The Black Flames

Research

After a brief explanation I was set free from the suspicious guards. Celestia apoligised for her guard's overprotectiveness and offered me a tour of the palace. That took the rest of the day. The place had close to five-hundred rooms! Not including the massive ball room and entrance hall. The kitchens took up a whole floor of the palace. Strangely there were no dungeons to be seen.

"And these are my personal quarters!" Celestia said, holding a hoof out to large doorway with a sun carved into it. Out of curiosity I took a peek at her flank. The design on her door was the same as her cutie mark. I looked up from her flank to find her staring at me with a deep blush on her face. She just caught me staring at her ass, awkward.

"Uh, nice design." I say, my voice was a little shaky, "Impressive how the carpenter's got your cutie mark so perfectly, not a detail out of place"

"Ohhh... yeah, impressive." Her face flashed with dissapointment before perking back up.

"Now that I've shown you the whole castle, may I ask why you came?"

"I was actually on my way to Sugarcube Corner to learn to make a pie. I had set up the spell for teleportation when a certain mare interrupted my thought process."

"Pinkie Pie?"

"Pinkie Pie."

"Well your welcome to stay until they arrive tomorrow!"

"What! Surely they aren't going to come all the way out here for me?"

"They aren't. There coming to the National Dessert Competition here in Canterlot!" She said cheerfully.

"Well, if that's the case then I guess I'll crash here for the night!" I say, "So where will I be sleeping?"

"We do have around four-hundred and eighty-seven rooms up for grabs! It's your pick!"

"Well the night's pretty young... I'll just take whatever room you'll give me. After that I'm gonna head to the royal library to study magic some more."

"I see Twilights rubbed off on you," She said with a coy smile, "Why don't take the room to the left of mine! It's one of the bigger palace suites. I'm sure you'll love it!"

"Kay, that's cool. I'm off to the library to grab a book."

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The library put the congress's to shame. It had several wings, each with hundreds of books. The main body was several stories tall and was almost a labryinth of book shelves. They had tomes about everything. I made my way to the magic section of the library, following directions from the librarian. When I had met her she had freaked and hit me in the head with her refrence book, it was thicker than Big Mac's biceps combined. After I woke up she apoligised, having went to the guards for help and being informed about my arrival. I was looking through the countless books when a certain volume caught my eye. It was titled The Unicorn's Guide to Defensive Magics. Twilight never said anything about fighting magic. I looked for more books on the subject to no avail. The book was one of a kind. I looked at the publication date and saw that it was made close to three-hundred year's ago. It was ancient.

I checked the book out and headed to my room at the palace. I settled in bed and opened the tome. It was very interesting. It contained little spells but focused on the theory of releasing arcane energy in it's most raw form. However it had never been tested beyond the couple spells it contained, which did little besides causing sparks and small blasts. I was suddenly filled with excitement at furthering this field of magic. It could revoulitionize how Equestria fights its enemies.

I spent the night using the theory and my understanding of magic to create my own spells. The floor was covered in pillows in the event that the spell blows up in my face. Turns out that making a brand new spell was harder than I thought. After several attempts at trying to create the average fireball, I decided to try something simpler. The author's writings spoke of releasing raw, unaltered arcane power. Maybe I should try to create a ball of launchable magic instead of fire or lightning.

I focused my magic into my hand and concentrated on forcing it straight into a small ball form. When I opened my eyes I saw that I had conjured a small black ball of magic. It seemed to hum a faint note. Now all I needed was something to hit. I summoned a small target and attached it to the wall. I threw my magic ball at the target. It soared straight through the air, far faster than I had thrown it, and exploded on contact with the target, obliterating it and leaving scorch marks on the wall. I fixed the damage with a quick spell and summoned another target and exploding magic grenade. This one was weaker so as to cause less damage. I lobbed it at the target and watched it speed through the air again and demolish the target.

"I have created a magic missle."

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"Shhhhhhh! He's still asleep!"

"3, 2, 1, NOW!!!!!!!!"

"SUPRISE!!!!!"

I was jolted awake by the whole gang plus two sisters with the royal canterlot voice on "Deafen".

To put it simply, I hit the top of my canopy bed at the speed of light.

"Good your awake! I saved some cake for you! It's sorry for interrupting your spell! I am really sorry about that by the way! So sorry that I baked you a really good cupcake! "

"Pinkie."

"But then I ate it, but there was no time to make another one because I had to get the Cake's cake on the train. Then there was the whole MMMM mystery whi-"

"PINKIE!!!! I get it! Your sorry! Apology accepted, sheesh!"

"Great! Here's your cake!"

Pinkie held out a plate with a slice of cake on it. It was marvelous, my mouth watered just looking at it. My mouth dropped at the sight of the sugary confection.

Which Pinkie took as an opening to shove the whole thing down my throat.

I swallowed about half of it without chewing, the other half was sweeter than the finest honey. I breathed to clear my esophagus of frosting and swallowed the cake. Everyone was staring at me expectantly.

"Give my regards to the chef, that was mind-blowing."

"Thanks!"

"So what time is it? Nine O'clock?"

"No silly! It's almost lunch time!"

"W-what?" I say, flabbergasted.

"You've been asleep for most of the day. I would've woken you, but your look so cute when your sleeping!"

Her statement was met with a complete consensus from the rest of the girls. Apparently I'm adorable only when I sleep.

"What were you doing last night? I swore I heard an explosion or two in your room."Celestia asked.

"Just experimenting with some spells. I didn't think I stayed up so late."

"What kind of spells were you expirimenting with that caused explosions?" Twilight asked.

"Some defensive combat spells that I made up."

"WHAAAAAAT!" Celestia, Luna and Twilight said in perfect harmony.

"Did I do something wrong?" I ask, worried I had broken some magic law.

"You've only studied magic for a WEEK! How did you design your own spells! In combat magic at that!" Twilight yelled at me.

"I just used the theory in this book!" I respond, grabbing the offending item from the nightstand.

Twilight snatched it from my hands with her magic and sped through the book, Luna and Celestia reading over both of her shoulders.

"This theory is spotty and full of holes! I can't see how you managed to get anything from this! It says nothing about how the magic acts outside the body or how to even use it! No sane pony would attempt this kind of magic!

The risks are monumentous! Your lucky you didn't blow yourself up in the process!"

"I did come close a couple times..."

"See! I thought I explained to you how dangerous and unpredictable magic can be! You should've been more careful! And I bet you weren't even able to perfect one spell, from this flawed theory!" I was a little hurt by that last one.

"Wrong, Four." I deadpan.

"What?" Twilight also deadpanned.

"I have perfected four combat spells, the Magic Missle, Mage Gun, Arcane Blast and Eraser Ball."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Show us." Luna put in.

"Verywell your highness."

I then conjured three targets and gave myself a good ten feet of space. I shot one target with the Magic Missle,which I had perfected so as to seek out the target on  its own. Then the Mage Gun, it sacrificed accuracy for power. Instead of seeking out the target it blasted forward at breakneck speeds and caused a violent explosion. Next was the Eraser Ball. This was made to stay put, and explode like a mine. The latent power from not moving resulted in larger explosions. Last was the Arcane Blast, it was the result of me trying to simply let out arcane power without any focal point. This caused me to be surrounded in a halo of raw power.

"Impressive" Luna said after the demonstration of what I had created.

"Now can you tell me what the big deal is behind me creating a couple new spells?"

"Not very many people can," Celestia said, "Even from a solid theory, it is incredibly difficult to design the structure of a new spell from scratch. If a single piece of information is out of place the spell will fail. Only the mnost studied of unicorns can create a new spell sucessfully. Even then it usually takes months of trial and error."

"And I just did so..."

"With only a weeks time of study, yes."

"Either I'm really lucky or really good."

"Perhaps a bit of both," Twilight cut in, "You learned alot in just a week. In fact, you were close to three weeks ahead of schedule. You have the general knowledge of magic learned already. Still it was an amazing feat that you did this."

"WELLL, that's interesting and all, but I think it's about time we all headed back home. Whaddya say girls?" Rainbow interjected. The other four girls were half-asleep.

"Okay, say goodbye David. Lets get you back to Ponyville!" Twilight simply stated.

"Sorry Twilight but I'll have to request that David stay here with me." Celestia said.

"What, Why?" The girls said in unison.

"Obviously he has a unprecedented gift for magic, and I would like for him to stay here so I may teach him as my pupil. What do you say David."

"Isn't Twilight already your pupil?" I ask.

"A teacher is entitled to as many students as she may want wouldn't you say, Twilight?"

"Of course, your majesty"

"Then I'll stay as long as you deem necessary."

"Great! Also, since you obviously show a talent for it, I think that while you are here you should do more research into your combat magic. It would prove most usefull should my gaurds or I come into trouble that words cannot solve."

"Kay"

The girls said there goodbyes and left the room one by one. Rarity stayed behind a second to give me a box. "A gift from a friend, for a friend." She had explained before leaving. Twilight was the last one out.

"Say hello to my brother for me, kay Celestia?"

"Of course Twilight."

It hit me the moment the the door closed.

"Twilight has a BROTHER!?!?!?!?!?"