Chapter Six: Showtime! (Part 2)
As I walked into the room, I noticed that everything was still in place; the four teachers in the back behind the rows of seats, the blackboard behind me with complicated math equations, even the door where the stallion who brought Spike’s egg came in from.
There was absolute silence, except for the teachers at the back, taking one look at me and scratching at their quills.
The door abruptly opened and an earth pony walked in with a cart loaded with…
A joke.
It was just a piece of paper with a picture of a horn glowing. A light charm. Literally the first magic taught to unicorns, mostly because it was the easiest. Lumos, basically.
Looking over at the teachers, I saw some smug smirks and even a sneer. I think one of them was trying not to laugh.
“I’d like to attempt the test of magical prowess.” I said in a clear voice, trying to pretend I wasn’t offended by their mockery of a first test.
This stunned some of them and I took particular glee in noticing the one sniggering suddenly choke.
The one in the center, who appeared to be the leader, was not amused or impressed. Maybe he thought that I would try something like this?
“Very well then. Please perform a spell that is Level 4 or above.” he said in a bored tone, probably from the many failures to get in through magical prowess he had seen before. As far as the records of the school were concerned, it was very unusual to not be able to perform the first test and still get in through a spell of even more difficulty.
“I’ll do you better. I’ll perform three spells.” I said with a smirk on my face. It widened when I saw three of them widen their eyes and suddenly paid quite a bit more attention.
“First, I’ll perform a teleportation spell.” As I said this, I concentrated upon the small necklace I was wearing, willing it to activate its stored teleportation spell. You see, it is possible to store magic inside inanimate objects for later use… The problem being that all magic stored this way would become weak and ineffective over a short period of time. For most ponies, it just wasn’t very practical, especially when you could just get a unicorn friend to do the same thing for better effect and waste less energy.
As for me, I was just glad that the lack of demand made them affordable.
The world vanished for a dizzying moment. Then after a flare of light, I appeared about a meter from where I had been standing previously.
Two of the teachers gasped, while the leader was fixing me with a suspicious glare and the pony next to him seemed to…
Ah. There it was.
The smirk. A magician's’ worst nightmare. That self-satisfied smirk that said ‘I’ve figured out your trick and I’m about to ruin it for everyone to see’. I had suffered many a time because of that smirk and it was not pleasant to see.
He spoke up “Please, take off your necklace and perform the spell again.” he said in a self-satisfied tone, having figured out my plan. Sadly for him, I was a big fan of Magician Rule #5.
I promptly took off my necklace, concentrated my will again and teleported right back to the spot I was standing in originally.
This time the unicorn that challenged me gasped and all three of his companions turned wide-eyed looks my way.
As long as you can get a friendly unicorn to do it, you can enchant any object. As long as the object is touching you, the effect of a spell applies to you. That’s why these spells were almost useless, because even in combat where you would want to have weak spells that can be performed quickly, an offensive spell would hit you instead of your opponent.
However, it did mean that even the invisible string I had tied around my neck counted as an object and as such it’s effect, namely teleportation, applied to me.
(Before you ask, invisible string isn’t that hard to get. Awkwardly buy some panty hoses for your ‘mother’, make a hole in them, and you get an almost infinite amount of invisible string to abuse!)
Magician Rule Number #5: Always have a backup.
Before they asked me to teleport again, which would be impossible since the magic in the necklace and string were gone, I moved on to my next trick.
“Next, I’ll perform mind magic. However, for obvious reasons, I need at least one of you to come closer to demonstrate it.” I said in an innocent manner, as if I was a young foal who didn’t quite realize that earth ponies couldn’t teleport on their own.
They looked at each other and eventually, the mare most to my left, the one with a yellow coat and cloud-like purple mane, stepped down from behind the rows of seats and stood in front of me. You know, this trick was a lot easier to perform when you were eye-to-eye with the other pony…
“Well?” she asked impatiently, apparently having recovered from her shock of my earlier teleportation. She had three diamonds for a cutie mark and was wearing a silver watch. Her eyes were the same color as her mane…
I decided to start with a classic shotgun question. I faked a look of deep concentration while staring into her horn, trying to hide the fact I was actually looking into her eyes while I said:
“I can tell you’re feeling some sort of tension with a friend or relative at the moment.” in that Yoda-tone that implies you’re saying something that has some sort of ‘deep wisdom’ attached to it.
Her eyes widened, telling me I had a hit somewhere in there.
“Now that I look closer, I believe it’s a friend, yes? A misunderstanding…”
Now, she looked scared. It seemed her magical mind defenses were no use against cold reading, a technique invented by humans to appear as if you know a lot of specific details about a stranger when in fact your statement applies to a wide amount of people or problems. The fact ponies have a mark of their true selves right on their flank kind of makes it feel like cheating though.
“Yes, in fact I believe your attitude with other ponies, that impatience you feel is born out of a deep desire to apologize to your friend…” I gambled, hoping that this wouldn’t fall flat on my face. This sort of trick loses most of its effect if you mess up because you have to backpedal away from the incorrect guesses and that starts looking suspicious.
“I...I’ve been told that I’ve been different ever since...I hadn’t realized…” she said in an uncertain voice. That was the power of cold reading. Despite the fact that I actually had no idea where her impatience came from, her mind directly related my general statement to her own personal issues.
“I recommend that when all the tests are over, you go over and apologize, Diamond.” I told her, making a quick guess at her name from her triple diamond cutie mark.
“I… I will. Thank you.” she seemed sincere. I tossed out a quick smile, then glanced over at the other teachers.
Most of them looked gobsmacked, while the leader with the blue coat and white mane was looking interested.
“Please, perform your last spell Mr. Hope.” he said with what actually seemed like excitement. Had I managed to convince him?
“Very well then. Diamond, you can go back up there if you want. I’m not very good at this spell yet, so I’ll use a small weight.” I pulled out a bit from my borrowed saddlebags, then showed it to them.
“For my grand finale, I will perform an anti-gravity spell.” I said, holding up the bit for them to see while subtly taking three steps forwards, putting me right under the tiny ‘X’ mark on the floor tiles
You see, when you give a magician a time and a show stage, you can’t expect him to not visit it beforehand. Since ponies had yet to develop the oh-so-handy human technique of lockpicking, it usually meant that in their eyes, locked places were perfectly safe; this allowed me to get inside easily by using what little lockpicking I knew.
I held up my bit upwards, then pretended to take a deep breath and concentrate. I wished I could will sweat drops to form upon my brow to sell the effect but not even magicians had figured out a way to do that yet.
Suddenly, I let go of the bit I was holding in my hoofs ‘soft’ state and it shot upwards into the ceiling!
This time, there was no skepticism left to temper their reaction. All of them gasped, probably more impressed by the fact that this was the highest level of magic I’d shown. What they didn’t need to know was that it was also about as high as I could get in terms of faking it.
Pony money reminds me of Skyrim money. It’s all in the actual metal. A bit is made of gold, which is non-magnetic… Which is why I had convinced a local smith that for some coin he’d craft me a metal toy-bit, just to play around with. Then, all I had to do was install a small magnet on the ceiling on top of me, using a ladder the day before and the setup for anti-gravity was complete.
I sat there, waiting for them to recover while contemplating about how unusual equestrian technology was. You had electric lighting, steam trains, magnets and even electronic speakers. But, you couldn’t give the guards better weapons than lances and spears? What about carriages, why did ponies not have at least basic cars by now? Was it all intentional?
The teachers seemed to have recovered their composure during my small mental rant at the inconsistencies of equestrian technology. The leader spoke.
“Mr. Hope, I think we’ve seen enough. Let me be the first to congratulate you on being the first earth pony in recorded history to have magic, and also the first earth pony to be accepted into ‘Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns’. You may go.” he said with an amused look on his face, as if he never expected to have to say those words.
I didn’t have to fake my excited “YES!” at my efforts finally giving me fruits. I turned around and stared at Emerald Dream who had been watching the whole time, but I had completely ignored her until then in order to make sure I tricked the teachers.
“That was incredible Hope! I don’t know how you did any of that!” she said in a proud voice.
“Thank you! It wasn’t easy to learn!” I said, deciding that a half-truth would fly better than a straight-up lie.
“This is a historical event! The first earth pony to have magic! We have to tell everyone!” she exclaimed, too excited to see my look of dawning horror.
“Emerald, wait!”
...
Oh, crap baskets.
And there we have it. Hopefully it was worth the wait! 
Special thanks goes to my editor, ImMrNoobHeadFU1, for being extra-awesome in helping me edit the mistakes out of this extra-long chapter.
Comments, reviews and suggestions are always appreciated! 
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And now it backfires
Ponies seem to be gullible in general. Hope could be a better stage magician than Trixie.
8183275 Yeah, probably! Although he sorta lacks the resources to accomplish that at the moment...
8183268 Or does it? Maaaybe Emerald could keep a secret? What about the teachers though...
Ouch, that's going to back fire... But hey, if he mixes magic tricks and fantasy games, books and tv shows in Equestria him being able to use magic that doesn't exist in Equestria would work for Earth Ponies.
Backfire. Meh. Wouldn't be a good story without tension.
A great chapter. Looking forward to the next one!
Wonder how it's going to play out...
8213034
Arguably it was but it also might confuse a reader, as the stomach and womb are... Quite different when it comes to internal composition.
I imagine being inside a stomach would be an extremely painful experience, acid and all.
8213134
yeah... plus you feel like your in a weird porno
I cant help it, This is the theme I keep thinking of for Lost Hope's school career
8183275
Actually I think his solution is to team up With trixie as a kindred spirit.
Also that performance was superb
Magnets just don't work that way, unless they actually are magic. That should have caused everyone's jewelry and pocket items to disappear if it was strong enough to pull up a coin over a distance of 4-8 feet.
Still, good show there. I was hoping that if it was RPG-style, he'd manage to multi-class or learn it by putting in more effort, but I guess that was too easy.
8840679 It's clearly an ACME-brand magnet.
He'll need to be wary of Coyotes. Especially Wily ones.
8213134 Mmmm... vore...
8282760
Hell to the YES!!
THAT'S ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!