To Be Great and Powerful

by A bag of plums

Chapter 4 - Enemy Inside

Trixie woke that morning feeling no better for wear, though her ribs did itch a little. She didn’t know if she was supposed to start feeling more powerful or not, but as of yet, there wasn’t anything that would make her believe so. The schoolgirl slid out of bed and went to take a shower. On the way there, she passed Winter Frost’s room, but through the cracked open door, she could see that the lights were off. He was probably still resting.

After having a wash and getting dressed in the academy uniform, Trixie went to the kitchen to make herself breakfast. There wasn’t much left in the cooler; about half a loaf of bread and a near-empty jar of strawberry jam. She would need to go grocery shopping after class today.

Stifling a yawn, Trixie dipped her knife into the jam jar and spread its contents onto a slice of bread. But when she went to close the lid, she accidentally swept the jar off the table. She made a swipe at the jar, but it slipped out of her grasp and onto the floor.

At least, that’s what should have happened.

Instead, Trixie’s outstretched hand was glowing an ephemeral shade of pink, which also surrounded the jar. The glass container floated an inch off the floor, completely stopped in place. She was so surprised that she did nothing and then it dropped to the ground again, but at least from that height, all it did was leave a crack on the jar’s surface.

Trixie pulled her hand back and looked at it, but she didn’t know what she hoped to find. It looked exactly the same, with the exception of a drop of jam smeared across her thumb.

That was… strange. Trixie mused. She had always needed to concentrate to use telekinesis on objects, like the day before with the apple. That just now had been almost instinctive, done without thinking. She stretched her arm out and attempted to try it again, but this time the jar just stayed there on the ground on its side. Strange indeed. Was it because of the crest?

After a few more unsuccessful attempts to lift the jar with magic, Trixie sighed and picked it up with her hand and threw it into the trash, which ended in a crashing of glass. Then she finished her breakfast and left the apartment.She trudged up the slope towards the academy, her mind still a buzz, trying to figure out how she got her magic to work without any effort. She was eventually joined by some of the other students, some of them still blinking sleep from their eyes.

It was Wednesday, and that meant mid-week assembly in the great hall before any classes so that they could give everyone the two previous days’ announcements. She had also missed the previous day’s Magibout, because she had gone off to her hidey-hole to sulk, so she did want to learn the outcome.

There was some kind of hold up in the great hall, and students were packed at the entrance. Craning her neck, Trixie could make out the top of Headmistress Celestia’s head. She seemed to be speaking to someone.

Eventually the trickle of students allowed Trixie passage, and as she passed by the doors, she was able to get a look at the person Celestia was speaking with.

Her blood ran cold. There was a tall adult male Kirin standing there, his face adorned with long sideburns and a goatee. His pointed ears poked out from under his shaggy maroon hair, but what chilled Trixie the most was the emblem on the front of his dark green robes. An old fashioned looking bell with two horns. The same symbol the hooded mages from the day before had been wearing.

She would have stayed there, stunned, but the crowd around Trixie pushed her into the great hall. It was a cavernous building, held up with stark white stone columns and draped in red and gold banners that displayed the academy emblem and the Canterlot Kingdom’s flag. Flameless lanterns hung on the sides of the wall, keeping the place quite well lit, and the hall was already set up with rows and rows of chairs for the assembly.

Trixie sat down near the back of the hall by herself and fidgeted. The Miasme were here. They had managed to track Winter Frost all the way to Canterlot and now Trixie was seated here, with the crest within herself. Her Kirin friend had mentioned they won’t be able to track it once it was in her, but she couldn’t help but feel that he could be wrong.

As the students entered, the chatter in the room began to amplify and from what she could hear, the students beside her were asking each other what the robed figure outside was about. One of them even mentioned they were from a rival academy and they were planning some sort of co-academy championship.

“Maybe we’ll need to beat them at dragonriding,” one of them snickered as though it was a funny joke.

Once everyone had gathered, Trixie spotted Headmistresses Celestia and Luna walk upon the stage, set before large stained glass windows, depicting images of the school’s history, with the former waving a hand in the air and casting a voice enhancing spell. Trixie knew a little about those, but with most spells, she couldn’t quite seem to get it. The last time she used one, she had instead made her voice sound like that of a hamster for half an hour.

“Good morning, everyone,” Celestia greeted.

“Good morning, Headmistress Celestia,” the student body droned back in unison like a well-oiled machine.

“Before we get into announcements, I would like to let each and everyone of you know that we have a special guest here with us today. You might have seen him at the entrance, but let me formally introduce him.” Celestia gestured for their visitor to come up on stage from where he was seated. “This is Adviser Dark Oak. He has come here all the way from the Murian Isles as a delegate to our academy.”

There was a small outburst of murmurings as the students whispered about what that might mean. Trixie knew how they felt; to her, Kirins too had been mere legends until yesterday. Having one show up like this was no doubt a remarkable event for most of them.

“He will be here to inspect our way of life and the prospects of our academy,” the headmistress continued. “And perhaps share a little insight on the ways of the Kirin as well?” She looked at their visitor, who nodded. “I would wish for you all to treat him with the utmost respect of how you would treat a teacher here.”

Trixie didn’t know how to feel about that. From what Winter Frost had told her, these Miasme were usurpers. The headmistresses probably didn’t know a thing about that.

“Now, I would like to invite our guest up to say a few words. If you will, Adviser Oak.” Celestia stepped aside as the Kirin took to the voice enhancing spell.

“Good day, students of Canterlot’s Young Sorcerers’ Academy,” the Kirin spoke, his voice somewhat gruff and for a lack of a better word, hairy. “Might I first say what a privilege it is to be in such a well established building, and one of Canterlot’s many marvels. We Kirin have maintained an air of secrecy for eons, but some of us feel it is time to branch out to see what other nations have to offer, with the first being yours. I look forward to learning from you as much as giving you insight to our magic and our culture at the same time.”

Headmistress Luna was next to take the center of the stage, once the adviser lad stepped aside. “And now for the announcements. We are pleased to say that Twilight Sparkle attained victory in yesterday’s Magibout.”

“Of course it was Twilight…” Trixie sank lower in her seat.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t just assumed she had won yesterday. She would win at least six of ten matches and then the other four usually went to one of the other Rainbooms anyway. And then when it came to clutchball, it was always Rainbow Dash who came out victorious. Trixie sighed at their accomplishments and her failures. She could never be good at magic like they were. At least, she couldn’t.

She placed a hand on her chest, where the magical crest had been entombed. Perhaps if she could actually figure this out, she might actually win something for once.

Headmistress Luna went on about change in weather patterns, meaning their nature classes would have to shift to the end of the day from the beginning now, where they would be able to harness the storms to practice their elements.

Once she was done, they were free to get on with the day and Trixie was one of the first students out of the great hall, hoping to get to working on her magic and also to get as far away from that Kirin as she could.

Because of the weather changes, her first period nature class had swapped to philosophy, which she wasn’t particularly a fan of. It always worked in putting her to sleep, but at least there was no actual spellcasting in it.

Philosophy class passed slowly, with the professor instructing them to read a chapter from their textbooks and standing up at the blackboard to vaguely watch them. Trixie propped her textbook up on the table, as if she were reading it. In reality, she had out her bottle of ink and was trying to lift it with telekinesis, all the while trying not to concentrate too hard.

Come on, magic. Do your thing.

She waved her hands around, she tried out some magic words, but it still remained there on the table, unmoved. Somehow, something had happened with the jam jar back in her apartment. Perhaps she needed to recreate the scenario for it to work. Inching the ink over to the edge of her wooden table, Trixie casually flicked it off. She immediately reached her hand out and willed for a magical aura to halt the fall of the ink bottle, but again, nothing happened and it hit the ground and rolled in a circle, staining the floorboards a shiny black.

“Miss Lulamoon, is something the matter? What are you up to over there?” Her teacher, Professor Pomegranate looked over from the front of the room.

“Uh, no sir,” Trixie said quickly, picking up the bottle quickly. “Just dropped my ink while taking notes.”

“Be sure to clean that up before you go.” Then he returned to explaining existence in multiple realities.

Trixie sat back down and groaned, looking at the almost empty bottle of ink. That didn’t do it. So what did? How had she done it the first time?

Once class was over and Trixie had tried using a scouring spell to remove the ink. She did it once, she did it twice and to her relief, it worked the third time and the ink stains on the floorboards vanished without a trace. She didn’t know whether it had been her own talent for magic or the crest, but she couldn’t figure it out just by standing here, so she set off to her next lesson. There was a lot of chatter in the corridors, most of it focused on the new arrival to the academy.

“Do you think that the arrival of that Kirin adviser means that we might be able to visit the Murian Isles for a class trip?” One student asked his friend excitedly. “I hear they’re beautiful beyond compare, and full of new magic, too!”

“Nah, they use magic differently from what I hear.” She pointed to her butt. “From here.”

“I wonder why the Kirins suddenly decided to send a guy all the way to Canterlot,” another girl asked her friend. “I wasn’t even sure they existed until I saw that adviser.”

“You need to pay more attention in history and geography class,” her friend scolded. “We’ve gone over the Murian Isles before. I even remember lending you my notes; did you read them at all?”

“Oh, uh… I think I gave them to Watermelody.”

“You what?! No wonder I found her new art piece familiar!”

Trixie soon found herself in her botany class, where they were going to learn about alchemical ingredients for healing. Her teacher, Professor Leafbottom, was a short plump woman with a pointed hat and a wart on her nose. If one would see her for the first time, they would most certainly say she was a witch. And they probably would not be wrong.

“Now, class. Today we will be reviewing the three uses of staunchweed in alchemy. Can anyone tell me a property of said herb?” Professor Leafbottom asked the class.

From across the room, Twilight Sparkle’s hand shot up, as it always did during sessions like this. “Please, professor, a property of staunchweed is that is is good for use in potions that help with closing up bleeding injuries.”

“Very good, Twilight,” the botany teacher said. “Now, the other two properties are that it is remarkably good for cleaning up stains, if mixed with water and lemon juice, and that it is a primary ingredient of the drink Golden Tear.”

There was a pause as some students scribbled this down in their notebooks. This was one of the classes Trixie didn’t mind as much, because there wasn’t any casting involved. She simply had to mix ingredients together and see what happens. She would like to say she was actually good at this, but she just couldn’t seem to remember the combinations. She would always have to look through her notes to find the right ones, which wasn’t allowed on tests.

After that, her next class was actually an interesting one. In the class of offense magic, she got to learn how to fight with magic, which was mostly used for their Magibout competitions, where they would stand on a platform in protective gear and fire spells at each other until there was only one person left standing.

Mr. Wong Time was the teacher here and he was some sort of mystic from the East, but Trixie never did ask more about how he found himself all the way in Canterlot.

To Trixie’s dismay, she was paired up with one of the top students in the class, Starlight Glimmer. While not quite on the same level as the Rainbooms, Starlight’s magical prowess was well known in the class and Trixie received more than a few sympathetic looks from the other students as the class began in earnest.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy on you,” Starlight Glimmer said as she slipped on her protective tunic. “But not too easy,” she finished with a cheeky wink.

Trixie grimaced and put on her own protective gear. It was enchanted to dampen the effects of hostile spells, and was in fact a less potent version of the armor that the kingdom’s elite guard wore. The academy’s headmistress also being the ruler probably had something to do with that. The equipment was also bewitched to light up where spells hit, for easier work for the referees once the spell-slinging began.

Taking up her position on the Magibout platform, Trixie mentally went over the kinds of spells that might help her put up somewhat of a fight against Starlight. She had no illusions about winning; she had seen Starlight trounce other students who were stronger than Trixie was. But she did not want to go down without putting up at least a little bit of a fight.

Once all the students had adjusted to their Magibout podiums, Mr. Wong Time raised his hand, index finger and thumb extended. He jerked his hand backwards slightly and there was a loud bang.

Spells began to shoot across the room, with shouts echoing around as they either missed or hit their mark.

Starlight held both her hands at her sides, fingers twitching. It seemed as though she was waiting for Trixie to make the first move.

That was just fine. Concentrating, which was no easy task given the noise coming from every direction, Trixie felt her magical energy well up inside her and collect in her left hand. She extended her index and little finger as a bead of light formed between them. Then she released the spell and it shot at Starlight.

The other girl didn’t move until the spell was right on her and Trixie thought she was actually going to hit her until she flicked her hand up, projecting a wall of fiery sparkles, which nullified Trixie’s yellow bolt. Starlight then retaliated with a wave of her left hand, sending a crescent of lavender magic at Trixie.

Trixie raised her hands to put up a barrier, but her concentration wavered and Starlight’s spell slammed into her, almost knocking her off the platform. Steadying herself, Trixie looked at her opponent, who was spinning an orb of magical energy on her fingertip.

“Come on. You gotta work on those barriers, Trixie,” Starlight said and levitated the orb over her head, which split into four smaller ones.

With a ripple of her fingers, Starlight shot the four magical orbs at Trixie. The white haired girl tried to conjure up another barrier, but again, when she needed some magic the most, it fizzled out and she had to resort to shrieking, and ducking down and leaning to the side, narrowly avoiding all of them.

“Come on, at least put some effort into it.” Starlight gave Trixie no room to breathe, a beam of green light shooting from her finger and striking Trixie in the arm, the impact spinning her around. It stung a little, but Trixie rallied and went for a classic, lobbing a fireball at Starlight.

Unfortunately, Starlight simply extinguished it with a gust of wind that she conjured up.

“Out of tricks already?” Starlight said playfully. “Then I’ll finish this in one go!”

Bringing her hands together in front of her chest, Starlight summoned a six-pointed star shape, which unfolded like a lotus flower before shooting a beam of aquamarine light at Trixie. There was a howl of wind as the blast rushed at Trixie’s podium.

Trixie could do nothing but duck and hold her arms up over her head in a fruitless attempt to halt Starlight’s attack.

Starlight’s spell smashed into Trixie, obscuring the latter’s dueling platform with a thick haze.

Then suddenly, out of the smoke a spearing ray of pale pink light stabbed forth and caught Starlight Glimmer in the chest, throwing her backwards and off her platform, landing on the floor in a heap.

The smoke cleared to reveal Trixie standing on her podium, her outstretched hand still glowing pink from her counterattack. She looked just as surprised as everyone else who had come to watch the duel. The magic aura swiftly faded away, but Trixie still felt the rush of power that had suddenly possessed her to cast such a mighty spell.

“Miss Lulamoon…?” Mr. Wong Time came over to bring order. “I have not seen anything like that before…”

“I’m sorry-” Trixie began, but her teacher cut her off.

“You have clearly been practicing!” Mr. Wong Time said, his face breaking into a smile. “Your magic has greatly improved since our last practical. Well done, well done indeed!”

Starlight groaned and stood up. She took off her protective headgear and whistled. “I thought I had that match in the bag, but you sure showed me,” she said, massaging the spot where Trixie’s spell had hit her. “Nice casting.”

“Yeah…” Trixie looked at her hands, which were still buzzing with a faint electrical tingling that had seemed to originate from her sternum, where the crest of Empress Rain Shine had been planted. “Thanks…”

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Comments

[RTStephens]

Lot of Harry Potter references in here, some more blatant that others. I don't mind just so long as it doesn't become so common that it detracts from the story. You don't want readers thinking of stories other than your own to read.

I like how Trixie's new magic isn't working right away. She's going to have to experiment and learn as she goes.

Curious to know what the new Kirin will be up to. We only got one side of the story so far, so who knows which side of the conflict Trixie will want to be on.

Keep at it!