The Master Mev : Chapter 21 – Altering Reality and Blitz

***

Team Awesome’s meeting adjourned. Rainbow Dash, Starlight Glimmer, and Discord decided to conduct the magic lesson for the evening in the library.

“To begin,” Starlight stated, “I’d like to pick up on something Rainbow and I noted down for later. Discord, you might be able to help us.”

“That’s why I’m here after all,” Discord said with a bow.

“Master here seems to be able to pick up heavy items very easily, and we were just wondering if that’s part of her being master, like a sort of innate ability, or if it’s because she’s eaten magic from both myself and Twilight. The two of us can lift heavy objects at least more easily than other unicorns. We couldn’t really come up with a way to test it, something so heavy I can’t lift it but also we don’t want to go uprooting the entire castle or sections of Ponyville,” Starlight explained.

“Master mevs can do that? Truly! The wonders never cease,” Discord remarked.

“Could you make something heavy enough for us to experiment?” Starlight asked.

He snapped his claws and a new, large couch appeared on the floor in front of them. “Rainbow, go ahead and give it a try.”

Rainbow lifted the object with her usual ease.

Discord snapped his talons again and the couch turned into some kind of metal. “It’s now lead,” he explained. “Try again.”

Rainbow lifted it the same as ever.

“Starlight, you try,” Discord told the unicorn.

Starlight tried. She struggled only a little more in comparison.

Discord materialized and piled on two more lead couches over the first. Rainbow succeeded with ease. Starlight struggled and strained more than the single couch, but she managed nonetheless.

“Hmm, yes, this is rather tricky,” Discord realized. “If you really truly want to answer this question, you need to go to some single thing super heavy, instead of having it brought here. If you want my own hypothesis, it is the master mev magic indeed. You’d hardly need it with Starlight and Twilight already in the pack but just in case, lo and behold, there it is.”

“Your theory does match Rainbow’s,” Starlight noted. “Where could we even go to find something super heavy and not bother anyone?”

“Maybe a glacier in the ocean,” Discord suggested with a shrug.

“That sounds kind of hard to put back how it was, which is kind of our problem for testing this out in Ponyville,” Rainbow told him.

“Well, perhaps that should be the focus of our lesson tonight,” Discord offered. “Repairing reality back into how you found it. Then we can try this heavy lifting another time.” He flashed the couches he brought in away. “Let’s find something already here in this library for you to break and if it’s out of your ability to repair it, I will do so. My magic should be strong enough to handle that even over yours since it’s an object you affect and not your own body.”

Starlight nodded toward one of the bookshelves. “Have at it, Master.”

Rainbow blinked, looked a them both, and their expressions encouraged her to go on ahead. Cracks formed along the shelves, causing the books to fall into slanted tiers.

Discord snapped his claws, and everything was as it was. “It’s actually not so hard. The key thing is to know what you want with as exact precision as you can imagine. Instead of thinking ‘I want to repair these bookshelves I just broke,’ you think, ‘I want these bookshelves how they were before I used my magic to break them’. If you approach with the mindset of the former, you might find yourself doing it the slow way, crack by crack, slot by slot, book by book. That can certainly be impressive because it looks like it takes effort. And it does take more effort. The latter though is exactly what you want, and because you have draconequis chaos magic in you, it will bend to that desire.

“It’s hardly a requirement but just as you have nocturnivlair, my magic has chaotic flair. You know, like how you added that crack for dramatic effect when you made Starlight her throne. In any case, you try the break and the repair.”

Rainbow did as instructed and horizontal white lines shimmered left and right across the lines of the shelves as part of her flair.

“Well done,” Discord approved.

“Agreed,” Starlight said.

“What about tearing up one of the books?” Rainbow asked. “If I still think that I want the pages back as they were before I tore it apart, the repair still works? It doesn’t matter that I don’t know exactly what it was, just that I want it exactly what it was, no matter how much I messed it up,” she theorized.

“Precisely,” Discord confirmed for her.

“Well, that’s certainly convenient. Explains a lot about how you use your magic too,” Rainbow remarked.

Starlight chuckled, “Indeed it does.”

Discord shrugged.

“Anything else I need to know about repairing reality after I break things? Because I have a totally unrelated question,” Rainbow said.

“I like veering off the path, Master, so you go right ahead,” Discord encouraged. He wore a black leather helmet, goggles, and scarf while pretending to ride along an invisible vehicle of some kind. He was intrigued himself by what a master mev would ask of him about how to use chaos magic.

Rainbow pursed her lips together trying to think of how she could even word what she wanted to know. “Do you have limits? Like, are there certain magical beings you just can’t touch, besides me? I know you can take away wings from pegasi and unicorn horns from unicorns but can you give those things to earth ponies?”

All gear de-materialized off Discord as he answered, “Oh, what an interesting question. I could give the appearance yes, and I do actually give Bag Mac a unicorn horn during our Ogres and Oubliettes games where he can use magic for that game, but it is still limited to within that framework and his own ideas about how that magic should answer to him. I can’t teach an earth pony to fly like a pegasus or use magic like a unicorn myself. That’s pegasus magic and unicorn magic. I have chaos magic. Those other kind require time and learning to be properly used. As for other beings, well, you’ve got me there. I tend to mostly ever interact with ponies. And dragons if you count Spike.”

“Really?” Starlight asked.

Discord nodded. “I know other inter-dimensional beings, but it’s more of a passing acquaintance type thing.”

“The Smooze?” Rainbow questioned, remembering the Grand Galloping Gala.

“I can affect the reality he affects, but I can’t make him not slimy,” Discord explained. “That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? Some living creatures, like ponies, I can touch and others like the Smooze or yourself have their own special magic-resistant power that supersedes my own. Indeed in some cases, I can’t make a living magical creature into another living magical creature that it really isn’t. And for the ones that I can, like ponies, when I do, it’s usually only an alteration for a limited amount of time.”

“Yes, that is what I wanted to know,” Rainbow nodded.

“I’m curious, Master Rainbow Dash, what brought this line of questioning on?” Discord asked.

“I’m curious too,” Starlight echoed.

“Do you know about my leviathan dread?” Rainbow asked Discord.

He raised an eyebrow with a scowl. “Is that the snake used with a fear snare?”

“Yes,” Rainbow confirmed.

Discord shuddered. “Dreadful indeed.”

“Heh heh,” Rainbow chuckled in amusement.

“What exactly did you hope to change about her?” Discord wondered.

“Oh, she’s great, I love her,” Rainbow explained. “I just thought it might be cool if she could be solid for at least a little while, a few seconds or minutes, not a permanent kind of thing. That would definitely make it harder to take care of her. And you know, maybe talk to her, again, at least a little more than what I can do now. I have at least a feel for what she means by the way she moves or looks at me.”

“Hmm,” Discord said and grew contemplative. “Since she’s mev magic, you just might be able to do that with the chaos-mev magic. Maybe…just enough for you and only you.”

“As in, no one else would be able to touch her?” Starlight pondered. “And maybe only Rainbow could hear her speak.”

“Mev magic does like to make and bend the rules to its own power,” Discord pointed out. “It rather depends on how Rainbow Dash wants to do it.”

Rainbow put a hoof up to her chin thoughtfully. “I suppose I should ask if that’s something Blitz even wants to try first.”

“Blitz?” Discord asked.

“That’s what Rainbow named her,” Starlight informed him.

“Oh, right,” Discord said as he gave an acknowledging nod.

“I’ll ask her later at home, just the two of us. I need to think it through and don’t want her to feel on the spot with the two of you watching,” Rainbow decided aloud. “Thanks for your ideas,” she told Discord. “Let’s practice some more on the repairs. Then I want to learn how to copy books from both of you with both chaos and unicorn magic.”

The night proceeded as planned.

***

Technically, it was Wednesday morning when Rainbow Dash stood within her cloud house to speak to Blitz after her Tuesday night magic lesson. The sun still wouldn’t be up for awhile, and she’d slept for perhaps twenty minutes so it was almost like it was still Tuesday night to her. In any case, she summoned her pet leviathan dread.

“I’ve got questions for you,” she told Blitz. “This is kinda hard because I know that you just generally do whatever I tell you to do because I’m the master.”

Blitz nodded.

“But you’ve got at least some of a mind of your own, so I’m going to ask you about something I want, but you’ve gotta know, I want you to only say yes if you mean it, if it’s something you want as well. Do you understand what I’m asking?”

Blitz shook her head. She desired what her master desired. There was no need to ask, ever. She would do anything in her power for Rainbow Dash.

“Oh,” Rainbow realized exactly what Blitz meant despite her lack of words. “I guess that makes it easy.” She swallowed. “Alright then, the master will figure this out as she goes. Come closer, I’m going to pet you.”

Blitz complied. Rainbow touched her the way she always did. “You’re going to be solid for about five seconds,” Rainbow informed her.

The dread nodded. Rainbow’s eyes changed to their mix of red on yellow. Upon the next touch to Blitz, silver rippled all through her translucence, casting solid scales onto her body. She still felt icy cold to the touch, but Rainbow pressed her hoof a little harder to make sure it wouldn’t pass through, which it didn’t. With the five seconds passed, the solidity phased away just as Rainbow Dash foretold. Blitz wrapped herself around Rainbow several times before making a nuzzling motion near Rainbow’s right side of her face.

“Heh, glad you like it,” Rainbow told her. “I don’t want you solid all the time. It doesn’t feel right but being able to touch, really touch you, for at least a few fleeting seconds, feels right too. So, here’s the plan, my pet. We’re going to do that here and there over time, longer times, so that when we’re here at home in our domain, we can have that kind of moment whenever we want. Out there,” Rainbow gestured, “let’s keep it ghostly.”

Blitz nodded in agreement.

“Next thing. I’m going to pet you again, just as you are now, and you’re going to try and say ‘hello’ to me. I’ll be channeling some magic into you for this thing,” Rainbow told her.

Blitz nodded.

Rainbow pet her, the snake essence felt the extra charge of magic flow into her and said with a gentle feminine voice, “Hello”.

“Awesome,” Rainbow said in a quiet excited voice. “Now I’ve got a real challenge for you. We’re doing that again, and you’re going to decide what the word is. And it can’t be the really obvious one, ‘Master’, got it?”

Blitz shook in a silent chuckle and nodded. When her moment came, she said, “Rainbow Dash.”

“Haha, you silly snake, you got me,” Rainbow was delighted. “I can’t possibly complain. Hearing my pony name straight from you is all kinds of special.”

Blitz gestured another nuzzle.

“Well, the plan is to not get too carried away with these ideas. Being ghostly and quiet is kinda your thing. It’s just going to be my own special thing to glimpse you a little beyond that here in my domain,” Rainbow admitted. “That is what your master desires. Something that feels right for both of us, I hope.”

Blitz playfully flicked her tail as a sign of both approval and agreement.

Gently tapping the side of the leviathan’s jaw, Rainbow said, “I love you, Blitz” as a tiny happy tear streaked down one of her cheeks.

***

On Wednesday night, after returning from helping Rarity at her shop, Rarity for You in Manehattan, Fluttershy glided upward to Rainbow Dash’s cloud house. As she approached, the door opened all on its own. “Master?” she called in timidly.

An upside down Rainbow Dash descended to face her. The master mev was wearing her bat wings. “Segunda,” she said with a fanged smile, her voice playful and lower in pitch than usual. She twirled and hovered upright, the flaps flashing back to feathers. “What do you think?” she gestured at the door. Her raspy voice shifted just as quickly and easily to its usual level. “Kind of cool, right? It’ll only work like that for you and the other Awesomevs on flexchange nights. The master vampire beckons you.” She spoke her last sentence with a playful spooky tone as if she were telling a silly ghost story, then beckoned the fledgling further into her domain with her forelimbs while chuckling wickedly.

“You’re right,” Fluttershy noted as she walked in, enjoying the greeting. “Your nocturnivlair is super strong here.” She watched the door shut behind her. “I guess it makes sense. Home is where you get to be yourself, even as a pony after all. Now that I know to expect it, the door is a rather sweet gesture.” She gasped at the most amazing thing she’d ever seen. In the large foyer to the house, curled and twisted about rested the translucent leviathan dread she’d heard about in conversation. “Is this…?”

“Blitz,” Rainbow said. “I want you to meet Fluttershy. She is Segunda of my pack, Team Awesome. Fluttershy, this is Blitz, my leviathan dread.”

Blitz raised her head and looked at Fluttershy. Fluttershy fluttered closer. “Hello Blitz,” Fluttershy greeted, then looked at Rainbow. “Can I pet her?”

“Yes. Let me tell you the main way first. You have to stop exactly where you would touch her if she were solid, right here,” she demonstrated, “and then you get this icy feeling your veins. That’s how you know you’ve made contact. If you reach too far, you go right through her.” Rainbow pushed her hoof all the way through.

Fluttershy tried it and gasped again at the feeling. “That’s amazing.”

Blitz gave a polite nod of gratitude for the compliment.

“What’s the other way?” Fluttershy asked.

“This one is new, and it’s got some heavy limits, but I’m eager to show what we’ve been working on. Plus, you love animals, so lucky you, huh?”

Fluttershy nodded eagerly.

“You’ve got ten seconds,” Rainbow told Fluttershy. “It’s still going to feel icy.”

Fluttershy continued to wear her eagerly waiting smile.

Rainbow shifted into her chaos form, then reached out and pet Blitz. As she did so this time, magic spread all over the body, and Blitz became a solid leviathan form.

Fluttershy covered her mouth with both hooves and gasped an even bigger gasp than all the ones before. Then she remembered her time limit and stroked the scales. “Now it’s even more amazing,” she said in a quick, impressed breath.

The effect faded.

“How did you do that?” Fluttershy asked.

“Master mev desire, instinct, and some reality-manipulating ideas thanks to Discord. I learned a lot last night, during and after the lesson,” Rainbow explained.

“Oh, I can’t wait to talk to him about this. I can tell him, right?” Fluttershy hoped.

“Sure. He’ll want to know how it went, and you’ll see him before I do with your Tuesday tea. He thought I’d try it as the only one to be able to touch her, which is mostly right. I think that if I factor in my domain, my conditions like the ten seconds, and my general approval, then that’s why you were able to touch her as well. I made an exception. I do not intend to give that approval often,” Rainbow noted.

“Of course,” Fluttershy understood. “That’ll make any other times I get to touch her that much more special,” she said with a smile.

“Let’s do our flexchange,” Rainbow decided. “Blitz…”

The leviathan withdrew into the floor in a circle, knowing she would be summoned back soon enough.

Rainbow bit Fluttershy’s neck and when the right moment came along, Fluttershy’s fangs grew. She bit Rainbow back. Once enough magic exchanged, Rainbow backed away. Fluttershy sat on her haunches with her wings flared upward and looked into the sky blue pegasus’ magenta eyes.

“Go ahead,” Rainbow told her. “Try it.”

Fluttershy closed her eyes and concentrated. One of her feathers sharpened like the tip of a bat wing. She felt it and opened her eyes to see it. “Master,” she uttered and gestured toward it.

“See, it’s going to come along over time. Not easily. We keep exchanging, you keep trying, I think it’ll happen. I really do. Try changing it back.,” Rainbow instructed.

Fluttershy stared at it, and it obeyed.

“It might be a night-restricted power since it’s vampire-related,” Rainbow theorized.

“I don’t think I’d mind that,” Fluttershy admitted. “It feels right. I guess that’s how it is with your fangs.”

Rainbow nodded in agreement. The two shared a few quiet moments, some nuzzling, and little more conversation before Fluttershy flew home. Rainbow summoned Blitz, as her pet expected, and went to find something to read.