Magic, Heart, and Soul

by SvenFoxx

The Magic of Loyalty

Author's Note:

I finally caved and watched the Emoji Movie. While it doesn’t compare to legends like Zootopia and Moana, it is a good movie in its own right that addresses the right to express oneself how they wish. I'm also very fond of the soundtrack.

Then I watched Inside Out immediately afterwards.

To make a long story short, this story is the result of the inspiration that came from combining those two in my mind. It's also fairly short, maybe two more chapters.

Some years ago…

Twilight was panicking. No, it was worse than that. She was flat out on the verge of having a mental breakdown!

Why?

She couldn’t get this confounded egg to hatch!

She had tried everything short of necromantic magic to get the purplish egg to hatch. Her entire future in the study of magic hinged on this test! If she failed here… her mind instantly pushed such thoughts away to make room for more processing power.

The judges were watching her. She started to sweat as she felt the judgmental gazes. She tried to hatch the egg again, but her panicked mind only managed to bring forth a spark and sputter.

She noticed one judge make a mark on his clipboard. Her pupils dilated.

The judge sighed. “I’m sorry, Miss Sparkle, but it is increasingly clear that you are unable to accomplish this task.” He levitated his quill to his clipboard. “I must end this test now-”

“No!”

Every Unicorn in the room were immediately giving Twilight their undivided attention. They had felt her magic shudder.

Twilight screwed her eyes closed tightly as she knelt down. “No. No! Nonononono! No! I can do this! I know I can! Hatch already!” She opened her eyes again, and glared at the egg. “I refuse to let an omelette stop me!”

The dust on the floor around Twilight began to swirl, and her mane and tail started waving as if in the wind.

Twilight’s parents, Nite Light and Twilight Velvet, both felt their hearts leap into their respective throats. “Oh no…” they whispered. Then they immediately grabbed tables in their magic and started placing them between the ponies and Twilight.

Their daughter was going through magic overload.

“Twilight! Calm down!” Nite Light yelled as the air in the room started to whip around Twilight like a storm. “Twilight!”

Suddenly, a bolt of pure magic lanced from Twilight’s horn and struck her father. He was now a potted fern.

A white glow overcame Twilight eyes as she stopped trying to coax her magic out, and started demanding it bend to her will. She lifted off the ground, the force of her magic exiting her body pushing her away from anything solid.

“I… said…” Twilight growled, a gutteral sound coming from her throat. “HATCH!!!”

Twilight’s horn sparked. There was an all consuming crack, and everything was consumed in white light.

It was a shame the flash had painfully, if temporarily, blinded Princess Celestia as she stormed through the door, or she may have been able to stop what happened next.

---

Fluttershy kept her head down as she walked on the path to her home. She did her best to ignore the jeers of the bullies, she really did. Her brother always told her that the best thing you could do when it came to bullies was ignore them. Eventually they would give up on getting a rise out of you.

It hadn’t happened yet, but Fluttershy still hoped. She trusted her brother. He wouldn’t lie about this, right?

She smiled as she saw a head of rainbow colored hair screaming at the bullies. They, unfortunately, completely ignored the hot-headed Pegasus. “Thanks for trying,” she whispered.

Her only friend turned to her and grinned at her encouragingly in response.

Fluttershy resumed her walk home, only the sound of the bullies’ insults following her.

---

Celestia gasped as magic unlike any she had ever felt before explode from somewhere in the general direction of what she knew to be the front of the room. “Please, stop!” she tried to call out into the maelstrom forming. Her voice was drowned out by the howling winds stirred up.

Celestia grit her teeth and tried to force her way physically through the raw power. It burned her.

There was a crash from somewhere above her, and she felt the floor rumble.

She froze when the magic suddenly froze and became quiet. Her extensive experience with magic users that little to no control over their own power told her immediately what was happening.

“Funnel it up!” she called out into the sudden silence. “Up! Make it go up!” she nearly begged.

The last thing she wanted was Canterlot being destroyed by a Unicorn accidentally detonating their soul.

Twilight, curled in on herself as her body quaked from the pain of channeling so much magic, heard her. “Up…” she whispered. Then her own glowing eyes narrowed as determination once more gripped her. “I can do up.”

---

“When are you going to introduce me to your parents, Rainbow?” Fluttershy asked her friend.

The Pegasus shrugged, flying somewhat ahead of Fluttershy.

Fluttershy sighed. “Yeah, I guess I understand. They can be a bit overbearing at times, huh?”

Rainbow Dash once more smiled at her, placing a hoof on her friend’s shoulder.

Fluttershy smiled as they approached a cloud home. “Yeah. One day. I can wait.”

She pushed the front door of her home open and walked in, closing it behind her. “I’m home,” she called softly.

Fluttershy’s mother came around a corner and scooped her daughter up in a hug. “Hi dear. How was school?” she asked as Fluttershy’s father walked in.”

“Fine.” Fluttershy said, returning the hug. “Rainbow Dash tried to stand up for me again though. I hope she doesn’t get in trouble for picking fights.”

The parents of Fluttershy exchanged a concerned look.

That was when the cloudstuff beneath their hooves began to shake. “What in the world?” Fluttershy’s father asked, moving to the window.

What he saw in the distance made his face turn chalk white.

---

“Up. Up. Up. Go up!” Twilight ordered her magic verbally as she forced it, through pure willpower, to funnel through a new hole in the roof, blasting into the sky and detonating harmlessly. Or, she hoped it was harmlessly. She really had no alternative at the moment.

---

“Get down!” Fluttershy’s father ordered, diving towards his family and dragging them down.

A massive magical shockwave was moving towards Cloudsdale.

---

Celestia finally regained her sight, only for her eyes to widen when she looked up. “Oh no…” she whispered in horror, seeing the shockwaves. Her eyes snapped to the source of the magic, and she found a small purple filly. Her eyes glowing from the raw power she was using, her mouth twisted in determination as she did as Celestia had instructed.

Her horn ignited and, praying she wasn’t about to make a mistake, she cast a single, overpowered spell.

Everyone in the room dropped to the floor, fast asleep. Including Twilight.

Slowly, the magic her body had been generating petered out as Celestia guided the rest of it skyward. “Captain Steel Guard!” she nearly screamed at the captain of her guard, who was outside the room. “Get rescue teams to Cloudsdale NOW!!!” she ordered.

She knew all too well that pressurized air and cloudstuff did not mix well together.

---

The three ponies in their home was sent careening through the air as the magical shockwave tore their home, and the homes of so many other Pegasi, to shreds. Fluttershy’s parents tried desperately to keep a hold of each other and their daughter, at the same time praying their son was okay.

Unfortunately, the next shockwave on the tail of the one that destroyed Cloudsdale forced the three apart, sending them in different directions.

Fluttershy found herself flailing as she tried to get her wings to cooperate, the ground fast approaching. Realizing she was probably going to crash, she screwed her eyes shut and did the only thing she could think of.

“Rainbow Dash! HELP!!!” she screamed for her friend.

There was a sudden jerk, and Fluttershy slowly opened her eyes after realizing she was no longer falling. She was staring at blue fur.

“How many times do I gotta save your tail, Flutters?” Rainbow Dash asked with a cocky grin, holding the yellow Pegasus aloft.

Fluttershy couldn’t stop the sob that escaped her as she smiled into her friend’s chest. She was saved. Her savior had come to her aid once again.

Rainbow Dash sighed and made her way to the ground. But she smiled and held her friend close. “I’m here, Flutters. You’re okay,” she tried to soothe.

“Everything will be fine from now on.”

Comments

[badninja]

Well it looks like no sonic rainboom in this universe. I wonder just how powerful Twilight is going to be here?

[Comickook]

All I can say is - wow. Excellent lead-off to this short story. The exchanges, characterizations, action and future chapter set-up are all well done in all the right places.

To think this ended up all happening because of an over-stubborn filly with too much untapped ability. And, yeah, ignoring bullies IS indeed the wisest way of dealing with them (unless the bullies end up escalating it to PHYSICAL violence, in which case you should definitely get a trustworthy authority figure to help out). Zephyr was actually right about that. Unfortunately, some bullies are just more stubborn than others.

But anyway, I feel bad for Fluttershy's parents as well as Cloudsdale in general. Hopefully, Twilight will learn to use this incident as motivation to use her power more responsibly in the future .

Anyway, I'll certainly be looking forward to more of this, but will also be quite willing to respect that, well, you DO have a life outside the computer room.

[Comickook]

Hey there. Just sharing a couple of possible future exchange ideas for appropriate points (assuming you don't already have something similar if not even better in mind, which IS entirely possible.

1. Celestia: Now, I know you didn't mean to make any trouble, Miss Sparkle.

Twilight: I am so sorry, your highness! I just got so frustrated. I lost control and I wouldn't blame you for getting angry with me.

Celestia: Actually, I was going to say that, while I seriously doubt that you meant any malice, the fact remains that you have too much power to be allowed to go unsupervised and there is only one pony powerful enough to safely train you.

Twilight: You mean - you?

Celestia: You catch on fast.

Twilight: So, you're saying that you WILL help me learn to control my power so I don't end up hurting anypony else.

Celestia: Indeed.


2. Somebody of your choice: I can't believe it. She basically did untold damage to AN ENTIRE CITY and you're making her your personal student?

Celestia: Well, considering the power she has, it was either that or ship her off to Tartarus - which would have been extremely excessive over an accident (albeit an extremely devastating one) - ESPECIALLY for a CHILD. Besides, she needs the help and we need a way to keep tabs on her.

Somebody of your choice: But what if she takes your training and does something that bad - or even worse - on purpose?

Celestia: If she does, THEN we'll ship her off to Tartarus, but I would rather save that as an absolute last resort. Right now, I would prefer to take lemons and try to make lemonade.

Somebody of your choice: Yeah, but this is a VERY combustible lemon that can burn down dozens of houses if we aren't careful.

and 3. Celestia: Oh, and for the record, Twilight, even if you didn't hatch the egg, you would have still gotten into the school.

Twilight: Huh?

Celestia: Dragons have such a naturally high resistance to magic that it would take three fully trained adult mages working together to hatch a dragon egg. The egg was meant to test the applicant's CHARACTER, not the applicant's ABILITY. You already passed the written exam. In fact, you actually got a perfect score on THAT. Plus, you did great on every portion of the practical application portion of the exam up until the dragon egg.

Twilight: So, the dragon egg thing was meant to test not only the applicant's determination, but also their ability to handle failure.

Celestia: Exactly. Of course, this is kind of a double-edged sword.

Twilight: You mean, on one hoof, I actually managed to do what most ponies would consider impossible. On another hoof, I did so much damage in the process that - well, I believe my big brother's comics say it best - with great power, there must also come great responsibility.

Celestia: Very correct.

Of course, if you don't like these possible future exchange ideas, I WILL completely understand.

[SvenFoxx]

8695720
It's not that I don't want to, because I assure you, I do, but rather I'm constraining myself to three chapters, and each one has a focus. The next chapter will take place in the present timeline, and will also make the big reveal.

I suppose I could incorporate it as a small memory. I'm still putting the chapter together and figuring out the best way to go about revealing everything, so it's distinctly possible.

Also, and I think this goes without saying, but thank you for the idea!

[Comickook]

8695777
You're extremely welcome. And thanks for the response. :-D

[alfonso_rd_33]

8695350
and the Pony Multiverse SHUDDERS because of that little detail of Zephyr Breeze Being right