> Piece of Chaos
>  by TheGuyWithTheFace
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Alright, on the count of three we lift. One… Two… Three!” shouted the burly pegasus as him and two others pulled on their ropes, lifting a massive statue off the ground. With a considerable amount of effort they managed to get the hunk of marble onto the dolly. “And...There…We…Go” the leader said through his exhausted panting. The other two were equally drained from the task.

“Remind me again why we have to move this freaking thing” one of the workers asked.

“No clue, Celestia just told me that she was worried about it breaking or something so we’ve gotta get it somewhere safe.”

“What the hell it the point of it if nobody can see it? It’s a statue!” the other worker chimed in.

“Hey, don’t yell at me. You got a problem, feel free to take it up with the resident SUN GODDESS who gave us the job.”

“Alright, alright, let’s just get the stupid thing in the truck.” And with that the three started pushing the statue towards the ramp of their moving van. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t happen to see the rock that was directly in the way of one of the wheels. That little bump was all it took to send the statue straight to the ground with a sold thump. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit” the leader repeated as he looked down at the fallen statue. “Is it broken? Please don’t be broken.” The trio lifted the statue back onto its base and checked for any damage.

“I think its ok. There don’t seem to be any cracks or anything so we’re good I think.

“Thank Celestia, I would have been on the moon for sure it this thing was broken” the forepony said after a relieved sigh. “Now all we have to do is get it back on.”

After a collective groan from the other two pegesi, they lifted the statue, (again), and wheeled the dolly in without incident. With their cargo loaded they drove away without noticing the little white fang they left sitting in the impression left in the grass.	
_______________________________________________________________________________________



The Canterlot sculpture garden  was all but empty as a brown unicorn with a mane and a question mark on his flank walked about as a dark red pegasus with a stopwatch mark circled impatiently overhead. 

The unicorn took a deep breath and sighed happily. “Are these gardens great or what?” 

“I’m gonna have to go with or what on this one man” The Pegasus deadpanned.

“Hey, don’t blame me Crimson; you’re the one who agreed to come with me” the unicorn shot back.

“Yeah, cause all you said was, ‘Wanna come with me over to Canterlot?’ which for nine ponies out of ten, means having a good time. I guess it’s my fault then for thinking that Looking Glass of all ponies would be interested in having fun” Crimson Skies said while still flying around over the statues. “Why didn’t you ask Twilight to come instead? She loves this crap even more than you do.”

“For your information I already did but she was busy.” Looking Glass answered, beginning to get seriously annoyed by his ‘friend’ up above him.

“awww, poor Glassy got rejected again” The Pegasus patronized before bursting into a fit of laughter.

“Ha ha ha, look I’ll tell you what, give me 2 hours to keep looking and we can hit up a bar afterwards, deal?” Glass offered making sure to hide his slight blush.

“45 minutes”

“45 minutes! It takes longer to get back to the damn gate! An hour and a half at least.”

“One hour, any longer and I’ll carry you out myself.” 

Glass let out a defeated sigh, he knew that crimson easily out matched him physically and pulling him out would take almost no effort at all. He also knew that crimson never made idle threats. “Fine one hour.” With a brohoof to seal the deal Glass got back to his walk with a more hurried pace thanks to his impatient friend’s time limit. 

The hour was drawing to its end as the pair approached some of the last statues. “40 statues in forty minutes, each one less interesting than the last.” Crimson moaned in boredom induced exhaustion. 

Looking Glass simply rolled his eyes. “Relax, this next one should be interesting, even to you.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath on that.”

“Really?” Looking Glass asked as they approached the corner hiding the last statue. “Well feast your eyes on this!” he said while making a show of turning and pointing his hoof to reveal…

“Sweet Celestia, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all day.” Crimson was referring to the completely empty space that looking glass was pointing to.

“What! That doesn’t make sense, it was always here. And they couldn’t have moved it because we saw all the others” Glass said in shock.  “We must have missed it. Come on, we just have to back-track a bit.”

“Oh no we won’t. We already went through that bore fest once, we are NOT going again. I was promised some cider and I intend to get it.” 

“Alright fine its only one statue anyway I guess. Let’s just go and...”  the rest of his sentence will forever remain unknown due to a rather rude interruption from Glass’s face meeting the ground.

“Well done Glassy, very well done. Only you could manage to trip in a completely flat garden” Crimson mocked while sarcastically applauding. 

“We’ve been over this,” the fallen unicorn said, “gravity has decided to have a personal vendetta against me.” 

“Oh I know exactly how you feel, that cloud over there has been stalking me for months now.” Crimson was just barely able to finish the remark be for laughing hysterically. “Maybe your parents should have gone with Shattered instead of Looking Glass.” Looking Glass simply tuned out Crimson as he slowly started to pick himself up when a small shine caught his eye.

“What’s this?” he thought out loud as he picked it up with magic. Upon close inspection it appeared to be a smooth white rock in the shape of a claw or maybe fang. “I thing part of one of the statues broke off.” Crimson as it is to be expected couldn't have cared less if he had tried.

“And your point is…?” Glass ignored the comment and continued to move the piece of marble in his magic. He could tell what but something just seemed off about it. Acting on impulse the unicorn reached out with a hoof to touch the small fragment. 

The moment the two met Looking Glass felt a sudden shot of pain like a lightning bolt speed through his entire body, then he collapsed into darkness.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Elsewhere:
Twilight panicked, running all over the library in a confused haste. “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…” repeating the two syllables endlessly as he hyperactive pink friend vibrated violently in the middle of the room. “What’s gonna happen this time? Another hydra, return of parasprites, is the Everfree Forest on fire?” in the middle of Twilight’s mental breakdown from stress Pinkie Pie simple stopped. No warning, no aftershocks, she just stopped and that was the end of it.

“All done” the pink mare said with her trademark smile plastered onto her face.

Twilight looked on in disbelief, a flat “What” being the only response she could create.

“All done.” The party pony repeated happily, “Whatever was going to happen must have happened.”

“But, but, but” Twilight repeated as she tried to understand what had happened. “I thought the shaking meant there would be a real dozy of an event.” 

“So whatever happened must have been one.”

“But what happened?” the lavender mare asked pleadingly.

“How should I know? I’m not a psychic.”

“But yes you are. Remember you had that crystal ball and said I’d get a really neat birthday present?”

“You’re birthday isn’t for another 126 days, 19 hours, and 53 minutes from now. How could you know about your present already unless… OHMYGOSH! Twilight are you a psychic? Do me! Do me! What am I gonna eat for breakfast next Tuesday?” Pinkie asked excitedly as she bounced ridiculously close to Twilight’s face.

With a firm push out of her personal space Twilight responded, “First off, you always eat cake for breakfast. Secondly…”

Twilight could finish the rest of her though as she gasped loudly and dramatically. “YOU’RE RIGHT! OHMYGOSH Twilight you really are psychic!”

Twilight opened her mouth to respond but decided against it. Logic was no match to Pinkie Pie, no matter how sound, rational, or simple it may be. She simply sighed and decided to drop the subject. Whatever had just happened, it couldn’t have been too important.
 
	

> I need 1,459 words of chapter 2 stat!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beep….Beep….Beep….Beep….

Looking Glasses eyes slowly tried to open but were forced shut by the incandescent light above him. After a few more attempts he was able to actually see his surroundings. He was in a bleached white hospital room and was hooked up to two machines. One of them was simply a heart monitor that they attach to every patient, the other seemed to be recording data coming from a handful of wires taped to Glass’s forehead. Groggily, Looking Glass sat up, (trying to ignore the pounding headache he had), and saw Crimson sleeping on a nearby chair. Looking Glass brought his hoof to his head in a vain attempt to soften his headache and groaned, “What the hell happened?”

Awoken from his sleep Crimson took a few seconds to figure out what was happening and then immediately rushed over to Looking Glass’s side.  “Glassy you’re alive!” Crimson shouted excitedly, “I was beginning to think you had gone into a coma or something.”

“A coma?” Looking Glass asked confusedly. “Crimson, why the hell am I in a hospital?”

“You don’t remember?” Looking Glass simply shook his head. “We were about to leave the sculpture gardens when you found a piece of one of the statues or something, then the next thing I know, you just collapse out of nowhere” Crimson explained with a concerned look on his face.  

“That’s right!” Looking Glass exclaimed as his memory returned to him, “I found a fang from one of the statues and then when I touched it I just fainted…  Wait, if I fainted back at the gardens how’d we get here?”

“Simple, I had to carry you’re fat-flank all the way here. Which I do believe translates into you owing me one, big time.”
“Wow, for a moment there I thought you might have just done something for someone else just out of basic kindness and decency” Glass joked “Hey how long have I been out for?”

“About 3 hours” said a third voice neither of the ponies recognized. They both turned and saw a light blue unicorn wearing a white scrub standing in the doorway. “I’m hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No, not at all doctor” Looking Glass assured, hoping the doctor could give him more information about what happened.

“Well in that case let me introduce myself, the name’s Axle Rusts.” Both Crimson and Looking Glass took on a very worried expression. Noticing this Axle quickly reassured them, saying “Relax, my parents assumed at the time I’d fix cart like they do, my talent laid in medicine however.” He turned away from them to show his cutie mark of brain with a bandage over it. “I’m this hospital’s leading neurologist.” Glass let out a relieved sigh now that his worries were put to ease.

“Alright so tell me doc, what in Celestia’s name happened to me?” Glass questioned curiously.

Axle Rusts Looked away and rubbed his white mane nervously. “This is where things get a bit awkward… We don’t exactly know.”

“WHAT!” Crimson and Looking Glass shouted in surprise causing the doctor to jump noticeably. 

“Don’t worry, we've done every diagnostic we could and you seem to be in perfect health, it’s just that we can’t exactly figure out what caused it.”

“It must have been the rock I picked up” Looking Glass stated.

“Yes, we think so too, and you’re friend luckily had the presence of mind to bring it with him. Unfortunately every test we've done has comeback negative for all spells, herbs, and abnormal energys. Right now we’re thinking that it may have transferred any energy it had into you when you made contact with it. However, all you’re magic levels appear to be within normal limits for a unicorn of your size… Tell me; were you particularly weak or strong at magic before the incident?”

“Umm, I guess I was maybe a bit above average but not majorly” the unicorn answer, worried that the incident might have affected his magic somehow.

“Well that matches up with your readings. And again we've scanned you multiple times to find the energy but we haven’t found any.”

“Well what does that mean? Is my buddy alright?” Crimson asked.

“Well, I have two theories; either the magic simply used your body as a middleman to be released, kind of like how lightning might use you or a tree to get to the ground, in which case you’ll be completely fine.” The Doctor hesitated with the second theory, afraid of the reaction it may provoke.

“Or?” Looking Glass questioned.

Axle sighed heavily to prepare for what he was going to say next. “Or the magic may simply be hiding dormant inside of you, in which case it may begin to manifest itself at any time, probably in the next few days or maybe weeks.”

“So you’re telling me that I’m either completely fine, or a ticking time bomb of magic?” Looking Glass asked angrily.

The doctor sighed again, “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Looking Glass simply fell back onto the bed and closed his eyes to try to make sense of it all, Crimson on the other hand still wanted more answers, and rose from his chair to confront the doctor more personally. “So what the hell are we supposed to do!? Just sit on our hooves and hope for the best!”

“Please remain calm sir,” Axle Rusts pleaded, “Look; you have a hospital in Ponyville, right?” A still fuming Crimson Skies nodded. “My suggestion would be to go in for a quick check-up every couple of days for about a month or two. After that it would be reasonable to assume that the magic had left you and that you’ll be fine. Even if it does manifest itself, there will almost certainly be a way of dismissing it.”

Now set at ease, (at least somewhat at ease anyway), Crimson retook his seat and breathed deeply. Now that there was at least some kind of plan things just didn't seem quite as bad. Looking Glass got back up from his bed and said, “If there’s nothing you guys can do for me then I’d kind of like to get back home if I can.”

“I suppose so… I’ll just get the paper work and have one of the nurses send a message about the situation to Ponyville hospital. Just wait here a moment. “And with that Axle Rusts left the room, leaving Looking Glass and Crimson in a very uncomfortable silence. Neither one know what to say but the silence was becoming too much to bear.

“So…” Crimson started, still not sure what he could possibly say to help any of this.

“Relax Crimson, like the doctor said, there’s a good chance that it will end up being nothing, and if it is something we happen to live near the living incantation of magic. There’s no way she won’t be able to fix it with some kind of nullifying spell or something” Looking Glass said while faking a smile for his friend’s benefit. 

The act seemed to work as Crimson noticeably relaxed. However the two remained quiet until the doctor returned with the necessary release forms.  After a few signatures and initials the pair was out of the hospital to find that Celestia’s sun had long since been replaced by Luna’s beautiful moon. “What time do you think it is?” Looking Glass questioned.

“I’d say about 7 or 8ish. And do you know what that means?” Crimson asked with a wicked grin.

“Something tells me I don’t want to know.”

“It means that it’s time to hit the bars like I was promised! And good thing too. I need a drink after today.”

Glass looked at his red friend in surprise, “Seriously? We just got out of the hospital and the first thing you want to do is get drunk off your flank.”

“Yup” Crimson responded shamelessly

“I already have a headache; I sure as hell don’t want to add a hang-over to it.”

“Well that’s good. If you’re staying sober then that just means I get to be double drunk.”

“You do realize that doesn't even make sense, right?”

“ Doesn't have to my friend, doesn't have to.” Without even waiting for another incredulous comment from the brown unicorn Crimson started off towards his favorite Canterlot bar, The Broken Horseshoe. Begrudgingly, Looking Glass followed along, silently hoping that today would be a slow night there.

It wasn't. 

> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Hey Looking Glass, how are you feeling?” Twilight asked with a concerned expression as she opened the door to the Library.

“The same way I’ve been feeling every time you’ve asked for the past month… 100% absolutely fine” Looking Glass answered back. He had been going to get checked out every three days for the last month and every time the doctors at Ponyville General have found nothing at all out of the ordinary. “You really need to stop worrying about me, it can’t be healthy.”

“I know, I just can’t stop. You heard what that doctor said first hand. That magic could come out at anytime, and then who knows what will happen. I just don’t want anything to happen to one of my PFFs.”

“Relax, if it was in me to begin with why would it stay dormant for month, it doesn’t make sense.” Looking Glass said to try and ease the magenta mare’s worries.  

“I guess your right” Twilight finally conceded. “Anyway I’m really glad you’re here I have a new experiment I want to show you.” Twilight then led the way through the make-shift labyrinth formed by the hundreds of books stacked throughout the library’s main room.

“Study session I presume.” Looking Glass asked as he eyed one of the stacks which was topped with Super Naturals: Natural Remedies That Are Simply Super.

“Oh yeah, sorry about the mess” Twilight apologized while trying in vain to hide her blushing. “I guess you stop noticing a mess after spending a little over a night in the middle of it.”

“Exactly how much over are we talking here?”

“Oh not that much” Twilight said while dismissively waving her hoof.

“Twilight?” Looking Glass asked, clearly not buying her bluff

“Nothing too bad just maybe since 7ish… or maybe 3ish” Twilight admitted while eyeing the floor in embarrassment.”

“Geez Twilight, when was the last time you actually left this tree?” Glass asked in astonishment. He was very much accustomed to the purple mare pulling the occasional all nighters but a day and a half is extreme even by her standards. Twilights silence and continued look of embarrassment answered Glass’s question and then some. “Wait, we’re talking 3 PM, right?” the question was met by more silence as Twilight’s cheeks became an even deeper shade of red. Looking Glass face-hoofed and let out a slight laugh. “And I’m the one Crimson chooses to call a geek all the time.” At this comment Twilight converted her embarrassment into anger. Looking Glass immediately recognized his fatal mistake and backed up nervously. “Whoa, whoa, calm down Twilight. I take it back” Looking Glass said while bringing up his hooves in defense, “you are not, nor have never been a geek.”

Twilight smiled triumphantly at his apology. It was nice to know how easy it was to intimidate Glass, even if they both knew that she was really mad. “That’s what I like to hear.” She then turned back around and continued towards the door to her basement laboratory. “Speaking of Crimson, I still don’t get why you’re friends with him. Every time I see you guys you’re either arguing over something incredibly stupid or just blatantly insulting each other.”

“That’s just how colt friendship works.  We butt heads, call each other names and sometimes even throw the occasion hoof at each other’s faces, but at the end of the day we both know that we have each other’s backs. ” Looking Glass explained as they reached the door and began to descend underground. 

Twilight stopped and brought her hoof to her chin. “Hmm… Maybe I could write the princess about this kind of friendship. “
Glass chuckled a bit at the idea and said “Good luck with that. I think getting some firsthand experience in that field of friendship is gonna be a little bit tricky.”

“How so?” Twilight asked with genuine curiosity.

“Well you may not know this, but last time I check I’m pretty sure you a mare, not a stallion, so have fun jumping that hurdle.”

“Oh come on, in can’t make that much of a difference, it’s just I tiny bit of anatomy what does that have to do with friendship? Just treat me like you do Crimson.”

“One: the anatomy actually does make a difference. Because of our testosterone and natural instincts, stallions are just naturally more aggressive towards each other. Which translates into us arguing and sometimes fighting. And two: I can’t treat you the way I treat Crimson because I’ve just been raised never to be mean to mares, especially ones I’m particularly fond of.” 

“Aww, that’s so sweet. You’re the best friend a mare could ask for.” Twilight said as she rubbed her head against Glasses neck affectionately. Glass grimaced for a brief moment at that last sentence but fortunately Twilight hadn’t noticed. The two finished their short walk in silence and Twilight approached a large table covered in a variety of beakers filled with strangely colored chemicals.

“I take it that this is why you were studying for over a day.” 

“ Yup” Twilight responded with a twinkle in her eye as she prepared to explain her latest experiment . “You see, after the whole incident with my brother’s wedding I realized that it is scarily easy for someone to be manipulated with magic, so I figured why not find a way to dispel the magic? Obviously I first considered simply using a spell, but that isn’t really an option to everypony like the Pegasus and earth ponies. With that in mind I started looking into some other means of magic suppression. Luckily the poison joke incident taught me that many plants have magical properties especially if their mixed the right way. So I read a few books I had here in the Library and found some plants that could potentially have the desired effect when they’re combined. ”

Looking Glass looked stunned at the many different chemicals lining the table. “Wow Twilight, that’s really impressive, which of these is it?” 

“That’s the roadblock I ran into earlier; I have almost no idea what half of these things will do. Ideally they should simply get rid of any enchantments currently on a pony but there is also a good chance that they might be dangerous. Luckily you’re here for that. I just need you to cast your spell on the chemicals to try and discern which ones might work and which ones might be dangerous.”

“It would be my pleasure but my spell is more for how things work than what they do.” 
“Don’t worry about that, all that’s really important is that I know if any are dangerous. Anything that is particularly toxic or volatile should show up in any scans you do” Looking Glass simply shrugged to show his concession and then approached the table and randomly picked a beaker of a bright yellow substance as his first test subject. He leaned over and pointed his horn at the glass and they both began to glow with a light brown aura “Alright… this one seems to be safe… I don’t think it will do anything though… It seems pretty much inert” Looking Glass said through his concentration.

“Formula #14: tested: no effect” Twilight thought out loud as she jotted this down on a notepad she had lying around down there.

Looking Glass then moved on to one that had a more purplish glow to it. “Whoa, stay away from this one” He said worriedly, “Whatever is in this thing it’s lethal enough to take down bear.”

“Interesting, Formula 7: tested: highly toxic. Thank you so much for doing this, who knows what, could have happened if I had to test this thing out the normal way.”

“It’s no problem, what’s the point of a special talent if you can’t actually use it for anything” Looking Glass stated absent mindedly as he began to channel into a dark red liquid. “Besides it’s not like I’m in any danger doing this.”  As he said this, the red solution began to bubble slightly for a moment before stopping, an event that was left unseen by both observers as one concentrated on a spell and the other was busy wiring down notes.  “Wait I think I’m getting something…”

“What? Is it dangerous?” Twilight asked in concern.

“I’m…not…sure…. Hold on let me just…” Looking Glass then began to channel more magic into the beaker causing his aura to intensify. For a few moments nothing happened to either the unicorn or the beaker until… Looking Glass stopped channeling with a successful smile on his face, “It’s not dangerous, and as far as I can tell I think it should do exactly what you want it to.”

“Really?!” Twilight asked with excitement as she prepared her quill to write down the success.

“I think so. When I was casting just now the chemical was almost resisting the spell, trying to keep it from working, it took almost all my focus for me to overcome the resistance and learn how it worked. If you could up the concentration a bit then you’d have yourself some quality magic-be-gone.”

“Ohhh, this is so exciting! This breakthrough could mean HUGE things; it may even make us famous!”

“Make ME famous. You and your friends are already celebrities for the whole ‘Saved the entire world twice thing” Looking Glass joked. Twilight just smiled as she copied everything that she had on formula 21 down. “Hey, do you want me to keep testing these things or should we just not bother?”

“Ummm…” Twilight thought for a moment, “Keep testing, maybe I accidentally made something else useful or maybe even something that works better than formula 21.” With that Looking Glass continued and chose a soft pink one to test next.

“Okay… I’m defiantly getting some volatility on this one… I think it’s also highly sensitive to magic so I’d refrain for casting…any…spells.” Unfortunately his realization hit just a moment too late as the breaker exploded powerfully in Looking Glasses face, causing a familiar Blackness to overcome him. 

> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Looking Glass’s eyes snapped open in shock as he was thrown back into consciousness by a blast of cold water to his face. “Oh thank Celestia, you’re alive” Twilight siad in relief as her friend looked around, frantically trying to piece together what just happened. Finally his memory returned and he calmed down. He let out a low groan as he got up from his back and into a sitting position with his front legs supporting him. Looking Glass reinspected his surroundings, this time without the panic he had a moment ago. He was still in Twilights laboratory and the table that had once held her many concoctions was now a charred mess, Spike was standing a little ways off to the side holding a now empty bucket. Looking Glass turned his gaze to Twilight and saw that she had a very surprised and worried look on her face.

“What’s wrong Twilight?” Looking Glass asked curiously.

“Oh, umm… it’s nothing really. Just uhhhh….  Just a little soot on your face.” Twilight lied. Looking Glass was not buying it for a second.

“Twilight, you’ve never been a good liar, now tell me what’s wrong, if it’s about me, then I’m bound to find out sooner or later.” Twilight simply sighed and magically brought over a mirror for looking Glass to see. Glass looked and at first didn’t see anything too abnormal about his face. He had a few burns (some chemical, some heat), and a lot of ash and soot but other than that nothing really. Then he noticed his eyes. 

His left eye looked completely normal. His right one however had shrunken to the point where it was practically a pinpoint. Looking Glass brought hoof up to the altered eye in disbelief and pulled open his eye lid for a better look. “Oh Celestia, I’m so sorry Glass. I should have never had you testing those chemicals; I should have known it would be dangerous for you. We’ve got to get you to a hospital immediately!”  

“Don’t worry Twilight I’m fine… I think. My vision doesn’t seem to be affected very much and aside from a few superficial burns I’d say I’m ok.”

“I don’t care,” Twilight said bluntly, “you just had a chemical solution explode inches from your face and got covered in all the chemicals around it as well. You’re going to the hospital even if I have to drag you there.” Looking Glass could tell by the determined look on Twilight’s face that there would be no arguing with her and decided to do as she said.	

“Alright Twilight, let’s go” Looking Glass said as he got up fully. He then turned away from Twilight and led the way up the stairs to the library’s main room. Looking Glass briefly paused to grab the door with his magic with the intent to open it. The door seemed to have other plans and slammed into the wall next to it with so much force it was reduced to a pile of splinters and nails while leaving a massive jagged crack on the wall. Both unicorns simply stood there in shock. Twilight could only silently mouth the word ‘how’ as Looking Glass frantically apologized. “I’m so sorry Twilight, I have no idea how I was able to do that. I just meant to open it for us.”	

“Don’t worry Looking Glass, I can get the door fixed. Rainbow Dash has broken it dozens of times, though never quite to this extent.”

“Just let me clean it up and we can go” Looking Glass said as he magically gathered up the many fragment that had been thrown across the stair case. While doing so he couldn’t help but to imagine what the door had looked like only moments ago when it was fully intact.  The many pieces glowed with Glass’s magical aura and collected in a pile and he intended, and then began to rearrange themselves. Each splinter began to connect like the pieces of a puzzle until all that remained was a brand new door, without so much as a scratch on it. Once more the ponies could only stare at the result in amazement. “Maybe going to the doctor’s was a good idea after all.”

Twilight and Looking Glass entered the hospital together and approached the counter, behind which nurse Redheart was working. Twilight stepped ahead to said to her, “Nurse Redheart, We need to see doctor Stable right away. We had an accident in my laboratory, and I think something’s wrong with Looking Glass.”

“Oh dear, we’ll get the doctor immediately, I just have to know ahead of time if there’s anything of danger to other ponies?” Both unicorns shook their heads. “Alright go wait in room 27 b, just down the hall, Dr. Stable will see you as soon as possible.

“Thank you nurse. Come on Twilight.” Looking Glass spoke as he took the lead towards the hospital room. The two entered the white room and sat in silence, neither knowing what they should say about the situation they found themselves in. Luckily it only took the carmel coated doctor a few minutes to see them.

“Mr. Glass, Mrs. Sparkle” he said, nodding to both of the respectively, “Excuse me if I skip the pleasantries; I was informed that this was an emergency.”

“We understand doctor,” Twilight said. “Glass was helping me with a recent experiment when one of the chemicals reacted to his magic and exploded.  We have no idea what the actual damage is besides that it messed up his right eye. He claims he can see out of it fine though.” Looking Glass merely nodded in agreement with Twilights description.

Dr. Stables leaned in close to examine Looking Glass’s effected eye. “Well I don’t think there’s any retinal scarring and if you can see out of it fine then it is most likely superficial, perhaps the chemical you where working with had a shrinking component of some sorts. And if that’s all then I don’t really see how this constituted as an emergency.”

“This isn’t the only thing that was altered” Looking Glass said grimly. “I think it might be affecting my magic too. Just a little while ago I went to open Twilight’s door and I accidentally shattered it against her wall.”

“Well that isn’t too unusual, many unicorns exhibit spikes in the power of their magic in stressful situations” the doctor added in hope of reassuring Looking Glass.

“You didn’t let me finish. I shattered the door into unrecognizable splinters, and then put it back together, piece by piece, into a brand new door.  I don’t even know any carpentry spells! My talent is for finding out how stuff works!”

“Oh dear, that is a problem. Stay here, I’m going to get a few ponies in here to run a few tests. In the mean time avoid using any magic, even if it’s just to pick up a pen” the doctor instructed before hurriedly exiting the room.


Twilight and Looking Glass both exchanged a concerned looked and returned to the silence that surrounded those moments before.

The doctors and nurses ran every test possible on Looking Glass’s Magic levels, hooked him up to countless machines, and the most he or Twilight got as an answer to their unasked questions where deeply worried looks. Finally after the tests were completed and the results were examined Dr. Stables entered into the room the two friends were waiting in with a very long face. He stood there in silence, not making eye contact, for a few moments, trying to find the right words for what he was about to say. Finally he let out a sigh and began, “I’m sorry I have to tell you this but right now your magic levels are completely off the charts, beyond what a normal unicorn should be capable of.” This elicited a very confused look from both Twilight and Looking Glass.

“Uh doctor, correct me if I’m wrong but that seems like a good thing” Looking Glass said hesitantly. 

“Under normal circumstances I’d agree with you. This would be absolutely amazing. However these are not normal circumstances. Due to your recent history, we strongly believe that this is the result of magic you exposed to about a month ago.” The doctor paused to let this sink in for the both of them. “That being said I do believe it is treatable. We have a number of experienced dispellers on call here; we should be able to rid the magic from your body.

“But doctor, you just said that this magic has made me stronger than ever, why would I want it gone?” the brown unicorn asked

“You don’t understand. There’s a difference between natural magic and gained magic” Dr. Stable explained. “It takes years for our bodies to gain control of our inherent magical abilities. You’ve probably seen what happens with newborn foals, and that’s only a small amount of the magic most unicorns possess by adulthood. And while there are times when a unicorn's magic can be artificially empowered, it is always temporary and never particularly much. With the amount of magic that has been transferred to you and with a possibly indefinite time limit, broken doors will be the least of your worries.”

Looking Glass’s left eye when wide with shock. “In that case get the dispellers in here NOW!” Much to Looking Glass’s relief they had one already waiting just outside the room. She was a bright green mare with curly yellow hair and a cutie mark that looked to be a broken wand. “Hello Mr. Glass, my name’s Spring Shine, and I’d just like to assure you that you’re in good hands. I haven’t met a spell, enchantment, or illusion I can’t get rid of.” She spoke in a warm tone that would have set looking Glass at ease no matter what she had said. “Now, Mrs. Sparkle I’m going to need you and Dr. Stables to step outside for a moment while I cast the spell so that there aren’t any accidents.” Twilight looked at Glass worriedly. Looking Glass gave her a nod to say ‘it’s going to be okay’ and she left alongside the doctor, leaving the two of them alone. “Alright honey, let’s begin, I’m going to need you to bend you head over and close your eyes, the magic will be extremely bright when it is released and it could damage your eyesight.” Looking Glass followed his directions without hesitation, confident that Spring Shine knew what she was doing. Spring Shine lowered her head as well and touched the tip of her horn to Looking Glass’s. “Now I must warn you, this is going to sting a bit.” Then without further ado, she began to channel her anti-magic spell into Looking Glass. 

Stinging a bit was a major understatement. Looking Glass could feel the spell burning in his horn, slowly working its way down into his brain. However, he knew that it was necessary and simply grit his teeth and bore through it. Spring Shine’s face was beginning to contort in exertion as she poured more and more magic into looking Glass to disperse the unwanted magic inside of him. She could feel that she was almost at the source but she couldn’t quite get through to it. She took a deep breath, eased slightly on her magic and then hit it full force to try and get the magic out. Just need to get… a little… bit … MORE! She thought to herself as she made a final push to hit the magic inside Looking Glass. There was a immensely bright blast, a loud thud and then silence. Looking Glass opened his eyes to find that the hospital room was it tatters, chairs were knocked down, pamphlets were scattered about everywhere, the bed was charred and lightly smoking and Spring Shine was crumpled up in a heap at the opposite wall from Looking Glass. “Oh Celestia!” Looking Glass shouted as he rushed over to the injured mare. “DOCTOR, DOCTOR! Spring Shine is hurt!” Hearing Looking Glass’s yells both Dr. Stable and Twilight ran into the room. Spotting Spring Shines in the corner, Dr. Stable quickly jumped into action. 

Once he reached her he knelt down to check her vitals. “Alright, she seems to be breathing but she’s badly hurt, and barely even conscience. We’re going to have to get her to the emergency room immediately.” Ignoring Looking Glass and Twilight in favor of critically wounded Spring Shine Dr. Stable picked her up in his magic and quickly, but carefully, exited the room. 

“What the hay happened Looking Glass?” Twilight asked in confusion	

Looking Glass shook his head and responded, “I don’t know, but this can’t possibly be good.”
	

> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	After the incident with Spring Shine, it became extremely clear that there would be no easy solution to this problem. Spring Shine was one of the best dispulsion casters alive and she failed spectacularly. According to about a dozen different doctors, Looking Glass had a little over a year or so before going critical, and that’s assuming that they A) understood exactly what the hell was happening to him (they didn’t) and B) he didn’t kill himself by accident due to the whole ‘extremely powerful and extremely uncontrolled magic’ thing. In lieu of any actual treatment, Dr. Stables merely expressed his deepest sympathies and told Looking Glass to try to “plan accordingly.” 

________________________________________________________________________________

Over the course of the next week Looking Glass attempted anything and everything possible to try and get rid of the magic, ranging from more dispulsion attempts (many of which ended in charred rooms and bruised flanks), to very generous dosages of highly concentrated formula 21 (evidently it can block spells but not get rid of raw magic). They even tried burning up all of the excess magic by just using it. They gave up on that plan after he was able to uproot and juggle three trees in air simultaneously without breaking a sweat. With each failed attempt Looking Glass lost more and more hope as it began to dawn upon him that there may be no solving this and that he was going to die.

Twilight trotted briskly through Ponyville with a saddlebag full of strange concoctions and a hopeful smile on her face. She eventually came up to the dark green house she had been looking for. As she approached her ears twitched slightly as she picked up a faint, high-pitched whistling and the sound of flapping wings. After taking her fair share of head on collisions with a certain rainbow maned pegasus, she instinctively hit the ground, put her hooves over her face and braced for impact. However said impact never happened. Instead Twilight was hit by the cloud of dirt and dust resulting from a hasty brake. Twilight looked up through the debris and saw Crimson Skies hovering a few feet away from her. “Hey Twilight, sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting have to stop so suddenly” Crimson apologized.

“You were going at least 100 mile an hour just there and you stopped less than 10 feet from the door. Were you planning on breaking the door down or something?” Twilight asked in confusion.

“Actually yeah, that was exactly my plan” Crimson confessed without the slightest bit on self-consciousness. Twilights just took a moment and stared as the Pegasus in awe, half expecting him to burst into laughter over his joke. No such burst came.

“Why the hell would you think that was even a remotely good idea?”

“Easy,” Crimson began, “the door is locked and Looking Glass has holed himself up in there for 5 days now. He would even acknowledge I’m out here.”

“He’s hasn’t left there in 5 days!” Twilight shouted in shock.

“Yup, I’m surprised you didn’t know already.”

“I’ve been in Canterlot the last few days trying to find any more on an anti-magic potion.” Twilight responded. “I got home two days ago but had to go to Zecora for help making them”

“Well good luck getting the stuff to him; he’s hold-up pretty tight in there.” Twilight turned her gaze to the house and it’s covered up widows. She then walked up closer to the door and tried the door, only to find it lock.  “Oh wow, the door knob! I can’t believe I never thought of that after trying to get him outside for THREE STRAIGHT DAYS!” Crimson hissed in bitter sarcasm.

Twilight ignored his comment and shouted, “LOOKING GLASS. IT’S TWILIGHT. I’VE MADE SOME NEW POTIONS THAT MIGHT HELP.” She paused to wait for a response but found none. Now slightly frustrated Twilight tried again even louder. “PLEASE OPEN UP LOOKING GLASS. WE’RE REALLY WORRIED ABOUT YOU.” Once again silence was all that answered her. Realizing that her pleas were getting her nowhere, Twilight decided to switch to a different tactic: fury and intimidating. “LOOKING GLASS!!! LET ME IN NOW OR SO HELP ME I’LL FORCE MY WAY IN THERE MYSELF!!!” A tense moment passed as the pair outside wait for a response. Their patience and determination were rewarded… with nothing.  

“Well now that you’ve failed at your attempts, please get out of the way so I can bust down this d-” Crimson was cut short by a earth shaking blast emanating from the hole where Looking Glass’s front door once was. In front of the wreckage was Twilight, horn still aglow from the massive surge of energy she released and huffing like a VERY pissed off bull. Twilight trotted into the house with Crimson Skies making sure to follow more than a few feet behind the enraged unicorn. Besides the light coming through the still smoldering hole the house was filled with darkness. Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and her horn began to glow from magical energy, illuminating the room her and Crimson were standing in. They were in what used to be a well furnished living room, though neither could tell because it looked like the aftermath of a manticore attack (or pinkie’s Tuesday afternoon; there is shockingly little difference between the two in both destruction and fatality rate). There wasn’t a single intact piece of furniture in the room. What appeared to be a self was now a pile of splintered wood and incinerated books (Twilight would make sure to weep for their loss later on). The remains of a sofa were to their left, the cushions, or rather what was left of them, on the other hand were everywhere, giving the floor a thin but relatively thorough layer of charred fabric and feathers.  Everything else from the desk, to the table, to the lamps was in similar conditions. Seeing this devastation, Twilight’s rage immediately switched back to concern for her dear friend. 

“Looking Glass?” she called in concern.  Faintly she heard a low groan coming from the stairs across the room from them. Responding to the sound with unprecedented speed, Crimson took off up the stairs in the blink of an eye with Twilight trailing a short distance behind him. 

At the top of the stairs Crimson expertly banked to his right, pulling off a hair-pin turn at breakneck speed, and headed directly for Looking Glass’s bedroom. He quickly decelerated and landed just inches away from the door. Crimson first tried the doorknob but was met by resistance. Undeterred Crimson simply started turning at the knob with more and more force, until it eventually devolved into him trying to pull the door off its hinges. While Crimson tried to solve their problem with brute strength, Twilight attempted to use reason. “Looking Glass, please. Just open the door so we can talk.” Beyond Crimson’s frantic smashing of the unfortunate wooden door, not a sound was made. “Looking Glass!” Twilight yelled, patience clearly wearing thin, “We know you’re in there, and we know you can hear me!” 

Finally the two friends got an actual response. Unfortunately that response happened to be “Go away, both of you.” Crimson and Twilight looked at each other in shock that their friend actually answered. Said shock quickly evaporated when they finally realized what that answer had been. Crimson redoubled his efforts on the door, now trying to bash it inward while Twilight returned her attention to the voice coming from beyond it. 

“Looking Glass, please, we haven’t seen you in almost a week” Twilight pleaded. “I don’t know if you heard me before but I‘ve made some new potions that I think might work. Can please open the door and let us at least try to help?”

“Go. Away.” 

“Looking Glass be reasonable. We’re your friends and we just want to help you. You can’t just lock yourself away. There are people who care about you” Twilight said as tears began to form at the edges of her eyes.

“I said… GO…AWAY!” Looking Glass repeated with the added emphasis of basting the door from the inside, sending it, and a certain nearby Pegasus hurdling down the short hall between the room and the stairs. Twilight, having been standing a bit to the side was struck painfully in her shoulder and thrown to the ground. Twilight opened her eyes to see a copious amount of dust and smoke coming from the door frame where she could make out a dark silhouette of a unicorn huffing in rage.

In few moments, after the debris had settled, Looking Glass was able to see his surroundings. Directly in front of him was his door, behind which was one of his oldest friends. He looked over to his side and found Twilight looking up at him in fear and pain. That look immediately broke the spell of his anger as he realized what he had just done. “Oh Celestia, Twilight, I-I’m so sorry.” Looking Glass apologized as he went to her side.  Her fear was gone but in its place stood concern. “Are you okay? Please tell me I didn’t hurt you.” 

Twilight sat herself up, trying to hide the immense pain she was in, faked a smile, and replied “I’m okay, Crimson probably isn’t though. 

“Crimson? Where is… Oh no.” As it donned on him he sprinted across the short hallway to the door. Using his hooves Looking Glass flipped the door over to reveal Crimson skies, lying on his back, eyes shut. For a brief moment Looking Glass truly believed the pegasus was dead, much to his horror, but then saw the telltale rising of Crimson’s chest.  Glass’s relief was short lived as the situation fully settled onto him. Panic returned to his eyes as he fully inspected his unconscious friend for major injuries. Crimson didn’t appear to have any immediately life threatening injuries, but Looking Glass could possibly know the full extent of the damages. Already multiple nasty looking bruises were forming on the pegasus’s body, and the back of his head was bleeding a bit. He almost certainly had at least a concussion. Looking Glass heard hoof-steps behind him and he turn his head to see that Twilight had managed to get up fully and made her way over.  Twilight, we’ve got to get Crimson to the hospital, he’s got at the very least a massive concussion and probably even more.”

“You’re right,” Twilight agreed, “Pick him up with your magic and try not to move him around anymore than necessary”

“I-I… I can’t you’re going to have to.” 

“What? Looking Glass I’ve seen you uproot trees and toss boulders with ease”

“I said I can’t okay!” Looking Glass yelled. “Whenever I use my magic nowadays I end up destroying something! Now come on, we have to get him to the doctors!”

Seeing that there was no way around this, Twilight complied and hefted Crimson up, with a considerable amount of effort and pain, using her magic. Looking Glass then took the lead, opening the door for Twilight and Crimson, and the two headed out on the now very familiar route to the hospital.

The diagnosis of Crimson Sky’s “crash landing” was less than spectacular. He had suffered a moderate concussion, had four bruised ribs, and a fractured wing. At the moment he was still unconscious on the hospital bed, with Twilight and Looking Glass was waiting next to him. Neither of them had spoken at all during the trip over, and their silence continued into the room, as each was lost in their own thoughts. Twilight for her part, was trying to think back to what had happened before she left for Canterlot. She reviewed all the attempts over the last few weeks and saw how Looking Glass had changed since then.   

Looking Glass had been so optimistic the first few times. Always being quick to stand back up after a blast and always ready to try the next solution. She now realized it had been denial, and with each and every failure he had grown more and more depressed as reality set in. Mentally she kicked herself for not noticing this earlier; she had been so engrossed with fixing the problem that she hadn’t stopped to consider what must have been happening to Looking Glass. 

The purple mare turned her head towards her friend. Looking Glass’s expression was, in a word, depressed. Not sad, depressed. There’s a substantial difference. Sadness is sharp and painful; there’s no denying it when it shows up. Depression is just emptiness; a dull emptiness that can be easily mistaken for seriousness or neutrality if one didn’t know better.  Twilight however knew better.  She could see the pain he was in and finally spoke, to try and lessen it. “Looking Glass, are you alright?” She knew it was a horrible way to start but she couldn’t think of anything else. Without moving his gaze from the floor, Looking Glass mumbled something incomprehensible. “What?” Twilight asked stupidly. Looking Glass again mumbled, but this time it was just loud enough for Twilight to make out what vaguely sounded like “Ice n’ tarry.“ Looking Glass, I can’t hear you if you don’t speak up.”

“I’M SORRY!” Looking Glass shouted as he began to break down.  He closed his eyes as tear began to form at their edges. For a moment Twilight simply looked on helplessly as the brown unicorn began sobbing uncontrollably.

Twilight reached over with her front hooves and brought him into a tight hug. She stroked the bake of his mane to comfort him. She continued this for a while, not saying a word as released his emotions. Eventually he finished and Twilight sat back up in her seat. Looking Glass looked at her with puffy red eyes. “I-I’m sorry Twilight it’s just…” he paused looked away for moment, “After all the failures we had I guess I just gave up. And then whenever I tried to use magic everything would go wrong at once and… I- I just got so angry and then you two came by and…” He stopped, hanging his head in shame. “I can’t believe I hurt you two. Crimson won’t be able to fly for weeks and it’s my fault.” Looking Glass squeezed his eyes shut as more tears threatened to appear. Twilight raised her hoof and rested it on Looking Glass’s shoulder reassuringly. 

“It’s okay Looking Glass. I understand completely and Crimson will too. We can’t possibly imagine what you’re going through, but we will get you through this, I promise.”

Looking Glass turned his gaze up and stared into the magenta eyes of his dear friend. For the first time in many days, Looking Glass smiled. “Thank you Twilight, that means a lot to me. I just can’t believe I did that. I was just so angry I couldn’t think straight. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys and I don’t ever want to hurt either of you again.”

Twilight reached over and hugged him again and quietly said, “I know you Looking Glass, and you’d never hurt us intentionally. Never.”  

________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
Author here, I’ve tried doing this in the comments for the last few chapters but that has had… less than spectacular results. That being said, I have just one request…

SOMEBODY COMMENT ALREADY!!!

Seriously, at least 100 of you guys are reading these; one of you has got to have some opinion they’d like to share. Half the reason I’m writing this is to get feedback that isn’t from my family. So far only one person has given me any useful feedback (thank you again StapleCatus). I’ll take anything; critiques, grammar issues, predictions, suggestions, opinions, anything. 


P.S. Sorry this chapter took so long. Writers block, procrastination, and school do not make for fast updates. 

> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	It was a couple of days after the ‘accident’ had taken place and three ponies were walking side by side through the park. Under normal circumstances Crimson would be hovering slightly overhead as the others walked, unfortunately he was told to avoid any unnecessary flying as to not agitate the injury. Despite his injury Crimson kept his happy attitude, and had forgiven Looking Glass quickly, citing bro code pg. 234 sub section f: Bros before painful, temporarily crippling injuries. 
The three had been nearly inseparable since that day (not that Looking Glass exactly had a choice in the matter). Every day was spent trying to find ways to bring Glass out of his depression. This was a tremendously difficult task. Since the accident in Twilight’s laboratory, Looking Glass’s magic had gotten more and more powerful and unstable. Where once we could perform precise tasks with enough concentration, any magic use at all would now cause some form of destruction, varying from combustion, explosion, implosion, and one or two instances of spontaneous alchemy (potentially useful, if it hadn’t been for the utensils turning into dirt rather than gold). After bowling they appeared to be making some progress; he actually maintained a smile for about 15 minutes. It was slight, but Looking Glass’s attitude was definitely improving.

They made light conversation as they walked, talking about nothing in particular like Twilight’s latest study or how bored Crimson was, (it seemed to be a subject he was quite fond of considering he found a way to mention it every few minutes). 

“Guys, there’s like, 1,000 other things we could be doing right now, why are we just taking a boring walk through the park?”

Twilight shot Crimson an angry looked and replied, “This may come as a shock to you Crimson, but some people like to actually enjoy nature and the scenery, rather than see it fly by at break neck speeds.”

“Since when is a trimmed lawn, benches, paved sidewalks and about a dozen trees nature? If you want to enjoy nature, I’d suggest we head to the Ever-Free. You’d get your nature, and there’s a chance something interesting will happen” Crimson shot back quickly.

“Sorry, but my idea of interesting is not being attacked by a hydra while we’re lost in the woods.” Twilight shivered slightly to herself as she remembered her run in with the hydra at Froggy Bottom Bog.

“Ahem, I do believe you’re forgetting the fact that Glassy here has been turned into a potential magical bazooka.”
“CRIMSON!” Twilight yelled in outrage at Crimson’s insensitivity.  

“What? Since when is it a bad thing that our buddy here can turn a mountain into a mole hill if he sneezed in its direction?” Twilight didn’t respond but rather gave Crimson a look that could be roughly translated into ‘I will vaporize you to your very atoms, reconstruct you from those atoms, and then collapse you into a singularity.’ For his part, Crimson Skies was unfazed by this look (partly because he understood only a handful of those words) and kept walking as if nothing had been said at all. Noting that Twilight was on the brink of making good on her threat, Looking Glass stepped in. 

“It’s okay Twilight, for once Crimson is actually right about something.”

“I AM!?!?” Crimson said in shock. 

Looking Glass rolled his eyes and continued with what he was saying, “Crimson is right in that we can’t just pretend the problem doesn't exist and maybe the best thing to do right now is to learn to laugh at it a little.” As much as she hated to admit it Looking Glass, and by extension Crimson, was right; although this was definitely no laughing matter, ignoring it wasn’t going to help it either. Rather than openly admit defeat, a thought which survived a whopping .3 seconds before being killed off, Twilight simply lightly nodded her head in agreement and didn’t say a word.  Twilight then looked up to see a small figure running towards them in the distance. 

“Hey what’s that over there?” Twilight asked, pointing her hoof towards the distant figure. Both colts nodded and strained their eyes to try and make out what it was. From the look of it, it seemed pretty small, maybe the size of a foal about Applebloom’s age. The notion of it being a foal was dismissed however, when they realized that whatever it was, it was running on only two legs. “Spike!” Twilight said in excitement as she ran out to meet her assistant. Looking Glass and Crimson followed quickly behind and soon the met the hurried dragon, doubled over in exhaustion, clutching a very small package and note in his claws. Spike made a few feeble attempts to communicate, but all of them were in vain do to his lack of oxygen. “Slow down Spike, catch your breath and then tell us what you’re in such a hurry over” Twilight said with motherly care. 

Spike took her advice and simply huffed in place as the three looked on anxiously. Finally he had gathered himself up enough to start talking. “Twilight... it’s… the princess… she sent… an urgent package and… a note” Spike managed to say between his panting. Twilight quickly took the box from Spike, at which point he collapsed and immediately started to sleep, and opened the letter that came with it.

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

After your visit to Canterlot over your friend serious condition, I began to look into a solution myself. While I couldn’t find a permanent cure, the ring that I delivered to you is very powerful, and should allow Looking Glass to have more control over his magic. Simply slip the ring onto his horn and it should begin working immediately. I apologize that I couldn’t find something more absolute but this should prove very useful.

Your Faithful Mentor,

Princess Celestia

For a brief moment all three simply stood there wide eyed in disbelief. The moment passed and viscously tore apart the cardboard box that supposedly held Looking Glass’s salvation. After the tattered brown shreds settled on the grass, Twilight was left with a small black ring with intricate blue carvings along its perimeter. With it held in her magical grip, Twilight examined it more closely. She could tell this was an extremely potent artifact; I gave off more residual energy than most unicorns even have access to. “Well,” Crimson said, interrupting Twilight’s studying, “what are we waiting for? Let’s get that thing on and see what it can do.”

Silently agreeing with Crimson, Twilight levitated the ring over to Looking Glass’s horn. She Hesitated a moment as it was just above his horn. Despite it having been send directly from Celestia, Twilight couldn’t help but be nervous; this was an extremely powerful object and she had no idea what would happen when it was used. The magenta mare inhaled deeply and carefully slid the ring down Looking Glass’s horn until it could go no further. With it in place she quickly jumped back about two yards from Looking Glass and waited for something to happen. All three simply snood there, gazes fixed on Looking Glass’s horn for any reaction. None came. Crimson then slowly hovered over to Looking Glass and closely looked at the ring wrapped around his horn. “All due respect to the Princess, but I think this things useless.” As the Pegasus said this Looking Glass’s face collapsed into a deep frown as yet another attempt was rendered pointless, or so he thought at least.

“Don’t be stupid Crimson, I can sense the magic in this thing and I can tell you: it far from useless” Twilight quickly interjected to raise Looking Glass’s hopes a bit. “This thing is supposed to help keep the excess magic in check, right?” She reasoned, “If that’s true then maybe the ring only activates when the wearer uses magic.” This logic succeeded in dispelling Looking Glass’s frown; unfortunately it was fear that replaced it.

“I-I can’t try it out here. You saw what happened to my living room. Most of that happened when I would try to pick something up” Looking Glass explained. “What if it fails, somepony could get seriously hurt.”

Twilight laid a reassuring hoof on Looking Glass’s should and said, “Don’t worry, the princess has never failed me before… besides the royal wedding…” Twilight added under her breath.  Luckily the combination of Twilight’s touch and her encouragement were enough to convince Looking Glass to try.

“Alright, I’ll try something simple, but I want all of you to get really far back from me, got it?” Both his friends nodded and got a good distance from the super-charged unicorn. “Okay,” he said to himself, “let’s just do something simple like uhh….” Looking Glass looked around him until he had found a small pile of pebbles near a tree. “Well, here goes nothing.” 

Relax, this thing works great, trust me. 

This though came just in time to push him over the point of no return. He closed his eyes and began to visualize the rock levitating into the air and channeled his magic into his horn. The pebble began to shake violently as the massive amount of magic bombarded it. Then, just as it was about to burst the ring’s engravings began to glow and change Looking Glass’s brown aura a dark shade of blue. The pebble’s tremors immediately ceased and it did exactly as it was supposed to: peacefully rising into the air and simply floating there, no explosions or anything! Twilight and Crimson both burst into energetic celebration, Twilight bouncing up and down in glee and Crimson taking to the skies in complete disregard for his injury,  Looking Glass just stared in utter amazement. After, all the failures, they found a solution, or rather was handed a solution. Granted it didn’t actually solve the main problem, he still had a ton of magic in him, but now he’d at least not have to worry about killing himself or anyone else every time he used any magic. “I can’t believe it” he finally managed to say, still in too much shock to register any actual happiness. He turned his head to see a decent sized rock, about the size of a cart wheel, and decided to see if he could pick it up to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Sure enough the ring glowed and the rock rose without the slightest of hesitation.  

Told ya
Ignoring that, the unfettered joy hit Looking Glass like a freight train and he erupted into cheering, joining his friends’ festivities. After a few moments they calm down enough to talk. “We did it! We did it! ... Well, technically the princess did it but still, Hooray!” Twilight excitedly exclaimed.

As Crimson swooped low after his four victory back flips, he shouted, “HELL YEAH! Glassy’s gonna a-okay!” before ascending again for a few barrel rolls.

“I still can’t believe this thing worked” Looking Glass admitted. “How come you never mentioned anything about this thing before Twilight?”

“Easy, I’ve never seen or heard anything about this in any of the books I’ve ever read. But these carvings on the other hand I do recognize. This writing is in ancient equestrian. I’ve only ever seen it on the elements of harmony when I first found them. At this point I think only the princesses still know how to read it” Twilight explained. “But that still doesn’t explain why I’ve never read about it before. I’ve taken entire classes on ancient equestrian artifacts and relics none of them ever mentioned this ring.”

“Who gives a shit?” Crimson bluntly asked as he landed next to the unicorns. “All that matters is Glassy’s good to go.” To emphasize this Crimson gave Looking Glass a playful smack to the back which sent Looking Glass immediately to the ground. Crimson and Twilight’s gazes shifted a few times between the downed unicorn and each other, “Well, technically that’s par for the course with Glass.” Twilight, know of her friend’s… less than athletic… build, accepted this explanation and returned to the previous conversation.

“Personally, I’d like to know what kind of magic we’re dealing with here, and two: as much as I hate to say it, this isn’t a cure. This is just masking the more dangerous symptoms. Looking Glass is still carrying a very dangerous amount of magic and it’s still growing constantly” Twilight answered grimly, her excited attitude quickly dissolving away. 

Crimson Skies returned Twilight’s earlier gaze with one of his own, which, substantially less eloquently, told her to, ‘SHUT THE HELL UP, AND STOP BEING A KILLJOY!’ Knowing she was right, Twilight didn’t back down under his gaze. Luckily, before anything more could have been said a bouncing ball of pink fur dropped out of a nearby tree into the middle of the three friends. Before any of them could say a word she yelled, “Surprise!!” and jumped enthusiastically into the air, producing a small explosion of confetti from Celestia knows where. “You’re all invited to a ‘Congratulations on your Deus ex Machina plot resolution’ party tonight.” 

Everyone stared dumbfounded at Pinkie Pie as they tried to come up with an explanation for what had just happened. Twilight, having most experience in Pinkie Pie related nonsense, was the first to come to her senses and asked the question on everyone’s mind, “Pinkie… what?”

Pinkie turned to Twilight with a massive grin and said, “I’m throwing a party because Looking Glass has control of his magic again, and that’s more than enough reason to party. Especially since you don’t even need a reason to party except for wanting to party and really who doesn’t want to party? I always want to party, I guess that’s why my talent is partying and….” 

Exactly how long pinkie would have continued to babble is unknowable. Equestria’s top scientists have determined that the threshold for equine conversation is approximately 529 minutes at one moment divided by the pony’s inhibition level. Pinkie Pie is rated a zero for inhibitions. The only reason she stopped rambling was that she was interrupted by Looking Glass who had finally regained enough of his senses to try to ask the 3 questions he had in his head at once, “How is that even… when did you… What the…” 

Crimson, never being one to look too deeply into the random things that always seem to happen around Ponyville, calm said, “Sounds good, what time?"

“Finally, somepony who’s making sense,” Pinkie said with an exaggerated eye roll, “The party’s at 8 o’clock at Sugarcube Corner, everpony’s gonna be there. See Ya!” As she said that Pinkie began energetically bouncing down the path through the park, stopping every few feet, to say hi to ponies and invite them to the party; thus leaving Twilight and Looking Glass with extremely perplexed expressions, crimson smiling slightly, and Spike still out cold and soaring loudly.
Looking Glass looked over to his friend, who was wearing a tranquil smile on his face, and asked him “How can you be so calm about what just happened? She just appeared out of nowhere, announced a party for an event that literally just happened a few seconds ago that she had already invited multiple people to, and all you can ask is when and where! How can you not be wondering how any of that was possible?”

“Simple,” Crimson replied, “party means cake, and I like cake. That’s all I need to know. See you guys there.” And with that, Crimson began to casually trot back into town towards his house, dreamily thinking of what kind of delicious confections pinkie would be serving.  Twilight and Looking Glass shared an incredulous look and decided that that was enough craziness for one afternoon, said their goodbyes and went they separate ways back home to prepare for the party, both failing to remember a certain purple-scaled child who was asleep in the middle of the park.

> Chapter 7: Party Time!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Looking Glass wasn't really a partier. It wasn't that he was asocial; he just didn’t like big crowds too much.  Unfortunately for him, a small crowd for Pinkie meant about three dozen people and she did not consider this a small crowd. Despite this, Looking Glass still made sure to attend; the party was in his favor after all. Looking Glass arrived at 7:54 to find the party was already in full swing without him. There were ponies as far as his eye could see with only a handful of decent sized gaps spread throughout and almost all of them were engaged in dancing to the very loud music, provided free of charge by DJ-PON3 (she owed Pinkie a favor or two). Wow, there’s a lot of people here. Maybe nopony will notice if I just slip back out… This hope, as appealing as it was for Looking Glass, was crushed by pink hoof appearing around his neck. 
“Hey there Glass, what took you so long? I was beginning to think you shattered, hehe, under the pressure. Of course the party wasn't supposed to start till 8 but it’s never too early to start partying…” Pinkie Pie guided Looking Glass deeper into the crowd as she rambled on about Celestia knows what. He cast one mournful looked to the door that was slowly disappearing behind the throng of ponies and resigned himself to going where Pinkie was taking him. After numerous stops to greet ponies and for ponies to express their relief at Looking Glass’s new-found control, they arrived at their destination: a small area where the music wasn’t quiet as loud near the refreshments table that the elements of Harmony had commandeered for themselves. “Look who’s here!” Pinkie announced theatrically. 

All five head turned towards him with smiles and waves to greet him. Rarity was the first to speak, “Ah, there’s the man of the hour. I’m simply ecstatic that you’re problem is solved dear.”   

Rainbow dash pretended to stifle her laughed for a moment before interjecting, “Too bad you’ve got to wear that stupid ring though.”

This comment invoked a particularly nasty glare from Rarity. “Don’t listen to that brute Looking Glass. Horn rings are absolutely in style this season.”

“For mares maybe, but stallions just shouldn’t wear rings. It makes them look like sissies… No offense.” 
“None taken” Looking Glass said sarcastically. 

“Umm… I kind of like them… a bit” Fluttershy meekly said from behind her mane. Rarity smiled triumphantly as it seemed that she had the majority on her side.

“AJ, you gonna back me up on this or what” the cyan pegusus asked, hoping to level the debate again.

“Ah don’t know much about fancy fashion an’ whatnot, but a stallion just shouldn't wear jewelry ‘sides a wedding ring” Applejack said, bringing the argument back to 2 vs 2.

“Ha, see AJ on my side too” Rainbow said as she lifted her head in victory.

“Yes, what a colossal surprise” said Rarity with an eye roll. 

“Girls!” Looking Glass shouted to quiet the group. “Can we please talk about something besides my latest accessory?”

“Oh, I do apologize dear, I suppose we got a bit caught up in our discussion that we forgot about you. How is it to be back to using magic?” Rarity asked sincerely.

“I can’t tell you how much of a relief it is to use it again. I almost forgot how useful it was to be able to pick things up without my mouth or hooves. And with the ring I can actually enjoy the extra magic I’ve got.”

“I for one can’t imagine what would happen if I lost my magic” Twilight added, “I use it for just about everything. Even the sort time discord,” Twilight’s face twisted in hatred just at the mention of the draconequus, “had taken them away was far too long for me.” 

At brief silence befell the group at the mention of those chaotic days. “Hey, do any of you know if Crimson has gotten here yet? I didn’t see him on my way over.” Twilight sighed deeply in annoyance and pointed her hoof over to the red Pegasus currently gorging himself on the many treats Pinkie had made for the party. As Looking Glass looked over, Crimson happened to stop eating long enough to make eye contact. He lifted his head away from his latest cupcake and enthusiastically waved at his buddy before consuming the rest in one bite and making his way over to the rest of the group.

“Glassy, good to see you showed up! Part of me expected you to see the crowd and bail.” Looking Glass blushed and laughed nervously at Crimson’s joke, hoping nobody would catch on to the fact that that was exactly what he almost did.

“Aw, come on Crimson, you know me, I’d never do something like that” he lied through a very forced smile.

“Well you’re half right; I do know you, and that’s exactly why I know that’s what you’d try and do” Crimson said as he playfully punched Looking Glass in the shoulder.

“Aye crimson,” Rainbow dash said from across the circle, “I was gonna to some speed flights tomorrow, you wanna join in, I could use someone to beat.”

Crimson’s eyes narrowed and a competitive smirk appeared on his face. “Then you may want to ask someone else. If you need someone to show you how a REAL pegasus flies, then I’d be more than happy to help” he responded smugly.

Rainbow put on her own determined face at that comment. “That sounds an awful lot like a challenge.” 

“Can’t really be called a challenge without there being any challenge involved.” At this point the friendly banter was beginning to visibly wear on Rainbow, whose face was now starting to show signs of hostility at Crimson Skies’ confidence. Conveniently it was around this time Ponyville’s resident DJ decided to put on a lively dance song that was comprised of more than various wubs and booms. 

Pinkie Pie gasped loudly and excitedly said, “This is my JAM! Come on everypony, LET’S DANCE!!” It was much more of a command than a question, but everypony present seemed more than happy to oblige the pink enigma, with however, one notable exception.

Looking Glass worked his way towards the back of the group as they began heading towards the dance floor. Unfortunately for him, his backpedaling sent him flank first into Twilight. After the impact he quickly turned himself around with a bright red blush across his brown cheeks. “Oh, heh, sorry Twilight, guess I should watch were I’m going right” Looking Glass said with a nervous smile and laugh.

Twilight looked at him with a friendly smile. “Don’t worry about it Looking Glass, but I think the dance floors that way” she said with a giggle as she pointed towards the dense crowd.

“Oh, um, yeah, I” Looking Glass stammered, looking for the right thing to say. “You see the thing is that I…”

“Have four left hooves” Crimson Skies finished, flying just over Looking Glass so that he couldn’t see him without craning his head up awkwardly.

Looking Glass glared at his rude friend. “Thank you, Crimson” He said with bitter sarcasm. Crimson simply smiled and floated his way over to the dance floor with the rest of the elements of harmony. “but yeah, I can’t really dance… at all.”
Twilight just continued to smile and said, “Perfect, neither can I!“ without another word Twilight Grabbed Looking Glass’s hoof and forcibly dragged him into the crowd. Once inside the throng of ponies, Looking Glass just stood awkwardly as ponies occasionally bumped into him or unintentionally shoved him with a wayward hoof. Twilight on the other hand was having a blast. That’s not to say she was dancing well. In truth all she was doing was randomly hopping around and throwing her hooves in every direction, though she did have quite a bit of fun doing it. 

Noticing his evident discomfort, Twilight took it upon herself to make Looking Glass have some fun. She bounced over to the wary unicorn and quickly took both his front hooves in her own. The quick and unexpected movement threw Looking Glass off balance for a moment but he regained it with Twilight helping to support him. Now that Looking Glass was in control over his weight Twilight began guiding him in a rather uncoordinated jump while they swung each other’s hooves. At first it felt weird to Looking Glass but after only a few seconds he began to enjoy himself, (after already having checked that nopony in the immediate vicinity seem to care at all what he was doing), and soon he was actually dancing independently, in a somehow even more clumsy and embarrassing way than Twilight was. The two continued to dance spaztacularly (it’s the only word that could do justice to the spectacle they had just preformed) for the next four songs until most of the other dancer had worn themselves out and the DJ had switched to some more calming music.

Huffing in exhaustion the pair both returned to the refreshments table for some punch. “Well that was… interesting” Looking Glass casually joked. 

Giggling at the comment, Twilight purposefully bumped Looking Glass as a punishment. “Shut up, you had fun and you know it.” Looking Glass’s eye roll was more than enough of an answer for Twilight as she grinned in satisfaction. 

“At any rate, thanks Twilight. I wouldn’t have gone out there without your, albeit pushy, support.”

Twilight’s grin somehow managed to grow to almost Pinkie sized proportions. “Think nothing of it Looking Glass. That’s what friends are for after all. They the one’s that push you to do the things that you’re too worried or embarrassed to do alone, and in the end those can be some of the most fun a pony can have. Oh, that will make a great letter to the princess; I’ll have to make sure to remember that one.” Looking Glass hadn’t been listening to most of that. The conversation had ended for him at the first mention of that dreaded 6 letter word. All in all, he knew that was the way she felt and how she would continue to feel about him. Unfortunately this knowledge did very little to soften the blow that the word carried with it. 

Looking Glass quickly recovered and hid away the frown that had found its way onto his face before Twilight could notice it. Both unicorns turned to see the other 5 members of the group walking over with tired, but happy, faces. “whoo, that sure was fun.” Applejack said as she wiped some sweat from her brow. Everyone nodded in agreement and soon conversations within the group began to pick up again: AppleJack and Rainbow Dash trying to up each other, Rarity gossiping to Fluttershy and Twilight, Pinkie Pie eating cupcakes by the dozen a few feet away. 

Crimson came over to Looking Glass with a smirk that instantly told the unicorn that this wasn’t a conversation we would particularly enjoy.  “So Glassy, I happened to catch some of your moves out there and…”

“Don’t say it” Looking Glass interrupted, giving Crimson a look that told him he was not in a joking mood at the moment. 

“Calm down Glass,” Crimson say defensively with a laugh, “as much as I enjoy making fun of your nonexistent dance skills, I still have to give you points just for dancing with her.” As he said this he gave Looking Glass a congratulatory slap on the back. “So… make any progress?”

“I gave her a friendship report to write” he responded bluntly.

“Ouch, still stuck in the friendzone I see. Well cheer up buddy, there are dozens of mares here, one’s bound to get your attention.”

“Would any of them happen to be identical twins to Twilight?” Crimson sighed while bringing a hoof to his forehead in frustration.

“Look, I’m all for going after a crush; it takes a lot of guts. But you’ve got to realize this is a lost cause at some point. The best advice I can give you is to cut your losses and find someone who doesn’t need a 20 foot billboard to finally figure out when someone likes them.“

“Hmm, that may not be a bad idea.” This thought was answered swiftly with a hit upside Looking Glass’s head. “Calm down, I was kidding.” Crimson didn’t believe that for a second. “But in all seriousness, it’s much easier said than done. And I don’t want to just give up. I know I can get her to love me back, I just need to figure out how.” Crimson sighed heavily in disappointment, he had known he probably wouldn’t have convinced him, but still it was worth the try, and maybe his next failure would finally make it clear to him.

Suddenly there was a commotion from the middle of the large group of ponies on the dance floor.  They were all gathered around a small clearing in the center, the contents of which were blocked by the thick swarm of bodies. Based on the cheering coming from within, it was worth checking out.

All seven ponies stopped what they were doing and decided to investigate whatever was happening over there. Making their way through the herd the cheering got a bit louder until they discovered the source of all the ruckus. There, it was revealed, was a silver pegaus with jet black hair sporting a cutie mark of three balls in a circle, holding his entire weight on only his wings. Normally this wouldn’t be too impressive at all, most pegasi could do push up with them, so balancing on them wasn’t unheard of. This Pegasus however was also juggling a total of 16 small green balls between all four of his hooves. The audience was enthralled but his effortlessly skillful tosses as he completed this task while still holding short conversations with the first row of ponies. One magenta mare even more so that the others.

Twilight was simply astounded by the deft maneuvers made completely without the help of any magic whatsoever. Her attention did not go unnoticed and brought up a sizable amount of envy in a certain unicorn. 

Look at him, acting like he’s so great, juggling like that. Who even like’s juggling anyway? He thought bitterly to himself.

Twilight does evidently, another portion of his brain quickly responded.

Shut the hell up! he responded to himself in an effort to   block out those unwanted thoughts.

I wonder if he’d be considered a friend or maybe a… Crimson didn’t allow this though to finish itself but he still knew exactly what it would say. You know, I wonder how amazed Twilight would be if he made a mistake.

…Go on

Well it’s as simple as this…

It was a nasty plan, a borderline evil plan, but it was also a damn good one too. With a devilish smile Looking Glass gently channeled a bit of energy into his horn, activating the ring just enough to produce a soft glow on its markings. While everyone’s eyes were on the ball flying through the air nopony noticed as a faint blue aura wrapped around the pegasus’s left wing. With a light tug, the wing slipped out from underneath him causing him to hit the ground hard. Then, with just a tad more magic to make a light breeze, all 16 of the previously well behaved balls turned on their master, hitting him on the head one by one, effectively breaking any remnant of the spell the showpony had had the crowd under a moment ago. 

What followed was a burst of mean spirited laughter as the silver Pegasus ran out of the door as fast as possible. For a brief moment Looking Glass felt incredibly proud, defending his crush against a rival suitor, but that was quickly replaced by the guilt of realizing that he just humiliated complete stranger just for using their talent.

Looking Glass wasn’t given much time to think this over as Crimson lowered himself from his vantage point a bit above the crowd, laughing hysterically as he did. “Did you guy see that! He was doing great and then… Bam! He goes down along with whatever dignity and pride he had brought with him.” 

Looking Glass just laughed nervously with his high spirited friend, hoping he didn’t have any thoughts on while he failed so suddenly. Twilight glared at Crimson for acting so insensitively. “You’re horrible you know that” she accused venomously. “He was doing nothing wrong and you help run him out of here just because he made a little mistake.” the anger in her voice was unmistakable and even managed to stop Crimson’s laughter.

“Relax, he’s a showpony, he has to learn to deal with unwelcoming audiences eventually, and maybe next time he’ll make sure not to mess up.”

Twilight only got angrier as he said this. “So that gives us the right to humiliate him! How would you feel if that had been you?”

Crimsoned rolled his eyes a bit but still lowered his head in defeat. “Alright you’re right I guess. It was a pretty jerkish thing to do” he admitted, rubbing the back if his head. “Still, it’s not like I cause him to fall or anything. That would be just horrible.” Looking Glass swallowed nervously, but luckily nopony was paying him much attention to notice.
“For once, you exactly right Crimson” Twilight replied, “I’d want nothing to do with anypony who would have done that on purpose.” 

Outside, Looking Glass managed to maintain a fairly calm appearance. Inside, he was in an agonizing mix of guilt, shame, and nervousness. Then and there, he decided the best course of action was to get out fast. “As much fun as this parties been. I think I’m gonna start heading home now.” He said somewhat abruptly. 

“Oh alright,” Twilight said in surprise. “Well it was really fun dancing with you Looking Glass. I’ll see you later!”

“Yeah, see ya Glassy” Crimson said.

With a wave and a couple more goodbyes to various ponies, Looking Glass had finally made it to the door that had been taken from him earlier in the night. He took a deep breath of chilled air and set off towards home. 

It had gotten very late since he had first came to the party and by now the streets of Ponyville were virtually deserted, and without any distractions, Looking Glass allowed his mind to wonder during his short walk home.

I-I can’t believe I just did that. I’ve never been a bully before.

Maybe, but you have to admit it felt good.

Only for a minute until I realized what I had just did!

Alright fine, it was mean. I’ll admit that, but you have to admit that it was also funny as hell.

That’s not the point.

Of course that’s the point. If something like that was funny, which it was, then imagine how funny it will be if we do it without any of the guilt.

What are you getting at?

*sigh* Okay, let me walk you through this, what’s one of Pinkie’s favorite hobbies?

Partying?

No

Baking?

No 

…Pranking?

And we have a winner! Now Pinkie can get a lot of laughs with her simple pranks without magic right…

And I have a ton of magic!

Now you’re getting it. With the kind of power you’re toting, who know what we can do.

Yeah you’re right! Thanks… Me? I guess.

Don’t mention it; it’s what I’m here for.






*Author’s note: Once again, I’d just like to ask anyone reading this to PLEASE post a comment about their opinion on the story so far. At least one of you (besides you StapleCactus, you’ve been very helpful) must have something to say about how I’m doing or what I’m not doing. Honestly, I’ll take just about anything*
-TheGuyWithTheFace
	 
	
> Chapter 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Wow, Ponyville looks tiny from up here. Crimson Skies thought to himself as he glided through the clear equestrian sky. Despite having seen the sight so many times in the past it still amazed Crimson a little bit sometimes how small the towering buildings were from above. As usual, his mind didn’t gawk at it for too long and quickly found a new topic of interest. Specifically the cloud in front of him that held a small 
wooden sign reading:

Ponyville Race Course Now Open 
Are You Fast Enough?

Since when is there a Ponyville Race course? Crimson pondered this thought for a moment. He had never seen this sign before nor had Rainbow Dash ever mentioned it to him. If there were a race track, then she would have definitely challenged him by now. Yet here it was, plain as day. He looked around the sign to see that there was another cloud with a yellow starting line painted onto it. Beyond that he could see at least two cloud rings that marked the course. With a shrug Crimson decided that he no longer cared where this course had come from and instead focused on that fact that it was now here, and it had challenged him.

Crimson flew over to the start and reared up into his start position. On your mark…Get set… Crimson tensed his muscles in preparation. GO! Before the word had even fully formed in his mind Crimson exploded out and into the first ring. The world blurred as the red Pegasus flew through ring after ring. A smile formed on his wind blasted face as what appeared to be the finish line came into his sights. He could see the checkered line and the ribbon stretched across to poles and doubled his efforts for a final push to the end.

The line couldn't have been more that 80 yards from him. All his energy was now in his wings, pushing him to go as fast as possible and then a bit faster still. Despite this the finish line remained where it was, rather than come to meet him as it should have. Crimson slowed a bit in confusion. He had been flying full speed for at least 20 seconds and still the finish seemed to be no closer. If anything it might have actually gained a few yards on him. Dismissing it as a trick of his eyes, Crimson threw himself at the finish again with everything he had left. The ribbon grew bigger and bigger as crimson got closer. HA! Gotcha now! He thought victoriously. The line was only 10 yards away when suddenly the cloud it was painted on dropped down. Crimson had already passed it by a couple dozen yards before he even realized what had happened. He pulled back into a hard stop to turn around and see the cloud sitting peacefully where it was, minus a few feet of altitude. Crimson’s confusion was quickly being transformed into rage at this cloud’s defiance. Rearing back, Crimson shot like a bullet at the finish line, only to have it start up at just as fast a pace. The cloud decided that just staying in front of the poor Pegasus was getting boring and instead started to actively try to lose its pursuer. It turned and spun and looped through the sky with ease while the athletic pegsus found himself tiring quickly as the adrenaline began to fade and fatigue took over.  After a minute of this high speed chase Crimson’s muscles finally won out over his pride and he slowed to a hover as he desperately tried to catch his breath. Even then the cloud did not stop and began circling the defeated pony, looping overhead, rushing by just barely out of reach. It was as if the inanimate object was mocking him.

Just before Crimson was about to make another attempt at the prize that had been eluding him, he heard the rustling of a bush and what sounded distinctly like somepony laughing hysterically. Turning from the source of his anger to look down to the ground he spied a small shrub that was shaking violently. Figuring it was whoever was making a fool out of him, Crimson refocused his frustration as he found what he thought was his tormentor. Without taking another second to consider it, Crimson launched himself into a nose dive aimed directly at the offending shrub.

Unfortunately this proved not to be Crimson’s day and was stopped dead in mid-air just before making contact. Crimson struggled in vain but the force holding him refused to let up. Crimson quickly realized he was fighting a losing battle and calmed down enough to notice two things. One, whoever was behind the bush was now laughing even harder than ever; two, he was being held by a magical aura… a dark blue, magical aura to be precise.

“…Glassy?” Crimson asked curiously. At the mention of the brown unicorn the laughter died down to a barely controlled chuckle.

Two asymmetrical eyes appeared out of the bushes, followed by the rest of the head. “Hey Crimson, how’s it hanging?” Crimson groaned loudly at the painful pun; Looking Glass however, laughed loudly at his own piece of wit.
“Hilarious,” Crimson deadpanned, “mind telling me why you made me chase a cloud through the sky for almost 5 minutes?”
“Seemed like a funny idea” Looking Glass answered with a nonchalant shrug.
“Alright that just leads to two more questions; since when do you like pranks and more importantly, how the hell did you even manage to do that.”

“One, no clue whatsoever. Two, some clue.” Crimson was not particularly pleased with either answer and made sure to advertise it. Taking his cue to explain a bit further, Looking Glass continued, “I don’t know what to tell ya, I just found out I can manipulate clouds this morning.”

“But that makes no sense, pegasi are the only creatures that can actually work with cloud, how are you suddenly able to do it?” Crimson demanded.

“Like I just told you, I don’t know. I was laying down trying to relax in the sun when a stray cloud came and blocked it out; by the way, remind me later to yell at Dash for that next time I see her. I got kind of annoyed but there wasn’t really anything I could do about so I just waited for it to pass. The problem was it wouldn’t; it was just floating there. Naturally I was getting a bit fed up with it and I guess my magic must have started up unconsciously and the cloud just moved away.” Looking Glass made a sweeping gesture to emphasize his point and continued to say, “At first I didn’t really believe I was the one who did it so I tried a couple more time and the cloud just followed my directions like anything else would if I was holding it. After that I just started experimenting with it and I found that I could shape them too. One thing led to another and eventually I got the idea to set up the race course with the moving finish line. I was honestly expecting Rainbow to be the first victim, but then you showed up and I figured: why not?”

“I’m not sure whether to be happy that you finally started having a sense of humor or stay pissed that I was your first victim” Crimson stated, “But I’ll deal with that later. For now, let’s talk more about you just accidentally using magic you have no business using. ”

“I just told you everything I know. I just thought about something happening and it happened, the same thing happened when I broke and rebuilt Twilight’s door.”

“So you can do just about anything?” Crimson asked curiously.

“Well I doubt anything but…”

“But you have no idea where the limit is.”

“Well, yeah.” Crimson developed a devilish smile at the answer. “Oh no, that face never means 
anything good…” Looking Glass said worried, “Why are you making that face?”

“I have an idea” Crimson answered in a matter of fact way. “But first… mind letting me down buddy?” he asked hopefully.

“I’m not so sure I want to anymore, is your plan going to hurt anypony?”

“No! of course not!” Crimson responded in offense, “I can’t believe you’d even assume that!” Looking Glass’s unamused stare was more than enough of an explanation for the levitating pegasus. “Alright fine, I 
promise that no one will be harmed by my plan.” Satisfied (more or less) Looking Glass ended his telekinesis spell, dropping Crimson to the ground with a thud. “You could have just placed me down you know.”

“I also could have already said no to the train wreck you’re about to drag me into, now what is it you want me to do?”

“Not here,” Crimson said as he shot a few suspicious looking glances over both his shoulders. “Too many ponies; follow me.” Before Looking Glass could have time to disagree, citing the fact that there was only two other ponies in the park, both of whom weren’t paying the slightest attention, Crimson was already off towards the sea of trees that is Sweet Apple Acres.

“Dear Celestia, what have I just agreed to?” Looking Glass said somewhat pathetically as he trotted 
after his friend.

________________________________________________________________________________

“You want me do WHAT?!?!” Looking Glass questioned in disbelief.

“Come on Glassy, for me?” Crimson pleaded.

“NO!” Looking Glass said with resolve.

“Dude, it’s genius.”

“NO IT’S NOT!”

“Just use a quick growth spell or something; I just need a foot or two in length, maybe a little bit in width.”

“You can’t be serious, that’s not even biologically possible!”

“I’ve seen guys with bigger.”

“WHERE!?!?”

“Doesn’t matter, are you helping me or not?”

“For the dozenth time, NO!”

“Dude, I’d do it for you.”

“I wouldn’t want you to do it to me!”

“I really want to impress Rainbow Dash, and this will really help.” Quickly encroaching on his final limit, Looking Glass brought his front hoof to his face, hoping to hind from the stupidity of his close friend. 

“Alright, assuming for a second that I agree to this, and I can’t stress it enough that I’m not, and it actually does work out the way you’re hoping, don’t you think Rainbow might notice the fact that you’re wings grew two feet overnight?” (What did you think Crimson was asking about? Get you minds out of the gutter there’s a teen rating for a reason.)

“I dun know, growth spurt?” Crimson said with a dumb looking shrug.

“Growth sp… YOU’RE A GROWN STALLION! You haven’t had a growth spurt in years!”

“Exactly, aren’t I overdue for one?” Looking Glass could only stare at the red pegasus who’s voice held absolutely no sign of sarcasm and was in fact dead serious. His normal eye began to twitch slightly at the sheer stupidity of the statement.
Seeing that Looking Glass was failing to see things  his, absolutely not-stupid, way, Crimson decided to fall back on the time tested art of whining. “Please, she absolutely mopped the floor with me during our race yesterday, I just need a little more wing power and I’m golden.”

“Or maybe stop challenging her to contests you can’t win” the brown unicorn suggested. “She can break the sound barrier on command for Celestia’s sake! You physically can’t compete against that.”

“Which is exactly why I need you to give me an edge.”

Looking Glass’s mouth made a few moves to try and continue the argument but then sighed deeply in defeat. There was no way he could convince Crimson that this was a bad idea so he decided to simply give in. “You know what, fine, I‘ll give you the stupid growth spell.”

An excited Grin grew on Crimson’s face as he said “YES! Score one for begging!” The Pegasus then took a few steps away from Looking Glass and planted his hooves firmly in preparation. “Alright Glassy, show me what you got.” Looking Glass rolled his eyes, he still didn’t want to help Crimson cheat but he also didn’t feel like arguing with him for the rest of the day. 

He then lowered his head, touching his horn to Crimson’s forehead, closed his eyes and began to channel his magic. Looking Glass first imagined Crimson Growing massive wings, at least 3 times their current size. The thought was quickly dissolved due to its sheer ridiculousness, and Looking Glass refocused on a more reasonable change.

In a matter of moments the magic began to stream into Crimson, traveling through his head, down his spine, and into its intended target. His bright red wings began to glow in the blue aura, and began to unfurl on their own. The aura grew brighter and brighter until they built up to a blinding flash. Crimson was quick to reopen his eyes once the spell was over, eager to see his new and improved appendages. He turned his head awkwardly to each side, trying to catch a glimpse of his wings. They looked completely normal in their now closed state. Slightly confused Crimson reopened them to find that they were indeed bigger, but only by maybe 4 or 5 inches each. “What the hell, Glassy? I told you I wanted an extra foot or two. They couldn’t have grown more that like a half a foot.”

“Yeah, I know” Looking Glass said through a very serious expression. “I also know that having another full foot added to your wingspan is a horrible idea just in terms of basic common sense. The extra inches should give you plenty of extra speed.” Crimson wasn’t exactly overjoyed at the new arrangement, but it was still an improvement.

I guess you have a point” he conceded. “Thanks for the help man, even if I had to fight you for it.” Crimson followed that up a brotherly pat on the back and a warm smile. Despite still not being entirely ok with the cheating, Crimson was his best friend, and with all the power Looking Glass had, he figured he did kind of owe it to him to use it for his benefit sometimes. 

“Anyway, I’ve got to go. At the party Pinkie had offered to let me help her do some taste testing today and between your prank and this I’m way behind schedule, I’ll see you later.” Crimson’s mouth was already beginning to water at the thought of the tasting experimental treats he was going to be judging soon.

“See ya” Looking Glass responded as Crimson took off to Sugarcube Corner.  With his friend gone, Looking Glass saw no real reason to stay in the apple orchard and started making his own way out. It seriously amazes me how immature Crimson is sometimes. Looking Glass thought to himself.

Immature? Yes. Wrong? Not so much.

Excuse me?

Just saying, Crimson may have a point. Why aren’t we using these powers for our own good?

Cause it would be wrong.

How so? Unicorns use magic all the time to make their lives easier.

That’s not the point, it would be an abuse of power.

Well wouldn’t not using it be a waste of power?

…I guess but-

And nobody said anything about abusing the magic. When life hands you a gift, especially one that came at a price like yours, aren’t you obligated to take advantage of it?

Maybe, but still-

And what about Twilight? She’s one of the most powerful unicorns there are and she uses her advanced magic all the time.

That’s entirely different.

Why?

Because, she’s naturally gift.

Exactly! She did nothing to earn that power, you lost years of your life for yours; doesn’t that entitle you to at least a little bit of compensation?

…Yeah I guess it does.

Crimson just showed us that we can you these powers to our advantage, and he was also right earlier, who knows what our limit is? We could turn reality itself on its head!

You’re 100% right, me. It’s my power now; I should be able to do with it what I want.

That’s the spirit. Now what do you want to do first? It was at this point that Looking Glass’s stomach decided to remind him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning. Alright, food, that a place to start. The brown Unicorn looked all around him until he spotted a massive, juicy apple, struggling to remain attached to the branch it clung to. Okay, picking an apple isn’t exactly what I had in mind as a use of your theoretically infinite power.

Who said anything about picking? Looking Glass concentrated hard, focusing all his magic into the apple which began to glow with his dark blue aura, the apple shook and pulsed until it split into two, perfectly identical copies, one still on the tree, and one suspended in Looking Glass’s magical aura.

Duplication. Impressive, there aren’t too many who can cast that kind of spell.

Are you kidding? Looking Glass thought as he walked through the throng of trees. Besides me I doubt anypony could cast the spell so easily.

Agreed, no pony has ever had this kind of power before. But enough ego stoking. What is important now is whether or not you plan to be using this new power for anything besides just some free apples? Looking Glass took a big bite out of his freshly acquired apple and smiled, suddenly listening to the jingling of the handful of bits he had on him.

Please, I haven’t even started yet.
> Chapter 9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Looking Glass trotted through the marketplace with a wide grin, looking into every store and stand he passed by. Behind him was a (newly purchased) cart filled with a pile of items varying from a handful of pies, to some new furniture, to a small bucket of gems. The brown unicorn paid no attention to any of the curious ponies he passed by, all of them gawking at his purchases: some suspiciously, others with envy. Looking Glass was far too happy to care in the least about whatever scandal the more gossipy ponies (read: Rarity) might concoct. Every one of those items was bought perfectly legally, more or less.
        
    However, where many ponies saw a mystery, the marketplace’s venders saw an opportunity. In particular Roseluck saw quite a bit of potential in Looking Glass’s shopping spree. The pale yellow mare coughed softly to clear her throat and the shouted, “FLOWERS FOR SALE! PERFECT GIFT FOR THAT SPECIAL SOMEPONY!” That last part caught Looking Glass’s attention. He turned to see Roseluck scanning the marketplace as if the call had been meant for everyone to hear. Looking Glass trotted over to get a better look at the beautiful display she had put up. Her and her sisters all grew flowers and took turns selling what they grew and despite their specific cutie marks (a rose, a lily, and a daisy) the three mares grew a great variety of different flowers.  One bushel of purple and yellow flowers caught Looking Glass’s eye. Roseluck noticed this and quickly said “Ah, those are our irises, very popular gifts. “ She reached over and grabbed one from the pile, to hand to Looking Glass. “These purple ones in particular are used to symbolize wisdom and knowledge.” The massive grin the broke out on her customer’s face told Roseluck all she needed to know. “So how many would you like mister…”
        
    “I’ll take a half dozen please.”        

With a knowing smile Roseluck gathered up the other five irises and said “Alright, that will be 20 bits please,” as she reach out her empty hoof. Looking Glass turned to his small money pouch at his side and lit up his horn, drawing out exactly 20 bits. “Whoever these are for is one lucky Mare.” Roseluck innocently commented, her smile never faltering in the slightest.

“I-uh-well,” Looking Glass stammered out with a slight blush growing on his brown coat. Roseluck just giggled into her hoof at the awkward display

“Make that a very lucky mare; you’re cute when you nervous, the blush really brings out those red eyes you have.”

That extra complement did nothing to help Looking Glass’s mild panic. His mind working overtime, one word was blaring in his head like a siren, ESCAPE!! “Thanks for the flowers Rose, I, uh, I gotta go… someplace. In fact I’m late so I can’t stay to explain it, so I‘ll have to leave it at that, so…bye.” And with that ever so smooth exit, Looking Glass turned tail and ran. Once he got a block or so from the friendly florist, he slowed up enough to realize what she had said to him. Red eyes? My eyes are tan... Aren’t they?

This train of thought would have been followed if it weren’t for the whistling coming from behind him interrupting.  

Looking Glass turned to see His Friend Crimson hovering above the ground, sarcastically clapping with a massive grin on his face. “Looks like we’ve got a hound dog on the loose. That was a brilliant performance back there Glassy,” Crimson joked as he floated over closer to his blushing victim. “Come on don’t give me that blush, I’m the red one here. And besides, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You should be jumping for joy; Roseluck’s a great looking mare.”

Looking Glass’s blush fell into a scowl at Crimson’s teasing. “Hilarious Crimson, we both know I’m not interested in her.”

It was the pegasus’s turn now to get annoyed, “Seriously dude? A mare like Roseluck starts hitting on you and your response is ‘I’m not interested.’

“Wait, how did you know she was hitting on me?” Looking Glass asked, hoping it would change the subject quickly.

“I didn’t, at least not positively. I’ve just known you long enough to know when you’re flustered, so I’d say it was a pretty good bet she hit on you. And don’t try to change the subject on me; I’m not an idiot.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m going to ignore that and get back to the pressing issue of how you’re basically committing a crime against stallion-hood.”

“Aren’t you being a little overdramatic Crimson? I’m not interested in Roseluck and that’s final.”

Crimson sighed in defeat, “Fine, I guess she’s just not your type or something. And by the way, why were you at her stand anyway,” he asked suspiciously.

“It’s a flower stand, take a wild guess.” Looking Glass deadpanned.

“Twilight?” Crimson asked with disappointment. The glare his tone produced in Looking Glass served as his answer. “Dude, you seriously need to get over her, it can’t be healthy at this point.”

“We’re NOT discussing this right now.”

“Yes we are. Why can’t you see that this is a dead end? Tell me why you think she’s amazing enough for you to keep trying after being rejected a dozen times over.”

“She’s never actually rejected me,” Looking Glass corrected.

“Which is even worse since at least a rejection would be final. This simply won’t happen. You need to give up.”

“I can’t just give up. She’s the most beautiful, intellectual, and amazing mare I’ve ever met in my life.”

“And she’s also just learning about how to have friends! Foals learn crap like that before their out of pre-school. ”

“So she used to be a bit antisocial, she’s made some massive improvements since she first came here.”

“That’s not the point; it takes the better part of 2 decades for most foals to get to the point that they can have a solid relationship! She isn’t capable of what you want right now.”

“YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT SHE’S CAPABLE OF!” Looking Glass shouted in rage. Calming down to just an angry glare he continued, “I just have to try harder to get her.”

 Crimson saw at the conviction in Looking Glass’s eyes and sighed, “Fine, I clearly can’t stop you in this so I guess all I have left is to help you.”

Looking Glass’s expressing quickly shifted to confusion, “Seriously, just like that?”

Crimson smiled at his buddy, “Glassy, one of the main jobs of a bro is to talk you out of stupidity like this or, failing that, to join you in the stupidity. Besides, this could be the perfect time to test out just how amazing my love skills really are.”

Glass found himself mirroring his friends smile now. “Love skills?” He asked suspiciously.

“But of course, Glassy my friend, finding a way to get you two nerds together will be my greatest challenge, my magnus open,” the Pegasus boasted

“Magnum Opus” Looking glass corrected.

“Irrelevant, I must prepare, I will go down as the wing-stallion to end all wing-stallions. “ With that rather humble prediction, Crimson sped off to plan (or more accurately, plan to plan but get distracted by something shiny and more interesting). Looking Glass just laughed a bit to himself. No matter what happened Crimson physically could not stay on his bad side. He’s not the only one who has some preparing to do.

Huh? Looking Glass thought to himself, as he resumed his walk through town, curious as to where his mind was going to this time.

Well you said it yourself; you’ve got to step up your game.

Well I did just get her these flowers, they’re perfect for her.

Please, a half dozen irises are child’s play. She’ll just get them and say ‘Oh MY Celestia, they’re beautiful, you the best FRIEND ever.’ No, you need something bigger.

Looking Glass listened to the jingle of his still full bag of bits. Alright that should be a problem. I just need to find the right… Looking Glass’s thoughts trailed off as his eyes grabbed onto something in a window display.

Bingo

Looking Glass entered the Quills and Sofas store with a single purpose in mind. He trotted up to the proprietor (Davenport), standing behind the register, eager to fill an order of any kind, (provided it was quill and/or sofa related). Not wasting any time for pleasantries Looking Glass sternly asked, “How much for that quill?” Davenport’s eyes followed Looking Glass’s hoof to the fiery red quill on display in the window.

“That? That there is a real special quill it’s an enchanted phoenix quill,” Davenport explained as he trotted over to the beautiful implement. Taking it into his hooves he continued, saying “this beaut is near indestructible and the kicker, she don’t run outa ink. The magic on it makes it so that it can just keep writing as long as there’s stuff to write.” Looking Glass gazed at it with astonishment, when he saw it he had assumed it was simply a fancy looking quill, possibly just decorative, but he never expected it to be anything close to that amazing.

“I’ll take it” Looking Glass announced with complete confidence.  Davenport however, didn’t share in the enthusiasm.

“Well hold on their buddy, this ain’t just an average quill, it ain’t even an extraordinary quill. This thing does not come cheap. Without a word Looking Glass took out his bag of bits and began to pour it out onto a nearby sofa, and pour, and pour and pour, until there was a ridiculously large pile of coin between the two stallions. Davenport just stared, dumbfounded at the sheer quantity of gold in front of him.

“I take it that this will about cover it?” Looking Glass asked, already knowing the answer. Davenport nodded his mouth still agape. “Excellent, it was a pleasure doing business with you.” Looking Glass took the quill out of Davenport’s hooves and left the very fortunate store clerk to count up his earnings.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Later on, as Luna’s beautiful moon slowly began to replace Celestia’s bright sun, Looking Glass was once again out walking in town only this time he was focused. Today he planned to pull out all the stops; his hair was neatly combed, his coat was brushed, and he had added a few sprays of cologne just for good measure. That is not to say he wasn’t nervous, the confidence he had mustered at home preparing and imagining the best possible outcomes had quickly dissipated once he began actually heading towards the library and the less perfect outcomes began to creep into his mind. Ok Looking Glass this is it, this is where you show what you’re made of. What’s the worse that could happen.... besides her getting weirded out and cutting off our entire friendship forever...  you know what I think I’ve got a good feeling about tomorrow. 

Oh no you don’t, another part of his mind chimed in, you’re doing this tonight. These flowers won’t last forever,and neither will the bit of confidence you’ve still got clinging on you. Motivated by his own pep talk Looking Glass pushed forward until the library was in sight. At the door Looking GLass took a massive breathe of air and moved to knock on the door when it suddenly swung open to reveal Twilight just about to step out herself. Looking Glass Froze in shock, his throat closed up and he couldn’t utter a word.  Aaaand there it goes the last little pinch of confidence.

Luckily for Looking Glass, Twilight was taking the surprise much better than he was and took initiative. “Oh, hi Looking Glass, I wasn’t expecting you here, you caught me just as I was leaving.” 

Spotting an easy way out, Looking Glass’s panicked, mind jumped on it. “Oh, nevermind then, its not important, I’ll just catch you another time bye.” 

“Don’t be silly,” Twilight said before Looking Glass could get running, “I’m sure I’ve got enough time for whatever it is you wanted.” She looked at Looking GLass with a friendly smile that managed to melt any fear he had for a brief moment. While Looking Glass’s brain was still recovering from an overload of cuteness, Twilight took notice that he hadn’t come empty handed. Curious, she asked “Hey, what’s that in your saddlebag”

Snapped back into reality, Looking Glass quickly decided that there was no option left but to push through and hope for the best. “Uh, that actually what I see you about,’ he said awkwardly without making eye contact. he reached behind him and pulled out the bouquet of irises with a single brilliant feather sticking out of the purple. “I was shopping a bit to try and replace the stuff i kinda... destroyed... and I decided to buy you something. Roseluck said that purple irises like these symbolise wisdom so I thought they’d be perfect for you.”

For a moment, all Twilight could do was gasp into her hoof and stare at the gift. “Looking Glass, this is the single most beautiful gift I’ve ever been given. What’s this red feather?”

“Oh, that’s the best part. it’s an enchanted phoenix quill. it’s almost indestructible and it will never run out of ink.”

Twilight’s eyes widened even further. “Oh my Celestia, phoenix quills are some of the most valuable in Equestria! How could you have ever afforded one?”

“Oh uh, don’t worry about the price. I got the money from... Insurance! Yeah, I had insurance on all the stuff I broke and I just got the money from it yesterday,” Looking Glass Lied from behind a grin just slightly too wide to be natural. Twilight still too taken aback by the gift didn’t notice luckily. 

“I-I can’t accept this. this is just too much.” Twilight said reluctantly.

Refusing to turn back now, Looking Glass extended the bouquet to Twilight. “Please, I bought this for you. A beautiful mare like yourself deserves things like these.” This compliment was all it to to make her cave. with her magic Twilight grabbed the flowers and quill from Looking Glass and gave them a massive sniff to take in their aroma. She then grabbed Looking Glass in a tight hug.

“I can’t believed you’d get me something like this Looking Glass.” Looking Glass Smiled blissfully at the feel of her warm fur on his. he even closed his eyes to savour the moment. “You’re the single best friend I’ve ever had.” And just like that the moment had ended and Looking Glass simply stood in shock. Still in the hug, Twilight again missed this critical piece of body language. 

“Hey Twilight! Come on what’s taking so long?” Rainbow Dash shouted from behind Looking Glass. Looking up Twilight spotted The speedster in the distance and waved.

“I’ll be there in a second Rainbow!” she shouted back as she released the hug. Turning, she quickly placed the bouquet onto a table and stepped out fully.

“Thank you again Looking Glass, I hate to run but we’re having a girl’s night. Remind me to thank you properly later, dinner will be on me.” In a rush to meet up with the impatient pegasus she closed her door behind her and ran off to meet up with the rest of her group. Looking Glass just stood stock still for a minute or so, trying to piece together just what had exactly happened right there. 

Ouch, tough one. But don’t worry we’ll get her soon enough. Looking Glass didn’t even bother responding to himself. He just let his head fall low and dejectedly  he walked home, alone.
	

> Chapter 10
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

        Lying on his new couch, Looking Glass rested in near total darkness. Seriously man, how long do you plan on moping in the dark for? a currently unwelcomed voice asked within Looking Glass’s mind. You got friendzoned... again... hard, but that was yesterday...no wait, two days ago, you really need to get out of here. You know the old saying: winners never...

        SHUT UP!

        I was going for give up but that works fairly well too.

        No, YOU shut up, I’m not taking your advice anymore.

        Oh come on, you can’t possibly be blaming this on me. I’m just a branch of your unconscious, it seemed like a good plan to me.

        Yeah, well it failed, so I’m just gonna refer you to my last response of: SHUT UP. With that scolding, the voice quieted down , leaving Looking Glass to the blankness of his thoughts...

        ...for about 14 seconds, at which point he heard three knocks on his door. Looking Glass gritted his teeth at the attempted intrusion, and yelled “GO away Crimson, I don’t want to hear any plan you came up with. And don’t bother with the door, i reinforced it already.”

        His response came in an unexpectedly feminine and refined voice saying “Duly noted darling, but I must insist that we talk”

“…Rarity?”

        “In the flesh, now please do open up, its rather rude to keep a lady waiting.” A somewhat panicked rummaging could be heard inside the dark house and a few moments later the door creaked partially open, revealing a very tiny red pupil, along with the right side of Looking Glass’s face.

        “H-hey Rarity... what’s up?” Looking Glass said, trying (and failing) to act nonchalant.Rarity’s stare clearly showed she wasn’t particularly amused.

        “I’d love to tell you darling, after you decide to actually show yourself. Come on now, I won’t bite.” Begrudgingly, Looking Glass gave in and opened the door fully, revealing him in all his unkempt glory, from slightly red eyes, to unruly mane, to filthy coat. “oh...oh dear” 

        With a sigh crimson asked “So what was it you wanted to-” Before he could finish, he was roughly grab by the leg with magic and away.

“We can talk later darling, right now we need you in my boutique immediately,  you should have called me MUCH sooner.”

“I didn’t call you at all”

“Precisely” Looking Glass sighed, resigning himself to his fate, hoping it wouldn’t be too unpleasant.
______________________________________________________________________________
        “AHH, stop that!” Looking Glass shouted as a hairbrush was roughly pulled through his knotted mane.

        “I’m sorry darling but I simply can’t do that. If i let you leave here in the condition you’re in then I’d be compromising everything I stood for."

        “Oww! Is sadism one of them?” he hissed bitterly.

        Rarity rolled her eyes. “Really now, even sweetie belle doesn’t complain this much when her mane needs brushing. Granted you’re a rather... advanced case, but still you’re a grown stallion, do you really expect to be able to woo Twilight like this?” Maybe it was the pain, or just how unexpected the comment was but it took Looking Glass a good few seconds to actually register what was said.

“I-I, what are you talking about?”

“There’s no point to playing dumb, I’m good friends with Roseluck and she mentioned a certain awkward stallion buying purple irises. I didn’t think particularly much of it at first but when i saw the bouquet at Twilights this morning well, you know the rest. By the way very good choice quite romantic.”

“Tha- Oww! Thanks, at least someone thought so” Looking Glass said with a slight frown. 

“Yes, that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about dear” Rarity said a bit sheepishly as she put away her brush. “I understand your heart’s in the right place, but I don’t think Twilight is the right target for your affections. As you can personally attest to, she’s not exactly well versed in romantic matters. In her mind you're just a particularly friendly friend. it’s perhaps in both your best interests if you... back off a bit. For them moment at least. She’s bound to figure out what romance looks like eventually, and when she does you have my blessing.” 

During Rarity’s lecture Looking Glass frown had only grown deeper but at the same time he knew she was right. It was painful to admit it but, he was beginning to see just how futile his attempts were. He let out a defeated sigh and said “Yeah, I think you might be right on this one.” Just then a small but unmistakable grin crept onto Glass’s face. “Heh, it’s funny, you sound just like Crimson.” Rarity immediately grimaced at the comparison but quickly regained her composure.

“Yes well, I’ll try to take that as a compliment.” Looking Glass expected as much, the two ponies weren't particularly compatible. “At any rate, I’m quite happy to see you've come to your senses on the matter. I’d suggest that you perhaps take a nice stroll to clear your head; it always does wonders for me when I’m stressed.”

“Yeah, that actually sounds really nice right now.” Looking Glass made a motion to get up from his chair but was immediately shoved back down by magic. 

“I can’t quite release you yet my dear, there’s one detail that needs fixing for you.” The brown pegasus’s eyes grew wide (well, one got wide, the other got wider) in fear.

“What?!” he asked his some alarm, “I thought you had finished up with my hair, you put the brush away and everything.”

“Ahem, yes well, i have solved that problem, the new problem is less to do with design and more to do it pigmentation as it were.”

“... Wait, you want to dye my hair.”

“Yes”

“Uhhh, how about no, thanks.”

“I was hoping you wouldn't need to see this but...”

“Ouch” crimson yelp in surprise as a hair was plucked from his mane. “What was that for?" Without a word Rarity magically moved the hair in front of Looking Glass, giving the unicorn a clear look at the tiny gray hair. “Okay, I've got a gray hair or two, that’s not that big a deal for stallions.” 

“I’d share your disinterest if there were only one or two as you said, but, well... see for yourself” Rarity disposed of the hair and took up a small vanity mirror to crimson’s face, letting him see the 3 relatively small clusters of stone gray hair on his mane. For a minute or two, he simply stared in shock at the volume of it. “Shall I  take your reaction as consent?” Looking Glass nodded. “Excellent, I’ll try to finish this up as quickly as possible.”

“Please, take your time.”
______________________________________________________________________________
        One batch of chemicals later and a once again brown maned unicorn exited the Carousel Boutique. Having nowhere in particular to go Looking Glass took Rarity’s advice and went for a nice long walk. Looking Glass glanced to either side of him, arbitrarily turned left and just started walking. 

        after about 15 minutes of peaceful walking Looking Glass’s mind was cleared and his face held a bright, contented smile. Without any actual destination in mind Looking Glass had for the most part been going in circles, taking random turns whenever he felt like it. He was now walking through Ponyville’s crowded market place. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath of the air wafting from the flower stands mixed in with that from the apple families pie stand. It was then that he was stuck hard by something of substantial weight and speed from in front of him, knocking him clear off of his feet.

        Dazed, it took a second or two for Looking Glass to return to his senses as he was helped to his feet by a few bystanders who witnessed the accident. He noted the fact that concerned ponies had at this point created a large clearing around him.Looking Glass looked across the enclosure to another group of ponies helping an off balance grey pegasus whom he surmised was what had hit him. Concerned, Looking glass thanked those that came to his aid and rushed over to the mare across from him. “Are you alright miss?” he asked.

        The mare shook her head wildly, making her blond mane thrash around on her head. When she looked up Looking Glass’s gaze was drawn to the eyes staring at his own, or more accurately her left eye which seemed to find the clouds to her left much more fascinating. it was then that he recognizes her as Ponyville’s mail mare. “I’m really sorry, I don’t always fly too straight,” she apologized as her gaze lowered in embarrassment.

        “Don’t be, my eyes were closed for a bit there, I really should have been watching where I was going Der-” Looking Glass had to quickly bite his tongue before finishing his last remark and the quickly covered, saying “Ditzy. I’m really sorry Ditzy.” he smiled broadly in an ill-fated attempt to pretend that hadn't happened. realizing she wasn't buying it he quietly repeated, “Sorry.”

        “Don’t be,” Ditzy replied in slightly better spirits. “Everyone just uses the nickname anyway.” She tried to look as happy as possible but Looking Glass was still able to make out signs of embarrassment. it was then he heard a slightly too loud comment from the crowd surrounding them. 

        “Heh, idiot can’t even fly in a straight line.” Looking Glass turned away to try to find whoever made the remark but couldn't pick out anyone in the circle. Looking Back to Ditzy he saw that she too had obviously heard the comment and had given up on hiding her embarrassment, Looking Glass could also detect what looked like a small tear forming at the corner on her eye. Feeling terrible for the poor mare Looking Glass search his brain desperately for a way to help her when he suddenly got an idea.

        “Ditzy.” She looked up at him sadly. “Tell me are your eyes the only reason for your... lack of coordination?”

        She stared at him quizzically and answer “yeah, my lazy eye makes it really hard to focus, why?” 

        “Do me a favor and close your eyes for a second.” Taken off-guard a bit, she hesitated but quietly complied, taking a breath and closing her eyes. Ditzy stood in silent darkness waiting to find out what the unicorn was planning to do when she felt something touch the bridge of her nose right between her eyes. Even more curious she had to fight her instinct to open her eyes. Then she started to feel an odd sensation radiate from whatever was touching her. It was a strange feeling, like a warmth only with a bit of electricity to it. The warmth began to grow and grow, until she saw a bright light from behind her eyelids. Once the light had faded, Ditzy reopened her eyes to see Looking Glass Staring at her in anticipation. She pieced together that whatever he had done was successful based on his massive smile and the gasps of the ponies around them. She scanned the crowd, eliciting even more gasps and hushed murmurs and then returned to looking at the unicorn in front of her with confusion. That was when she realized something: she was looking straight ahead. Not straight head and up to the left, just straight ahead. 

        Ditzy simply stood in silence with her mouth agape for a few moments, creating a fairly awkward situation for Looking Glass. “Ummm.... I take it it worked?” He was then hit by Ditzy once again, this time very much on purpose with outstretched arms and a crushing grip. 

Looking Glass happily returned the hug and they held it until Ditzy broke off and offered a small “Thank you,” after which she sprang away like a shot into a massive loop in the air. a somewhat faint “WOOOHOOO” could be heard from the ground. With Ditzy taken care of Looking Glass turned his attention to the still shocked crowd around him, all staring silently, almost anxiously at him.

“...can I help you?...” Looking Glass would then realize how poorly he chose those words as the crowd’s silence transformed into a cacophony of noise and they collapsed in on him. 

“My Grandfather’s in the hospital!”

“I have a broken leg!”

“My hoof hurts!”

“I haf a lithp”

“I’m fat!”

“I can’t hear out of my left ear!”

“I've got a bad haircut!”

“What?!”

        “I don’t know why we’re yelling!”

        Looking Glass panicked as the crowd closed in farther and farther. Teleport! 

        huh?

        TELEPORT, NOW!!! Listening to himself Looking Glass put as much energy as he could into his horn and tried to imagine his living room. There was a bright flash, and pop, and suddenly the center of attention was nowhere to be found. The ponies searched the area desperately for a short time before accepting that he had left. Disappointed, they all sulked away to whatever it was they had been doing beforehand. 
______________________________________________________________________________
        A flash could be seen from outside Looking Glass’s small house. Inside, Looking Glass laid on his couch trying to contain the panic attack he had just experienced and calm down his breathing to a more reasonable panting as opposed to full blown hyperventilation.

        “Ho...Ly... SHIT”

My... well, our... thoughts exactly. That was close.

You're telling me I barely got out of there.

… Well?

Well what?

Don’t you have something to say to me? maybe, I don’t know, thank you?

Oh, yeah, I guess so, thanks for getting me out of there.

It is my job after all. does this me I’m not getting the cold shoulder anymore?

Yeah, I guess so, I’ll try to listen to you sometimes. just not with Twilight.

Its a start. With that bit of his mind satisfied, Looking Glass was left to think over that whole incident. what started as a simple good deed descended into a full-blown riot. Finally in a quiet place, Looking Glass was able to actually consider what the crowd had said. They all wanted his help in one form or another, and a handful of them sounded like they were in serious need.Looking Glass got off his couch and started walking around his living room until his reached his mirror. Looking at his reflection he thought able everything he could potentially do with his power. Ditzy just proved he can solve problems conventional magic and science couldn't, so why stop at fixing one poor mare’s eyesight? 

With a smile on his face Looking Glass made his decision. Starting tomorrow he was going to start helping people, any and every way he could, and considering the breadth of his abilities so far, there would be plenty of ways. Nodding in commitment to his reflection, Looking Glass turned away and head to his kitchen for some much needed food. Strangely He almost heard a noise, like somepony groaning. Looking Glass just laughed however, dismissing it as the house or something outside.