Chapter 22 - Testing 101
Let T be the target and S the source where S can be any kind of magical conduit and T can be any receptor. For the calculation of the maximum flow, every path from S to T, as defined in chapter nine, has to be modified by the weight of the path of the least resistance. In contrast, the weight of the path is defined as the sum of the weight of all nodes on said path. The weight of a node is equal to the magical resistance of its material. The following is a list of the most commonly needed resistances. A full list can be found at the end of chapter twenty five.
Twilight eagerly flipped through the book to find the mentioned chapter. As she turned page by page with her magical grip, letting the book on the floor glow in a faint purple light, she stretched her back and was rewarded with a loud crack. Ouch, she thought and rubbed her back with her right forehoof. She had been lying for hours on the hard wooden floor of her room in the upper level of the Golden Oaks Library.
Melancholically, she looked up to her comfortable bed one floor higher. It was unfortunately already occupied, denying her the option to find a more comfortable place for long term reading. Twilight sighed, released the book for a second, and turned to the occupier of her bed. “Rainbow Dash!” she called loudly. A moment later, the head of a certain blue pegasus with a rainbow colored mane peeked over the bed.
“What?” Rainbow retorted, sounding somewhat annoyed. “I’m in the middle of like, the best scene ever. Daring Do is in the middle of the Zebraican Deserts, searching for the evil ponies that stole a holy stone from a village of peaceful zebras, causing the zebras to be doomed. And she was just spotted by one of the thieves as she sneaked into their camp to retrieve it…” she drifted off, her eyes filled with excitement. Then she quickly shook her head and looked back down at Twilight. “So why do you have to yell like that?” she demanded.
“Sorry for interrupting you there. You know how much I like it that you are reading even though I would have hoped that, after all this time, you would have started with something more challenging than another adventure story.” Rainbow waved her off and dropped down on the bed again. “And I’m always happy for some company as well, but if you are going to take the best spot in the house, then you can at least do me a little favour.”
Rainbow’s groan was the only response she got at first. It took a few more seconds before her head appeared over the bed again. “Hey, you were the one who stopped me from bringing my clouds in here, so I need a new spot. It’s not my fault that everything’s so uncomfortable here.” A sly grin appeared on the pegasus’ face, and Twilight couldn’t deny that it wasn’t a bit contagious.
“And have you finally remembered the reason why?”
“Yeah, yeah, something about hum… humil… they are too wet,” Rainbow said from atop and waved her hoof around languidly.
“Humidity, yes, it’s not good for the books,” Twilight agreed contentedly and nodded. “But anyways, I would like to ask you if you could visit Steve and bring him here please,” Twilight said, making her request clear.
“Why?” Rainbow asked and raised a brow.
“As you may remember, or maybe not given your state, he and I had an agreement for further experiments at the party. I would like to take him up on that if he is still up for it,” Twilight explained.
For a moment, Rainbow’s eyes wandered towards the ceiling before they fixated on her again. “Yeah, I remember something like that. But why do I have to go? Can’t you do it yourself?”
“I don’t have the time. I might be onto something here, but I need further proof.” Twilight pointed at the open book behind her. “Come on, if you take the best seat in the house, you can at least do this for me.” Despite her wheedling, the only reward Twilight received was a long sigh from Rainbow as she fell back on her bed, blowing her prismatic mane out of her face. She then decided to change tactics. “Rainbow, please. Don’t make me take severe actions.”
Now a loud laugh came from Rainbow. “Severe actions?” Rainbow repeated and burst out into laughter again, snorting in mirth.
“Well, I happen to have already read that same book you’re reading, and it would really be a shame if someone told you how it ends, right?” Not even half a second after she finished the sentence, the pegasus stood in front of her and stared at her with wide eyes.
“Y-You wouldn’t…” Rainbow Dash stammered, horror etched on her face.
“Wouldn’t I?” Twilight retorted and grinned innocently though her eyes, which gleamed like those of a predator.
With a long sigh, Rainbow gave up. “Fine, fine. If you really have to use such cheap tricks, I’m going to let you win.”
“Very good, Rainbow. Thank you sooo much for your help,” Twilight said and returned the cold look of her friend with a cheery smile. “Now, I’ll have to prepare a few things first, so take your time.”
Rainbow mumbled something incomprehensible as she stomped over to the balcony door, opened it, and was off into the distance a heartbeat later. Twilight looked at her for a few seconds as she quickly flew southwards. No time to waste, Twilight thought to herself as she picked up the book from the floor with her magic and took it downstairs with her.
***
The warm, early afternoon sun shone down on her as Rainbow Dash steadily glided over Ponyville, only occasionally helping out with a few strong flaps of wings while she let the airstreams do most of the work. She loved flying this way. Maybe not as much as flying at the peak of her capabilities, challenging herself to go faster and faster, but in a different way. She felt relaxed, giving time to order her thoughts which were mostly occupied on Daring Do. As much as she liked reading what would happen next, she enjoyed having her mind play out various scenarios about how the story would go on even though it worked directly against her usually short patience. And her versions almost never proved to be correct.
As she looked down again, she noticed that she had left Ponyville southwards already. The slight north wind had helped her out a bit on her flight and was now carrying her over the soft meadows outside of Ponyville that would soon flow over into the dreadful Everfree Forest. She had never understood how someone could live directly next to the forest, be it Fluttershy in her little cottage or Applejack and her entire family with their large apple farm that covered most of the area south of Ponyville, that was not taken by the forest of course. And now there was one more who she was heading to. Sure, the creatures of the Everfree rarely left their home, and the few that did were mostly not dangerous, but still, the mere thought of living so close there made her uncomfortable. Not that she would readily admit it to anypony. That was why she had moved her house away from it, north of the town. The clouds there were nicer anyways, and she could avoid mixing them up with the strange ones from the Everfree that drifted in so often.
Rainbow shifted into a slow descent and headed towards the lengthy metal thingamabob their newest citizen was living in. She still found that weird, especially with the strange-sounding magical voice that sometimes blared out, but she shrugged it off as some human quirk to live in such a place. As soon as she landed in front of the ramp, she quickly walked up it and knocked emphatically against the metal door. The sound of her knock resonated for a few more seconds through the air while she waited for him to open the door. What a needlessly complic— she thought, but a voice behind her made her quickly spin around.
“Over here!” the voice repeated clearly this time, and now she saw Steve sitting on the grass, one arm raised high in the air as he waved towards her while the other was struggling with putting on those strange clothes he always wore. He had been lying in the grass only a few meters away from his house, just out of sight for Rainbow to spot him there while she was flying. Curious, she jumped off the ramp again, bringing herself higher into the air, unfolded her wings and let herself glide over to the human. It was the first time that he didn’t seem to be wearing his clothes, and she wanted to know what was so special underneath them that he didn’t want to show it.
However, by the time she reached him, he had already pulled up the zipper of his overalls and sat, with the exception of his hooves, completely dressed in front of her. Or not really hooves; what had he called them again? They reminded her a bit of a griffon’s paw, only that they ended in five blunt and very short claws, just like his fingers, but way shorter. The deficit in length of the claws was made up by the length of the rest of the paw. His boots were standing next to him on a large, dark grey blanket he had put out on the grass. “Err, hello, Rainbow Dash,” Steve said, and she looked up in his face again just to see confusion there. Only now did she realize that she had been staring at his paws for a few seconds without even saying a word.
She quickly took a step back again and grinned sheepishly as she replied, “Hey, whatchya doin’ there?”
He blinked a few times before rubbing his eyes, but the confusion was still there. “What does it look like?” he asked and raised a brow. “I’m sunbathing of course; haven’t you seen how pale—” He stopped mid-sentence, and a look of sudden realization replaced the confusion which, in turn, transferred over to Rainbow Dash. “Right, of course. I keep on forgetting sometimes. I don’t have a coat like you that protects my skin. So the sunlight has some chemical reaction with the skin, or something like that. I don’t even know exactly, so I’ll have to ask Sarah about that. Anyways, to put it simply, I will turn darker the more time I spent in the sun and will get paler again if I stay out of it.”
“Really?” Rainbow asked in surprised and raised a brow. She liked to bathe in the sunlight as well but mostly because it made her coat comfortably warm. Never had she noticed a change of color in her blue.
“Yes, but it doesn’t affect your coat like I said. I’m not really a fan of the sun, but I got a bit too pale even for my standards.” He looked down at his clothes and then disgruntledly over to his ship. “And I think I will go mad if I spend every single second in there.”
“What’s so bad about it?” Rainbow wondered and looked back at the metallic construct as well. “Thought you liked it in there, and you have someone to talk to.”
“I do, but not twenty-four hours a day with an AI that’s slowly developing,” he added sourly. “She’s been giving me one menial task after the other recently. Clean this pipe, dust off the drawers, this cable has to be replaced, blah blah blah.”
Rainbow looked back at him and raised a brow. “Why’s that?”
“I don’t know, I…” Awkwardly, the human grinned and scratched the back of his neck. “Well okay, I wasn’t very nice to her most of the time either. But I’m doing my best!” After a short pause in which Rainbow just looked at him with bemusement, he decided to subtly change the subject from the awkward topic they had reached. “Anyways, how are you? Haven’t seen you since the party. Got over your defeat already?” A sly grin crawled on his face.
“Ha, don’t let it go to your head. I let you win so that you didn’t get your flank kicked at your first party here,” she waved him off and laughed.
“Sure sure, if you say so,” he said, the grin still on his lips. “But what brings you here now?”
“Umm, yeah right. Twilight sent me. She wanted to remind you of your bet you had at the party, something ‘bout experiments or such.”
“Yes, I remember. I was wondering when she would come back to that. But why did she send you instead of coming herself?”
“Said she had to prepare something,” Rainbow said and shrugged.
“Hmm,” he said slowly and scratched his chin which was showing slight signs of hair growth. “Well, I guess that sounds better than sitting out here by my ship all day long. Just hope I don’t cause a panic this time,” he added with a light chuckle followed by a sigh.
“Huh?” Rainbow tilted her head slightly in puzzlement and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing; I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I’m just overreacting a bit, don’t mind it.” For a short moment, he forced on a fake smile and looked at her before averting his eyes and staring down at the blanket. This whole feelings stuff had never been something Rainbow Dash had been particularly good at, but it was clear even to her that something was bothering him.
"Hey, you can talk to me; that’s what friends are there for,” she said and placed a hoof on his shoulder. He looked up again, and Rainbow could have sworn that the smile that crept on his lips this time was honest. He didn’t look away either.
“It’s fine, really. I was just overreacting because some ponies were unreasonably scared of me, and I heard them talking about me behind my back, but after some think—”
“What!?” Rainbow shouted out as she pulled her hoof back and stomped it on the ground. “Who was it, and what did they say?” He flinched back at her sudden outburst and held both hands in front of his chest, his palms pointing towards her, motioning for her to calm down. But she didn’t want to calm down, not after the memories of the obnoxious old hag from Canterlot, treating not just him but also her and her friends so rudely, shot into her head.
“Hey! Easy there,” he said quickly; she just responded with a snort. “They didn’t say anything too insulting. They just weren’t that comfortable around me,” he calmed her again and slowly lowered his hands. Rainbow’s breath went back to normal, and the angry glare slowly faded away as well.
“Sorry,” she apologized for the outburst. “I just thought it was like that thing in Canterlot. I dare anypony here to behave like that.”
“Oh, no no no,” he quickly replied and shook his head a few times, making his short blond mane whirl around. With a short laugh, he continued, “I don’t really know why, but a lot of ponies still seem uncomfortable in my presence, especially since the party. I think they’re just afraid that I might be mad at them for not showing up, but who knows.” He shrugged.
“And that doesn’t bother you?” Rainbow said, the irritation obvious in her tone.
“Well, of course it does, but not that much. I would be happier if there was at least a real reason to it. This way, I just have to sit it out until that fear is finally gone.” He shrugged again. “I just don’t care that much since I don’t have to constantly live with them. And there are ponies who aren’t afraid and who come visit and talk to me from time to time, so it’s not that bad.” He finally decided to stand up and stretch himself. Now with his arm reaching high into the air, Rainbow was once again struck by how much taller he actually was compared to an average pony. Even if she were to stand on her hind legs, she could probably only reach up to somewhere around his chest. It had been a while since she had seen one, but in general shape, he was pretty similar to a minotaur, even though not quite as bulky and a bit smaller, while also more appropriately proportional. A quiet crack from the human’s back brought her out of her thoughts. “Let’s go then. Maybe it’ll be better this time with the other ponies while you are with me, and I’m curious to find out more about magic as well.”
“If you say so,” Rainbow replied cautiously. She was still a bit confused, but on the other hoof, the party was a few days ago and he must have had time to think about it. And as long as he was okay with it, why should she be needlessly worried about it? She shrugged as well and made her way next to Steve as they began the journey back to the town.
It was quiet at first as they stepped over the meadows between his ship and the dirt path to Ponyville, but after a short while, he broke the silence. “Thank you,” was all that left his lips.
“Huh?” Rainbow perked up and looked at him.
He was still looking up front but slowly turned his head towards her now. “For everything. You immediately wanted to defend me, you have always been nice to me, and you accepted me here in this world so quickly, seeing me as a friend as well. So thank you for that. I don’t take that for granted,” he said with a soft smile on his lips.
“Heh, you don’t have to thank me for that; that goes without saying,” she waved it off with a light chuckle while trying to hide the faint hint of red that she could feel as heat on her cheeks.
“Maybe not, but I’m sure my settling-in period would have been much worse if not for you and your friends,” he added and slowly turned to face the front again as they had reached the small dirt path. For a moment, it was silent between the two once more before he spoke up. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Our little experiment has gone well from what I’ve seen so far. The data is usable, and Sarah visualized them. I would need to refresh my knowledge about aerodynamics a bit. Maybe I’ll borrow a book about pegasi flight mechanics since we already have to visit Twilight.”
“Really? That’s amazing!” Rainbow cheered and jumped into the air, unfolding her wings and performing a quick loop in the air. “Thanks, dude.”
“No need to thank me. Sarah did all the dirty work,” he waved it off and chuckled. “I’m honestly amazed at what she is capable of. I just give her a few commands and she will execute them just the way I had it in mind, sometimes even better.” The rest of the way he spent explaining to her how exactly he had planned to optimize her flying, but Rainbow didn’t really pay any attention after a few sentences. He threw out many terms she hadn’t even heard Twilight use before, and even if she tried to listen carefully, she knew that she would understand none of it. But she let him talk, seeing that he was enjoying it, only sometimes giving a few acknowledging sounds from time to time.
Time was flying by, and before they even knew it, they entered the small village of Ponyville. It was a sunny Saturday at midday, and just as expected, the streets were filled with ponies that were mingling about. “Why are there always so many ponies out on the streets?” Steve leaned down a bit to her and asked. “Twilight said there was something like three hundred ponies living here, but I see so many, especially ones that I have never seen before. It’s like the entire town is out on the streets all the time.”
Rainbow just shrugged as they made their way through the crowd and said, “It’s the weekend. Ponyville is pretty popular for short holidays for ponies from Canterlot and Manehatten.”
Steve just nodded in return. It made sense to him. He had only seen Canterlot so far, but he doubted their other major cities were any less hectic. Now the buildings with the large signs in front of them made sense to him as well. They were hotels. He occasionally spotted ponies of all kinds with larger saddlebags on their backs walking around, apparently still on their way to their accommodations. He also saw others with relatively fancy accessories compared to most of the population of Ponyville that always ran around naked, like sunglasses or sun hats, wandering through the streets, probably on their way to the nearest park or the outer parts of the town. Some tourists looked over at him sometimes, a brief wondering look as they sized him up before turning away with a shrug again. Living in a larger city must have made them used to seeing other species wandering around as well.
Now this was the side of Ponyville he liked, being able to walk among them without receiving any overly strange looks. He couldn’t tell if it was because he was with one of the Elements, or they had realized by now that he didn’t bear any grudges against them and that he wasn’t a danger to them either. Maybe they felt safer because there were so many other ponies around in general, but he didn’t care as long as he could enjoy his walks through this relatively quiet town.
A few minutes later, they arrived in front of the hollowed out tree near the town square. Without knocking, Rainbow went ahead, kicked the door open, and entered the library, Steve right behind her. “Twilight!” she shouted into the empty room. “I’m back, and Steve’s with me!” she added and waited for a response.
A second later, the unicorn in question appeared in a bright flash of light directly in front of them with a wide grin on her face. “Perfect! Just in time,” she said happily. “Oh, but first of all, hello Steve.” She turned towards the human. “Did Rainbow explain to you—” He cut her sentence short with a quick nod. “Excellent. Thank you, Rainbow,” she said and turned to the pegasus again who blankly stared back at her.
“No problem. You need me for anything else?” she asked and peeked upstairs.
“You are welcome to watch. You might learn something new and exciting,” Twilight offered and expectantly looked at her friend.
Rainbow stroked her chin for a moment, seemingly giving great thought to the offer but then replied, “Nah, I’ll stick with Daring Do, thanks.” A moment later, she stood at the top of the stairs already, leaving only an airstream behind. Steve looked perplexedly after her as she opened the door to the room on the upper floor softly and entered.
“Who’s Daring Do?” he asked irritated after a moment and looked back at Twilight.
She stared at him with wide open eyes like he had just insulted her. “You don’t know…” she began to hiss but then she realized. “Oh, of course. She is an archaeologist who searches for ancient artefacts all over the world,” she explained and pointed to a bookshelf to her right. “I have all the books here if you want to read them.”
“Maybe later,” he said and followed her hoof for a moment. “But first things first.”
“Right,” Twilight agreed and nodded. “So… I have to apologize; I really shouldn’t have accepted your offer at the time during the party. You were clearly intoxicated and I had taken advantage of that.”
Jeez, why are these ponies always apologizing for the most minor things, Steve wondered. “It’s fine,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t press the issue.
“So you still agree to do the experiments?” she asked. “I wouldn’t be angry if you say no now.”
“Yes, I still want to do it. Finding out more about magic sounds interesting,” he assured her.
“Wonderful,” she cheered happily and clapped her hooves together a few times. “Do you want to get started?” she asked and excitedly shifted her weight between her legs. He nodded in return and followed Twilight to a door next to the staircase that already swung open in her magic, revealing another staircase that led down into the basement of the library. Wondering what she had prepared down there, he followed her with quick steps. However, as soon as he got to the door, he stopped abruptly as what he saw down there caught his breath.
Machines of all types and sizes stood all around the rooms. Various cables ran between them, and they were covered with buttons, lights, meters, and words that Steve couldn’t read from afar. Books were piled up in towers next to them, and countless scrolls and ink jars were spread all over the floor. Long metal tubes went from the bottom of the room up to the ceiling where they disappeared into the tree, with bars at the bottom probably serving as a ventilation system to the room that was surprisingly well lit even though it had no windows anywhere. Lamps all around the walls gave a steady white light.
Twilight Sparkle had already arrived at the bottom of the stairs, and so he slowly followed her, not taking his eyes off all the equipment she had there. From what he had seen of their world so far, he would have never expected something like this. It had seemed more like a nicer version of a medieval world where magic actually worked, but this machinery seemed far beyond their visible technological level.
Twilight followed his gaze and grinned awkwardly as his eyes turned back to her as he walked down the last step. “Is something wrong?” she asked carefully.
“Uh…” was all his mouth was able to say as a million questions shot through his head at once. He couldn’t decide which one to ask first. “What is that?” he decided to ask and pointed at one machine that stood in the middle of the room, multi-coloured cables hanging around it and with a large paper printer on the upper part and various meters with buttons and wheels at the lower parts and the sides.
“This is just a normal magical reader,” she explained and walked over to the machine. It stood on four legs with little wheels at the bottom so it could easily be moved around like most of the machines that stood at the sides of the room. There were no corners as the room was round like the rest of the library. It made sense seeing as the tree itself was round. “I will induce a small magical pulse onto you, and we will measure, at certain points, how strong it will be,” she continued and held up a bunch of red cables. “This way we can identify magical spikes in your body and your overall magical level.”
“Is it dangerous?” he asked carefully while he followed her to the apparatus.
“Oh no, not it all. It will just be a very light pulse. Just enough to lift a pen in the air should be enough,” she replied quickly and shook her head.
“And you are just going to shoot some magic at me and see how my body handles it?” He eyed her suspiciously.
“Kind of. I will direct it through the machine and this cable,” she said and held up a green cable. “I need to know exactly how much magic I use. My own feeling is only exact to the second digits.”
This raised another question in him. “How do you measure magic anyways? Like energy in joules?”
“Joules?” Twilight repeated questioningly. “I haven’t heard of that, but to answer your question, it is in mana.”
“Mana?” he repeated, baffled.
“Yes, mana,” Twilight confirmed and nodded her head. “One mana is the amount of magical power required to hold an object with no resistances one meter above the ground for one second.” She knocked against the top of the machine softly. “This weight is simulated over various springs inside. It is very sensitive, so we can only go up to twenty mana here, but that is more than enough for what we need. Usually, values between point three and point four mana are sufficient to get decent data. Just enough so that the magic is not nullified by the absolute resistances of your body. From there, I can calculate your magical level easily and also precisely if we can get a large enough set of data.”
That doesn’t sound too daring, he thought to himself and shrugged. What’s the worst that can happen? Something told him that this was a wrong question to ask, but now it was too late. “Alright, I hope you are right,” he just confirmed.
“Very good. Take off your clothes,” she ordered him and began to check each of the cables. As though she had noticed the shocked expression that stood on his face, she explained, her back still turned towards him. “The cables need to be placed directly on your skin. Clothes will falsify the data.”
Oh, right, that makes sense. “Topless is enough, I presume?”
“Let’s see…” she said over her shoulder and levitated a book that looked like the manual of the apparatus over to her. Quickly, she skimmed over a few pages until it seemed she had found what she was looking for. “Recommended measure points…” she said quietly and turned around to him again, looking alternately between him and the manual while inaudibly mumbling some words. “You said you have no cutie mark, right?” He just shook his head, causing her to look back into the manual again. “The cutie mark is recommended here, which makes sense since there is a high density of magic around it. Your flanks, even if blank, will have to do then.”
“Or we just skip that point?” he offered and grinned awkwardly. “Nothing against you, but I don’t really want to stand around naked here.”
“Why not? I’m not wearing anything either and you weren’t exactly protesting about taking off your upper clothes.” The purple unicorn gave him an irritated look.
“Because I want to keep some parts private,” he returned dryly. “I don’t wear anything more than shorts if I go swimming either, but neither do I wear anything less. Just like most other humans.”
Twilight let out a long sigh. “Fine, if you still want to stick to your traditions, then the scans on head and torso will have to be enough.” With that, he began to fumble for the zipper that was annoyingly hidden under the collar of his overalls. Twilight watched him the entire time with a curious gleam in her eyes. She probably wanted to know what it was that he was always hiding under his clothes. That the answer was nothing, just a bit of mostly hairless skin, would probably be disappointing to her. However, as soon as he had finally opened the zipper and freed his arms out of the overall so that he was standing bare-chested in front her, Twilight’s jaw almost dropped to the floor as she stared at his chest.
Just as he wanted to ask what was so shocking, she pointed a hoof at him and stammered, “B… B-But I thought you were m-male?!”
His brow rose even higher. “I am.”
“But… but why do you have teats?! And on your chest as well!” she almost shouted at him now, a quickly reddening tint appearing across her muzzle.
Steve looked down at his body for a moment and then shrugged. “I don’t know. Evolution hasn’t caught up yet, I guess,” came his reply that clearly didn’t please Twilight.
“What?!” She had caught herself enough to at least bring her voice down to a normal level.
“Nothing,” he waved it off. “They have no purpose for men. They’re just… there.” He shrugged after looking down at his chest again.
Twilight’s curiosity seemed to have been caught, and she slowly stepped closer, not taking her eyes off his chest for a second. Even though he had told her that being shirtless wasn’t that big of a deal - after all, most examinations at the doctor ended up that way, and even though she wasn’t a doctor, the situation came quite close - but now he began to feel a bit uncomfortable. As Twilight began to slowly reach out with her hoof, something he didn’t think she would be brave enough to do, he decided to end the somewhat bizarre scenario and coughed loudly. “My eyes are up here,” he commented dryly while having to hold back a chuckle.
The unicorn quickly shook her head before looking up at his face again and taking a step back. “Right, sorry. It’s just that I have never seen nor heard of something like this,” she explained, looking a bit bemused.
“It is fine,” he assured her. “So… back to the experiment?” He nodded towards the apparatus behind Twilight.
Twilight responded with her horn glowing and letting various red and a single green cable fly over to him. “This might be a bit cold,” she warned him while levitating the manual in front of her face again. “So, this one goes here,” she said and the green cable with a little suction knob at the end moved directly towards his sternum where it made contact with his skin, the little knob stuck tightly to it. Saying that they might be a bit cold was a clear lie. They felt like ice cubes that were pressed on his skin, and he had to resist the urge of flinching from the cold, but he still began to shiver slightly. Twilight seemed to be too busy with the manual and didn’t notice as she went over the remaining cables.
A few moments later, a cable clung to his forehead, shoulder blades, wrists, the outer side of his ribcage, and one on the middle of this stomach. She had decided to ignore all that were supposed to go below his waistline. Something about the clothes just being over the cables would interfere with the readings. And those places weren’t too important anyway if one didn’t have a cutie mark.
“Looking good so far,” Twilight said after checking the manual one last time. “Any last questions?” she asked and stepped next to the apparatus, but he just shook his head. “Good, I’m going to go very gently at first; just tell me when you feel something.” With those words, her horn began to glow in an extremely faint purple aura, and so did the cable that ran from the machine to his chest. Twilight had her eyes open and looked at him, waiting for a response.
“More, I feel nothing,” he said after a while. With a nod from Twilight, the glowing aura slowly got stronger as she put more power into it, but there was still nothing. The change of color told him that she was placing more force into it, but it was still nowhere near the level he had seen it at before when she was casting magic.
He was about to tell her that she could go faster, but then there was something. A slight tingling at his sternum, directly where the green cable ended. “I feel something,” he said. Twilight’s aura stopped at its current color. “It’s like a tingling, but very weak.”
“Very good,” Twilight replied and pressed a button on the machine, the printer on the upper half beginning to slowly spit out more and more of the paper roll. “Let’s see when we pick something back up here.”
“Go on then,” he said firmly. Deliberately but steadily, Twilight poured more magic into the pulse. The tingling feeling slowly increased in strength and spread out further through his body, only occasionally stopping when Twilight took a quick glance at the machine. He was no expert in this field, but after the magic flow continued for over a minute and Twilight’s face turned more and more worried, he realized that it wasn’t going according to her plan. “What’s wrong?” he eventually asked.
“It seems that your resistance is higher than expected. We are at one point two mana already, and the machine still says nothing. For a normal pony, this is usually the highest value needed to take test values,” she explained and quickly looked between him and the apparatus.
That didn’t sound like a bad thing to him, and so far the feeling was still only a slight tingle, with the only downside being that he wanted to scratch himself, but he resisted the urge. “More. This is starting to tickle a bit,” he said and Twilight nodded. The tingling feeling would soon reach the cable on his stomach; just a tiny bit more and….
ZAP! Steve was thrown backwards and off his feet by a sudden, extremely strong electroshock. It was like back when he was at school, and they did field trips to the countryside. He and his classmates had dared each other to see who could hold onto the electrical fences the longest, but this felt at least a hundred times worse. The pain of the shock itself was accompanied by the blunt sting that followed as his body hit the ground with his back first, and he felt the remaining air in his lungs rapidly leaving his body. Shortly after his landing, he heard a loud metallic clank, but at that point, he didn’t even care what it was and just laid there motionless.
Not even a heartbeat later, Twilight entered his field of view, an expression of pure horror on her face. She waved her hoof around over his body and face. An infinite stream of words left her mouth but were mostly just reptitions of ‘Oh my’, ‘Celestia’, ‘Gosh’, and rapidly asking questions he couldn’t quite make out. He heard a few plopping sounds as the suction knobs lost their grip on his skin. It seemed like he was still connected to the machine when he fell, which would also explain the sound of something metallic falling on the ground.
"Ouch…” was the first sound to leave his mouth, followed by a dry cough, immediately silencing Twilight. He tried to sit up but found that the room around him had decided to spin out of control. He quickly dropped down on the ground again, deciding to rest for a bit.
“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” Twilight repeated again and leaned over him. This time, she actually gave him the time to answer.
“Dizzy…” he groaned out shortly and began to rub his forehead with both hands.
“I am so sorry!” Twilight nearly shouted, still shocked by what had just happened. “I had no idea something like this could happen. I’m so sorry!” she repeated, the shock slowly turning into a worried expression.
Steve just raised his hand in response. Luckily, she had caught the hint that he needed some rest for a moment. “I’ll get you something to drink,” she whispered quietly, and the next thing he heard were quick hoofsteps over a wooden floor.
Steve groaned and took his hands away from his face again and tried to sit up. He was still a bit dizzy, but it was much better than before. The shock that went through his body had gone as quickly as it came, leaving only the effects of the fall behind. A quick look around showed him that the machine he was connected to had indeed fallen over and was now lying on the ground, the loose cables spread around it.
What the hell was that, he thought to himself. Something with magic, that was for sure, but Twilight wasn’t here to answer his question right now. Slowly, he crawled over to the wall behind him so he could lean against it. Shortly after, he heard the sound of hoofsteps again and looked over to the stairs where Twilight stood with a glass of water held in her magic. Her eyes widened as she saw him, and it looked like she wanted to teleport down to him for a second, but then decided against it and ran down the stairs as fast as her hooves could carry her. It seemed like she didn’t want to use too much magic around him which was probably why she ran instead of teleported to get some water in the first place. She probably feared that it might cause such a reaction again.
“Steve!” she shouted out loudly as she stood in front of him, placing the glass next to him on the floor before quickly slamming a hoof in front of her mouth in contrition, realizing how loud her voice was. “Sorry, but you shouldn’t be moving. That’s too dangerous in your position. Who knows what injuries you might have?” she said more quietly now.
He just slightly shook his head, grabbed the glass of water, and emptied it in one go. “I’m fine,” he assured her but only received a critical look in return. “Just tell me what the hell happened,” he murmured and put the glass on the wooden floor again.
“I…” Twilight began but stopped and nervously looked over at the machine on the ground and then back at him. “I don’t know,” she admitted and hung her head. “We were above the usual value, but not nearly far enough to create such a reaction. That was the amount of magic I would use to open a door, but that wouldn’t nearly be enough to push back an object of your size.”
He let her words go through him, but if it didn’t make sense to her, then what chance did he have of finding out what had caused it? “Are you saying I’m fat?” he asked accusingly.
Twilight’s eyes widened again as the shocked expression returned to her face. “What? No, sorry, I—” she began to say hastily but stopped as she saw a smile form on lips from which a slight laugh escaped that quickly turned into another dry cough.
“Ouch.” He whimpered in pain and rubbed his chest slightly. “I think I sprained my ribs a bit.”
She shot him an angry glare for a second, not finding any humour in his joke in that situation. “Do you want to go to the doctor?” she offered and now sat down next to him, the glare replaced with an anxious look that filled her large eyes.
“Nah,” he replied and slightly shook his head. “It doesn’t feel too bad, and they don’t know anything about humans anyways.” He carefully tried to stand up further, but Twilight reacted quickly and held him in place with her hooves.
“No,” she said firmly. “You really shouldn’t be walking around now. Lie down and take a rest.” He let out a long sigh but eventually agreed reluctantly. “Good.” She nodded at his acquiescence. “But are you really sure you don’t want me to get a doctor?”
“I’m fine; I just need a bit of rest,” he waved her off again, resisting the urge of standing up to prove it to her. “Just tell me how that happened?”
“I already told you I don’t know,” she replied, disappointment washing over her features. “Sorry.”
“Then just look at the machine,” he said and nodded towards the metallic box lying on the ground behind her.
Twilight abruptly spun around and gasped. “The magic reader,” she whispered and rushed over to the metallic box on the ground, straightening it again with the help of her magic. It didn’t seem to be too damaged on the outside. Only the glass in front of one reader was broken, and a few dents were in the hull here and there. The important part to her, however, was what the paper printer had spat out. She ripped off the piece of paper and took it over to him again so he could have a look into it as well.
The paper had a right-handed coordinate system printed on it, with time values on the x-axis and an occasional line with other numbers that stood horizontally to it in fixed intervals. But the important part was the long black line that ran over the bottom axis with a thin green line running slightly above it that sloped slowly. “That is the input,” Twilight said and pointed with her hoof at the green line. “The other lines will show each output, once they receive any. They haven’t picked up anything so far.” The graphs went on like this for quite some time, with only the green line increasing linearly until suddenly all the other lines exploded and shot to the upper end of the paper before they were cut off. Clearly the point where Twilight had stopped fuelling the machine with her magic.
Twilight stared at the lines carefully for a moment and stroked her chin with a hoof. “What does it say?” Steve asked after a while.
She let out a long humming sound first before taking her eyes off the paper. “What did you feel at first? A tingling?”
“Yes, just around my chest. It covered more and more space, and shortly before it reached the first cable… well, you saw it.”
“Hmm…” Twilight said again and looked back at the paper. “I haven’t seen anything like this before. We surpassed your resistance where you felt nothing at all at a slightly above average point, but nothing to be worried about,” she explained and pointed at the point where the green line began. “But this here,” – she pointed at the point where the graphs exploded – “just isn’t right. I have never heard that the output can surpass the input. No line should converge against the green one, but they just shot straight through it. Unless you could amplify magic as I had speculated at one point during the party… but then you wouldn’t have such a slow start. This should be impossible.”
Steve gulped. He didn’t need to be an expert in magic to know that it was generally not a good sign if something that was supposed to be impossible actually did occur. “But it still happened. So what’s wrong with me?”
She turned back at him and looked him straight in the eyes, an expression of disappointment and worry in her own. “I don’t know for sure. I would say that your body is unable to process magic up to a certain threshold before I surpassed it.”
“And that means?”
“This means that any spell directed at you before this threshold will be completely ignored or is only noticeable as the tingling you have felt before and anything beyond it…” she explained and looked down at the floor.
“And anything above it?” he asked, his voice slightly trembling already as he feared which answer might come.
A long sigh left Twilight’s mouth before she replied, “Will be rejected by your body. The effect you have felt yourself.” She looked up from the ground and carefully put a hoof on her shoulder. He could see a single tear form in her eyes before she said the words that he was afraid of, the words that hit him like a hammer slamming down onto an anvil. “I am so sorry, but sending you home just got a whole lot more difficult.”
Gron’s climbing through yo windows, snatching yo plushies up
This is so out of context... A bit. Maybe. He's just jealous of my guard plushie.
http://i.imgur.com/yBHdEKc.gif, Link to the mentioned gif
Aaaaaanyways, back to you normal people. New chapter, focused on Steverino again. I hope you like this chapter! Finally I got to use a bit of headcanon on magic, though I will dive into that much deeper in the future. Can't wait for that.
So... tune in next time to see Steve go on a massive rampage to stomach the news he had received. Or something like that.
And of course don't forget to tip your hats to Tofty for his proofreading.
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wooo.........................
Agh, y u bait me with link but not provide easily klickable link?
4363520 Ups, my bad. http://derpicdn.net/img/view/2014/4/16/601528__safe_princess+luna_animated_upvotes+galore_vulgar_plushie_irl_caption_wall+of+faves_funny.gif
I'll add it into the description
Now for the next test, combine his tech with there maguc. What could possibly go wrong?
4363540 Magic is basically just energy. Therefor it will overcharge. I will go into detail on this in the future^^
Hmm interesting. It is an odd type of magic resistance. Good chapter.
Ok, first things first:
th03.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2014/126/2/d/comic__spoilers_by_drawponies-d7hc45h.png
With that out of the way, let's see...hmmm....
Somehow I doubt Dashie wouldn't no humidity as a weather-pony, because a weather-pony has to know weather related stuff. But I'm sure there are enough other words Dashie would have problems pronouncing.
I'm not sure but I thought that A.K.Yearling and Daring Do are the same pony wasn't common knowledge for a reason. So maybe the Mane 6 should have kept this secret or something but that is open for speculation, just sounded unaccustomed to me, is all.
So, Steve's body is a mix of a fuse and a capacitor or something along those lines. In any high fantasy, something MLP:FiM has it's setting to, magic always is not only about manipulating energy but also matter and that leaves me with no point where I should put this reaction. Nonetheless, I'm intrigued where you are going with that idea.
As always, good chapert.
See you next installment
Oh, and for the matter of plushies: My Rainbow Dash Plushie from Equestria Plush has finally arrieved this week! YAY!
4363641 Did you molest it?
4363681 ...... Stop scaring the readers!
4363703
4363681
Nah, from what I've read in the author notes that's more a Gron-thing.
Would've been a too expensive target to molest anyway....
4363721
I have to reply to this with some spoilers up to the point where the story currently is. Since I take from your comment that you don't want to continue reading anyways I don't think that will matter.
I fail to see where this is a cliche that destroys the story
Which is there for a logical reason. And that reason is not because I would like the main character to have guns.
There was a discussion about that in previous comments already and the reactions differ from pony to pony.
Where do you see a relationship? The story is tagged romance, and has two of the mane six as character tags, but it will take a long while before it actually starts. I would accept this point if it would be together with a pony in the first few weeks, but not here.
If you read further you will find out that it has nothing to do with him being human, just a trait that comes with it, but is not human exclusive.
Of which none occurs. Why do you mention it)
I wonder where you see her as aggressive. She had a small outburst at the omnivore thing, that's it.
Point taken, that was overdone in the first chapters, you are right there.
In general. A story, especially HiE, tends to be full of clichès, since these stories have already been written so often. You can't invite the wheel new, but you don't have to. I don't see where any of the points you have listed actually breaks the story, besides maybe the last one. Usage of clichès is perfectly fine, as long as the execution is done correctly. This is a fanfiction. If you find it a clichè that can break the story to use the main six in Ponyville then I would suggest that you might think about that again.
4363876 The reason she did not ask was that he is clearly angry at her, and she is well aware of that. They barely talked at all after their meeting. But don't you worry, I don't plan to leave a loose end like this.
Can we see a pic of the guard? Maybe we all should be jealous
4364166 http://i.imgur.com/xw0bqYA.jpg Here you go, together with the princess he shall guard.
Interesting plot twist.^_^
So he is a magic capacitor is what you are saying? Wow that is going to cause issues.
4367502 Isn't a capacitor something that is able to store energy? Then no.
4367863 Nope, a capacitor works exactly the same as what you described magic did to John. Energy goes in one way, builds up as it tries to get past the resistance of the insulator, and then come out more powerful then the input. You made the Human into a magic capacitor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor
4367999 Oh, then I mixed up something up with the terminology and you are right. I didn't wrote this part with an wikipedia article open next to it, just something I had remembered from school but I couldn't remember the exact term.
4368103 Not a problem. But now you can use the Magic Capacitor part for future evil plans.
Looks like Steve is gonna get kidnapped by those Magic Society folks
4380830 Nope, but she certainly is silly.
That was intentional.
4382617 That's up to interpretation how exactly her banishment looked like, but either way I think he may be pardoned for this choice of words during his rant.
4382835 I kinda don't see what's there to interpret
4388068 Well, either she was cast inside the moon, or she was banished on it where she could walk around on the surface, only striped of her powers. Or am I misunderstanding something about the difference of on/in the moon.
4388225 She was clearly a part off the moon
img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121209043547/mlp/images/thumb/9/9f/Twilight_looks_up_at_the_moon_S1E01.png/1000px-Twilight_looks_up_at_the_moon_S1E01.png
(An image from the first episode before NMM broke free)
4389922 Or this is the seal that keeps her locked onto it. As it was never clearly told in the show this is purely headcanon.
4390192 They also said she was banished into it
4390251 Fine, then I have misunderstood that part. But this is an alternate universe, therefor...
4390265
My only other gripe would be Twilight threatening to ruin the end of a book. That's gotta be like one step under murdering orphans to her. It seems rather ooc.
That being said, I still loved this chapter. I can't wait for more.
Also:
4396239
I just thought it would be good for a chuckle or two. Sorry.
Well, she's is dealing with Rainbow Dash here. It's not like she would have actually ruined it for her. At least I don't think so.
Short on time, Twilight chose to go with the stick. Works well with RD 
4396239
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammary_gland#General (look just below the table)
Actually horses are one of the few mammals where the males do not have nipples.
Yeah, I think I crossed some lines there. But in my head it sounded like a rather fun idea at first so I just went on with it.
Now bend over
4398227 Being Wikipedia, it's not the most reliable. I'm pretty sure they do, but I could be wrong. I'll have to ask my uncle. He works with several farm animals, horses included. Regardless, the fact that most male mammals have nipples remains. Twilight, and Fluttershy are the last that would be surprised by nipples, yet so many stories still show this happening. AJ would also be one to know, working with farm animals and such, but I've never seen the same problem with her.
Again, like my other gripe, it's a very minor annoyance (nowhere near bad enough to hurt the quality of the story) but still something that makes me groan "this again?".
4397355 Even threatening to give away the ending is a crime worthy of a good flogging in her eyes.
4399329 And here we are, all having a civilized discussion on whether stallions have nipples or not. It took me a moment for that to sink in.
4399563 I don't see the problem with that. There are stranger things to discuss.
4399563
4399591
Yeah, like how your friend has a 20 inch horse di— Err... never mind. Carry on, citizens.
4399773
Sooooooooooooo........
Twilight has seen a Minotaur right? They have a very similar physiology, as mentioned earlier in the chapter. And yet, she is surprised that Steve has man boobs?
I CALL FOUL
4398227 Even if stallions don't have nipples I'd expect Twilight to know that some male mammals do have nipples. She reads a lot so I'd have expected her to say something about how humans are similar to [male mammal with nipples] or that they are also [fancy science word].
4459108
Actually..only Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy were around for Iron WIll, the rest were absent
And would a book actually mention such a small detail?