Chapter 11: Book Horse
Twilight... Hurt... Everywhere.
She wasn't sure if it was from how many times she hit the ground or if it was just from not being used to using her wings yet, but everything hurt. From her hooves to the tips of her new wings, everything had something to complain about this morning.
"Unhhh," she groaned as she rested her chin on the breakfast table.
"I thought you got a massage when you were done with practice?" Spike asked with concern as he placed a glass of juice in front of her.
"I did," she moaned as she levitated the glass to her lips. "I don't want to think about how I'd be feeling if I hadn't gotten the massage."
"Hey Twilight, hey Spike," greeted Random as he sat down at the table. "Crazy weather we had last night."
Twilight didn't lift herself from the table but her ears perked up, "the weather?" She asked. "What was so special about the weather?"
"Twilight went to bed pretty early last night," Spike said as he placed a newspaper down on the table. "It was big enough to make the news though."
Twilight slowly sat up in her seat, various groans and pops could be heard coming from her as she did so.
"Freak tornado baffles experts," she read aloud. She went on to read how the storm had seemingly appeared out of nowhere and teams of pegasi had battled the storm long into the night.
Her reading was interrupted by the sound of the front door of the library opening and closing. A moment later, a bedraggled rainbow maned pegasus made her way into the kitchen.
"Hey guys..." Rainbow Dash let out a yawn as she walked behind Twilight, giving her a light pat on the back as she passed.
The casual gesture caused the alicorn to arch her back and give a high pitch hiss as even the light touch evoked agony from her sore muscles.
"Heh, sorry Twilight," Rainbow apologized as she realized the state her friend was in. "I should know better than that with the way you were pushing yourself yesterday. I just wanted to check on you before I head off to bed."
Once her body stopped screaming at her so loudly, Twilight took stock of Rainbow's condition. The prismatic mare had bags under her eyes and was barely maintaining a glassy stare. Her mane, even though she was known for not putting too much stock in her appearance, usually still kept her mane fairly well brushed. Today, however, the mop on her head was all roughed up and sticking out at odd angles while the colors were all mixed into each other.
"Rainbow?!" Twilight exclaimed, concern for her friend pushing her own pains out of her mind. "What happened to you?"
"Huh?" She said, not really registering much of anything. "Oh, don't worry about it. Weather team just got called out in the middle of the night to handle some freak weather. Now let's see about you getting some morning stretches in."
"What are you... Ahhh," Rainbow pulled her up from her seat without warning and began to coax her into various poses. Poses which did not make her feel any better. "Rainbow, I'm worried about you," she said as she found herself with a foreleg stretched across her back and the wing on that side pressed up against her head. "You look like you're about to col... Collapse." Her breath caught as Rainbow flipped her upside down and pushed her into a back bend. "Is all this really necessary?"
"These are a lot of the same stretches they had us do back in flight school," Rainbow said as she sat Twilight back up and helped her stretch her wings as straight as they can go. "I still do these every morning or I just don't feel right. They're also important if you're building muscle or the pain just keeps getting worse."
Rainbow just kept droning on, the far off look in her eyes getting more and more distant.
"How much sleep have you had?" Twilight asked concerned.
"Only about an hour," Rainbow admitted as Twilight found herself bent into a pretzel, not really sure at this point which hooves went where. "Been busting clouds since the middle of the night. That storm in Canterlot was spilling towards Ponyville and we had to get on it right away."
"Any idea what caused it?" Random asked, interjecting himself into the conversation.
"Oh hey Random, didn't see you there," she said with half lidded eyes as she let go of Twilight. Twilight herself collapsing to the ground like a wet noodle. "Nah. Bunch of rumors though. Some thought it was a monster attack, others thought the weather factory was protesting something or other, I dunno. Bit above my pay grade. Good work on that jerk Blueblood by the way. He hasn't come back at all has he?"
"I haven't seen him," Random said nonchalantly. "I also haven't been looking for him."
"Rainbow Dash, you need to go to bed," Spike said as he watched how uneasy she was on her hooves.
"I'll be fine Spike." She dismissed him with a wave of a hoof. "It's not the first time the weather team has had me pull an all-nighter. It would've been a lot easier if Cloud Kicker and Blossomforth weren't out sick."
"They're out sick?" Random raised an eyebrow. "They both seemed fine when I saw them last."
That seemed to give Rainbow a second wind, "Oh?" She said with a cheeky grin. "I didn't realize you were seeing both of them."
"Why do you think I'm seeing them?" Asked Random.
"You responded to their names a bit too quickly," she said. "It's also not every day we get a new stallion in town and you aren't too bad to look at." Rainbow waggled her eyebrows.
Random's eyebrow raised so high it looked like it was going to leap off his face, "thanks? I guess."
Twilight was staggering back to her hooves, a relaxed look on her face. "So what's your plan today?"
"Probably going to go for another walk," he said as he got up from the table, his breakfast finished. He made to walk towards the door only to find a purple princess suddenly in front of him and blocking his path.
"Just a sec..." Twilight said with avid enthusiasm. "I want to know more about that age spell you cast on Blueblood." She took a few steps closer, "how did you make it look so easy?" A few more steps, "what kind of matrices did you use?" Random took a few steps back only to be followed step for step. "I didn't feel that much magic when you did it. What kind of reserves do you have?" She got so close she was practically breathing down his neck. "Where did you learn magic like that?"
Random looked around her in a panic. His eyes met with both Rainbow's and Spike's. Rainbow looked like she was about to bust a gut and Spike, well, he just threw his arms up in a defeated gestured like this isn't the first time he's seen this behavior.
"Is she normally this excitable?" Random asked while attempting to push Twilight away with a hoof.
"Yep, that's our egghead," Rainbow fought back a snort as she watched.
"I'd give it up if I were you," Spike said as he cleared the table, not even phased by Twilight's behavior. "Cause she won't."
Twilight gave Spike an angry snort before turning a beaming smile back on Random.
"This is really bothering you, isn't it?" Random said as he craned his neck away from the alicorn who had stars in her eyes and was very much invading his personal space.
"Only time I've seen somepony cast an age spell is when Trixie challenged me to a duel. Granted she was getting a boost from a cursed artifact." Twilight explained offhandedly.
"Cursed artifact?" Random wondered aloud.
"Alicorn Amulet. Big shiny necklace that makes ponies stronger and a bit violent. Well hidden now. Old news. Now come on, tell me how you did the spell." Twilight continued to be excitable.
Random gave a defeated sigh, "ok. Fine. I guess I can show you what I did."
Twilight gave a wide smile, her wings giving a few involuntary little flaps of joy.
"This sounds like where the egghead talk is going to start," said Rainbow as she staggered her way to the door. "I'm outta here."
"Go to bed!" Spike called after her in a hurry.
"Yeah, yeah." Said Rainbow as she left.
"Is she going to be ok?" Random watched the mare leave with some concern.
"She'll be fine. Now come on. Show me what you did." Twilight started hopping from hoof to hoof.
Random gave Spike a panicked look, who just shrugged in reply.
"Just give it up, nopony's gonna stop her when she gets like this," he said as he went back to cleaning up.
A couple minutes later they found themselves at a cleared off table with two potted flowers in front of them.
Twilight sat there with a notebook and quill while looking particularly eager to start taking notes.
"Ok Twilight," Random pushed one of the pots in front of her. "Let me see you try to cast an age spell."
Twilight looked at him with confusion, "but you haven't shown me anything yet."
"I know, but I'm getting the impression that you've tried this spell before. You don't seem like a complete novice and I'm wondering what's got you hung up," Random deduced.
Twilight scrunched her nose and looked down at the flower. She tried to remember what she did the last time she attempted this. It had been back when Trixie was on that power trip and while Twilight had gotten the spell to work for a few moments when she practiced it on a flower, her magic gave out before the spell would hold.
She hadn't tried to do it again since becoming an alicorn though, so maybe...
She focused her eyes in on the flower, the spell matrices she used from before bubbling up to the forefront of her mind. She pushed her magic out through her horn, sending a trickle of power through the air and down into the stem of the plant.
Twilight magically felt her way around the makeup of what made the flower exist in its current state. In her head she tried to map out the passage of time how something would affect this and then, using her own magic, tried to force it's natural state to flow different.
It was slightly different from transmutation, where you were breaking down the energy and mass of an object, and then using those basic building blocks to create something else.
This was her trying to alter the time of an object. Twilight continued to push her magic into the flower. She was starting to feel some resistance building inside the plant. The pressure in her head was starting to ache and it was progressively getting worse the harder she pushed.
The world faded out around her as all of her attention was consumed by the potted plant in front of her. Her body started to thrum with power as the resistance she was feeling began to weaken. Ever so slowly she felt the wheels of time begin to move backward. She peeked her eyes open and saw that the flower was slowly regressing to a seedling. It made about as far as its bud stage when she felt her magic lock up again.
She pushed harder into her magical reserves when she suddenly felt her hold on the spell begin to fall apart. Far faster than she had woven the spell together, it began to unravel all on its own, and the excess magic she had poured into it dispersed into the air.
Twilight's eyes shot open and she looked up at her horn to see the magenta aura of her magic being intercepted by a green one. Her eyes followed the other magic back to Random's horn where he appeared to be straining from the exertion from whatever he was doing. Sweat began to steam off his coat while he grit his teeth.
What really caught her attention was his eyes. His pupils were glowing a bright green and he was glaring at her with an ire that was only made worse by the glow.
"Ahhh," Twilight recoiled, falling away from the table as she looked up at his intense stare.
His face was all covered in shadows except for his glowing green eyes.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?!" He raged at her. "You could've blown up half the town with as much magic as you were pouring into that! What were you thinking?!"
Twilight recoiled at the force of his anger, instinct telling her she should be very afraid right now. "I'm... I'm sorry... I... I just..."
Random's eyes seem to snap back into focus as he noticed how much he scared the poor girl. He sat up straighter in his seat and placed a hoof to his chest. He began to take a few slow, measured breaths and visibly calmed after a couple moments.
"Listen Twilight," Random said through a forced calm. "I'm sorry if I lost my temper, but do you understand how dangerous it is to overpower spells like you were doing?"
Twilight rapidly shook her head, the tension in the air seeming to have calmed as she picked herself off the ground and cautiously sat back at the table. Fluttershy did say that the pony she saw in the woods had a golden coat. "Usually if I'm struggling with a spell, I just need to use a bit more magic and it works," she offered.
Random rested a hoof against his forehead and scrunched up his face, "ok," he said, seemingly to have finished his thought process. "You've had a lot more magic than your peers, even from a young age, haven't you?"
Twilight nodded as she watch the light in his eyes finish dimming to normal, "that's a good thing though, isn't it?"
"As long as it doesn't cause you to form any bad habits, which is what seems has happened here." He explained. "Pouring excess magic into a spell can work to correct inconsistencies in the framework, but with some spells it just doesn't work. Like with what's left of your flower."
Twilight looked down at the potted plant to find all that was left of it was a pile of ash. She felt a bit sick at the results of her botched spell. "So what do I need to do differently then?"
Random slid the second flower forward, "magic exists in more than just ponies. Magic builds the basic size and shape of what something is and will do its best to maintain that form against outside meddling."
"If that's the case, wouldn't transfiguration be a lot harder, if not impossible." Twilight retorted.
Random shook his head, "with transfiguration, you're taking the energy for yourself before making it into something else. However with temporal spells, the energy needs somewhere to go since you're not really changing the object itself and instead you're just moving it. Follow me so far?"
"I think so," Twilight tilted her head. "So how were you able to cast an age spell on Blueblood then. When I watched you do it, it looked like you didn't use that much magic on him and his own was fizzling out. Why was that?"
"Because it was his own magic doing all the work," he said while levitating a cup of tea to his lips.
"I don't quite follow," Twilight cocked her head at him.
"It wouldn't have worked as easily if he was protecting himself, but here, watch." He sent just the barest trickle of magic down to the other, still living flower, and right before her eyes the flower began to regress to a bud, then a stalk, and finally the stalk receded the rest of the way back into the dirt.
Twilight's eyes practically popped out of her skull and was about to ask something when she stopped herself and thought over what he had just told her. "All the work..." She spoke under her breath more to herself than to him. "So instead of forcing the change like I'm doing, you're providing the spell and the target is providing the magic?"
Random gave her a wide smile, "very good Twilight. I still need to provide some magic since the flower wouldn't have enough for the spell on its own but..."
Twilight's eyes lit up in realization, "but then you don't need to push against an opposing force and instead any magic present is a boon instead of a hindrance!"
"Exactly," he said, pleased to see her understand.
"The potential applications of this could revolutionize how we do magic!" Twilight jumped up from the table all excited.
"I doubt it," Random shook his head. "I bet your friend Trixie knows some of this if she was able to perform an age spell. Anything she might've had on her would just give her a boost, but that's all she'd get."
Twilight looking a bit annoyed, "I wouldn't call her a friend but I think I see what you're getting at. That amulet only really seemed to give her more power than she had before and since you can't force an age spell..."
"Then she must've figured something out on her own. Sounds like quite the clever pony. I'd like to meet her sometime." Random stood up and began to make his way to the door.
"Wait!" Twilight exclaimed. "Where are you going? What about that other spell you cast? How did you stop my magic?"
"Twilight..." He sighed. "I'd love to discuss more of the intricacies of magic with you, but I do have other things to do today."
"But..." She whimpered.
"Go ask Whisper," he said as he opened the door. "I'm sure she could help you find something on the subject."
Random trotted down the streets of Ponyville. It was only late morning by the time he managed to finally pull himself away from the curious scholar. Thinking back, he breathed a sigh of relief that hopefully Twilight would be a little wiser now about what she shouldn't try to do with magic.
His reverie was interrupted when a shadow passed over him. He wondered what it could be as he looked up at the clear day.
He started moving again only to have something collide with his back. The force of the impact planted his face in the ground and had him skidding for several feet before coming to a stop.
Random struggled to pull his face out of the ground, coughing up dirt once he was able to do so. He craned his neck to see what was pressing down on him.
He caught a glimpse of the jasmine mare pressing down on him. Her eyes were bloodshot and the fur on her face was matted with tears.
"I want answers!" Shouted an enraged Cloud Kicker. "What did you do to Blossomforth?!"
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you’re*
Oh shit, that ending! Obviously they didn’t go to the weather mishap like Rainbow did…what the hell, I got nothing
This is why Twilight kinda scares me.
11086422
Yeah, she can be a bit forward
So everything is a (magic) computer.
Also everytime you mention only powerful unicorns I think of Starlight Glimmer.
I like your magic explanation