The indefinitive properties of magic

"Welcome, to casa de Twilight!" she exclaimed doing a small spin her arms outstretched. "The perfect combination between house, library, laboratory and tree!" Beaming from ear to ear she turned back to face her newfound companion. However something seemed off, his face was frozen in one of surprise. In fact his whole body was frozen in the position she let go of his hand in. A loud slam threw him into motion as he turned to face the door they had come through as it shut closed. Tuning back his face was one of pure terror as he looked into her eyes tears welling up inside them.

"What have you done? I was supposed to stay there, it kept me safe.. it kept everyone safe! Now I'm out!" he said with in a steadily rising voice. "Oh god, the voices!!!!" he yelled clutching his head screaming. Twilight stood there silently watching as the pony before her began to convulse, screaming and tearing at his head with his nails. Snapping to her senses she rushed over to him attempting to stay his hands.

"What's wrong are you?..." was all she got out before a wave of force drove her across the room into a bookshelf. The collision forced the air from her lungs as stars rushed across her vision. Falling to the ground several books in the shelf toppled around her some landing on her, gasping she pushed herself up to one knee looking up to her horror to see the pony she was just talking to begin to emit and energy so dark it made the magic Sombra used look grey. Tendrils of onyx smoke rose from his body slithering across the floor and crawling along his body, wherever the smoke touched the floor began to turn to ash. Slowly the energy began to creep along the floor rising to the wall as it began to consume his body. Suddenly a flash of light engulfed the room with a loud boom. The smell of singed wood and fabric wafted across Twilight as she shielded her eyes, as the light faded she took her arm away from her face as she stood up fully blinking several times as she did. Looking around the room she saw that the entire room was almost completely charred, books were reduced to smoldering ash, the furnishings were piles of black charcoal still aflame in areas. Even the glass was melted and coated in ash, in fact the only area unaffected by the flame was an area starting just a few inches in front of her and part of the bookcase behind her. Looking to where the blast originated she saw none other than her mentor Celestia. She shone with the radiant energy of her magic as her multicolored hair flowing in a more turbulent fashion than normal her white robes draped across her body.

"P-princess?" she stammered taking a few tentative steps forward. The goddess turned sharply an expression of surprise on her face.

"Twilight? What are you doing here?!? I sensed something foul emanating here. What on earth is going on!" The princess demanded.

"I'm sorry! I was just looking at the journal you sent and it led me to him and... wait where is O?"

"O?"

"Yes, i found him in the badlands and when i brought him here he suddenly started screaming and emitting this dark energy."

The princess looked at her with a mixture of surprise, relief and dread. "So, that's what I sensed. I'm sorry but I smote the source with everything I have. I doubt he survived. But perhaps that is for the..." her thought was interrupted by a shifting behind her. Turning quickly she looked toward the source. On the floor lay the slightly burned body of O, the places where the dark energy had emanated from were covered in hideous burns. However the places that had not yet been touched were unscathed in the same manner as Twilight.

"Impossible!" the princess exclaimed. "No creature that could emit a magic as foul as that could be pure enough to be unscathed by my magic. What in the world is this thing. Twilight," she said tuning to face the mare. "What exactly did he say before.. this."

Twilight still slightly shell shocked starred blankly for a moment before responding. "Um, I think he said something about not being safe anymore and the voices?"

Celestia furrowed her brow, "curious-er and curious-er. You said that the journal I sent you led you there?"

"Yes mam."

"Do you still have it?"

"No mam, it was destroyed when I was teleported to the chamber he was in. I think it was a pocket dimension, he said it was a one time thing. I have some notes if you want to see them!" she exclaimed.

Celestia nodded, "Yes, however i think we need to address the more pressing issue here." she said looking back at the unconscious stallion. "This is not the place, I will take us to my personal lab." she announced before flicking her wrist. The teleportation spell she performed was instant and far more precise than the one Twilight used as they were instantly transported to a large room with a cobble stone floor stumbling from the abruptness of the spell Twilight righted herself and looked around finding herself in a familiar setting of instruments of various sizes and shapes. She knew instantly where they were as this place was where she spent a majority of her childhood experimenting and practicing with Celestia. The room had scarcely changed from when she had last been in it which came as little surprise to her. After all she learned her teacher was extraordinarily well organized, a habit she had failed to pick up. Looking to Celestia she saw her lowering O's body onto a stone table securing him with straps of warding.

"Princess?" she said approaching her mentor. "Are the straps necessary? I mean he survived the cleansing light, surely that means hes not evil?"

The Princess nodded her head in acknowledgment. "Yes, that spell can only harm those whose hearts are corrupt. However that magic emanated most certainly from him, if it had not he would be unscathed. And as you can see that is not the case, we must be cautious." she said securing the final strap. Silently Twilight conceded the point and watched as her mentor gathered up a set of crystals from a nearby table.

"Princess, what exactly are you going to do?" Twilight asked cautiously.

Celestia sighed and gave her pupil a faint smile. "I'm not going to do anything to harm him, I'm going to try and seal whatever it was that came from him. However that would only be temporary, I have learned through experience that sealing something never truly stops it. I plan on taking samples to see if I can determine what exactly it was that came from him and see if I can somehow expel it. Now give me a hand, I need you to stabilize the crystals as the energy goes into them."

Twilight instantly lit up taking a place by her teachers side. "Right!" she exclaimed happily.

Turning back to O Celestia gathered herself before extending her hands over him and closing her eyes, energy began to flow from her like before except this time it was slow and methodical. The light flowed into O's chest and his body tensed for a moment before returning to its limp state. After a few seconds Celestia spoke, "As I thought, the corruption is not in his heart. At least, not entirely. It's odd though, it originates from his heart but does not consume it. It seems as thought the corruption was held at bay by something, I believe that the chamber held it in place. When he was removed from it the corruption began to spread again."

"Oh." Twilight said hanging her head. She had caused him to go through this, had she left him there, or better yet never gone he would never have gone through this.

"Fret not Twilight." Celestia said looking to her. "It's not your fault, in fact that place did nothing but stop it from spreading. It was still in him, now that hes out there is hope for removing it. The journal, did it say who sealed him?"

This cheered her up a bit, "Yes, it said he was sealing himself off because he felt something was wrong."

Turning back to the stallion on the table she looked down at him, "It seems he recognized, at least on some level what was happening. He must be some mage to construct something like that while fighting off the corruption. Still looking at his manna stream it seems rather weak, its slightly above normal but it seems he relied more on precision than raw power." A few minutes passed before Celestia spoke again.

"Twilight, ready the five largest crystals now."

"Yes mam," she responded gathering her power levitating five decently sized crystals in a circle opening tuning them to receive energy. Celestia's hands moved in a series of quick arcane gestures her face tightened with effort. Slowly a trickle of the dark energy rose from O's chest his entire body convulsing against the straps as his face contorted with pain, however he remained unconscious. The dark energy rose in a slow stream extending from his body before Celestia's magic cut the stream off from the source surrounding the tendril as it condensed into a small orb. The energy stream quickly retreated back inside his body as Celestia quickly moved the small black orb to float in the middle of the crystals. Releasing her control over the orb the energy shot into the crystals the instant her magic ceased to surround it. The crystals sucked up the energy turning a hideously dark shade of black so deep it hurt to stare at. Putting the crystals aside into a small box that was on the cart with the crystals designed to contain specimens like this she closed the lid and flipped the latch shut activating the sealing spell etched into the box. Looking to Celestia Twilight was shock to see her mentors face scrunched up in effort beads of sweat dripping from her forehead running down the side of her neck. Quickly Celestia recited an incantation in a language Twilight had heard on sparse occasions before. The dead language of Alicorns. This shocked Twilight even further, as a filly she had asked Celestia to teach her the language and she had refused saying that the words themselves contained such power that even a slight mispronunciation could result in catastrophic consequences. Finishing the incantation a small glow emanated from O's body before he once again slumped against the stone limp. Her task complete Celestia dropped her hands to the table and leaned heavily upon it panting.

"Princess! Are you ok?!?" Twilight said reaching toward her mentor grabbing her shoulder.

Smiling faintly Celestia put her hand gently atop Twilight's. "Yes, I'm just a bit spent. I underestimated the strength necessary to restrain the corruption, it fought back with strength I have only felt on scarce occasions. I had to use that incantation to seal it or my strength would have given out and the corruption could have reemerged." She said looking back to the stallion on her table. "My little pony, just what happened to you?"