Witches 7: The New Blood
Apple Bloom walked up next to Sweetie Belle, keeping her cloak drawn tight. Dash sat down next to the sleeping Twilight, leaning up against her because there wasn’t enough room on the couch otherwise.
“So it all started back when we got kidnapped,” said Apple Bloom. “There I was, inside our wagon, standing face to face with Trixie. First thing I did was say ‘uh oh’, but when that didn’t work I knew I needed to try something else. Trixie used fog to put us to sleep, but me and Babs held our breath.
“We decided our only hope was to run outside and yell for help. She tried jumping up on Trixie to buy me a second but that didn’t work on account of Trixie grabbed my tail with her mind. That’s when I noticed I was right next to her spellbook. I thought maybe if I took it she’d lose some of her powers so I grabbed on.
“Suddenly, it was like every cell in my body was one of them tilt-a-whirls and I collapsed. I only held onto the book for five seconds before passing out. I was out for I guess fifteen minutes but Trixie said that was the most impressive thing she’d seen from a kid.”
It was something lost on all the other ponies, but Dash found that impressive too. The first time Dash touched a spellbook, she was out for hours! Dash looked over at Twilight, still fast asleep. She wondered how Twilight would react to that news. Was that how kids normally selected for witch training reacted to mind fibers?
“So then she takes me out of the room I was in, yeah?” Apple Bloom went on.
Trixie was paced back and forth inside the great hall, taking a long time to decide what to say.
“I’m conflicted,” she finally said. “You don’t have that fear and hatred in your heart you need to motivate yourself! But you have the gift. I suppose I could teach you a few things if you’re interested.”
“Lady, I’m twelve! You think I want to learn things?” I asked. And her jaw dropped cause that was such a cool line I came up with on the spot.
“Look, kid,” she said. Her jaw was back up. “You can spend the next six months sitting in that dingy room with the other kids or you can humor me and get your own luxury dungeon. I’ll give you a big bed, ice cream, comic books, whatever you want.”
I don’t want it to sound like I was tempted by ice cream. No, I was strategizing straight from that moment. I knew I could eventually use this to break the curse on us and escape.
But I did immediately hold my hoof out and say, “You got a deal!”
So we sit down and I ask what she was going to teach me.
“Magic, of course!” Her eyes turned green and her horn lit up when she said that. “What else would a witch teach you? Manestyling?
“But can an earth pony really learn magic?” I asked. “I know we can do magic. Shoot, my sister always tells me earth ponies can draw the most magic and unicorns the least. But unicorns and even pegasi are way better at focusing it than us which is why we can’t do spells.”
“As far as magic goes, Equestria is in the dark ages compared to witches,” she told me. “If you know what I do, an earth pony can cast almost any spell a unicorn can. Screwball’s an earth pony and a witch, isn’t she?”
I had no idea who Screwball was, but I still nodded.
“You’re not wrong that earth ponies have the most power, unicorns the most focus, and pegasi are in between but that’s only a limitation if you’re stupid and weak,” said Trixie. “Watch. I’ll use pegasus magic to create lightning without my horn.”
So her eyes went green and her whole body glowed like it was her horn for a second. One second later, green fire surrounded her hooves. She held up one of them, then the fire vanished, but her hoof was crackling with lightning.
I didn’t know this at the time, but making lightning is one of the hardest things for a unicorn to do. Only one percent can do it. Right then I was just impressed she was doing magic at all with her hoof.
She punched and the lightning flew off in a bolt, smashing one of the windows.
“That’s incredible!” I said. “You’re saying I can just run around shooting lighting wherever I want?”
“Oh, if you’re a smart filly you can do much more than that,” she told me. “But if you’re not a genius then there’s no point wasting my time with you because you simply won’t get it. So I’m giving you a test.”
She took out a mind fiber. Oh! Those are like these little pink threads that put information directly into your brain. I got so dizzy I puked when she gave it to me, but I didn’t pass out that time.
“I’m only going to do this one more time, so pay attention.” Then her eyes started glowing green again.
She did it the same way as before only this time I understood what was going on perfectly! I was just like ‘yep! The carmot in her bones is converting the whatever’. It was so obvious I wanted to slap myself.
“Your test is to make electricity with your hooves,” Trixie told me. “Even a spark is good enough.”
“How long do I got?” I asked.
“As long as you can take it,” said Trixie. “If you start crying or beg me to let you out then you fail your test.”
And I was like. “Eh?”
Then she took the mind fiber away from me.
Trixie went and tied me up. She tied me to the ceiling with a rope so that I was dangling upside down with my nose a foot from the ground. My right foreleg was tied up with some wires on top of that.
I found I could swing back and forth, but I couldn’t get anywhere near the wall or make myself fall. Trixie told me that if I made even a tiny bit of electricity with my right foreleg, the wire would pick it up and I’d drop down and be free.
I hung there for seven days! Wait, no sorry, it was closer to seven hours. But I was still so hungry by then. I didn’t cry or nothing. Really! I swear. It was starting to get worse, though.
I tried hard to remember what I knew earlier, but you forget everything soon as you let go of mind fiber.
I started thinking it was impossible. Earth ponies can’t use magic at all when we’re not touching the ground. But then I started thinking something else. Like, what if that was the whole point of this crazy contraption?
I wasn’t hung upside down to make something impossible even harder. I was hung upside down cause that was the only way I’d be able to do it. It was like there was a spark in my mind just then. I remembered some of the stuff from before.
Like, the stuff unicorn horns are made of is called ‘carmot’. There are small amounts of that inside your bones no matter what type of pony you are. See, that’s what Trixie used to start casting that spell!
I figured I couldn’t possibly sense that when I was touching the ground so that’s why I was hanging around. I could remember what I saw before just a tiny little bit, right? I started concentrating as hard as I could, trying to do what I remembered, but it wasn’t working.
I think when twelve hours passed Trixie offered to let me out, but I said no cause I felt like I almost had it! I kept getting closer and closer till almost a whole day went by.
And suddenly I saw that same fire Trixie had made a few hours earlier. I had no idea how to make that into lightning, but I guess I didn’t need to. It turned into electricity all by itself.
And woosh! I unleashed infinite power. My entire body was electrified, and I was surrounded by blue lightning and—
Oh.
Well, okay. It was more like a teeny tiny little spark? It sure felt like infinite power at the time.
But it was enough!
I landed on the ground and was free! I noticed the door was wide open too.
I think I might have been able to run away just then, but something happened that made me yell out soon as I got back up.
Know what it was?
Apple Bloom cleared her throat and stood upon the table, smirking wide. She threw off her cloak and turned to one side.
“I got my cutie mark!”
Apple Bloom’s cutie mark was a cauldron filled with a green liquid.
Everypony was stunned by the revelation for a moment. Then applause filled the room and Applejack laughed.
“I’m so proud of you!” Applejack ran up and hugged her. “You see? I told you, you just need to be patient! And look what an impressive one you got too!”
“Now we have to have another party already!” Pinkie said.
“That’s one cool cutie mark story too!” Dash whistled. “It’s like something that’d happen in one of those battle comics.”
Apple Bloom smiled wide as the sisters hugged and nuzzled.
“And you finally consorted with dark forces to gain power for the first time.” Applejack got teary-eyed. “Mom and Dad would be so proud seeing you now!”
“You’re proud of her for that?” Dash asked.
“Have you ever given in to the temptations of the dark side?” Applejack asked. “If not then you wouldn’t know.”
“Well, there was kind of Twilight.” Dash yawned and leaned up against her. “I gave in to her dark temptations of power.”
“And how did that work out?” Applejack asked.
“Well—“ Dash looked at Twilight, then over at Applejack’s smug victory grin. She sighed, then admitted the inevitable. “Pretty good.”
“Yep! See? The dark side is the best side to be on,” said Applejack. “You Equestrians get a lot of stuff backwards like that.”
Dash couldn’t exactly disagree with that at this point.
“See, it’s like my destiny is to be super powerful and stuff!” Apple Bloom was bobbing up and down. “Also, it’s way later in the story, but I’m good at using the cauldron and doing potion stuff! I’m like a potion wizard, sis!”
“Well, I dunno if I can get a witch to train you but you got a first cousin once removed named Bubbling Cider who might be able to train you with potions and stuff,” Applejack offered.
A few eyes glanced over at Twilight who, without doubt, would be far and away better at teaching Apple Bloom potions than whoever that other pony was. Dash felt like she was a potion master just from hanging out with Twilight.
But would Twilight let her watch? She could be squirrely about certain information. The thought of her training Apple Bloom to be a full-on witch occurred in Dash’s mind.
“So hold on!” Dash interrupted the hugging. “Trixie was giving you witch training that whole time? For real?”
“Yeah!” Apple Bloom nodded. “Mostly I had to look at this spiny thing for hours at a time. But she showed me how to use the cauldron and make some potions too like I told you. I had it pretty good for those couple months.”
“The makarakarn?” Dash asked. “How many spins are you up to?”
“I got up to seven spins after a few months,” said Apple Bloom. “Well, I could do eight if I still had it, but I’d probably barf.”
Dash was still only at three and a half!
“So Trixie was planning on making you her student and training you to be a witch?” Applejack asked.
“Sort of. Trixie told me she wasn’t old enough to take in a student yet so instead, she was gonna ship me off to another witch named ‘Auntie Eclipse’, who I guess was old. I kept telling her I didn’t want to leave my family behind, but she was just like ‘You’re gonna grow up and leave your family to go work in a steel mill one day', on account of that’s what all kids do.”
“She wasn’t gonna keep her word after all.” Applejack glared off in the general direction of Equestria. “Y’all went too easy on that despicable witch!”
“She wasn’t that mean to me,” Apple Bloom surprised her sister by defending Trixie. “Shoot, I dunno if she felt bad or if she meant it, but she decided not to send me away at the last minute. Said I was too attached to my family so I wouldn’t be able to complete the training.”
Applejack became thoughtful and quiet.
“And then she met me!” Sweetie Belle jumped up next to Apple Bloom.
“I still had to get out of the castle first!” Apple Bloom said. “Remember? I told you we had a curse keeping us there. It’d break once she gave one of us a key she kept hidden in her bedroom. But see, I outsmarted her. I noticed she was making a super radiation potion I bet she was gonna inject us with, so I made my own potion to counter it and drank that when she wasn’t looking.
“When she injected me, I transformed on purpose then back when she left. Then I had the whole castle to myself and was able to take the key! That ghost guy? I dunno his name but he just let me do it cause I think he likes me better than Trixie.”
“That’s my sister.” Applejack hugged her. “You are the smarts of the family.”
“Yeah! And then she met me!” Sweetie Belle pressed up against her.
“Nah, and then there was a million explosions everywhere and I ran for my life,” said Apple Bloom.
“And then?”
“And then I met Sweetie Belle.”
This was this giant flaming monster running around the outside of the castle, so I ran and ran and ran! I didn’t even think about all the monsters until I saw two glowing blue eyes looking at me.
Both of us jumped back, scared of the other, before realizing we were being silly and slowly walked up to one another.
“Wait. Are you a robot?” I asked.
“Sort of?” Sweetie Belle didn’t sound too sure. “I’d say I’m technically a cyborg but on a double technicality I don’t have any organic body parts right now.”
And we had this big philosophical discussion about whether she was a robot or a cyborg.
Then there was another explosion and we agreed we should move away from all the fire and death.
“I can go out ahead. Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if I die.”
“Don’t say that just cause you’re a robot!” I said. “I’m sure robot lives matter too!”
“No, no. I mean I have a bunch of other bodies, so it doesn’t matter if this one gets destroyed.”
See, she has more than one body! Ain’t that cool? It was a good thing too.
See, the critters in the swamp didn’t like all that fighting, and these huge bugs were running around everywhere. Sweetie Belle was tough, being a robot, and could smoosh most of them until this giant centipede showed up. It was like a stampede of twenty cows coming right at us!
It grabbed Sweetie Belle and thrashed her all around, but it just couldn’t break her. She managed to grab onto its head and hold it down for a minute. Meanwhile, I had a bunch of potions I made just in case. I threw an exploding one at it while Sweetie held it down and that blew its head off.
“Huh! I guess we’re pretty tough for a couple of kids.” We bumped hooves. “As long as a centipede twice that big doesn’t show up we should be fine!”
And then a centipede twice that big showed up!
I mean, not right then, but a half-hour later. It picked Sweetie Belle and squeezed real hard. This time it did something.
It ripped my robot buddy right in half and I seriously thought I was about to die. But then my other robot friend, Saccharin, showed up! She shot a drill right into its mouth and centipede guts just flew everywhere!
“I acquired Apple Bloom and headed north as this was the safest route,” Saccharin reported.
“Yeah, she can kill anything,” said Apple Bloom. “I saw her kill a lot of stuff on the way here.”
“I wanna tell the next part!” Sweetie Belle interrupted. “I activated another one of my bodies and sent it down there. And uh. I guess we just walked back after that. Then the story’s over.”
Sweetie Belle scraped her hoof against the ground.
“But I did get good at controlling my extra bodies!” Sweetie had two of the 8000s walk over to her side. One of them shook her hoof while, behind her, another grabbed a balloon and brought it to the main Sweetie Belle.
“This one’s the real you, right?” Apple Bloom grabbed the main Sweetie Belle’s head and looked it over, seeing if she could get a peek at the brain. “The one with your brain inside it like you said?”
“Uh, huh!” Sweetie Belle nodded. “This body is way tougher than the others. I have lots of weapons like Saccharin, but Rarity doesn’t let me use them cause I accidentally sound blasted everypony.”
“Having a million bodies must be really neat!”
“I’m still getting used to it. It feels a little weird.”
“But think of all the things you can do with them! Oh! I just had an idea for an amazing game we could play!” Apple Bloom turned to Saccharin. “You should come play with us too.”
“Do I look like a child to you?” Saccharin asked.
“Um. Yes?”
Saccharin couldn’t think of any response to that but glaring.
“Very well. Then I’ll follow.”
Apple Bloom led them all off to go play her game. Dash hoped it wasn’t too dangerous, though then again the three of them could easily slaughter a small army.
“But we still gotta do more stories!” Pinkie jumped up onto the edge of the fainting couch. It was impressive she managed to balance on the tiny little bit of it that remained.
“Huh?”
“If you’re not here for Twilight’s birthday party why is everypony here?” Pinkie asked. “Why’s Applejack here? Also, who is Applejack?”
“Oh right. I don’t mean to steal that kid’s thunder, but I got something way cooler than a cutie mark!” Dash bragged. “See, here’s everything that happened since the last time I saw you.”
It took longer than she thought it would to recount everything to Pinkie. Applejack listened with rapt attention too, hearing all of this for the first time as well. When Dash finished, Pinkie was elated by what she heard.
“Does this mean you changed your mind?!” Pinkie bounced over to Dash.
“Changed my mind about what?” Dash asked.
“About helping me break the curse of undeath!” Pinkie spread her forelegs wide, ready to embrace Dash and welcome her to the pink side.
“Huh? Oh yeah!” Dash forgot for a little while there that Pinkie was out there working on this mission. “I think it’d be best if we work together from here out if you want. Did you make any progress with your thing?”
“After I won the pinball championship I found where that mirror is.” Pinkie put half a candy bar in her mouth before taking out a map and unrolling it on the table. “Ish over here on—“ Pinkie took a bite out of it and swallowed without even chewing. “On Endless Paradise Island!”
The map was of the pirate coast and the area around it. Endless Paradise was an island about 50 miles off the pirate coast, across the ocean from Equestria. Just after the pirate coast were rough mountains, where the griffons lived long ago.
Technically there were still griffons out there somewhere, but the curse of undeath destroyed their civilization and left that entire area uninhabitable. Maybe it was cruel in some ways, but none of the surviving nations allowed any serious griffon population inside them anymore. Any carnivorous population would slowly fill the country with deadlier zombies and eventually make it uninhabitable as well.
The only saving grace was that zombie griffons couldn’t fly. The remaining griffons all lived in small, isolated cities surrounded by high walls somewhere beyond the pirate coast. If Dash and her friends ever got rid of the zombies, those guys would love them forever at least.
“I figured all sorts of stuff out.” Pinkie jabbed her hoof on a spot near the eastern edge of the island. “It’s right here, inside the funhouse. Screwball inherited lots of stuff from her father, Bloodstorm.”
Pinkie put a photograph of Screwball, the ruler of Endless Paradise Island, on the table next. She was a pink mare with curly purple hair underneath her witch’s hat, smiling wildly in the picture. There was something special about her eyes. They were pools of purple with swirls of pink leading to the center, making them look like hypnowheels.
That was one thing Dash hadn’t known when she came up with that backstory. She ended up making Twilight part of one of the witch’s sprawling family. Who knew how Screwball would react to that?
“I even got this list of the top ten most surprising facts about Endless Paradise Island. Number three is especially shocking.” Pinkie took a list out of her mane, took another bite of cake, then started to read with her mouth half full. “Fact one: twenty percent of the world’s gold and ten percent of the world’s silver is all on this one island!”
“Dang!” Dash crossed her forelegs and leaned back against the sleeping Twilight. “Twilight’s pretend dad was a better pirate than I thought.”
“Fact two: Gold is so common on the island that you can’t buy anything with it,” Pinkie kept reading. “They got ‘whacko bucks’ you use as money instead. Fact three!” Pinkie lowered her list to give the other’s an excited smile. “This is the extra shocking one! It has the tallest Ferris wheel at 1,000 feet and the world's longest water slide! Check out the map!”
Pinkie moved her hoof along the edge of the map.
“It’s almost four miles long! It runs from the top of the north side, around the edge of the island to the south side. And it goes through waterfalls and through the center of that Ferris wheel!” Pinkie hugged the map and smiled, looking around at the others with excitement. “We gotta do it, girls! If we’re assaulting the island we might as well go down that water slide, right?”
“Pinkie, after seeing the fight with Trixie, I think we’ll be lucky if any of this stuff is still standing afterward,” said Dash.
“Ah, shoot! You don’t think Screwball would be nice and let us go on all the rides real quick before we fight?” Pinkie asked.
Dash tried to think of a polite way to respond to that.
“Now hold up.” Applejack stood. “Y’all aren’t just going to defeat all the witches and undo the curse of undeath but you’re taking down Endless Paradise on top of that?”
“Yeah.” Dash nodded. “And then I’m gonna try and come up with a way for vegan ghosts like Fluttershy to live in normal society.”
Even saying it out loud, adding stuff on top of those other goals sounded insane. But it did get a happy smile from Fluttershy.
“Shoot!” Applejack shook her head and sat down. “Part of me wants to call you crazy, but I promised I’d never doubt your team again after yesterday and I meant it. When you say you’re gonna do all that stuff, I believe you.”
“Really?” Dash pointed to herself. It felt strange for somepony to believe in her.
Applejack nodded.
“You already did something I thought was impossible. But if you plan on changing society so drastically, won’t you have to become part of the elite four?” Applejack asked. “You got a plan to do that too?”
Dash hadn’t even thought that far ahead. Maybe part of her wasn’t expecting she’d seriously get this far.
These days the adventurer’s guild was insanely influential. Being S rank already put Dash’s political influence close to that of a senator.
But even if Twilight became S rank too, it wouldn’t be enough to reform society like the rest of their group wanted. Maybe Dash was getting close to the point where vouching for Fluttershy and the others would be enough to get around the law. Changing the law itself would be much harder.
“How do you get to be an elite anyway?” Fluttershy asked. “Is it different now?”
“Now that I’m rank S, I can challenge any of the current four,” said Dash. “If I remember right, it’s like this. 25 senators get one vote each. Then with me, there’ll be 13 rank S ponies who each get three votes. The current elite gets five votes. So the S ranks get almost as many votes as the other two combined. They’re the main ponies you need the support of.”
“Don’t do it if you can’t win,” Pinkie pointed out. “You only get to challenge one of them every ten years.”
“Right,” said Dash
“Do you think you’d win if you ran against one of them?” Fluttershy asked.
“Right now? No way.” Dash shook her head. “But if we can take out another witch or two… it’s possible.”
Dash knew the names of all the S-rank ponies. Of the 12, Void Walker and Night Glider were both in Starlight’s cult. Then there were several senators in her cult as well. Starlight controlled over 20 of the 80-something votes and was the biggest wildcard here.
“If any of the current elite four die or resign it’s the same only you can vote for any rank S pony but yourself,” said Dash. “Way things are shaping up, I guess that’s not impossible. We gotta start getting ready for a serious fight.”
“Oh!” Pinkie’s eyes widened as she remembered something important and raised her hoof. “Oh wait, Dashie! Ponies are going to start spying on you soon! One of them’s bound to check the river where Twilight’s house is before long. There’s no way to keep them away without making them all suspicious!”
“We’ve been planning stuff out for a little while.” Dash yawned. “We’re gonna move all of Twilight’s stuff here and Rarity’s castle will be the place we have our final showdown if it comes to that.”
“So you’re all going to live in one big spooky house together without me?” Pinkie looked around the room, her ears drooping. “Now I feel left out! Also maybe it’s not a good idea for you to commute from this castle every day?”
“We’re not moving in with Rarity. We decided we’re going to buy a house together in Equestria. Then Twilight’s got this portal thing. Z gate or something.” Dash yawned. “We can get from there to here with that.”
“Oh!” Pinkie’s hoof shot up, excited! “Rainbow Dash! The house right across the street from me is for sale! You gotta buy it! You gotta!”
Lying down was starting to feel like a mistake. Dash couldn’t get back up now. She found it hard to respond to the suggestion, though living next to Pinkie sounded like a good idea.
“And then if we build a tunnel under the street, it’ll be like we all live in one big house together! You’d love it in Ponytown. Nothing bad ever happens in Ponytown.”
“Nothing?” Dash’s wings rustled, expecting something horrible to happen just now at the mention.
“Nope! Nothing. The psychic guild’s headquarters is downtown. Then we got five retired S rankers, including me, living in the old pony community I got kicked out of. Then Octavia, Bonbon, Night Glider, and Fleetfoot all live in Ponytown too.”
From the sound of things, it’d be worth your time to go to the next town over to commit any crimes.
“It’s the only place with a negative crime rate,” said Pinkie. “Try figuring that one out!”
Dash did try, but her brain was too sleepy to figure anything out right now.
“But won’t somepony find Twilight’s house even if it’s empty?” Pinkie asked. “And how are you gonna move it all? Ponies are going to be watching you now.”
“Nah, nah. When I say we’re moving everything I mean—” Dash let out a heavy sigh. Now it felt like she’d been up for 2 days. “Okay, sorry. I can’t do any more. Going to sleep.”
Dash fell onto her back, into the gap in the couch between Twilight and its backing. It was a nice, cozy spot. Though then again, a bed of broken glass might feel cozy when you were this tired.
She fell asleep faster than she’d ever fallen asleep before.
Twilight woke up when a certain pegasus rolled over and knocked her off the couch. Dash had tried falling asleep next to her on the tiny couch but there hadn’t been enough room for the two of them.
It looked like most of the others were asleep by now. Applejack was sleeping on another couch, Fluttershy was likely somewhere dark. Pinkie was still awake, eating cake, while Rarity was talking to Sweetie Belle and Applejack’s sister.
“Alright, now that I can deal with it.” Twilight turned to Pinkie. “What did you mean when you said it was my birthday?”
“See, today’s the day you were born!”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Well, I’m declaring that you were born today.”
“I don’t think you can do that,” said Twilight. “Is this one of your weird culture things?”
“Oh, absolutely! Every year on the anniversary of your birth you get one free party! You gotta pay for any extras.” Pinkie held out a piece of cake to Twilight. “Have some of this.”
“So it’s like a holiday?” Twilight looked down at the cake. “I suppose that’s not the strangest thing you ponies do.”
Twilight tried eating the cake. It tasted a lot better than those ones Rainbow Dash bought from the store.
“Did anything happen while I was asleep?” Twilight asked.
“We learned stuff! Trixie tied Apple Bloom up and made her electrify her way out as a test.” Pinkie pointed to Applejack’s sister.
“Huh.” Twilight yawned. “They got a lot easier with these tests.”
“Easy? Then what did they make you do?” Pinkie asked.
“Oh! I was only five at the time, so I don’t remember it too well. But I was covered in magic-eating leeches that sucked all the power out of me, had my hooves encased in cement, and was thrown into the river behind my house. Getting out of that now would be easy, but at the time, let me tell you!”
Twilight laughed thinking back on it, though Pinkie looked disturbed by the story.
“So you always have to do something like that to train as a witch?” Pinkie asked. “Oo! What kind of test did you make Dashie do?”
The truth was Twilight had been afraid Rainbow Dash might not pass. She might have gotten hurt. And if she did fail, how would Twilight have justified this to Smarty Pants.
“I already decided back then that I didn’t need to follow the teachings completely,” Twilight lied. “I train whoever I want!”
“Oh!” Apple Bloom ran up and jumped up on the couch, pressing up next to Twilight. “Then that means you can train me, right? See, I just got my potion cutie mark! Trixie sure thought I had what it takes to be a witch! Well, everything but hatred.”
Trixie thought this kid was a candidate for witch training? Surely that meant Apple Bloom here had natural talent as the other witch wouldn’t have trained somepony simply because she wanted to keep them around.
But Twilight was conflicted on what to do. She screwed up with her first student but Rainbow Dash was going fine, if slow. Then again, neither of them were qualified.
And what if some other witch decided to be the one to ‘train’ Apple Bloom? Twilight’s confidence in her abilities as a teacher were shaky at best, but surely she’d be better than any of the other witches.
As Twilight agonized over the decision, Apple Bloom repeated the word ‘please’ over and over again which did not help her case at all.
“I suppose I was planning on teaching Rarity to use the cauldron as part of our deal anyway,” said Twilight. “And I’m already teaching Rainbow Dash about that sort of thing. I suppose one more student won’t make a difference.”
“Really?!” Apple Bloom’s ears twitched in excitement.
“But I’m only teaching you about alchemical witchcraft for now,” said Twilight. “I don’t have time for anything else.”
“That’s fine! That one’s my favorite witchcraft anyway!” Apple Bloom clapped her hooves together and bowed her head. “Thank you so much! I’ll be the best student ever! Apparently, I’m a genius, even!”
Twilight was curious to see just how talented Apple Bloom was, but for now, the kid ran off to be with her robot friends.
“Also!” Pinkie raised her hoof. “Rainbow Dash was going to tell me about the plan to move all of your stuff over here but she fell asleep.”
It didn’t look like Pinkie understood the extent to which Twilight intended to move ‘all’ of her things.
“Right! I think we should be just about ready for that spell.” Twilight got up. “Maybe I should cast it now before anypony thinks to go there. You can watch if you want.”
Twilight led Pinkie to the back of Rarity’s castle. The less advanced 7000 robots had stayed behind this whole time to dig out a hole in the right location and make ready a foundation. From the looks of things, they’d finished a little bit before Twilight came outside.
In addition to the foundation was a bit of Twilight’s work. Runes were written in the four cardinal directions surrounding the edge of the pit. This was to work as the waypoint and they’d finished charging as well.
“Here’s how the Z gate spell works.” Twilight tapped the rune at the bottom of the pit and four blue flames appeared around it. “It takes a few hours to set up, but once you have this waypoint down you can easily create a portal to it even if you’re hundreds of miles away. Of course, there’s a limit to how much mass you can transport through the portal before it collapses so I’ll only get one use out of this one.”
A portal opened just above the hole. Some dirt and roots dipped out from the portal, then the trunk of the treehouse emerged. With a thud, the tree landed in its hole a moment later and the portal closed soon after. Rarity’s robots went to work straightening it out and shoring up the foundation.
“We can use one to move from wherever our new house is to here multiple times,” said Twilight. “That way we have one united stronghold.”
Something clicked in Pinkie’s head.
“Oh, wait! Z-gate!” Pinkie jumped. “I know that spell! That’s the one Minuette keeps using to get away and stuff!”
Twilight nodded.
“I think she’s the one we need to go after next,” said Twilight. “If the other witches all team up, that power will make them too dangerous collectively.”
“Do you think you can catch her?” Pinkie asked. “Let me tell you, she can zip around like nopony’s business.”
“I have this.” Twilight took out the mind fiber Trixie gave her. “There’s a panic room she retreats to. It’s also the central hub of her portal Z-gate network. If I can get inside there without her noticing, I can map out a large enough portion of her landing points that she won’t be able to get away.”
“Ooo! That’s neat.” Pinkie marveled at it. “But you really gotta be careful with this chance. Like I said, she’s as slippery as slippery gets! You have no idea how many ponies have tried to capture her and failed. She’s one of the most hated witches so she’s always paranoid about attacks too.”
“She is?” Twilight asked. “Worse than Trixie?”
“Oh, yeah! One of her more famous curses is the curse of the black mirror. It compels authors who get infected with it to write nothing but cautionary tales about how science and technology are a bad thing and will kill us all. It’s like— like this reverse psychology thing. Or maybe just forward psychology. See, if she convinces us to go back to medieval times, then witches will never have to worry about us catching up to them. They can terrorize us forever!”
Novels? Twilight knew those were like fables that went on way too long. She’d yet to read one but didn’t see the point of a story that went on for more than a page or two. That should be all you need to convey whatever message you have.
“I’ve never bothered reading one of those,” said Twilight. “Are they seriously convincing enough to get ponies to walk into such an obvious trap?”
“You’d be surprised,” said Pinkie. “Though most of the time sci-fi is just about the dangers of pinball these days. She ruined the entire genre is what I’m saying! That’s the one thing I thought was better when I was a kid the first time.”
“So she just messes up your stories?” Twilight asked. “That sounds annoying, but I don’t see how that’s eviler than Trixie.”
“Oh! I guess she also blows up factories and laboratories and stuff. She’s got an actual body count.” Pinkie shrugged. “Fun fact. You wanna know why Curse Tech is called Curse Tech?”
“Did they figure out how to make curses?” Twilight asked.
“Haha! No everypony gets that wrong,” said Pinkie. “It’s cause they find a bunch of legalese workarounds to get past some of seventh book wielder's curses. You know, we invented that combustion engine thing when I was in high school, but we had to go back to using the steam engine because of her. She tried doing the same thing to stop us from using AC next, but then Curse Tech found a workaround.”
Twilight hardly knew what either of those things were, having only read about contemporary technology. But from the way Pinkie spoke, ending her curses would be a huge deal.
“And all of these curses can be broken by beating her at a game called ‘tag’, right?” Twilight remembered as much from the mind fiber. “She did put all her eggs in one basket there.”
It wasn’t a bad idea in general, though. The easier the condition for breaking the curse the stronger you could make it. Playing this game with her was something that should be easy but was made impossible from her actions, giving her the best of both worlds.
“Only that’s way harder than it sounds,” Pinkie assured her. “Fleetfoot’s the fastest pony who ever lived and she couldn’t do it. I’m the most psychic and I couldn’t do it either!”
“But all of us working together…” Twilight closed her eyes and thought. Even for her, it wouldn’t be easy to chase her through such a massive network of portals. She was still finalizing the game plan for that.
Though before that Twilight had a much more difficult task. She’d have to be ‘interviewed’.
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10947589
Well check again! I think you missed one.
Also another new chapter will be posted tomorrow. I'm excited about the next few chapters.
Ah, plot advancement! Also, Dash took it pretty well that AB is naturally better than her at Witchcraft.
And fought zombies dual-wielding boxcutters, I presume?
I guess, caveman science fiction fits here even better.
This makes me wonder if we'll see Zecora. She probably wouldn't even need to be that different. The only problem is we don't know what Zebras are like in this universe, in fact we don't know much about any of the species besides Griffons, not even dragons. Twilight needs her number one assistant!
The CMC are officially 2/3rds complete, and they kick ass. I'm expecting the third to be that powerful psychic kid they mentioned curse tech having. Scooteleven, if you will.
Dear Mr. Epsilon-Delta, why does this story not have a romance tag yet? I want adorable witchey twidash shipping shenanigans, dammit!
You know, I'm glad Dash is getting recognition. I was kind of expecting this to be like One Punch Man, and for Dash to never get the credit for the things she does, or for misunderstandings to happen that get her on the wanted list. I'm glad that doesn't seem to be happening.
Huh, the most infamous witch, an s-rank hero, a ghost, and maybe a werewolf cultist all in the same house in the middle of a pony town. That's going to be conspicuous.
Hey, Bonbon's a famous hero? And if I remember right, Lyra was a witch right? I hope their relationship still happens in this universe, as that would be fantastic.
Wow, she really is evil! Take her down! Or tag her down, in this case.
Thanks for the update
10948718
Massive Hype!
10948955
Well it's just going to be Dash and Twilight living in the house across from Pinkie.
And Lyra is the leader of the the alien cult, not a witch. More on her tomorrow. I think only one of the main witches hasn't been named at this point.
10948989
Yes! Be hyped! Tomorrow is an important chapter where a great many things happen.
10949006
That makes more sense. I'm assuming Flutters by and AJ will live with Rarity? Also, good on Twilight for living in a pony city, she really has come a long way.
Oh of course, Lyra was the UFO nutjob. Forgot about that.
to be honest, i do not mind the chapters being a bit shorter.
i have no problem reading 100k words in a day, but sometimes things like this are nice too . .
And here we have Twilight Time now. Though will we even see Zecora at all? I mean, supposedly Twilight is the Grand Master Witch who is also a Potion Master. Technically, there is no need for her appearance?
Ahh so the next witch is going to become a cat and mouse game? In the 1st few seasons of mlp there was lots of slapstick..... Wonder if you are going to put a little Tom and Jerry references in it? Oh well guess I just have to wait till it finally happens. [
Twilight sparkle... is questioning the utility... of a book...
HERESY!
Why did you say that, don't you know whats gonna happen now
See
...how the heck is that possible
...ah... okay then
Oh no. That can't end well.
I wouldn't say Dash was seduced or tempted by Twilight. It was more of a "Eh, I don't have anything better to do" energy.
Ad astra abyssosque
Meh, I just let the Light Side do its thing with me.
AJ, "Oh yeah? And how did that work out?"
Alondro farts... and an entire galaxy asplodes. "Like that."
AJ grumbles about damn anime OP crossovers...
10948874
What is the "duel wielding boxcutters against zombies" thing a reference to? Once again, websearching has failed me.
Oh shit.
11164234
It's an attack on titan reference.
Awesome story love the premise but Twilight sparkle thinking of book is too long🙁 it's the end of the world as we know it
c.tenor.com/Q_6JIVo5V3kAAAAC/spider-man-pointing.gif
I love this story so far 💕💕💕💕