Chapter 16: Deus Ex Twilightina
"Open up," Twilight commanded.
Spyro obliged and stuck his tongue out. The mare had spent the last twenty minutes looking him over, poking and prodding and always taking notes. It was so boring!
"Are we done yet?" Spyro tried to say with something firmly planted on top of his tongue. He couldn’t remember what it was called, only that doctors often used them.
She sighed. "In a moment. I said you would get the cupcake and a new magic lesson when I’m done."
He nodded, not taking his eyes off the cupcake that she had placed just out of his magical grasp. It was gem encrusted, had tons of blue frosting and was made by his mom. The new magic lesson would be icing on the… cupcake, but most of all he just wanted the treat so badly… He could almost taste it!
"Let me go through this again." She ignored his groan and continued. "You felt a sort of euphoric feeling over wanting to learn more magic. Then a series of spells backfired on you due to your dragon skin. That about right?"
Spyro nodded, finally taking his eyes off the cupcake. He watched Twilight control items with her magic, but something seemed off. He hadn’t noticed it before. Had she always been doing that? She could manipulate several objects at once in her magical field, however, she kept wincing. Sometimes the quill would write too fast or sometimes she would almost drop her clipboard and be forced to clench her teeth to keep up with it.
"Um, Twilight?"
"Yes, Spyro?"
"Is something wrong with your magic?"
She stopped writing instantly. He watched her rotate her jaw a few times. "…Maybe. But right now we need to focus on you."
"Maybe? What happened?!"
She slowly stopped her magic and set everything down on a nearby table. "When I was asked to cast that spell on you back in the castle… I changed it. It had side effects for you as well as for me," she said with a somber attitude.
"How did you change it?"
"The spell was designed to wipe the memories of your planet. It was a messy idea. So, in my head I altered it and tried to find a way to save your mind in a different manner. My changes were never designed to give you unicorn magic, which is why I flipped out back there. I… changed the spell to try and implant certain concepts into your mind using myself as a sort of stepping stone for the spell. Clearly I did something right in my design because you are fine, but like I said, there were some side effects."
He nodded. "So you… lied to the princess?"
She blushed. "Sort of. At first I kept this secret. But I was worried when my magic started acting funny the last few days. Princess Celestia was surprised that I went behind her back with this but understood why I did it." She grabbed his claw with her hoof. "I couldn’t destroy a life, Spyro. I don’t have that in me."
He slowly smiled. If there was one thing he could take back in his life, it was thinking that Twilight wasn’t that great back in the castle. She was awesome! "Cool. But is your magic going to be all wrong forever?"
She shook her head. "I had a long talk with the princess in private. That was the other day actually. She was impressed with me for changing the spell that quickly, but I admitted in doing it at the last second." She shook her head. "Spyro, don’t EVER do that, understand?!"
He nodded. "What do you mean though?"
Her stern voice dropped off. "I mean, don’t try and change symbols in a spell on the fly. It was very stupid of me and I could have hurt both of us… I was just so upset. I was in shock. So I changed the spell without knowing exactly what it would do. As it turns out, it did a lot. First off, it gave you magic, specifically a part of my magic. Ordinarily magic cannot affect someone permanently, but that's the weird thing about magic. Magic does have permanent properties, it has to in order to exist. If it didn’t then pegasus ponies would be born with pegasus magic and would be able to use it for a time, but then it would wear off. The laws and rules of magic are not always absolute, so saying that magic can’t be permanent would actually… be wrong."
"So I could turn invisible forever or something?"
"Hmm, probably not."
He tilted his head.
"You have to understand that what is affecting my magic and what is affecting your mind is a result of those little horns on your claws. They appeared as a result of my wishes. Not a wish in the sense of, 'I wish something would happen,' no. I wanted to help you understand this world so desperately that I forced too much magic upon you. Understanding this world so your mind could adjust was what Celestia thought was best, but her method was so wrong. She wanted a clean slate. I wanted your memories kept intact, but with your mind still connected to the magic field that Equestria and this planet has."
He scratched his head a few times. "Huh?"
To her credit, she did not sigh or groan. "Think of it this way, I concentrated so hard on making my spell work that I infused magic into you. Your mind and body wanted to obey my spell just as desperately as I wanted it to work. It worked alright, you got magic, but because you had no horn, your body and my spell along with my mind decided to make one. Or several. You also may have taken some of my personality with you. What happened in class sounds like a reaction to my spell."
"Oh…" He looked down, seeming upset at this.
"What’s wrong?"
"Is my mind all screwed up forever?" He looked up, tears threatening to show up at any moment.
"No! Of course not! I said you may have taken some of me with you, and even if you did… it would be more like memories and feelings. You're not crazy and this isn't mind control. You just have to learn to remain calm when you get over excited about magic. That’s part of your overall magic lesson plan anyway. I had to learn it when I was a filly too," she said matter-of-factly.
"But you said I took some of your perso-personality."
"I said may. I can’t be certain, but what Trixie described seems to make sense. But over time, you can learn to control it and even ignore it. You seem fine right now."
"I… guess. It’s just weird."
"I know. If you can learn to keep calm with it, then you can even use it to your advantage. To study harder in class and learn quicker. At least if my hypothesis is correct. After that, you can develop some better habits and hopefully by then the effects will have worn off entirely."
He thought that over. He had always had issues studying back in the orphanage. Maybe it could help. Either way, this wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but not everything felt right with him. "Are you sure your magic is okay?"
"Positive. At least it will be in a week or so. It’s not that I can’t use all of my magic. Believe me, the princess made sure of that. We had to test me over and over. I still have the same level as before. However, my focus has been off lately. Either I cast too much or too little… My horn became unbalanced if you will. I am working on tweaking it back to the right feeling as before, not too little—"
"And not too much?"
She beamed at him, proud of his deduction skills even if it wasn’t a hard thing to figure out. "Right! I just need to balance myself out. I’m almost there luckily. Princess Celestia was furious with me. I almost… I almost messed up my horn."
His smile vanished. "How do you know you didn't?"
"A simple scan. I’m fine and you will be fine too so long as you keep up with my lessons. Are you okay?"
He slowly nodded.
"I’m sorry I kept this from you, I was trying to see if something like this might happen. I should have just been honest from the beginning."
She expected him to yell or get sour with her or even tell on her to his mom (although she planned on doing that anyway). Instead, he shrugged. "Can I please have my cupcake now?"
She blinked a few times and nodded. Her horn glowed to take the cupcake down from a high-up shelf. She then gently laid it in front of him, happy that her magic had been balanced this time.
It was glorious… Sadly, he ate the whole thing in one bite.
"Happy?"
He nodded to her.
"Good. How about that magic lesson then?"
"Sure!" He chuckled and took a seat in front of her. "It’s pretty awesome that you gave me magic, you know." Then he suddenly stopped talking and froze for a second. "Uh, did you or did you not mean to give me magic?"
"Hmm, like I said before, it was never designed to do that."
He nodded, still looking confused.
"I also said never to change a spell 'on the fly.'"
He nodded again, really unsure where she was going with this.
"Not only can the runes in your head get mixed up, but so can your thoughts. I believe… mine did." She blushed again, not being used to making big mistakes. "I mixed up my thoughts momentarily while I was casting from wanting you to understand this world to obtaining magic. Had it worked the way it was supposed to, you simply would have been fine with no magic to speak of. It wasn’t a perfect spell. I’m still studying what I did. I know for a fact I had my changes visualized near perfectly in my mind up until the final second. Something changed in my head. I believe I… lost confidence in my ability to properly cast it." She clammed up after that statement and did that weird chew thing again. He wondered why she kept doing it, but not for long. "It’s not a feeling I’m used to. Usually I’m just prepared. Part of me wanted you to have unicorn magic, I think."
"How can you not know what you wanted?" he wondered out loud.
She groaned. "I just wanted you to be okay. It was stupid, but part of my wishful desires was you having magic. Even if I couldn’t change your mind to accept this world as reality, I figured a dose of our reality would do the job. Obviously I was correct or you would certainly not be okay right now." She then frowned. "Or Princess Celestia and Star Swirl the Bearded were incorrect on how human minds handle this world."
Spyro was sure that any more explanation would make his brain start to hurt. "Alright. Thanks for the magic and the help."
"You're welcome." She then took a few breaths and sat down once more. "Now, are you ready for your lesson?"
The only answer she got was Spyro shaking his head up and down.
"Great! This lesson is a spell I learned a long time ago, and I think it will help you out quite a bit."
"What?!"
"A relaxation spell! I uh… don’t use it as often as I should." She blushed, recounting in her head all the times she should have used it. "But to be fair, it can place you in a position of vulnerability. You certainly don’t want to use this spell if you need to be alert."
"Okay… What does it do?" He knew it was a dumb question; it was called the relaxation spell after all, or a relaxation spell.
She smiled. "Well, aside from helping your mind focus, it relaxes you!" She shrugged. "The downside is the inability to focus on multiple tasks once you cast it. Great mages throughout history have used this spell to help guide them when they need to do one complex spell after another. Of course you can only do one more and then one more again, never multiple spells…"
He chuckled nervously. "Trixie said I wanted to do that, huh?"
She nodded. "Yes. One spell at a time is enough. The only real way to cast multiple spells would be to invent a new spell that combined them. Also levitation, you can use that and cast another spell."
"What happens if you try to—"
She cut him off. "Remember our first lessons? You need to visualize the spell and remember the symbols. If you try to visualize two spells and two sets of symbols then you will just end up mixing up symbols."
"Oh…" He understood that. Probably not a good idea to try it.
"Just be mindful of that and you should do fine."
He nodded.
"Good. Now, your best bet for successfully using this spell is to be at rest in a seated position."
He nodded again and sat indian style on the ground.
"Good. Now just breathe in and out."
He instinctively shut his eyes and did just that.
"Keep going. Also, open your eyes or you can’t focus on the runes."
He blushed and then noticed that she had levitated a sheet to lay in front of him. He frowned. This set of runes had at least two more symbols to memorize. That was going to be tricky for him. Well, tricky to remember for the future. There was a reason you learned magic with scrolls in front of you after all.
"Got it memorized?"
He snapped out of his thoughts and nodded. "Yeah. Let me try." She smiled and gave him the space he needed. He followed the steps that he normally did to cast magic, visualized himself relaxing which wasn't all that hard and then recounted the runes inside his head. Soon, magic had started pouring out of his horns, then he suddenly stopped everything. "Wait!"
"What?!" Twilight stumbled backwards in surprise.
"What about my dragon skin? It didn’t exactly work out well when…"
Twilight waved her hoof and he stopped talking. "You see these two runes?" she asked while pointing to the two symbols second to last. "I added them for this spell. Sorry, I should have explained. It adds a sort of buffer. I use it on most of my spells by habit. It's useful for creatures that have a built-in magical defense, like dragons." She frowned. "I should have told you about this before, might have saved you the mishap from before."
"Yeah…" He almost felt irritated, but then he dropped it. He was eager to try out this spell so he went back to his previous position. The spell was quick and soon he was finished. His body went limp instantly. He felt as if he was swimming. It was more difficult to move, but it did feel good. "It’s like a jacuzzi," he said in a quieter tone than before.
"I take it you like it?" She smirked at him.
"Hell yeah…"
She tilted her head to the side and raised a brow to him. "What does ‘hell’ mean?"
"Uh… it's like a place…" He didn’t feel like explaining it despite only knowing an abridged definition of the word. He did know it was considered a bad word though. She didn’t seem to know that, which he was thankful for. "Something I heard a bigger kid say once. It just sounded cool to me."
"I… see. Well, I’m glad you were able to cast the spell correctly." She smiled, remembering something. "It's funny, it only took me one try to use that spell."
He shrugged.
"I wonder… the very nature of a cutie mark is magical in nature. Perhaps I transferred more than just my unicorn magic to you…" she murmured, mostly to herself.
"Hmm?"
She shook her head at him. "Just another theory of mine. One of the most difficult aspects of learning magic can be getting a unicorn to feel the magic in the atmosphere. Failure to do that will often mean failure to successfully cast a spell. I believe that transferring my magic and understanding to you may have given you a jumpstart in that. It would explain why you never had to struggle that much when learning new spells."
He nodded, leaning back into his arms. "So we cheated? Sweet."
"Uh… wouldn’t exactly put it like that," she murmured again. "But you are certainly ahead. Anyway, just remember that spell when you think you need it." She walked up to him and touched his chest. "I’m going to be trusting you to know when you need to relax. Okay?"
He nodded again.
"Good. Now—"
The door to the library busted open. "Spyro! I need you!" It was Trixie, who looked very strung out.
He looked over to her, a dopey-like smile plastered on his face. "Huh?"
He was yanked into the air via her magic and whisked out the door before Twilight could say anything.
The relaxation spell was indeed great, probably too great. Spyro barely remembered his little trip from the library to the stage that was outdoors. He was plopped down onto the wooden floor. He took a few dizzy steps and then promptly fell onto his rump.
"Now then… Oh dear, are you alright?" Trixie helped him back to his feet. "Perhaps I went a tad fast…"
Spyro scratched his head. The spell he felt was starting to wear off. "Why are we on a stage?"
"Right, I know you probably have too much homework to learn a part for this show."
He frowned again, feeling bitter.
"However, we need an announcer for different scenes, kind of like a narrator. All you need to do is read from a script. You won’t need to memorize much or practice that often."
"Uh, why me?" He almost did not ask that, fearing it might raise a good point.
"I will be focusing on the illusions during the show. I can’t speak much and cast spells. Rainbow over there will be playing a main role."
"Oh, yeah!" They both stopped and watched the pegasus loop into the air several times before landing in front of them. She had on heavy bouts of makeup and dye. She looked like a completely different pony. The things that stood out to him were her whip, odd jacket and hat. "This is gonna be so awesome!"
"Yes, yes… Now—"
"She looks like Indiana Jones! Ha!" He giggled a bit.
Rainbow looked at her costume and then frowned to the dragon. "Who?"
"He’s a…" He trailed off when he noticed the telltale sign of Trixie's magic forming in front of him. Slowly, the image of a rather tall male human began to take shape. Rainbow noticed he had a hat on, almost a cowboy hat though differently shaped. He also most certainly had a whip by his side.
"Cool…" Rainbow murmured.
Spyro hesitated and then shrugged, causing the man to do the same. "You know he doesn’t really have any sayings. Except ‘Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?!’" He fell to the ground in exasperation and then began giggling. The illusion soon left the stage.
"So can you do it?" Trixie levitated over to him a small script.
He flipped through it. "Uh, who made this?"
"I copied most of it from the first Daring Do book," Rainbow said.
"Uh, I guess I can. Do I have to stand in front of everyone?" The thought sent shivers down his spine. Plays were no fun at the orphanage.
"Well, yes. Stage fright?" Trixie asked gently.
He tapped his claws together and nodded. "Everyone already looks at me in town… They’ll just think I’m a weird dragon ruining your show."
An odd feeling overcame him, though a second later he realized that Rainbow’s hoof had touched his shoulder. "Don’t even worry about it. I used to be afraid of crowds. You just have to think of your friends and you can work through it. Or whatever Twilight told me."
That got his attention. "Um, I saw you at that dinner in the castle. Are you friends with Twilight?"
She blinked and then promptly smacked her head. "Of course! We’re like totally best friends!"
He tilted his head, watching her close her eyes and shake her head in disbelief. "Since when?"
"Since a year at least."
"Oh. Are you friends with Mom?"
"Mom?" She gave a confused stare. "Oh! Pinkie, yes! Didn’t you wonder why there was like six ponies at that dinner? We’re all friends."
"But I never see any of you."
"Well… I’m not sure why you don’t see the others, but I’ve been kind of busy, I guess. Plus, Twi says your lessons are during our work hours," she clarified.
"Oh… Okay!" He went from feeling weirded out by Rainbow to accepting that she was Twilights friend in an instant.
She raised a brow and considered saying more but then dropped it a second later. "Cool. So… do you want to practice some?"
He frowned just on the first page. "I can’t read some of these words…" A hint of shame coming off his voice.
Trixie walked forward, hesitant to interrupt the Rainbow maned mare. She was glad that Rainbow was willing to work with her. Amazing what a simple apology can do, she thought. "Can you read most of them?"
"Yes?"
"Then we can simply practice. The show is two weeks away and there isn’t much to learn. Unless you would rather have somepony else read them."
"Okay… but then I need to do my homework soon. At home." A nagging feeling in the back of his head kept reminding him to go check in with his mom.
He cleared his throat and started reading. A quick glance showed Rainbow getting ready for her scene and Trixie looking on in excitement. He frowned and tilted the paper back. "Trixie, you are doing this for fun, right?"
Both mares had not expected such a mature question. Instead of nodding or saying yes, she decided to prod further. "What do you mean?"
"Well we went so far to get you the stage, until you got in trouble. I know you were really upset that ponies didn’t give you work or like you…"
"Oh." She walked over and took a seat next to him. He followed suit. "If you're worried about the show, don’t. It is mainly for fun, but Twilight agreed that it would help the town see me in a better light. If they saw me getting along with friends on stage and putting together a friendly show."
That sounded nicer to him. He smirked and picked up the script again. "Okay, let’s do this!"
"Alright!" Trixie clapped her hooves.
"Wait!" They both paused. "What’s that word?"
This may take a while. Trixie thought bitterly.
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Yay! New chapter!!
You guys should have read the error Cold made. Made me laugh so hard. XD
I love editing his stuff.
Shh!
They must know I'm perfect! Hail Cold Spike! 
3771505
You spelled hail wrong!
But yay for new chapters, haha,
But yes, this chapter was just great, I like how you ended it.
Hahaha, ingenious!
~Grr
Thank you :) 3772021
3771505
You have intrigued people, well at least me, with what that error might have been now.
I typed jew instead of chew
3772216
3772163
No problem.
'S what I do.
Heh. Keep-a-writin'
~Grr
3772216 Instead of writing "Twilight was doing that chew thing again", he wrote "Twilight was doing that jew thing again"
According to her, the only alternative is him going mad. I fail to see how it makes her a Tyrant, also you should keep reading
3777430
Shh! They must know I'm perfect!
...But thank you for the comment, I'm glad someone got it 
3778883
It's adorable to have a little kid as a protagonist for once
and not some teenage angsty douchebag.
I like writing kids, heh.
3781725
Don't matter if it is shorter. It was full of narrative and lore. That is plenty good enough to satisfy me.
th02.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2011/270/f/c/pinkie_pie_is_satisfied_____by_kooner01-d4b3f6c.png
"That was some good cake..." 3786922
3787434
That is my exact reaction to lore.
I use past tense... 3918747
Yes! Finally caught up with this one! (sometimes I hate being a slow reader
)
Anyway, I'm quite liking this story and eagerly await more. I really wasn't sure how you were going to explain Spyro's magic, but you pulled it off quite nicely.