• Published 5th Mar 2018
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Princess Twilight Sparkle and the Sorcerous Symbiosis - kudzuhaiku



Facing boredom, Twilight Sparkle looks forwards to a day of science

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Spike gets it all on film

“Spike,” Twilight began with a nod towards her most faithful assistant, “take a letter.”

“Sure thing, Twilight!” Spike, grinning, eager, snatched up a quill, a sheet of parchment, and his ear frills quivered with affectionate attention.

Leaning back in her chair, Twilight took a moment to reflect on what she wanted to say and she relaxed a little, allowing her muscles to unkink. “Dear Princess Celestia…” Spike’s quill began scratching, distracting her, and her eyes went half-closed whilst she recovered her stream of consciousness. “Sumac is now eight years and thirty-three days old, and it has been thirty-two days since the last ‘snatch-a-sorcerer’ incident. Thank you again, for your timely arrival to put an end to their trouble, and I’m sorry that I complained about you being a day late to celebrate Sumac’s birthday. You showed up just in the nick of time…”

Across the table, Spike began giggling while he wrote, and Twilight smiled.

“Right after I sent the letter to complain, the trouble started.” Twilight brought her front hooves together and began to clonk them against one another in a slow, methodical, absent-minded, lackadaisical manner. Each hoof aligned with one another, with no visible overlap. Tap—tap—tap. “I worry, dear teacher, just how many ponies became involved this time to protect Sumac. No one was killed, but there were injuries. I am both proud of my fellow ponies and terrified of the eventual outcome of this growing boldness. Also, I am saddened that one of my students took a life. Olive is troubled by what she’s done now, but showed no sign of hesitation when she acted. I worry, Celestia, I really do. She’s a bit like me in that she’s overly aggressive, and, I must confess, it concerns me a great deal. Her aggression needs to be channeled somehow, funneled into some form of greatness. Maybe I worry too much.”

No longer could laughter be heard from Spike.

“It seems that nothing is certain anymore.” Twilight closed her eyes and allowed her thoughts to flow with the hopes that she could better express the feelings she held within her heart. “The ponies of Ponyville have changed. Everything that has happened, the invasions, the attacks, the snatch-a-sorcerer incidents, I find myself considering an organised regiment of guards, but then I think about what has become of Canterlot… and I convince myself that the Sparkle Spartans are enough. I don’t want Ponyville becoming militarised, but at the same time, I have an obligation to keep everypony safe. I find myself in a tough spot, and I think I need to speak to you, in pony if possible. I’ve reached a point where I am starting to doubt myself and I need help, because a princess who doubts herself does a poor job as a princess. Please, get in touch with me at your earliest convenience. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”

With her eyes closed, Twilight listened as parchment crinkled, she heard an inhale, and the crackle of flames made her ears prick. Spike had sent the letter before she could have second thoughts about it, before she could make edits, before she could clean it up a bit to hide her tell-tale signs of weakness. Spike was a good dragon—but right now she was mildly annoyed with him for being so prompt with delivery.

She yawned, an impressive sight that also caused Spike to yawn, and stretched, her body going rigid until she felt lightheaded. Only then did she ease up, relax, and open her eyes, revealing stars in her vision. Spike was scratching the side of his face with his claws and he looked as sleepy as she felt.

“When there is no trouble in Ponyville,” Spike said while his claws squealed against his hard, metallic scales, “it gets really, really boring.”

“Hush, Spike. Boring is good for Ponyville. We need a respite from trouble. No monster invasions, no attacking armies, no—”

Twilight was interrupted by the wall exploding and an immense burst of pressure slamming into her. Starlight Glimmer had smashed through the wall, protected by a shield bubble, while riding upon the crest of what appeared to be quite an explosion. With perfect calm, Twilight raised her own shield even as her table was lifted from the floor, papers took flight, and her chair was blown back. She pulled Spike in and with a flick of her thoughts, vacated the area just as the fiery detonation incinerated the table and blew her chair into splinters.

It was a spectacular way to end the boredom.


The failsafes had not held, because the failsafes had been overloaded. Standing amidst the wreckage of the magical laboratory, Twilight began to reassemble everything that was broken, though everything incinerated would need to be replaced. Smouldering, his pelt blackened in a number of places, Sumac looked none-the-worse for wear and she had already repaired the cracked lenses in his eyeglasses.

Starlight was sitting on the floor and rubbing her head while her apprentice, Olive stood behind her and rubbed her back with both front hooves. Moondancer’s eyebrow had gone missing in action and one ear was missing most of its fuzz. Sunburst was yawning while rubbing his ears, no doubt trying to get them to pop. Twilight wanted answers, but she also wanted everypony to recover first. Even Pebble, unflappable, unshakable Pebble, appeared to be somewhat stunned, but was busy trying to pat out the smouldering places on Sumac’s hide.

Most of the wall was reassembled and the pieces that were missing would be fixed in time, when the castle healed itself. Even now, the spiderweb of cracks had a fantastical glow to them as the wall slowly began to knit itself back together. Sumac coughed out a cloud of smoke and dust while Pebble pounded him on his back. Twilight, satisfied that the wall would hold, wanted answers.

“What happened here?” Twilight asked in her no-nonsense-I-mean-business sort of way.

“Moondancer exploded.” Sunburst coughed out the words along with a sizable cloud of glittery dust.

“I sure did!” Moondancer lifted her head, wobbled, and lowered her head again. “My forehead feels cold.”

“Moondancer just doesn’t explode,” Twilight said, refuting this claim while growing annoyed. She wanted answers… and Moondancer was whole of body.

“Wanna bet?” Olive smacked Starlight on the spine to work lose a cough and the mare sputtered while spitting out gritty bits. “We could make Moonie explode again—”

“NO!” Moondancer cried while holding up a hoof in the air and waving it around. “I don’t wanna explode!” Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Am I missing my eyebrow?”

“I just want to know why my castle keeps exploding!” Twilight stomped her hoof and glanced at the ponies still recovering from whatever it was that had happened. “Every time it explodes, I see the same faces… if this keeps up, I’m putting all of you on a list—”

“NO!” Sunburst held out his hoof and turned a pleading stare magnified owlishly by his crooked spectacles upon Twilight. “I don’t want to be listed as a disturber of the peace. I’m a respectable pony with a good reputation! Don’t take that from me!”

“Then spill the beans!” Twilight stomped again and bared her teeth. “Out with it, or on the list you’ll go!”

Pebble, the calmest pony in the room, began in perfect deadpan: “Moondancer exploded, that much is true. We were testing Sumac’s new magic. Sunburst calls it Sorcerous Symbiosis and Sumac and I, we discovered it by accident when we were playing. We were experimenting with different symbiotic combinations and discovered, quite by accident mind you, that Moondancer causes explosions. The big dramatic whooshy kind. Starlight is to blame because she wanted to see what would happen with a credible application of force. We found out what happened… kaboom.”

“I can’t feel my eyebrow…”

Intrigued, Twilight wanted to know more. “Pebble, what did you discover?”

A pleased gleam appeared in Pebble’s eye and the corners of her mouth tugged upwards in the faintest hint of smugness. “Sumac still had a hint of zap apple tincture in him after his lessons with Vinyl. We were playing King of the Hill and Sumac raised a shield around himself and I. Right away, he and I noticed that something was off, something was different, because he floated in the middle of his shield and I was left standing on the ground. It was like a hamsterball.”

“Do go on,” Twilight commanded.

Still smug, still pleased, Pebble continued, “We noticed that the shield had almost zero friction moving over the ground, and I was able to travel at great speeds. We smacked into my sister Megara, and bowled her over. She went flying over the garden wall from the impact. Running was effortless for me and the shield carried a great deal of kinetic momentum. Smashing into things at speed was satisfying beyond belief.”

Twilight had trouble believing what she was hearing, and she wanted to see it for herself. She needed visual confirmation—yet, the laboratory had exploded and her most trusted assistants were already studying the phenomenon. Scowling, Twilight realised that she had been left out of a major discovery, and this left her rather peevish.

“We need to begin advanced testing right away.” Twilight, perhaps sensing a way to end the boredom, swept away her mental schedule and cast everything else aside. “We need to find out what this does, but we need to do it outside, with my supervision. By the end of the day, I want to know how this works—”

“And how it can be exploited?”

“Yes, Pebble, and how it can be exploited.” Twilight was not aware of how terrible her grin was, how manic she appeared, or of the wicked gleam in her eye.

But her companions saw it, and each were terrified in their own special way.


It was a sunny, glorious spring day in Ponyville, and Twilight searched the skies for her first test-subject, hoping to spot a rainbow-maned pony. The skies were supposed to be clear today, according to the schedule, but there were far too many clouds. Little puffy clouds, perfect for napping. On a day like this, the odds of Rainbow Dash napping were high, because the lithe blue pegasus hibernated through seasons of boredom.

Nearby, Pebble sat in the grass beneath the shade of a lacy parasol and Sumac was with her, sipping from a bottle of Celestia~Cola. Sunburst and Starlight stood side by side, discussing something amongst themselves, while Olive remained close to Moondancer. Spike was off by himself, setting up a motion picture camera at what Twilight had judged was a safe distance away.

“Why a pegasus?” Moondancer asked, and then she clarified, “Why Rainbow Dash?”

“Because,” Twilight replied in a somewhat absent-minded manner, “an earth pony and a unicorn have already been tested, and I want to see what happens when you amplify Awesome. Pegasus ponies have magic too, Moonie, and I’m itching to know what Rainbow’s magic does with Sumac’s symbiotic shield.”

Adjusting her chunky glasses, Moondancer nodded. “I can see the logic in that. Now I am curious too. Twilight…”

“Yes, Moonie?”

“I still can’t believe that you got the Royal Academy of Science to recognise Awesome as an actual field of magic.”

Eyes skyward, Twilight nodded, and thought back to the duels battled, proving that she was right the only way it mattered: brute force. Rainbow Dash had a peculiar, unique magic that seemed all her own, and Twilight had dubbed it ‘Awesome.’ The Royal Academy of Science was a dangerous, dreadful place, but in the end, they had recognised Rainbow Dash’s Awesomeness.

No was never an acceptable option.

Reaching out through the aether, Twilight Sparkle prepared her special conjure pony spell…


“You want me to do what, eggs-zactly?” Rainbow’s voice was a little sleepy and a little raspy. “Twilight, I was napping and having that great dream about being a centerfold model—”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight’s wings sprang from her sides and she waved them around. “Foals present!”

“I’ve seen that issue,” Sumac said behind her, and Twilight felt her ears turn too warm for comfort.

“You have a copy of Terrific Teats?” Rainbow asked while she pushed her way past Twilight. “The special holiday edition?” Her voice was almost an over-excited squeal that grew in volume with each word. “Why you sly little colt! The cold really magnified my assets!”

“It sure did, while making other things nice and tight!” Sumac cried in return, and then Twilight heard a pained grunt from behind her. She could only assume that Pebble must have slugged him. Later, Twilight would buy Pebble ice cream, just because. Turning about, she saw Sumac rubbing his shoulder and scowling at Pebble.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight knew her words fell on deaf ears, because Rainbow just looked far-too-pleased with herself. Her own ears were now baking in the spring sun.

Moondancer made a husky confession in a low voice. “I have that same issue. It makes my eyebrow sweaty. I bet you could cut glass with those—”

“Moondancer!” This was unexpected and Twilight bristled at the very idea of her nerdy friend looking at glossy, full-colour pornographic magazines. Now, her cheeks were starting to get too warm, and her ears were practically on fire.

“Sunburst and I had a lot of fun looking through that issue together—”

“Starlight Glimmer!” Recoiling, poor Twilight Sparkle now possessed a dreadful fear that she was surrounded by perverts and that everything from the neck up might spontaneously combust at any second.

“What? Rainbow Dash made for a magnificent spread—”

“Starlight, was that a pun?” Twilight demanded while boiling blood coursed through her cheeks.

“Uh…” Starlight shuffled on her hooves, kicked the grass a bit, and shrugged. “Um, maybe? Rainbow Dash did have her hind hooves touching behind her neck and it was pretty hot—”

Intriguing mental images crept into Twilight’s brain and she did her best to banish them before the unwanted heat spread to other places. “STARLIGHT!”

“Well, it was!” Now on the defensive, Starlight stood her ground. “I’m too fat to get my hind hooves behind my neck like that and I don’t mind living vicariously. Being friends with Pinkie Pie and Pebble is ruining my figure, Twilight!”

“Great,” Pebble deadpanned, “now I am ruining the sex-lives of others and not just my parents. I feel accomplished.”

“Well, I eat too much fudge and then my legs won’t budge no matter how hard Sunburst pounds my pudge—”

STARLIGHT GLIMMER!” Twilight’s voice echoed through the distant trees and birds took flight, disturbed by the explosive outburst. Red-faced, flustered, and too-curious for her own good, Twilight barked like a schoolmarm, “WE HAVE SCIENCE TO DO! LET’S GET BUSY, PONIES!”

Author's Note:

This will be super short.