Also Known As War Crimes Against The Poneva Convention
Starlight trotted through the long, empty corridors of the crystalline castle, listening absentmindedly to the echoes of her own hoofsteps bouncing against the walls. The afternoon sun shone through a few of the corridor windows, striking the many crystal surfaces and casting glistening patterns of light all over the place. It was a beautiful sight, certainly, but it was rather hard to admire it when said patterns of light constantly bounced straight into her eye. Like this one right no—
She winced briefly, shaking her head in annoyance from the momentary flash, but carried on. She had brought up the issue before to Twilight, but Rarity dramatically protested, insisting that blocking the sunlight would "detract from the grande beauté naturelle of the castle".
Whatever. Last time she challenged Rarity on anything related to design, she had been tossed into an hour long unskippable rant on the role of lighting in interior design and its parallel to color contrast in dresses.
Okay well, it was really only ten minutes, but it felt like an hour.
But again, whatever. It was just a minor annoyance, nothing worth riling up the "wrath of a fashionista" as Rainbow had so gently worded it. Besides, she had more important things to think about.
Like Spike.
More specifically, his whereabouts. Starlight was bored. Immensely bored. Twilight was out on one of those "friendship map missions", so she couldn't bug her about any new spells. As for the rest of Twilight's friends, well...
She just didn't feel like leaving the castle.
"So... how many more do you need?"
Spike's voice echoed out from one of the rooms up ahead. Starlight's eyes lit up. Aside from Twilight, Spike was the only one of Twilight's friends she felt she could really connect with the same way she did with Twilight.
That, and he shared her interest in disregarding most if not all of Twilight's safety guidelines for doing dangerous stuff in the castle.
"Uh, maybe another ten?"
"But you just said that earlier!"
"Well, now I need ten more."
Starlight gasped. Another voice rang out from the room. A very familiar one, one she hadn't expected to hear again for another few days. She galloped forward excitedly, screeching to a halt in front of the one room with a half-opened door. "Trixie! I can't believe you're back alre—"
She froze.
Trixie and Spike froze as well, the former sitting on her haunches and holding an open jar in her forelegs while the latter looked like he was in the middle of blowing into it. Their eyes locked onto Starlight's, who just stood there unmoving. A faint, green energy swirled within the jar before gradually dissipating.
Eventually, Trixie turned her gaze back to the jar and, upon noticing its lack of visible contents, put it down with a roll of her eyes. "Alright, Starlight. This isn't the weirdest thing you've walked in on me doing." Spike raised an eyebrow, then grabbed the empty jar and walked to a distant corner of the room with a rather tired look.
Starlight hummed in thought before trotting into the room. "Mmmm, I'd still put it on the top ten. What are you doing back here so soon? I thought you were supposed to be running a magic tour in Fillydelphia until—"
"Until this weekend?" Trixie cut her off. "Oh, I was. I cut it short."
Starlight tilted her head in confusion. "You... did? Why?" A thought flashed through her mind, and her ears splayed back. "Did one of your tricks go wrong? Was it the one I suggested with the duplicating book? Did the spell itself go wrong an—"
"Nope!" Trixie shut her up with a hoof plugged in her mouth, which Starlight annoyedly shoved away. "That spell of yours and the trick went off without a hitch! I even tossed the extra book to the audience." She blinked. "Either somepony caught it, or it caught somepony's head. Trixie wasn't really looking."
Starlight smacked herself in the forehead. "Trixie! I specifically told you not to do that!"
"I don't remember anything about not throwing stuff to the au—"
"No, not that. Giving the extra book away! That spell I taught you wasn't a perfect duplication spell, it just creates a rough copy of the object's shape made of raw magic held together by a very fine containment field, paired with an illusion spell to make it look like the book!"
Trixie cocked her head. "I mean, that sounds like a duplication spell."
"No! It didn't make another book, just a... ball of magic held together so it looks like the book! If anypony tried to open it, it would disrupt the containment field and the spell would collapse!"
Trixie's eyes widened. "Collapse like... explosively?"
Starlight paused. "Well, not really enough to actually hurt anypony, but—"
"Oh, so it's no big deal then." Trixie laughed and trotted over to a table on the side of the room, where twenty or so green, glowing jars sat in an unorganized pile.
"Ughh, Trixieeeeeeee." Starlight groaned in exasperation, though her attention was quickly drawn to an approaching Spike, now carrying a glowing jar like the ones on the table. "Oh, hey Spike."
"Hey, Starlight." He placed it besides Trixie, who floated the jar to the top of the pile and began fixing the whole thing. "What's up?"
"Nothing much. Actually, I was just looking for you."
Spike's expression lit up slightly. "For me? Really? Why?"
Starlight paused. "Uhh... well... I don't really knowwww yet, just sort of looking for something to do. Speaking of which, what... are you doing with Trixie?"
"Sheeee needed my help with something. She didn't tell me what though, other than that she needed me to fill a bunch of jars with my fire."
"Your magic fire!" Trixie loudly corrected from the table.
"Uh huh, the same fire I use to send letters to Princess Celestia. In exchange for that." Spike pointed to a small, crystal bowl filled with tiny, colorful gems, sitting on the table beside the glowing jars.
Starlight raised an eyebrow, then trotted over to Trixie, who was intensely staring into one of the jars. Up close, she could tell now that they were swirling with Spike's green, sparkly fire. "Alright, come on, spill it. What are you doing?"
Trixie hesitated for a moment before sighing. "Like I said earlier, all of Trixie's tricks went perfectly, including the book one! And I even ended the first show with a classic, where I threw a smoke bomb down and vanished from the stage, then snuck down and through the crowd so they would think I magically appeared there. And I could tell most of them loved it! But I also saw some ponies who looked a bit... disappointed."
"Disappointed? But your show was perfect."
"Of course it was!" Trixie beamed briefly, before wilting a little. "But that's just it, it looked like they were disappointed because my acts were getting... predictable."
"Really?" Starlight furrowed her brow in confusion. "How could you figure that from just looking disappointed?"
"Oh, I also eavesdropped on them after the show."
"...of course you did."
Trixie ignored Starlight's deadpan look. "Specifically, the smoke bombs were getting predictable. I throw it down at my hooves and disappear, and that's it. So I was thinking, what if I made a different kind of smoke bomb? Something can actually do stuff and not just throw up smoke. Instead of always throwing it down at my hooves, maybe I could throw it at something else and make that thing disappear instead!"
"Oh?" Starlight smirked. "You know you can just use your old smoke bombs for that, right? Just toss it in front of something, then teleport the object somewhere else before the smoke clears!"
"I could if I could actually teleport things."
"But you should be able to now, right? I mean, I did teach you the spell, the day you, uh, teleported the Friendship Map to the spa?"
Trixie rolled her eyes. "In case you forgot, that didn't exactly work."
"I don't think I could ever forget that. But anyway, I told you how to practice it on your own!" Starlight paused, then narrowed her eyes. "You... did continue practicing on your own... right?"
Trixie grinned sheepishly. "For a... while?"
"How much is a while?"
"Hmm..." Trixie pondered. "Well, Trixie has used that word to mean a few minutes before, so—"
"A few minutes?!" Starlight barely resisted the urge to smack her head through the table. "Well, why not just pick it back up now? It's the perfect reason to learn it."
"Pfffft." Trixie waved her off dismissively. "I could, but why would I when I have an even better thing?" She backed up a bit, reared on her back legs, and pointed both of her hooves towards Spike. "Tada!"
Starlight blinked. "Spike?"
Spike took a step back in surprise. "Wha— me?"
"You!" Trixie nodded excitedly. "I dunno how you do it, but every time you breathe fire on something, it disappears!"
"Disappeared..." Starlight deadpanned. "What are yo—"
"Yep! After my, uh, first time running out of Ponyville, I actually stuck around every so often, hiding in some sketchy alley to watch Twilight. And I would see how she would write stuff on parchment and give it to Spike, who would blow fire on it and send it where she wanted."
Spike blinked. "I don't like where this is going."
"Me neither, Spike." Starlight reached for Trixie to get her attention. "Trixie? Uh—"
"So behold!" Trixie grabbed one of the glowing jars of green fire in her magic, floating it dangerously above her head. She pointed a hoof at a chair in the corner of the room. "I will now make that chair disappear and reappear outside in the hallway!"
Spike and Starlight's eyes widened as they cried out simultaneously. "Wait! Trixie, don—"
With a smooth twist of her head, Trixie sent the jar flying across the room, Spike barely jumping out of the way. It shattered on the floor right at the foot of the chair, engulfing it in green fire. A huge cloud of sparkling smoke engulfed the chair in its entirety, obscuring it from view. After a few seconds, the smoke formed a long trail that quickly flew out the door, leaving no traces of the chair behind.
"Tada!" Trixie bent into a dramatically low bow. "As you can see, the chair is no more! And if you were to follow me out here..." Trixie trotted through the door and into the hallway. "You can see tha— that... huh?" She glanced around in confusion at the still empty hallway. "Where'd the chair go?"
Spike followed her out, shaking his head. "You know, you could have just explained what you wanted to do instead of keep it all mysterious to me."
Trixie whipped around. "But it was supposed to be a surprise!"
Spike blew out tiredly. "My fire doesn't just send things wherever you want them to go. Or... not yet at least. Until I can, Princess Celestia gave me an enchantment that directs it to wherever she is, to make it easier for me."
"'Gave you an enchantment'." Trixie repeated. "In an amulet?"
"Uh..." Spike paused. "I dunno. She just sort of... put it in me? Twilight knows a little more about it, but she's not gonna be back for maybe another hour."
Trixie opened her mouth, but quickly froze, her eyes widening. "Wait, so you're saying anytime you try to send something with your fire, it goes to Princess Celestia?"
"Not every time, it just makes it way easier to send things to her. I don't know how to fully control sending it to somewhere I want."
"Uhuh, okay, but please don't tell me I just sent a medium-sized chair to Princess Celestia..."
Spike pondered it for a moment. "I... won't tell you that."
As Trixie's breathing began to pick up, a spark of inspiration flew through Starlight's mind. "There's a specific enchantment for it..." She muttered under her breath. She trotted over to the pile of glowing jars and floated one up to eye-level. The sparkly fire inside swished back and forth, as if it couldn't decide whether it was a liquid or gas.
She closed her eyes, focusing her senses towards the fire and feeling the texture of the magic held within. It didn't take long for her to identify the matrix of the enchantment Celestia gave Spike, but it was... extremely complex.
"Uh... Starlight?" Trixie poked her head near her own. "What are you doing?"
"I'm feeling out the enchantment in Spike's fire. Maybe if I study it enough, I might be able to—"
"Ohhhh, you're changing the magic in the fire? I can totally do that too!"
Starlight felt something yank the jar out of her magic grasp. Her eyes snapped open, and she turned to see Trixie floating one of the jars of fire right up to her face, her eyes squinting in effort. "Wait wait wait, I don't think you shou—"
"Done!"
Starlight blinked. "You're... done."
"Yep!"
"Already."
"Yep!" Trixie beamed.
"But that enchantment was one of the most complicated things I've ever seen in a spell! There's no way you could've understood it so quickly!"
Trixie tilted her head in confusion. "Understood it? I didn't even look at it."
"Didn't even..." Starlight repeated under her breath. Trixie had only focused on the fire for a few seconds, there was no way she could have made any meaningful changes to the enchantment, so the only other thing she could have done was... Her eyes widened. "Trixi—"
"This time! Behold!" Trixie through the jar at yet another chair in the room, where it again smashed on the floor beside it. The chair quickly erupted in a burst of bright, green flame, filling the room with putrid, black smoke as the fabric on it darkened and melted under the heat of the fire. Spike blinked at the sight, then just walked over to the table and grabbed the bowl of jewels, chucking a few into his mouth as he watched the chair burn.
Trixie stared at it in bemusement. "Why is it on fire?"
Starlight rolled her eyes. "You threw a jar of fire at it, Trixie."
"Yeah, but—"
"Did you locate Celestia's enchantment in the fire and completely sever and dispel it?"
Trixie tilted her head. "Yeah? That way it wouldn't be sent to Princess Celestia."
"Mhm. Yup. So you took the magic out of the magical fire, leaving you with..."
"... just... fire?"
Starlight pressed a hoof between her eyes. "Ughhh, Trixieeeee."
"Whaaaat? I can do it, watch." Trixie floated another jar to her face and closed her eyes in concentration.
"You know you don't need to put it right in front of you."
Trixie just shushed her with a wave of her hoof. Starlight rolled her eyes, but followed suit, focusing on the intricate lines of the spell matrix woven into the fire. She could feel Trixie's magic pick and prod at it, grasping at sections of the enchantment and ripping it away from the body. She could tell Trixie was actually somewhat modifying the enchantment, but without being the one doing it, she couldn't be sure in what way.
Finally, Trixie opened her eyes with a satisfied grin. "Alright, this time, I'm sure it works!" Without even waiting a second, she chucked the jar at yet another chair, where it smashed on the ground and consumed it in a ball of green fire.
"Uh... Trixie? I feel like Twilight wouldn't want us desecrating so much of her furniture."
Trixie laughed. "I think she has plenty to spare. Come on, come on, work, pleaaaaseee..."
The three of them watched the ball of green flame twist and morph before transforming into a cloud of sparkling smoke. This time, however, instead of trailing out the room, the smoke just rose into the air before eventually dispersing.
Trixie jumped up and down in glee. "Starlight, it worked! Did you see?!"
Starlight's jaw slowly fell open as Trixie ran past her, already repeating the process on the rest of the jars. Her mind went into overdrive. There was no way in Tartarus Trixie could've figured that out so quickly, to change such a complex enchantment in a way she herself couldn't figure out yet.
"Smoke bomb!" Trixie tossed one of the modified fire jars at a rug in the center of the room, where it was engulfed in flames before transforming into sparkly smoke that then seemed to dissipate into the air. She grabbed several more of the jars in her magic and began running around the room in excited mania.
Were there some things in magic, beyond stage magic, that Trixie excelled in over her? Perhaps her special talent carried over in spells used in sleight-of-hoof or illusion, so changing them would come naturally to her.
"Smoke bomb! Smoke bomb! Smoke bomb!" Trixie threw jar after jar around the room, hitting various pieces of furniture scattered throughout the room, each one consumed by fire, then sparkly smoke, then vanishing.
But something was wrong. The furniture, the fire, the smoke. Something was wrong about all of it, something so obvious, it was staring her right in the face, and yet she couldn't make it out.
"Um, Starlight?" Spike, concern plastered all over his face, ran over to Starlight and tried to shake her foreleg. "You've got that look on your face again, like we're in imminent danger."
"Smoke bomb for you! And a smoke bomb for you!" Trixie chucked one more behind her without looking. It sailed in a wide arc towards Starlight's head. She shrieked and dived out of the way as it crashed under the table holding the rest of the jars. Instinctively, she grabbed all of the jars in her magic and scooted away as the table was consumed in green flames, then turned into smoke. She watched as the familiar sparkling smoke rose into the air, then dispersed.
A concerning thought flashed through her mind. She turned her attention to one of the modified fire jars, focusing on the enchantment held within the flame. Nothing seemed changed so far. The enchantment would spread across the object using the fire, then convert it into smoke containing every piece of the original object. After that it would—
Starlight blinked. Where were the spell components responsible for seeking out Princess Celestia and rematerializing the object?
"Smoke bomb for the whole room!"
Her eyes widened as she realized what was going on, and she turned just in time to watch Trixie hurl a jar at the cluster of
them still floating in her magic.
All of them exploded upon impact.
Within a split second, she grabbed Spike and Trixie with her magic, turned her sight towards the distant hill visible through the room's only window, and prayed her teleportation spell was faster than the flames.
Starlight, Trixie, and Spike sat on the grass, staring up at the side of Twilight's castle, where an entire room was just... missing. Floor, ceiling, walls, all gone, leaving all the adjacent rooms and the connecting hallway completely exposed to the outside air. An obnoxious volume of sparkling smoke poured out from the hole and swirled with the breeze, disappearing into the sky.
"There goes all that furniture..." Starlight muttered quietly.
Spike reached into his bowl and grabbed another gem to munch on.
Trixie turned to Starlight. "I—"
"You severed the second half of the enchantment responsible for guiding the smoke to a destination and turning it back into the original object, leaving the smoke to disperse as soon as the spell terminated, resulting in a magic fire that would instantly disintegrate any object it touches."
Trixie blinked. "I was going to say I know how to make it even be—"
"No."
"But I—"
"Nope."
"I could maybe—"
"I don't wanna hear it."
Trixie silently turned back to the castle and resumed her blank stare.
Wings briefly flapped behind Starlight, followed by a gentle breeze as hooves touched upon grass. Twilight gazed up at the missing section of the side of her castle in bewilderment. "Did... Trixie try heating her lemonade again?"
Starlight let herself completely fall onto her back with a groan.
"Don't remind me."
Author's Note
Inspired slightly by when me and two friends in college tried and failed spectacularly to modify a finished program to change its functionality, resulting in the most chaotic results (good times, good times), this is why good documentation of code is important ;)
(technically a sequel to https://www.fimfiction.net/story/561617/burnt-lemonade but you really don't need to read it (or know this info either))
I now request upon thee to tell ThePeer how cool they are :D
