After my night of Finger Licking Chicken… hehehe… I decided to go see Trixie and learn how she’s doing with Twilight’s lessons.

Oh yeah, never mentioned it before now, but turns out I was right about Trixie’s horrible, horrible upbringing, everything from the abuse to why she made that arrogant shell to begin with. She could do the same levels of magic that Twilight was able to do if she had the training and the know-how, which she couldn’t get during her childhood because of how she was Ostracized for said talent. This lead to her believing she could only do stage magic, but Twilight has been able to help Trixie see the potential she has and work to nurture it, much like Celestia nurtured her own talent.

That Alicorn Amulet? Probably an artifact that just gave the pony a power boost, since I’ve learned myself that you can pull off a lot of advanced spells if you have the raw power to brute-force it instead of weaving the needed Spell Circles. So now Trixie has been given the chance to learn magic at the level of Princess Celestia’s protege, and she couldn’t be happier.

So now I was on my way to her wagon, when I watched Applebloom try, and fail, to make any sales.

“Huh, Call Of The Cutie… well I’m sure this will handle itself.” I walked onward.

“... and then we got around to the more obscure spellcrafts, like Haycarte’s Method! I never thought being in a book would be so much fun!” Trixie finished her very adorable gushing over her recent magic lessons.

“I’ve gotta know, how exactly is it in a book?”

“Oh, it’s a bit surreal, on the outside it looks like you’re just an illustration, but on the inside you’re actually viewing moments in the world, with a window in the sky to look up at the outside world. If you remain a passive observer, you can truly see what the author’s vision was and the meanings behind everything they wrote.”

Wow, wish we had that on Earth instead of Teachers finding 300 fucking interpretations for ‘Of Mice And Men’... wait. “What do you mean ‘remain a passive observer’.”

“Well, the effects only last for as long as you remain in the book, but you are still a physical presence in that world, you can actually go in and interact with characters and places and see how it plays out, I don’t know if anyone has tried but it might be possible to do that with comics as well, including those black and white ones from Neighpon.”

“Manga… the word you’re looking for is Manga.”

“Right… it was so cool to be in the book and learn everything by actually being in that world, even if Twilight needed to pull me in with her before I could do the spell myself.” The realization hit me, I could bring anyone into any book with me… like Gilda, and go into… “Fluttershy? You’re… you’re drooling.”

I shook my head as I realized my folly. “AWW! Why can’t I have magic too!!”

“Oh come on, Fluttershy, you do still have magic.”

“But you get to do cool things with yours! It’s not fair!” I cry out in Cock-Block-induced Rage, and slam my fists into the table.

Which then… immolated. “AGH! WHAT THE BUCK?!” I cried out as me and Trixie jumped back, but unlike me who stared at the table ashes, she was looking right at me. “What are you doing?? Another one of your fireworks could go off at any minute!”

“It… wasn’t fireworks…” I blink at her… rather frightened tone.

“Then… what was it?”

“I think you need to look at your hands.” she pointed out.

And upon my inspection, I saw something, something beautiful, something amazing, something mystical!

I saw my hands… were glowing! “I… I can cast magic??” a grin split my face, rather creepily. “Hehehe, HeHeHe! HAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAA! MWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-”

“STOP THAT!”

“Sorry.”

Alright, to help with context, I’ll need to put it at third person POV until I come in, there won’t be a notifier to mark the change, it’ll just immediately happen with no transition.

By this time Twilight had just gotten home and finished that very important letter to Princess Celestia. And was now sitting down with a glass of water and a good book.

“Well Spike, it seems that today was rather peaceful.” She commented.

“Yeah, kinda nice when something crazy doesn’t happen every week.”

“Totally, just an upset filly with a problem that worked itself out in the end, to be honest I was actually expecting something crazy to happen for it to be worthy of a letter, but it’s nice to have a nice, relaxing-”

*BAM* Went the door as I kicked it open and ran in. “Hey Twilight!”

“Gah! Fluttershy? Why-”

“Flyingbookhorsesayswhat!”

“What? Whoa! Hey! What the?!” was her line of questioning as she began rising in the air… and then saw my glowing appendages.

“I CAN DO MAGIC!!” *thud* “Oh hey, Spike are you okay? Spike? Yep, he’s out cold, Twilight?”

I looked to the unicorn in the air, with her dropped jaw and glazed over eyes. “Oooh… I think I broke ‘em again… actually this is worse than the bomb drop about Spike being her son…” I slowly lowered her back onto her cushion, and then calmly, and quietly… booked it to the hospital.

{Next Episode}

With Twilight and Spike still in the hospital for therapy… lots of therapy… Rainbow and Applejack decided I should be the judge for their Iron Pony Competition, I would’ve countered, saying I wanted to join in but… I’ve got the toned and sexy Athletic Build the Equivalent of an Olympian, it wouldn’t be fair… and speaking of fair.

“Alright, before we start these games, I think it’s fair we discuss some ground rules.” I said.

“Rules? Why would we-” Rainbow began before I cut her off.

“Dash, you can fly, and she can’t, even with that Earth Pony Strength, she can’t exactly do much if you decide to use your wings so frivolously, it’d be challenging Twilight to a race and her deciding to teleport to the Finish Line.”

“I doubt she could do that.”

“Or challenging me to a hoof-wrestle when I have the strength of a Minotaur.”

Rainbow immediately took a look at my arms and sweated a little. “...okay, point taken…”

“So, in order to keep this fair, but not completely disregard your power, you’re allowed one flap or one wing open at a time for each event.”

“One flap?! What am I supposed to do with one flap?!” she yelled angrily, flying up to my face.

“Example A.” I spread my wings with a smirk, and just as Rainbow realized what was gonna happen next, but before she could react, I blew her away with a mighty fan of my wings.

Once Dash recovered from her tumble, and a quick apology from me, we got started.

The events played out like they normally did, until we got to the push-ups.

It was neck and neck, they hit 99, they were struggling for that last push, and Rainbow couldn’t rely on continuous flapping to lift her, she had to bank it all on one flap… however, she decided on a better idea, by taking only one of her wings out and using it under her to help push up the rest of the way.

“100!”

“All right! Woop-” *thud* Went Rainbow as in her cheer she forgot her wing would be the only thing lifting her up, so she flopped to the side.

The long jump was another win for Dash, except she only just made it by a few inches rather than just ‘leaping’ clear of Applejack’s own landing.

Applejack didn’t seem too upset, knowing Dash was making an effort to stay in the rules most likely, it was clear the contest was still fair and about their unique athletic ability rather than racial traits.

In the next event with the chicks, it was actually Applejack who won, as even though Rainbow could still shield her chicks from the mud with a wing, Applejack managed to reach the end faster as the pegasus needed to keep checks on her balance.

After several more events, it eventually came to the final event, the tug of war.

This was a clear win for Applejack, even with that wing boost that almost pulled the workhorse into the mud, the farm-mare had too much raw weight and power to ensure the win.

“Alright, and the final scores Are…” I paused for dramatic effect. “Applejack: 9 points! And Rainbow Dash: 11 points!”

The spontaneous crowd of ponies cheered on for Rainbow’s victory, who just ate it all up.

I quickly put a stop to that. “Dash, come down here for a second.” she looked confused but did come down. “Now you and Applejack shake hooves and be good sports, okay? A Sore Winner is just as bad as a Sore Loser.”

It took a bit more nudging for the ‘good sports’ part, but I did thankfully avert a grudge forming between the two… almost.

I needed to nip the animosity in the bud before it got out of hand, even if it was passive aggressive at this point, and the episode’s original events helped me think of the perfect idea. “Say, the Running of The Leaves is about to start tomorrow, if you feel like a rematch, how about you use that? Same rules apply?”

The competitive smirks on their faces was all I needed.

“And so it turns out my worries were warranted, as they both started being unsportsmanlike in attempts to one-up each other, it was only after they found themselves tied for last and me being the first place winner, that I was able to get through to them that they were holding the idea of winning over their friendship.” I finished my story.

“Wow, that’s quite a story… I'm honestly having a hard time believing some of it.” Twilight said as she relaxed in the hospital bed.

“Well, it doesn’t help its believability when it just so happens Celestia also showed up.”

“How’d she take your new form?”

“She… actually didn’t even comment on it, though since I thought you’d like the lesson it gave, I already passed it on to her as one of your reports.”

“Thanks Fluttershy, I don’t think I could handle missing a report while I’m like this.”

Oh, you poor mare you have no idea. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your recovery, Twilight, sorry again for not easing you into my new… abilities.”

“It’s no problem, now you should probably get out of here before the psychiatrist gets back.”

“Got it!” and with that, I leapt back out the window.

...what? You seriously think they’d let the person who caused the mental break near the patient??

Author's Note

Behold, Fluttershy with MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGIC!

shenanigans await, dear readers.