Author's Note
Disclaimer: Please bear in mind this story's Alternate Universe tag applies as much to Magic: the Gathering as it does My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Thrown Out
"Hey, uh, Rainbow," Fluttershy said timidly, barely able to keep her eyes open, having to squint anyways to see her friend in the non-existent light.
"What, Fluttershy?"
"You, uh," Fluttershy rubbed her tired eyes. "You do realize it's four in the morning, right?"
Rainbow rolled her eyes in response. "No, Fluttershy," she drawled, "I didn't know."
Fluttershy could take a hint. "So then, uh, why are you here?" Only a few minutes before this conversation, Fluttershy had been in bed with Angel, fast asleep and in the middle of a pleasant dream. She was awoken quickly, though, as a strong knock sounded on the wooden door.
"Twilight asked me to gather you guys and tell you to head on over to the castle." Rainbow put on a smug grin as her thoughts ran rapidly. "I guess she chose me because I'm the fastest, huh?"
Fluttershy pushed the question aside. "What does she want us for?"
Rainbow shrugged. "She said something to do with a spell or something."
"She couldn't wait until morning?" Fluttershy glanced above the blue pegasus to look at the moon, shining brightly and diligently in the night sky amidst the sprinkled stars. "I mean, I kind of have a busy day tomorrow..."
"If you want to debate about it," Rainbow spoke, "then take it up with her because I'm just the messenger."
"I just don't understand why she needs us. She normally studies things like this alone-"
"Look," said Rainbow, looking behind herself down the hill that led to Fluttershy's cottage, "I don't have time to stay and chat. I still need to get Applejack and Pinkie."
"Just answer me really quick," Fluttershy said, some of her grogginess fading, "aren't you just a little... concerned?"
"Pfft," Rainbow spat, "not really. Twilight knows what she's doing, so right now she's the boss, and if she says she needs us then she needs us." She leapt into the air without another word, speeding off towards the apple orchard far in the distance.
The darkness still hung strong in the air, a cool wind blowing, swaying the leaves on the trees and making them wave at any onlookers. The patches of grass moved like that of the sea, a small wave of a lighter green flowing across the flat area of vegetation. The cool carried a small amount of precipitation that gathered in a layer on Fluttershy's hair and mane, making her instinctively shake herself every once in a while, sending dew every which way. She licked her cool lips, gathering a pool of moisture on her tongue as she did.
After the sudden ending to her conversation with Rainbow, she had quickly made herself a cup of tea to wake her up and set off down the gravel road. She had been walking for a while, lost in thought. Despite Rainbow Dash's constant reassurance, stopped worrying. Twilight, in these situations, was a shut in, sometimes sealing herself in a room for hours until she had read something from front to back. Fluttershy was convinced something was fishy about this "coincidental" gathering.
Fluttershy's hooves dragged on the dirt path as her thoughts droned on, kicking up small dust clouds that made her shudder with a sneeze, only to have the feeling dissipate. This kept on for a while as the trees moved past her in military formation, guarding her with all their might.
Finally, as the crystal spire came into view above the trees and buildings of Ponyvilled, Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief. She saw the flag perched supportively over top of the castle's balcony, trying its hardest to pull away from its captor as the wind grabbed a hold of it. Only one light was on, the one in Twilight's room. The light seemed to shift as the flame on a candle would, almost as if it had a mind of its own.
As Fluttershy approached the castle, a figure glided down from the balcony and landed in front of her, a dust cloud being sent straight up Fluttershy's nose, a sneeze following. Once the dust cloud settled a little, Fluttershy opened her eyes to see Rainbow in front of her once again.
"Took ya' long enough," Rainbow teased.
"Sorry," Fluttershy said, a little embarassed. If Rainbow was here, then that meant Applejack, Pinkie, and the rest of the group were already here, waiting for her. "So, uh, where is everypony?"
"They're around back." Rainbow looked at Fluttershy and squinted. "You're scared, aren't you?"
Fluttershy blushed at Rainbow's development. "What...," Fluttershy said, putting on a forced smile, "me be scared? Never."
"It'll be fine, Flutters. I truly don't know why you're scared. I mean, Twilight has tested thousands of spells before and nothing has gone wrong."
"We don't know that," Fluttershy said, her imagination running crazy. "What if one of the spells actually killed all of us in a different dimension?"
Rainbow thought for a minute, and then answered. "Good thing we weren't them, then. Just have some faith in Twilight, okay?"
"It's not that I don't have faith in her," Fluttershy said, partly offended, "it's just that magic is a dangerous thing."
"Look, what is the point of life if you don't take risks?"
Fluttershy didn't answer.
"Come on, everypony's waiting." With that, Rainbow Dash turned and strode off, Fluttershy following close at hoof. They made their way around the giant castle, their hooves getting covered with dew . The others were waiting in the back as Rainbow had said, and they all turned to greet the two as they came around the bend. Applejack tipped her hat, Pinkie waved spasmodically, and Twilight gleamed. Twilight had a scroll levitating next to her, enveloped in a vibrant aura. Fluttershy looked around for Starlight Glimmer and found her off in the distance, away from the group with a blank face.
"Now that you're all here," Twilight started, enthusiasm flowing through her words, "I can finally show you my latest development." Twilight floated the scroll in front of her and unrolled it, revealing a mess of scribbles, graphs, and pictures to the audience.
"Um...," Applejack said, confused, "Great?"
"Oh," Twilight said, rolling up the paper once again, "that's not the real good part."
"Ooh," Pinkie spoke, "is it cake? A party?" She gasped as a thought came to her. "A party inside a cake?!"
"No," Twilight said in response, receiving a frown from the pink pony, "it's not anything materialistic."
When nopony spoke out, Twilight took priority again. "I have learned how to cast this spell! It's one from the Star Swirl Library and it is apparently almost unreadable!"
Twilight got an underwhelming reaction from her friends, most of them forcing their eyelids up. "Darling," Rarity said, "what exactly does it do?"
Twilight's frown lessened a little. "I don't exactly know. All I know is that it's nothing I've seen before."
"That means it could be dangerous," Fluttershy said, assessing the situation, "right?"
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at Fluttershy's question, and Twilight answered, "I mean, yeah, maybe... but don't you want to find out what it does?"
Fluttershy shook her head. "Not really. It's five in the morning and I have things to do tomorrow. I would much rather sleep."
"Fluttershy, darling," Rarity said, "imagine what good this spell could do. After all, Star Swirl wasn't an idiot."
"I never said he was," Fluttershy responded, "but I just think that right now isn't the time to 'test' its capabilities."
"Why're you actin' like this, Fluttershy?" Applejack asked "Is it just the time?"
"The time and the fact that if Twilight doesn't know what this thing does," Fluttershy said, a little irritated, "who says that it won't, I don't know, blow up Equestria?"
Rainbow put her hoof up to her face. "Look," Twilight said, eager to get started, "if it goes wrong, you can blame me all you want."
Fluttershy thought for a moment, then gave a small sigh. "Fine," she conceded.
Twilight smiled once again. "Alright, thank you. Shall we get started?"
Everypony shrugged, and Twilight unraveled the scroll to read it. "Alright, so it is a spell that is meant to be cast on a living thing, so I guess we need a volunteer." This piece of information did not exactly sit well with Fluttershy, or any of the others for that matter, as they had all looked in different directions other than Twilight's. Fluttershy waited for somepony to raise her hoof, but no hooves went up.
The cool night air droned on as the group was overtaken by silence and awkwardness. The hair on the their hooves got matted down and clumped to one another. The flag pinned to the castle still shook with violence, watching over the group with its harmonious symbolism.
Eventually, one hoof went up.
"If it'll allow everyone to get some sleep, then I'll do it," said Fluttershy.
Twilight gleamed with excitement and clicked her hooves together. "Great, great, great! I have been so eager to try this!"
"Yeah," Rainbow said, awake from a small nap she had, "we noticed."
Twilight pushed the remark aside, pointing to a spot on the ground. "Stand there, Fluttershy."
Fluttershy hesitantly walked over, shaking a little at her knees. "Okay."
Twilight gave the scroll one last look over, making sure she knew exactly how to perform the magic. When she was done, she rolled it up tightly and set it in a spot where the rain had not soaked the ground. "Alright, ready Fluttershy? You know you don't have to do this if you don't want to."
"I'm sure, Twilight. The last thing I would do is tell you I would and then leave you hanging."
"Thanks," was all Twilight said before closing her eyes and focusing intently on the spell. For a few moments, nothing happened, but eventually a purple aura started to glow and dance around her horn. It faded in and out of existence every once in a while, leading the group to believe that it was failing just as it grew back.
After a few moments of pulsing power, the aura gained immense strength, enveloping Twilight's horn in a seething mass of purple magic, gaining enough light that it started to get hard to look at it without blinking. Fluttershy started to tap her hooves and nervously dart her eyes around.
The aura thickened as it gained strength, growing rapidly around the horn that was fueling it. All watched intently, especially Starlight, who had been watching from her standing spot a distance away. She had a worried look on her face and her muscles were tense. Suddenly, as she watched the magic grow, she screamed, "Twilight, stop! It's failing!" She started to run towards Twilight, who had apparently not heard her.
"Wait, what's wrong?" Fluttershy screamed above the thrumming ball of power that was attached to Twilight's horn.
Starlight screamed, "Fluttershy, get out of the way quickly!"
The entire area was now engulfed in bright violet, a fierce wind blowing back the grass. Fluttershy stood still in her shock, the shock that something actually was going wrong. She did finally start to move, but she wasn't fast enough.
The ball growing on the tip of Twilight's horn launched towards her a blinding speed, striking Fluttershy in the flank and continuing forward, eventually evaporating into small wisps of purple before hitting anything else. The wisps floated upwards and faded out like lightning bugs.
Twilight exhaled and started to fall over before Starlight caught her. Starlight put her hoof to Twilight's chest, nodding when she felt her heart beating. Stray hairs of Twilight's mane waved in the wind.
All of the others ran to Fluttershy, who was still wincing from the hard landing.
"Fluttershy, are you okay?" Rainbow said, the recent events finally weighing down on her. "Oh god."
"I-I'm fine, Rainbow."
Besides the grass in her mane, Fluttershy looked perfectly fine, at least from what the ponies crowded around her could tell. Applejack took off her hat to start fanning the yellow pegasus off and Rarity took out a handkerchief to start wiping the dew from Fluttershy.
"You sure you're okay, Fluttershy? It looked like that thing hit you pretty hard."
"Actually," Fluttershy said, confused now that she thought about it, "I didn't even feel it hit me. It was almost as if it just, like, passed through me without any contact."
"Well, whatever the case," said Rarity, who was checking Fluttershy's body for signs of damage, "you seem to be fine. You look almost as good as when you got here."
Rainbow sighed. "Thank Celestia."
Fluttershy slowly got to her hooves, her knees shaking. She had to blink to get the purple spots out of her eyes. She quickly shook her head to get the blades of grass out of her mane, and then asked, "How's Twilight doing? That must of taken something out of her."
Starlight joined the group and answered, "Knocked out good. She's perfectly fine, though, so let's just get her into her bed and let her rest."
Fluttershy looked into Starlight's eyes and measly said, "Thanks for everything back there."
Starlight nodded and then made her way with the group towards the prone purple princess. Twilight snored somberly, looking rather calm. With Starlight and Rarity's magic, they were able to get Twilight steady on the backs of Applejack and Rainbow Dash. The group started to make their way inside, their hooves clicking on the crystal steps, when Fluttershy screamed.
The group flinched from the sudden noise, Rainbow nearly dropping Twilight. "Fluttershy," Rainbow asked, "what is-"
The only thing the group saw when they looked behind them was a mass of white lights in the shape of a pony fluttering away from one another, each one fading into the cool night air.
Twilight still snored.
