Runaway to the Future

Chapters

Training Arc pt. 1
Training Arc pt.2
Training Arc pt.3
Arc 4: The Las Pegasus Arc
Arc 5: Flashback Arc
Rawr!

Training Arc pt. 1

Soul Shard rested within her cabin, having taken the better part of a week to transform the tower of wood that had risen from the outburst of magic. Now she had a garden, more space for her work, and she had finally made the cabin a smaller height. Soul had as perfect a home as she would get.

I have enough bits to last me at least two years, or three if I’m more frugal than I normally am. That should buy me enough time to train. What about when that supply runs dry, though? I don’t know if I can fleece the same nobles over and over again, and I need to find something that pushes me further than simple rigged gambling games.

So what do I need to do for training? My wings are small, good enough to aim at something, but not big enough for lifting. So strengthen them up as well; levitation, gravity manipulation, and other magic that relies on a manifested force rely on physical strength to handle the exertions. I also need to work on my magic; I’m good enough at thaumaturgy and spell crafting itself, but I want to work on physical transformations and ritual work more. That’s the only way I’ll be able to pull off becoming the best. Then I will be ready to show the world what I’m made of. So physical work out, ritual craft, transformation magic, and then I guess doing basic exercises for building my magical core.

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The good thing with spending the better part of the last year training in magic and physical labor was that she was already in a relatively good condition physically. But the attempt at starving herself to death combined with the crippling depression that had previously gripped her had eaten away at her body’s original level of fitness.

Soul started off rear leg running in place, and doing wing ups to strengthen her wings. From there , the exercises grew in intensity, building up her forelegs and chest, rear legs and haunches, and then her wings. Being used to dedicating entire days to an intense training regimen before her depression was enough to keep her bored from the endless repetition until soon enough, her body was drenched in sweat and her body was sore.

After water and physical downtime, she decided to get started on her magical training. When it comes to transformative magic, like shape or matter shifting, most ponies think that it’s just molding magic, but it’s so much more than that. It takes the genetic and molecular structure of an object and rearranges it. If done wrong, it an be permanently damaging or even death at the worst and excruciatingly painful at the best.

It was with caution that Soul approached this subject. It was a very risky medium to practice in, but it was also one that, when perfected, would allow her the ability to go places that she otherwise wouldn’t be able to, f only because of her age and the need to improve upon her body through magic. She already had skill in transforming plants, metals, and spell components, but the transformation of other things, including the transformation of oneself, was an entirely different ball game.

She sat in front of her dusty mirror and took a deep and calming breath. She knew that relying on emotions for magic was not only wasteful, but dangerous as well. Sould had formed a psychological link to her emotions, and if that link was to be taken away, her magic would be psychologically blocked. Only through a calm and focused mind could magic be best used. Although that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be done under other conditions, it was just less than ideal. So she concentrated on what she needed to do, calm and focused.

Pushing the magic within her body, she allowed it to pool and build inside, feeling the magical energy thrum within her bones and pulse within the rest of her face. She gave a push of magic, trying to alter her facial structure; she thought that if she was to start with something small yet noticeable, she could fine tune the procedure until she got it right.

Her first attempt yielded nothing more than an itchy tingle through her face before it started to shimmer. Looking down at the book beside her she saw that she needed to mentally view her body and sculpt the body. It wasn’t about what you saw in the flesh, but rather what you saw in your mind. “Magic is in the mind! Oh Mare in the Moon, I can’t believe I forgot about that.”

Calming herself down and letting her mind focus at the task at hand, she allowed her mind to visualize herself from an outsider’s perspective. She used her mind to elongate her muzzle and form fangs, and using her magic, she felt it push and fill up the visualized form like water filling a cup. Having shaped plenty of objects in her earlier training, turning it inward turned out to be not as hard as she had previously thought.

Looking at her handywork, she saw that while she had succeeded in the transformation, she made her teeth more like a Sabertooth tiger’s tusks, which itched like nopony’s business, and left a dull ache in her jaw. But it was something that, while annoying, was still relatively easy to fix.

DONE WITH DAY ONE!!! She thought to herself.

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Having fixed her face and returned it to normal, Soul decided it was time for training her magic centers. Judging from the books in her parents' library, most ponies thought that a unicorn had a set amount of magic, and that the maximum amount of expendable magic would never change.

The truth was that it is like a muscle; the more it’s trained and used, the more magical stamina one gained. It was just the matter of increasing the intake of magic that one held, and increasing the amount of force one exerted on the outside world.

Soul decided to start with active meditation. She focused on allowing her mind to empty as she drank in the sight around her. She felt the warmth of the sun on her coat and the light breeze playing on her body. She enjoyed the smells and sounds of the world around her, all the while letting her mind simply exist in the moment, existing for nothing more than her surroundings without a thought beyond that.

After her mind was empty and her senses had been expanded to the world around her, she closed her eyes and turned her sight inward. Looking at the play of light and dark within the confines of her eyelids, she turned her mind inward and pushed her awareness towards the darkness. As she fell within it, she noticed a depth to the darkness that seemed to flow deeper, as the light became more and more dull. Eventually she fell so far within her mind, her power pushed her awareness outwards.

In this shadowy plane, the world was converted to tendrils and lines of magical bright light formed from magical energy overlapping dark energy of physical matter. From here she allowed her body to focus on connecting to the energy of the Earth, solidifying her scattered aura while charging her magical centers until her body reached a level of discomfort that threatened to rip her back to the physical plane. As the energy within her reached a crescendo, she guided it throughout her body, compacting it within the muscles, bones, and skin and allowing her physical body to glow with light in this world of light and darkness.

Having stored and gathered as much energy as possible, Soul allowed herself to be drawn into the body and flow upwards through her consciousness until she reached her starting point. She felt her skin literally crawl as the energy pulsed within the confines of her body. and with that she allowed herself to cast basic levitation on the rubble around her that she had yet to clean up, getting the magical energy circulating within the body so that it wouldn't stagnate.

This was what she was going to use as her daily training, although as the weeks progressed she was planning on slowly expanding her training to affect her entire body. She had plans for herself that she needed to get her body prepared for. But that was months from now.

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Later that night, Soul was having a nice dinner of grass and water. Soul wouldn't have enjoyed it years ago, but it was something that living out in the wilderness had drilled into her as something edible, simple, and readily accessible. While almost every pony had tastes for breads, fruits, and things of a more complex nature. grass and water was something that Soul Shard had gotten used to eating in situations when those things weren't available.

As she looked at her bed, she noticed something that she had neglected for the last year of her life: her blanket known as Friend. It was one of the things that she took the time to steal from her house when she was kicked out, but she now felt a stab of pain from ignoring it. Laying next to it, and snuggling up with it as close as possible she gathered the words that she wanted to speak.

“Hi, Friend! I’m so sorry that I haven’t been there for you like you have been for me. You really are the most best friend a filly can ask for. You never tell me I’m not good enough, or call me a feather brain, or that I can’t do magic because I’m a pegasus. You always stay with me and love me. I really don’t know what I did to earn such a magnificent friend! I promise that from now on I’ll tell you stories again, and tell you about my day while you’ve been here resting. So for tonight, why don’t I tell you a story?

"A long, long time ago, there was a little filly for whom no one had any love. She always wanted to earn the love of her parents, and show that she was worthy of their family, But it wasn't meant to be. Because according to her parents, this filly was born into the wrong race, and nothing she did could change that.

"So one day these mean parents threw this little filly away, letting her know that she didn’t matter. However, they also said that if she could prove that this little pegasus filly could do magic just like me, then she would have her life, honor, and the love that she wanted. And the parents would know the sadness they inflicted on their daughter.”

Soul yawned and nuzzled Friend. “But as that filly left, she remembered a special friend, her only friend. Something that had always loved her, been there beside her, and when it was near let her know that she was loved, even if it was only a blanket that loved her. But she couldn’t leave that friend; it would hurt too much to lose the only one that ever loved her. So she summoned it and a few other needed things and went to train.” She gave a larger yawn, her eyes drooping slightly as she nuzzled closer to the blanket. Her words were now being directly spoken into the soft folds of fabric between her hooves.

“While undergoing this training, she ignored her friend; she was so desperate to prove that she was special and worthy that she lost sight of the only one who stood beside her no matter what. And when she failed despite her constant training, the filly fell into depression and saw no reason to live anymore. It was only after she came out of that sorrow and found her cutie mark did she see the errors of her ways.”

Soul couldn't stop the tears.

“I’m so sorry! You have always been there for me, and I almost left you forever because I lost sight of my path. But no more. I love you, Friend, and I will never leave you again.

Despite the tears, she was finding it increasingly difficult to hold her head up, and she soon found herself falling deeper and deeper into the recesses of slumber.

“Good night Friend. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The rest of that month flew by in a blur for Soul Shard. She fell into the schedule of waking up, eating, working out to physical exhaustion, sleeping, waking up, eating, doing magical training, and sleeping. She would tell Friend about her accomplishments and experiences every night, and it soon became a calming mechanism of sorts; it was the only interaction she was ever able to recieve, regardless of whether the conversation was reciprocating or not.

It was at the one month mark that she decided to test herself. Setting in her bed she looked at Friend. “Hey Friend. Guess what today is?

“That’s right! Today is testing day. If I pass my set goals, I’ll proceed to the next level of training I want to do, and I can get started on my two big projects I want to do after a year of training. I’ll need to run into town to get spell components, though that shouldn’t be a problem. I haven’t traveled to town in months so I have enough money for what I need.

"But listen to me ramble on and on like this. I guess I’m just excited. I’ll tell you how everything went tonight.” Soul Shard said bouncing around her bed gabbing excitedly to Friend. While her friend wasn’t much of a talker, having a good listener was enough for her to keep a relative grasp on her sanity as she focused on training herself to be the best.

And that training showed. Her muscles were tight and corded under her slick fur. Her body had slimmed, but not a sickly thin as much as a "muscular" thin. Her coat glowed in a soft sheen from her grooming, and it flowed over her muscles like water on a riverbed when she moved. But today was the day that would show whether it paid off or not.

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Having not bothered to buy or craft an hourglass, Soul decided that a physical test was not something worth testing with normal means. Instead, she thought the testing would show in her magical training; such things as levitation and the kinetic field of psionics exerted a physical force, and thus having an abundance of physical strength would translate to the ability to handle greater weight before her body gave out.

As for magic, Soul decided that this month’s test would test telekinesis in both hoof and wing levitation, and that it would test transformation magic in both combat transformation and intangibility transformation. There would also be spellcrafting for things such as a gravity spell, crystal enchantment, sigil craft, and most importantly a simple spell to see if her creative ability was as good as she thought it was.

To test levitation, Soul made four boulders with thaumaturgic crafting using the element of Earth to build, strengthen and augment simple pebbles into the varying degrees of height and weight needed. Starting from the right to left, the sizes of the boulders started at a filly’s height and doubled in size with each consecutive boulder. The first boulder was two hundred pounds, followed by a four hundred pound boulder, a one ton boulder, and a two ton boulder equaling a combined weight of seventy two hundred pounds.To soul, when she could lift all that weight, she would be at peak physical strength for a filly, and while she didn’t expect to lift all that weight at this test it was a goal to someday reach for further testing and a milestone to reach.

Looking at the stones before her, she lifted her left foreleg and channeled raw arcane energy through her hoof. As she focused on the lightest of the test boulders before her, a white aura enveloped her hoof and the boulder lifting it up. She felt a light counter pressure on her foreleg as if she was balancing a broom on it. Focusing on the next boulder, she pushed more magical energy through her hoof, lifting the heavier boulder. It felt like Soul was holding a heavy book and she felt the need to exert a small amount of force to hold then up. As she reached the third boulder, she felt her hoof heat up from the exchange of energy from electricity to arcane.

The aura by now was almost blindingly bright, with flaring fields of white arcane energy fields radiating from the center. Even though the third boulder only lifted an inch off the ground, she felt her muscles quiver under the force. As the pressure built up she dropped the one ton boulder and settled the others on the ground. It was only after she let the magical energy stop flowing through her hoof that she noticed how tired she truly was; her body was drenched with sweat, and she felt as if a truck had run right into her. She was out of breath, and struggling to maintain a proper stance.

The next part was going to be even more difficult, but it could wait until after a short break. Soul went to the pool of water that rested in the center of her garden. She looked at the flowers around her and let the fragrance wash over her as she took a refreshing drink of cool water. The flowers around her were not only for holidays, but was also a motivational treat for after this testing. After some simple stretching, it was time to continue the testing.

What separated wings and hoofs were two things. Hoofs were a small enough foci that they gave off a sign of their use, most notably an aura both around the target and the appendage channeling the arcane energy. The second one was drainage. While the hoof, like a unicorns horn was smaller it also allowed a set amount of power to be channeled. But the wings, on the other hand, were focis for targeting arcane energy as well as a pegasi’s unique brand of magic, thus getting rid of the controlled power used. Although this was a greater drain, it was traded off for no noticeable tale that it was being used other than the wings being open. Even then, using pegasi magic for anything other than weather crafting or flying was not expected by the other races.

The most important thing about a pegasi’s wings was the fact that they were packed full of nerves and receptors that allowed a pegasi to perform many useful tasks. Most pegasi used these nerves to sensing electromagnetic fields, such as the gravity of the earth and moon, electromagnetic radiation given off by the sun, and well as the electromagnetic energy given off by living things. What was especially interesting was that with training, even more magical energy could be acquired. This was useful when flying above the clouds, or going for long flights where navigation was critical. It was also a useful tool for blind pegasi who used their wings to maneuver around, sensing these fields like a bat or dolphin would. In some ways a blind pegasi was able to see more than those with sight, even if they could never experience color other than the trails of yellow light within the dark confines of their otherwise sightless eyes.

It was this skill that Soul Shard had perfected; even though she could see, she had heightened her targeting ability and trained her seeing eyes to visualize these sensations and convert her pegasi magic to other venues that most pegasi would never dream of. Sitting on her haunches she flared open her wings, allowing her senses to focus on the smallest of the training boulders. She wrapped her gravitational magic around it, and as she lifted it from the ground, Soul felt her underdeveloped wings flare as the boulder's weight pressed against them. but was nonetheless able to keep it off of the ground. It was at the next boulder that she hit her limit. Despite the fact that she was able to lift it, her whole body felt as if a weight was slowly crushing against her ribcage, making each breath a challenge while making each feather slowly spread apart as the gravitational force pushed against them.

Still being able to lift four hundred pounds with only pegasi magic was quite a feat, as far as distance lifting was concerned. Most pegasi naturally spread their pegasi magic while holding things; It’s what air chariot carriers and pegasi movers used to carry such insanely heavy weights. But it was another thing entirely to push that magic outside the body and use it at a distance intentionally, since the farther from a target one was the more magic was required to lift it.

She spent the next half an hour in meditation, gathering magical energy from her surroundings and compacting it within herself. After a month of undergoing this process, she had slowly become able to hold more arcane energy within herself, and while that in turn increased her internal stores of magic, it had also allowed her body to tap into a greater reserve of magical power when she needed it.

And so came the evaluation.

While I’m proud of what I can do with my hoof, I’m rather disappointed that I can’t do heavy lifting with my wings.Although I guess four hundred pounds is better than nothing. So I give myself a B on that. Or maybe a B+ if only because I couldn’t lift a ton with my pegasi magic. I guess that can be done next test.

Soul then moved on to centering the course for her transformative magic evaluation. This course consisted of two parts: A wooden model of a pony that acted as a combat target, and a short 400 meter course. The course consisted of a zigzag of pillars and a tunnel like maze with multiple holes with in it. The course ended with a small tower standing thirty feet tall; this was the perfect test of Soul's ability to control herself in an intangible, cloudlike state.

Looking at the wooden "pony" before her, she calmed herself, allowing her mind to go blank while absorbing her surroundings. She allowed her focus to flow internally centering her visualization on her outside appearance, visualizing her neck muscles, joints, and bones to become spring-like and coiled like a cheetah’s spine. She saw her jaw and mouth structure become like that of a viper's. She flowed her magic within herself and allowed the magic to fill up the changes she saw like water filled a cup. She felt her body conforming to the change; this was definitely worth a month of work on transforming her body. She felt that this was one form that would be most useful for combat. This form would give her the ability to whip her neck and head at lightning-fast speeds, and after a bit of training, Soul would be able to store magic in her gums and inject her opponent with it like snake venom.

Soul whipped her head as fast as possible, giving fast bites to the neck, legs, and face of the dummy before her. The only weakness to this that Soul noticed was that at lightning fast speeds, each bite into a surface cause the tooth to jerk. This slowed her down by fractions of a second and caused a twinge of pain. That’s a good grade on speed, but a slightly lower grade on the tooth. That could cost me; although wood is stronger than flesh, it’s still a weakness to improve upon. But I do maneuver faster than a normal pony could without a magical boost, so that’s a plus. I guess I could give myself a low A so far, or perhaps a B because of the pain.

With that evaluative conclusion out of the way, Soul started preparing for the next test. Intangibility was harder than simple shapeshifting in that it required one to not only morph the shape of the body but expand magic to hold oneself together. This also meant that doing spells without an enchanted item as an anchor was nearly impossible since most of one’s focus was on keeping oneself in one piece; even the rare S rank unicorn would have trouble with such an endeavor. But the trade off was the inability to be physically harmed with mundane attacks. It gave the user increased stealth, access to normally inaccessible areas, and the ability to fly without wings in a matter of speaking. So it was more of a defensive spell than a combative one, which is why she not only crafted the obstacle course but also separated the combative aspect and this one.

Although Soul could theoretically implement both shapeshifting and intangibility at the same time, it was too advanced for her at the moment as well as more strenuous on her magical reserves than she wanted to deal with. So shifting to her true form, she once again allowed herself to clear her mind. Feeling the magic build within her, she grabbed her body and felt herself push and flow outwards, creating separation within her body and allowing herself to enter a cloud like form.

Her consciousness expanded, giving herself a 360 degree field of vision which was disconcerting even after a month of training. With the initial transformation underway and six seconds wasted on regaining her bearings, she focused on the rest of the course.

Stretching her cloud-like body to flow between the posts wasn’t hard. It was simply shifting the magic to stretch herself like a snake and flowing between the sets of posts. When she hit the tunnel she decided to push herself and enter each of the four six-inch holes. The hard part was that the holes were very dark. They prevented Soul from seeing and forced her to expend energy to feel her way around. This spell would be useful if she ever was trapped or needed to make a sneaking entrance or escape.

It was a minute later that the entirety of her body was out of the walls as a white cloud of magic. Racing up to the top of the tower, she put her reformative magic to the test, since going intangible wasn’t nearly as hard as going back into a physical form.

Visualizing her body, she pulled the magic together and reversed the process of intangibility, effectively going back to her physical form. Unfortunately, she messed up with the conversion slightly, causing a blast of pain and heat to jolt through her body and forcing every swear she knew to say out of her mouth.

She took major points off of herself for both taking to long to get her bearings and botching the transformation to tangibility, with minute details from the entire run decreasing her score here and there.

she gave herself a C, causing her over all score to even out to a B-. While others might not have been as strict and would consider B a bad grade, Soul interpreted it this way: while in some areas she was ahead of her age bracket, her score ultimately made her less than perfect in general. If she was to impress other unicorns some day or she should need to use her skills in a practical setting, a B simply would not cut it. If she was to wow the Princess and make fools of those who rejected her, she needed to not only be powerful, but she needed to be the best. It was the only way to prove that she wasn’t a failure.

After a quick teleport back to the cabin, she got herself a quick bit to eat and a nice refreshing drink of water. She could now focus the rests of her tests indoors where everything was nice and cool. First, she retrieved a steel barrette in the shape of an ouroboros, a snake devouring its own tail, with the clip being on its underside. This was to be the enchanted item in this evaluation. Soul imparted three spells onto the barrette, each one just as important as the next. The first was a dual purpose spell that would hold the barrette in place as well as prevent it from being removed by anyone but keyed individuals or herself. It was a simple spell that was used for things like sticking pictures on walls and holding up a pony’s hair in improbable styles that a lot of the well-off were known for.

She parted her bangs to the left side of her face and clipped the barrette into place. Shaking, nodding, and rolling her head around vigorously, she was proud that her clip not only held in place but wasn’t pulling on her hair roots. The next spell was even simpler. It was a mind link spell allowing her to control any spells or enchantments while keeping those spells and enchantments from sucking away at her energy reserves. like an enchanted item usually would.

Finally, the piece de resistance: A variable, gravity spell that would only affect her personal self without spreading to the outside world. In other words, she’d feel the additional weight and her body would react as if it weighted more, but physically she wouldn’t have any weight increase, nor would that increased gravity affect anything she interacted with (at least, not without consciously expanding the spells aura)

It took her two hours of work to perfect, but when it was completed she had a clip that could multiply gravity by a minimum of 1.5 times, and a maximum of five hundred times. Although she didn’t think she’d ever need it that high, Soul wanted it in case it became necessary later on.

Starting with the minimum, she placed the clip on and immediately felt the spell flood her body. It was slightly uncomfortable, but that was the only way to know it was working. She thought that if she were to keep boosting the weight up every time, she would get used to the sensation and she would be at peak physical performance in no time. Her only problem was that she’d need to take off the clip for a few hours a day to ensure that she was not just strong, but gentle and slow enough to hide any boosts to her strength and speed; she’d not have any limiters to how fast she was moving once the weight was diminished, nor would it be a good idea to injure others by carelessness. But for getting as close to perfection as possible, she needed to push herself beyond what was normal.

Please with her results, she gave herself her first A+, having created a stable, self sustaining gravity spell. The next test few tests passed with startling ease, since they were her favorite subjects: Crystal Enchantment and Sigil craft. The Enchantment she worked on with her crystal passed layline energy through the stone while binding the excess energy into it as an auxiliary node, with an additional enchantment siphoning ambient magical energy from her surrounding area. This allowed her to have a large reservoir of magic with little effort, thus creating the world's first artificial magic pool. In nature, this was rare to come across, but it would recharge a mage’s energy reserves when tapped into. The Sigil was a simple array of sigils that drew in ambient light and amplified it within a circle, creating a sphere of light as bright as several candles.

Being happy with her creations, she gave herself an A for originality as well as her success in implementing them. The last part though was the hard part, though: a custom spell of her choosing. As one could tell by now, Soul was hard on herself. This was far different, though. This needed to be perfect.

She calmed herself down and allowed herself to tap into her MPC, her Magic Pool Crystal, and recharge herself. Soul Shard felt her body thrum with power as the artificial pool flooded her body with raw arcane energy. Next, she emptied her mind and entered a magical mindset.

She began casting.

Concentrating over the table, Soul laid down the sphere, magically twisting and turning it upon itself. This caused the sphere to diverge and become two spheres with an outer and inner shell. She laid down the spell formula and variables, and then began forming links within the plane, altering the lines of planar force and reconstituting the sphere’s spell formula to be more complex, taking into account the additional formulas.

Once this was in order, she pushed the arcane energy through her hoof and allowed the magic to be cast within the spell she previously set up. As the spell was fed and set upon her desk as an anchor, a bubble began to take form, enveloping all the work she had done. It started as a shimmer, then an oily, bubble-like glow began to form, It’s shape wobbling from the force pushing and pulling as it began to set and take shape. Then with a final push of power. Soul formed a reality bubble: a miniature pocket dimension.

Grinning like a mad mare, she decided to do the final two parts of the spell: Displacement and replacement. The Displacement was a simple twisting of the bubble's variable shell, placing all the things inside it into the astral plane; Soul did this with relative ease. Replacement followed: with another twist in the opposite direction, Soul brought everything back. She would have cheered at her success, but the exhaustion got to her before she could, and she passed out in fatigued satisfaction.

Soul learned two valuable lessons during that test. One was that just because she had the knowledge to do something didn’t mean that she had the power to do it without over exerting herself. The second was that it was absolutely necessary for a filly to pace herself rather than using brute force to get a job done. there was a time and place for brute force, but practice and evaluations didn't fit in that criteria. So she gave herself an A for the creation, but lowered herself down to a C+ for the overexertion and passing out.

Combining all of her grades, she ended up with a B+. It wasn’t an A like she wanted, but it was above average. And considering that she was grading herself as if she was a grown mare above average across the board was a very good indication of her future improvements. She was so close to being excellent, she knew she could hit that grade on the next section of her training. But she had passed. For now, at least.

Author's Note

Link

Training Arc pt.2

Soul Shard sat curled up with Friend, nuzzling it as she contemplated her day. It was late at night, and nature provided no light, yet Soul's ambient light orb enchantment was still glowing brightly, giving off light with the intensity of a room full of candles. As a result, Soul didn't have to wait for her eyes to adjust to the dark before starting her night time rituals; saving money on candles and magic-heavy mage lamps was a wise move.

“Well Friend I promised to tell you how my day went before I start training for my next test; I do have three months, after all. So... I didn’t ace the test, Friend, but I did score above the average adult mare with an affinity for magic, so that is worth celebrating.

"Yes, Friend, I know that’s a little harsh. And yes I agree that if I was going up against my own age bracket I’d do spectacularly. But these are unicorns we’re talking about; since when has fairness ever mattered to them? They’d probably throw out some adult name who could do better, so I have to prove that I’m spectacular, if not perfect, or I’ll never be accepted. I mean, if the princess’s own school laughed me out for being a pegasus, the princess is going to need me to wow her if I should have a chance at being taken seriously. I have to have more power, more skill, and more talent than my peers or she’d simply scoff at my presence like Mother and Father did. Since it’s her school, I have to accept that she’d be just as bad as they were.” Although she knew Friend couldn’t talk back, she liked to pretend that it could. Being as lonely as she was, it was the only interaction she got when she wasn’t fleecing nobles.

“You know that light spell I’ve been working on? I think that if I can mass produce it, I can make a killing. All I need to do is get some seed money for a business, then master the age spell or get better at transformation magic. I’m still working out the kinks on the transformation spell... yes, Friend, I know that squirrel was peeved, but at least I didn’t explode it like the last five. And if I get my inventions sold, I can get money through honest work. I don’t like stealing from others. Yes, Friend, I know they deserve it for being cruel, but it still feels wrong.

“I can’t wait to earn the money to start my own business. Maybe we can go to Las Pegasus, show off our skills. To make things easier, we can just say we had help with a unicorn enchanting objects if they ask about our skill. But I can be cheered for my work, get some bits, and then do some harmless hustling of the casinos. Pegasi gravity magic hasn’t been experimented with as far as long distances are concerned, so I should be able to use that get some cash. Then it’s honest work the rest of the way.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! One last thing. Remember how I’ve been mentally slaving over the Reality Bubble? Well I finally nailed it; I pulled it off! I’m going to go into it too see where it goes.

"If I can master the mechanics of that spell, who knows what I’ll be able to do?! And since it’s new, that means that I’d be the master of that field... the Princess would HAVE to accept me!”

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Soul was still too small to within the spell confines of the bubble, even when crouched. Even though the bubble was not physically visible, Soul was able to remember how big it was, having formed the bubble recent enough to remember such a minute detail.

However, she had no idea what to expect. A good mage learned everything he or she could about the spells they cast, which in this case was finding out what exactly the spell accomplished. While Soul knew that her spell desynced a segment of reality by creating a bubble of space to disrupt part of the physical plane, she wanted to see where exactly she was sending things so that she could better build upon the spell.

Taking the "switch" of the spell, Soul twisted the variables needed to dislocate the space within the bubble. She first noticed the feeling of a tight push, as if she were being forced through a very small hole and flattened similarly to her teleportation spell. This sensation was soon followed by a blindness as she felt her body lose it’s solidarity and everything faded to black.

Regaining her sense of sight, she screamed in delight. All around her was aglow in ambient magical light. Such things as auras, visual pathways of lay line energy, and magical formations, both fully formed and barely cohesive surrounded her. It was like looking into another world, one that resided just beyond the veil of the physical plane. Looking beneath her, she saw the prismatic bubble and the anchors of the spell keeping it in place, almost as if it were a physical object. The other creations she made for testing and practice not only glowed, but had their own physical aspects in this place. It was if magic formed on this plane and was purely physical, as opposed to where she had left, where it was unnoticeable unless active.

“I shall call you the Etheric Plane, and I claim you in my name!" Soul exclaimed. having a sense of large-scale authority for the first time. "I shall be Princess of the Ethers!” She had never heard of this place before; even her parents' library didn't have information on this phenomena. Having come across it filled her with ecstatic glee. Being curious by nature and inquisitive by habit, she decided to explore this place before attempting to go back to the physical plane. This was mostly to satiate her burning curiosity and adventurous spirit, but it was also to learn what she could about this place; with that knowledge, she could utilize this place more efficiently in the future.

Soul saw that the bubble she created was a prismatic structure with the spell variables placed around it in a glowing electric blue fashion. The anchors twisted alongside the bubble's field of influence, wrapping around it like a mummy covered in a translucent, shimmering cloth.

She felt an odd sensation as she tried to walk; her right foreleg passed through the table. Picking her foreleg back up, she tried focusing on moving forward rather than stepping. While she was able to move this way, it felt weird every time she moved only to feel her leg pass through something. As she stepped off the table, she laughed; Her body didn’t automatically fall to the floor until she concentrated on moving downwards. This place is amazing! It seems that movement is determined by the will of one to move rather than by physical locomotion. Amazing! I can do so much here. But I need to find away to do this that isn’t as draining as creating a Reality Bubble, nor as uncomfortable to travel through. This whole place will be my playground.

After passing through the wall she noted the awkward feeling yet again, Soul looked up at the night sky and looked in rapturous, jaw-dropping awe of the sky in this place. The stars glowed in a magnificent aura and their magic thrummed majestically. What really left her short of words, though, was the brilliant centerpiece of the darkness above: the moon. For years she had swore on and to the Mare on the Moon, not daring to swear by the Solar Princess for whom she had no trust to hear her pleas or care about her. After all, if she really cared, she wouldn’t have allowed Soul to suffer for doing what she felt was her destiny.

But Soul was witnessing spell upon spell wrapped around the moon in a form that was more complex than anything she had seen before. Two stars far away were connected to the moon, the basic mechanics resembling a mixture between a Shield, Seal, Ward, and Barrier spell. Whatever was in the moon was locked more intensely than anything she could think of; It was a true wonder. That’s when it hit her, that if something was bound within the moon then it was being kept away from everypony.

Soul felt bad for whatever was in there; the Mare in the Moon likely felt more lonely that she could comprehend.

She was probably more lonely than Soul herself.

She collected her thoughts. “Hi, Mare on the Moon! I don’t know if you can hear me, but I wanted to say hello. I found out how to enter this Plane of Existence and it’s simply... breathtaking. I just noticed the spells around my things as well as magic in the ether. If you could see the Everfree, it’s as creepy here as it is in the Physical Plane... I don’t really know what to say other than you must be really lonely. I'll send a duplicate of my... friend... to help you with that! I would keep you company, but I can’t teleport to you; I have the feeling that going to the moon is a one way trip. But that doesn’t mean you should be alone. Hopefully Friend will be as comforting to you as it is to me, and I can send you letters. Good night, my friend. I’ll talk to you later. I promise.”

Going back to the table, she switched the variables to flow back to the Physical Plane. It was as uncomfortable going to the Physical Plane as it was when to depart it. Walking wobbly to Friend, she took a few minutes to regain her land legs, as it were. She cast a simple duplication spell, essentially making a second Friend, and walked outside with it.

"There is somepony up there, and they must be lonely. My own Friend has helped me stay sane and, well, not so lonely all these years. Now it’s your turn to do the same."

Casting the teleportation spell on the blanket, she watched it flow away and hoped that it found its way to whoever was up there. Everypony needs somebody to be there for them; nobody was meant to be all alone, and she wasn’t about to let a stranger be lonely either.

Going to her own friend, she lay down and gave it one last talk before starting on the next phase of her training, “Hey Friend, I think I made another friend. She’s as silent as you are, but that’s okay; you both are wonderful listeners. Now, Friend, it’s time for me to do some mindcrafting in my mindscape. It’s a skill that I know is important, but that I've been avoiding... sadly due to how much effort goes into it.”

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Standing in the foreground of her mind, Soul saw the chaotic swirls of ideas, experiments, and memories flowing directionless through her mental recesses. This was not a magical skill by default; it was a skill that any entity could do on themselves, but was rarely done due to the fact that it was a rather obscure field. If it wasn’t for her family's Grimoire, Soul herself would have overlooked so many forms of magic that were passed on from the eldest of the family. Over 200 generations, starting from before the founding of Equestria, spread into a major tome of research, knowledge, and creations that belonged to the family. What made the Grimoire most useful was that the last page was dedicated to sealing the next book in the series, effectively making the family tome efficient.

But this was a skill that as Soul approached it, she started to see why it was so important. As a filly who loved organization, the chaos within her head was annoying. The first step to the process was to mentally create a room, a start to the mental foundation. She mentally designated her archives and records of everything she thought of and experienced to this room.

First, Soul made a section dedicated to each group of magic other than sorcery, which she found impractical and inefficient. The first to be categorized was Wizardry, the scientific analyzation of magic, the multitude of laws, theorems, and mathematical computations that governed everything about a spell. It was less about doing a spell and more about what was understanding everything about what was going on inside the spell.

Next was Psionics, the melding of ones mental energy to effect mind over matter. Most unicorns spells were essentially one form of Psionics or another, utilizing psychokinesis to alter reality to fit ones will. Since most magic was from the mind, Psionics was easier to learn than actual spell casting. As a pegasus, Soul had less luck with raw Psionics, but was slowly but surely learning to use basic psionics beyond levitation. She had to make additional magical links for the work that she had translated from direct mind to arcane magic. Next was channeling the power through her hoof as a pegasus, Soul didn't have a designated magical output, like unicorns had with their horns.

Next up was Soul's personal favorite: Thaumaturgy, the taking of essences, elements, sub-elements, and vibratory patterns, Then using a form of arcane, spiritual alchemy to augment, alter, or transmute the properties and effects of a targeted object. It fell within five categories: White, Black, Purple, Red, and Grey. White dealt with biological substances and objects. Black, White's magical and chromatic opposite, dealt with death and souls, going by the aptly named Necro-Thaumaturgy. Purple, what Soul mostly used, dealt with Element Crafting. It dealt with the complete control and manipulation of both positive and negative elements, and shaping them to the user's will.

Red was an even more rare and recently maligned art. It dealt with the magical manipulation of blood. It was also known as Diablerie, the art of summoning, and thaumturgically working on the blood of oneself and, more commonly, others. It was something that Soul Shard was very uncomfortable with witnessing, let alone dealing with; it was a power that drained the blood of others like some kind of vampony. And was able to turn blood into acid, or make a victim's blood so thick it stopped the vital organs or had the potential to craft contagions, an even more dangerous effect.

But the last was Grey, one of her personal favorites. It was the polar opposite to all the others in that it dealt with technology. Grey thaumaturgy was the shaping, transmutation, alteration, and augmentation of metals, gems, and craft components. In a far more skilled form of Grey thaumaturgy, one could even shape these objects together to create a large amount of magically and psionically crafted technologies. It was something that gave Soul great joy in pursuing.

The last was colloquially known as Crafting. It covered everything from Ritual Craft to rune and sigil crafting. It was the building of magical items, spell forms, spells formed by a physically built structure, and other aspects of magical construction. It also covered everything from Alchemy to Xenoarcana, in simplest terms, the study of foreign types of magic that required physical components rather than raw arcane energy.

Altogether, it took Soul half an hour to place everything in it’s own mental shelving units, breaking down each file to it’s individual building blocks of metaphysical knowledge. Once that was complete, she broke down all of her collective knowledge and went to work for the next four hours, putting everything in it’s own category. It was only understandable that, after all that, a mind would need to rest and regain energy, which Soul was more than happy to allow.

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The light of the noon sun woke her up, forcing its way behind her still-sleepy eyelids. Groggily making her way out of bed, she got herself a good helping of grass and a swig of water before going about her daily stretches and workout. Once she was physically and mentally ready, she sat down to map out her day, and the things she hoped to accomplish within it.

I should focus now on Mindcrafting, and I should work on strengthening my skill with Purple and Grey Thaumaturgy. As a whole, crafting is not a strong point of mine, so I might as well work on Ritual Craft and spell forms.

I did decent on combative transformation but because of my test scores in... certain fields, I’ll be improving magical inventing and engineering. But I don’t want to get out of shape; working on intense combat would be useful for ensuring that I don’t grow soft.

This was not what concerned Soul the most, though. At that moment, her mind was a completely different place entirely. I need to work on a new project with what I saw last night. Perhaps I can work with the Etheric Plane and bring it into the physical plane; after all, if it works one way then it should theoretically be reversible. With how spells are formed there, I wonder if I can form programmed laws and ignite it within a sphere of dislocated space. That would be so... cool! I have to try that. Although the workload ahead of me is going to be insane...

Soul Shard sat over her desk, nearly a week into her self training. She was happy with self-training because the only limitations to consider were the ones she set for herself; she didn't have to deal with closeminded ponies saying she couldn’t do something simply because she was a Pegasi or a filly. However, it came with a draw back; she had to learn through trial and error, instead of instruction. To say that this was chaotic was an understatement.

But now she was working on personal creations, which, as it turned out, was harder than she expected. She had tinkered with Mindcrafting, and made a mental laboratory that took what she knew of magic and tinkerd with, tweaked, and fixed her inventions before she made them. Unfortunately, that only took into account what she knew of the things she worked with, and didn’t take into account all the little side effects and new outcomes that came from her work. Which, of course, created new tidbits of knowledge to add to her mental hall of records.

Her most recent experiment was something that she found most interesting. Most electronic equipment worked by taking unicorn magic, and the arcane energy that was stored within it, then slowly dissipated the charge through the electronics. The problem with this was that it took either time, or knowing a unicorn with free time to charge up the device. Needless to say, this was horribly inefficient.

Soul Shard’s discovery was purely by accident, but was something that, upon finding it, she cursed herself for not discovering it previously; it was so simple! By taking a crystal and passing layline energy through it, you are filling it with an Arcane Energy. Then by compacting it, and pressing it’s molecular structure together, its electric charge was merged with tremendous amounts of arcane energy. This, in essence, not only created a Mage Capacitor, but also a Mage Battery. Unfortunately, she still needed to work on stabilizing it before the generated heat melted to crystal. This was a huge gap to cross.

“Blast you, Moon!" Soul yelled in a primal roar of irritation. "You stupid, inane, blundering project! I will you to stop being a total twat, or I swear by all that’s holy and unholy I will destroy you! FRRRAAAA!” Soul immediately contemplated what she just did; I must be losing my mind. . Going to her bed and throwing herself into Friend, she let herself calm down and have a good calm talk with her companion. So I lost my cool for a second. it’s not that big of a deal.

“So what do we need to do, Friend? Well, all you need to do is be my support, but as for me? I love making technological breakthroughs, but I need more engineering knowledge. I need to grit my teeth and buy a bucking Arcanelectro Mageometer. Come on, I've told you about this, Friend! I mean, at first it starts vibrating, then after it gets compact enough, it emits a loud sound. I don’t know the exact decibel, but it does get loud after a certain amount of compaction. Then it starts emitting actual electrical sparks. Unfortunately, it doesn't do this for long before it overheats and melts. We’ve gotten past the point when I can measure the energy by ear, so I need to get some type of semi-professional laboratory equipment.

"I need to sneak into a library and do the gate spell we made yesterday. With this, I can mass-teleport duplication spells here. I'll get the knowledge into my MHoR then sell the duplicates to book stores. No, Friend, that isn’t illegal, it’s simply being a one pony printing press. Making a profit from something I didn’t have permission to copy. As long as I don’t get caught, I won’t get in trouble. That and we need the money so it’s win win.”

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Although the trip to Manehattan and back was as uneventful as they come, Soul was unable to keep herself from sending over more books than she had originally planned once she arrived. Seeing numerous books on mechanics, electrical engineering, magical experiments from the DIY Wizard series of books, and a large amount of books for magitech caused her to become... a bit greedy.

She squeed with delight with the raw knowledge at her disposal when she arrived at her home, seeing the vast wealth of information truly available to her. And so it was two weeks later that she had read all the books available, and committed the knowledge to her archives.

It turned out that when it started vibrating, it was generating five volts of electricity. When it actually started humming, it was generating 24 volts. By the time it was generating actual sparks, it was generating far more than what it could hold, but 120 volts/5 milliamps was enough to melt the crystal, so she had found her range. The next was setting it within some type of device in order to store the electrical charge and send it to electronic devices, but that could wait to later. With her Light Orbs and Mage Batteries, she had enough good ideas as it was to make a profit from to support herself when she started things up. Then when ponies across Equestria were using her patented creations, she could finally go to the Princess and not only demonstrate her power, but would have a company that would have her genius stamped across the populace.

She sometimes felt like a filly version of Silverbrook, or Neighcolti Tesla. Before their deaths, both of these geniuses contributed to modern computers that were used by scientists for a large amount of scientific work, but still had to find a consumer application: electronics that were used by unicorns around the world and many other areas of modern technolog. Tesla’s greatest work was for the electronics and lightning manipulation within Pegasi cloud homes, while Tesla’s help with his unicorn contributors made vast steps in motors and MCs. It was easy for Soul to imagine herself in their shoes when she had such innovative ideas and vast knowledge in the very fields they excelled in.

After having created a heat sink and bracket to hold and store electrical power, she had a primitive, but still working prototype. Her main problem was that the half an inch oval crystal was to big for smaller electronics, but any smaller and she’d need to rework the container at a faster rate than she felt comfortable with.

I think a nap is in order...

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At the end of the first month of Soul's three month training course, she had successfully finished integrating all the disparaging aspects of her mind. Everything was now in order, and she was now looking upon her mental kingdom from outside her MHoR. Outside that building was a massive field of blue grass, which contained many golden paths to several other buildings. These buildings were made of marble and had a uniform height of thirty feet and there was a third of a mile between each of the buildings; each building had room to expand if necessary. The entire structure was built following the Golden Ratio, with her hall of records as the center. Bridges linked each building together, in a similar fashion to the segments of a seashell. This was chosen not only for it’s mathematical beauty, but Soul's innate love for the seashell and its "inspired" look.

While there were fifteen buildings altogether, the two that received the most attention were her combat building and her laboratory, she was sitting in the latter currently. With it’s remote access to the MHoR and it’s mental construction, she was able to more fully expand upon the various ideas running through her head, an opportunity Soul took advantage of quite frequently. Her latest attempt to work on building extraplanar space had finally shown some promise, and her large store of knowledge had proven advantageous once again. Very recently, it had allowed her to compile the components necessary to form what she called the Globe Garden, or G2. If she was able to troubleshoot it properly and get rid of its current glitches and bugs, she could literally transform a Reality Bubble into a sphere of augmented reality. Unfortunately, if the globe broke, the spells within it would implode and destroy all of her hard work. Soul had nothing to worry about, though; she still had two months left to go.

Sitting back from her mental simulations, Soul thought back to her combat training and how it was finally showing some progress after a month of horribly messing up. Her real stumbling block came in the form of a hard choice: she either had to add a step to Psionic and Magical combat that unicorns never had to deal with, or she had to perfect the combat using Pegasi magic efficiently and ranged enough to cut away the additional step. Unfortunetly, this would lead to decreased accuracy at farther distance without resorting to using wingsight, although Soul wouldn't have to worry about this disadvantage much; soul had gotten rather skilled with wingsight the more she was forced to use it for alternative spell casting.

In her combat room, she made numerous mock enemies ranging from simple and weak pawns to ones that she had was still unable to fight, and had sealed away. While she had made them to be peaceful outside the arena, it was the fact that they were there that gave her a goal. Regardless, Soul felt unease at the notion of having to go up against them someday. But as far as progress is concerned, she had gotten to level 15 out of 45, the last level being a three headed princess with a dragon neck and head for a tail, with four giant bat like wings that shot streams of every element, form of matter, and attack type (piercing, bludgeoning, gravity, striking, and slashing) imaginable. She also gave them malleable, extendable limbs, and the ability to turn into a snake with a skull mask capable of shooting balls of the same energy type as their lightning, flight, and enhanced regeneration. To say she wasn’t looking forward to level 45 was about as much of an understatement as to say that the level would be "a bit challenging," but the wards and programming to stop the monster short of death were not extremely relieving, especially after the level 10 fiasco. Regenerating, asexual, quick breeding Dire frogs with the ability to explode at will was a very poorly thought out plan.

But today was the day where she would do the training in real life, on a real life ponequin. She had decided that it would need to wait until after her second month, when she’d find some beast in the Everfree and fight it. Soul, being as close to the forest as she was, needed to find a challenge to overcome. Fighting something that didn’t fight back wasn’t good training as much; it was more a waste of time and energy.

Allowing herself to leave her mind, she let her eyes adjust to the outside world. After a light series of stretches, she trotted out to begin her combat training. She gave a small chuckle at memories of past exercises as she gazed upon her beaten, battered, heavily used combat dummy. If she had never learned the restoration spell from the Grimoire, she would have been spending most of her time building a new ponequin every few days or wasting money buying a new one. Standing before it, she cleared her mind and began her combat forms.

Going insubstantial, she crafted two blades of psionic energy and split herself in two. Controlling each cloud while attacking was something that she still had trouble with, and the blades were difficult to swing quickly. But she had at least learned to hide the blades in the clouds and, when near her target, to swing them forth through a flurry of strikes, counter strikes, and stabs to juggle her target as it was being torn to shreds. She liked this method of combat the most because it allowed her a low consequence form of battle to use against mundane combat. Although if she was to go up against a mage, or a sword-fighting expert, her blades and body would be useless if handled without care.

Reforming herself, Soul restored her dummy and started with a new set of maneuvers. She first assaulted it magically with bouts of fire augmented to be solid, before switching the heat into a bitter cold encasing the target in ice. After transmuting the ice into water and fixing the dummy again, she moved onto psionic combat, using non-wingsight targeted levitation to exact what would be a series of distracting blows; all the while powering her spell. Channeling a light, shimmering field of Arcane energy from her hoof to her head, she synced her mind with her magic. While more draining than what a unicorn would have to deal with, this synchronization was enough to allow her at least seven attacks before she suffered a magical disorientation and needed to drop the spell.

Soul send a mind-link bolt towards the target, attaching herself mentally to the ponequin, before sending herself out to the target. While she was able to touch the wooden ponequin mentally, its insentience dispelled her attempts at forging a link. Heaving a contented sigh, she shut down her spell and walked back inside. The biggest problem with practicing against a dummy rather than a living thing was that she wasn’t able to get feedback on any errors she was making. Nevertheless, it was something that she enjoyed doing, and she was counting down the days until she went against something more dangerous than woods.

Only a month left.

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Soul took a look at her calendar; when one had very few things to look forward to, one looked forward to these things intensely. She saw that she was a only week away from her two month real time combat training. Soul knew that she’d need to socialize with some ponies, even if only to scam ponies of their money in Las Pegasus and to persuade an executive to let her start a company. Having been shunted into her room or library as a child then laughed out of Canterlot by the CSFGU, she had little socialization practice, other than buying things from others, of course. So Soul had no choice but to grit her teeth and try socializing with some group in Manahattan; At least it’d teach her what to avoid when dealing with others. That and it was a personal break after having done so well with her training.

When Soul arrived at the park, one thing became apparent: she was stupid trying to jump straight into a social setting when she had no idea how or where to initiate conversation. Still not one to give up, she walked through to the playground, watching parents and their children interact. The warm feeling of love that emanated from the parents and children was an alien feeling to Soul. Never having experienced it herself, she felt a twinge of jealousy at their sounds of laughter and delighted conversation. Thinking that this was a bad idea and that she should try a less intense group activity, she walked behind a large group of tall bushes and tried to conjure a more sensible course of action.

As she considered her options, a pure white unicorn who couldn't have been much older than Soul herself, with crimson eyes and a neon blue mane and tail ran right into Soul, knocking the wind right out of her.

“Hey!" the unicorn said in a soft yet urgent tone. "Listen, filly. You have to hide me, just don’t tell the colts following me where I am ok?”

Looking at the worried filly Soul heaved a sigh “If I hide you, will you tell me what’s going on?”

“Yes!”

Taking a hold of the Unicorn, Soul cast a teleportation spell to the opposite end of the state park. She’d never have teleported another living creature with herself prior to this, and she was surprised to feel that the flattening stretching sensation her teleportation spell was made more odd when she felt this filly pushing against her, almost as if she was trying to fuse with Soul. After the spell had achieved the desired action, the unicorn took a deep breathe and looked around her.

“Wait! What did you do?” She asked, eyes wide in confusion.

“A teleportation spell I crafted years ago. Now, can you tell me what that was all about?”

“You... you cast a spell? But you’re a Pegasus.”

Feeling the old accusations against her coming back, she put on a slightly frosty glare, which spread the sense of sadness through every part of her face. “Yes, and I can cast magic.”

Vinyl smiled, and hugged the pegasus in appreciation, not delving any further into her ability; she could see that it was a conversation the unicorn didn't want to have “That's actually pretty cool... thanks a lot for saving me back there, by the way.

Having never been hugged, Soul was shifting uncomfortably under the attention. “You’re welcome. You're actually the only Unicorn to say that my talent is 'cool.' Others seem to think I’m a crime against nature.”

The filly stepped back and looked at her with a concerned glare, “That’s bucked up. Well, if it means anything, I think you’re awesome. My name's Vinyl Scratch, by the way. What’s yours?”

“Soul Shard, and it’s a pleasure to meet you. And yes, it is"bucked up," but I learned a long time ago to take of myself, so it worked itself out. After all, one of these days I’ll show the world what I can do, then everypony will have to acknowledge me.”

“Well... that’s cool, I guess." Vinyl said, her concern in a different place entirely. "So... where are your parents?”

“I don’t have any of those things." seeing the shocked look on Vinyl's face at the mention of parents as "things," Soul felt it necessary to apologize.

"I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable; I haven’t socialized with other ponies much before and I had the stupid thought that I could learn by immersion. I've only learned so far that I am way over my head. So I do apologize.”

“No I’m not uncomfortable." Vinyl denied. "It just seems sad that you don’t have a family and from what you said, your life sounds like it sucks.” Vinyl gave Soul another hug, although she stepped back when she felt Soul squirming in her hooves. “Sorry, you don’t like being hugged do you?”

“Well to be honest, even before my parents disowned me, I was never given a hug, so I don’t know how to react. I mean I hug my blanket, but other than that I was never on the receiving end of one until today ... and it was quite sudden. But no worries, Vinyl Scratch. They are ... nice.”

Vinyl smiled. "Well, as promised, I'll tell you about why I was running. I was being bullied because of my eyes, so I thought I’d run and hide until they forgot about me. Then I ran into you and... here we are.

"Hey," Vinyl said, a sudden curiosity in her voice. "I like your cutie mark! How’d you get it?” .

“I’m sorry, but that’s not a story that I really like going into. But I can tell you that it represents my special talent of magic. And I’m glad I could save you from those bullies; It’s never okay for anypony to hurt another just because they are different.”

Vinyl gave a friendly chuckle. "Yeah, you're right about that. When I finally get my cutie mark, I want it to be related to music in some way in music."

“Wait. Why do you want a musical cutie mark?”

Vinyl closed her eyes and fell into a completely serious demeanor. “Well, music makes you forget your worries. Everything wrong in your life fades away into the beat, and for a single moment in time you’re free." Vinyl smiled. "That and it’s the most pure way of speaking one's heart. Ponies live and die, but music lives forever. And I want to give that to the world.”

“That’s a noble endeavor, Vinyl. Best of luck to you, and if the only thing they are mad about is your eyes, then you might want to get some shades. Although you might not want to hide them completely from the world; the rest of the world will appreciate them. Have a good day, Vinyl. I hope our paths may cross again someday."

Vinyl laughed again, starting her trek back across the park. “Yeah. Hopefully they will. And I'll take your shades suggestion into consideration.

"Take care Shar, I’ll see you around.” And with that Soul Shard teleported back to her cabin, and let herself wrap her mind around just transpired, as well as what she should do differently next time she went to Manehatten or Canterlot.

Soul decided that she had more than enough time and resources to gain a sense of social normality, having two days to dedicate towards socialization and a mental building dedicated to social simulations. She decided she’d use an age spell to set "her daughter” up for a socialization / leadership program, and see what was available through the city.

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It turned out the only thing available for what she wanted was in Canterlot, a month from her travels. It was also a week long, which was far more time than Soul thought she'd have to put towards socialization. The price was easy enough to come by; even though she'd have to teleport money from her family's estate, it was a simple price to pay, and with some extra bits laying around, she was able to buy a pricing guide. It told her the values of the various gems, metals, and spell components, as well as where to find them and where to sell them for the best prices around Equestria.

According to the guide, Soul had tons of gems around her location. She rarely needed to dig around; after all, one normally doesn't go into the Everfree on a whim, but this guide gave her what she needed to find the most precious gems. With them, she could build an income, get combat training, and spell components in one go. And as this would be her first attempt at live action combat on top of a gem hunt, it was killing two birds with one stone.

The weeks passed, and although her searches into the Everfree were devoid of strife, she found a few deposits of quartz, a small area of gold, and vast quantities of gold-rutilated quartz. It was here that she got several interesting ideas for her newest creations. Unfortunately, aside from those ideas and several failed experiments turning coal into diamonds, she was having an uneventful passage of time, and was in a bit of a rut.

Fortunately, just as the week of the leadership training started, Soul finally found the right mixture of gravity spell and fire to pressurize coal into a diamond. Screaming with joy, she set about forming a small Reality Bubble to hold the components of the spell in, and reinforcing wards to seal it away and let her access it as needed. In addition, she wanted to craft an expansion series of spells that allowed her to grow the pressure spell over non living things, so the spell would self-activate without her. So it was with this that Soul burnt a hundred meters of forest and, after reducing it to charcoal, set it with in the spell and left it while she went away.

Why diamonds? It was a more powerful than quartz, and could generate greater power. And in a more important matter, was more valuable and could be sold for more money. It was almost enough to turn her away from Las Pegasus, but after months of building up her expectations, Soul decided that going there was something that was needed.

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The Canterlot Academy for Young Leaders, the CAfYL, was a side branch of the Canterlot Academy for the wealthy and well-off. To say it was a learning experience was an understatement. She knew there was a reason she disliked unicorns aside from Vinyl Scratch, and this meeting showed her just how much other nobles and the wealthy resembled her parents.

She learned that it was less of what you knew as much as who you knew. That with the right words and connections you could twist others to your way of thinking. Many of the things she wanted to do were handled as if they were simple elementary goals. How can one do a legal, hostile takeover while making it look as civil as possible to others? How can one properly network, and keep that network strong with as little effort as possible? How can one run a successful company according to modern business standards? It turned out that being OCD, semi-ruthless, and apathetic towards self-preservation were all good traits in the work place.

And while a majority of the ponies there sickened her, she met enough ponies that with whom was able to make a decent network. By saying that her family owned a diamond mine, a gem farm, and had access to rare Everfree Spell components, while being honest enough for her to pass it off as the truth, she was able to fool many of the greedy ponies there that she was impressive, from a social and economic standpoint. She made business acquaintances with of a group of ponies who she thought could help her with future business aspirations, and could get her into higher parts of society if neccessary. They got a pony who could give them access to diamonds, gems, and spell components from the dangerous Everfree. It was a win-win scenario.

Once out of the CAfYL, Soul no longer had to hide her talents from the world. She went back home with a group of contact addresses and a list of who they were, who they knew, how she could use them, and things they liked. It made her feel a little dirty, but Soul knew that's how the world worked. It killed a bit of her innocence to learn, but it was a way to get ahead.

At the CAfYL, she also gained perhaps the most important piece of business knowledge: if one wanted to have useful contacts, one had to be useful to others.

When she arrived at her home, she saw that her artifical diamonds had formed magnificently, and with a bit of magical thaumaturgy she was able to clear them of their few imperfections. She started sorting a wide range of sizes and began the tedious process of using a duplication spell on them. While using a more tedious, annoying, and energy draining process of erasing the spell trace on the diamonds.

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So the final day of the test came to an end. The journey up to this day was different, to say the least; not in her wildest dreams would she have guessed that she could have conjured so many new crafting ideas and learned so many new things, and she would never have guessed that she’d have such a prolific burst of inspiration. But now, her biggest test was underway.

She had already passed her previous goals on mindcrafting, having used it constantly over the last few months for everything she did even if it was for mostly increasing her inventive powers and coming up with new ideas. So she gave herself an A+. Next up was Thaumaturgic crafting.

She first dealt with the elemental crafting portion of Thaumaturgy. While she knew how to make many things, one thing really interested her. She remembered her talk with Vinyl Scratch, and while she never was one for music before, perhaps if it was an instrument that she made, it would be worth learning. The only thing that came to her mind off the top of her mind was a guitar. With Elemental crafting she could make the most intricate, capable, and... well, epic guitar ever made. Sitting down she focused on building the outline and mechanical shape of the guitar.

Soul crafted fire within the shape of the guitar, then solidified it. She felt it turning into a solid substance before she altered it's heat level until it was warm to the touch. After crafting a permanent base she added solidified lightning for the strings.She then worked on some flavor spells that gave off a temperature-less flame around the wielder as well as harmless electric bolts flowing from the guitar, with a simple link spell to ensure that its size and visual intensity was linked to the wielder’s will. In her eyes, it was the most epic electric guitar ever. Since it was, in every conceivable way, a true electric guitar.

She used her levitation power to play around with it. It did what she wanted, but with her inexperience it sounded horrible. Since she wasn’t judging herself on music, she decided to judge herself on what she actually accomplished. Her creation was solid, and the guitar looked like it was supposed to. It sounded like what a guitar was supposed to sound like, and considering that Elemental Crafting was something she used on a regular basis, this was an A+. When she thought about it logically, this was a mixture of Technology Crafting and Elemental Crafting, so she decided that it was a good grade over all for her crafts.

The next was Ritual Crafting. This was something that she put much thought into, but she spent less time actually learning and getting better at than she thought she should, having lost herself in her inventions. Luckily, she had enough sigil practice and gems to set up and perform a good ritual. Sadly, she was going to have to grade the first part now, and let it cook for six months over the rest of the year. Using levitation, she grabbed eight round diamonds, and a four food by four foot piece of wood that she had crafted from a piece of an Everfree tree. Setting everything down, she cleared her mind and entered her mental laboratory.

“Ok, mind. Impress me. I was planning on doing a lay line augmentation, but ran into problems here. I think I have a solution but I want to see what happens here first.

"Okay, so just throwing power into a stone with biological constants is a bad idea. But what about syncing the stone with a biological entity’s blood, and therefore DNA, then adding a binding spell that mimics the biological arcane nodes? I also need away of disipating the heat... maybe if I can find a way to transform heat to arcane energy, I can loop the spell upon itself.”

She continued to mumble to herself as she ran through the various sigils, spell forms, energy pathways, and reference material she needed to use. After running the spell through her simulations, and replacing the quartz with diamonds,she was able to bind the energy together in simulated energy field. But even the,n it would take a month to fully synchronize the spell to a biological constant without worrying about the nodes running dry.

However, she encountered a large problem: power spikes within the Internal Energy System, the IES. Going from a lower rate of energy to a higher one had unforseeable consequences; it would probably cause short term or, if too much energy was given, long term neurological damage. Even then, Soul had no idea if the pain would be come-and-go or chronic. She was secure that having done arcane compaction for the better part of four months was enough to take away the brunt of the harm, but she had to just wing it and hope for the best, having nothing to compare this to that's all she had, hope. If she pulled this off successfully, she would be an S rank for sure, with a tie to the universal core’s spiritual energy nexus. Which would hopefully give her plenty of power to tap into before feeling physically drained.

Coming out of her Mindscape, she looked upon the board before her and placed the etchings she had been looking over upon it. After ensuring that everything was where it needed to be, she cut her leg above the hoof to draw out blood, and coated the diamonds with them. After a short healing period, she started fixing up the rest of the room to channel the spell and placed her power within it. As she did, the power of natural energy and a small piece of the universe’s core flew down in a maelstrom of power. As the spell kept going, the sky turned black and a group of pitch black clouds started swirling above the clouds, making a terrifying screaming sound. The woods moaned and a screaming breeze slammed around the house as the air inside yanked at Soul Shard.

Then, as the shard of the universe's core entered the earth, a brilliant aurora light the sky, and a white cloud of energy decended through the clouds into the cabin, disintegrating the roof. As the entirety of the light's energy hit the diamonds, the rest of the spell activated and the eight diamonds were transformed into eight golden spheres, each one filled with enough energy to cause Soul's skin to crawl. The orbs sat within their containment fields, drawing energy from nature, laylines, and the ether around them. Pulsating like eight tiny golden hearts, they hovered benignly, waiting for the day they would join with their creator.

Soul Shard walked over to Friend. “I haven't gotten much better, sadly. The reality bubble knocks me out on my first try, and my recent spell was heavily overdone!"

Soul could feel herself getting tired, and it was getting harder to stand and maintain a proper thought. "Well, at the very least it worked, and that alone says a lot. So I’ll give myself a B, or maybe a B+ since I did so well.” With that, she passed out, falling onto Friend as she waited for her power to return, her Arcane Pool largely forgotten in the far corner of the cabin’s interior.

She awoke to the chill of the night’s embrace. She got up and cantered to the wall, finally getting a good look at the state of her cabin. Letting out a wave of magic, she performed a mass-restoration spell, reforming the ceiling. With good reason, Soul decided to wait until the morning to continue her training. Not because she disliked the night, but rather due to the fact that she was still too drained to think straight, much less cast spells and grade herself. And the last thing a pony wanted to do while dead-tired was intense combat magic.

It was well into the next day when she woke up again. She decided that she was going to summon a monster to test her combat, rather than simply wait for one to just pop up. All she needed to do was summon something at a safe distance before she threw herself at it. She went off to get her Arcane Pool, siphoning energy from it to power up her spell. She cast a summoning spell to grab herself an Arachataur. It was a variety of sentient spider that was seven feet tall and eleven feet long. It’s lower form was a pure black, shiny exoskeleton, and the throax and above was humanoid, with a dark grey exoskeleton. The arms ended in black nails that shone with a shiny polish. It’s face had prehensile mandibles that extended from its cheek bones and greedily stretched towards Soul Shard.

Going insubstantial with her psionic blades, she flew to it and started hacking. Unfortunately she forgot the greatest axiom of combat: know thy enemy. Its exoskeleton made it hard to cut through, and her blades only making nicks and scratches as the monster tried grabbing Soul with it’s arms and legs. Then, as if things weren't bad enough already, it released some of the venom in its nails and swiped at her. The poison started to slowly eat away at the cloud, forcing her to remove part of her mass before moving away from the monster. Transforming the blade into a hail of smaller shards, Soul threw her all into hitting her opponent with the storm of projectiles. and was eventually able to cut further into the nicks she had made. The Arachataur jumped at her, trying to swipe at the cloud. While missing the clouds, it was successful in hitting the barage of shards, and the shards it struck melted away into nothingness. As it turned it’s attention from the cloud of magic to the shards themselves, she had to let go of the spell. She decided to craft swords and try a different tactic.

Seeing that this was a stupid idea with a very small chance of success, she climbed atop of her cabin and reformed. Although to keep her body in one piece, she lost a tenth of her power and reduced her power to that of a five year old filly, rather than that of a seven year old one. This greatly reduced the raw strength she had to work with, and only made her more vulnerable. As soon as the Arachataur sensed her presence, it galloped straight towards her. Soul channeled the magical energy in the air and sent a massive burst of fire straight towards the enemy. Sadly, the monster's pesky, enhanced armor lessened the damage of the fire as it approached at a slower rate.

In a masterful maneuver, the Arachataur jumped towards her, evading the fires completely. Moving into Telekinesis, Soul struggled to hold it still as it pushed to her with it’s mighty legs. It turned out holding a sedentary boulder was a lot less difficult than a struggling, enraged, murder machine. To make it worse, it’s venom was slowly corrupting her magic, weakening her grasp by the second.

She encased it’s lower body in ice, hoping that it would buy her time. She was livid when the monster slowly started to crack the icy prison. Panting heavily, she focused her mental energy into her hoof and slammed a psionic blast into the monster, effectively accessing its thoughts. Inside it’s mind she was welcomed by a chaotic swarm of mental energy trying to push her out and cut away at her. She started wailing away at it’s mind with blast after blast of mental energy, trying to shatter its mindpower. But the mind of this monster was as strong and violent as its physical body.

She managed to weaken it with her attacks, but needed to move from simply forcing it down to attacking it with mental warfare. Twisting the arcane energy within it’s mind, she ignited a light spell to show the mindscape more clearly. It was a massive forest with houses made of massive webbing. The monster before her retreated from the light momentarily before the trees around her whipped at her, trying to crush the unwelcome intruder.

Sending a mass of fire, she burnt the trees, and watched as they became completely engulfed in flames. Unfortunately for Soul, the Arachataur crafted a mental storm to put out the spell, before pouncing towards Soul Shard. She resorted to whipping at him with the broken trees, and using the tree limb to slam into him repeatedly. After breaking it sufficiently, she bound it within it’s own webbing, and sent slivers of her mental energy into its mind, with the intention of performing a Domination Spell. Doing as much as she has done was far beyond what she was used to doing, but fighting for survival had given her the push needed to fight far past her comfort level.

When she finally left the monster's mindscape, the migraine she felt was enough to make her want to die. She had enough energy to undo the monster’s prison, and she forced it asleep before passing out on her roof. When she awoke, the sun was almost set. She awoke the monster, and worked on reinforcing her mind onto it. She didn’t think the Domination Spell she learned in her family's Grimoire would ever be used, but here she was, alive, adrenalin pumping, and a massive migraine, but having performed it on a living creature.

This was better than a dead Arachataur, since the only reason she summoned one was because it’s poison, when milked, was worth 300 bits per pint. And their poison glands dried up shortly after death, so one had to be very quick about it. Having a live one was sure to, as far as money was concerned, strongly reinforce her.

She decided to perform the last part of the spell the next day; she had had enough for one day. She moved her Arachataur minion into her cabin, and forced it asleep until she could figure out what to do with him. It was a he, though, Soul noted; it lacked the back nubs the females had that produced the oil needed to strengthen the exoskeleton, even the exoskeletons of males. The wax coating of the Arachataur would be so worth it when she was awake enough to do a proper summon. She was eager to see if she couldn’t find its colony, and get herself a good farm going on. But for now, she had nothing to do but lay down for a nice, long nap.

Ok. I narrowly survived my fight with it, and lost a good amount of magic, mass, and strength fighting it. I guess there’s a reason why all of its spell components are rare, and insanely valuable. Its silk has armor like properties, its oils strengthened materials with an armor inducing polish, and its venom had tons of magical properties as well as alchemical ones. So that’s one of many things I can do to build up funds, and the fact I survived gives me major points. Unfortunately I over exerted myself and needed to sleep to recharge myself from the physical and mental exertion. So that lowers my score. My combat was also sloppy and needs refining.

So I guess I can give myself a C+. An A for effort, but a C on follow through. I bet a Royal guard could have defeated it in mere moments. Although to be honest, I've never fought a Royal Guard before, but if they protect the Princess they must be skilled.

It was sunrise the next morning when she awoke again. She decided to try communicating with her new minion before she set about getting started with her last test, “So minion... what should I call you? And I want to ask you a few questions.”

Looking at her with dead, unfeeling eyes, it spoke to her with a voice that resembled hoofsteps over dry leaves, “My name is Amon. Of the Rael House in the Blood Silk colony. What is it you wish to know, master?”

Grinning at being called master, and a small thrill of power zapping up her spine, she started her barrage of questions, “How many are in your colony? Are you the strongest? What is the leadership structure on the colony? And how far are we from there?”

“There are five houses, with anywhere from four to seven per house. I’m not the strongest by far. The leadership is a Matron who rules over the houses. Each houses is ruled by a mother who rules her home. Each Mother tends to the needs and wants of the house, who, in turn, is tended to by the Matron. And I have no idea how far. We are in the Everfree Forest, one week from the old castle, two weeks from a town called Trottingham where quite a few ponies come from.”

“Okay, so you are about one or two weeks from here. I don’t know about any old castles, but that’s not too far. I want you to not harm any ponies, but you can go into the forests near here and eat. I’ll find a way to contact your colony soon. Now, Amon, I want you to return here when the moon has reached it’s highest peak.” With that she led Amon out and, when the door closed behind him, let loose a squeal. “I can’t believe I did that! That was so awesome, and soon I’ll have control over the colony. Today is going to be perfect!”

Sitting down, she stared in front of her bed and began the process of creating a temporary extraplanar sphere. The first stage needed her to etch the reality bubble, and cleanse it of all impurities before filling it with etheric matter. Next was the laying of the sigils, spell lines, anchors, and magical computations. The next few parts were going to be the hardest. Allowing herself to go into a light trance, she mentally flew into the sphere she was working on.

The making of this type of plane was tricky to say the least. She needed to travel to it and see the sigils and spells lines not as magic, but as physical reactions that shaped the laws governing the spelled sphere. As she looked upon the chaotic mass of pulsating energy, and the strange interactions of the multiple spells, she added her magic and worked on calming everything down to a nice, smooth pace. Then she built a central core. From here, she placed and organized the spells that governed the “physical” laws of this augmented reality. By having everything in a centralized core, one was able to fine-tune and alter things as necessary without having to worry about searching through the entire bubble for what was needed.

She didn’t know if her own universe worked under similar programming structures, but this was surely the most amazing aspect of her magic. Shaping not the world around her, but shaping a world of her own, even if it was only a foot in diameter. Once the core system was set she went about shaping the ground, atmosphere, and other unique laws within her bubble. After this was all set, she went about making the "piece de resistance" of her plane. Going through her mind she ran through all the runes, spells, sigils, glyphs, and symbols responsible for biological constants, while taking advantage of the Etheric Plane’s malleability.

Soul shaped a bush that grew a celestial flower. It’s outer edges formed from the magical properties of star light, magical celestial space, and most importantly, regenerative and restorative qualities to keep it healthy. As she ignited the spell to give it life, she exited the bubble and watched it in real time. The bubble solidified into a glass like prism as it folded space upon itself. Then it drew up on the components of the spell, taking parts of ritual craft and thaumaturgic crafting to take small amounts of power and cascade it upon the larger structures, each spell giving way to another as it built upon itself. The Bubble expanded until it reached a four foot by four foot sphere.

Then came the bush. Starting as a glint of light, it grew, and pulsated with raw power, twisting and stretching as it grew at a rapid speed, until at last it was finished.

Using her magic, she pushed out a single flower and was knocked on her flank after giving it a taste. The flower had a creamy, smooth feel with a taste that was both sweet and slightly spicy. It felt like velvet on her tongue and it instantly rejuvenated herself on all levels. She jumped for joy before giving herself an A for the creation. Overall, she had an A-, but that was one grade higher than the last test. So, with a great sense of pride, she sat by her bed and started planning on her final tests, the biological augmentation from this month's ritual, and her final project.

Author's Note

Authors Notes

Training Arc pt.3

It was a busy month leading into Soul's biological augmentation. Starting with the Matron, she had whittled away at the Blood Silk clan. Taking away the power of the clan's members had taken a week of solid preparation; it was a bit tedious to create the perfect spells to eat away at their minds while simultaneously implanting her will upon them. It was instant loyalty from one of the top seven predators in the Everfree, and a way to milk components that would net her a small fortune over time.

Other than her leaps and bounds with her study of extraplanar planes, though, she made very few breakthroughs. However, what she did actually create was going to make her further innovations amazing, since all she needed to do was to start with a programmed core, then plant a seed to grow the plane. By time the final test project was needed, she’d have it complete. She would be the goddess of her own little world in a sense, although an actual goddess would out power her in every other area.

But in her world, she’d have some semblance of control. The main problem would be entering and leaving, not because it couldn’t be done, but because programming it to be less uncomfortable than her usual form of extraplanar travel would be tricky. And even then it would probably still be uncomfortable to some degree.

These thoughts and others ran through her head as she approached the eight golden orbs before her. She felt the rhythmic pulse they gave off, perfectly in sync with her heart. When she went into this entirely unknown plane, there would be no going back. However, there were two major upsides that negated any possible downsides (in her eyes, at least). One was that she’d be bumped up to an S-Rank Unicorn in terms of magical power (at least, as much of an S-Rank as a pegasus could be), and the other was a pony's ability to live and retain his or her youth depending on the amount of magic they held. With the power of the universe and nature running through her, she’d be virtually immortal; short of lethal injuries, murder, or black magic, she’d live forever!

So with her mind made up, Soul affixed the nodes into her own arcane nodes,the eight magical centers that regulated magical energy within a pony's body. As she did so, she felt numbness spread through her body before being racked by violent convulsions. Just as she thought things could not get any worse, a burning sensation from the tip of her spine flooded up into her skull, washing her entire body in pain and torment.

Just as she felt the fire reach its peak and she felt as if she were going to incinerate inside and out, she passed out into a sweet oblivion. As she drifted through what felt like a sea of darkness, she saw a spark of light, pulsated and growing brighter and brighter until it was blinding.

She woke up drenched in sweat, and a dull burning ache radiated through out her body. She munched on her healing plant, appropriately named “Lunestia” by Soul after the inspirations for the plant. Although it was able to ease the burning sensation, the aches persisted as her muscles spasmed repeatedly from the jolted nerves, jerking with high amounts of magical energy as her body started the process of adapting to a higher state of being. Throughout this intense sensory overload, Soul only know one thing:

She was in for a long ride.

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As she took time to recover, Soul decided that it was time to put more effort into her network, considering she needed it to make her transition into business more efficient. The only other concern for her business was her age, which she altered by casting a simple age spell on herself, giving herself a more adult appearance. Aftergathering her fifteen gallons of Arachataur venom, ten flawless, colorless, and five carat round diamonds, and a 1 yard roll of Arachataur silk, she would end up with 2,307,100 bits. It was a good fortune, and while she didn’t need to go to Las Pegasus to gain more, she had built it up in her head for so long that she was going to do it anyway. Even if it was only for a well earned vacation, she could also use it to show off her skills before she started getting her business up and running.

It was smooth sailing by the time Soul finally got everything set up, and things were only getting better for her. While sitting in a Donut Joe's, she saw a golden unicorn with green hair. He was sitting next to an older unicorn with a white coat and a gold mane, with a cutie mark of a contract on his flank. She remembered the colt as one of the ponies in her contacts. Walking over she said, in a more higher pitch, “I apologize, but I feel like I recognize you from somewhere. My daughter has spoken about someone she met at the CAfYL, and you bear a striking resemblance to her description of him. you must be his father? My name is Aurora Shard.”

“I guess so, yes." the unicorn said, still a bit wary of this stranger pegasus. "My name is Asset Management, and I’m one of the best lawyers in Canterlot. Exactly who is your daughter, may I ask?”

“Her name’s Soul Shard.”

“Ah yes! I remember Goodwill talking about your company."

It was a tedious conversation to say the least, but Soul eventually heard what she wanted to hear. "If you’d like," Asset finally said. "I can schedule an appointment with you next month, this day, around noon.”

“That’d be perfect. But I thought that I’d meet the unicorn my daughter told me about, and would offer you a business deal as well as pay for your meal. My treat.”

Giving a short nod, Soul paid the price for their meal and walked out. After a nice distance, she teleported to her cabin. She ventured into her Mindscape, when she finally confirmed her isolation. Inside her laboratory she was working on storing power away inside herself, for the purpose of powering up a spell, taking the massive surge of power and diverting a small amount of it into seal. She worked on creating the seed on her very own plane. Using raw spirit, as well as the positive and negative elements, she worked on slowly building the laws of reality that would govern the plane. Making a universal computer core was more difficult for larger planes than it was to make the core of the small globe that held the Lunestia Bush.

The seed needed to create stable matter, boundaries. It needed to have some concept of gravity and atmosphere. It was going to be Soul's greatest achievement to date. It was going to be beautiful, and by programming viral components into it she was hoping that it would naturally grow into the size she wanted, while at the same time linking to any other planes or natural demiplanes that it came into contact with. She was also hoping that when her creation ran into other areas, it would link to doors that would allow her to go to places and take things from that place at will, while keeping everything she wanted in, in.

With everything programmed as well as she could, Soul walked out of the Mindscape and saw that hours had passed and the moon had risen high into the night's sky. Walking outside, she looked up to see the Mare in the Moon, “Hey Mare on the Moon. Do you mind if I call you Moony?" She took the lack of objection as a yes.

"Anyways, I did a lot of awesome things lately. I dominated and gained control over the Blood Silk colony of Arachataur. I made a massive fortune by myself, using magic to make diamonds. Soon, all of Equestria will have my brilliance stamped across their face then they’ll see how foolish they were to judge me.

"I will be accepted and show everypony that a Pegasi can do magic just as well as a unicorn. Their superiority is coming to an end, and now that I’m immortal, all those Unicorns who hurt me will be dust within the ground.” There was a tinge of anger in Soul's voice, a tinge of hurt.

She almost thought she saw the moon flare up in response to her, but decided to ignore it. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but soon I’ll be sending you a letter to go along with Friend Mark 2. Also, I’m making a viral demiplane. At least, I’m calling it a demiplane. And if any others naturally exist, this plane will send a link to... wherever you are... and attune to it. I will not only be able show others my power, but I will have entire worlds open to me. If your spell ever degrades fully, I’ll be able to take you into there to share my invention with you. Sweet dreams, Moony."

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Over the last five months, Soul slowly overcame the random spasms that flared through her body, and while she still had moments where she’d suffer from magical migraines or random aches, it was not as chronic as it once was. Her social dates had proven successful in keeping her network strong, and while she was still socially inept, her dictation was great enough to ensure that she didn’t make a mule out of herself. It was through her alter ego Aurora Shard that she was able to set up several retainers for her future business. She also got patented several of her inventions with enough legal representation to rightfully control over all aspects of her intellectual creations, from the spells that governed them to the containers.

It was going to be perfect when Soul's vacation ended. The creation of Shard Industries was going to be amazing, and Soul had four mastered inventions to start with. there were simple ones, like the Light Orb and the Mage Battery, but the other two were more complicated. She had devised and mastered a system for teleporting Mage electricity to pre-approved systems, thus sending electricity not only to homes, but throughout a home to things that needed electricity. This allowed people to access electricity without resorting to unicorn magic. Soul had effectively one-upped the unicorns, something in which she felt great pride.

Soul's fourth, final, and perhaps most innovative invention dealt with intangible data; it was a way to store sound and data as well as send it over long distances. It had the potential to transform how people listened to music and transferred information; it would be so easy now. It had so many uses and was such a simple, although outside-the-box concept that it was amazing how easily she patented all the needed aspects of the invention.

The time had now come to put in motion the final stages of her Demi-plane spell. She had planted the seed of the spell months ago, and was steadily working on placing together the plane. Sadly, though, she had run into some problems along the way.

The central core was the strangest part of the demiplane to program. Over the months she had to set up a number of redundant systems to ensure that it was able to maintain stability as it grew exponentially.

In addition to that roadblock, the maleable gravitational fields and raw magic caused the demiplane to have strange zones that were in hyper and hypo time. She had to work on giving a uniform flow of time to her new world, and that was very strange. Although, when Soul thought about it, it gave her hands on experience on seeing the mechanics of time up front.

The next series of problems came as the demiplane was growing. While in the baby phase, spells that dealt with all the main mechanics needed for life were simple to cast and apply. But as the plane grew, and more and more complex patterns emerged. The spells needed to keep things in order needed more systems in place, and in the end her core was a complex set of redundant systems and reinforcing spells that kept the plane's magic heavy while orderly.

Now it was time to ignite the final aspects of the spell and see if the demiplane could be self-sufficient. As she summoned herself into the plane, she looked around herself. Above her was the Plane’s core, held within a pale white sun. Around it were two moons, slowly circled the sun. Each Moon was part of the cores programming, and they reflected the light of the spell throughout the plane into distant stars, which were essentially miniature cores within themselves. It was what was gave her the idea for sending data over distances.

Looking away from the sun and its twin moons, she took in the sight of the sky. One half of the sky was a beautiful night sky, while the other half was lit up as if it were daytime. Across the sky, the clouds turned from nice and dark to that of a fluffy white spring cloud. It was amazing to Soul that she could form clouds at will and make them move where she willed them without having to touch them. Looking a little lower, Soul saw the World Helix, a giant double helix of all eight elements flowing together and holding in its center a raw spring of spirit. On the bottom of the World Helix was a castle that took the power of the plane and, simply put, would allow Soul to travel to different multiverses. No matter how long she would have to wait, Soul would eventually have access to everything Equestria’s universe had to offer.

Releasing the spell key for the plane’s core, she walked into the giant computer and looked at all the various interactions going on. In here, Soul felt like a goddess. This room was, in addition to an information hub, a good way to see background magic, something she had never considered before she made her own plane. It was amazing to see the background magic form and shape all the components that the foreground magic used to maintain form. What was truly amazing, though, was that it wasn’t a two dimensional field, but a six dimensional field, each aspect of it playing upon itself and allowing for multiple systems and interactions.

The only thing she was waiting on was the formation of life. There was the components needed for it, and even though she had a multitude of plants and other flora that she never witnessed before, she needed fauna to make things truly interesting.

But she was going to have to wait to create the perfect animals later, and even know she had basic fauna starting to form, all she needed to do was wait for things to progress or, if needed, to have a moment of inspiration from which she could form her own denizens. When that happened, she would be able to transport them to Earth.

I have made something so beautiful that words can not capture it. I have something that allows my will to directly create what I wish to create. And here I am a goddess. I have such a rare gift, no others have even written about it. I am now ready to move on to my next phase of things. I will wait until the time is right, and when it is I will show Princess Celestia that I am a great mage. She will learn that Pegasi CAN do magic, and that I am worthy of being accepted. Then a change will be a coming.

I need to go to Las Pegasus and relax first, though. I deserve a vacation.

A+.

Arc 4: The Las Pegasus Arc

The first part of Soul's travel vacation plan was a quick trip to Canterlot. For the first time in her life, Soul didn't need to worry about running short on money or never having enough of it; dumping another group of diamonds into Royal Canterlot Gem Exchange turned out to be a great way to obtain some quick funds, even if the diamonds were received through ill-gotten means. It wasn’t her fault that ponies harvested their gems through mines or rock farms, but it gave her an excuse to do two last pieces of business before heading off.

The first and easiest way to travel was the purchasing of a luxury carriage. It was a two bedroom, one unicorn enchanted bathroom with the necessities, which in this case was a sink, shower, and a toilet. It was less a mode of transport and more of a recreational vehicle for the wealthy and very bored. Since this was now hers, Soul had a method of transport that not only would add to her stage presence when she visited Las Pegasus, but she also had what could easily be added as a deductible for company transportation.

The next thing was going to be the hardest on her, but was the most important. Asset, the unicorn Soul had added as a retainer and was now paying handsomely for his help, had spent the last five months getting in touch with his contacts to help Soul get her business off the ground. Through these added connections, Soul added a few calls to contacts list, and the business that she brought them in the guise of Aurora Shard springboarded her wealth, and soon her business was not only off the ground, but well underway. She had already started the construction of a power plant with a series of MBs large enough to power all of Canterlot and Ponyville located just out side of Canterlot. There was also another one being built near Fillydelphia to power up Manehattan and Baltimare, and others were being scheduled near heavy technology hubs and major cities.

This, along with the attachments to make sure everything worked at a cheap price, ensured that she’d get massive amounts of bits in the long term, especially with her PR advisor Doctor Spin helping her make everything as psychologically priming as possible for the masses. On top of her other ventures, she was glad that she was able to get technicians, contractors, and a strong work force as quickly as she was. And, best of all, in one week everything would be finished. All the newspapers were spreading stories about the benefits of her company, magazines were lading her companies creations and charitable nature, and most of all her funding of various movers and shakers had done miracles to spread the word of her company and stirred anticipation amongst ponies who followed the various multimedia outlets.

It was this series of events that led her to meet all of her top tier management ponies, as well as her lawyer and PR advisor in a private conference room in a Canterlot hotel. Making sure that all her employees were comfortable and had drinks to last the length of this conversation, "Aurora Shard" began her speech.

“Hello, my esteemed colleagues. I have brought you here for a very important meeting. We have spread knowledge of our creations throughout Equestria, and are on the cusp of being in every household in Equestria. If our financial advances continue as they have, we will be as successful if not more so than Rich Enterprises before very long.” This was met with a round of applause.

“Now, how many of you have wondered how a Pegasus like myself can create such marvelous pieces of MagiTech?”

Everypony lifted their hooves up to this, and an atmosphere of anticipation arose at the connotation of her question. “I’m going to let you in on a little trade secret.”

With that, she performed a simple levitation spell onto her colleagues before her, lifting them with her right forehoof. “You Unicorns can sense that the magic gripping you all is the coming from myself. Before you say that it’s impossible, know that it is very much a scientific possibility, and I couldn’t have made as much as I have if I wasn’t able to think outside the box.”

She placed them back down, and patiently waited for the confusion in the air to subside. It was Doctor Spin who spoke first. He was a Light blue earth pony, with a grey mane, tail, and eyes, who was well known for turning a profit and manipulating public image for whomever he was hired to help, “Do you know how famous you could be if you were to come out in the open, Aurora? The world’s first magic using Pegasus! You’d be instantly famous.”

“No! Not yet. I want my company to spread throughout all of Equestria before I go to the Princess herself and show her. I think it would be more perfect that way.”

“But why wait?”

“Simple. I was laughed out of her school by her examiners, and I’ve known Unicorns who get hostile over the mere thought of a magic wielding Pegasus. So if I wait until Equestria becomes dependent on my technology, the impact when I come out will be more impacting.”

Spin was stumped. “... I guess you are technically correct. That also gives me time to shape and model your image and the image of your daughter to ensure that you have the best public image possible. This is a PR advisor’s dream.”

It was a short talk later that two of her unicorn business managers left her company with a legal gag order still in effect on them. It wasn't too much of a loss, though; she easily sent out feelers to replace them, gathering some coupons as well as business cards.

It wasn't too long before Soul had grown bored of the gathering, and after bidding her colleagues a respectful farewell, she left for Canterlot. It was time for her vacation.

************************************************************* **************************************************************

It was a long ride to Las Pegasus. Originally it was a Pegasi city like Cloudsdale, but it had grown into a ground-based casino town over the last few decades. It was given the nickname “The city that ever sleeps”, and it was well deserving of the title; its clubs, street performers, restaurants, and numerous casinos made sure that the name was accurate. It was a city where fortunes were gained and lost.

Hours later, Soul was finally was set up. She had met some management that would allow "Aurora Shard’s daughter" to do a short show infront of their business, in a way that wouldn’t fleece her from what profits she would make. All it would cost Soul is some investment in company advertising and a promise that her next business venture would be with them. All in all, it was an extremely easy business transaction on her end. Especially since she’d be using them for advertising and a small show of ‘magic’.

Although calling it "magic" was stretching it slightly. She had a number of enchanted items that would mimic spells, as well a few slight of hoof and wing tricks. It was essentially only to cause a good show and to get a crowd going before the big finale. It was with this that she found herself in front of a large crowd of ponies of all the races, getting ready to preform as “The Amazing Soul, The world’s first magical pegasus!” It was a good way to showcase her magic, while at the same time playing to the prejudice that pegasi can’t do magic. She used magic in a way that made it appear that she wasn't, and was simply doing fun, flashy parlor tricks.

It was a tactic of money making Soul considered when she first started training and was worrying about how she would earn the money to get her business of the ground. Now she would have the funding to do whatever she needed to get done.

And all she’d need to do is oversee research and development, ensure a stable work environment, and look over reports from time to time. The show was no longer a necessity; it was a fun way to bring attention to her company, an attention getter that Soul decided to perform at nightfall.

************************************************************* **************************************************************

Lightning Flicker was a Pegasus colt with a tan coat, a dark brown mane, and the most piercing, ultramarine eyes you have ever seen. He was a blank flank, a fact that had been a cause of strife for him as he matured. Pegasi were naturally more militaristic than the other races, and they had a nasty habit of attacking anything they saw as weak to cull the flock. This meant that he was constantly harassed and assaulted by his peers.

His home life was even worse. While his mother was a kind and gentle soul, his father was a drunk who was prone to go into a violent, drunken rage, after which he would always apologize and promise that it wouldn’t happen again. His mother, ever trusting and in love, would forgive him... even when he got drunk the very next day. His father's drinking even continued well into his mother's sickness, which came out of seemingly nowhere, and ate away at her health at an alarming rate

As the weeks passed and medical bills skyrocketed, Lightning spiraled even further downward. It was a year after his first suicide attempt that he decided to try to get help... from the only person who truly cared.

“Mommy, I have something I need to tell you.” He asked hesitantly.

“What is it, Flicky?” She asked, her eyes drooping from the medications they had her on. Her browning wings weakly tryed to hug her son, but only managed to feebly drape across his back.

“The kids at flight school have been bullying me, Mom. I'm the smallest one in the class, and I'm a blank flank. I don’t know what to do anymore. The instructors ignore my attempts at getting them to help, and I just want it to stop!”

She managed to get the words "I'm sorry, baby" out before her body was wracked by a coughing fit. “Don’t let their words get to you. And I’m sure if you try harder, the instructors would be able to help. As for your Cutie Mark, it’ll come in time. When it does, I’m sure it will be wonderful.”

“But I have tried, I have tried hard but nothing I do seems to work.” he cried into his mother's chest.

“I’m sorry, son, but there’s nothing I can do. Just... I’m sure everything will work out sooner or later.” The medication was taking over, and she fell asleep, her wing still draped over her son.

After a while, Lightning heard his father stumble into the house, his drunken, incomprehensible muttering being more than audible, albeit muffled. Eventually he heard him more clearly. although he'd rather have stayed blissfully unaware of his father's words.

“Where are you!? You piece of trash? You know everything that’s happening is your fault! If you weren’t so useless, your mother and I wouldn’t be in this mess! Come out here, you rotting cart of horse apples! I want to talk to you!” The yelling was steadily growing more and more louder as his father’s ranting grew louder. In his drunken state, Lightning Flicker knew his father was unreasonable and illogical, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was when his father got this way, Lightning Flicker was going to end up hurt for any reason his fault or not.

He wiggled out from under his mother’s wings and tried hiding under the bed. He heard his father slam open all the doors in the house and the crashing sounds of objects being thrown around as his father searched for him. Eventually the drunken stumbling came to their room.

He watched as his father open their closet and threw everything out yelling for Lightning Flicker to come out or he’d be sorry. But he knew that it was pointless; he’d be hurt either way. And from the sound his father was making, the shit had hit the fan, and for whatever reason he was the target of his father’s wrath.

He let loose a scream as his father looked under the bed and spotted him. Flipping the bed and causing his mother to slam into the night table. The pegasus felt the grip around his neck as his father began berating him with his alcohol-scented words.

“I TOLD YOU TO COME TO ME! IT’S YOUR FAULT I LOST MY JOB, AND YOUR MOTHER’S MEDICAL BILLS ARE SO HIGH!"

Lightning had no choice but to accept the verbal abuse, and thank Celestia that verbal abuse was all he was recieving.

"You know you were a mistake, right? That the only reason you're here is because of a faulty condom? You've been taking away my dreams and future since you came into this world, and I've had to carry that weight around wherever I go! I'm stuck here with a sick wife and a wuss of a son that can't even stand up for himself and can't even find the meaning to his existence."

Fire was building up in Lightning's very being. No logical, innocent being in all of Equestria should have to deal with the asinine things I've had to. The only person in this world that loves me is close to death, and the only other person that even acknowledges my existence is about to beat me within an inch of my life.

"You think you're so powerful, don't you?" Lightning said before he could stop himself.

His dad dropped him and recoiled from sheer shock. "You mind running that by me again, son?"

Lightning tried to deny he ever said anything, but when he opened his mouth to speak, the words that came from him were not the ones of his choosing. They were fueled by the rage he'd experienced since the world tipped on its side and he was crushed by everything and everyone around him.

"Sure. You think you're so powerful, don't you Dad? You think that just because I'm the product of a mistake, that gives you the excuse to treat me like one? You are the mistake, Dad; everything you've ever done, everything you've ever decided to be is a mistake. It's your fault you're jobless, it's your fault you have no money, and it's definitely not my fault your life amounts to nothing. You are to be held accountable for everything you've done, said, and become. You make an ass of yourself, you are an ass, simple as that. I have made more of myself in my eight years of existence than you have in your entire life.

In as simple an explanation as you will understand, Dad: I will not be a stain on Equestria's existence like you have."

Lightning didn't act surprised by the beating he received for his smarting off, nor was he surprised by its intensity. He expected everything his dad said, everything his dad did, and every scrape and bruise he received.

He didn't let his smile down, though, because it was the last remnant of the one time he stood up to his father, and the last artifact of satisfaction he received from it.

************************************************************* **************************************************************

The medicals bills piled on top of Lightning Flicker's family were less than manageable, and the lack of funds in Lightning Flicker's family had led his father to Las Pegasus. As with many ponies, desperation and the promise of quick wealth, from which the city had gained its notoriety, had attracted Lightning's father like a moth to a lightbulb. And, as with all others driven by despiration, his dreams were crushed by lack of planning and foresight.

So it was on the night of his father’s decadent, greed-fueled escapades that Lightning Flicker found himself laying alone in his room, staring at the ceiling listening to the only music he felt truly at home with: Avenged Ponyfold. His day had progressed slowly, himself doing nothing but listening to music and playing guitar as he waited to see if his father won enough bits to cover the hospital costs.

Even through the music assaulting his eardrums, Lightning Flicker heard the door slam. He could hear the drunken mumbling through the thin walls of the hotel room.

“Damn it! I lost everything! EVERYTHING! And it’s all that damn kids’ fault! If it wasn’t for that waste of space I would have had more money to gamble, but NO! I had to use the deed to our house, our savings, EVERYTHING!

"Now Lightning Ficker, I'm giving you to the count of ten to get the hell out of this place. IF YOU DON’T, I SWEAR TO CELESTIA I’LL KILL YOUR SORRY HIDE!

He had heard his father drunk and angry before, but this was a new level of rage. They had lost everything they owned, and his father had never threatened to kill him before. Usually he was beaten to the point of hospitalization, but to know that his life was going to end at his father’s hooves was something he had never considered. Hanging, even a drug over dose. That was one thing, but he knew how painful his father’s beatings when he wasn’t trying to kill him were, and he had no intention to stick around and find out what they felt like with the proper motivation. Although he loved his mother, and was sad to leave her, she couldn’t protect him. She never did.

One of the things about being in a ground based city built with Pegasi in mind was that windows and balconies were not only easily accessible, but hassle free as well. This meant that Lightning Flicker was able to blast out of the hotel room like a bat out of Tartarus. Even though he was constantly bullied in school, one of the things he prided himself on was his strong wings and natural flying ability. As he zipped through the air, fueled by adrenalin and unadulterated fear, his sense of time deteriorated into nothing. Whether minutes or hours passed, everything blurred as he worked on getting away as fast as possible.

Eventually he found sanctuary. Some Pegasus filly doing magic tricks in front of a large crowd had left a door wide open for her carriage. He stumbled into carriage, trying desperately to catch his breathe as the recent events took their toll on him. He laid down on the carriage's bed, trying to find peace in the situation, the dull roar of crowd shouting ringing in his head as darkness quickly engulfed him.

************************************************************* **************************************************************

Soul Shard wrapped up the show by handing out coupons for Shard Industries; the best way to get business was to stir interest and play to the populace's innate desire to spend as little as possible. As for the money she made, it was good thing that this was a vacation and not an actual money making venture.

The only measurable boost to her company's name came near the end of her performance. Just as she was doing her last “trick," sending sounds throughout the crowd, she made the franchise easy to "discover." It was interesting to show them her WSS, acronymous for wireless sound system. By having a series of synchronized transmitters and receivers, she could send specialized data over distances depending on the transmitter. In this case it was sound from a microphone, poorly hidden in her cloak. It was a big enough novelty compared to wire stereos that it brought her some decent revenue.

But the real big thing that night happened just as she was finishing up. A drunken Pegasus crashed her audience, and was yelling things to the crowd so vulgar, even a Las Pegasus showmare would blush upon hearing them.

“Where are you, You piece of trash?!" He hollered through the oohs and ahs of the crowd. "Anyone here seen my son? He needs to act like a stallion and take what’s coming for him! You HEAR ME, FLICKY?! I WILL END YOUR MISERABLE LIFE!"

Soul tried to maintain a calm, collected demeanor, but that was easier said than done when dealing with a shitfaced dirt-mouth. “HEY! Sir! There is no reason to threaten a young colt, especially when you're blood-related to him! If you stay still I promise to not force you down.”

“Listen, you two-bit rotten whorse!" He yelled up to the stage. "I brought him into this world and I'll be damned if I let you keep me from taking him out. IF SOME LITTLE HUSSY IS GOING TO SHOVE HER MUZZLE IN MY BUSINESS, I CAN END YOU TOO!” He shouted, the crowd becoming increasingly angry at the notion of him killing his own kid.

Soul was impressed the drunken mess could even locate the source of her voice from how "out of it" he appeared. The crowd stood half circle around the belligerent pegasus as he decided that, like the genius he was, he’d drunkenly rush the stage.

Needless to say, it was the second-stupidest decision he'd made that day, second only to threatening his son with death. Sending a blast of Lighting from her forehooves, she blasted him off the stage. He landed with a loud thud on the grass before him before slumping over, rendered unconscious from the force of the spell. The crowd cheered loudly, more from their innate love of justice than their love for violence. Some of the crowd managed to descend on the alcoholic, landing quite a few heavy blows before the security broke the fight up.

By the time they got to him, he was badly bruised. Regardless, though, his threats against a street performer and an unknown child were enough to get Soul off scot-free under self-defense. When asked about her parents' whereabouts, She told them that she was sent by her mother to stir up business in Las Pegasus and was deemed old enough by her family to live on her own. Other than the mother part, this was truth enough to pull off. Several hours and a few interrogations later, she had her drivers take her out of Las Pegasus. Having been escorted to the station and back, she hadn’t the time to do anything other than place her various tech in the side compartment and close the door.

Now that she was actually inside she found a curious sight before her. She saw a brown Pegasus colt wrapped up in Friend snoring softly. Soul thought about waking him up and asking about who he was, and what he was doing in her carriage. But she didn't need to; she could put two and two together and answer both of those questions.

She had a lightbulb-worthy idea, though, before she settled down completely in her seat. "When this new pony wakes up, we’ll see what he’s about. Then I’ll either send him to where he needs to go, or he can work for me."

She could always use new assistants, after all.

************************************************************* **************************************************************

The pegasus in her bed finally awoke the next morning.

"Now listen," Soul said, once they were on good terms with each other. "I don't know who you are, and I'm not going to just kick you to the curb. But I want to know who you are and why you're in my wagon. If it's too painful to explain fully, I’ll understand, just tell me what you can."

"I could ask the same to you." The colt before her said, as nicely as he could while battling the morning's fatigue. "Who are you, exactly?"

"I'm Soul Shard. You are in my wagon. I found you in my bed snoring, and you looked too tired and peaceful to wake up. I'm going to ask once more: who are you, and why are you in my wagon?"

Lightning wasn't an idiot; he could put two and two together, and he figured out exactly who "Soul" was pretty quickly. He had many questions about how she did her magic, but he held his tongue about it until the formalities were out of the way. "Well, my name is Lightning Flicker, and I'm in your wagon because I had nowhere else to go... my dad was about to kick my ass, Soul, if not worse."

Heaving a sigh, Soul Shard gave the pegasus a compassionate look that she hoped would put him at ease, "You don't have anything to fear here, Lightning; I won't kick you to the curb, and I know what it's like to have nowhere to go. I'll strike a deal with you, if you're interested in it."

Lightning Flicker looked at her suspiciously; years of torment from his father as well as his peers at school taught him not to trust ponies on a whim. "What deal?"

She gave a light smile. "Easy. Help me around my place. Nothing to hard, simply help me keep the place looking nice. I only have three rules to it, and none of them are hard to abide by: no touching my inventions or equipment without asking first. Second, If you want any money you have to work for it. I won't make you do anything you aren't comfortable doing, but nothing in life is free. And last of all, and perhaps the most important: be honest with me. If you are honest with me I can help, if you aren't, I simply won't be able to. That doesn't mean tell me everything, but don't lie outright. If you can follow those rules, and that deal sounds good to you, then you have a place with me. So what do you say?"

It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Lightning Flicker was ecstatic about the deal. Soul couldn't exactly blame him for it, either; if that melting pot of alcohol she had to deal with was her father, she'd take the first chance to leave him too.

"So, Soul... why are you here, exactly?" Lightning Flicker asked, before quickly retracting his words. "I mean, how can you do... the stuff you did out there? You're the magical pegasus, if my memories serves me right."

Soul sighed. "It's quite a long story, Lightning. It'd take a while to explain, and I'd get into some things that would baffle the everypony. Don't be offended, it just takes a while to learn what is necessary to understand."

Lightning simply laughed to show that he wasn't hurt. "Nah, I get it, Soul. Besides, I'm probably not smart enough to learn half of the stuff you have."

"Oh horse apples, Lightning." Soul said reassuringly. "You're probably plenty smart. After all, the only reason I'm as smart as I am is because the only company I had, with the exception of my blanket and the Mare in the Moon, were my books. That and I've spent my entire life doing nothing but training, inventing, and trying to become better than I am."

Soul leaned back, surprisingly comfortable with the company of the pegasus adjacent to her. "What do you like doing anyway, Lightning?"

"It'd take a while to explain everything, Soul. You get into a lot of hobbies when you have a family as... well, batshit crazy as mine. I have a certain affinity for the guitar, if that's the type of answer you're looking for."

It didn't take long for Soul's guitar to be introduced to Lightning Flicker. Lightning held the guitar in his hooves and got a feel for it, but surprised Soul by just handing it right back to Soul after acknowledging how cool it was and how good it felt.

"Don't you want to play it? I gave it to you so you could show me how good you were."

Lightning just sighed, and he appeared a bit hurt. "It's just... I don't think I'm really good enough for that."

"What would make you think that, Lightning Flicker? You said you had an affinity for it, and you're surely better than I ever will be! I used booksmarts to make the guitar, now use your emotions and skills to put it to good use!"

It seemed to take forever for Lightning to build up the willpower to show Soul his skills, but what Soul heard and witnessed that day was worth all the time in the world.

Soul Shard would watch him entranced. Memories of what Vinyl told her flooded through her. And she knew that it was true. The sounds coming from the guitar seemed skillful yet emotional, they seemed deep, and obviously came from somewhere deep inside. The notes evoked emotion from a place Soul didn't even know she had.

The climax of the piece finally came and went, and the guitar was silent once more. Soul felt speechless, as if every emotion portrayed in the guitar's beautiful rhythms and melodies had been sucked right out of her by the beauty of the guitar and the virtuoso playing it.

"If you'd like it's yours."

"R...really? Mine? Oh my gosh, thank you so much!" Lightning Flicker said, marvelling at the natural beauty of the guitar that was now in his possession.

"No, thank you! Your guitar skills are phenomenal, you must have been playing since you could physically hold it! How old are you?”

"I'm eight. What about you, Soul?"

"Same, actually!" she said with a grin on her face.

There was an aura of awkwardness in the carriage as both pegasi found themselves rendered speechless by the other.

"So... are we friends now?" Soul finally said, having finally found something to say.

"I... guess so? I've never had many friends other than my mother and my guitar, so this is an entirely new concept to me."

Neither of the two knew it, but both of them found the concept of a friendship entirely awkward.

But it was a warm, fuzzy feeling that neither of them wanted to deny.

Author's Note

Link

Also if anyone has any good separator / time skip art like Spellbound Fireflies used, or the more artsy stories. And I can have permission to use it that'd be awesome. It'd make the time skips more uniform and professional looking. If not it's all good, and thank you for reading RttF.

Arc 5: Flashback Arc

The twenty one thousand bits was a good amount of seed money for Shard Industries, but if she wanted get rid of her first series of inventions and manufacturing, amongst other things, she decided that she needed to get one huge sale for her company. She needed to seal a large-scale deal, something magnificent that would net her enough bits to get a normal pony set for life, or in her case, allow one to get a foothold in the Equestrian Households.

Having seen pictures of the Princess and her amethyst-colored diamond, she decided to make her own diamond to sell, with a few metaphysical augmentations added into the bunch. By using a lay line connection and magical compression of the diamond the arcane radiation ran the gamut of colors from a bright red to a pure amethyst color.

This not only generated small amounts of arcane electricity that would be useful for linking spells together, but boosted the strenghth of Soul's aura. The connection to the lay line would boost her powers when channeling magic through it, as well as replenish her magical reserves if needed. It was a masterpiece, although hopefully she wouldn’t have to meet the Princess over it.

This is going to be perfect for revenue... I can’t wait to see the Princess's face when I tell her that the magical diamond she took from me was created completely from my own magic. Then there will be no doubt that I can do magic and she’d have to accept me. Everypony would have to accept me. I won’t be alone anymore.

Physically arriving in Canterlot was easy, but when the Royal Jeweler cast a energy scan on her gem, he told Soul Shard to wait; he needed a secondary opinion on the gem and its worth. She would spend the next several months scolding herself for not anticipating what happened soon after.

************************************************************* **************************************************************

Although Celestia loved all her little ponies, it could be tiring listening to hours of the same thing over and over again in the royal court. After a few centuries, she learned that breaking her schedule up to allow cat naps and personal time allowed her her to deal with the sun and moon courts much easier.

Celestia's slumber was interrupted, however, by a dragon mail letter. Celestia recognized the ink scrawls as her royal jeweler's familiar hoofwriting. Celestia had instructed her royal jeweler to only contact her in a case of dire importance, and this letter definitely fell under things of importance.

Dear Princess Celestia,

A young filly has arrived with an unusual gem with an immeasurable price. It has similar dimensional and chromatic similarities to the diamond on your regalia. but it has several unique and interesting features as well. Upon inspection of the jewel, I felt a huge surge of power rushing through me, and an abnormal strongness flowing through my bones.

I'm unaware of everything this gem is capable of, but I find it prudent to bring it to your attention and ask you the most appropriate price. I have the filly waiting here in the depository with me; please come as soon as you can, Your Majesty.

Sincerely,

Clear Cut

Celestia tried to recall when the last time that specific diamond had shown up in Equestria. She ran her mind through the countless generations that she had lived through, finding a small trace of its presence only in her oldest memories. The price for the gems would surely be more than it was all those millennia ago, but if she could get her hooves on more of those diamonds she would gladly pay a hefty sum; colored diamonds weren’t all that common, and ones that were naturally enchanted were even less so.

She soon found herself outside her royal palace, preparing herself for the short yet potentially fruitful trip on which she would embark.

“I’m going to need you to wait outside and guard the entrance, okay?" She instructed her guards, calmly yet assuringly. "I won't be in any danger." She knew her guards had their best interests at heart, but the last thing she wanted was to scare some young foal with her guards' intimidation.

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Needless to say, it took a while to convince Soul that she had nothing to fear; Celestia was surprised at how truly frightened the young filly was; she had seen many levels of fear in her lives, but she had only ever seen full grown ponies as afraid as Soul was.

Luckily, even in Soul's fearful state, Celestia was eventually able to calm her down a bit from an anxiety attack to light tremble. Celestia's calm, assuring demeanor could bring tranquility in even the harshest, temperamental ponies.

“We’re just going to talk about Shard Industries? Nothing else?” Soul Shard asked. Her body was still trembling somewhat, but the look of uncertainty had long since passed.

Celestia simply nodded, giving Soul a warm smile. "We don't have to talk about anything you're uncomfortable with. So Soul Shard, what is Shard Industries? I don’t believe I’ve heard the name before.”

Although she had. She had seen enough through zoning permits and tech patents sent through the Royal Archive by a Mister "Asset Management" to at least have knowledge of existence. But it was something else entirely to see what exactly the filly had planned for the company and its future.

It was also marvelous to see Soul's ambition in the business world. The fact that she had a multi-thousand bit company, as opposed to a lemonade stand like most fillies her age spoke for itself.

What truly astonished Celestia, though, was the way Soul... was. The way she carried herself and handled tasks was very meticulous, as if she had wanted nothing more than to better herself in every way.Through talking with Soul over the next hours, she found that Shard Industries was a consumer electronics company. It specialized in data transmission, broadcasting, and energy production.

Soul confided in Celestia that the true goal of the company was to bring ponies together. Her technological innovations would allow electronics to be accessible to everypony, regardless of race, social standing, or peers. She sought to bring forth a world where ponies can listen to music, see moving pictures, or even communicate over miles and miles away. Where all ponies are closer together with greater opportunities, personal freedom, and equality than ever before.

"Then, when my company becomes a household name..." Soul concluded. "I’ll be ready to truly talk to you. You'll take me seriously, and I will no longer be a social castaway.”

Celestia sat still, deep in thought for the longest time. She was truly floored by this young pegasus, and the sheer willpower she showed. To think that this tiny thing before her was responsible for those patents she saw seemed extremely odd to her.

Eventually, she remembered that she was technically interrogating this pony, and that there had been an awkward silence between them for longer than either of them felt comfortable with. “So... is there any magic used in your inventions?”

It was the first time that Celestia had seen Soul Shard smile. “It’s a mixture of self sustaining magic, and proper technological adjustments.”

“And who is the unicorn that helped you with this?”

Celestia hadn't a clue what she had said, but the smile on Soul's face suddenly turned into a withdrawn look of loathing. “She’s very close to me, is all I care to say now. But I’ll be able to tell you more about her later.”

Celestia's curiosity was killing her, but she knew to respect the privacy of those around her, and held her tongue. "So... to the matter at hand. This diamond you brought in...”

Celestia's eyes shone a bright white, and her power ran off her body in waves of energy as she held the diamond in her magical grasp. She was certain that this type of power was impossible without enchantments, yet all she sensed was an embedded link to the layline flowing through the diamond. The light from the diamond was thicker in the middle, as opposed to the natural lighting of even distribution.

Placing it back on the table, Celestia's power dimmed back to a normal rate.

“How many more of these do you have?”

“I can get you rainbow, red, violet, green, black, or gold infused diamonds of various sizes. I can get you about five of each in a few days, or thirty in two months. Although it’ll take me a while afterwards to get you more of these babies..." she said, motioning to the beauty on the table. "They are kind of hard to come by.”

It didn't take Celestia much time to come to a conclusion. "I’ve heard enough about your company, and if what you said is true, I’ll pay you ten thousand a karat for green and black, thirty thousand a karat for red and violet, and fifty thousand a karat for gold and rainbow. This diamond you brought me is easily a hundred karats so that’ll be three million bits, which will get you a small position in the fortune five hundred. If you can supply me with the thirty you promised, and can give me a quota of five per year for the next five years, I’ll make sure that you and your family live well for the rest of your days. Now be well, my little pony, and just know that my court is open whenever you wish to speak to me.”

Soul believed for a brief moment that Celestia truly cared about her, but soon perished the thought. Celestia may have appeared to be nothing but compassionate and helpful to Soul, but such is the beauty of royal deception. The Equestrian ruler had a history a mile long of faults and corruption, and thought she could overshadow it with a good attitude, but Soul knew better.

Soul high-tailed it out of there right after the business deal was arranged, much to Celestia's dismay. The lack of formality was a relief, but it was obviously due to a feeling of dread Soul possessed, and that struck a chord in Celestia's heart. She was certain that she never had met that pony before, and there wasn't an obvious reason for her to be as scared as she was.

After much consideration, Celestia decided it was time to venture into the Mirror Plane and look upon that filly’s past; as a guardian of the innocent and protector of the realm, it was her duty to help anyone she could.

So it was with this that both went there separate ways. Soul Shard to pay for personnel and construction, and Celestia to venture into Soul's past, however bleak and dark it may be.

Celestia learned the life of Soul Shard from the beginning, from her birth to her discovering how to convert Electromagnetic Radiation from Pegasi magic, to Raw Arcane Radiation. From the deal to her school laughing her out of the building without so much as test of her skills. From her torturous training that was not only dangerous to herself, but was more driven than most ponies would ever thrust upon themselves. From her tests and inventions to their accidental meeting.

Celestia had seen this many times before. Although Soul Shard had potential for great good, all it would take was one push in the wrong direction and she would be a threat the likes of which would even frighten Celestia herself. With this insight, she ordered the special forces of the royal guard to keep an eye on her and her business.

This wasn't to discredit Soul, though; Celestia still had an immense amount of respect for her. She ensured that the red tape was cut before Soul Shard ran into it, and worked behind the scenes to work with her. Celestia was no idiot; she saw the potential good in Shard Industries, and was going to support it every way she could

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~ 4 months ago: Manehatten~

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“Let’s see here,” Vinyl's mother said, reading over one of the disciplinary notes her daughter had received at school. “joy buzzer on the teachers seat ... shaving cream explosion in the principal’s office ... plague of lotus ... possible expulsion ... meeting.”

A look of furry passed over her mother’s face as she stared at Vinyl. Her mouth opening and closing as her mind struggled with the best way to phrase what she wanted to say. Vinyl saw the anger rising, and it seemed that her wish was finally going to come true.

It had been about three months since Vinyl's father died, and her mother certainly didn’t give one feathering damn about her. She put all her efforts into being as perfect as possible: studying for her tests, asking for extra credit, being a model student. All in the attempt to gain the attention of her mother

It never worked. Her mother rarely ever talked to her, and until recently didn’t even do anything past weep and drink herself into a stupor. This last week was different, though; Vinyl’s mother stopped spending all day drinking, but instead relied on another kind of pleasure... one one-night stand at a time. Vinyl had held hope that things would get better. But so far they'd only gotten worse.

Vinyl was very aware of how desperate for attention she had become, yet she didn't have a problem with it. If she were insecure about it, she wouldn't be appreciative of the verbal abuse she was about to receive. Pissing her off felt surprisingly relieving to Vinyl; if she was to let out all of the disdain she had for her mother, she might as well do it in a smart-ass way.

“Why in the flying horse feathers are you smiling!? Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in!? Grounded doesn’t begin to cover it, little filly!"

Vinyl started clapping, every reverberation dripping with sarcasm and hate. "Congrats, mom! You’re finally talking to me rather than getting drunk or throwing your flank up to the first stallion that grabs your attention. At least I care about dad!”

“Who in the hell do you think you are!?" Vinyl's mother exclaimed, a bit surprised at the way her daughter had spoken to her. "Where do you get off telling me that I don’t care about your father? And for that matter, you shouldn't be the one judging me. You are the child here!

"I deserve to be happy..." Vinyl's mother said conclusively, "and you don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do."

“You aren’t happy, mom!" Vinyl yelled, hoping to reach whatever crevice of feeling her mother had left. "You treat me like I don’t even exist. It’s like you don’t even care that he died! That you don’t care about me! And if this is what it takes for you to even treat me like I exist, then it’s what I’m going to do!”

“I... You..." Vinyl's mother felt as if she had been slapped across the face, brought to her senses in a way. "Stay in your room, we’ll talk about this later.”

That could have gone better, but at least she acknowledged my existence. Vinyl concluded, passing the time in her room until whatever talk she and her mother would have. I have to do all the shopping, make my food, do everything for myself, so it's about damn time. But if making mayhem gets her to talk to me, even if it means that all she does is yell at me. It’s better than her treating me as much of a ghost as dad.

Vinyl couldn't say she was looking forward to her talk with her mother. She had a fear that she would show up in a drunken belligerence, unable to get coherent sentences across to her daughter. A fear that, unfortunately, came true.

Vinyl just zoned out completely. It was easier to dis-acknowledge a trainwreck than to witness its aftermath.

Vinyl simply cried when her mother shut the door, the camel's back having finally been broken. Her mind began to wander, as it usually did, to the possibilities that lay beyond the walls of her cramped, meaningless home. It was certainly not the first time she had considered running away, but it was the first time it seemed not only feasible, but optimal.

There wasn't much for her to take. She pretty much had her turntable (for which she had saved up herself), Vinyl Diskettes and a Phonograph , and whatever food her mother had left. It was obvious around town that Vinyl's passion was music. Of course, her mother had never supported her in that endeavor, and would rather have had a grade-obsessed bookworm. And while Vinyl was a straight-A, honor roll student, she only excelled in school in the hope that her mother would actually love her for it.

A hope that had just been irreparably shattered.

As she wandered the streets, she acknowledged that she was truly alone for the first time in her life. She didn’t know where to go, what to do, or how she would get by. But wherever life took her would be better than where she had lived through this last half-year.

Plus, that last statement wasn't completely true: she had her music to listen to, and music she had yet to make. That was all she needed.

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Several weeks had passed since Soul's encounter and deal with Celestia, and Soul was focusing on her realm, Arx Novo; presently, there were more important things to deal with than jewels. While she had made it habitable, she still was working on the formation of life. She had already made some flora, such as shrubbery and a her Lunestia, but fauna, of which she was lacking, was a necessity. And here she sat, at the "Universal Computer," which was controlling everything inside Arx Novo.

Alright, Soul, let's do this. She said, mentally mapping the task at hand. Don't simply give it life, but harness that life in order to better yourself and others who come and visit.

What is life? Ponies say that plants are alive, that even single cell organisms are living. Well... something living needs logic functions, to be able to know how to replicate itself, to be able to keep itself healthy and contained, how to protect itself to some degree, and most importantly adaptability.

She was getting somewhere. Everything needs to gather energy for some reason, so I need to give the organisms some way to power their logic gateways, and then give them a way to protect those gateways.

But I don’t want to program ever single living thing. It may take weeks, months, or even a few years. But if I program those three things into a randomized generator, then I should be able to generate fully self-sustainable, distinct lifeforms.

Tedious, yes, but very worth it. Gritting her teeth Soul went to work, adding her experimental programming into the computer. Just as she expected, this seemed to form different types of living creatures that would help her with maintenance and balance within the system. This wasn't simply her personal pet project; this would give her true validation of existence. If she pulled this off, then whatever she created would have to love her.

Soul acknowledged that this was a somewhat selfish way of thinking, but she went with it regardless.

Rawr!

As those of you who've been following my Blogs [especially this one] probably know my Gmail account and my way to get into Gmail was hacked. This unfortunately was one of the fics that I had been working on, and with my old computer dead I have no back ups. Now the series isn't dead-dead. But I'm going to be time jumping what I was going to be doing and moving to the future by a few months eventually.

So while I am ending this story here. I'm going to be giving some idea onto what is happening between this fic and the follow up A Menagerie of Misfits [Working Title]:

Soul Shard goes on a road trip implementing Mage Towers, that send arcane electricity through a link spell. This also doubles as a Cell (Phone [later on]), Radio [also later on], and [much later] TV tower using runes and spell forms as a form of Wave Modulation [AM in this verse = Arcane Modulation] and is a wide ranged / multi-used energy form. That either transmits raw Arcane energy for electricity, or on higher frequencies transmits data on the Arcane Waves.

It's a large black obelisk with an orb on top.

They [Lightning Flicker and Soul Shard] bond over the course of the raodtrip. Soul Shard learning more about Lightning Flicker's depression, suicidal tendencies, his past, as well as his skill at playing music. She tries to get him to try a few shows but so far hasn't been able to break him out of his shell (at least not in public).
The story starts as they end the tour and end up in Ponyville just before they run into a runaway Vinyl Scratch.

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So I'm sorry for all of you who were looking forward to chapter 6. But honestly I can't re-write the 6,000 words again + the additional several thousand that would've made up that chapter. Hopefully y'all will like the sequel when it comes up in about 6 - 8 months. I'll be sure to post one last chapter linking to the sequel.