Playing with Magic
Spike yawned as he stumbled into the "Throne" room of Twilight's (and his) new home. Spotting his adopted mother/sister and her pupil, one Starlight Glimmer conversing over some scrolls laid out on the Cutie Map; he called out, while rubbing his eyes, sleepily, "What's up?"
Looking over at her freshly awoken Number One Assistant, Twilight beamed a smile, "Morning Spike! Starlight and I were just reviewing the formula for a spell that I thought might give us more information on the map, and how Starlight was able to use it for her time travel spell!"
"This should be fun, why don't you stay and watch Spike?" Starlight had noticed the little dragon had flinched slightly at the mention of the aforementioned incident with the map, and tried to not let her smile waiver.
Spike just looked at both mares before turning around, a deadpan expression on his face, and walked out, "Just don't try to blow anything up this time."
"Those were accidents!" Twilight shouted after him. "I don't try to blow things up! ...usually...." Twilight failed to notice the worried expression on Starlight's face at that comment.
"Oh,... I'm so excited to try out this new spell, Starlight. If it works, we should be able to do so much more with the Cutie Map!" Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, expressed to her pupil after Spike left. "Ready to get started?!"
Smiling shakily, Starlight responded, "Sure! ...Are you sure we thought of everything?"
Twilight smiled smartly, "Yes! No errant magical surges should occur while we're doing this. I even made sure we didn't do this on a day when Discord was meeting with Fluttershy." Then turning her attention to the Cutie Map she started powering her portion of the spell with Starlight starting hers. "Let's get started!"
A beam of magic lanced out from both the unicorn and the alicorn towards a point fixated above the table that started to grow and pulse as the spell-matrix took form, slowly it started pulling in ambient magic from across Ponyville....
Meanwhile...
"Thank you for attending this impromptu performance by the Great and Penitent Trixie!" The blue showmare shouted to her audience of young foals at the Ponyville Schoolhouse playground. She intended to finish with a large cascade of spell-shot fireworks, but was dismayed as her magic seemed to wain and only produced a meager six explosions.
Across town...
"Oh thank you for dropping by so quickly, Discord! I know you and Tree Hugger didn't start off on the right hoof last time you met; so I thought, since she stopped by, you two could try again over some tea and brownies?" The demure Fluttershy greeted her friend the door to her cottage.
"Oh think nothing of it, dear Fluttershy. I guess I could start getting more friends." Just as the draconequus was stepping into the doorway, he sneezed and felt a slight wisp of chaos fly towards the new sparkly castle in town.
"Oh! I hope you're not coming down with a cold, Discord?" the pale-yellow pegasus asked worriedly as she followed him inside.
"Don't worry Fluttershy, it's nothing to feel blue about."
Back at the castle...
Spike was in the castle's library about to send of a letter to Princess Celestia (to warn her of potential problems if Twilight's spell went wrong) by his magic-laced dragonfire; when the green flames leapt away from his mouth and instead of consuming the scroll in his claws, turned and left through the door.
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The spell-matrix was almost complete when Twilight registered three new magical signatures getting sucked into the matrix right before it detonated in a giant explosion of power and light. Before her in the heart of the explosion, Twilight saw many simultaneous scenes before being blinded by a sheer white light. Then she saw darkness as her body impacted the castle wall behind her. In her unconscious state three scenes replayed themselves again.
Scene 1...
Twilight saw herself standing in the throne room with a yellow mare with a gold and red mane in the midst of spell casting.
Scene 2...
Twilight saw herself with Starlight, whose mane was styled differently, also in the midst of casting a spell.
Scene 3...
Twilight saw an unascended version of herself with Trixie, sans hat and cape, apparently also casting a spell.
What was evident was that it seemed every replayed scene was that Twilight and the other mare were casting a spell similar to the one she and her Starlight had tried casting. But, the strange thing was that in each of those scenes both Twilight and the other mare were wearing matching rings on their horns....