The League of Talented Magicians

This story is a fan-fiction of MLP:FiM. I don't own any of it. It belongs to Hasbro, etc, etc.

Don't sue. Seriously. That would be so uncouth.

Chapter 5:  Why it’s a good reason to have dead stuff at concerts

Trixie walked off stage and back to her dressing room, feeling like she was the greatest pony in the entire world. She shrugged off her cape and threw it onto her chair, tossing her hat after it. Then she walked over to her mirror and grabbed the picture that was stuck in its frame with a tight magical grip.

“So you still think you’re better than me?” she said angrily to the picture of the lavender unicorn. “Did you see that? I BEAT Discord. ALONE. Not even you could do that, Miss. I’m number one!” she said as she threw the picture to the floor and stomped on it once. She smiled. Taking out her anger on Twilight always had that effect.

“Charming.” said a voice that made her jump. She jumped and looked around for the source of the voice, but only saw her cape and hat sitting awkwardly on her chair. Wait. Her chair wasn’t that tall……

“Can you see me? Or has that blasted unicorn’s potion not worn off? Meh, whatever.” Said the voice as Trixie heard a snap of fingers. Then she was capulted through time and space by some form of teleportation, coming back into reality at a doughnut shop that she recognized as one she often went to, just a few blocks away from the theater. She shook as she took in the sights. She was sitting at a round table with the very God of Chaos, Discord at her left, sipping chocolate milk and munching a doughnut, while a unicorn she didn’t recognize sat across from her. He was reading a newspaper and gave her a slight wave. Then she looked to her right and her vision went red.

“YOU!” she screamed. “I should have known that Twilight Sparkle would be behind that!”

Shining Armor held his hooves up in a gesture of peace. “You can scream at me all night, or you can listen to why Discord….escorted you here.” He said with a disapproving frown in Discord’s direction. Discord saw, but he just shrugged it off, humming a tune.

Shining explained the situation to Trixie, and she paled when she found out that the stone monster had actually been Discord. She thought it was just a golem that Shining or the other unicorn made, but she was wrong. However, the color returned to her face when she heard the part about being stronger than the Elements of Harmony.

“So you’re saying that I will be massively more powerful than Twilight? Not that I’m weaker than her now……” she asked.

“Yes you will be stronger than her.” answered discord tiredly. “But only in the field that you are perfect in.”

“Which is?”

Discord took another bite of his doughnut and a sip of his chocolate milk before speaking. “You, my dear Trixie Lulamoon, are the Aspect of Illusion. You are the trickster, the misinformer, the mesmerizer of the Aspects.”

“So what does this mean?” Trixie asked. “I already know I am a great magician, but what do all those titles mean?” At this Syringe lowered the newspaper and Shining focused on Discord. Discord took a deep breath.

“Long ago, before I was even formed, back when all the Alicorns lived together and ruled the whole world together, there were mighty daemons that roamed Equestria and the rest of the world. The alicorns managed to round them up and imprison them in the great pit of Tartarus. Like the Elements of Harmony, the Aspects of Magic were strong magical tools that the original seven alicorns used. However, there are only six Aspects, since the seventh alicorn was too strong to use the Aspects without engulfing the world in a catastrophe that would have stopped time.  But other than that, the Aspects of Magic all belonged to your princesses and four other alicorns. When the wielded the Aspects of Magic to fight the greater daemons, like my father, they were given names based on their Aspect of Magic. The alicorn that used the Aspect of Protection was nicknamed ‘The Shield’. The ones who used the Aspect of Restoration and Illusion were called ‘The Healer’ and ‘The Trickster’ respectively, because of their magic.”

“Also, these alicorns were the original elementals. They each had their own special element that they could control better along with their magics, but I doubt any of you could use these elements until you are wearing the Aspects themselves, so we’ll leave that until we get all of our friends together. Come on, I know where another Aspect is.”

“Is he somewhere close by?” Shining asked hopefully.

“Nope. She’s playing a concert in Fillidelphia.” Discord answered.

“What is she the Aspect of music?” Trixie snorted.

Discord glared at her. “She is much worse than that. Just hope you are never on her bad side.”

Trixie gulped and Discord tipped back in his chair. “Let’s go.” He said, falling back in his chair, dissipating as he hit the floor.  Syringe followed suit, and Trixie looked as Shining confused.

“It’s how he teleports. And if you’re anything like me, you might want to close your eyes.” Shining explained.

Trixie laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m nothing like you.” She said as she threw herself backward, disappearing into smoke. Shining sighed and paid the bill for the doughnuts and beverages and let himself fall back to the ground.

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Shining came into existence with a heavy buzzing in his ears. He held his head for a moment and realized that it wasn’t his head that was buzzing; it was the feedback from an amplifier on the other side of the tall wooden fence that allowed him to teleport there. He shook his head and realized in the dark night that he was no longer in Applewood. It was much colder and he could feel the sting of autumn in the midnight wind.

However, he was worried most from the lack of his friends. Discord, Trixie, and Syringe were nowhere to be found. He quickly looked around, and found a plank of the fence was missing a few feet away from where he teleported. He walked over to it and found a puddle of wood from where the plank had been. He sighed and knew where they had gone. He followed his friends through the plank and was immediately barraged.

He was shoved, pushed, punched, and jostled about by a crowd of ponies the hold in the fence had led into. He quickly turned angry shoving the ponies back, who just smiled at his shoves and returned them with gusto. “Woohhhhhoooooaaaaaaa!” belted out a mare’s voice from behind Shining. He quickly turned around to see n earth pony mare playing a guitar and singing on a stage, alone. The crowds cheered and went crazy at her fast and heavy punk strumming, moshing everywhere and just going insane. Shining couldn’t help but be caught up in all of it. Here was an awesome concert with some music that he had always loved. Even though he never told Cadence, his first love had been not with a filly, but with punk music in general. Back when he was a colt, he had a major crush on Roam Jett and was a dedicated fan of the Drop-Hoof Murphy’s. So he stood there for a while watching the mare play her guitar. He was amazed that an earth pony could have that level of skill with a stringed instrument, but he was more intrigued by her looks.

She had a bubble-gum pink coat, platinum blonde mane with more bubble-gum pink highlights, and her cutie mark was that of an eclipsed sun. She wore a heavy, black leather jacket and some wicked looking earrings. She danced across the stage singing songs and playing her guitar amazingly. Shining finally managed to pull his eyes off of her as he saw a heavy marble draconequus crowd-surfing. Shining moved his way over to him, and picked him up off of the crowd with magic. He strenuously carried him to the back of the crowd and put him down.

“Where’s everypony else?” Shining shouted above the noise of the music and crowds.

“They’re up front at the stage, trying not to get crushed.” He answered just as loudly.

“And where’s the Aspect?”

Discord just pointed. Shining didn’t have to look. He already had a feeling he knew who it was. “But she’s an earth pony! How can she do magic?”

“I don’t know.” Discord shrugged. “Why don’t you ask her? But do it quickly. Do you see those ponies over there?” Discord asked, jerking his head behind him. Shining looked around and saw a group of ponies that weren’t dancing or cheering. There was about ten of them, and they just stood there, their eerie eyes just staring evilly at the mare onstage.

“We should get her and leave, ASAP.” Shining said, agreeing with Discord.

“I’ll go cause some ‘technical difficulties’ while you go talk to her.” Discord said, his eyes lighting up.

“Sure.” Shining nodded. The pair separated and went on their own missions, Discord snaking his way to the back of the stage and Shining forging his way to stage. As soon as Shining got there, the sound of the amps cut out, silencing the music and making the crowd get angry.

“Sorry about that ponies.” the musician cried out, cupping her hooves around her mouth to amplify her voice. We’re having some technical stuff right now, so if you want to hear more music, I suggest going and fixing it!” she called out to the crowd. A few ponies left the crowd and went back stage while others tried to climb up on-stage for autographs and other fan junk. The musician smiled and put up a hoof.

“Stay.” she said, and it strangely froze the ponies in place. Shining looked over to the ponies, confused that one word could do that, but he clambered up on-stage to talk to her. She saw him and tried to the same. “Stay.” she commanded Shining, only to look confused for a second when it didn’t work. Then her dark-brown eyes, which were stark against her coat and mane, lit up and she gave Shining a diving hug.

“Damn, It’s been so long since one of you has attended a show!” she said in her melodic voice.

“One of you?” Shining asked as he saw Syringe and Trixie climb on stage. Discord came out from the back of the stage, looking fiercely at the crowd, particularly the ten pure-black ponies that started moving towards the stage.

“Listen, Miss….”

“Daisy. Just call me Daisy.”

“Ok Daisy.” Shining said earnestly, “You need to come with us. I know it sounds strange, but we need you.”

“For the Aspects, right?”

“How did you….”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve…..Watch out!” she screamed as a ball of flaming energy sped towards them. Shining barely had time to put a shield, so the one that he managed to produce was brittle and weak. When the energy ball hit it, it protected everypony, but Shining took the brunt of the back-blast. He was thrown off of his hooves and saw the group of attacking ponies climb onto the stage. Shining got up and stumbled. He realized on of his legs was broken. He saw as Discord tried to turn the ponies into harmless things, but the magic wasn’t working, and the ponies were getting closer.

What confused Shining was how they had fired the magic. They were all earth ponies, so how could they manifest something like pure energy? His question was answered when on of the attackers opened his jaws to an unnatural angle and he saw another ball of energy being charged. Shining quickly produced a stronger shield around his friends who were backing up towards him while they were barraged suddenly by a blast of magic. They sped to Shining and all came close to him, so he could make a strong semi-circle shield around everypony.

As Syringe examined his broken leg Shining looked at Discord bemusedly.

“They must be made of Chaos magic. That’s why mine didn’t affect them.” Discord explained.

“Let’s leave. We’re all here right?” Trixie said nervously.

“But what about all those other ponies?” Syringe asked. “We can’t leave them there to die.”

Daisy started to laugh. “Don’t worry about that. In fact, I know how we can take care of these Chaos-guys.”

“How?” asked Shining.

“Get me my guitar.” She said smiling.

Discord shrugged and snapped his fingers. The guitar appeared next to Daisy and she picked it up and stood with it. “This is how earth ponies use magic.” She said as she started to play.

Her song was not punkish, but it felt the same, with its heavy guitar lead, but there was something underneath all of that. It felt ancient and powerful. But it also felt a little wrong. The Chaos creatures stopped attacking at the sound of the noise and they perked up their heads. The whole crowd moved like one being looking at Daisy right at that moment. She sang in a long-lost tongue and the crowd started to move. Shining had no idea what language she was speaking, but he understood her words.

“Rise, rise, come to my aid. For just a breath more you can feel happiness and pain. Live again, live again, but do not stay. Go sleep and rest at my call and say.”  Daisy sang, her song getting more and more powerful. The crowd rose onto the stage and surrounded the Chaos creatures and fought them. All of the ponies except for Discord and Daisy gasped in shock as they watched many of the crowd get fatally stabbed or shot with magic and disappear into dust. But after what felt like hours, the crowd had managed to kill off all of the Chaos creatures, their dead bodies convulsing and melting into puddles of darkness. When all the creatures were gone, Shining dropped the shield.

Immediately, the crowd rushed them and Trixie screamed, but Daisy just laughed. The crowds walked around the other ponies and draconequus, lifting up and worshipping Daisy. She was happy and looked content in their grasps.

“But how?” a shaken Trixie asked. “Not even I can brainwash a whole audience of ponies.”

“These aren’t ponies, silly.” Daisy said with a giggle. “You are the Aspect of Illusion, are you not? Clear the illusion on them.”

Trixie’s horn wavered with magic, but then it glowed strongly. Trixie noticed it first and shrieked as her magic worked on the crowd. Shining and Syringe watched with abject terror as the crowd of ponies shimmered with a heat-haze, only to clear to their true forms.

All around the Aspects stood many corpses in various states of decay. Some were skeletal ponies while others were fresh from the grave. It was the ones that were in-between that sickened Shining the most. But the worst of all was how all of their empty eyes, or eye sockets, glowed with an inner green light, which sickened Shining to the core.

“So when you said ‘one of you’…” Shining said.

“Yes, I meant one of you, a living pony. It really has been such a long time since living ponies have come to one of my shows. Usually they get upset by all the death, so I have to mask it. But even then……” Daisy said sadly.

Shining started to feel bad for here, but then one of the corpses looked at him, and he could see worms crawling through the corpse’s cheeks as he tried to give a smile. Shining felt sick.

“Aspects of Magic, meet Daisy, the Aspect of Conjuration; the necromancer, the summoner, the unholy queen of the Aspects.” Discord said in disgust.

Daisy giggled and waved a hoof. “Hi, everypony.”