Battle Magic

by Gaekub

Rating: teen
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure, Slice of Life
Length: 43496

Twilight finds a sport that she can't resist.

Twilight has always been the best there is at magic. She's won dozens of scholarly competitions and tests of skill in Canterlot. But when it comes to the more violent uses for magic, she is essentially clueless.

When she meets a strange unicorn in a seedy bar, he introduces her to a little known sport that will test her knowledge of magic in different ways. That is, of course, if Twilight can't resist its primal lure.

Published 2012-05-07 13:14:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-06-09 16:27:28 UTC

Chapter 1

Twilight Sparkle, star pupil of the princess and bearer of the element of magic, wandered aimlessly through the streets of Fillydelphia. She was looking for something to eat, but wasn’t familiar with the restaurants of the city.

She had been visiting the various bookstores and libraries of the city, in search of a rare book. The weight in her saddlebags was a constant reminder that she had been in luck. It was a tome on old transformative magic, and she was excited to crack open the dusty pages.

However, at this particular moment her stomach took precedence. She had lost track of time, as she always did in such places. The sun was beginning to set, and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Her mind was focused entirely on finding a place where she could sate her appetite for the few bits that rattled in the bottom of her saddlebags.

Her mind was so focused on her stomach that she didn’t notice she was wandering into the bad part of the city. It was only when a brusque earth pony pushed her aside with an annoyed grunt that she snapped back to reality.

Most of Fillydelphia was pleasant, bright, and well cared for. Stable Boulevard, which Twilight found herself on, was none of those things. The brick buildings were coated in dirt, the street lanterns flickered and spat, and graffiti decorated the walls. With a small whimper, Twilight searched for a refuge from the darkness.

Just as she fancied she heard voices from the alleyway behind her, her searching eyes landed on a small tavern. With no better options, she walked into the warm light as quickly as she could without looking like a victim. A sigh of relief escaped her lips as crossed the threshold.

The tavern was infinitely cleaner than the streets outside, but that wasn’t saying much. It was far from spotless - Twilight was particularly concerned about the several stains that appeared to be blood - but it was passable. It smelled of smoke and sweat, and the lights were dim, but nopony seemed like an immediate threat. Twilight approached the bar.

“What do you have to eat?” she nervously asked the one-winged pegasus who stood behind the counter. Rather than speaking, he jerked his head at the sign that hung behind him. It was very small, and looked as if the pegasus had painted it himself. Most businesses hired unicorns for things like that, but apparently that had been too much of an expense.

Twilight squinted at the ill-defined letters. “Oh, uh, can I have some hay fries?” she asked, picking the safest legible thing on the menu.

“Two bits” replied the Pegasus, his voice surprisingly pleasant. Twilight had expected a growl, not this soft, low tone with a hint of an accent.

Two bits was well within her budget, and she dredged two tarnished coins from her sack. She dropped them on the counter with a small effort of magic. The pegasus scooped them up, and stepped into the back.

Twilight searched the room for an unattended table, and found one near the door. Keeping one eye on the three other patrons, just in case, she trotted over and sat down. She tucked her bag under the table, making sure one of her hooves was still in contact with it at all times.

Twilight examined the three ponies she shared the pub with, more for something to do than anything else. Near the back of the room sat a skinny, middle-aged pegasus, nursing a mug of cider. He appeared to be deep in conversation with a rather bedraggled female earth pony, her orange mane scattered haphazardly across her light brown coat. Sitting at the bar where Twilight had ordered her hay fries was a young looking unicorn, quite possible younger than herself. His head was pressed against the surface of the bar, and Twilight would have thought him asleep if he hadn’t occasionally lifted his head to drink from a mug.

She was trying to gauge his age more precisely when she heard the creak of hinges behind herself. She turned to see a newcomer –another unicorn- step through the door.

She had thought the bartender was scarred, but this stallion’s pale blue coat was a maze of raised tissue. As he turned his head, she noted that whatever had cut him so badly had also robbed him of the use of one of his eyes, the milky white globe focusing on nothing. His good eye (which he was lucky to have, judging by the large scar that bordered the
socket) focused directly on Twilight herself.

“This is my table. Do you mind?” he asked in a low, rough voice. He was more muscular than any unicorn Twilight had ever seen, and although he wasn’t much taller than her, she was probably half his weight if that. All in all, a very intimidating sight.

“Oh, of course. I’m sorry” she apologized, hoping to avoid confrontation. She reached under her chair to grab her bag and move to another table, but froze when a hoof touched her back. Her body tensed with fear, and her horn began to glow as she prepared to put up whatever defense she could.

“Woah woah woah. Calm down there filly” the older unicorn said, lifting his hoof from her back immediately. “I didn’t mean you any harm, I was just going to say I was asking if we could share the table. Didn’t mean to make you move once you’re all settled in.”

“Oh. Um, are you sure? I can move, it’s no trouble.” Twilight wanted an excuse to leave, but she didn’t want to offend this pony.

“No, no, course not.” The corners of the intruder’s mouth raised in a friendly smile. “I could use the company.”

Twilight nudged her bag back into place and watched the stallion carefully as he sat across from her. Now that she was in such close quarters with him, and the adrenaline of fear had mostly left her system, she noticed something else about him. He was emitting an incredible amount of magic, so much her horn was buzzing almost painfully.

“Uh…” said Twilight, not sure how to bring it up. “Is your horn… okay? Because-“

“Oh, I’m sorry” he interrupted. “I completely forgot. I must stink of magic.”

Twilight nodded slightly.

“Sorry about that. Just a second…” The pony closed his eyes, concentrating. His horn glowed slightly – his magic a red that contrasted his coat neatly – as he gathered in the passive energy that surrounded him. With a slight grunt of effort, he released it all in a pulse that dazed Twilight and caused the unicorn at the bar to gasp in shock and fall off his stool.

It was at that moment the bartender returned, carrying a basket of hay fries. Although he couldn’t feel the pulse himself, he could see the effect it had on the on the unicorn at the bar, and he put two and two together.

“Silver!” he snapped, dropping the hay fries on the bar. “I told you not to do that in here. It upsets the unicorns. Last warning.” He turned from the offending unicorn to Twilight. “Your fries are ready. You want anything to drink with those?”

“Oh, no, I’m all right. Thank you though” Twilight answered, approaching the bar. She leaned down, as if inspecting the fries, and murmured “that blue unicorn. Is he… safe?”

“Who, Silver?” asked the pegasus, a little louder than Twilight would have liked. “Oh, you sat at his table. Nah, don’t worry about him, he’s harmless. Well, harmless to ponies that aren’t fighting him.”

“Oh, alright. Thank you.” Twilight turned back to her table, but was stopped by the accented tones of the bartender.

“Actually, since you’re sitting with him…” he said, trailing off. Twilight turned back to see him filling a mug with cider from a tap. He dropped in on the counter once it was full, the foam bulging over the rim. “Would you mind taking this to him? He always gets one, figured I’d save both of us some time.”

Twilight shrugged, nodded, and snatched it with a tendril of mental force. She could carry two items nearly as easily as one; she had no reason not to.

She trotted back to her table and dropped her hay fries in front of her seat and the cider opposite.

“Ah, thank you very much, Ms…” the unicorn trailed off, lifting the cider to his lips.

“Sparkle” Twilight responded shortly, dragging a few fries from the bowl and taking a cautious bite. They were greasy and slightly overdone, but they tasted good and she was starving. She began wolfing down the rest.

“Well, nice to meet you Ms. Sparkle. My name’s Silver. Silver Chimes, but everypony just calls me Silver” her dinner partner said, drinking deeply from his mug.

Twilight looked up at him, chewing slowly. “Silver Chimes? Are you a musician?” she asked after swallowing.

“Do I look like a musician?” he laughed, pointing to his battle torn face. “No, my parents wanted a musician, but they ended up with me instead.”

“Oh” Twilight replied simply, before turning back to her meal. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he did. Something told her that it might not be strictly legal.

She made short work of her fries, and was still hungry once she was done. She was considering getting another, weighing the hunger against her desire to get away from this seedy inn, when the unicorn opposite began muttering to himself.

“Sparkle… Sparkle…” he muttered, brow knit in concentration. “I’ve heard that name…” he suddenly looked up at Twilight, a spark of recognition in his eyes. “Oh, I remember now. I’m thinking of Twilight Sparkle. Any relation?” he asked, taking a deep drink of cider.

“Uh… that’s me, actually. I’m Twilight.”

The stallion choked on his cider. He dropped the cup heavily, and let out a series of wet coughs. “You?” he wheezed quietly. “You’re Twilight Sparkle? As in, Celestia’s student? Bearer of the Element of Magic? The pony who defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord in the last two years?”

She nodded. “How do you know all that? Most ponies I meet have barely heard of me.”

“Let’s just say the circles I move in have taken a particular interest in you.” He paused. “Er… I realize that sounded incredibly sinister, but trust me, it’s not. Although on that note, you might not want to advertise who you are. Not all ponies are the upstanding examples of citizen hood that I am” he said with a hint of laughter.

Twilight’s eyes widened and her head sank towards the table as she glanced around the tavern. “You… you mean somepony in here might try and kidnap me?”

“Well, not in here specifically.” Silver craned his neck to look into the back corner. “Although to be fair, I don’t know that pegasus. I guess he could be trouble. Doesn’t look it though.”

Twilight relaxed slightly, but kept her head as low as she comfortably could.

Silver paused for a second before leaning forward. “…Look, I will be kicking myself for the rest of my life if I don’t ask you this. How do you feel about battle magic?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes as she scoured her brain. “Is there a specific meaning to that I’m not aware of? Because I know that magic can be used to fight, but-“

“It’s a sport, but yes, you’re right in broad terms. Exactly what it sounds like. You’ve never even heard of it?”

Twilight shook her head.

The light blue unicorn leaned back. “Well, I guess that actually makes sense. I guess it was simpler for the princess to just not tell you about it.”

“She’s not a fan?”

“I think it’s safe to say that. I believe her exact words were ‘it is a completely reprehensible activity, devoid of any intellectual or entertainment value’. I actually think she’d outlaw it if she could figure out a way to justify it.” He chuckled.

Twilight pushed her chair back from the table. “Well if the princess said that, I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m going to be on my way now. Have a nice day.”

Silver reached out to stop her as she reached for her bag, but thought better of it. “Look, just hear me out. Battle magic might not be as technical or intellectual as the stuff you learned in Canterlot, but it does have a sort of… base charm. I mean, I’m sure you know what magic was first used for.”

“Of course I do. It is currently believed that magic was first used to protect unicorns from predators” Twilight said, standing up from under the table with her bag draped across her back.

“Right, which makes battle magic the purest form of magical competition that exists. How can you refuse that, with a cutie mark like yours?”

“It doesn’t make it the purest, just the most primitive. Goodbye Silver Chimes.”

“Look look look. There’s a tournament on tomorrow at this address.” His horn lit up as a quill floated up from the bar and began to scribble on a napkin. “Just come for one match. Just to see it. You have to be at least a little curious.” The note floated into her bag.

Twilight sighed. “Look, I’ll admit to… a small amount of idle interest.”

“So you’ll go?”

“No promises.”

Silver grinned, the scars around his mouth stretching into an unsettling shape. “Wonderful. And if you see the match and decide you want to know more, I‘ll be waiting right here.”

Twilight walked into the night without another word to him. He briefly considered following her to make sure she made it home safely, but decided against it. She’d probably find that a little disturbing. Besides, he could hear his cider calling his name.

Twilight paced back and forth in her hotel room. The book she had come to Fillydelphia for lay, unread, on the bedside table.

She had found what she had come for. The carriage was going to pick her up first thing tomorrow morning and take her back to Ponyville. Then she could read her book in peace and forget that this ‘battle magic’ the princess hated so much even existed. It was that simple.

She collapsed on the bed with an annoyed snort. If it was that simple, why was she so conflicted? Some part of her wanted to see that match. Not a large part, but a very vocal one.

“I mean, it’s just one match” she said, speaking to the book on her bedside table. “And I could use the extra day to look for other rare books.”

The tome remained silent.

“It could even be good for me. Not that I think magic should be used like that” she hastily corrected herself, sitting up on the bed. “But my life has been a little… violent since I moved to Ponyville. A few self-defence tips wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

Decision thoroughly rationalized, she set about writing a letter for the princess saying that she hadn’t found the book yet and that she needed one more day in the city. Her conscience twinged at misleading the princess, but it was only a white lie. She signed her name at the bottom, rolled the scroll into a tube, and ignited it with one of Spike’s bottled fire breaths she had prepared at home. The letter puffed into smoke and curled out the window, leaving Twilight to fall into a fitful sleep.

The address on the napkin was only a few blocks from the neighborhood where she had met Silver, and no more hospitable. The arena however was significantly cleaner. There was still graffiti on the walls, to be sure, but there was less of it. That which there was strayed away from the general theme of bad words and unsavory drawings, and more dealt with which players ‘sucked’ and which ‘ruled’.

Twilight headed in through the main entrance, and found herself faced with a bored unicorn at a desk. She was about to ask for a ticket when he looked up and spoke. “You Silver’s filly?”

“No!” she shouted, shocked. “Or… wait, he sent me, if that’s what you meant.”

“That’s what I meant, yeah. He already paid for you, wait in there” the unicorn drawled, pointing towards the door to the right of his desk. Before Twilight had even moved, he went back to the magazine that lay in front of him.

“Oh. Thanks” Twilight replied, walking through the indicated door. “Well that was nice of Silver” she said, stepping into the shadowy room beyond.

Several unicorns sat on benches, either reading or just sort of staring off into space. They all looked up when Twilight entered, but went back to their activities soon after. The purple unicorn found an empty spot next to the only other female and sat down.

“…This your first time?” asked the unicorn next to her asked after a few seconds.

The purple pony smiled shyly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Nah, I can always tell the first timers. Did I hear you right out there? Silver got you in?” she asked, leaning forwards slightly.

Twilight noticed out of the corner of her eye that quite a few of the other unicorns seemed to have perked up their ears at that. “Yes, you did. He convinced me to try it just once.”

“So he’s training you then?” the pony asked, leaning forwards even more. Even more ears perked up.

“Uhh… no. I’m actually a student of the princess.” As soon as the words had left her mouth, Twilight cursed them. Silver had told her not to advertise that.

“The… seriously? Princess Celestia you mean?” her neighbor said, leaning away from her.

Twilight smiled and blushed in response.

“Well, shit. Glad I’m not fighting you” the pony chuckled.

“Fighting me? Why would you be fighting me?” Twilight asked, confused by both the non sequitur and the unnecessary profanity.

The other pony raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth, but before she could speak, a large door across from them slid open and daylight flowed into the room. “You. Purple, with the bangs” came a rough voice from the light.

Twilight squinted into the invasive light. “Me?”

“No, princess Cadence. Yeah you. C’mon, you’re up."

Twilight trotted into the blinding glare. “My seat is ready?”

“…Yeah, sure, if you say so.”

The purple pony squeezed her eyes shut as a hoof on her back guided her along the corridor. “That’s a strange system you’ve got there, with the holding room. Is it to make sure ponies don’t get in each other’s way when they’re getting settled?”

A chuckle came from beside her. “Lady, I don’t know what you’ve been taking, but a word of advice. I’ve been down that road, and it ends nowhere good. They check. In there.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked, but only the slamming of a door answered her. She looked behind her, and there was only a large wooden door. “Weird” she muttered.

She jumped slightly when an overly loud voice began to speak. She recognized the slight reverberation of a voice amplification spell. “I guess they can use magic for more than fighting” she mumbled to herself.

“Welcome fillies and gentlecolts, young and old, new and returning customers. Welcome to the largest bi-monthly tournament in all! Of! Fillydelphia!” the voice shouted. A sudden burst of cheering followed the last word, none of which, Twilight noticed, came from near her.

In fact, she seemed to be completely alone. She was standing in a small room with a dirt floor and no chairs. It was open to the sky, but the walls were high enough so that she couldn’t see anything. There was a wooden door behind her heading back to the holding room, and another larger metal door on the other side. Presumably, that led to her seat, but when she pushed it refused to budge.

“In the red corner, we have a recurring fan favorite, the most adorable filly to ever step into the ring. Thirty pounds of violence in a ten pound body, Blast Waaaaaaaaave!” The final drawn out syllable drew out an even larger cheer from the unseen crowd.

“Hello? Where’s my seat sir?” asked Twilight, knocking on the wooden door.

“In the blue corner, we have a new comer to our fair arena. A purple pony-“

“Huh?” asked Twilight, turning her head towards the voices source.

“-under the tutelage of the famous Silver Chimes-“

“What?”

“-an unknown quantity by the name of: Dusk Shiiiiiiiiiine!” The cheers that followed that announcement were quieter, but far from non-existent.

“What!?” Twilight yelled as the metal door in front of her slid open, revealing a large dusty arena with a filly across from her behind a similar door. “Silver, I am going to get you for this” she muttered under her breath before stepping out into the arena.

“The contestants are stepping into the ring. Blast is setting up her signature move, and Dusk Shine is… talking to her?”

“Hello? Little filly?” Twilight shouted.

The small green unicorn stood up slightly from her crouch, and the glow that had been gathering in her horn faded as she looked at Twilight quizzically.

“Look, this is all a misunderstanding. I didn’t want to fight, I just wanted to watch. I’m not a battle magician, or whatever you call yourselves.”

“What is Dusk doing? Is this a trick?”

“No! It’s not a trick” she shouted at the announcer.

“So you don’t have any training?” Blast Wave asked.

“No, not at this” Twilight replied, relieved that somepony seemed to be listening. Even if she was here for this, she wouldn’t fight this pony. She was just a foal, she didn’t even have her cutie mark yet.

“Oh.” The green pony grinned evilly. “This should be a cakewalk then” she said, and her horn pulsed.

Twilight had just enough time to register the pulse when a blast of invisible energy hit her full on and flung her through the air. She slammed into the concrete barrier that surrounded the arena with a pained grunt and fell to the ground.

“What is wrong with-“ she started to wheeze before two more blasts hit her in quick succession, driving her into the wall and slamming her head against the concrete hard enough to make it spin.

“Looks like this might be a short match for Dusk Shine. Blast Wave’s withering assault is proving too much for her.”

“Shut up” Twilight muttered at the announcer, momentarily drowning out the pumping of blood in her ears. She could feel the adrenaline begin to pour through her veins, and she angrily turned towards the cockily smiling filly.

Her horn pulsed again, but this time instead of just taking it, Twilight sent out a wave of energy herself. A subtle rippling flowed through the air away from her and met a similar wave coming the other way.

Both shattered, and Twilight felt a moment of victory before she was driven bodily into the wall by Blast’s follow up wave.

When her ears stopped ringing, the violent filly was talking to her. “Alright, so you got a spell in. Good job. Ready to give up?”

Twilight groaned and spat out the liquid that had gathered in her mouth. One of her eyes had begun to swell up, but the other saw that the glob of mucus was dyed red. She grunted.

“Alright, just raise your right front hoof straight up and yell ‘forfeit’. Then they’ll let you out.”

Twilight’s hoof lifted from the ground, and she stumbled slightly as the other three took on the extra weight. She licked her lips in preparation to yell as loud as she could.

“Looks like we’ve got a forfeit here in the first four minutes. What a short stint for Dusk Shine. Looks like she wasn’t the magician she thought she was!”

Twilight’s leg paused. Her ribs hurt. One eye wouldn’t open. Her mouth was rapidly filling with blood. There was no way she was going to win this. The rational thing to do was to give up. This wasn’t the magic she’d been taught.

“What are you doing, moron? Say the word.”

Twilight gritted her teeth. “Never” she hissed, stomping her hoof back onto the ground.

“Looks like the forfeit isn’t going through!”

The filly groaned and set herself back into a battle stance. “Oh, you’re one of those. Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes and pawed at the ground. With a hoarse scream, she charged across the arena, kicking up dust behind her.

Blast Wave’s horn pulsed. “Come and get me” she said, the wave of force spreading in front of her.

Twilight’s horn slowly lit up as she charged across the open space. Blast prepared a follow up spell in case the first was blocked.

Just before the wave threw the purple pony backwards again, the light in her horn grew to a crescendo, and she disappeared in a flash.

“I- what?” said the green filly.

“Oh, so you do have a cutie mark. It’s just that you can’t really see it, because it’s a wave of magic. Interesting” came a voice from behind her.

Blast spun in place, her horn beginning to shine, but she didn’t have a chance to release the energy. A column of force, much more concentrated than her own spell, slammed into her stomach and drove her spiraling straight up into the air.

“Nopony” growled Twilight.

The spiraling pony reached the apex of her flight and attempted to regain her sense of direction. Before she could do so, another magical burst smacked into her side and sent her flying horizontally.

“Calls me” shouted the purple pony, her horn’s light growing.

The small green unicorn slammed into the wall and fell to the ground. She tried to stand, but felt a telekinetic grip close around one of her back ankles.

“STUPID!” Twilight screamed, closing the grip and pulling as hard as she could. Her opponent flew across the ring and slammed into the opposite wall with a crunch that made the crowd groan.

“Looks like we’ve got a knockout by the newcomer in a surprising comeback! The ref is counting it now- wait, looks like Blast Wave isn’t finished.”

The abused pony stumbled to her feet and saw Twilight slowly walking across the arena towards her. Her horn lit up, ready to release her signature spell, but Twilight’s flashed and the magic flowed away. “Fine, I get it. You win. Finish it, knock me out” she panted.

“That’s not what I want. Forfeit” Twilight ordered, standing in the centre of the ring.

“You… what? You want me to forfeit?”

“That’s right. Raise your hoof and say the word. I want you to admit defeat.”

“And what are you going to do if I don’t?”

Twilight’s eyes flashed. “I don’t know. Do you want to find out?”

Both unicorns stared each other down, panting heavily. Blood trickled out of the side of Twilight’s mouth, and Blast Wave was definitely favoring on of her hind legs.

After a few moments, Blast Wave’s hoof lifted a few inches off the ground. “…Forfeit” she hissed.

The crowd exploded in cheers. Twilight smiled.

Silver Chimes sipped his cider and glanced at the clock. The tournament would have started ten minutes ago, meaning that if Twilight had acted as he expected her too, she would be showing up at any moment.

“SILVER CHIMES!” came an angry voice from the street outside.

“Oh holy hell Silver, what did you do now?” asked the pegasus behind the bar.

“Time to face the music” Silver said with a grin and pushed back from the table. He headed towards the door, but was still twenty feet away when it flew open and he was driven off his hooves. The huge unicorn flew through the air and crashed through the table he had been sitting at moments ago.

“SILVER, I AM GOING TO RIP YOU APART!” yelled the furious purple unicorn that burst through the door.

“…okay, so you’re not happy with what I did. I’m picking up on that” grunted Silver.

“NOT HAPPY!? NO I’M NOT HAPPY!”

A heavy metallic clank drew both of the unicorn’s attention. The bartender had placed a large knife on his counter, and looked up at them with tired eyes. “Hey. Look, you want to beat the hell out of Silver, be my guest. See if you can get twenty years of bar tab out of him well you’re at it. But you’re not doing it in here.”

“Are you threatening me?” snapped Twilight. Silver began to slowly pull himself out of the wreckage of the table.

“Yes, ma’am, I am threatening you. I’m not afraid of you. You think I lost this wing in a pillow fight?” he asked, gesturing to the mangled appendage on his left side. “So you can either take it outside, deal with it peacefully, or I can give you some scars to match Silver’s.”

Twilight took a deep breath to calm herself. When she spoke again, her voice reverberated with barely concealed anger. “Silver, outside.”

The blue unicorn heaved himself up from the floor. “Er… are you going to throw me through a wall as soon as we get out there?”

“…Maybe” she muttered.

“Then no, I think I’ll stay in here” he said, moving to an adjacent table.

The mare gritted her teeth. “Fine” she said. “I just came to say that what you did was a terrible violation of my trust. I’m leaving, and you better hope you never see me again.”

Silver grinned. “Did you win?”

“I- That’s not the point” she sputtered.

“Yeah, I know. But did you?”

“If you must know, yes, I did” she said reluctantly.

Silver pumped a hoof into the air. “Yes! I knew you’d be good at this. Did you enjoy it?”

Twilight slammed her hoof into the table. “I’ve got a black eye, I’m spitting blood, and it hurts to breathe!”

“But did you enjoy it?”

“It is a brutish, disgusting sport. Celestia was right about it” she growled.

“But” he said, leaning over the table. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Of course not” Twilight lied. “Oh, and here’s your blood money back” she spat, grabbing two small sacks from her bag. They jingled as they hit the table in front of Silver Chimes.

“No no no no” he objected. “I only put up the first fifty bits.” He drew one of the bags towards himself while pushing the other towards Twilight. “You won THAT money fair and square. That’s the entry fee of- who’d you beat?”

“Blast Wave. And that’s another thing, what kind of sport lets fillies fight like that?”

Silver chuckled. “Blast Wave is no filly. You shouldn’t feel bad about hitting her. She’s older than you, and a bit of a bitch. And her real name isn’t Blast Wave, that’s a stage name. Speaking of which, how did you like yours? Personally, I think ‘Dusk Shine’ might be a little too dramatic, but the crowds do go for that sort of thing.” He grinned widely. He did that a lot. Despite his appearance, he was reminding Twilight of Pinkie Pie more and more as time went on.

“I don’t care. I don’t want that money. Goodbye.” Twilight stood up and slung her saddlebags across her back.

“Oh, come on. Fifty bits is nothing to scoff at. Take it” he said, levitating the sack into her bag.

Twilight snorted in annoyance. “If it’ll make you let me leave faster, fine. I’ll take it.” She headed out the door.

Silver followed, taking care to remain just inside the door of the bar. “You ever want to try this again-“

“I won’t!” she shouted, walking away down the street.

“But if you do” Silver yelled after her, a smile in his voice. “I’ll be here. Ask anypony, nopony better to train you than I.”

“Goodbye Silver Chimes. May we never meet again!” came the mare’s voice from the darkness.

The blue unicorn grinned at her retreating back before heading back into the bar.

“Looks like you’ve lost a student Silver” the bartender said as he sat back at the table.

“Maybe. I doubt it though. Hey, there was a bag of bits on this table. Where did it go?”

“No idea. But on the plus side, your tab is now fifty bits smaller.”

Chapter 2

Twilight woke up sore, tired and suddenly. The first two were a result of the previous night’s endeavor, but blame for the third fell to the bellcolt who was standing in her room and stammering at her.

“Ma’am, this is your 6 am wake up call. I knocked on the door, but you didn’t answer” he said, obviously nervous. Although Twilight didn't know this, it was his first day.

Twilight moved a hoof to push the blanket off her face and groaned as the movement stretched sore ribs. The light from the open window shone in one eye, but the other refused to open.

“Gah!” the bellcolt exclaimed, stumbling backwards. “Ma’am, are… do you need medical attention? Or would you like me to find a guard?”

The injured pony tried to tell him she was fine, but all she could form was a low moan. After a few false starts, she managed to wrap her lips around a simple “no.”

The stammering pony excused himself and hurried out the door, mentioning that breakfast was ready in the lounge should she be hungry.

Twilight rolled on to her back and stared at the ceiling, trying to organize her thoughts. Her tongue poked around the inside of her mouth, but the coppery taste of blood was nowhere to be found. That left the black eye as her most pressing injury.

She slid herself out of bed and onto her hooves, swaying slightly. She almost fell over, but shoved out a front leg and caught herself. Deciding she was in good enough shape to walk, she stumbled over to the mirror and groaned.

She had hoped that the swelling would have gone down by today. Apparently that’s not how black eyes worked. It was no better and had, if anything, swollen even more while she was asleep. The unicorn briefly toyed with the idea of trying a healing spell, but rejected the idea immediately. Celestia had always taught her that healing magic was dangerous even for those ponies who specialized in it, and had refused to teach Twilight any more than the basic theory.

Now she wondered just how much the princess hadn’t taught her, but she stopped that thought before it could gather steam. Celestia had been a wonderful teacher, and she didn’t blame her for not mentioning battle magic. She obviously had just been worried about her safety. Judging by the bruise that appeared to be devouring the left half of her face, she had been right to be worried.

Twilight nudged her eye and winced from the twinge of pain. An annoyed grunt escaped her throat as she stepped away from the mirror and grabbed her saddle bags. Their weight brought a new kind of pain, not the sharp spike of a poked injury but the dull ache of a bruise under pressure.

She stepped out the door and kicked it closed behind her. Her spine cracked when she reached down for the first step, and for a second she thought she was going to topple down the stairs and die. The moment of terror passed, and she breathed deeply before heading towards the ground floor.

When she stepped into the dining room, ponies very pointedly did not stare. The careful lack of interest would have weighed heavily on her at any other time, but right now she was famished and the buffet looked delicious. She ended up covering three plates with piles of food and levitating them back to an empty table.

She had made it through half of one heap and was just considering that maybe she’d gotten too much for one young mare when the bellcolt walked up to her table.

“Ma’am, your ride is here” he said, not looking at her eye even more insistently than all the other patrons.

Twilight looked sadly at all the food she had left. The young stallion evidently picked up on that, asking if she wanted a doggy bag. “Or… several doggy bags” he amended.

His question was met with enthusiastic approval from the purple mare, and he hustled off with the plates balanced on his head.

Twilight shouted after him that he should meet her outside, and trotted out through the lobby. Two light grey pegasi in golden armor that Twilight recognized as twins stood on the street with a carriage strapped behind them. They looked over at her, and expressions of shock appeared on their identical faces.

“Twilight, are you alright? What happened to your eye?” asked the closer one.

“Hi Stratus. I’m fine. I… I just fell down the stairs” Twilight lied.

“And hit your eye?” the other asked skeptically.

“…Yes, Cirrus. On a door knob.”

“You fell down a flight of stairs…” started Cirrus.

“…and landed face first on a door knob?” finished Stratus.

Twilight just nodded, daring them to disagree.

The brothers exchanged a look. “Is this something the princess should know about?” asked Stratus, the older of the two by seven minutes.

“No point worrying her” Twilight replied with a smile. She’d grown up with the twins, and knew she could trust them to be discreet.

“Of course not. Ready to go?” said the younger, motioning towards the carriage.

Before Twilight could reply, the colt arrived with two stuffed doggy bags. She thanked him and hopped up into the carriage, knocking on the roof when she was comfortable. The pegasi took off with a jolt, and Twilight opened the first bag of food happily.

The carriage jerked, and Twilight jolted awake. Apparently she had fallen asleep at some point during the ride. She reached up to rub at her eyes with a hoof, but thankfully stopped herself just in time.

“Last stop, everypony off” called one of the brothers from the front. Twilight gathered her bags and prepared to step out. If she could stick to the back roads, she might be able to get home without having to explain-

“C’mon out Twilight!” shouted Pinkie Pie’s instantly recognizable voice from right outside the door.

“And there’s five ponies waiting out here for you” said either Stratus or Cirrus. It was impossible to tell which.

Twilight muttered something unsavory under her breath. She pushed out through the door and smiled at her friends. Five greetings were interrupted by gasps, and five faces sprouted looks of surprise and concern.

“Bye guys. I’ll see you next time I'm in Canterlot” Twilight said, knocking on the side of the carriage. The brothers said their goodbyes and took off into the skies.

“…Twilight, what happened to your eye?” Applejack asked, the first to put into words the question that was painted on all of her friends faces.

“Yeah, you get in a fight?” joked Rainbow Dash with a cocky grin.

“I was mugged” Twilight blurted.

“Oh, how terrible!” Rarity exclaimed. “Are you alright dear? What did they take?”

“Just some bits” Twilight replied vaguely.

“Does it hurt much?” Fluttershy breathed, her voice instantly overpowered by the louder pegasi beside her.

“And you fought back, so they had to sock you one?” Rainbow Dash asked, excited.

“Rainbow!” Applejack admonished the blue pegasus.

“What? I’m just asking what happened.”

“You know what would cheer you up?” Pinkie asked with a huge grin. “A-“

“No parties, please. I just want to go home and lie down” Twilight interrupted, pressing a front hoof against the pink ponies lips to stop her talking. As she held it there, Pinkie’s cheeks slowly began to puff more and more, stretching to levels that Twilight found both improbable and alarming. A sweat drop formed on Pinkie’s brow, and she looked at Twilight with pleading eyes. The unicorn moved her hoof and winced against what she knew would come next.

“PARTY!!!” screamed Pinkie as soon as her mouth was clear. “That’s alright Twilight. I know what it’s like to want to just lie down by yourself. Well, I actually don’t, but I’m told it’s a thing that happens.”

After a few well wishes and promises to catch up when she was feeling better, Twilight managed to escape to the back streets. She scurried home without any other encounters and pushed through the front door of the library. After a moment’s consideration, she opened the door just long enough to put out the closed sign and slipped back inside.

“Twilight, is that you?” came a familiar voice from upstairs. Spike’s face appeared over the banister of the loft. “Hey, how was WHOA! What’s with the eye?” His face disappeared, and the sound of his claws scampering down the stairs reached Twilight’s ears.

“I got mugged” Twilight said, shrugging off her bags and depositing them by the door. “Could you get my bags? I’m going to go take a nap.”

Spike reappeared at the bottom of the stairs and trotted towards her bags. “Oh. Are you okay? When was it?”

“Yes, I’m fine. It was a few hours ago, just before I got on the carriage” the mare replied, walking heavily towards the stairs.

She had just managed to get comfortable under her sheets when the young dragon’s voice drifted up from the lower floor. “Uhh… Twilight? If you just got mugged, why are there fifty bits in your saddlebags?”

Twilight rolled over and shoved her face into a pillow to stifle her moan. Spike arrived at the top of the stairs, the damning bag clutched in a claw. Although Twilight couldn’t see him, she could hear the clicking of claws and the jingling of bits as he walked across the room. The bed sagged underneath her as Spike hopped up next to her, and a scaled arm touched her back.

“You weren’t mugged, were you” he said, the sentence a statement rather than a question.

Twilight rolled over and looked up at him. “...Promise you won’t tell the girls.”

“Of course. You kept my secret about – my crush on Rarity” he said, glancing around before whispering the end of the sentence.

Twilight felt a twinge of guilt, knowing that wasn’t strictly true. “Pinkie promise” she ordered.

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye” Spike recited, making a series of motions to go along with the childish rhyme. “What happened?”

Twilight sighed and made herself comfortable, splaying out all her limbs into a star shape. “Spike, have you ever heard of battle magic?” she asked, expecting the same confusion she had felt when Silver had asked her the same question.

Instead, Spike sat bolt upright and tensed his muscles. “No, I haven’t. Why? Why would I know about that?” he asked tersely. “What is it?”

The splayed mare chuckled despite herself. “You were always a terrible liar Spike. How do you know about it?”

The dragon slouched and cradled his head in his hands. “The guards told me about it. I used to sneak out of the castle some nights and go listen to the match retellings. I just didn’t tell you because I knew you’d tell me to stop” he said, ashamed.

“Match retellings?” Twilight asked, turning to look at him.

“Yeah, ponies write down what happened in the matches, and then they send it all over Equestria. Other ponies read the reports and retell them. It’s almost like being there” he said wistfully. “Not that I’ve ever been to a match” he corrected quickly.

Twilight sent a silent thanks to Silver Chimes for giving her a stage name. Celestia wouldn’t listen to the
retellings, but apparently some of the guards did. She couldn’t trust them all to be as discreet as the twins she had lied to.

“So what does battle magic have to do with… your… eye…” he trailed off. “No way.”

Twilight gave a slight nod.

“You fought in… for how long? When did you start?” he asked, shocked.

“It was just a one time thing. An accident. Somepony tricked me into it” she said quickly.

“Oh. So they just hit you and you forfeited?” Spike asked, trying as hard as he could to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“I won actually” Twilight said, trying to keep the pride out of her voice with the same effort of will.

Spike stared at her for a second, eyes wide. “Wow. But you’re done with it, right? It was just a one time thing?”

“Of course. While I can see how some ponies would find it appealing, it’s not worth this” she deadpanned, pointing at her puffed eye.

“Yeah. Hey, I bet Zecora has something for black eyes. Do you want me to swing by there and ask?”

“I hadn’t even thought of that Spike! If you don’t mind, that would be great. I just wish I could have gotten rid of it before the girls saw me.”

Spike was already heading towards the stairs. “No problem Twi. I’ll be back before you know it.”

By the time Spike returned, the sun was going down and Twilight had fallen asleep on top of her blankets. He pattered up the stairs and nudged her with the blunt side of a claw. “Twilight, I got a brew from Zecora” he said softly.

The sleeping pony groaned and rolled to face him. “What took you so long?” she asked, looking out the window.

Spike held out a bottle of purple liquid to her. “Well, I passed by the café on the way back and just happened to hear the local reteller talking about a mysterious purple pony that fought Blast Wave.”

“Oh, did you?” Twilight asked calmly, taking the bottle from him and removing the cork.

“Yup. And I have to say, everypony there was very excited to hear about this ‘Dusk Shine’, whoever she is. Although Rainbow’s a little upset.”

“Why?” the mare asked, the bottle pausing halfway to her lips.

“Eh, she had quite a few bits on Blast Wave.”

If Twilight had started drinking the potion, she would have choked on it. “Rainbow gambles?” she gasped.

“What? No. I don’t think so” Spike replied, forcing a poker face. “Well, I’m going to bed. Enjoy your freaky healing potion.” He disappeared into the washroom, and Twilight heard pouring water.

She squinted at the purple goop in the bottle, shrugged, and downed the entire thing as fast as she could. The bitter taste brought a grimace to her face, but the taste was soon forgotten as she felt her swollen eye begin to recede back into her head.

She looked over at the mirror on the other side of the room and saw the bruise shrinking into her skull, giving that side of her face an alarmingly gaunt appearance. Just as she began to think she had lost that eye forever, it snapped back out with a pop that echoed around the room. The bruise had disappeared, evidently left inside her skull.

“There has got to be a better way to do that” Twilight muttered to herself. As much as she appreciated
Zecora’s skill with herbs, it was alien enough to the magic she’d been taught to make her slightly uncomfortable. The zebra insisted magic wasn’t involved, but Twilight found that hard to believe.

“Looking good Twilight. Zecora sure knows how to use her herbs” Spike said, stepping out of the bathroom and heading for his own small bed. “Night.”

“Good night Spike” Twilight replied, placing the empty bottle on the nightstand before wiggling under her covers. The soft sounds of sleeping breath filled the shared bedroom.

Three months passed without incident. Twilight’s friends never asked her about the mugging again, for which she was very much grateful. Things went entirely back to normal, as if Twilight had never experienced that secret thrill in Fillyelphia.

There was only one way in which Twilight acted differently; sometimes, when Spike came home late from a match retelling, she would ask him to describe it. Spike was happy to do so, but he did take comfort in the fact that as time went on she asked less and less. Although he enjoyed the sport, the idea of Twilight participating made him uncomfortable.

On this particular day, the sun was shining and Twilight was feeling good. She had left Spike in charge of the library and gone into town to see if she could bump into any of her friends.

As it so happened, she was in luck. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were both sitting at a table in front of the café. Unfortunately, but sadly not surprisingly, they were arguing. Twilight walked up to the table, noting an envelope that sat between them.

“Hey girls. What’s wrong?” she asked, hoping she could calm them down.

“Applejack wants me to deliver some stupid letter to her family in Fillydelphia” Rainbow replied, turning away from the orange cowpony.

“It is not ‘some stupid letter’, it’s a Hearth’s Warming Eve card, and it needs to get there as soon as possible” Applejack corrected, not looking away from the pony that sat across from her.

“But that was months ago!” the pegasus objected, leaving the ground with a flap of her wings. “Why didn’t you send it then?”

“Ah did!” the earth bound pony responded, looking up at Dash’s face. “But ah just got a snotty letter from Aunt Cobbler saying that they never got it. Must have gotten lost in the mail. The point is, if I don’t get one there right away, me and mah kin ain’t gonna be invited to the next Apple family reunion!”

“I’ll take it” Twilight was surprised to hear herself say.

Evidentially, both of her friends were too. They looked over, confused. “What, you’re going to walk to Fillydelphia?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Teleport. I might have to do it in a few steps, but I shouldn’t be that much slower than you’d be.”

“Aw, you don’t have to do that. I’ll take it, I just like giving Applejack a hard time” the pegasus said, pushing the Stetson over the earth pony's eyes.

“No, I want to go. I had a really good time in Fillydelphia last time I was there” Twilight said, not entirely sure why. Both of her friends stared at her, Applejack pushing her hat back up her forehead first. “…What?” the unicorn asked.

“Good time? Honey, you got mugged” the cowpony said incredulously.

“Yeah, well… besides that.” Twilight grinned sheepishly.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack shared a concerned look. “Well, if you really want to…” Applejack trailed off.

“Yeah, fine with me” Rainbow said with a shrug.

Twilight grabbed the letter of the table and tucked it behind her ear. She’d go home and get her bag before she left, but behind the ear was a good place for now. “See you in a day or two, girls” she said, leaving with a wave of her hoof.

Both ponies watched her go. “…Well that was weird” Rainbow finally said, drawing a nod out of the confused earth pony.

When Twilight arrived home, Spike was sitting on a chair outside. His short legs swung back and forth idly, but as soon as he saw Twilight he scampered towards her.

“Hey Twilight! So Rarity asked me to go help her with some gem hunting but you told me to watch the library but now that you’re here you can watch it is that okay alright bye” he said, speaking quickly as possible and scampering right past her.

“Hey there Romeo” Twilight chuckled, grabbing his tail with her magic as he scampered past. “Don’t worry, you can go” she said, noting his disappointed look. “I just need to talk to you for a sec. I’m going out of town for a day or two. Will you be all right on your own?”

“Oh. Yeah, no problem. Where are you going?” he asked, looking towards Rarity’s house.

“I’m delivering a letter to part of Applejack’s family. Apparently it’s urgent” she said, carefully not quite answering his question.

At any other time, Spike would have known when Twilight was avoiding a question. Right now, however, he was distracted enough to accept the pseudo-answer. “Alright, I’ll see you in a few days then” he said, scampering away with a wave of his claw. “Have fun!”

“You too!” she yelled after him before heading back into the house. She packed the letter and a few essentials, and set her mind to the series of long distance teleports ahead of her.

By the time Twilight arrived in the outskirts of Fillydelphia, it was dusk and she was exhausted. She trotted into town, walking east until she hit Stable Boulevard, and followed it to the familiar inn. As she walked inside, she noticed for the first time that it was named “The Lopsided Pegasus”. That was presumably a reference to the bartender’s particular injury.

As soon as she walked inside, she was addressed by the lopsided pegasus himself. “Hello Dusk. You looking for Silver?” he asked from behind the bar.

“Yeah, I guess so. He still come in here?” she asked, approaching the bar and considering getting some hay fries.

“Every night. Should be here in around twenty minutes.” He paused for a second. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Twilght arched an eyebrow. “Nice to see me? Last time I was here, you threatened me with a knife.”

The scarred pegasus shrugged. “Nothing personal. I’ve just had too many unicorn fights trash this place to let you start another one. You want some hay fries?” Twilight nodded, and he headed into the back kitchen. His voice drifted out through the open door. “Glad you came back though. Silver was annoyingly smug for about a month after you left, but then he started getting all mopey. I’m pretty sure he thought you weren’t coming back.”

The unicorn glanced around the bar. The only other customer was a young unicorn passed out at a back table. Although Twilight’s memory was a little fuzzy, she fancied it was the unicorn that had been lying at the bar when she was here for the first time. “Isn’t a mopey pony an advantage for a business like this?” she said, speaking loudly so she could be heard in the other room.

“Would be, if he ever actually paid for his drinks” came the voice from the back, tinged with laughter. “On that note, you still owe me a table.”

“I didn’t break that, Silver did” Twilight objected, moving to the closest table and sitting down. Her saddlebags went under the chair.

“After you threw him through it, yes. I’d say that makes it your fault. No hurry on the payment though. I waited three months, I can wait a little longer.”

The purple unicorn thanked him and cracked open the book she’d brought. As she read, it abruptly occurred to her that in her haste to arrive in Fillydelphia, she had never asked Applejack where her family lived. She had no idea how well known the Apple family would be in such a large city.

“Got your fries. Two bits, if you’ve got it” the bartender said, stepping out from the kitchen with the basket balanced on his head.

Twilight levitated two golden coins from her bag. As an afterthought, she grabbed the letter too. “I don't suppose you know where the Apple family lives in Fillydelphia?” she asked, not much hope.

“Don’t know where they live, but I buy my cider from them. Why do you ask?” The pegasus placed the fries on the bar in front of him.

“I’ve got this letter addressed to them, but I don’t know where their farm is” Twilight answered, grabbing the fries and dropping the bits and letter in front of him.

“Well, they’re dropping off a shipment day after tomorrow. I could give it to them then” he offered, grabbing the letter between his teeth and shoving it somewhere behind the bar. “Sound good?”

Twilight nodded and turned back to her book. Soon she was engrossed in the description of ancient methods of transformative magic.

Twilight was snapped out of her literary trance when she heard the door creak and the bartender speak. “There you are Silver. You’re late today. There’s a visitor for you.”

“What? For me? I…” Silver’s voice trailed off as Twilight turned to look at him. A sudden grin appeared on his face, which he forced into a cocky smile.

“Hi Silver” Twilight said, trying not to sound embarrassed.

“Hey. I knew you’d come back. Never doubted it for a second” the huge unicorn said, pushing out the chair across from her and sitting down.

“Really? Because somepony told me you’ve been mopey for the last two months. That maybe you thought I wasn’t coming back.”

Silver Chimes scowled at the bartender, magically snatching the cider that had been poured and placed on the bar. “Well somepony clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Silver took a deep drink from the mug before speaking again. “Although I will admit, it did take you a little longer to give in then I thought you would.”

“Look, I’m not saying I want to play in a real match again, or anything” Twilight said, trying to keep him from getting too comfortable. “I just thought that with all the trouble I seem to get myself in, a little offensive magic training couldn’t hurt.”

Silver rapped his hooves on the table in a semi-musical rhythm, apparently considering her statement. “Look, here’s my terms. I get 10% of your winnings, and you have to play at least one paid match before you leave town.”

“What? I said I didn’t want to-“

“I know what you said, but I can’t just train you for free. A stallion needs to make a living, after all. So does a mare, and if I’m correct, you still owe somepony a table” Silver interrupted, staring her down. “You could use the money too.”

Twilight already knew she was going to say yes, but she did her best to look like she had to think about it. “…Alright, fine” she finally said, pretending to be reluctant. The two ponies shook on it.

“I can’t train tonight though. I’m exhausted. Do you know where I can sleep?” Twilight asked, finishing off her hay fries.

“I’ve got a bed you can use” the bartender said, not looking up from the glass he was cleaning.

“…excuse me?” Twilight asked incredulously.

He looked up. “Oh, not like that. This is an inn, I’ve got rooms. Five bits for the night.”

Twilight blushed. “Oh, sorry. I thought you meant something else. Alright, five bits sounds fair.”

Silver finished his mug and pushed away from the table. “Alright. Sleep well, and I’ll come get you first thing in the morning.” He grinned. “And by first thing in the morning, I mean noon."

Chapter 3

The lost distance teleportation had taken a lot out of Twilight, and she slept both soundly and much later than usual. Even so, when the light streaming in through the window finally woke her she still had two hours before her appointment with Silver.

She stretched in the bed, kicking the blanket off so she could feel the sunlight against her coat. On any other day, Spike would have woken her by now and she would have needed to sort books or work on her research. Two hours of completely free time was a novelty for her. The lack of responsibility was refreshing, and she reveled in it.

She stayed in bed for ten more minutes, more because she could than because she wanted too, before sliding out and on to her hooves. She grabbed the coin purse from her saddlebags and pushed the door open with a creak. Before she left, she locked the door and slipped the key into her purse. Room secured, she headed downstairs, hoping to find a place to eat.

To her surprise, when she arrived downstairs the familiar bartender was standing in his usual spot. “Morning,” he greeted. “Sleep well?”

Twilight nodded as she approached the bar. “When do you sleep?” she asked quizzically as she hopped up onto a stool.

“I squeeze in an hour or two when I can,” he responded. “Want some breakfast Dusk?”

“If you’ve got something other than hay fries,” she replied with a smile. “My name’s not actually Dusk, by the way. But I'm not sure I should tell you my real one.”

“I know, it’s just a stage name. Trust me, in this neighborhood, you get used to it. Pancakes sound good?” he said, already heading into the back.

“Pancakes sound great,” Twilight answered. “…I just realized I never asked your name,” she called after a thoughtful pause.

“Call me Flurry,” yelled the pegasus over the sound of crockery. "How many do you want?"

"How much are they?" asked Twilight, hefting her coin purse in an attempt to estimate its contents.

"Nothing. I don't usually serve pancakes; we're actually closed. The room comes with breakfast though, and that's about the only breakfast food I know how to make."

"Oh! Well, thank you. That's very nice of you. Will anypony else be joining us?" Twilight asked, glancing towards the stairs she'd come down.

"Doubt it. There's another unicorn staying here, but he usually stays in his room until the sun goes down," Flurry answered from the kitchen. "Quite the sleeper. You probably saw him here last night, dozing in the back."

"Oh, I remember. Do you know if he the same pony that was lying at the bar the first time I was here?"

"Could very well be. He's been staying here for a couple months now. I make more money off him than the rest of my customers combined. Unless you count the money Silver owes me, which I don't."

Twilight giggled. "With how much you complain about his tab, I'm surprised you haven't cut him off. You know, give him a reason to pay."

The sound of frying batter began to drift out the kitchen door. "You mean kick him out? I could never do that. He's been coming here since this place was my uncle's. Besides, I'm doing fine, I don't really need the money. I just like to complain."

"Does that mean I don't have to pay for the table?" Twilight asked hopefully.

"Have you been coming here for thirty years? No? Then yes, you do." Flurry pushed his way out the door, a huge plate of pancakes balanced on his back. "Now I hope you're hungry. I learned the recipe by rote, and it feeds ten."

"Alright, ready for your first day of train..." Silver trailed off as he pushed through the pub door, seeing Twilight lying face down on the bar next to a heaping stack of pancakes. "Oh no, you let him make you pancakes?"

Twilight groaned in response and pried her maple syrup coated face from the bar. "I'm alright. Just give me a few minutes and a glass of water," she mumbled.

"Where the hell is Flurry? He knew we were going to be training today. FLURRY!" Silver shouted.

"Hey, I told her she didn't have to eat them all. She said it'd be rude not to try," Flurry responded, sticking his head out the kitchen door. "Now get her out of here, I have to clean up for the night."

Silver's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Can I at least get a glass of water before you kick your oldest customer out?" he glowered. The face down purple pony chuckled at that.

Flurry disappeared back through the swinging door. "Glasses are under the bar, sink's behind it. Help yourself. Take the pancakes too," he shouted.

Silver grumbled to himself as his horn began to shine. His magic filled a glass with water and grabbed a cloth from a hook. He placed the glass next to Twilight as he soaked the cloth.

Twilight took a grateful sip from the glass, but spluttered and lost the water when the wet cloth slapped against her face. Her own horn lit up, and the cloth flew from her head onto the bar with a splat. "I can wash my own face, thanks."

"Hey, you overeat like a child, I treat you like one. Sit still," Silver ordered, slipping the cloth from her grip and wiping it across her mouth. "What did you do, rub your face on the plate? Holy shit."

"Woah!" Twilight exclaimed, shocked.

The cloth fell back to the bar as Silver jerked in surprise. "What?" he said, eyes wide.

"Is a sticky face really worth using that kind of language?" the purple unicorn reprimanded.

Silver raised an eyebrow. "Shit? Are you serious? Wow, I knew you were sheltered, but I didn't think it was that bad."

Twilight thought back to the locker room, and the way that unicorn had casually swore at her. "...Does everypony talk like that?"

"Around here they do. Especially in this business. So you'd better get used to it," Silver replied, before giving her face one last wipe and heading towards the door. "Well, let's go. I rented a gym to train in," he said, grabbing the plate of pancakes as an afterthought.

Twilight chugged half the glass of water and hurried after him. "Really? A gym?"

Silver grinned, grabbing a patty from the floating plate and lowering it to his mouth. "That may not have been its original purpose, but it's close enough." He took a bite and chewed happily for a moment. "I forgot how good these were. Now, let's talk strategy. What is your greatest strength?" he said, speaking around the mouthful of chewed dough.

"My magical power," Twilight said instantly.

"Wrong," Silver responded, just as quickly. "In fact, that's your weakness."

"What? But I'm the most powerful unicorn currently known according to the standardized tests."

Silver swallowed. "Sure. And that's great." He took another bite. "But when it comes down to it, you're never going to be better at one single spell than a unicorn who's completely focused on it. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Blast Wave overpower you with her spell?" he asked, before stuffing the rest of the pancake into his mouth.

Twilight mumbled something in the affirmative. She wasn't proud of that. "Fine, then what is my greatest strength?"

"No no, that's not how this works. Guess again."

Twilight scrunched up her face in thought. The two walked for another block, both silent except for the sound of Silver's munching. "...My intelligence," she finally said.

"Nope. That's good, but it's not the answer I was looking for." Silver paused for a second, let out a belch, and continued walking. "Think about your special talent. How does it make you different from a pony like Blast Wave?"

Twilight thought about her fight with the green pony. If she had only known force spells, there was no way she would have won. Blast's spell was just too powerful. She couldn't have won without the ability to teleport. Was that the answer he was looking for? Teleportation?

She rejected that answer immediately. Her special talent was magic, not teleportation. Besides, the teleport spell alone wouldn't have let her win. Once she was inside the blast radius, she still needed a way to actually hit Blast Wave. Both spells were crucial to her success.

"Versatility," Twilight said, her voice confident.

"Bingo," Silver responded through a full mouth. He swallowed before continuing. "That's what we're going to focus on. Most of your opponents will be one trick ponies, and as my parents used to say, 'one trick pony's only got one song'. We teach you enough spells, and you should have a counter for anything they can throw at you." He stopped abruptly, turning towards an old dilapidated warehouse. "Here we are!"

Twilight stared at the old building. "This is our gym? It looks like it should be condemned."

"It was," Silver replied, already walking up the front path. "But don't worry, I checked the local records, and it's not due for demolition until next week," he said, slipping through the front door.

"Oh, very funny," Twilight said, trotting up the path. "...That was a joke right?" she pleaded as she pushed through the door after him.

The inside of the warehouse was just as dirty and rickety looking as the outside. Dust gathered on the floor in an uncomfortably thick carpet, and the graffiti that Twilight was beginning to become accustomed to was especially dense.

Silver trotted into the center of the room, his horn slowly beginning to shine as he walked. Just as he reached the center, he turned back to Twilight. "Close your eyes," he said with a grin, as he closed his own.

A blast of air exploded outwards from the blue unicorn, pushing the dust along with it. Twilight just managed to slam her eyelids down before the high pressure wave of irritants nearly sent her spinning. When the wind stopped and she felt it was safe to open her eyes, there was no dust on the floor. It was all in the air.

Twilight coughed heartily, and heard a similar cough from where she had last seen Silver. The swirling dust reduced vision to around three feet and muffled sound, but she could still make out the older pony's distinctive low voice.

"Well," he was saying "I probably should have thought that through a little more." Another series of dry coughs rang out before he managed to speak again. "You're still near the door, right? Can you open it and then talk in front of it so I know where it is?"

Twilight did as said, choking quietly on the dust the entire time. "Alright, I'm in front of the door," she announced.

"Alright, move out of the way. Let's try this again."

The purple unicorn had just cleared the doorway when a much more concentrated blast of air streaked by behind her. It caught the end of her tail and the purple hair snapped against her flank painfully. More importantly, however, it began to pull the dust out of the air and push it out the front door. Twilight closed her eyes once again against the vicious onslaught. When she opened them again, the air was clear and breathable, and dust only remained in the corners of the room that the spell hadn't reached.

"There we go. Much better." Silver grinned. "I may not always get things right the first time, but I figure it out eventually."

"That's a reassuring thing to hear from the stallion that's going to be training me" Twilight said, flattening her hair back into place with her magic.

"Don't worry, I'm much more competent than I look," Silver said breezily, turning to face her. His own mane stuck up in jagged clumps, a fact he was either ignorant of or satisfied with. "Now, what do you want to work on first: Offense or defense?"

"Well... can't we do both? Why don't we..." Twilight paused and reached deep into her meager knowledge of sports terms. "Spar?"

"Spar?" Silver said with a chuckle. "You want to spar with me? Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?"

"Ahead of myself?" Twilight asked, anger creeping into her voice. "What exactly are you implying?"

"I'm not implying anything. I'm stating it outright. I could beat you without breaking a sweat," Silver said calmly.

The purple pony's voice steadily grew both louder and more indignant. "I beat Blast Wave, didn't I? And I already knocked you silly once!"

"Blast Wave is an amateur, and you hit me once, when I wasn't expecting it, and I couldn't see you. But hey," he said, twisting his neck in a way that produced a deeply disturbing number of cracks and pops. "I can always use a little practice," he finished, setting himself in a low battle stance.

Twilight copied his stance, lowering herself to the ground and gathering magic in her horn. "Then let's see what you've got, old man," she said, grinning nastily.

Chapter 4

Twilight stared at the upside down scarred face that hovered in front of her. Its one good eye was creased with amusement, and a small smug smile played across its lips.

"Well, I'd say I won," Silver gloated, before glancing down at his coat. "Oh, and would you look at that. I'm not even sweating. Unless I'm mistaken, that makes me right."

Twilight grunted angrily through clenched teeth.

"Doesn't it?" he prompted.

"...yes," Twilight replied. "Happy now?"

"Oh, you're not getting off that easy. Repeat after me: I, Twilight Sparkle, was wrong to question Silver Chimes," the blue unicorn said, his smile growing with every word.

"...I, Twilight Sparkle, was wrong to question Silver Chimes," Twilight muttered under her breath.

"He beat me easily, and is much, much better at this then I am."

"He... beat me easily, and is much better at this then I am."

Silver took a step towards the purple unicorn and arched an eyebrow. "Now say I'm a young, handsome stallion," he said with a grin.

"Let me down you jerk!" Twilight snapped.

Silver stepped back with a sigh. "I guess some things are just too much of a stretch," he said sadly as the glow in his horn abruptly vanished.

The telekinetic force that had been holding Twilight upside down against the wall slipped away, and she fell forwards. She struggled desperately to land on her feet, but her thrashing just flipped her further. She ended up making a complete rotation and landing on her back, where she promptly rolled on to her side and vomited.

"And that's why we don't eat our weight in pancakes before training," Silver said. "Get up."

"I can't. You broke my ribs," Twilight moaned, rolling onto her back, away from the foul smelling bile.

"No I didn't. The force I hit you with was barely enough to crack a rib, let alone break one," Silver said, rolling his eyes.

"You cracked my ribs then," said the purple pony.

Silver sighed, but trotted up next to her. His horn lit up and the red glow scraped the vomit off the floor and out a window before he leaned over the prone mare. He reached out with a hoof and pushed down on her top left rib. He trailed down her body, pushing each rib in turn, and then pushed his way up the other side. "You're fine, get up," he said when he had reached the opposite side of her neck.

"How do you know?" Twilight asked, not moving in the slightest.

"Because at that force, if I had pushed on a cracked rib, you would have screamed," Silver explained in a patient voice.

"...I want to retake the test."

"Nope. On your hooves."

Twilight slowly heaved herself back upright, thinking unkind things the entire way. Her chest was bruised, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the beating her ego had taken. She tried to quiet the anger that bubbled quietly in her stomach, but her efforts weren't helped by the cocky look on the face of the stallion that had trounced her so easily.

"That little battle, short as it was, did show me what we have to work on," Silver said, placing himself across from the purple pony. "Offense. So you're going to try and hit me."

Twilight smiled despite herself. This seemed like a good opportunity to even the scales. Her horn began to glow as she gathered her magic, watching the older pony as he watched her. He was slowly shifting his weight from side to side, the regular motion making him appear dizzy.

As suddenly as she could, Twilight lowered her head, aimed her horn towards Silver, and let loose a blast of pure magic. She snapped her head back up just in time to see Silver standing three feet to the left with his horn shining before a floorboard sprang up and slapped her in the face.

She gritted her teeth against the stinging pain and aimed another blast as fast as she could. Once again she was rewarded with the sound of Silver's hooves dancing across the floor and another plank to the face. A growl rose unbidden in Twilight's throat as she stared up at the grinning stallion. He continued to sway exactly as he had before, but for some reason the purple unicorn now found the movement infuriating.

She lowered her head and unleashed a series of wild, uncontrolled blasts in the general direction of her trainer. She produced burst after burst until spots danced in front of her eyes and her forehead began to go numb from the magical blow back. When she looked up Silver was nowhere to be seen.

"Sloppy," came a voice from her side, moments before a board rose up and smacked her hard under the tail. She tilted forward, sticking out her front hooves to save her face, but her efforts proved futile when the board she was falling towards rose up to smack her nose a third time.

The sudden shock sent Twilight spiraling to the side, landing heavily on her flank. Her already bruised ribs twinged with pain, and she squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, a small pool of blood was spreading out from her face, and she could feel something wet dripping down her battered muzzle.

"How are you so fast!?" she screamed in frustration, wiping her face with a hoof as she sat up. Her anger was briefly interrupted when she wondered if the blood would wash out of the longer fur of her ankles.

"I'm not fast, you're blatant," Silver said. "You were classically trained, and it shows."

Twilight leaned over and spat on the floor. "What does that mean?" she asked, relieved to see that her saliva lacked any tinge of red. "Are you saying the princess taught me wrong?"

"No, no, of course not. I may not agree with the princess about everything, but I'm sure she taught you well." Silver trotted towards Twilight, horn shimmering, and the mare felt the board she was sitting on push her onto her feet. "She just didn't teach you for this. Show me your casting stance."

Twilight set her legs farther apart and bent her knees slightly just as Celestia had taught her. She had earned several compliments in Canterlot for her perfect stance. She was sturdy and unshakable in that position; she could stand through an earthquake.

Silver kicked one of her front hooves out from under her, sending her crashing down onto her already bleeding face. "What the hay!?" she snapped, her eyes blazing as she lifted her head from the ground.

"The phrase is 'what the hell'. Use it properly. See something wrong with what just happened?"

"Yeah, you kicked me," Twilight deadpanned, gingerly poking at her nose with the tip of a hoof.

"And you went down like a sack of bricks. Don't set yourself like that, it leaves you too vulnerable. You want to stay mobile," Silver said, bouncing lightly from hoof to hoof as he spoke. "Oh, and you know how you lower your head to attack?"

Twilight began to imitate his light swaying, biting her lip as she concentrated. "Yes, channeling magic straight down your horn improves both power and accuracy," she said, reciting a long ago lesson.

"Which would be great if it didn't make you effectively blind while you did it," Silver replied, sitting down heavily. "Don't do it."

Twilight slowed in her swaying, staring at the blue unicorn thoughtfully.

"I didn't say stop swaying," Silver said.

Twilight's eyes narrowed, and her horn pulsed as a blast of force left it at a right angle and slammed into the older pony. The blow hit hard, and drove him onto his back where he slid almost ten feet.

"Hah! Got you!" Twilight yelled, leaping giddily to her hooves. "Not so smug now, are you?"

Silver didn't say anything. In fact, he didn't move. He just lay on the ground, legs splayed and eyes closed. Twilight couldn't even see his chest move.

"Si... Silver?" she asked, slowly stepping towards him. "Are you alright?"

There was no response.

Twilight burst into a run and slid to a stop at his feet. "Oh no, oh no, oh no, I knew you were old but I never thought-"

A pair of hooves hit her in the chest and she tumbled backwards. She skidded to a stop on her stomach and was about to get up when a hoof on her spine pushed her back down to the floor. "Nice sneak attack," Silver said lightly. "Mine was better."

"I thought you were de- Hurt!" Twilight said, squirming out from under his hoof.

"I know. Honestly, I'm a little insulted. Exactly how old do you think I am?" Silver asked. "Actually, don't answer that. Just for that, we're working on defense now." He smiled a little too wide, his horn beginning to light up. "Get ready to dodge."

Twilight leaped into the air, throwing herself to the side as fast as she could. It turned out to not be quite fast enough, however, and the bolt of swirling colors caught her a glancing blow on the flank. The force sent her spinning through the air, coat stinging from the impact.

Through luck more than skill, she landed on her hooves and kept her footing, skidding across the floor. She ended up facing away from her trainer, but had learned from hard experience that she shouldn't turn to look back at him. Instead, she flung herself into the air again.

The expected blast never came however, and when she landed facing Silver, he was looking not at her but at the door.

"Stop moving," he whispered, holding up a hoof.

"You're not tricking me with tha-" Twilight began, before a magical clamp snapped her jaw shut. "Mmmm!"

"Shut up!" Silver hissed, horn glowing.

Twilight looked towards the door, and the sound of rushing blood in her ears was replaced by voices. "...looking to let it go for up for upwards of half a million," was all she heard before Silver began whispering to her again.

"We have to go. Now," he said, glancing frantically around the warehouse. "That window," he continued, pointing at a large dirty window ten feet off the ground.

"What? Why do we have to go?" Twilight asked, trotting after the stallion as he headed towards the wall.

"Well, you know when I said I rented a gym? What I actually meant is that I found what I thought was an abandoned warehouse."

"Where'd all this dust come from?" came another voice from outside the door.

"Silver..." Twilight growled.

"You know a shield spell?" the stallion asked, looking up at the window.

"Of course, the best in the-"

"Use it," Silver ordered, stamping a foot on the floorboards as his horn let out a supernova of light. The floor under Twilight buckled and snapped, pushing on all her hooves simultaneously and sending her flying up towards the window.

The abruptly airborne mare barely managed to cast the shield spell her brother had taught her before she flew through the window, the glass shattering on the purple bubble. The spell lasted just long enough to protect her flesh from the filthy glass before it failed, and Twilight ended up tangled in the limbs of a tall oak.

Silver backed up from the wall and sized up the distance from the floor to the recently shattered window.

"Hey! What's going on in here!?" yelled a pony behind him.

The scarred pony glanced back with his good eye, smiling easily. Two ponies stood in the doorway with shocked looks on their faces. "Word of advice? Don't pay half a mil. This place is not stable, and somepony broke a window," he said, before charging the towards the wall. He concentrated on the air around him, gathered his magic, leaped as high as he could, and pushed downwards.

The burst of air pushed him higher than he could have gone on his own, and he sailed through the window. The shattered glass left a small nick on one of his knees, but another quick air spell straightened out his trajectory and softened his landing on the other side. His stinging knee gave out underneath him as he landed, and he fell onto his side.

"I am getting too old for this..." he muttered, heaving himself off the ground. "Alright, let's get out of... Twilight? Where'd you go?"

"Up here," Twilight snapped, shimmying slowly down the trunk of the tree. "You know, you could have warned me."

"Could have. But where's the fun in that?" He grinned. "Come on, let's get out of here before they realize they can just come around the back."

Twilight fell the last couple of feet and landed heavily on the grass. She bounced to her feet and ran after the retreating unicorn that had just thrown her through a window. "Where's the fun in that," Twilight muttered to herself. She had changed her mind. Silver didn't remind her of Pinkie; he reminded her of Discord.

As if reading her mind, Silver suddenly seemed to regret his actions. "Look, I'm sorry I sent you flying through a window without your permission. Anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"How about teaching me those air spells?" Twilight asked, catching up the older pony and trotting next to him.

"Well, I was going to do that anyway, but sure. They're not that great offensively, but they've gotten me out of more than a few sticky situations. As I said, I will teach you every spell I know." He paused momentarily. "With two exceptions. No healing spells, and no fire spells."

"Why not?" Twilight asked.

"Healing magic's too dangerous for a non-specialist."

"...And the fire?" Twilight prompted after Silver fell silent.

Silver paused for an uncomfortable amount of time. Twilight was about to repeat herself when he finally spoke. "Just... no fire spells, alright? You can use them, but you'll have to learn them somewhere else."

"Why? What's special about fire?"

"Twilight, I have... a thing." Twilight opened her mouth, but he continued before she could speak. "A past thing. A private past thing."

Twilight looked into Silver's eyes. They lacked the hint of laughter that they usually held. "Alright."

The hint returned in force. "Alright then. Let's get you cleaned up for your match!" Silver said with a grin, looking back to his front.

"Okay."

A few moments passed.

"Wait, my what?"

Twilight sat on the hard wooden bench, fuming quietly to herself. She had sat down between two other unicorns, but after a few failed attempts at small talk on their part they had independently decided to sit somewhere away from the furious purple unicorn.

Every unicorn in the waiting room was watching her nervously. Mentally unstable ponies were not unknown in this sport, but that didn't mean they shouldn't be treated with caution. None of these ponies could be considered entirely normal, but even they knew that the pony whispering to herself could be dangerous.

"I can't believe him..." Twilight muttered. She lowered the pitch of her voice drastically, forcing it into a mockery of Silver's customary growl. "I had to sign you up eight hours early for the bookies." She scoffed, and her voice returned to normal. "Yeah right. He just likes keeping me off balance."

"Nah, I just like keeping her off balance," Silver drawled. "Helps me stay in charge."

"I don't care Silver," replied the earth pony counting bits on the table beside him.

"With power like hers, I'll need to work hard to keep her as my student. Let her get too comfortable, and she'll think she won't need me anymore."

"I don't care."

"She's an up and comer you know. You want to stay in the bookie business? Give her good odds," Silver said, tapping his hoof twice on the table for emphasis.

"Silver."

"Yeah?"

"I. Don't. Care," the pony stated, staring Silver in the eye.

"Alright, alright," the unicorn said, acting offended. Both ponies fell silent for a moment before Silver spoke again. "Speaking of odds, how about a small bet?"

"You know the rules Silver. Trainers can't bet on their pupils."

"Oh, come off it Split. Rules are for strangers, not old friends. Hell, you used to let me bet on myself," Silver said, pulling a small sack of coins from his bag and dropping it on the table.

Split, unofficial head bookie for the Fillydelphia stadium, glanced down at the bag. After a few moments, he reached out with a hoof and pulled the bag towards him. "Your girl's twelve to one tonight."

"Not bad. Who's she up against?" Silver asked, leaning over the table confidentially.

"You know I can't tell you that. Blind match Silver. Surely you haven't gone senile already?"

"Oh, come on. The match is in thirty seconds. What am I going to do, run down and tell her?"

After a moment of consideration, Split told him.

"...Could I get my money back?" Silver asked, reaching out with a hoof that Split smacked away.

Twilight fidgeted from hoof to hoof, standing in the small roofless room she'd been ushered into. Memories of the last time she stood in a room like this kept flashing before her eyes, and she felt herself begin to panic. The mare had never been claustrophobic, but she couldn't shake the feeling that the walls were closing in on her.

The nervous trembling in her stomach eventually reached the point where the overly loud voice of the announcer was a relief.

"Hello fillies and gentlecolts! Welcome to a night of excitement and danger at the arena! We've got five blind matches for you tonight, so let's. Get! Started!"

Twilight began to breath heavily and set her legs into her casting crouch, before she remembered what Silver had told her and rose up into a more agile stance.

"In the red corner, returning after a three month disappearance, the powerful purple pony with the penchant for pain, Dust Shiiiiiiiiine!"

The familiar blast of cheers filled the stadium. Twilight fancied that is was louder than the first time she'd been introduced.

"And in the blue corner, one of the oldest ponies to still play the sport, cash taker, love maker, lust slaker: Spell Breaaaaaaaaker!"

This round of cheering was, for some reason, punctuated by groans. Twilight didn't have long to contemplate what that could mean before the door in front of her crashed open and she was faced with the familiar dusty arena.

The pony that stood across from her was huge. While he was probably a little shorter than Silver, he was also much thicker. Where Silver was muscular, the word that jumped to Twilight's mind when she looked at this pony was 'husky'.

Twilight watched the old yellow pony closely, prepared to dodge anything he threw. However, he didn't throw anything. His horn didn't light up in the slightest. He just began to cross the distance between them in long easy strides.

With a small shrug, Twilight fired a burst of kinetic force at the pony. If he wasn't going to attack her, this was going to be a short fight.

"It seems that the plucky young mare has never been told of this particular opponent!"

The blast hit the stallion full in the chest and dissipated. Spell Breaker continued walking without a break in his stride. The only noticeable effect was a small smile that flitted across his otherwise stoic face.

Twilight froze for a second, paralyzed by confusion and panic. She reached out with her magic and attempted to grab the pony's leg, but she felt her power sputter and fail as soon as it touched his coat.

"Oh. Spell Breaker. I get it," Twilight said without a trace of emotion.

The stallion chuckled, but didn't reply. Without warning he broke into a run, and Twilight suddenly realized he had gotten much closer than she was comfortable with.

Silver's defense lesson turned out to not be wasted time, and Twilight just managed to roll under the hoof that swung towards her head. Before Spell Breaker could throw another blow, she scampered to her feet and galloped to the other side of the arena.

"A near miss from Spell Breaker!"

Twilight turned back to see the yellow stallion walking towards her with the same easy strides. She searched her brain for an offensive spell that might actually hit the magic resistant pony.

She pulled magic into her horn, thinking back to her training session and the projectile Silver had used on her. The swirling bolt of colors wasn't a spell she was familiar with, but she'd seen him cast it several times and she'd always been a fast study.

Her horn crackled as she almost lost hold of the half-improvised spell, but she managed to loose it at her enemy without serious issue. Unfortunately, it proved just as useless as her force spells, and the delay had brought Spell Breaker nearly within striking range.

"Say what you will about Dusk Shine, she does not give up on her magic easily!"

Her second dodge wasn't quite as successful as the first, and a heavy hoof clipped her leg. The impact brought her to the ground much earlier than she had planned, and the back of her head slammed into the packed earth. She squeezed her eyes shut against the pain, but managed to open them again just in time to roll out of the way of a second blow.

"If you're done shooting pretty lights at me, I'd like to actually fight this match," the stallion yelled at Twilight's retreating back.

Twilight's attempts to stave off panic were becoming more and more futile. Nothing she threw at the pony seemed to affect him, and she'd thrown everything she had. She stood, rooted to the ground, and watched the much larger pony approach.

"Looks like Dusk Shine might finally be out of tricks!"

"Versatile!" shouted a familiar voice from the stands. Twilight's head snapped to find the source, and spotted Silver hanging halfway over the edge of the arena, one hoof cupped around his mouth.

"I would like to remind the crowd that helping the players, while not strictly forbidden, is heavily discouraged. Violently so, in the case of trainers," the announcer boomed, a hint of annoyance entering the usually flat voice.

"Versatile, versatile, versatile..." Twilight muttered to herself as Spell Breaker burst into a run. How could she be versatile when none of her spells could effect the pony?

Realization washed over the purple mare. Versatility didn't just apply to magic. If magic wasn't working, she'd just have to try something else.

Her mind kicked into overgear as she stared at the approaching stallion, judging his speed and weight. Her legs tensed underneath as she prepared to spring.

"Dusk Shine seems to be holding her ground this time!"

A moment before Spell Breaker reached her, Twilight released the pent up energy in her legs and flew towards her enemy, twisting in mid air. When she judged that her back legs were pointed towards the stallions face, she kicked out viciously.

Twilight wasn't a heavy pony, but the combined speed of the two ponies provided enough force to knock the larger pony out. Unfortunately, that was only relevant if her hooves hit anything, which they did not.

Spell Breaker ducked under the blow and skidded to a halt. Twilight landed hard on her hooves and ended up directly behind the other pony. The stallion's kick wasn't as avoidable as Twilight's had been, and it connected heavily with her jaw.

The force sent her flipping over backwards, performing a full rotation before landing on her stomach. The crowd gasped from the sight, but Twilight didn't hear it. She had been knocked unconscious at the moment of impact.

Blackness and silence. That's all there was, and as far as Twilight knew, that's all there would ever be.

She stared around at the shadows, knowing that she should be feeling fear. Instead, she just felt dizzy and tired. "Am I dead?" she asked the darkness, not really expecting an answer.

"Nope," a voice said from behind her.

A small scream escaped Twilight's lips as she spun towards the source. Silver Chimes sat behind her, casually smiling at her.

"You've just been knocked out from the pain and impact of having your jaw broken," he explained, pointing at her chin.

"Broken!?" Twilight asked, the work actually managing to elicit some emotion from her spinning mind.

"Or fractured. Or dislocated. Look, I don't know, I'm not a doctor as far as you know."

"What do you mean as far as I know?" Twilight asked, rubbing at her jaw. It didn't hurt, but she did seemed to remember an impact on it.

"Well, I'm obviously not Silver Chimes. I'm your mental representation of him, appearing to you now through the magic of concussions," the blue stallion said, gesturing at himself. "I'm here to give you advice on the match."

"The..." Twilight trailed off, suddenly recalling the battle she'd been fighting. "I have to go back! I'm going to be counted out!"

"It's fine, it's fine. Time's different here, you've got five seconds left. Now, when you regain consciousness, what exactly are you going to do?"

"I... what can I do? Whenever I cast a spell on him, it just fizzles away," Twilight's face fell. "Maybe I should just forfeit."

"Well if none of your spells work on him, maybe you shouldn't cast a spell on him." The image of Silver crossed his eyes and kicked out a hind leg spasticly. "A-doy."

"You don't do that! Rainbow does that when she's making fun of Applejack! Besides, I tried not using magic, and I got kicked in the head."

"Hey, not my fault if you get me confused with your friend. And I didn't say you shouldn't use magic."

"But-" Twilight began.

"Whoops, that's all the time we've got," Silver interrupted, raising a hoof. "Time to wake up!" he said, and slapped her across the face.

Hot lines of pain radiated from Twilight's jaw as it pressed against the dusty ground. Her eyes fluttered open as she regained consciousness.

"One!" proclaimed the announcer's voice.

Twilight jerked to her feet suddenly, recognizing the countdown as nearly complete. "I'm up," she sleepily attempted to mumble, but the sudden spike of pain from her jaw almost drove her her to her knees again.

"Wait, Dusk Shine is not finished yet!"

Spell Breaker stopped in his path back to the room he had entered from. Twilight saw his head dip towards the ground for a second before he turned back towards her, annoyance painted on his face.

Twilight's mind raced madly. Use magic, but don't use it on him. What the hay did that mean? Teleport? What good would that do? Use magic, but not on him. Use magic, but not on him. Use magic, but...

Her horn burst into life. Spell breaker rolled his eyes as he approached her. "Haven't you learned anything yet? Your magic won't help you."

Twilight's eyes squeezed shut. She lowered her head, and barely stopped herself from tensing her jaw. The glow in her horn was reaching blinding levels, and Spell Breaker squinted his eyes against the light.

It suddenly occurred to the yellow stallion that while Twilight was obviously pumping out massive amounts of power, he wasn't absorbing a single iota of it. She was using it for something else. He didn't have the time to consider what that could mean before Twilight jerked her head to the side.

Instinctively, he snapped his head in the same direction, ready to dodge, and was hit from behind by three tons of magically levitated stone and earth.

A moment of stunned silence washed over the arena.

"I sure hope Dusk Shine is planning on putting that dirt back where she found it," the announcer finally said.

Chapter 5

Twilight sloppily shoved the pile of dirt and stone back in the hole she had ripped it from, leaving the twitching, unconscious body of Spell Breaker sprawled on the ground. The magical effort made her dizzy, and her path pack to the waiting room was far from a straight line. When she finally managed to stumble back through the open door, Silver was waiting for her with a large grin on his face.

Twilight stumbled towards the blue unicorn and attempted to tell him about the searing pain in her jaw. The attempt to speak only produced a grunt and agony, and she let out a pained moan.

"You, redhead. You're up," came a voice from behind her, as a crimson maned pony stood up from the bench and headed for the door. "Silver, get out of here. You and your filly looking for some privacy, go to the old nurse's room."

An indignant objection rose in Twilight's throat, but as soon as her jaw muscles twitched a sudden spike of agony drilled through her skull and she let out a strangled scream.

"Holy shit, stop trying to talk!" Silver said as he ushered her from the room. "If I ask a question, one grunt for yes, two for no, alright?" He brought her down a hallway and then into a small room with a medical cot in it. A poster of the equine skeletal system sat on the wall, but the bottom half had been ripped off, leaving only a spine and a skull.

Silver pushed her up on on to the low cot, leaving her in a hunched sitting position that brought her eyes around level with Silver's. "Now, what seems to be the problem little filly?" Silver said in a pompous, overly friendly voice.

Twilight's eyes narrowed angrily as she stared back at the grinning stallion.

"Alright, not in the mood," he said, taking on a more serious demeanor. "Jaw hurts?"

Twilight grunted once.

"The jawbone itself, or the joints? Wait, sorry. Does the jawbone itself hurt?"

Twilight turned her attention to the throbbing pain at the bottom of her skull. She hesitantly grunted twice.

"The joints then? Here?" Silver asked, pointing to where his jaw met the rest of his head.

One grunt emerged from the purple mare.

"Alright then, that sounds like a dislocation. No problem." Silver reached out and set his hoof on the side of her jaw. The jostling made her wince in pain, and when she felt a hoof touch against the other side, she couldn't help but let out a small cry.

"It's all right," Silver said in a soothing tone. "This is just going to hurt for a second. On three. One," he said, and then ripped her jaw downwards before slamming it back into her head.

Twilight's life briefly became a mass of pain, the only other sensation a disturbing and disgusting click that came from just below both of her ears. She screamed, toppling off the cot and onto the floor. "What is wrong with..." she began, but trailed off and poked her jaw several times with the tip of a hoof.

"Feel better?" Silver asked, holding out a hoof to help her up.

Twilight took the hoof and pulled herself to her feet. "Actually, I do. What did you do?"

"Put your jaw back in its socket. You're going to get some swelling around the joints, and you'll have a nice bruise on your cheek. You've got a good coat for covering that though." Silver reached out and pushed down on her nose, staring into her eyes. "Blink," he ordered.

Twilight did so, staring back up at him. Her jaw still ached, but it definitely hurt less than it had before. Silver had apparently done something right.

"You've also got one hell of a concussion," Silver said, staring intently at her pupils. "But I don't think we need to worry about brain damage."

"I know I do, you already told me that," Twilight said absentmindedly, pulling her head away from the stallion's hoof.

"...Or maybe we do. What's your name?"

Twilight shook her head. "Silver, I'm fine. I just got a little confused."

"What's your name?" Silver insisted.

"Twilight Sparkle," the mare said.

"And what's your birthday?" he asked.

Twilight told him.

"...I have no way of knowing if that's correct," Silver said after a moment. "Sounds right though."

"It IS right," Twilight said. "What did that stallion mean by 'privacy'?"

"He was asking if I needed a place to put your jaw back in your face," Silver said, pulling Twilight towards the door. "C'mon, let's get you to bed."

As the two ponies headed out the front door, Silver collected both her winnings and the result of his bet, which Split handed over grudgingly. "Next time I'm holding you to the rules," the earth pony grumbled as he handed over the considerable sack.

"Oh Split, we both know that's not true," Silver said with a grin as he left with his money and student. "You could never say no to me. You're a sucker for an ugly face," he said over his shoulder, flipping his short tail back and forth and exaggerating the movement of his hips.

Split snorted as he looked down at the book of grids and numbers in front of him.

"And here's a hundred bits for you," Silver said to Twilight as they walked back to the inn, separating out a smaller sack of coins from the bundle he carried. "Minus my ten percent, of course."

Twilight slowly took the bag from him and carried it next to her. The minor act of levitation was worryingly more tiring than usual; she had pushed herself hard in the last couple days, and her magic was starting to run out. "Are you a doctor Silver?" she asked.

Silver jerked in surprise. "What? Why do you ask?" he said, sounding slightly shocked.

The idea had been put into her head by her brief hallucination, but she didn't want Silver to know about that. "Because you figured out my jaw had been dislocated, and you knew how to put it back in," she replied.

"Oh, that," Silver said, relaxing visibly. "No, I'm not a doctor. I'm kind of the exact opposite of a doctor. Oddly enough, both ends of the spectrum tend to get you some medical experience. Break enough bones, and you learn how to set them."

"...I can never tell if you're joking," Twilight said, looking at the older pony.

"I never joke."

"Was that a joke?" Twilight asked wearily.

"Yes."

"Twilight? Are you alright?"

Twilight's eyes eased open, revealing the inn room she had slept in the night before. She didn't remember getting in it a second time though.

"Twilight!" came a voice from the door, followed by the pounding of hooves. "If you're awake, say something."

"I'm awake!" Twilight yelled back, and winced as her head pounded. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Can I come in?" asked the voice.

Twilight cradled her pounding head in her hooves. "Yeah, sure," she replied, reaching out with her magic to unlock the door.

Silver pushed through the opening and stepped towards her bed. "You doing alright?" he asked.

"My head hurts," Twilight groaned. "And I don't remember getting in bed."

Silver nodded. "Your memory might be a little spotty for a few days. If you start losing entire days, or if you get any hallucinations, go see a doctor."

Twilight nodded her own head in reply, yawning widely. Her mouth was almost closed when she felt a hoof on her chin, pulling her jaw back down.

"Wait, hold on a sec," Silver said, staring into her mouth. "...Twilight, do you remember spitting anything out during the match?"

"Nuh-uh," Twilight said, mouth wide open.

"Uh... okay, well, you lost a tooth."

"I what!?" Twilight yelled, and winced at another spike of pain in her temple. "Where is it?"

"Well, if you didn't spit it out, you probably swallowed it," Silver said calmly. "Oh, don't worry," he continued, noting the look of fear on her face. "I must have swallowed dozens of teeth. You'll be fine."

"...You're not missing any teeth."

Silver grinned, showing off a full set of pearly whites - or rather, slightly yellows. "I didn't say they were mine. Come on, let's get some food in you."

Twilight heaved herself out of bed, exploring the space left by the missing molar with her tongue. "I thought you didn't get up before twelve," she said, grabbing her bag from the corner of the room.

"I don't," Silver said, turning to the door. "It's two."

"...What?"

"It's two in the afternoon. You've been asleep for fifteen hours."

Twilight stared at him, mouth hanging open for reasons that had nothing to do with her injury.

"Twi... Dusk, wait up!" Silver shouted, racing after the galloping purple pony.

"I have to get home!" Twilight yelled back, running for the outskirts of town. "I have to leave now, or I won't make it back before dark!"

"You could have brain damage! You can't teleport now!"

That drew some looks from passerby's.

"I'll be fine!" Twilight panted, dodging around a cart and heading down a side street.

Silver growled under his breath. He couldn't stop her. It was taking everything he had to just keep her in sight. "I am definitely too old for this," he muttered under his breath. "Fine!" he shouted. "But I want you back here in three weeks!"

"Alright!" Twilight yelled back.

"And get at least one hour of exercise a day! You're never going to be the strongest pony, but you can at least be fit!"

"Fine!"

"And make sure-" Silver began, but stopped when Twilight vanished into a burst of purple light in front of him. "-to get some rest," he finished lamely. With an aggravated sigh, he headed back to the tavern.

The Everfree forest was quiet and dark, as it always was. An owl stood silently on a branch as a field mouse scampered out across the ground below it. The owl's eyes found the mouse and followed it through the grass until it stopped a few feet from a bush.

The mouse had found a seed, and it began to nibble at it. It was so preoccupied by the snack it didn't see the owl behind it leave the branch, swooping down on silent wings. The bird outstretched its talons, and prepared to strike.

Abruptly, the small clearing was filled with brilliant purple light. The mouse darted under the bush, while the owl screeched in surprise and flapped wildly, barely clearing the ground and making it back up into the sky.

A purple unicorn was left standing in the clearing, slowly rocking from hoof to hoof. She mumbled incoherently to herself, and stumbled to the side. Her horn began to shine, but the glow quickly faded and the unicorn let out a strangled yell.

She stumbled sideways and slammed into a tree, crashing to the ground. Her vision slowly began to fade, blurring and darkening around the edges. Just before she lost consciousness, her narrowing tunnel vision spotted a hooded equine figure passing the clearing, just visible through the trees.

Twilight gathered the last of her strength and forced air through her dry throat. "He-" was all she managed to say, but it was enough. The hooded head turned to look at her revealing two piercing, glowing, yellow eyes. The figure appeared to respond, but Twilight couldn't hear anything except the blood pumping through her ears, and she lost passed out.

For the second time in recent memory, Twilight awoke in a bed she didn't remember lying down in. This wasn't the light breezy room of the inn however; this room was dark and warm. Twilight could barely make out the outline of a window in the wall, but although it was uncovered no light poured in. The outside seemed to be nearly as dark as the inside, with only a hint of silver light illuminating a few large trees.

"-ello," Twilight said in a hoarse voice, her throat dry. "Hello," she called again, this time prepared for the scratching in her windpipe.

A door opposite from the bed creaked open, letting in a sliver of flickering warm light. "Your voice sounds hoarse; drink from the glass, next to your bed, and it will pass," said a voice from behind the door. The crack widened, revealing a familiar zebra to Twilight. More importantly, the larger slice of firelight illuminated a glass of water sitting next to Twilight, which she drank gratefully.

"What's going on Zecora? Where am I?" Twilight asked as soon as the glass was drained.

"You are in my home my friend; I took you here so you may mend."

Twilight was suddenly hit by a wave of dizziness, causing her to collapse back into the blankets. "Last thing I remember, I... I was in the Everfree forest."

Zecora stepped towards her, a potion hanging around her neck on a strap. "I found you fallen off your hooves; luckily I found you before the wolves." She reached down with her mouth and set the potion on the bedside table, next to the glass. "I saw that one of your teeth has gone; drink this down and it will spawn."

Twilight looked at the bottle distastefully, but reached out with her magic and popped the cork.

"Come and see me when you're ready; when your legs are feeling steady," Zecora said, leaving the room as Twilight lifted the earthen jar to her lips.

The mixture smelled sickly sweet, and Twilight gagged. She tipped the bottle back, trying to pour the substance down her throat without tasting it. The liquid proved too thick, however, and it pooled in the back of her mouth. Twilight groaned at the disgusting taste, and just managed to force herself force it down.

After a series of itching sensations and disturbing crunches from inside her mouth, Twilight felt her new tooth erupt from her gums. She poked her tongue to the side and felt the new molar, smoother and slightly larger than the rest of her teeth.

Twilight pushed the warm, soft blanket to the side. She stepped out onto the ground, and felt her knees begin to give out. A force of effort steadied her legs, and she managed to slowly walk her way to the door and pull it open.

"Hi Zecora. Thanks for the potion. My tooth grew back," she said, seeing the back of the Zebra's head.

The zebra turned away from the bubbling cauldron, setting a clay bottle next to two others on a nearby table. "I am glad to hear that said; may I ask what happened to your head?"

"Oh, uh... I was in Fillydelphia, and I... got attacked," Twilight said. "I just managed to escape and teleport back, but I guess I overextended my magic and passed out." She smiled awkwardly.

Zecora stared at the purple mare, face expressionless and eyes blank. Twilight stared back, feeling more uncomfortable by the second. She sneaked a look backwards to see if there was anything behind her Zecora could be looking at, but there was only a wilting plant.

"You can say that it is secret Twi; you know you do not have to lie," Zecora finally said.

"What? I wasn't lying, I-"

"That plant behind you is called Soothful; it only wilts when one is untruthful."

Twilight opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She looked back at the plant, the color fading from its petals. "...It's a secret," she finally said.

The flower immediately brightened, and the stalk began to curl back upwards to its full height.

"I said you did not have to say. Now drink these potions, one a day," Zecora said, motioning to the potions on the table. "They will heal up your brain, and make sure you do not go insane."

Twilight spotted her bags by the door, and floated the three jars into them. "Thank you Zecora. For the potions, and for... being so understanding. I'll be careful to not to push myself so far next time."

"I think that would be best Twilight; your magic should recharge tonight."

Twilight thanked her zebra friend one last time as she left, and headed through the forest. The way from Zecora's hut to Ponyville was well known to her now, and she managed to reach the edge of the woods without running into any of the Everfree's more unsavory residents.

She was confused to see the sun setting when she stepped out of the dark woods. But the sun had already set when I arrived in the forest, she thought. That means... I've been asleep for a whole day! Again!

Twilight burst into a run, heading towards the town. She'd been gone for three nights, and she'd never told Spike where she was!

She galloped through the streets, making a beeline towards the library. Several ponies turned to watch her as she ran past. "Twilight!" yelled one of them.

"Oh, hey Applejack," Twilight said, slowing momentarily. "I delivered that letter. We'll catch up later, I have to get home," she said quickly, before galloping around a corner.

Applejack stepped around the corner herself, and watched the retreating purple flank. "Well she sure is in a hurry," she murmured to herself. "That girl is acting mighty strange."

"Tell me about it," Pinkie said, her head erupting from a flowerbed a few feet to Applejack's left.

"Spike!" Twilight called, stepping through the front door of the library. "Spike, are you here?"

The baby dragon's head appeared above the railing the surrounded the loft. "Oh, hey Twilight. I didn't know you were going to be home tonight." He vanished, and a pair of claws clicked down the stairs until he emerged on the ground floor. "Have you eaten?"

As if answering him itself, Twilight's stomach growled angrily. "I guess not," Twilight replied sheepishly, setting her bags down and lifting Zecora's potions on to a table. "Are you making something, or are we going out?"

"I already ate, but I can heat something up," Spike said, trotting towards the kitchen. "It'll just take a few minutes."

Twilight blinked, and found herself sitting at the table with a purple claw sliding a plate of food in front of her muzzle. "All you alright?" Spike asked, hoping up onto a chair opposite her. "You look... surprised."

"Oh..." Twilight shook her head. She must have lost some time. "I'm fine. Just tired. It smells great." She took a bite from the plate of food, chewing mechanically.

Spike watched her eat across the table, slouched across the wood with his chin resting on his forearms. "So how was your trip?" he finally asked after several minutes of silence.

"Oh, fine, I just..." Twilight stared back into the baby dragon's face, and sighed. "You know, don't you."

"Yeah," Spike said. "I'm not stupid Twilight. You disappear for three nights, and then come back with potions from Zecora and a bruise on your cheek. Even if Applejack hadn't told me you'd gone to Fillydelphia, and even if I hadn't heard them talking about Dusk Shine down at the cafe, I think I would have figured it out."

"I know you're not stupid," Twilight replied, reaching out a hoof to touch the baby dragon's claw. "...Did you say anything to the girls?" she asked carefully.

"No. Rainbow won some money on you, by the way," Spike replied, giving her hoof a squeeze before he pulled his claw away. "So... what are you going to do?"

"I'm going back in three weeks," Twilight said. "Why didn't you tell them?"

Spike shrugged. "I didn't think you'd want me to. But you should."

"No. I mean, not yet." Twilight pushed away from the table and picked up her table to carry it into the kitchen. "I just... I want to know if I'm going to keep doing it before I tell them."

Spike sighed. "I still think you should tell them, but I won't say anything."

"Thanks."

"No problem." Spike headed towards the stairs, heading up towards his bed. "Like Pinkie says, losing a friends trust-"

Twilight emerged from the kitchen, already continuing the saying. "Is the fastest way to lose a friend."

Both Twilight and Spike paused momentarily, half expecting Pinkie to emerge from a bookshelf with an enthusiastic 'forever'.

"Forever," Twilight finished awkwardly.

Chapter 6

"Dusk!"

Twilight's heart stopped.

"Dusk! That is you, right?"

The hint of doubt that had entered the voice gave Twilight a hint of hope. Maybe if she just kept walking, the pony yelling at her would think she was mistaken.

"Twilight!"

The purple pony's head snapped around. Her eyes focused on an a white pony with a pair of purple sunglasses and a shock of blue hair. Twilight vanished in a blaze of purple light, appeared next to the ivory pony. Her hoof slipped over the other pony's back, and both disappeared and reappeared in a nearby ally.

"You can't..." Twilight trailed off, staring at the ponies obscured eyes. "Wait, I know you. Pinkie introduced us. You're..." Twilight concentrated, thinking back to her brother's wedding. "You're DJ Pon3" she finished, pronouncing the '3' as a number.

"Actually, it's pronounced 'DJ Pony'," the white mare said with a hint of laughter in her voice. "But you can call me Vinyl. I'm in Ponyville to DJ some birthday thing. So how are you? You're doing well in the arena."

"Yeah, that's actually why I brought you back here. You can't talk about my battle magic here," Twilight hissed. She blinked, and a confused look crept over her face. "How do you even know about that?"

"Oh, yeah. Guess you wouldn't recognize me." Vinyl pressed her hoof against her throat and coughed, her horn lighting up. "And in the blue corner, the purple pony with the penchant for pain..."

Twilight gaped. "You're... But I thought the announcer was a stallion."

"Oh c'mon, voice modification? That's easy," Vinyl said with a snort of laughter. "Bet I could teach you how to do it too." She craned her neck, looking past Twilight at the small crowd of ponies in center square. "So still haven't told anypony about Dusk, huh?"

"I... how'd you guess?"

"I've been in the same place. I don't play any more, but I used to. Ran under the name 'Sonic'. I didn't tell anypony; didn't tell my parents, didn't tell my friends... But they figured it out. Took them about three months. And when they did, they weren't happy."

"Is that why you quit?" Twilight asked.

Actually, no. They were fine with me doing what I did; it was lying to them that upset them. I quit a few months later. I won a few matches, but I didn't really have the knack for it." She shrugged. "Besides, I fell in love with DJing. I still do the announcing, but I don't fight anymore."

"So... you won't tell Pinkie?" Twilight said hopefully.

Vinyl shook her head. "Nah. Like I said, I've been in the same place," she said, walking past Twilight to the mouth of the alley. "But, word of advice? Tell them before they find out themselves. And they will find out."

Twilight watched her go, caught up in her thoughts. First Spike, and now this pony. Maybe she should tell her friends.

"Hello Twilight."

Twilight leaped into the air, spinning to face behind her. Some part of her brain noted that her reflexes seemed to be improving already.

Her eyes met the top half of Pinkie Pie, her bottom half presumably hidden inside the barrel she was leaning over the lip of (although one should never assume when it came to Pinkie Pie). She was staring at Twilight with her baby blue eyes, a very unamused look on her face.

"Oh! Hey Pinkie! How... how long have you been there?" Twilight asked nervously.

"Long enough," the earth pony responded gravely.

The purple mare slumped over. "Oh, Pinkie, I'm sorry. I was going-"

"Long enough to get completely soaked!" Pinkie finished, leaping out of the rain barrel with a splash of water. "You don't have to be sorry Twilight, it's not your fault."

"...Why were you in a rain barrel?" Twilight said, her mouth running on auto-pilot as her brain came down from the burst of adrenaline.

"I was looking for you silly!" Pinkie answered, shaking herself dry. "Rainbow's taking us all out for lunch. She said she came in to some money," she said with an exaggerated wink.

Twilight shielded herself from the spray of water with a halfhearted shield spell. "Why did you wink like that?"

"Because that's how Dashie said it!" The perpetually giddy pony hooked one foreleg around one of Twilight's and dragged her towards the lip of the alley.

The lunch was awkward to say the least. Rainbow Dash had alternated between making not-so-subtle allusions to her gambling and denying any such thing. The lunch had eventually devolved into a shouting match between the pegasus and Applejack about the morality of games of chance.

Meanwhile, Twilight had been terrified that Dash would let the name 'Dusk Shine' slip and one of her friends would put two and two together. She had managed to avoid telling them so far, but she wasn't sure she could lie to them if she was asked directly.

However Rainbow hadn't let it slip, nopony had figured it out, and Twilight's secret was safe. The next few weeks faded into a blur. Her headaches and memory lapses cleared up before she ran out of Zecora's potions, and she exercised every day. Contrary to what she expected, it actually left her more energetic then before, a phenomenon she vowed to look in to.

It was three weeks later when Twilight came down the stairs to find Spike putting food into her saddlebags. "Spike, what are you doing?" she asked sleepily, rubbing a hoof across her eyes.

"Well, you're teleporting to Fillydelphia, right?"

Twilight nodded.

"Then I'm making you a lunch," the dragon said, pulling the bag shut. "Don't want you to run out of energy again. There won't always be a friendly neighborhood zebra around." He smiled weakly.

"Oh. Thanks," Twilight said, slowly lifting the bags onto her back. "...I guess I should get going. Get an early start."

Spike nodded. "I'd come with you, but someone needs to watch the library. What should I tell the girls?" he asked, opening the door for her.

"...Tell them I went to Canterlot. Some sort of... I don't know, magic thing." The pony smiled. "You'll think of something."

"Alright," Spike said uncomfortably. "I'll see you in a few days."

"Yup," Twilight said, heading towards the Everfree forest. She hadn't walked more then a few steps when she turned to see Spike still standing in the doorway. "...Thanks Spike," she said.

"No problem," Spike said. "Now get going."

Twilight vanished.

Although she left earlier, Twilight was careful to sustain her energy and the trip ended up taking the entire day. Again she arrived at The Lopsided Pegasus only as the sun was going down. She pushed in through the door, and found Silver sitting at his usual table.

He glanced up and grinned. "Welcome back to the big city, Dusk. You did your exercises, I assume?"
He said, raising an eyebrow and taking a sip from the mug in front of him.

"Hello Silver. Hello Flurry," Twilight said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from the blue stallion. "Of course I did my exercises. Well, not today. I spent the whole day teleporting."

"You teleported here again?" Silver asked, a hint of concern entering his voice. "Are you feeling alright?"

Twilight sighed. "I'm fine Silver. I rested on the way this time. I'm just going to go to bed, if there's room for me here," she said, the last part of her sentence directed at Flurry.

Flurry nodded silently.

"Oh don't go yet. Stay and have a drink with us first. I've been sitting here by myself for hours, I need the company," Silver said, motioning for her to stay seated. "You like cider?"

Twilight looked up at the clock, and then back down at Silver. "I do, but not tonight. Besides, you're not alone down here, you've got Flurry," Twilight said, standing up walking towards the stairs. "And him," she pointed out, noticing the white stallion dozing on a back table.

"Bartenders don't count," Silver scoffed. "Everypony knows that. And if you mean Snoozy McSleepypants back there, he's not exactly a great conversationalist." Silver took a sip from his drink. "Because he's asleep."

"I don't know why Flurry puts up with you," Twilight murmured.

"Because I'm a great customer," Silver said with a grin. "Another cider!"

"Put it on your tab?" Flurry asked as he filled two mugs.

"Without the sass please," Silver replied. "And also yes."

Flurry finished the drink with a tired sigh, and put it on the counter for Silver to levitate over. It landed next to Silver's empty mug as the unicorn turned to talk to Twilight. "See you tomorrow for training then," he said with a smile.

Twilight let out a noise of vague agreement through her sigh, continuing up the stairs. The door to the room she had stayed in last time was unlocked, and she fell on to the bed and fell into unconsciousness.

Silver watched her until her tail disappeared up the stairs and he heard the sound of the slamming door. The smile fled off his face, replaced by a sullen frown. He turned back to his drink, and slid it from hoof to hoof, staring at it thoughtfully.

"You still want that?" Flurry asked, leaning across the bar.

"Yeah, yeah," Silver said quickly, letting it slide to a halt before lifting it and taking a deep sip. "I want it."

The next day's training went much the same as it had before, although Twilight refrained from challenging her trainer this time. They were both returning to the inn, each covered in a light coating of sweat, when Twilight asked about her match.

"It's tonight, like last time. I've put up the hundred bit entry fee, hundred bits if you win," Silver said. "You're up against a stallion called 'Grenadier'. Rough customer; he launches explosive spells. Can do some real damage."

"Have you fought him?" Twilight asked.

"Nope. He hasn't been around that long. Seen him fight though, and he's pretty good. One trick pony, of course, but it's a damn good trick."

Twilight sighed. She didn't like the sound of that. She'd already had to worry about brain damage. "Any advice?"

Silver walked in silence for a few moments, considering. "Hit him hard, hit him fast. Don't let him pin you down, or you're done. Exploit his weaknesses." He turned to look at the purple mare for a moment, and the looked back to his front. "Actually, let's try something. Find my weakness."

Twilight looked over at him, surprised. "You... want me to try and beat you again?"

Silver chuckled. "No, no, I'm not that cruel. It's just a mental exercise."

"Oh. Alright." This was Twilight's strength, and she quickly set her mind to the task. "...your lack of formal training means a lack of discipline, so maybe your spells could be dispelled more easily then most," she said after around a minute of thought.

"Who said I didn't have formal training?" Silver asked.

"Have you?" Twilight asked, slightly shocked. "I just sort of assumed you were... self-taught."

"Not that's it's any of your business, but I have," Silver said. "Point is, you're wrong. Try again. Think more obvious; something you could know if you met me in the arena."

Twilight concentrated again. "Well, the large amount of scars on your body indicate frequent and serious injury, which could mean you have weaker bones then average, and hence you would be vulnerable to having them broken."

Silver turned his head and stared at her in silence, his jaw slightly slack.

"...What?" Twilight asked, uncomfortable. "Did I win?"

"No, but that was one of the creepiest things I've ever heard," Silver said in a stunned monotone. He shook his head and continued walking. "Anyway, no. My bones are fine kid. Try again." He turned again to her momentarily. "It's obvious." He winked.

It dawned on Twilight, and she suddenly felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. "You're missing an eye. You've got no peripheral vision on your left side," she said.

"Which means?" the stallion prompted.

"Attack you from your left."

"Bingo!" he said, happily. "Took you long enough. You'll have to get faster at that; it's a very important skill to have. But if you can pull something like that on Grenadier, you'll be fine."

Twilight stood once again in the tiny room, having gone through her usual introduction, and nervously waited for her opponent to be announced and the match to start.

"And in the red corner, the explosively popular pony who always starts with a bang-"

Does she write those herself? Twilight wondered silently.

"Grenadiiiiiieeeeeerrr!"

The door on the other side opened up, revealing a light yellow stallion who looked to be about the same age as Twilight. She stepped out of the room, got into her modified casting stance, and began scanning the pony for weaknesses. The rest of the world faded out as she focused on the figure across from her.

Looks about my age, so he's probably pretty healthy, she thought quickly. He's a stallion, and he looks a little taller than me, so I'm pretty sure he's physically stronger than me. She bit her lip, her habitual swaying slowing as her mind dwelled on the puzzle. His hair is short, so I can't blind him with it or anything and OH CELESTIA SPELL.

Twilight threw herself to the side, barely avoiding the milky white orb that the unicorn had formed and launched at her. The ball exploded, sending her spinning sideways into the wall in a shower of dirt. She bounced off the wall and rolled across the ground. It took her a few moments to regain her senses and get back onto her feet, and by the time she did, a second orb was already whistling through the air towards her.

Instead of rolling out of the way this time, she brought her magic to bear and hastily constructed a purple half sphere shield. She lowered her head, attempting to shield her ears from the imminent boom and shock wave, but was surprised to hear only a gentle bump.

She looked up to see the dangerous orb slowly rolling down the outside of her protective shell, accelerating as it moved from the top to the sides. She watched it through the semi-transparent shield curiously, and was just relaxing her grip on the spell when it reached the ground and detonated.

The weakened shield shattered under the blow, splitting into a thousand tiny shards. Twilight flinched away, releasing the magic gathered in her horn, and the majority of the razor sharp pieces of shield dissipated a moment before they reached her skin. The few that remained a second longer whizzed past her ears and left a series of small cuts on her foremost leg.

Twilight winced from the sudden pain, clamping her other hoof over the blood welling up from the injuries. She gritted her teeth and thought frantically as the pony across from her lobbed another sphere.

Can't hit back; the time I take to make any spell but a shield will get me hit. I can't get to him without being hit, and even if I could, it wouldn't do me any good. But the spell only seems to go off when it touches something physical. If I can grab it and throw it back-

Twilight could think very quickly, but even for her, that chain of logic took some time, and the enemy spell had reached the peak of its arc. Her horn lit up, and she reached out with her telekinesis to grab the spell.

Her magic closed around it, and she was stunned for a second by the feel of the spell. There was so little finesse, and so much power. While she had an idea how she would formulate such a spell, this was so... crude. He had just packed as much powers he could in a small area and fired it.

This wasn't the time to be criticizing his technique however, and she turned her mind to slowing the spell down. She pushed back, but found it more difficult than she imagined. The spell was heavier than expected, and she was afraid to push it too hard in case it detonated. It continued down towards her, slowing slightly, and it had nearly reached her head before she managed to stop it, floating gently half a foot from the tip of her horn.

She let out a sigh of relief, focused completely on keeping the ball from falling to the ground. So focused in fact, she didn't even register the second bomb Grenadier had fired until it blew up a foot to her left.

The shock wave threw her of her feet, and time slowed as she watched the bomb she had been holding so recently fall towards the ground. Her left hoof came up to cover her face. It moved tortuously slow, but she managed to cover her eyes before the orb touched the ground and the world exploded.

When Twilight regained consciousness a moment later, her ears were ringing, her coat was covered in dirt and rock fragments, and her left leg appeared to have sprouted a second knee. A strange, twisted second knee that hurt more that anything Twilight had ever felt. It took her several seconds to realize she was screaming, unable to hear her own cries over the high tone that buzzed in her ears.

She grit her teeth and looked up through blurry eyes, hoisting her torso off the ground with no small effort. She focused on the unicorn on the other end of the field, just in time to see him form another ball and fire it towards her.

Twilight curled instinctively, her magic flowing without conscious thought to protect her fetal form. The most solid shield she had ever made, almost as good as her brother's, formed around her. A few moments later, the spell hit her shield, rolled down, and exploded. Unlike last time, this shield held.

Twilght cried into the dirt, biting back against the pain. Spell after spell detonated against her shield, flowing together into a continual stream of noise, but still her spell held. An indeterminable amount of time later, she realized through the haze of pain that her horn was touching the break in her leg.

She could feel the broken bone through her skin, not only physically but magically. The snap interrupted the normal flow of magic through her system, creating a strange anomaly she found alien and disturbing. Still keeping her shield up, she reached out and touched it with her magic.

Her mind began to return to rational thought as she felt out the injury. It was so... simple. So obvious. She could form the spell that would fix the break in her mind. She knew she shouldn't cast it though. It was too dangerous. Celestia had been telling her that. Hell, Silver told her it was too dangerous, and he got thrown into walls for a living. The only logical thing to do was forfeit.

On the other hoof...

"Fuck it," Twilight muttered, even in this situation feeling a small thrill at the swear leaving her lips. She solidified the spell she had in her mind, waited for a boom, and collapsed her shield. The energy from the shell, powered by fear and pain, was poured into the healing spell.

Twilight had thought the breaking of her leg was the most painful thing she would ever experience, but the high speed healing made that look like paper cut. All the muscles in her body contracted, driving her rigid for half a second. When the pain faded, it faded completely, and Twilight leaped on to her feet with only a twinge from her leg.

A plan appeared in her head, fully formed, and she charged toward Grenadier. She was vaguely aware of Vinyl's modified voice expressing amazement at her recovery, but she dismissed it as irrelevant. The opposing pony adopted a look of shock, and fired another ball nearly vertically at her. Exactly as she wanted.

The now well-practiced shield took barely a thought to erect, and the spell thudded into it. A moment after it did so, Twilight pulled the magic out of the shield, leaving it hanging midair unsupported for a split second before she hit it with a blast of force and sent it hurtling towards the hapless stallion.

Grenadier threw himself to the side, getting flung through the air by the force of his own reflected spell. He slammed into the wall hard, and began to slide down.

Twilight decided to hurry his progress to the ground with a hammer of mental force into his side. The yellow unicorn crashed into the dirt and lay still. A few moments later, he started to pull himself to his feet.

Twilight hit him again. This time, he stayed down.

Vinyl counted the win, and it was only when the voice reached ten that Twilight turned away from the prone form and walked back to the gate, concealing the joy she felt inside. When she arrived back in the entrance room, she was surprised to not find Silver waiting for her.

"If you're looking for Silver, he's in the nurses office," one of the other contestants said, pointing down the hall.

"Oh. Thanks," Twilight said, heading in the direction she indicated. She managed to find the nurses without getting too lost, and pushed through the door to find Silver staring at her, his face somber.

"Did I see what I think I saw?" he asked quietly.

"I... what? Did you see what?" Twilight asked smiling nervously.

"What the hell do you think I mean?" Silver asked, his voice raising slightly. "Did I see you cast a healing spell out there? On your leg?" He pointed at the leg, which still ached slightly.

"Oh... uh..." Twilight stammered. "Yeah, I... I did. I mean you did."

"That's what I thought," Silver said, stepping off the bed and walking over to look at the torn skeleton poster. "After I specifically told you not too. You stupid... little... filly," he growled at her, turning around and kicking out with a back hoof that left a hole in the wall.

"Hey!" Twilight exclaimed. "Nopony calls me stupi-"

"WRONG!" Silver screamed stepping towards her. "That is WRONG! You may have come in first on whatever fucking standardized test they gave you back in Canterlot, but here? This is my fucking domain, and if you do something stupid, I WILL FUCKING CALL YOU STUPID!"

"Just because you're training me doesn't mean you can you can tell me what do!" Twilight yelled back, riling against the older pony's anger. "You're not in charge of me!" she said, before being hit across the face with a large hoof.

"That is exactly what it means! When I tell you what to do, you fucking do it! And if I ever - EVER - see you doing something so stupid and disobedient again my last action as your trainer will be to kick your ass so hard your horn falls off!"

"If I hadn't done that, I would have lost!" Twilight yelled back.

"Then you lose! So what!? It's not the end of the world!"

"But I did it! It worked! Look!" Twilight replied, holding out her healed leg for Silver to see.

Silver glanced down at the leg, and then grabbed it and held it up to her face, twisting it painfully. "You see that?" he asked, pointing his horn towards the site of the break. "You see that little rise?"

Twilight tried to wrench her leg away, but when that proved futile, she grudgingly looked where he indicated. He proved to be right; there was a small bump in her leg, as if there was a pebble inserted underneath her skin.

"Do you know what that is?" Silver hissed. "No, of course you don't. That, my clever little pony is misaligned bone. You are so, so lucky that I got to you when I did. If it had taken me a day to notice that, it'd be too late. You would be crippled for life. For the rest of your goddamn life. Do you know what that means?"

"...yes," Twilight said quietly.

"No! You don't! You think you do, but you have no fucking idea what that means. How the fuck could you when you're still a filly!?" He reached up with the hoof that wasn't holding her arm and placed it over the bump. "This is going to hurt. I'd say I'm sorry, but..." He pushed down with one hoof and snapped her arm up with the other, and Twilight felt her bone break for the second time that day. "I'm not," he finished.

Twilight screamed. "You... you FUCKER!"

"Yeah, remember that pain. That's what happens when you're stupid," Silver said, suddenly sounding tired. "Now go to sleep," he ordered, placing his glowing horn against Twilight's.

Twilight felt the cold magic cut through layer after layer of burning pain, and wrap her mind in a cold, dark embrace. The world faded away.

Chapter 7

Twilight shifted against the soft linen underneath her, vaguely aware of some strange hard covering over her leg. She twitched, attempting to rub away the material, but the friction only made a spike of pain drive its way up her leg. She grunted from the sensation, and her eyes fluttered open.

Her blurred vision settled upon a light blue blur on the other side of the room. She blinked, and the blob condensed into the form of Silver Chimes.

"Hey," he said when he noticed her eyes were open. "How's the leg?"

Twilight slowly pulled her leg out from under the covers, revealing an off-white cast. "It's all right," she said cautiously. "Hurts a little."

"Glad to hear it," Silver said gruffly. "It's been set and had its healing accelerated by someone who knows what they're doing. It broke in the right place, so if you stay off it as much as possible for the next couple days, there should be no permanent damage."

Twilight nodded silently, carefully keeping the relief she felt off her face. Both unicorns stared across the room at each other, each wordlessly daring the other to bring up the metaphorical elephant in the room. Twilight finally broke first. "Are you going to apologize?" she asked.

"Are you going to admit you were wrong?" Silver shot back.

Twilight chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment. "...I shouldn't have tried to heal my leg," she finally said. "It was... stupid."

"Yup," Silver said, satisfied. "It was."

Twilight watched the blue unicorn expectantly, Silver staring back with blank eyes. After a few moments of silence, Twilight cleared her throat pointedly.

"What?" Silver asked.

"I thought you were going to apologize."

"I never said that," Silver replied with a smile. "But!" he said hurriedly as Twilight's face hardened into anger. "I will admit that I may have handled that situation... poorly."

"You broke my leg without warning or anesthetic," Twilight said.

"That's what I was talking about," Silver said. "So how are you getting home?" he asked, obviously changing the subject.

"Teleporting," Twilight said shortly. "Look Silver, you can't just-"

"No you're not. Not on that leg. A little walking is okay, but teleporting's too much jostling. You'll rebreak your leg, and you might not be able to make it to your healer friend."

"Well then how am I supposed - How do you know about Zecora?" Twilight said, recoiling away from the stallion into her pillow.

"Your tooth's back," Silver said smugly. "Those don't grow back on their own, which means you know a unicorn with healing magic. By the name of 'Zecora', apparently. Oh, that reminds me. You need a medic. Not Zecora though; healing magic is too dangerous in the arena. Too much stray magic floating around. That's why I had to drag you here before your leg could get healed. Anyway, you know anypony who's good with herbs and bandages or whatever?"

"Yes, actually, but Silver-"

"Good, see if you can hire them to come with you," Silver interrupted.

"Silver, why don't I just learn healing magic?" Twilight asked hopefully.

"Twilight, no."

"But if you can just rebreak bones after and get it done properly..."

Silver lifted a hoof to his forehead, just below his horn, and groaned. "Twilight, there are so many worse things than misaligned bone that can happen with improper healing. I mean... I didn't want to say this, but the fact that you pulled off what you did, in those circumstances, on your first try, is... it's amazing. I really think you could learn healing magic."

"Great!" Twilight said.

"If you went to school for it for ten years," Silver clarified. "I don't care how much of a genius you are, this isn't something you can pick up on the weekends."

"But Silver-"

"Twilight." Silver's eyes hardened. "This is not up for discussion. You can learn healing magic, but you're not using it here until you can show me a degree."

Twilight collapsed back into her pillow with a sigh. "Fine..." she said, giving up on the argument, at least for the moment. "Anyway, how am I supposed to get home?"

"Do you know anyone in town?" Silver asked.

"No, I..." Twilight paused. "Wait, yes. If the announcer's still in town."

"You know Sonic?" Silver asked. "I mean, Vinyl. Or DJ Pon3, or whatever she's calling herself these days. ...Man, that mare has a real problem with aliases."

"Yeah, I can go ask her if there's any way she could give me a ride."

"Great!" Silver stood up, and trotted briskly towards the door. "I'll see you in three weeks then!"

"No, Silver wait!" Twilight yelled after him. "Silver, we're not done talking about-" The door slammed shut, and Twilight let out a noise of frustration. She slid herself out of bed, ready to chase after him, but the cast was a larger hindrance than she expected. Instead of trotting towards the door, she instead slammed her face into the floorboards.

"Gnyah," Twilight moaned unintelligibly. She pried her lips from the painted wood and hobbled towards the door. The stairs proved a whole new challenge, but she eventually discovered that she could crab walk down them with only a minimum of difficulty.

By the time she arrived on the ground floor, Silver was gone. Twilight awkwardly clicked across the floor and pushed her head out the door. She glanced around the street, but Silver was nowhere to be seen.

"He's gone Dusk," came a voice from behind her. She turned to see Flurry placing a plate with three pancakes on it upon the counter. "You'll never catch him. Trust me, he can disappear in this part of town."

Twilight sighed and trotted over to the steaming plate, staring down at the patties for a moment before she dug in.

"Thanks for the advice on my recipe," Flurry said lightly, doing some sort of tidying up with the bottles that sat behind the bar. "It'll be nice not having to make a hundred pancakes every morning."

Twilight mm'd in agreement around her mouthful of pancakes.

"You know, you could have stayed and had a drink with Silver the night before last," the pegasus said, still facing away from the bar.

Twilight nearly choked on her pancakes, and Flurry placed a mug of water next to her. The purple mare took a careful sip from it, and finally managed to speak. "What?"

"He was just looking for someone to drink with. When you turned him down, he got a little depressed."

"He had you," Twilight protested.

Flurry scoffed. "Bartenders don't count. Everypony knows that." He turned to smile at her, and then went back to his chores. "Look, just... stay for one drink next time, okay? When he gets down, he always drinks too much cider. He needs a friend sometimes."

Twilight chewed her mouthful slowly. "What do you mean, too much cider?" she asked after she swallowed. "Like... he has to go to the bathroom?"

The bartender turned back towards her, face contorted into confusion. "What?"

"Besides, he can't be that interested in being my friend," Twilight muttered bitterly, ignoring the bartender's question. "He broke my leg," she said, waving the cast over the counter.

The look of confusion on Flurry's face was replaced by a thoughtful frown. "You think he did that because he doesn't like you?"

"Well... I'm not saying he hates me, but... I may not be an expert on friendship, but I'm pretty sure most people would agree that if you have to break a friends leg, you should give them some sort of anesthetic."

Flurry sighed, rearing up on his hind legs to lean over the counter. "Dusk, there's not a lot in this world that scares Silver. I've seen that pony get kicked, stabbed, slashed, frozen, electrocuted, blown up, and thrown through walls." He lifted a hoof and pointed at the wall behind Twilight.

The purple unicorn swiveled to see a patch in the wall that didn't quite fit. It was built of a slightly different color of wood, with the planks crossing at a right angle to the boards that made up the rest of the wall. "Did he get thrown through that wall?" she asked.

"No, he threw himself through that wall to avoid a spell," Silver replied. "Point is, one of the few things that does scare him is bad healing magic. I think it reminds him too much of himself."

Twilight turned back towards the pegasus. "Does he have some misaligned bone or something?"

"Nah, all his healing was done fine as far as i know. But I do know he's not as fast as he used to be."

Twilight snorted. "He's still plenty fast, trust me."

"No, he's not," Flurry insisted. "He just gives the illusion of being fast. He knows how to dodge, but in a footrace? Pretty sure you could beat him."

Twilight opened her mouth and then closed it again. She had beaten him in a footrace, sort of. The last time she'd been leaving town, he had chased after her but lagged behind.

"All those injuries, those broken bones and scars, they're taking their toll. He's slowing down and getting weaker, and he knows it."

"But you just said all his healing was done right!" Twilight pointed out. "What does that have to do with what happened to me?"

Flurry placed his hoof on the cast. "Because that misaligned bone would have a similar effect on you. He knew that one spell was going to do to you what thirty years of having the shite kicked out of him did to him. That scared him." Flurry took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh. "Apparently, it scared him enough that he burst into my bar with the bleeding body of a filly and yelled 'I need some place to put her!' at me."

Twilight winced. "Guessing you didn't do a lot of business that night."

"No, not after that," Flurry said with a smile, dropping back on to all four legs. "Everypony seemed to remember they had somewhere to be."

Twilight looked down at her plate, and discovered to her surprise that it was empty. "Okay, well... I should get going. I have to find a ride back to Po- back home."

A hoof reached over and swept the plate out from in front of Twilight. "Alright, see you in a couple weeks," Flurry said, carrying the plate into the back.

After a short goodbye, Twilight headed upstairs to get her things and then left for the arena, hoping to figure out where she could find the white unicorn with the electric blue mane that could give her a ride home.

Vinyl Scratch leaned back into the fabric of her carriage's seats. She mentally ran over her schedule for the next couple days. Manehatten, Canterlot, quick stop over in Hoofington, and then back to Fillydelphia. No problem.

"Ma'am?" came a voice from the front of the carriage.

"Call my Vinyl," the unicorn said automatically. She hated being called ma'am, especially since the carriage pullers she hired were often older then she was. "What is it?"

"There's a pony chasing the cart. She's shouting at us to stop."

Vinyl sat up, a look of confusion on her face. She leaned forward and craned her head out the window, twisting it to look back.

Her eyes fell on the form of a purple unicorn, desperately galloping after them. Her legs moved in a strange, off beat rhythm, thrown off by the cast that wrapped around one leg. As soon as she saw Vinyl's head, her mouth opened wide.

"Vinyl!" she shouted. "It's me! Dusk! Stop the cart!"

The white unicorn chuckled under her breath for a moment at the ungainly strides Twilight was forced into taking, but tapped her hoof on the wooden side. "Hey, hold up a minute," she told the ponies pulling the cart.

The cart slowly bounced to a halt, and Twilight caught up, huffing with exertion.

'What's up Dusk?" Vinyl asked with a hint of amusement, leaning over the edge of her window.

"Hey... hey Vinyl," Twilight panted. "So, I was wondering if you could give me a ride back to..." she glanced around. "Ponyville?" she whispered. She held up her cast and waved it back and forth. "Normally I'd teleport, but... yeah."

Vinyl grinned down at the awkward purple pony. "Hey, we got time to stop in Ponyville?" she asked the two ponies strapped to the cart.

They turned to each other, and talked in low voices. The one closer turned towards the unicorns after a moment. "Yeah, we should be able to pull that off ma'- Vinyl."

"Looks like yup," Vinyl said with a smile. "Hop in." She slid open the door to the carriage.

Twilight jumped up into the cart with a grunt of effort. "Thanks Vinyl."

"No problem." The white unicorn hooked a hoof through the window and pulled the door shut. "Alright, let's go!" she shouted, and the carriage trundled off down the street.

"So. Leg," Vinyl said, relaxing back against the seat across from Twilight. "Surprised to see you wearing a cast. From the way you walked across the arena, I thought you'd healed your own leg."

"I did, but... the bone was misaligned and my trainer re-broke it."

Vinyl laughed. "Wow. That must have sucked." She reached into a cabinet in the side panel and pulled out two bottles of water. "I guess you expect stuff like that when you're working with Silver though," she said, popping the top off one bottle and tossing the other to Twilight.

"What do you mean?" Twilight asked, twisting the lid off her own bottle and taking a sip.

"Well, hey, I don't hate the guy or anything," Vinyl said quickly. "I'm just saying, you know. Dude's got some problems."

Twilight stared back at the DJ. "...Leg breaking problems?"

"Well, no, I mean." Vinyl was starting to look flustered, her usually cool demeanor cracking at the edges. She slipped the cap back on the bottle. "Problems," she said, tipping the bottle near her mouth as if she was drinking from it.

Twilight just looked back with a blank face.

Vinyl coughed. "Uh, hon? Do you know what alcohol is?"

"Of course," Twilight answered. "Alcohol is any organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group is bound to a saturated carbon atom."

"Right... But I meant in the... recreational sense."

"Oh, some ponies drink certain forms of alcohol because they enjoy its debilitating...effects..." Twilight paused. "Is Silver a... drinking... pony?"

"Well, yeah. I thought you knew," Vinyl said, surprised.

"And you think... that maybe that's why he did what he did?" Twilight asked, the doubt rising in her own mind.

"Well, hey, I don't know," Vinyl backtracked. "I didn't mean to come between you two or anything."

"I don't want to talk about it." Twilight leaned over to the side, and stuck her head out the window. A moment later, she screamed and backpedaled away from the window, panting heavily.

Vinyl burst into laughter, the awkward tension shattered. "It's a pegasus carriage hon. How else did you think I was going to get you back to Ponyville today?" Her voice took on a note of concern. "Hey, you're not afraid of heights are you?"

"No, no." Twilight's breathing slowly returned to normal. "I was just surprised."

"Ah. Alright."

"I'm not, really!" Twilight insisted, heaving herself back onto the seat. "I've flown plenty of times! I even went to Cloudsdale once!"

"Sure you did," Vinyl said with a grin. "Drink your water."

"So where do you live?" Vinyl asked, leaning out the window as they descended over Ponyville.

Twilight squeezed past the other unicorn so she could look out the window at the same time. "Oh, at the lib- Actually, you can just drop me by the forest," she said, pointing over at the Everfree Forest.

"You live in a forest?" Vinyl asked.

"No, but I need to talk to somepony who does," Twilight replied.

"Sure, no problem," the DJ said. Her hoof rapped against the wood paneling, drawing the attention of one of the diving pegasi. "Hey, just by the forest, alright?"

The pegasus nodded, and relayed the information to his partner. The caravan tilted crazily as they homed in on the road that led into the Everfree.

After a bumpy landing (and a bit of grumbling from the pegasi about country roads) Twilight found herself on the edge of the Everfree, looking up at the unicorn that had given her a ride.

"Look, I know you said you didn't want to talk about Silver," Vinyl said, leaning out the window. "But I want you to check something out for me. Fillydelphian Times, sports section. About... 28 years ago. You'll know it when you see it."

"What? Vinyl, what happened?" Twilight asked.

The white unicorn said nothing, just gave a cheeky grin and rapped her hoof on the side of the compartment, which accelerated down the road.

"No, Vinyl, just tell me! What is it?" Twilight shouted, vainly trying to chase down the vehicle. After a few steps, her healing leg gave out underneath her, and she crashed to the ground. She lifted her head and glared after the DJ as she soared into the sky.

"Well if she didn't think it was worth telling me, it's not worth looking for," she muttered, getting her legs underneath her and turning back towards the Everfree. For a brief moment, she considered the wisdom of walking into the untamed forest with a broken leg. "The road to Zecora's is pretty safe though," she murmured, walking into the shadows.

Twilight quickly discovered that what was a even, safe path normally turned into a aggravating and hazardous mess of roots and holes with an immobile leg. She stumbled over a tree root that was normally a quickly hopped over obstacle, and finally found herself at Zecora's door.

Balancing on the cast, she rapped on the door with her other front leg. A moment later, the familiar voice of her zebra friend drifted through the door.

"Who could that be, at my door. Come on in, I implore."

Twilight reached out with her magic and opened the door, revealing the striped mare picking an herb from many on a shelf.

Zecora turned to face her visitor, dropping the chosen herb into her bubbling cauldron as she did so.

"Hello Twilight, when I saw you last, I do not believe you had a cast," Zecora said, gesturing towards the bandage around her leg.

"That's actually why I came to see you," Twilight said. "Or, part of it. I was wondering if you had anything for broken legs."

"Of course I do, friend of mine. I'll have that ready in no time." Zecora busied herself among her many bottles and plants.

"So I actually have another question for you," Twilight asked. "It has to do with... Well, it's really more about... I mean... remember that black eye? And my missing tooth?"

Zecora turned to look at her. "Twilight, just start from the beginning. I am certain you have not been sinning."

Twilight nodded, took a deep breath, and proceeded to tell Zecora about everything that had happened over the last few months.

"And now Vinyl's hinting at some weird secret or something and I don't know if I should look for it or even what I should be looking for and I don't know if I should trust him!" Twilight finished, out of breath and on the verge of tears. This was the first time she had told the entire story out loud (even Spike only knew bits and pieces) and it had been surprisingly emotionally draining.

"...Twilight not to disappoint, but I believe that I have missed your point."

It suddenly occurred to Twilight that one of the only things she had left out was the reason she had decided to tell Zecora in the first place. "Oh, right. I want to... hire you, I guess. As a healer. I make at least fifty bits a game, every three weeks."

Zecora stared at the purple pony for a few moments, her striped face unreadable for the unicorn. "Twenty percent is my taxation, and I will require transportation."

It took Twilight a few moments to decipher exactly what Zecora had said, but when she did, she was overwhelmed by relief. "Oh! Sure, twenty percent, that's fine. And... and I'll figure something out. I'll hire a pegasus carriage or something."

Zecora nodded with a smile and turned back to her bubbling cauldron, ladling out a dollop of the pea-green liquid. She poured it into a small wooden bowl, and passed the bowl to Twilight.

"This concoction will fix your bones, but the sensation may make you moan."

Twilight groaned, looked down at the bowl Zecora had given her, and then gulped it down. "I guess I should get used to this," she wretched.

"Spike, I'm home!" Twilight called into the quiet library.

"I'm in the back!" came the baby dragon's reply.

Twilight followed the sound of his voice to find her assistant filing a pile of books away into the archives. "How did it go?" he asked, not looking up from his work.

"Good." Twilight fidgeted in the door for a minute, considering her options. "Hey, Spike, do we have any copies of the Fillydelphian Times?" she finally blurted.

"Uhhh... I'll check the cards," Spike replied placing a book back on the stack and trotting over to the cabinet in the corner of the room. "Why?" he asked, pulling open the drawer marked 'F'.

"Just something that somepony mentioned I might want to look up," Twilight said vaguely.

Spike raised an eyelid at that, but didn't inquire further. "Uhh... no, doesn't look like," he announced after a few moments of flipping through the index cards. "You'd probably have to check a Fillydelphian library," he suggested.

"Hmph," Twilight grunted. "...Spike, contact the Fillydelphian Central Library and tell them I'm requesting all copies of the Fillydelphian Times from thirty-five years ago until twenty-five."

"...you want ten years worth of newspapers delivered?" Spike asked skeptically.

"Yes," Twilight said in a voice that invited no questions. "And if they are reluctant, remind them that I am the Princess's prize student, and that she would want me to have the best education possible."

"Twilight, are you sure this is a good idea?" Spike asked, already heading towards the door.

"Yes Spike. Yes I am."

Two weeks later, a set of crates arrived on the doorstep early in the morning, leaving Spike with a hefty number of forms to sign, and an even larger number of boxes to initial.

"My claw," he moaned, shaking the aching digits. "Twilight! Where do you want these?" he shouted up the stairs at the still dozing unicorn.

"Are those the newspapers?" asked Twilight, her tired eyes and scruffy mane appearing over the balcony. "Just put the in the back room," she ordered.

"Through here guys," Spike told the burly stallions, motioning to a smaller door in the back of the library. "Just put them anywhere."

"You've got these for three weeks, max," one of the ponies told Spike as the final crate was placed on the floor. "And they need to be returned in the same condition you're getting them."

"Yeah yeah," Spike replied. "I'll have them packed up again by then."

The stallion nodded and headed out the door without another word, followed by the other workers. As soon as the door closed, Twilight's head appeared around the bottom of the stairs.

"Are they gone?" she asked, her hair still sticking up in clumps.

"Yeah," Spike said carefully. "Twilight, I still don't know why you want these."

"I know," Twilight replied, pushing past him and into the back room. "I'm going to be in here for a while. Watch the library," she ordered, slamming the door shut.

Spike shook his head slowly. He knew what was happening. Twilight had found some new obsession. She would come out in a day or so with a piece of paper, yelling triumphantly. The only question was whether this was connected with battle magic, or if it was going to be replacing it.

Spike heard the door open behind him and turned to help the visitor. Either way, Twilight would work this out herself.

"Nothing," Twilight muttered casting aside yet another sports section onto the growing pile beside her. She pulled a newspaper from the third open crate and extracted the sports section with the ease of repetition. Her magic flipped through the pages as her eyes scanned for an appropriate headline.

When she found Silver's name, she stopped flipping and focused in on the story. She wasn't very optimistic though; Silver's wins and losses had apparently been a fairly popular subject back in his youth.

Something set this story out from the rest however. It was about the annual championships, the final round of which Silver was in.

Chimes Forfeits Final Match! the headline declared. "Forfeits..." Twilight murmured under her breath. Silver had lost a few matches, but she'd never seen him forfeit before. She scanned through the story with tired but curious eyes.

Her eyes slowly widened and her reading accelerated as she followed the story.

"I've found it!" she exclaimed as she burst out through the door, pulling a short scream from Spike's lips and causing him to drop the book he was carrying. "Spike, you can tell the Fillydelphian Library that they can come pick up their newspapers!" she continued, heading up the stairs.

Spike picked up the book and placed in it's place on a bookshelf before walking to the back room to check the damage. He groaned loudly as his eyes fell onto the scattered mess of paper on the floor of the book room. Repacking all of those was going to be no small job.

"Oh, and when are you making dinner?" Twilight yelled down from her bedroom. "I'm starving."

Chapter 8

Twilight entered the bar abruptly, the door swinging shut behind her as she spotted Silver sitting at his usual table. "Silver, we need to talk," she said, her voice ringing with a combination of anger and triumph. Her face slowly fell as she looked past her target to the twelve or so other ponies that filled the bar.

Silver coughed in the sudden silence. "Well, maybe we should do that somewhere more... private?" he asked quietly.

Twilight felt the hot sting of embarrassment rise in her cheeks. She nodded slightly, and walked up to the bar. Flurry's head emerged from under the wooden surface, clutching a key. He dropped it on the table and shot Twilight a friendly look.

The red-faced unicorn scooped up the key with her magic and headed towards the stairs. As she passed Silver's table, she heard a mug hit the table, before heavy hoofbeats traced after her.

She walked up to her usual room, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. A few seconds later, she heard the door close, and she spun to face Silver.

"Well you're certainly acting dramatic," he quipped. "What do we need to talk about?"

"I know what happened twenty-nine years ago," Twilight said.

Silver scratched behind his ear with one hoof. "..Okay," he finally said. "Good for you? I was around then, if you want to ask me something."

This was not how Twilight envisioned this conversation going. "Well what did happen?" she hazarded, not sure how to broach the subject now.

"Twenty-nine years ago? Uhhh... Not a lot that I know about. I think Fillydelphia got a new captain of the guard, but that might have been a few years later. Can you be a little more specific?"

"I'm talking about this!" Twilight said, exasperated, as she pulled a copy out of the newspaper clipping she had found. She passed to the Stallion, and he gave her a strange look before reading it.

Silver read the headline, and his face hardened into a sickly frown. He scanned the rest of the article quickly, letting out a long sigh through his nostrils. "Well this doesn't exactly paint me in a glowing light," he muttered darkly.

"You were the favorite to win the annual Battlemagic championship, and you missed the final match," Twilight told him. "Because you were drunk."

Silver rubbed his forehead with a hoof. "Yes, Twilight. I know. I was there."

"And now you're trying to relive your missed opportunity through me!"

"No."

"You could have at least - what?"

Silver sank back on to his haunches, and leaned his back against the door. "Twilight, did you look any farther than that?"

"N-no," Twilight stammered.

"I won the next year. And the one after. And five more, on and off."

Twilight stared blankly.

Silver crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it into a nearby trash can. "Life doesn't work like stories Twilight. Ponies don't just give up the moment they get set back. Well, some do, but I didn't." He watched the bin in silence for a few moments, and then blinked and turned back to Twilight. "You find a healer?" he asked.

"Oh... right, yes," Twilight murmured. She shook her head. "Yes, I did. I brought Zecora."

A look of frustration appeared on Silver's face. "Twilight, I told you not to bring her. You can't use healing magic in the arena."

Twilight opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Zecora's sing-song voice came through the wood. "Twilight, is this your room? The pegasus told me to assume."

"Come on in Zecora!" Twilight called out, and gave Silver a smug smile.

Silver pushed away from the door, frustrated. "Now we have to send her home," he hissed to Twilight, before he turned to the opening door. "Hello Ms. Zecora, I'm afraid Twilight has-" he stopped, his jaw freezing in an open position once he saw the bottle-laden zebra.

For a brief moment, Twilight worried that there was going to be a problem with Zecora. After all the issues she'd had in Ponyville... Fillydelphia was larger, but Zebra's weren't common anywhere in Equestria that she knew of.

"...you're a zebra," Silver said inanely.

"A zebra indeed, from my head to my feet," Zecora replied. "Now what exactly has Twilight done? I would like to sleep, as is the sun."

Silver opened his mouth and then paused. "...Why are you rhyming?"

Behind him, Twilight gasped.

Zecora raised an eyebrow. "Is this a joke? I am not rhyming. You have a strange sense of comedic timing."

Silver's mouth opened and closed desperately. He looked back at Twilight, but the purple mare just shrugged. "I... I have no response to that," he said finally.

"Well, I am going off to bed. My door is the one painted red," Zecora said, before turning and leaving.

Silver slowly turned to face Twilight. "...Why was she rhyming?" he asked quietly.

The mare let out a sudden burst of laughter. "I don't know! Nopony knows! We've never asked!" She took a moment to compose herself, and then spoke again, seriously. "Is her being a Zebra going to cause any problems?"

"What? No." Silver reconsidered. "Well, maybe. Not from me, but I can't speak for everyone at the arena. I'm fine with Zebras though. I actually spent a year or something in the Zebra lands."

"Really?" Twilight asked. "Why?"

"I got really lost," Silver deadpanned.

Twilight laughed. Silver didn't.

"...Wait, really?"

Silver nodded. "I had a bit too much to drink one night, and woke up on a trading ship. They were going by the Zebra lands, and booted me off as soon as they found out I was on board. Took me ten months to find my way back."

"Silver," Twilight began calmly. "If you're joking you need to tell me. I really can't tell."

"No comment," Silver said quickly, turning to leave. "See you tomorrow!"

"Silver, no, I - Silver!" Twilight yelled after the stallion, but it was too late. She groaned in frustration and pulled the crumpled piece of paper from the garbage. She re-read it angrily, and tossed it back in the garbage. "I have a bone to pick with a certain DJ," she muttered before storming off to bed.

Several blocks away, a pale blue stallion arrived home and made a beeline for his bedroom. He sat on the bed, and a small box was levitated out from under the mattress.

Out of the box came a few slips of paper, all but one of which were put back into the cardboard container. The stallion stared down at the writing on the piece of paper for a few, silent minutes. A copy of the newspaper article Twilight had found, but this one marred with red, angry pen strokes. His teeth gritted for a moment, and a small rip appeared at the top of the paper.

Silver sighed and stopped himself from ripping further. The paper was folded into four squares and put back into the box. “Could have been worse,” he muttered, before pushing the box back under the bed and plucking a framed picture from the bedside table.

A seafoam green unicorn in the picture frame was examined for a moment before it was flipped. The edge of an old instant photo peeked out from the crack in the back covering, and it was this photo that Silver pulled out with his magic. He stared at the picture silently.

“What was it, twenty five years ago?” he said, seemingly to no-one. “No...no, twenty four next May.” Another few minutes passed, the stallion lost in thought. When he finally came back to reality, he tucked the smaller, older and faded picture into the bottom corner of the framed picture. This close together, the similarity between the two mares was un-mistakable.

The picture floated back into its place on the table, along with its new addition. Silver lay down and rolled over on the mattress, facing away from the pictures as he tried to fall asleep.

Silver and Twilight returned from their day of training, Twilight coated in a light sheen of sweat. The stallion spotted a familiar zebra sitting at the bar, and patted the mare on the back.

"Hey, go get cleaned up. Usual time for the match. I'm going to talk to..." Silver rotated his hoof slowly in the zebra’s direction.

"Zecora," Twilight prompted.

"Zecora, thanks. Come down when you're ready," Silver finished.

As the purple unicorn headed for the stairs, Silver went to sit down next to the medic twilight had brought. "Hey, so you use herbs and stuff?"

Zecora looked over at him and nodded silently.

"So, uh... Nasikia afya njema kuwa ya wewe?" Silver asked hopefully.

The zebra recoiled slightly in surprise. "I am fine and full of vigor, but your question does not figure."

"Oh! Wait, no, I meant to ask if you were any good. You know, at healing," He grinned awkwardly. "Sorry, it's been a long time since I spoke Zebra."

Zecora smiled. "I can tell that by your accent; no offense, but it's rather inept."

"Ouch," Silver said, feigning insult. "Honestly though, are you any good?"

"To answer your inquiry, I can heal most injuries."

A drink plopped down in front of Silver, and he pulled it closer with one hoof while leaning towards the zebra. "Prove it," he said.

The zebra blinked once or twice, and a thoughtful look crept over face. "Well in my large collection of jars, I might have something to heal your scars," she suggested, gesturing towards his face.

It was Silver's turn to be surprised. "You could... get rid of my scars?" He turned to look at the mirror behind the bar. "Healing magic doesn't work on stuff that old..."

"I am not bound by the same limitations; I will go brew up some medications." She pushed back from the bar, already calling up the various mixtures in her head.

"No, no." Silver stopped her. "Thanks for the offer, but..." he paused, lining up the words in his throat. "These scars are important, you know? They're me."

Zecora nodded slowly. "Although my stripes have caused me woe, I would never let them go."

Silver chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it's kind of like that. Besides, nobody would recognize me without them."

"Well if that is not a proper test, I do not know what to suggest."

Silver shrugged. "You could heal my scars though?"

Zecora nodded.

"And I know you regrew Twilight's tooth. You fix her leg too?"

Another nod.

Silver lifted his mug in a toast and clunked it against Zecora's. "Then that's good enough for me!" He looked over the top of the zebra's head. "Ah, Twilight. Ready to go?"

"Yup!" Twilight said from the stairs. "Do you know who I'm fighting?"

"Guy called 'Patty'. Never heard of him before though, so you're going in blind." Silver grinned. "Good luck!"

"And facing Dusk Shine, he's here, he's there, where'd he go? The indescribable, undefinable, Patty!" came the usual booming voice of the announcer. Now that she knew what to listen for, Twilight could hear the edge of Vinyl's tones.

The door opposite the purple pony slid open, revealing a pony that Twilight found, contrary to Vinyl's claims, both describable and definable. A young stallion with a light grey coat and a cropped brown mane, thoroughly unremarkable.

Unremarkable, that is, until he vanished in a flash of yellow light.

Twilight blinked in surprise as she leaped into the ring. She'd never met another unicorn that could teleport. She twisted her neck around, trying desperately to find where he'd teleported to, but to no avail. He was nowhere to be found, and for a moment she thought he'd left the arena.

The truth hit her at the same moment as his hooves did. The impact on her side sent her sprawling, and the air shimmered for a moment in the direction she'd been hit from. Patty was invisible.

Twilight rolled onto her feet and let out a blast of force towards the former shimmer. The blow passed through the air without impact, and a hard disk cracked into the opposite side of her head.

The world blinked, and suddenly Twilight was lying on the ground with blood dripping over her left eye.

"3," the announcer yelled, countdown almost complete.

Twilight scrambled to her feet and looked wildly around, but the ring appeared empty.

"And she's up again!" came the booming voice, drawing a wince from Twilight as the sound twinged the inside of her battered skull.

Twilight brought what was left of her concentration to bear on her horn, feeling out with her magic in an attempt to find the other unicorn. Find him she did, as her magical sense found two hooves hurtling towards her face.

The blow sent her to the ground again, and before she could even attempt to move, another blow hit her stomach and winded her. The burning pain in her head and the dull constriction of her lungs mixed in her neck to create an new distinct and deeply unpleasant sensation.

Her mouth felt like it was full of gravel, and she spat onto the ground. She was dully surprised to see at least three whole white teeth hit the ground, along with a number of smaller fragments.

A cold pressure closed on her neck, and a soft voice emitted from the empty air. "Hey, you don't look so good. I don't really want to hit you again, so just forfeit, okay?" the voice said, genuine concern in every syllable.

Twilight gritted what was left of her teeth. She drew magic into her horn in a futile last attempt at resistance, but the power gathered maddeningly slowly.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," the voice said sadly, and a light grey hoof shimmered into visibility a moment before it slammed into Twilight's face and everything went black.

Twilight's eyes opened to a smeared view of colors. She blinked a few times, and each flutter of her eyelids felt like it took five minutes. The laborious effort paid off, and the fuzzy smears coalesced into a dark room along with Zecora and Silver.

"Hey, I think she's awake," Silver said quietly, nodding towards Twilight in her place on the bed. To Twilight, his voice sounded subtly wrong. Flat and distant.

"-" Twilight said, once again her throat refusing to form words. "...m'wake," she managed on the second try, wincing through the pain the effort caused.

"Shhhh," Zecora said, pausing momentarily in her hustling to press a hoof against Twilight's lips and press a bottle into her hooves.

Twilight drank the concoction without hesitation, and found it pleasantly thinner than most of Zecora's creations. In addition to fixing whatever was effecting her hearing (the clinks and bubbles of Zecora's tasks suddenly popping into focus) it also cleared and wet her throat. "What happened?" she whispered through her newly rejuvenated throat.

"You lost," Silver said bluntly. Not-unkindly, but bluntly. "Good time to get a healer, eh?"

"What? No," Twilight pushed downwards on the bed, lifting her body about an inch before collapsing back into the mattress. "No no no. I have to get back out there."

"Back out there?" Blues asked with a chuckle. "Twilight, there is no 'out there'. You're back at the inn, match is over, you lost." He shrugged. "It happens, don't worry about it."

"No, I-" Twilight drank another delivered potion, and paused in the argument while her teeth grew back. When they had, she ran her tongue around them and then started to speak again. "I can't have lost. I can't."

"Well, you did. Woah, hey, where are you going?" Silver said, reaching out to stop Twilight as she began to kick off the sheets.

"I can't. I can't have lost," Twilight repeated, murmuring the sentence like a mantra. Magic began to gather in her horn.

"No no no no no!" Silver said, leaping out to grab Twilight, but fell through empty space as the purple unicorn vanished.

"...Damnit," the stallion swore, and then looked up at the stunned Zecora. "You get everything into her?"

"Everything that I would title, as a potion that is vital."

Silver nodded and stood up from the ground with a small groan. "Alright, I'll go find her," he said, heading for the door.

"Alright, she's been to the arena, but after that the trail runs... cold," Silver said, stepping through the door of the Lopsided Pegasus to see a bar empty but for Flurry and Twilight. The unicorn mare was hunched over the bar, a mug of cider clutched in her hooves. Two more empty mugs sat beside, one on its side with a hint of amber liquid dripping from the lip.

Silver snorted angrily and pulled the mug away with a flow of red energy. "What, you think after a violent defeat is the right time to start drinking?" he asked, sitting down next to her loudly.

"...yesh," Twilight said stubbornly, her speech quiet and slurred.

The scarred pony's mouth closed into a hard line, and he turned on Flurry. "Why would you serve her at a time like this?" he asked.

"That's non-alcoholic," Flurry said, gesturing at the mug. "I've still got a barrel of the Flim-Flam stuff in the back, so I've been giving her that."

Twilight looked up from the bar, a hurt look on her face. "Traitor," she hissed, the slur now absent. "I'm not paying for those."

Flurry shrugged at her, and turned into the back room.

Silver sniffed at the half full mug, took a sip, and then made a sour face. "Blech. What’s the point?" he asked rhetorically, and then looked over at the purple unicorn. "...how ya doing?"

Twilight crossed her forelegs on the bar and buried her face in the purple fur. A low groan drifted out from the hidden face.

"Hey, c'mon," Silver said, and poked at her side with a hoof.

Twilight grunted from the impact on one of her many bruises, and brought up her head to glare at Silver angrily. "What!?"

"Okay, so you lost," Silver said, leaning away from the incensed mare. "You lost bad. So what? It happens. Everypony loses sometimes."

"I don't," Twilight grumbled, resting her chin on her legs again, staring across the bar at the large mirror on the other side. "If I can lose at magic, what's the point of this?" she asked quietly, wiggling her hips against the stool to indicate her cutie mark.

"Ohhhhh." Silver glanced down momentarily at the young mare's flank, and then brought his gaze back up to her face. "I get it now. I see what's happening."

"Tell me then. I'd love to know," Twilight growled back.

Silver shuffled closer to Twilight, and placed a forehoof around her shoulders. "You've never lost before, have you Twilight?"

"Yeah, I-" Twilight glanced at his hanging hoof with a quizzical look, and Silver gingerly removed it from her neck. "Of course I've lost. I lost a race in Ponyville just last year. I was fine."

"Okay, sure, but you've never lost anything you CARED about."

"I tried my best in that race!" Twilight said, sudden heat in her voice.

Silver exhaled heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "No, that's... I mean something you thought you were good at. You've never lost anything about magic." The stallion looked up. "Am I right?"

"W-well... well..." Twilight stammered. "I guess not."

"And now you lost, and you don't know how to deal with it. I've seen it happen before. Course, most ponies don't get as far as you do without losing, but the older the pony is the worse the recoil." Silver took another sip from the mug, and made another face of distaste. "I once saw this colt lose a spelling bee for the first time, and he just shut down. They had to drag him off the stage."

Twilight sniffed. "...did it ever happen to you?"

"Oh, yeah," Silver said casually. "When I was a kid, I was always the fastest runner in my class. Then, one day, I lost a race at a track meet to some kid from across town."

"What'd you do?"

"I started crying, and my mom picked me up and took for ice cream. So I forgot about it," Silver said. He noted the look Twilight was giving him. "I was six, Twilight. We can't all be as special as you."

"But that's the point!" Twilight wailed. "If I can lose, if I'm not the best at magic, then what does my Cutie Mark even mean? What does any of it mean?"

"Ooooookay." Silver drained the last of the mug, and levitated it under the tap Flurry usually filled his mugs from. "I'm going to tell you a little story, Twilight." He glanced at the swinging door that lead to the back, and pulled the lever to fill his mug. "Did I ever tell you about my Cutie Mark?" he asked, tilting the mug to reduce the head before pulling it back in front of him.

"No..." Twilight leaned back, trying to get a look at Silver's flank. "Silver, there... there's nothing there. Just scars."

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I don't really have it anymore."

"What happened?" Twilight asked, finding the twisted mass of flesh where a ponies most distinguishing mark should be oddly disturbing.

"Not important. Not what the story’s about," Silver said, waving away her questions. "Okay, so, I told you that my parents wanted to be a musician. They tried me on every instrument they could think of, chimes, drums, violin, everything. I was bad at some of them, and alright at others, but I didn't have the knack for any in particular."

He took a deep sip from his fresh mug. "So we were going on and on, my parents choosing other instruments, me failing at playing them, over and over. I was the almost the oldest kid in my class without a mark, and I started to worry I'd never find my talent. So one day I'm on my way home from school, and I find this little hurt squirrel. Broken leg or something, I don't know. And it made me so sad to see it lying there, and I just wanted it to get up and run around, and I felt my horn light up, and..." he shrugged. "It did."

"You healed it?" Twilight asked.

"Yup. Thing ran away like there was nothing wrong. Happiest little squirrel in the world. And I was the happiest little colt in the world once I spotted the red cross on my flank." Silver looked down at his mug, and began to play with it thoughtfully, turning it in his hooves. "My parents wanted a musician, but a doctor would do just fine. They started planning out everything for me, where I'd go to school, for how long, where I'd work. I even had a place at the medical division of Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns." He took a long drink from his mug, and then stared down into the amber liquid.

"...And?" Twilight prompted.

Silver jerked in surprise and looked up at the purple unicorn. "Huh? Oh, right. I freaked out. Ran away. Ended up here, in Fillydelphia. I was like thirteen, you understand. No idea what I was doing, I just knew I didn't want to go home." Another drink from the mug. "Did a few odd jobs for money, not all of them entirely legal. Long story short, I ended up doing the farthest thing from healing magic that I could find." He grinned. "Battle magic."

"And then what happened?" Twilight asked, interested in the story despite herself.

"Uh... that's pretty much it. I went back and talked to me parents eventually, and we get along fine now, but I've been doing battle magic ever since."

Twilight considered the story. "Silver... what was the point of that story?" she asked carefully.

Silver opened his mouth, and then closed it. "I... don't remember. What were we talking about?"

"My Cutie Mark."

"Oh! Right!" Silver said with a wide smile. "Okay, the point is, your Cutie Mark doesn't define you. I chose not to follow mine, and if you want to be the best at magic, you're going to have to work at it. Sure, you've got a better chance than anypony else, but that doesn't mean you'll always win, and it doesn't mean you don't have to practice."

"So... I lost, and you told me a story with the moral that my Cutie Mark doesn't really mean anything and the only reason I lost is I'm lazy and didn't practice enough," Twilight stated flatly.

"Ahhh... Hm." Silver thought for a second. "It doesn't sound quite so inspiring when you say it like that."

"No," Twilight deadpanned. "But you actually did make me feel a little better somehow, so... good enough, I guess."

"Really?" Silver asked. "Great. Zecora's got some more potions for the bruises, and then you should get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

Twilight stood up from her seat and started towards the stairs, but stopped and turned. "Silver... what happened to your Cutie Mark?"

The blue stallion turned to look at her with his good eye, considering her face carefully. "You're not going to give up on this one, are you?"

Twilight shook her head, and sat back down at the bar.

Silver swallowed and wetted his lips before speaking, a thoughtful look on his face. "I... it was one of my first serious fights. Real asshole by the name of Blaze. He beat me, and then... there weren't as many rules back then. He decided to teach me a lesson." Silver rubbed at the scars, the long healed areas suddenly itching.

A lump rose in Twilight's throat. "...fire?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah Twilight," Silver said, his voice ice cold. "Fire."

"What... where's Blaze now?"

Silver took a long drink from his mug. The sound as it hit the table reverberated around the bar.

"He's dead, Twilight."

A Short Intermission With Spike

"This is soooooo boring," Rainbow Dash moaned, rolling on to her back and kicking her legs. The bush she was lying in rustled with the movement of her legs. "I need to fly."

"Dashie, shhhh!" Pinkie said from the bush next to her. "She'll hear you!"

"Ah think she'll probably see you first," Applejack pointed out, also crouched in the bush. "I mean, no offense Pinkie, but..."

"What!?" Pinkie said, indignant. "I'm wearing camouflage!"

Pinkie was indeed wearing camouflage, made specifically to hide in the bush opposite the library. It was detailed, painted in a near-professional pattern, and bright pink. When it had been pointed out to her that this probably would not mesh well with the green bush, she had thoroughly considered it, and then painted the bush bright pink. While the result was not what would be called stealthy, the four other ponies with her had to admit she was difficult to pick out from the fluorescent foliage.

"Yes, do you have any idea when Twilight is supposed to be leaving?" Rarity asked. She had refused to enter the bush with the others, and leaned against a nearby wall. "We've been waiting for over an hour."

Rainbow Dash sat straight up. "Uh-oh. An hour?" Her wings buzzed into action, and she lifted from the bush, hovering a few feet overhead. "I gotta go. I'll be back later,"

"Dashie!" Pinkie whined. "You can't go! You're supposed to follow Twi when she leaves!"

"Sorry Pinks. I gotta go redirect a cold front, unless you want winter to come three months early." With that, the pegasus zoomed towards the north, a rainbow trail behind her.

"Ah should go too," Applejack said, standing up. "There's things on the farm that need doing."

"If you figure out where she's been going, come and tell me, will you darling?" Rarity said with a smile, walking away next to the earth pony.

Pinkie frowned. "Well, at least I've still got you-" she said, turning only to find that Fluttershy had vanished at some point in the last ten minutes. "Well fine!" Pinkie said in a huff. "I'll just keep watch all by myself!"

"Alright, remember to pick up Zecora," Spike said, ushering Twilight to the carriage that had landed in front of the library.

"I will Spike," Twilight said, exasperated. "I'm not going to forget; she's the whole reason I hired the carriage."

Spike through up his hands. "Alright, alright, sorry." He paused on the path, and leaned over to look past the pegasus carriage. "...Why is that bush pink?" he asked.

Twilight trotted over to follow his gaze. "I... don't know." She squinted. "Is Pinkie sleeping in it?"

"Oh. Well, that explains it," Spike said, dismissing the issue. "Alright, I'll see you in a few days. And uh..." Spike paused and and rubbed one scaly arm bashfully. "Be careful."

"I always am," Twilight smiled back before banging on the side of the carriage. "Alright, ready to go!"

The pegasus in front snorted and galloped away, taking off once they'd gathered a little speed. Spike spared one more look for the pink shrubbery, shrugged, and went back inside.

Pinkie woke up from her nap to the sound of trotting hooves and flapping wings. She pried open sleepy eyes and saw the carriage lifting into the air. "DASHIE!" she yelled in a hoarse whisper. "THE CARRIAGE IS-" she turned, and found the spot next to her full of greenery and nothing else.

Her face fell. "Aww..." she whispered, and looked up at the receding carriage. She looked back down at the library, and spotted a scaly tail slipping in through the door. An evil grin slipped across her face, and she twisted a leaf in front of her face as if it was a mustache.

"Yyyes... time for plan B," she whispered, and then vanished in a pink blur.

Spike opened the door and stepped out backwards, pulling the broom after him. He swept the accumulated pile of dust into the yard, and turned away from the library for a quick breather. The bush directly across was still pink, but he couldn't spot the outline of a pony nesting in it anymore. More interesting was the sparkle his sharp eyes noticed on the road nearby.

He leaned the broom against the door jamb and trotted over to the glimmer. He picked up the source to find it was a small shard of sapphire. Spike glanced around the road, but there was nopony in sight. He shrugged and popped the morsel in his mouth.

He was about to head back to the library, when another sparkle caught his eye. He trotted even farther from the library, and found a ruby shard. He threw that into his mouth, and looked around for a another.

He was not disappointing. Shard after shard made themselves known, and he followed the road away from the library and into town. The trail of gems wound through the streets, and Spike only realized where it had lead him when he stepped through the front door of Sugarcube Corner.

On the counter, as if it had been placed for him, was a sapphire cupcake. Light glinted off the many gems placed in frosting, and for a moment Spike felt as if a spotlight had been aimed at the treat.

It took him a moment longer to realize that it in fact had been. Most of the lights in the bakery were off, and somepony had arranged a lamp so that it was in fact shining a pool of light directly on the cupcake.

Spike was not generally paranoid, but something about this felt off. "Is anypony there?" he asked, addressing the dark corners of the room.

"No," came the reply. The voice was raspy, but somehow familiar.

"Pinkie?"

"What? No-" Pinkie said in her regular bright voice before she caught herself. "No," she continued in the disguised rasp. "I'm not Pinkie. Who's Pinkie? Eat the cupcake."

Spike opened his mouth to respond, but paused. Pinkie was Pinkie, there wasn't much point asking questions. He shrugged and walked over to the counter. After inspecting the plate for tripwires and the ceiling for nets, he took the confectionery off the table. It only took him two bites to eat, his lizard jaw unhinging wider than the average pony's.

"How was it?" Pinkie asked from the shadows, still speaking in growls.

"Really good," Spike answered, licking frosting off his claws. "Thanks Pink-" he started, and then collapsed onto the floor.

Pinkie stepped out of the shadows. Her hair lay down in straight lines, unlike its usual puffs, and she smiled sinisterly. "Yyyyesss... yyyesss... All according to plan," she whispered. "Soon I will have your secrets."

Spike awoke groggily, eyes opening to reveal a bright light directly in front of his face. He closed them again and instinctively tried to bring up his claws to cover his face, but found them immobile. He squinted down at his wrists, and saw lines of rope bounding his claws to the arms of the chair he sat in.

Pinkie stepped out of the darkness, her hair hanging over her eyes. "Hello Spike," she said quietly.

"Pinkie?" Spike asked, blinking in surprise at the sight of her straight hair. The last time he'd seen her straight hair, it had been after he told her that nopony liked her. He had gotten yelled at for that. "Did you... drug me?"

Pinkie giggled. "Just a little." She grabbed the lamp shining into Spike's eyes, and brought it even closer. The baby dragon shied away from the burning light. "Now you're going to answer some questions for me."

"L-like what?" Spike stuttered.

"Where's Twilight going every couple of weeks? What's she up to?" Pinkie asked loudly. "What's her angel!?"

"I can't tell- did you just say 'what's her angel'?" Spike asked. "Did you mean angle?"

"...Maybe!" Pinkie yelled back.

"Pinkie?" The basement door opened, shining a slice of light across the room and letting Mrs Cake's voice in. "Do you have friends down there?"

"Just Spike!" Pinkie called back up. "I'm interrogating him!"

"Alright," Mrs Cake said, unfazed. "Your hair's down dear, are you feeling alright?"

"Oh! Yes." Pinkie shook her head violently, and pink curls returned with a loud 'poomph'. "I just took a shower."

"Well, I'm going to need your help up here soon, so..."

Spike stopped listening to the conversation when he felt something furry climbing up his tail. He craned his neck back to spot Angel the bunny on his shoulder. "Oh... hey," Spike said. He hadn't trusted the small white creature since he'd spent a day cleaning up after his antics. "Here to laugh at me?"

The rabbit shook its head and hopped down to his wrist. With a few swift bites, the ropes binding Spike's left arm were severed. The claws on the dragon's left arm made short work of the rope on the right arm, and he was free.

"BUT I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INTERROGATION!" Pinkie was yelling up the stairs.

Spike shook his head and looked for another way out. An open basement window sat above him, and his former seat would make a perfect ladder. In a few moments, he was back out in the sunlight.

"Alright, well... thanks," Spike said to the small bunny. He started to walk away, but then felt a hammering on his ankle. He turned and looked down to see the Angel pounding his hind foot against Spike's leg.

Angel stopped and pointed at the ground, indicating Spike shouldn't move, and then ran off around the corner.

A few moments later, Spike heard a familiar voice drifting around the corner. "Oh, I don't know," the voice said. "I don't want to bother him... I should wait to ask."

Spike walked over and looked around the corner. "Fluttershy?" he asked. "Did you want to ask me something?"

"Oh... no," Fluttershy said, looking at the ground. Angel looked back up at her, anger on his tiny face. "I mean yes."

"Okay... but if it's about where Twilight's been going, I promised I wouldn't say anything."

"Oh, okay. Sorry to bother you." Fluttershy started to turn away, but a sudden tug on her long pink hair forced her face back towards him. "Oh, right... I was supposed to say that you had to tell me, because I saved you from Pinkie."

"Who told you to say that?" Spike asked, confused.

"Pinkie. She said it's part of her master plan," Fluttershy answered, Angel's desperate negative motions going unnoticed until after she had said the name. "Oh... I don't think I was supposed to tell you that part..."

Spike slapped one claw over his scaled face. "This is going to be a bad day..."

The path back to the library was surprisingly long. Spike hadn't remembered walking that far, but apparently he'd been wrapped up in his gem hunting enough to not notice. The trail led him past Rarity's boutique, and Spike was able to spare a few moments to watch the building, as always.

However, today, he was spotted. Rarity's head popped out of the front window. "Oh Spiii-iiike!" she called. "May I borrow you for a moment?"

"Of course Rarity!" Spike scampered up the front path, eager to assist the unicorn in any way he could. "What can I do for you?"

"I just need a favor," Rarity said. "Come in, the door's open." She disappeared back into the window and the curtains closed after her.

Spike took a deep breath and smoothed the spines on his head down. The rigid scales immediately sprung back up again of course, but the simple act helped him calm down. He opened the door. "Well, Rarity, what can I-"

The room Spike stepped into was not the room he expected. Rarity's boutique was usually open, bright, and airy. The room he stepped into, while clearly the same physical place, could not be more different. Curtains over the windows blocked all but the smallest trace of sunlight from entering, but for some reason Rarity had not lit a single lamp. As a result, the room was dark and smouldering with a heat even Spike could feel.

"Is your radiator brok-" he started, and then nearly bit his tongue as the door slammed behind him. He spun in place, and picked out Rarity's outline as his eyes adjusted to the dark. "Is everything okay?"

"We're friends, aren't we Spike?" Rarity asked, stepping towards him with a faintly predatory smile.

Spike sighed. "Is this part of Pinkie's 'master plan'?" he asked. "I promised I wouldn't-"

Rarity interrupted him by placing a hoof on his forehead and forcing him back onto his tail. "Answer the question Spike," she ordered.

"I-yes. Of course. Sorry," he stuttered.

"And friends are honest with each other, aren't they?" she prompted, stepping even closer. "Especially when they're as close as we are."

"I-I-I..." Spike's head felt like it was filling with pink fog. He couldn't remember what he had just been saying. "Yes," he finally managed to answer.

"So where's Twilight been going?" Rarity asked. "I've been so curious," she pouted.

A little voice in the back of his head was finally silenced, drowned out by the rest of his mind. When he had promised not to tell, surely Twilight hadn't meant Rarity. How could she have? "She's been doing-"

"Incoming!"

The spines on the side of Spike's head perked up. "Did you just hear something?"

"No," Rarity said, annoyance tainting her sugar-sweet tones. "Now, what were you saying?"

"It sounded like somepony yelling 'incoming'," Spike murmured.

"Spike, it doesn't- incoming? Incoming!?" Rarity fairly shrieked. She leaped away from Spike, allowing him to get back up on his stubby legs. "Rainbow Dash, don't you do it! Don't you dare!" the white mare was screaming, seemingly at the walls.

A moment later, the quiet darkness of the room was broken with a burst of sunlight and the sound of shattering glass. A rainbow blur rocketed in through a window, jet stream ripping the curtains from the walls. A shower of broken glass rained down on the two in the room, and they both shied away and covered their faces.

As Spike was bringing his claws back down from the reflexive action, he felt a pair of hooves hook under his armpits. Before he had a chance to protest, the legs lifted him off the ground and carried him towards the towards a window on the opposite side of the room.

Another shattered pane of glass later, and Spike found himself accelerating up into the sky. Rarity's berating voice was left behind in a matter of seconds, leaving only the whistling of the wind.

"Hey Spike," a familiar voice said from behind his left ear. "How's things?"

"Let me guess," Spike answered wearily. "I'm supposed to tell you where Twilight's been going, and it's all part of Pinkie's master plan."

"Nah, this is a whole other thing I've got going on," Rainbow Dash replied, still flying nearly vertically with the baby dragon. "Pinkie wouldn't let me be in her plan. Said I was 'unstable' and 'unpredictable'. Hmph. Like she's one to talk."

"Oh." Spike paused. "Then why did you save me from Rarity?"

"Save you?" Dash asked. "What was she doing to you?"

"Well if you're not trying to find out about Twilight, and you weren't trying to save me, why did you grab me!?" Spike asked, exasperated. "...And why are we going up so high?" He had suddenly become aware that it was noticeably cold this high up, and he was breathing heavily.

Rainbow Dash finally stopped their ascent, and flipped Spike around to face her. Her wings flapped lazily, holding them both in an easy hover. "Oh, sorry. I am trying to find out about Twilight. I'm just not part of Pinkie's thing." She grinned. "You want to tell me?"

"No."

The grin only became wider. "Alright." She pulled him in close for a moment so she could gesture sweepingly with one hoof. "Welcome, Spike, to the upper atmosphere! About three and a half miles straight up."

Dots began to swim in front of Spike's eyes. "Rainbow... Rainbow I can't breath," he panted.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, sorry. I spend so much time up here, I forgot that there's not really enough air for you non-flyers."

"I want... to go... back down..." Spike said, barely managing to squeeze out the words.

"Well, see, thing about that is, I'm fine up here. Don't really have a reason to go back down. Course, if I were to learn something shocking, like, say, what's up with Twilight, then I'd have a reason to head back down to the ground."

"I'll... pass out... first..." Spike pointed out. "Then you'll have... to take me down..."

"True, true," Rainbow Dash admitted. "Of course, the other thing is, even I'm not totally used to this altitude. Heck, my legs might just... give out at any moment, and down you'd go."

Spike narrowed his eyes, glaring past the swimming dots at the pegasus's grinning face. "You wouldn't da-"

Rainbow Dash dropped him.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRE!" Spike screamed as he plummeted towards the ground.

The ripping winds tore the sound of his own screams from Spike's ears and forced his eyes closed. With both sight and sound taken from him, and nothing but air to touch, he was left with no sensation but an incredible feeling of speed.

"HEY LITTLE BUDDY, HOW YA FEELING?" a voice screamed from beside him.

Spike jerked his head to the side and forced his eyes open. Rainbow Dash was free-falling calmly beside him, wings folded at her sides, and inexplicable pair of sunglasses placed on her nose.

"RAINBOW PLEASE OH NO PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME!" Spike gibbered in terror.

Rainbow Dash reached up (or was it down?) with one hoof and adjusted the glasses on her muzzle to expose her eyes. "WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME?"

"ANYTHING!" Spike screamed. "I'LL TELL YOU ANYTHING! EVERYTHING I KNOW!"

Rainbow considered the offer. "PROMISE?" she asked.

"YES!!"

"...DEAL!" Rainbow spun towards Spike and grabbed him in her hooves. Her wings flared, sending the pair into a long, shallow curve until their speed dissipated and Rainbow returned to an easy hover.

Spike panted, desperately trying to catch his breath. When felt that he could speak again, he turned up to face the pegasus. "You... you wouldn't have really let me fall, would you?"

"Nah. Twilight'd kill me," Rainbow Dash answered breezily. "Besides, I'm getting kinda fond of you myself." Her face hardened. "Of course, I'll be a lot less fond of you if you back out on our deal."

Spike flinched and glanced down at the ground, still over a mile away by his estimation. He sighed. "Alright, so, here's the thing about Twilight-"

"Hey, look at that!"

Rainbow craned her neck to check behind her. "Look at what?" she asked.

Spike felt a second pair of hooves slip under his arms and lift him out of Rainbow's grasp. By the time Rainbow looked back around, he and his savior were a hundred feet down and accelerating.

Spike felt the hooves release him, and he slowly spun in midair to find a familiar pair of baby-blue eyes. "Oh, hey Pinkie," he said. "Umm... how did you get up here?"

"Trampoline!" Pinkie said, spreadeagled and horizontal with her pink mane streaming up behind her.

"Is... that your plan for getting us back down?" Spike asked, looking down at the black speck far below them that he presumed was the trampoline.

Pinkie shook her head. "No, silly! Gravity gets us back down!" She giggled. "The trampoline keeps us from dying!"

Spike considered the possibility. He knew a fall from this height would shatter a trampoline like matchsticks. However, he also knew that the rules of physics Twilight had so studiously taught him tended to bend in Pinkie's presence.

"Last one down's a splattered egg!" Pinkie cried joyously, before clapping her hooves to her side, tilting into a dive, and accelerating past Spike.

The dragon shrugged, copied her movement, and shot after her. He only managed to catch up when they were considerably closer to the ground and she spread her legs again to slow down.

Spike shot out his limbs to slow to her speed, and ended up face-to-face with a pair of aviator goggles.

"This is your captain speaking," Pinkie said, somehow introducing a static-y crackle into her voice. "We're coming in for a landing, so please, set your seats into the full upright position, keep all arms and legs inside the ride, and watch for the closing doors. Bing-boom!"

The trampoline rose up to meet them, faster than Spike could have thought possible. Pinkie's height allowed her to land first, pulling the elastic into a deep cone. It was only when Spike landed on the side of this cone that both realized the flaw in Pinkie's plan.

When the pink pony shot straight back up, the purple dragon rocketed off at a forty-five degree angle, arcing through the air in a perfect parabola.

Pinkie placed one hoof over her eyes, watching the lizard's trajectory. She had just managed to reach both a conclusion about Spike's destination and the apex of her own flight when Rainbow caught her from behind.

"Hey, Pinkie, that was not-"

"To Sweet Apple Acres Dashie!" Pinkie interrupted. "And step on it!"

CRACK!

Applejack's hooves slammed into the tree behind her, and an assortment of apples fell into the baskets placed on the ground. She trotted over to the next tree, raised her back hooves, and...

CRACK!

Her ears perked up. The apples were cascading down to the ground, but she hadn't kicked out this time. The farmer pony turned to find a scaled purple head sticking out through the splintered trunk of the apple tree behind her.

"Spike?" she asked, trotting around the trunk to see a pair of clawed feet sticking out the other side. "Now how in the hay did ya manage this?" she asked, scratching her head.

"Twilight's a secret," Spike mumbled, eyes unfocused. "You won't get anything out of me with your fancy tree torture."

"I don't want nothin' from ya," Applejack said, rising up onto her back hooves and placing the front two against Spike's scaled rump. "Alright, this might hurt for a sec."

She pushed as hard as she could, and Spike slid free of the wooden prison with a soft scraping sound. He tumbled out the other side of the trunk and landed on his back, staring up at the sky.

"There he is!" a voice yelled from above the treeline, and Rainbow Dash and Pinkie flew down through the branches. The pegasus deposited the earth pony on the ground, and then landed herself.

"Hey AJ," Rainbow Dash said cheerfully.

"Rainbow, this is your doing, isn't it?" Applejack glowered, gesturing to Spike, and then the hole in her apple tree.

"Hey, don't blame me!" Rainbow Dash answered indignantly. "Pinkie's the one who set up the trampoline, I just dropped Spike from a couple miles up."

Applejack's expression only became darker.

"What!? I caught him!"

"It really isn't fair to blame Rainbow Dash," said Rarity, approaching through the trees along with Fluttershy. "It was all Pinkie's plan. Well, up until the entire... tree situation."

"I wasn't part of Pinkie's plan," Rainbow Dash answered. "She said I couldn't be in it, and told me to go home!" She glared at the pink pony.

"Yes, and you reacted exactly as Pinkie said you would," Rarity said with a smile. "Although she didn't mention anything about broken windows."

"Sorry Dashie, but I needed you to save Spike from Rarity, so I could save him from you!" Pinkie said. "Just like Fluttershy saved him from me after I drugged him!"

"You what!?" Applejack interrupted. She looked from pony to pony. "This is about Twilight, ain't it. Have ya'll been tormenting poor Spike all day?"

"...Maybe," Pinkie answered.

"Sort of..." Fluttershy whispered.

"I wouldn't use the word 'tormenting'," Rarity said.

"Pretty much, yeah," said Rainbow Dash.

Applejack sighed and trotted over to Spike's prone form. "You alright hon?" she asked.

Spike sat up slowly, cradling his head in his claws. "I think so..." he grumbled. "My head hurts though."

"Ain't surprising. Might want to go see Zecora when you can," she sat down to get a little closer to Spike's level. "Alright, now, Spike. We know something strange is going with Twilight."

"I Pinkie promised I wouldn't-" Spike began to protest.

Applejack raised a hoof to silence him. "Let me finish. We're her friends, and we're just worried about her. But we respect her privacy, so if you can look me in the eyes, and tell me it's nothin' she needs our help with, and she knows what she's doing, we'll leave the both of you alone." She turned. "Ain't that right girls?"

"You Pinkie promised? Why didn't you just say so?" Pinkie asked.

"...That's what I said..." Fluttershy breathed.

"I suppose I can suppress my curiosity," Rarity said.

"Nope," Rainbow answered. She glanced around at the glares leveled at her, and rolled her eyes. "Oh, alright. Fine."

Spike breathed heavily, and winced as pain sliced through his skull. "She's... not in trouble, or anything. She said she'll tell you all eventually."

"Well that's good enough for me," Applejack said, answered by a chorus of positive answers. "See Spike? Everything's fine."

"Thanks Big Mac," Spike mumbled. "But it's really Applejack I should talk to." He wiped one claw across his nose, and it came away red with blood. "I'm leaking strawberry..." he said, confused.

Applejack whistled. "Alright, time for the hospital."

Chapter 10

Twilight stared at the blue stallion with wide eyes. A bolt of fear ripped through her heart. Even when she first saw Silver, even when he broke her leg, she hadn't felt the same level of terror. When he had yelled at her, at least his voice had had some warmth to it, even if it was a furious heat. The tone he proclaimed Blaze dead in was so different. So cold and distant.

Noting her silence, Silver turned to look at the seated mare. Underneath the curiosity in his eyes, Twilight could see the same terrifying detachment.

What could she have expected from a pony who had been exposed to that level of violence for over thirty years? How much respect could he have for life after having it slowly beaten out of him over the course of decades? How many died in the arena? How many breathed their last on that sandy floor, teeth scattered and blood splattered?

"You... killed him?" Twilight asked, just barely forcing herself to make the sentence into a question rather than a statement.

"What!?" Silver asked, shocked. The ice fled from his eyes, replaced by confusion and disgust. "No, I could never- He died of natural causes. Some... kidney thing. Surrounded by his wife and kids."

"Oh." Twilight started breathing again. "...Good."

"Twilight, what we do is... it's not about death, or even violence, it's about skill and... I could never..." Silver said, clearly flustered by the implication. "Death is... a big... thing, and..." He paused, and took a slow breath before continuing.

"Twilight, Blaze was a real bastard, and I'm not going to pretend I shed a single tear over his death. But I would never have killed him. I would never kill anyone. That's something you can't take back." He paused, and Twilight could almost hear the gears in his head turning as he lined up his words. "And when you step out into that ring, your first job isn't to win. It's to make sure nobody - you or your opponent - die. Even your friend Zecora can't fix that."

An awkward silence ensued.

"Okay, well. I'm going to go to bed," Twilight finally said.

"Yeah. Good idea," Silver replied.

"Don't drink too much," Twilight said, and then winced at her own words. "I mean- I didn't-"

"No, no, you're right," Silver said. "I should go to bed too." He pushed aside the mug. "You'll be back in three weeks?"

"Umm..." Twilight considered her answer. She had honestly thought about quitting tonight. "Yes," she found herself saying. "I'll be back."

"Glad to hear it. You have a way for you and Zecora to get home?"

Twilight nodded, heading towards the stairs. "I rented a carriage."

"Expensive," Silver commented, standing up from his stool.

"I guess," Twilight answered with a shrug before disappearing up the staircase.

Silver took a few steps towards the door, paused, and turned back to the bar. The empty mug standing on the bar glowed with magic, and moved to hover underneath the tap again. The handle of the tap itself began to glow, and a stream of dark liquid began to flow into the mug.

Just as the mug was full and the stream had turned into a trickle, Flurry stepped back out of the kitchen. "Everything alright Sil-" He paused, glanced down at the floating mug, and then looked back up at Silver Chimes.

The two stallions locked eyes for a moment.

"SURPRISE!" Silver shouted, and the mug jerked towards Flurry's face, drenching the pegasus in cider. The older unicorn was out the door before the mug clattered to the floor.

Flurry snorted and flipped his wet mane out of his eyes. "Swear to Luna, Silver..." he muttered.

Twilight dropped Zecora outside the forest and decided to walk home herself. It was a sunny day, and although the loss had left her a little sore (not only physically) she knew that a short walk would only help her get used to the ache.

She pushed open the door to the library to find Spike stretched out on a chair with white bandages wrapped around his skull. "What happened to you?" she asked, concerned.

"I fell through a tree," Spike said dismissively. "What happened to you?" he asked, noting the few scratches and bruises Zecora hadn't been able to remove.

"I lost," Twilight answered simply, and flopped down on the couch near Spike.

Spike looked back at her. "Are you alright?"

Twilight considered the question. "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

Spike smiled at her. "Good, good." The two stared at each other for a moment, and Spike started in surprise. "Oh, hi Twilight! I didn't hear you come in. What happened to you?"

Twilight gave him a look of worried confusion. "Would you like to go see Zecora?" she asked.

"Yes, very much so, thank you," Spike answered, began to step out of his chair, and fell flat on his face.

"I just don't understand what kind of accident could end with you halfway through a full grown apple tree," Twilight said, exasperated, as they passed the last tree of the Everfree.

Spike shrugged, the earthen pots draped over his shoulder clunking against each other. "Pinkie was involved," he volunteered. "And Rainbow Dash."

Twilight nodded slowly. "Alright, that makes more sense."

"And a trampoline."

"Of course there was a trampoline," Twilight said, shaking her head. "Don't worry Spike, I'll talk to them."

"I already did," Spike answered quickly. "I don't think they'll do it again. Just... don't mention it to them."

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Spike, are you hiding something from me?"

The baby dragon considered the question. "Yes," he said finally.

"Spike!" Twilight cried. "You shouldn't hide things from..." she trailed off.

Spike turned to face her. "Shouldn't hide things from your friends?" he asked. "Is that what you were going to say, Dusk?"

Twilight glanced around in a panic, but nopony was close enough to hear what Spike had called her. "That's different. We're like family!"

"Oh, so what did Shining Armor say when you told him?" Spike asked.

"I... fine. Whatever," Twilight grunted, and stormed off in front of her housemate.

Spike just chuckled softly to himself and followed her at a slower pace.

"A tournament!?" Twilight shouted.

"Yes, is there something wrong with your hearing?" Silver asked. "Because that's a real concern in this business."

Twilight ignored the snarky remark. "I'm just coming off my first loss, and you thought now was a good time to enter me in a tournament!?"

Silver lifted his cider from the table and took a sip. "Do you really think I would do this if I didn't think it was a good idea?"

Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but the older stallion cut her off. "Don't answer that."

"Yes," said Flurry from behind the bar. "Seems very much like something you'd do."

"Quiet you," Silver ordered. "Zecora, can you handle this? Could be quite a few fights in a row. Anything you'll need?"

Zecora thought for a moment. "A cooking pot of larger size, as well as more of my supplies."

"Make me a list, I'll see what I can do," Silver said, sliding a napkin and pencil over to the zebra.

"I still haven't said I'll do it!" Twilight protested.

"Well, it's too late to sign you up for anything else, so it's this or nothing," Silver pointed out calmly.

"I- argh!" Twilight answered. "Fine."

"Great. It's the day after tomorrow, so you'll have to sleep here three nights."

Twilight just rolled her eyes.

Zecora, who had spent the last few moments scribbling on the napkin, slid it back to Silver. "That is all I can predict, who knows what wounds they will inflict?"

Silver scanned the list, his smile fading with each item. "Oh..." he said. "These sorts of herbs..." He glanced over at Zecora, but continued speaking before she could start. "I can get them. Don't worry." He drained his drink. "But I should go now."

"I'll come with you," Twilight suggested, standing up from the table.

"No!" Silver answered quickly. "No. No, I should go alone." He started towards the door. "I'll see you tomorrow Twilight. We'll spend the day training." He vanished through the door.

Twilight and Zecora both turned to Flurry. The pegasus just shrugged.

"Okay, okay, this is the place," the unicorn beside Silver said nervously. He glanced around the dark alley, making an obvious effort to stay out of sight of the metal door set in the wall. "You can't tell them I brought you here though."

"Yeah, yeah," Silver said, his own voice slightly nervous as well. "Get out of here."

The unicorn nodded gratefully and scampered off down the alley, leaving Silver Chimes standing alone. The older stallion took a deep breath to calm himself, and knocked on the door with one hoof.

A few moments later, a hatch in the door clicked and swung open, revealing a striped face. "Who are you?" the zebra asked suspiciously.

"A customer," Silver answered.

"Who is it?" asked another voice from the other side of the door, in Zebra.

"He says he's a customer," the first zebra said, not taking his eyes off Silver. "He looks like trouble though."

"A customer who speaks Zebra," Silver clarified.

The stallion at the door tensed in surprise.

"Here," Silver continued, slipping the napkin through the hatch. "I need everything on that list, except the cauldron. I'll pay what you ask."

The zebra read the list. "It'd be about six hundred bits total," he warned.

"I've got the money," Silver shot back. "Do we have a deal?"

"...Just a moment." The hatch slammed shut.

Silver stood in the alley for around 45 seconds, and the hatch opened again. The napkin was pushed back out. "No sale," the zebra said, before closing the hatch again,

Silver sighed and stepped towards the door. He rested his horn against the edge of the door, and concentrated. On the other side of the door, the pins in the hinge began to glow red with magic. They struggled against their bonds for a moment, and then all three slid free.

Silver pushed against the door with one hoof, and stepped on to the steel plate as it crashed to the ground. Three stunned zebra and a pegasus stood on the other side, surrounded by crates, barrels, and parcels of plants.

"Sorry, but I really need this stuff," Silver said, producing a clinking bag of money.

"Nah, see, almost everypony has a pattern," Silver said as he pushed through the front door of the Lopsided Pegasus. "They always dodge left, or right, or they alternate. You'll never get rid of it though, so the key is to make your pattern complicated enough that..." he trailed off as he spotted a white pegasus standing near the bar. Flurry stood a few feet behind him, glaring angrily at the back of his head. "Good day of training, Dusk. Go get cleaned up."

Twilight glanced around the room for a moment. Half-full mugs sat scattered on the tables, evidence of a busy night, but no other ponies were to be seen. She trotted across the room, passed the unknown black-maned pegasus, and walked up the stairs.

"Alright, he's here," Flurry growled. "Now you can go talk to him outside. I don't want you in my bar."

"Well that's interesting, because I want to be in your bar," the other pegasus answered breezily. "I wonder who wins?" He glanced over at Flurry, who rustled the feathers of his remaining wing before averting his eyes. The pegasus smirked. "Two ciders, and make it quick," he ordered, one wing extending to drop some coins on the counter.

"What do you want Pinion?" Silver asked.

Pinion held up one hoof, and waited for the ciders to be done. He grabbed them both, and sauntered over to a nearby table. One landed in front of him, and he slid the other to the opposite side of the table. "Take a seat, Silver Chimes."

Silver glanced over at Flurry, whose lips drew back momentarily to reveal grinding teeth. The pegasus noticed Silver looking at him, met his gaze, and then nodded at the chair.

Silver nodded back and walked over to sit across from Pinion. "What do you want?" he repeated.

Pinion said nothing but gestured towards the mug across the table.

Silver rolled his eyes and took a sip. "What!?"

"Well, first of all, any idea how to proof my doors against that little trick you pulled down at my warehouse last night?"

"Glue the pins in," Silver answered instantly. "I payed for what I took."

"Yes, yes you did," Pinion answered darkly. "Trust me, if you hadn't, we would be having a very different conversation." He shrugged his wings, and Silver spotted the glint of steel under his left wing.

"So what do you want from me? You can't have it back, I've already used it. And if you were going to kill me, you wouldn't have come alone."

"He has two big guys outside," Flurry said.

Pinion glanced over at the bartender. "Did I give you permission to talk? No, I didn't. Quiet, bitch."

Flurry's wing tensed at the casual insult.

"And if I wanted to hurt you, they'd be inside," Pinion continued. "Call them insurance."

"I realize you're having fun, but I have things to do, so if you could get to the point..."

"The point," the pegasus said, and then took a sip of his cider. "The point, is that somepony already owns the drug trade in this town, and if you want to get in on it, you have to talk to him."

Silver let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Is that it? You think I'm making drugs?"

Pinion raised an eyebrow. "You're not?"

"No!" The unicorn thought for a moment. "Well, maybe, technically. But medicinal ones, and I'm not selling them."

"For who?"

"For-" Silver paused as he spotted Twilight and Zecora emerge from the bottom of the stairs. He tried to subtly shoo them back upstairs, but Pinion followed his gaze and turned around.

"Is this your zebra?" he asked Silver.

"She's not my zebra, she's a zebra," Silver shot back. "But yes, she's the one brewing."

"Hey, stripes. What's this guy got you making?"

Zecora recoiled slightly at the strange name, but answered anyway. "Brews and tonics for all that ails, the types of which are mere details."

"No ruzhwaa?" he asked.

"Ruzhwaa is a brew most foul and awful, and I was told it was not lawful," Zecora answered, nearly spitting the name.

"No, it's n-" Silver began pointedly, but was interrupted by Pinion.

"Hold on, is she fucking rhyming?"

"I do not know of what you speak, my speech patterns are not unique," Zecora answered.

Pinion stood up from the table quickly, knocking his chair over as he did so. "Are you mocking me?" he snarled.

"I'm afraid that you are out of luck, you are confused you little f-"

"Zecora!" Silver yelled.

"...friend," Zecora finished.

Pinion nodded slowly. "That's better." He turned back to Silver. "And who's the filly?"

"Dusk Shine," Twilight answered.

"I wasn't talking to you, was I sweetheart?" Pinion said to her.

"Just a pony I'm training for the tournament. Nopony special," Silver said quietly.

Pinion nodded, and turned back to the purple mare. He walked slowly towards her until he was less than a body length away and examined her for a moment. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

"I... I don't think so," Twilight answered nervously.

"Hm. Ever been in the papers?"

"No," Silver said quickly.

"I wasn't talking to you, was I sweetheart?" Pinion said sarcastically, never taking his eyes off Twilight. "So how about it Dusk. Ever been in the papers?"

"...Not yet."

The room fell silent for a moment, before it was broken by Pinion's guffaw.

"Ha! Not yet. I like it. You've got moxie, kid. That's what my dad used to say." He turned and headed for the exit. "See ya around, Silver, Flurry. Mares."

As he stepped out the door, the entire bar collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

"Who the hay was that?" Twilight asked after a few moments of silence.

"Hell," Silver corrected reflexively.

"I'm going to go lie down," Flurry said, his voice shaking. "Silver, lock up when you leave, will you?" He dropped a key on the counter and disappeared out the back.

"That was Pinion," Silver answered, taking a deep drag from his mug. "Head of the pegasus mafia. The Fillydelphian branch, anyway."

"I- what!?" Twilight cried. "Shouldn't we call the guards or something?"

"Why? They can't pin anything on him." He chuckled weakly. "Heh. Pin it on Pinion."

"What's ruzhwaa?"

"A street drug, and not a nice one," Silver answered, turning to Zecora. "It's a modification of a Zebra brew they used to use for spirit quests and whatever, right?"

Zecora just nodded slightly. Distraction and discomfort were written on her face.

"Why would he think Zecora was making it?"

Silver and Zecora shared a guilty look.

"What?" Twilight asked. "What aren't you telling me?"

"The things I cook to heal you have much in common with that brew."

"The list Zecora gave me contained quite a few... controlled substances."

Twilight's mouth fell open. "Silver, please tell me I'm not an accessory to something."

"No no no," Silver answered, shaking his head. "It's not illegal to own the raw plants, just to grow them. Or sell them. Or brew them into ruzhwaa, obviously."

"So we're in the clear?" Twilight said, clearly relieved.

"I don't know if I'd say that, but you're unlikely to be convicted if you have a half-decent lawyer." He slapped Twilight on the back with one large hoof. "Now off to bed. Sleep well!"

Chapter 11

Twilight ambled down the bar's stairs late the next morning to find the front door propped open by a hunched pony body. As Twilight approached the figure from behind, the acrid smell of smoke reached her nostrils, causing her to wrinkle her muzzle.

The tables were still a mess, strewn with half-eaten snacks and partially empty mugs. One table had a long trail of dried cider stretching from a tipped mug to the edge of the table, what was left of the drink slowly dripping on to the floor.

She hadn't meant to sneak across the room, but the stallion didn't seem to notice her. His one wing stretched out slowly, and Twilight could the see the flight muscles on his other side tense against nothing. More surprisingly, she spotted a limp cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth.

"I didn't know you smoked," she said quietly, moving forwards to sit on the stoop next to Flurry.

The pegasus started in surprise, but relaxed again as the mare sat next to him. He spat the smouldering smoke on to the ground and stamped out the cherry red tip. "I don't, I quit," he answered. "At least, I thought I did. It's been eight years, and I still..." he sighed, and rubbed at his bloodshot eyes. Large bags sat underneath them, and it was obvious to Twilight that he hadn't slept. "I'm sorry. Would you like some pancakes Twilight?"

"I wouldn't say no, but you look like you need-" Twilight paused, an alarm bell ringing in her head. "Did you just call me Twilight?"

"...Shit."

"You know I'm..." Twilight glanced around, and lowered her voice. "You know I'm Twilight Sparkle?"

Flurry heaved himself to his feet. "You and Silver don't speak as quietly as you think you do," he said shortly. "Don't worry, I'll call you Dusk in public. Pancakes?"

Flurry and Twilight sat at the bar, one stool between them. A plate of pancakes sat in front of each pony, with a larger platter in between them. For the first time, Twilight saw Flurry eating, and he ate like he was starving.

Twilight's progress was much slower, as she found she was having trouble stopping herself from looking over at Flurry. Her eyes were particularly drawn to the nub of twisted scar tissue that was all that remained of his wing. She was just watching it twitch with the movement of his hooves when he glanced over at her. She quickly looked back to her meal, hoping he hadn't seen her staring.

"What?" Flurry asked.

"Nothing," Twilight said quickly. "You just... you look tired."

"I am tired," Flurry sighed. "Couldn't sleep."

"You should take a nap," Twilight suggested around a mouthful of pancake.

"I can't, I have to clean this place up in time for opening, and then I have to..." He paused to yawn. "And then I have to tend the bar until everypony goes home."

"Don't you have a... a janitor, or a waitress or something?" Twilight asked, suddenly realizing she'd never seen any such thing in the Lopsided Pegasus.

Flurry shook his head and swallowed his mouthful. "I'm afraid not. It's just me."

"You run this place all by yourself?"

The pegasus nodded.

"When was the last time you had a vacation?"

Flurry thought for a moment. "Well, about... four years ago I fell down the stairs and broke a leg. I closed down the bar for a week while I was in the hospital."

"That's not a vacation!" Twilight protested. "You can't run a place like this by yourself, you're what, almost forty?"

Flurry looked over at her. His forehead creased, and the wrinkles around his eyes became even more pronounced. "I'm twenty-eight," he said.

"What? But you look-" Twilight cut herself off before she could stick her hoof even further in her mouth. "I'm sorry, I just thought... because you're such good friends with Silver..."

"It's fine, Twilight," Flurry said. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I do need to take better care of myself."

"So you go take a nap, and I'll clean up the bar!" Twilight said brightly.

Flurry shook his head. "No no no. You're a paying customer, I can't let you do that."

"Well..." Twilight thought fast. "I actually think I forgot my money back in - back at home, and could I maybe clean up the bar as payment for the room and breakfast?"

"Uh..." Flurry thought measurably slower. "I guess that would be okay, yeah." He yawned. "Alright. I'm going to try to take a nap." He started towards the swinging door into the back. "Just put everything in the sink behind the bar. Call me if you need me."

Twilight finished her own plate and lit up her horn to begin clearing the bar, table by table. A stream of mugs and plates hovered across the pub and into the sink, a feat of telekinesis that would have exhausted most unicorns but was a mere light warm-up for Twilight.

A half-full mug floated past her nose and she stopped the train. She sniffed at the amber liquid curiously, and then tilted the mug to take a small sip.

"Blech," she said, wrinkling her nose at the unexpected sting the alcohol lent to the drink. "Why would anypony drink that for fun?" she asked the air as she poured the drink down the drain.

It was around six hours later. After clearing the bar, Twilight had sat down to rest for a little while. Since Flurry didn't come back within the next half hour, she had cleaned the dishes she'd cleared and stacked them next to the sink. She had then gone out for lunch, come back to an empty bar, and swabbed the tables with some rags she found near the sink.

She was just pouring out the bucket of dirty water she'd used to wash the floor when Silver came in through the front door. "Hey, Dusk, I got - were you mopping?"

Twilight glanced over at the handle sticking up next to her, the mop head and bucket hidden behind the bar. "No," she lied, for no real reason. "And keep your voice down, Flurry's sleeping."

Silver nodded slowly. "FLURRY!" he screamed abruptly. "GET YOUR LAZY ASS UP!"

Twilight sighed heavily. "You're such an asshole, Silver."

"Hey!" Silver grinned happily. "You're swearing! Properly!"

"You're much too excited about that," Twilight said, stepping out from behind the bar. "Is it time for the tournament already?"

"Nah, not yet. That starts at around sundown. I've got someone I want you to meet though, c'mon." He gestured to follow him and stepped out the front door.

Twilight followed him, leaving the room just as a bleary eyed Flurry entered it.

"I thought you said we weren't going to the arena?" Twilight asked as they trotted through the building's halls, although in a place Twilight had never been.

"No, I said we weren't going to the tournament," Silver said, tracing a convoluted path through the narrow corridors. "The guy we're meeting is at the arena."

"Who is it?" Twilight asked, craning her neck to look into a nearby room. A bustling kitchen lay beyond, and she made brief eye contact with a chef before they both moved on.

Silver stopped at a certain door, larger and much more ornate than every other one they had passed on the way there. It was outlined in rather tacky brass trim, but the metal was tarnished and dirty. "Bluejay, the owner," he answered, knocking on the door.

"It's unlocked," came the response, slightly muffled by the thick slab of wood.

"Owner of what?" Twilight asked quietly as she was pushed through the opening.

Silver stepped in after her and shut the door. "The arena," he whispered back. "Jay, it's me. Silver."

The room they had stepped into matched the style of the door they had stepped through perfectly. Dirt and age had covered up what had clearly once been a spectacular chamber. A huge window took up one entire wall, the glass the only clean thing Twilight could see. It looked out over the arena, the best seat in the house.

She overlooked the plush chair sitting in the middle of the room until it slowly spun around to face her. A withered old earth pony, perhaps Granny Smith's age, sat in it. "Hello," he said with a kindly smile. "And who's this pretty young mare?" Despite his apparent age, his voice was still strong, with only the barest hint of a crackle.

"This is Dusk Shine," Silver answered smugly. "She's the pony who's going to be winning the competition tonight."

"I - well, we don't know that," Twilight answered awkwardly. "You're... Bluejay? The owner?"

"Expected a unicorn, didn't you?" The old pony laughed good-naturedly. "You don't need to be a contestant to love the sport."

"Bluejay built this place," Silver said from her side. "With a little help from me and the other players, of course."

"You? Helped? Ha!" Bluejay shook his head. "If you call watching construction and drinking 'helping'." He waved away Silver's objections and gestured towards Twilight. "Come here, filly. Into the light, let me get a look at you."

Twilight hesitated, but felt Silver's hoof on her back pushing her forwards. She stepped forwards into the afternoon sunlight pouring in through the large window, and squinted against the bright light.

"A little young, isn't she?" the old pony said.

"I'm an adult, both legally and biologically," Twilight responded defensively.

"She's old enough to compete, which is what she's doing," Silver answered.

It took Twilight a moment to realize that Bluejay was staring over her shoulder, and she turned just in time to catch the tail-end of Silver mouthing something. As soon as she spun, his mouth snapped shut and he shot her an innocent smile. "Come on, we should go get ready."

"It was nice to meet you, and good luck," Bluejay said, and turned back to watch the upcoming matches.

"In the blue corner, at this time of day she's sure to gleam, Dusk Shiiiiiiiine!" the announcer called.

Twilight just rolled her eyes and rotated her shoulder joints nervously. She did her best to block out the roars of the crowd, but some part of her felt proud that she was causing the cheers.

"And in the red corner, he'll shatter your spells, then shatter your bones, Spellllll Breaker!"

Twilight sighed heavily as the gates opened and she stepped into the arena. The familiar husky pony at the other end gave her a curt nod and then broke into a run.

Twilight reached out with her magic to pull a weapon of stone and earth from the ground. She had just felt out the chunk of dirt she wanted to grab when Spell Breaker's horn lit up mid-stride and Twilight felt the magic sucked from her.

The mare stumbled for a moment, blinking rapidly in an attempt to regain equilibrium. She had had her spells interrupted before, but this felt different. Every other time, it had been something external to herself, another spell cancelling out the energies she was forming. This felt like the power had been sucked straight from her brain, her horn used as a straw.

She didn't have time to consider the sensation any further however, as Spell Breaker was upon her. She deked left and then dodged right, leaving the larger, slower stallion lunging towards a place she wasn't.

Twilight tried to grab the dirt out from the feet of the spinning stallion, hoping to at least send him tumbling to the ground, but once again her magic was drained. She snorted in frustration, the wrongness of the draining sensation only adding to her annoyance.

The stallion charged her, and she launched a panicked blast of force. That spell wasn't cancelled, but it wasn't effective either, washing past the large pony like water. Twilight faked out to the right before leaping left, but Spell Breaker saw through the feint this time. He leaped in the same direction, and the two ponies slammed into each other.

Spell Breaker was much larger than the mare, and his mass proved to be the driving force in their tumble across the sandy floor. Twilight did her best to avoid being crushed under the heavy stallion, and although she succeeded, when they finally stopped moving he stood over her as she lay on her back. One plate sized hoof sat on either side of her head, trapping her underneath him.

She tensed herself to roll in the direction of whichever hoof he raised to smack her, but instead he drew back his head. She only realized what he was doing a split second before he brought it down, and, thinking fast, she slammed a hammer of force into her own flank.

The crunch was sickening and the pain made her grunt, but the force sent her rocketing out from between his legs. She felt a moment of satisfaction as his head connected with the ground, and she rolled back onto her hooves.

This time, her attempt to pull out a chunk of the ground got far enough to see the earth bulging, but again Spell Breaker drained her magic and the spell failed.

Twilight suddenly felt enraged for reasons she couldn't quite understand. She felt... violated was perhaps the closest word. "Fine," she snarled. "You want magic? Here's some magic."

She took a deep breath, pulled every ounce of strength she had into her horn, and held it there. Spell Breaker's horn lit up in response, and again Twilight felt her magic flow away, but this time it was the stallion who blinked in surprise and stumbled to the side.

Twilight grit her teeth and pulled in more, the light from her horn becoming blinding. Spots began to swim in front of her eyes, but she still managed to see Spell Breaker fall to his knees.

The purple mare squeezed her eyes shut and cranked up the power another few notches. She was vaguely aware that the crowd didn't quite sound right, but dismissed that as well. She reduced her entire being into magic, and her senses followed.

Abruptly she saw the world in an entirely new way. The stress of bringing up that much magic melted away, the effort becoming as natural and automatic as breathing. With her mind freed up for thinking, she felt around the new world she'd found. The sense she used to explore wasn't sight, exactly. It was more like she was touching this entire new world at once.

It was a world of thrumming power and whirling hotspots. A complex web of magical lines crisscrossed through the world, carrying magic at impossible speeds. Among those inter-crossing lines of white-hot power lay strange points that bent and broke the wires. Unicorn horns, she realized.

She could sense the star of her own horn, lines of power coursing out from it like a supernova. Across from her sat what she assumed was Spell Breaker's, providing a stark contrast. Every line that crossed that point (including a large majority of her own) broke and swirled into it. It was oddly beautiful, a constant stream of power between her horn and Spell Breaker's, connecting them through their opposed magic.

Although her own horn and Spell Breaker's were by far the most prominent points, she could feel dozens of others spread out among the crowd, some brighter than others, some-

"DUSK, YOU WON!" screamed the announcer, abruptly bringing her out of her self-induced trance. Spell Breaker lay on the ground where he had fallen, eyes closed, ears and nose dripping blood, and one leg occasionally twitching.

Twilight felt something drip from her muzzle and brought up one hoof to find her own nose was bleeding as well. She turned to see Silver gesturing at her from the arena entrance, his muzzle also coated in dry blood.

As she walked back to the opening, each footstep deliberate and heavy, she looked around the arena. The audience itself seemed to be in a state of confusion, and she spotted more than a few unicorns with matching nose bleeds.

"Do not panic," the announced boomed, usually confident voice quavering slightly. "Ponies are coming around the bleachers with napkins, for those unicorns with... who have been affected."

"Here, drink this," Silver told Twilight once she got close enough, offering out a clay pot.

"What just happened?"

"Drink it, Dusk," Silver insisted.

"Why is your nose bleeding?"

"Because, Dusk, you just pumped out an insane amount of magic. Every even moderately sensitive unicorn in a two block radius has a nose bleed. More importantly, pumping out that much magic has a tendency to make your heart stop, which is why you really need to DRINK THIS!" he said quickly, and then shoved the brew at her. "And no magic until you do."

Twilight stopped her natural instinct to grab the pot with her horn, and instead held it between a hoof and her chin. The potion was thin, watery, and tasted what strawberries would taste like if strawberries tasted terrible.

She choked it down. "Is Spell Breaker okay?" she asked.

Before Silver could answer, the unicorn that usually led her to the gates (his own nose bleeding) spoke up. "He's moving. He walked back to his gate a few moments after you did."

Twilight sighed in relief. "Oh, good. I was worried."

"Are you alright?" Silver asked.

"I'll be fine," Twilight answered quickly. She really did feel better, the potion had revitalized her more than she'd realized at first.

"...Do you want to talk about what just happened?" Silver asked quietly after a moment. "You were... it looked like you were in a trance or something."

"No," Twilight answered. "I think I need some time to figure out how to explain what happened."

Silver nodded. "Alright. Well, you've got a few minutes before the next match. Just... don't do that again. The ref called it in your favor, and nopony was seriously hurt, but you might not be so lucky next time." He handed her another clay pot. "Drink."

Twilight did her best to push the strange experience out of her mind as the announcer went through her introduction. She would investigate thoroughly later, she reassured herself, but now was not the time. She perked up her ears just in time to hear the introduction of her opponent.

"And in the blue corner, cape, cowl, horn and all, it's the elusive, the mysterious, Mare! Do! WEEEELLLLLL!"

"What?" Twilight asked nopony as she heard the name called. The gates shifted, and Twilight found herself facing a pony wearing a duplicate of the costume she and her friends had once worn to teach Rainbow Dash a lesson. Both ponies paused for a moment.

"WHAT!?" Twilight yelled.