A Darker World

        Twilight stepped into the outer office, a spacious room with plenty of sitting space for ponies waiting to meet with the Dean of the University. She raised her hoof to greet the pink earth pony at the secretary sitting behind her desk when a voice spoke from the opened door at the rear of the office. “TWILIGHT SPARKLE,” the booming voice sounded, “GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!” That voice was certainly not happy about something. Unfortunately Twilight knew exactly what. The secretary sitting at her desk right next to the open door was jerked up by the sound, she brought a hoof up to her ear and rubbed it, giving Twilight a sympathetic look as she passed. She had known their family for as long as Twilight could remember, she knew what that voice meant. Twilight lowered her head a bit and stepped through the door.

        Once inside the office, the door behind her slammed shut. Eep, he is really pissed off this time. Twilight thought to herself as she raised a hoof to wave. “Now Dad, let me explain before you-”        “YOU will sit FIRST Twilight. THEN we will talk.” The commanding tone in her father’s voice only got worse when he was glaring at you from behind his desk. Twilight nodded and moved to one of the empty chairs before the large desk in the room.        The room itself was quite spacious like the outer office, although you wouldn’t have been able to tell easily. Between the large desk with papers on it, the bookcases attached to the walls, the sofa and coffee table, and the few chairs in the room it was quite full. Twilight had many fond memories of this room, coming here when she was a filly and studying with her father, playing small games with her brother while they waited for their parents to come back from a meeting. Enough happy memories that it normally brought a smile to her face. This time was not going to be another happy memory added to the set, if nothing else the enraged figure of her father on the other side of the desk would see to that.        His soft blue body held itself up, his hooves resting squarely on the desk in front of him. His darker blue mane still remained neatly combed so at least he hadn’t been worrying about her. The silver chain that normally rested around his neck with the purple pendant telling everyone he was Dean of the Canterlot University and the horn ring of his council seat that ruled Canterlot rested on the corner of the desk. That at least meant that he was working in his persona as her father, not her boss in this case. At least that will help a little bit, I hope.        Twilight reached the desk and seated herself in the open chairs, the other chair was occupied by a certain well known armored pony. After a few moments of sitting under her father’s gaze, Night Light sighed and sat back in his chair. “Spike would you please remove the mask for now. The door is closed and Peth won’t let anyone in for right now.”        Spike noded and reached up with an armored hoof, or rather, the armor outline of a hoof since what it was off the chair Spike uncurled his claws and reached around with his long talons detaching the latches holding the mask over his face. Once uncoupled Spike pulled the armored pony mask off, stretching his long scaled neck out. The purple scales rustled slightly against the rest of the armor, a few green spines popping up. He turned and smiled at Night Light. “It always feels nice getting to stretch my neck in the middle of the day. You sure nothing is going to interrupt us?”        “Yes I am sure, Spike. I don’t have any meeting for at least another hour. Now, trust your father and relax for a moment.” Turning his attention to Twilight, Night Light’s expression hardened again. “Now Twilight. I assume you know exactly why you are here, the smart young mare that you are certainly had the forethought to send Spike over once he finished with the lecture, a lecture might I remind you that is for YOUR class, to alert me and tell me at least a bit of what happened rather than letting the rumor mill or another professor get it to me first.”        After a few moments of silence Twilight leans forward a opens her mouth to speak but gets cut short as her father keeps going. “Ignoring your responsibilities is NOT something you learned from me or your mother, so at first I could only assume that it was something amazingly important, perhaps you got lost in your research again, wouldn’t be the first time afterall. Ducking away and getting out from under Spike’s claws is ALSO not something you got from me or your mother and you know how hard we had to work to get everything set up so that he could be with you. So I assumed not only was it part of your research but that it was a flash of inspiration that hit you in the middle of a meal or something. But no. Imagine how I reacted when I found out that you had teleported off to WHO KNOWS WHERE with one of the crazy cultists.” Even with his level tone and calm expression the words cut straight through any attempt of Twilight to respond for the moment. In the brief lull, she looked back up at her father.        “Not well?” was all she managed to squeak out.        “Not well indeed. Not only did you ignore your responsibilities and run off without Spike you vanished to who knows where and into who knows what dangers. A remarkably stupid act, especially for you. And that is all combined with the fact that you were arguing with the cultist that you teleported off with not a moment before. So, Twilight, what, oh what, was so important for you that you committed such a stupid act?”Oh crap. Telling him that they had proof to their claims won’t work, considering I only half believe them right now. Think, Twilight, Think!        “The cultist had mentioned something about knowing some old spell formulas. I pretty much demanded to see them,” Twilight spoke quickly, glancing over to Spike, who was thankfully more interesting in chewing on one of the candies in her father’s candy bowl then correcting her story, “Actually turned out to be pretty interesting stuff.” Come on Twilight, you’ll need more than that to convince him. AH HA! The experiment! “They actually had a spell circle designed to pull out an unicorn’s full magic into a spell, I kinda got lost looking it over, what with my research right now and all.” Twilight looked up at her father, trying not to let the hope that he would fall for her lie out.        The raised eyebrow showed his interest and his next comment certainly showed it worked. “What do you mean pull out an unicorn’s full magic?” He said.        “It ignored the limit of magic unicorn’s could pull! It was designed to tap into it differently, kind of like bursting a balloon of water rather than letting it slowly through the opening. See with the research into the idea that our full magic isn’t tied to how much we can pull at any given time I was interested to see how they did it.” Twilight replied, mentally racing ahead to fill in pieces of information.        “And did you find anything out?” Night Light replied.        “Well...no. Not directly at least! But I have some modifications to my experiment that I want to do from looking it over that would help!” Twilight said as she smiled at her father, his anger from earlier having left his voice.        “Are there any documents of theirs that showed it being used successful? I have never heard of such a magic circle.” Night Light asked.        “No...I wasn’t planning to use the exact magic circle just some concepts from it! But um...I need a lot of space to do it. None of the magic labs have the space I’ll need. I’ll have to head out of Canterlot to test. I was thinking of heading south to Ponyville, it’s only a few hours and I’d be able to do some study on the stars while out there as well.” Twilight quickly smiled at her father as she twirled the need for her to reach the Everfree into her research. Ponyville was the closest town and was under the Canterlot Guard's protection.        However her quickly planned out idea came to a screeching halt.        “NO! I will NOT send you to Ponyville! That town is unsafe for a young mare like you!” His quick and negative reaction took Twilight back, shocking her a moment.Well, let’s recap for a moment Twilight. You came into an office with a father who was mad at you, got him calmed down and interested into a lie, and now he is back to being mad. Yep. Full circle. Crap.        “And why not, Dad? I’ll have Spike with me! You couldn’t ask for better protection from being mugged or anything else! Plus I’ll only be there a few days!” Twilight put on her best pleading voice and face, enough of it and her father always gave in when she was a filly.        “No! Even with Spike it would take a Guard squad to ensure to your safety and it’s not like I can whistle one up whenever I want!” Night Light insisted.        “Well, Shining’s squad just got back from that trip out to the Cloudsdale plains. He’s been wanting to spend some time with me as well so I could just take them along. They are sitting around waiting for assignment anyways and you know what he said about his squad, they are more calm on the move then sitting around. It’d be perfect, Shining gets time with his sister and there’s a Guard squad for protection, plus Spike! And the town is under Canterlot control. It’ll be about as safe as it can be that way. What’s the worst that could happen?” Twilight spoke, mixing her desire to get to Ponyville and the fact her brother was in town together to convince her father.        For a moment Twilight was sure her father would in fact find something but he grunted in the end. “Fine, alright. You are determined to go and I know from experience getting in your way doesn’t work. Go home and talk to your brother, we’ll get everything completely set up at dinner tonight if he agrees.” With her father’s reluctant agreement Twilight smiled and leaned over the desk to pull him into a hug.        “Thank you father!” Letting him go as he reached to the edge of his desk and grabbed his necklace and horn ring to put them back on.        “Yeah, yeah. Get going you two, I’ll see you in a few hours.” Twilight trotted towards the door as Spike latched the mask back on, standing up and following her. “Love you both.”        “Love you too, Dad.” Twilight opened the door and headed out, Spike a step behind.

        The grunt of effort from the white stallion was rewarded with a moan of pleasure from the petite yellow pegasus mare below him, her wings stretched wide and quivering. The sheets of the bed were thrown on the floor, needless for them right now. A squeak of sudden excitement followed by longer hum of pleasure echoed through the room. The faded beam of light from the Day Star played across the backs of the two ponies, leaving the rest of the room in a dim light. Not that there was much to see, the room was spartan as fitted a soldier, a simple desk, the bed, a dresser, short bookcase, and a trunk for his personal items. A simple room in a simple barracks.        The moaning increased in volume, panted breath filling the room. Both of the ponies lost in their interaction. Ignorant to the outside world. At least until the sharp knock sounded on the door. Both ponies suddenly went quiet and very still. For a moment both wished the offending knocker was imagined but sadly that moment was broken when the knocker banged on the door again.        The stallion grumbled, backing off the mare and looking at the door. “What is it?” His voice sounded, a hard voice more used to shouting orders than anything else.        “Captain Shining, your sister has come by the barracks to see you. She is currently waiting downstairs in the mess hall with Pyro, Stomper, and Flick.” The knocker spoke quickly and with a heavy voice.        Shining Armor started to step off the bed towards the door when the small mare below him leaned up against his body and moved her head back, pushing her orange mane out of the way and nibbled at one of his neck. “Don’t go now, I might go get in trouble with another stallion if you go anywhere big boy.” Her soft voice whispered in his ear, heavy with her desire to get him back into her.        For a moment Shining was tempted to leave this encounter where it was, this mare wouldn’t turn him down if he approached her again later. But even as he paused for a moment the mare didn’t give up, pressing back into him and pushing him back into her just a little bit sending a jolt a excitement up Shining’s spine. “Tell her I’ll be down in ten minutes Crusher. Just need to finish up a bit of paper work.” He spoke quickly, leaning down against the mare and running a hoof along the underside of her wing, getting the desired twitches from the sensitivity limbs.        The sound of the heavy footsteps echoed away from the door, leaving the two ponies alone again. Shining leaned his head down and nibbled at the mare’s neck for a moment. “Where were we? Ah yes…” And with a forceful push that produced a startled squeak from the mare they were back at it.

        Ten minutes later, a cleaned up Shining stepped down the stairs into the mess hall. Sure enough there was his sister sitting at one of the tables chatting away with another unicorn. Instead of his sister’s purple coat and clear academic life the other unicorn mare sported an orange coat with a bright yellow mane and a build that showed all of the hard, tiring, draining training she got as a Guard. Although no where near the heavy build that Shining or the two gray earth ponies had, the unicorn’s mage training didn’t leave much in the way for excess fat to build up in place of muscles. Knowing his sister the look on her face meant she and the other unicorn mare were talking about one magic theory or another.        A quick glance around the room confirmed that only four members of his squad were present, Pyro Spark, the unicorn mare talking to Twilight, Stomper and Crusher Grounder, two large heavy built gray earth ponies, and Flick Flyer, a black pegasus stallion that was happier flapping his wings to get as high as he could in any room then sitting still. That meant Strong Hold, his other unicorn mage(though sometimes Shining wondered why he put up with the overly chipper dark gray stallion) and Swirl Back, his remaining pegasus, were out, though knowing her and Strong he’d be able to find them at the bar nearby, the same one he met his friend who had just slipped out his window at.        “So the core theory I want to test is counter to the long held idea that the amount of magic a unicorn can pull at any time is related to the total magic that unicorn could pull.” His sister was talking about a magic theory, though it seemed that she wanted to uproot a long held one. “It’s not a theory anyone has really put to the test you see, at least not and documented it.” Normally Pyro wouldn’t be interested in any theories Twilight wanted to experiment with. Pyro was much more the type to take what she knew she could do and use it to cause as much damage as possible, with fire if she had a choice. However Pyro seemed wrapped up in whatever Twilight was talking about.        Shining smiled and walked up to his sister and gave her a hug before she noticed he was there. She looked up at the hug and saw him, smiling back and hugging him tightly, “Hey big brother!”        “Hey little sister. So what is it that has Pyro paying attention to this theory of yours?” Shining released his sister from the hug and sat down next to her, glancing over at Pyro.        “Oh!” Twilight’s eager grin at her brother’s interest could have lit up an entire room by itself. “I had an idea since I’ve been using magic so much more recently. It’s long been held that the amount of magic an unicorn can pull at any given time is directly related to how much they have.” Shining nodded, he knew this theory well, any unicorn did, it was a basic concept of magic. “But no one has very really tested it, mostly out of fear of harm to said unicorn. But! I think I have a way to disprove it. But I’ll need your help. And the help of your squad.” Twilight looked up at her brother with the most innocent look she could pull, after all if it could convince him to sneak out in the middle of the night to get her ice cream as a filly it should work now.        Shining glanced up from his sister to his squad. Pyro was nodding her head with as much enthusiasm as he saw out of her last time he let her go nuts on a building. Crusher and Stomper nodded once, but then they always enjoyed helping Twilight out, they almost thought of her as a little sister. Flick shrugged under Shining’s gaze. In the end Shining looked back at his sister. “Alright, we’ll help out any way we can what do we need to do?”