a Sonic Rainboom.
I was left in the metaphorical dust, so flabbergasted that I almost fell out of the air. I laughed, and snapped my fingers, reappearing on a spire of Canterlot Palace.
Dash was already there, despite my warp.
“Trying to cheat?” she joked.
“Nah, just knew I couldn't win once you hit Mach 10. Even if I broke the sound barrier, too, you had too much of a lead.” I lay back on the air. “I love magic. I just wish...”
“Wish what?”
I shook my head. “I have to go talk to Spike.”
“Oh, yeah, he was saying something about your wrist and acting weird. It was your thing with Discord, wasn't it.”
That, obviously, wasn't a question.
“Yeah. I really need to talk to him, patch things up.”
Dash nodded. “I'll tell the others.”
“Thanks.” I snapped my fingers and teleported to the library. I took a step forward and knocked on the door.
When Spike answered, he almost slammed the door in my face, but I held it open. “Spike. We need to talk. Well, I should explain, rather.”
“What's there to explain? You sold us out to Discord. Twilight told me all about it.”
“And she probably learned of it from Discord himself, who is quite the truth-twister.”
Spike sighed, then stood aside. I stepped in and pulled out my laptop-construct. “The first thing you should remember, is that I knew what was going to happen.” I started the season 2 premiere clip show again, letting it run in the background as I continued. “Something Discord did not know. He thought I was making a legitimate wager, when I had the game rigged from the beginning.”
“But how could you be sure that you didn't make things worse?”
“I added a clause to our wager that made him think I had a disadvantage from the start that said that if I interfered I would instantly lose. Though he also couldn't interfere after the initial hypnosis, but, as it was in the show, his pride was his downfall. He couldn't fathom failure. He didn't think I was capable of tricking him.”
“So, even what happened here. Was a trick?”
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “Actually, I had no intention of leaving the house. When you showed up and asked me to come with you, I had to think fast. Obviously, I couldn't actually get it past you. But, unlike Discord, you actually knew me. You're my friend.” I spread my arms in an invitation to hug.
To my relief, he gave me a hug. “You don't have to try flattery on me. I'm just glad you didn't actually turn evil.”
After a few moments of hugging, I banished my laptop and asked, “Would you like a ride to Canterlot?” At his eager nod, I snapped my fingers.
We had a ceremony to attend.
---
After the ceremony, I performed my second major magical experiment. I'd had plenty of ideas after I concocted my plan to trick Discord into giving me magic, but one of them was key to getting most of them done.
That idea was known as Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.
Unlike most Equestrian spellcasters, I didn't actually need a preconstructed spell to do most things, like my teleportation, just as long as I could justify it working (but a properly made spell definitely made things easier on me).
Kage Bunshin had three main components:
1: The construct was physical, but frail.
B: The construct took half of the power of the original for its own use.
III: The construct popping would grant its experiences to the original.
With that in mind, I put my fingers in the cross shape, said the words and felt my magic wrench as another me appeared next to me.
“Did it work?” my clone asked.
“I don't know,” I said, “are we magical?”
“We are.”
“Then it worked.” Both of me grinned. “Stage one complete.”
“No idea how many we could make, though.”
“True. Still, you know the next step?'
“Yep. First the Canterlot library until I can find the right info, then to the ocean to test it.”
“Which will also test the memory retention part.” I shook hands with myself, then I went our separate ways.
I smiled at that. Now I just had to wait on the results and I could really start a revolution. I laughed at my inadvertent pun (you'll find out soon enough) and took off. I had a new attraction to put up.
Further limiting my powers, I couldn't create something from nothing. Even my clone was made of air (hence why he would poof with one good hit). But, with the right application of logic (something Discord neither wanted, nor needed), I could easily get around that.
Or so I thought.
I plucked an acorn from one of the trees of the Canterlot gardens and took off for Ponyville, specifically my house. Trixie and the others had already gone ahead, knowing that I was going to stay behind and experiment.
Here was the concept of this trick: Every seed contains a tree. Every tree makes more seeds, which contain more trees. Ergo, every seed is an infinite amount of wood, just add water, sunlight, and time.
Or magic, in this case. Hovering above and behind my house, I threw the acorn and willed.
---
I found myself waking up with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, and an aching body; I could faintly make out a beeping over the headache, and a light pressure on my right hand.
“Urgh...” I moaned.
“Oh, thank Celestia!” cried Trixie. Blearily, I could make out the cyan of her hair to my right. “You absolute idiot! Do you have any idea what you've done?!”
My mouth creaked as I tried to reply.
“I didn't think so. You've completely exhausted your magic. I know you had only had it for a day, but you still shouldn't have pushed yourself like that.”
I managed to croak, “Time...?”
“You've been out two days. You're also probably going to be bed-ridden for the rest of the week. What were you thinking?”
“Enter..” I tried to lick my lips, but a dry tongue can't wet anything. “...tainment.”
“Entertainment?!” she hissed. “You. Argh!” I heard stomping, then the door opening. “Get to sleep!” and the door slammed.
I mentally sighed. Just then, I noticed something new in my head. Some new memories. Well, that worked. Unfortunately, the experiment I'd sent the clone on was currently inconclusive.
Take a metal disc, add durability and friction-reduction runes (which was originally earth pony magic here in Equestria) until it's nearly indestructible, then a couple movement runes pointed in opposite directions to make it spin, then one more to draw in magic to power the whole thing. And that was a Warlock's Wheel.
However, the clone had popped the instant the last rune had been carved. Probably disrupted the spell that kept the clone together.
I'd have to check on the Wheel when I got better...
Zzz...
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I'm sure Professor Quantum is a completely trustworthy pony who we need never concern ourselves with at any point in the future.
"And at that point, you could've just used the portal!"
"What portal?"
"Oh dear. There goes my security clearance..."
Heh. It's funny. Thought Bubble is the name of my virtually never-used ponysona.
Good to see the limitations and reconnections both. This was a very—
Oh no.
Oh no.
7687895
I know. I threw him in there as a shout out to you. Remember when I was working on a Magic novel and I wanted to use you as a character?
Now, now, this is Equestria, not the Earth of The Magic Goes Away. Things work rather differently here. For one, mana is a regenerative resource produced by the environment, instead of a finite resource produced by deities that died out long ago.
Though it could still be dangerous in the wrong hands/hoofs/claws. There's just quite a bit of experimenting to be done to make it safer.
7687978
Oh. Right.
Didn't want to presume.