Welcome to Equestria Laboratories

Aura Shield ran into her testing chamber. Her eyes burned as she attempted to observe her surroundings through the glaring light that was assaulting her. She didn’t even realize when the heavy, metal door slid down behind her and sealed shut. The intercom crackled to life, and the familiar voice of the stallion returned.

“Your first task is simply to walk through the door on the opposite end of the room. May you be guided by luck’s hoof in all of your endeavors!”

Easy enough. “Now if only one of you could turn down these freaking lights, I could get started with finding this door!” she shouted to nopony in particular.

The lights began to dim.

People will always listen if you assert yourself, she thought to herself with a haughty laugh. Now I can finally see.

She rubbed her eyes gratefully. The lights in the room had faded to a comfortable level, and she could easily spot the door on the far side of the circular room, only fifty feet away. She stuck her chin into the air proudly, and began the short walk to the door.

The room continued to get darker.

“That’s enough, you can stop now!”

She increased her pace, panicking slightly, and sped up to a moderate trot. When she got near the center of the room, she slowed down to a stop. The lights had gone out completely.

“Hey, that isn’t funny! Turn those back on!” She continue, “I liked it better when they were burning my eyes out!”

She waited there in half-expectation, but the lights remained off.

“Fine, I’ll find it myself.” she mumbled, her chin now pointing at the ground in an attempt to spot her own hooves.

She had set off in the direction that she believed the door to be in when there was a low fwip and something whizzed by her ear. There was another fwip, and she felt a sharp pain on her flank as something pierced her skin.

Oh, you have GOT to be bucking kidding me.

Another fwip quickly followed, and another, and another. She could feel sharp pains on her back now, and her ear, and her leg. She turned her head sharply to assess the damage and try to figure out what was being fired at her. She couldn’t see through the extreme darkness, so she cast a light spell, summoning a small, glowing ball of soft white light to the tip of her horn. When she saw her side, she gasped. Sticking out of her body were numerous thin, feathered darts. She couldn’t be sure just how deeply they were imbedded, but they seemed to be about 3 inches long.

Aura quickly got down as low to the floor as she could and closed her eyes. She searched her mind for the usual supply of magical energy, but it felt different now, like she had dipped her hoof into a puddle, but had felt the strong currents of an ocean. She couldn’t couldn’t be bothered to figure out just what the change was, so she shrugged it off and continued with her magic. She prepared the necessary amount of energy to cast her usual barrier spell.

Aura Shield had always been a master of defense magic, and her cutie mark showed it. On her flank was an image of a pony standing inside of a magical barrier that stood out in bright pink against the yellow of her fur.

She waited until she heard one of the projectiles’ customary fwip sounds, then spun around and swiped her hoof through the air, creating a small pink shield that blocked the projectile at the last moment. The ELPAC began to glow very slightly.

Aura focused all of her attention on her surroundings, listening for the slightest indication of another incoming dart.

Fwip. She spun a quarter circle and threw up another translucent wall of energy to block another one of the small missiles. Another one pierced the skin on the back of her leg while she was busy with the first. Three more fwips came by in rapid succession, but this time she only managed to block one. The other two struck her, and she felt two new points of pain radiating from her neck.

“Stop it!” she cried, as she felt a sting at her hoof.

“Stop!” she cried, getting pierced again and again. She had lost count of how many times she had been hit.

Aura felt herself growing faint, and knew that she wouldn’t be able to use much more magic. She scoured her mind for the last bits of energy that she had, and again, felt that strange difference in her mind. She reached deeper into the mysterious ocean that she felt earlier, and realized that what she was feeling was a massive store of energy, but it wasn’t within herself. For as long as she could use magic, she had only been able to feel the energy that she possessed. Never before could she detect energy outside of herself. She reached out with her mind and took some of the energy for herself, and the ELPAC began to glow more intensely. She held within her more magical energy than she had ever commanded in her life, and there was plenty more where it had come from.

“I.” She stamped her hoof down hard into the floor.

“Said.” She reached into her mind, preparing the huge ball of energy.

“STOP!” She released the intense blast of magic, and it radiated out from her in a sphere. It blew dozens of the hellish projectiles out of the air, then reached a point 5 feet from her body, and remained there, completely still.

The orb of light that she had cast earlier was now blazing brilliantly, illuminating every surface of the room like a small sun. The huge, pink, translucent shield that she had created floated around her and blocked the tiny darts that were flying through the air.

Tink tink tink tink tink. The onslaught of the tiny darts continued, but Aura was safe within her shield, and the darts only bounced away from her harmlessly.

She felt something on her flank, and looked back at it, anticipating nothing but bloody holes in her side with darts embedded halfway into her body. What she saw was even more shocking.

There was a bright flash of light, then when it cleared, there was a new cutie mark on her flank. Her old mark, a lone pony with a small shield, had been replaced by a new image of four ponies standing together, with a shield protecting all of them at once.

The unicorn gasped as she sucked down air, just realizing now that she had been holding her breath the whole time. She took her eyes off of her cutie mark for long enough to realize that the ELPAC was generating enough light to see the room clearly. She was able to find the door, and she cautiously approached it.

Shield doesn’t seem to travel with me, Aura thought to herself.

She reached out with her mind and brought in even more energy. Aura Shield cast a larger barrier, this time in the shape of an archway spanning the space between herself and the door.

As the unicorn proceeded through her pink archway, hundreds of the miniature darts tinked against the shield and bounced onto the floor.

A condescending chuckle found its way onto Aura’s previously grim visage.

“I told you I’d find it myself.”