Interesting Impossibilities.

Intel looked at his work, and checked his notes, completely perplexed.

"Okay, there was nothing to start a fire, there was nothing to catch fire," he muttered, "So how, exactly, did it burn down?"

Trying to find a stable medium for magic to remain in total flux was proving quite difficult. Rainbow juice, it seemed, was not the solution although it did produce a monochrome flame. Intel noted down a memo to test the properties of said fire, later. Precious metals were out too, using gold made it turn into silver, using silver made it turn into copper, using copper made it explode. Apple cider was the worst though. At first, it didn't seem to change, then you tasted it.

Being reverse drunk was not fun.

"Okay," Intel said, "Let's try the tree sap."

"Whatcha doing?" Said a voice immediately behind Intel. Shala couldn't help but prey upon Intel when she saw him so engrossed in his work. Sneaking up on him carefully was not too hard.

While normally at this time she would be working, having a medical excuse to not be at work was giving her far more time to waste, like taking a walk in not so crowded streets, or enjoying the fresh air not polluted with smoke and smog. Having lived in Manehattan did not encourage her to wonder around outside.

This was one of the few times she had caught Intel in the middle of working on something. As uncaring as she appeared to be, it did touch on her curiosity. It helped that she was not so intoxicated this time around as well.

"Whatcha doing?"

Said a voice from behind a tree.

"Well, he's about to try tree sap."

Replied Golden from his low hanging cloud. He'd been sitting on the cloud watching the Unicorn write and read furiously over his notes. Golden had watched as he put out a smile accidental fire he created earlier. To which Golden sneakily drew a cloud overhead, in case one of the fires he might create got out of control and quickly became curious of what he was trying to do and what it was that he would try next.

Quill Tip was flying over Whitetail Wood when he saw a familiar looking pegasus, and two unicorns. Looking closer, Quill saw that the pegasus was Golden Bolt, one if the ponies Quill saw in the library a few days ago.

"Hello." Quill said to Bolt, after flying down to the cloud Bolt was perched on. "What's that unicorn down there doing?" Quill asked, always curious to know what was going on in Equestria.

Intel was acutely aware that he had somehow gotten himself a small audience. "Good afternoon to you as well, Shala. I'm just...experimenting." He wasn't exactly sure how to explain the finer details in layman's terms, but the result were clear to see. A jar burning down in a black and white flame, a smoking crater where a jar used to be, a jar of an anti-alcohol substance... Only two jars remained untouched by magic; the one of tree sap and the one of zap apple jam.

"I'm applying a spell to these materials and recording their reactions to said spell," he detailed further, "The results have been certainly curious. Now, stand back, please." His horn glowed bright as his eyes focused on the tree sap intently. The spell was normally used to turn a normal cloud into a raincloud, but casting it on something that definitely not a cloud...

The sap trembled, then shot out of the jar, shooting into the sky. It was if it had started to fall in the opposite direction. When it had reached a certain height, it stopped again, hovering in midair collecting all of it in one spot. Intel stared at the hovering sap, eyebrows raised.

"Well, that was-"

BOOM. The sap exploded. Of course it did. Intel closed his eyes, waiting to be enclosed in sticky rain. When he felt something land on his nose, though, he felt that it wasn't sap. It wasn't even liquid.

They were flowers, he realised as he opened his eyes. It was raining flowers.

"Uh," he said uncertainly, "That's something to remember for hearts and hooves day, I guess." He smiled jokingly at Shala.

Shala looked up to the pony in the cloud above her, almost a bit upset that she and Intel had more company. These ponies were everywhere. For the time being she focused on Intel.

She looked up at the display of falling flowers, somewhat impressed, despite how silly it was to her. As much as she wanted to say something witty or blunt, a smile crept up on her and she could not resist the laugh.

"Hehe, alright, you got me to smile. I guess you win this round." She looked over the other jars he had, feeling a temptation she had not felt for a long time.

"....Intel...What are you really doing....I mean..Uh..." She struggled and groaned to herself to say what she meant. "...I would like to understand..."

"Hello."

Golden turned around to see a orange pegasus float down onto the cloud Golden was laying on. Golden remembered seeing him at the library.

"Hi Quill,"

"What's that unicorn down there doing?"

"Well he's about to try tree sap."

repeated Golden. He turned and watched as the unicorn enveloped a jar with his magic. Suddenly the sap shot out of the jar, but came to a halt mid-air.

"Well, that was-"

*BOOM*

Instinctively Golden grabbed Quill around his neck with one hoof and pulled him down into the cloud, shifting all his weight to one side, while holding on to the cloud with his other hoof in an attempt to spin the cloud around and use it as a cloud wall between the incoming exploding sap. It worked, and Golden managed to flip the cloud around, but forgot completely about gravity. and how it still affected ponies, even when they were upside down. A few wild flaps, a stifled scream and lots of flailing later, Golden managed to flip the cloud back the right way round. Breathing a sigh of relief, before noticing he still had Quill in his grip. He quickly released him and gave him a sheepish smile.

"Sorry, I just reac-"

*Plop*

Right in front of Golden what looked like a small flower fell through the cloud. He looked up and began laughing as flowers began falling all around him.

"....Intel...What are you really doing....I mean..Uh..." She struggled and groaned to herself to say what she meant. "...I would like to understand..."

"Whats with the jars of liquid and magic?"

Helped Golden, or at least tried to. Not sure whether the pony would take offense to him interrupting her.

BOOM! Quill was suddenly yanked onto the cloud that Bolt was on. As the exploding sap rocketed towards them, Bolt did some manuvers to keep the cloud between them and the sap. However, he had foegotten about gravity, had it not been for quick reflexes, only learned from a Cloudsdale flight camp, saved them from plummeting to the ground below. Quill looked to where he had last seen the sap, and was surprised to see that it had turned into flowers.

"Thanks." Quill said to Bolt "I see you were taught by Speed Burst at flight camp. No pony I can remember could drill reaction times like him." He gestured to the flowers and laughed "not something you see every day." He then returned his attention to the two unicorns below.

Intel was taken aback at Shala's words. She seemed to actually want to learn, but that fact was simply what he was doing was so very complex even to somepony who had a degree in Advanced Magical Theory. Intel was afraid that blank look or eyeroll that always seemed to follow his explanations. The pegasus who was spectating from the cloud only made him more nervous.

"It's really, really complex," he began uncertainly, looking for a decent place to start, "But, well..."

He let a flower land on his hoof. "You see this flower? If I do nothing to it, it will remain a flower. Now conceivably I can use magic to turn this flower into something else, say a banana, but if I don't use enough magic, it won't become half a banana, it will turn back into the flower. Things like to stay as they are. This is called 'reality anchoring'. Most objects, like this flower, have a pretty strong reality anchor, but the main view of modern magic is that everything has a reality anchor, including spells. However, spells have a very, very weak reality anchor which makes them so versatile, but very hard to control. This has led to the hypothesis of two states, the ultimate anchor and pure ambience. The ultimate anchor would be something that is impossible to be altered with any magic whatsoever, but that's not what I'm trying to do, and I doubt such a thing exists. What I am trying to do is create a state of constant magical flux, a state of pure ambience. Something that..." he struggled to find the words. "...is nothing but is. Something that could be anything but isn't anything. No this isn't making any sense. I'll go back to transfiguration."

He looked at the flower in his hand. His horn glowed. "There is either not enough magic applied to change something-" The flower, a lily, changed into a rose but it soon changed back, "-or there is." The rose reappeared, and this time it stayed. "But if the magic applied was on the very borderline, what will it turn into? I'm trying to make that elusive...thing." He turned to his last jar. "and this jam might hold the key." He took a very small device, as big as a thimble, out of his pocket.

Shala got herself comfortable on the grass next to him. She was silent mostly, either absorbing all he said, or very interested in the shiny examples of magic he was making. There were a few moments of silence after Intel's explanation.

"...So...uh...The whole anchor versus ambiance thing. Kinda like solids versus gas. One just sits there, the other is all over. Huh....And your looking for what happens in the 'liquid' state of things?" She shrugged, not entirely sure her analogy was that great. If it was, then she was happy to be on the same page so far.

Golden blinked a few times, the unicorns words still attempting to sink into his brain. He turned to Quill.

"You understand any of that?"

Asked Golden his eyes conveying a very confused look.

"I mean, I get that he wants to see if he can get something to be two things at the same time, but to still be its own unique thing. That in-between bit between trans- What ever he said. I just don't get the whole anchor and ambiance thing. Do you?"

Quill thought for a moment, recalling memories of a book he had once read.

"I think I kind of understand it, at least the anchor part." He said. "Objects like the sap, were sap before, and usually remain sap unless they are tampered with. In a sense they are sort of anchored into one state and that anchor can be strong, and the object can only change when a certain ammount of force, in this case magic is applied to it. As for the ambiance thing, I have no idea what he's talking about."

"Well, yes," Intel said, "Not exactly true, but a very good lie nonetheless. Ambience is an extremely complex and strange phenomenon, and even the leading expert in all of Equestria doesn't fully understand it." He neglected saying that said leading expert was him, but on the scale of things, it was a minor detail. Most scholars went into stuff that made a kind of common sense, it was easier to explain, and thus get funding. If Intel wasn't of noble birth, he would have had to go into another field of research. The three questions a researcher feared most were: "How does it work, exactly?"; "How much will this thing cost?"; and, Intel's personal unfavourite, "Is this going to be of any use?" The AME was a happy exception...

"Have I shown you my magic dampener, Shala?" Intel asked, placing the small device onto the ground, "It's what my cutie mark is. Usually, they're much bigger, and they don't have the walls around the internal rotary ring, but this little one works the same way. Any unicorn magic that affects it, from teleportation to needitwantit spells will instead be changed into a telekinesis spell that will rotate the ring. Try to pick it up using magic, Shala, and you will find that you cannot."

He paused and motioned for Shala to try.

Shala had indeed heard of a magic dampener before, but only in passing word. The doctor mentioned wanting her to have one to keep her from using her magic while she was healing but Shala was not a fan of that. Last things she wanted was for that doctor to end up telling her that she needed to stop drinking, which he ultimately did. He had to leave soon after.

It had not been too long since she was released from the hospital and still within the period she was not suppose to use magic, but she was too infatuated to really heed the caution. Carefully, her horn glowed, trying to pick up the dampener. Just as soon as the magic hit it, her horn began to feel like it was on fire and the dampener barely managed to spin.

Being stubborn, Shala tried again. She knew she couldn't lift it, but she knew she could get more magic output. It had hardly spun at all for her. Trying again, she winced with pain as her horn burned. The dampener this time spun incredibly fast. It cost Shala though, as she grunted and put a hoof to her head. Things were feeling dizzy for her now.

Shala mumbled a few curses under her breath as she reached into her hair to pull out her flask, intent to drink some to ease the pain.

Golden was intrigued by this magic dampener and was impressed by how quickly it span when the pony exerted her-self. But Golden was a bit worried about her. He glided down from his cloud.

"Are you ok? You look a bit flustered."

Golden half kept an eye on the unicorn as well as keeping an eye on the spinning magic dampener. He wondered if he would be able to pick it up with his hoofs while it still spun, wondering if magic had a weight and if it did was it heavy or not. It must have seemed strange watching a pony switch his attention between two things so quickly so frequently. But Golden couldn't just let somepony suffer on their own when he might be able to help.

Quill flew down from the cloud as well. He had seen magical dampners only in books, and he wanted to see how it worked. When he reached the ground, he noticed Shala seemed to be in pain, but was still trying to make the ring spin.

"Maybe you should take a break." He said, "i'm no unicorn but I know when somepony's exerting themselves to much."

"...as you can see, despite the device being tiny, it still works," Intel said, a bit concerned, but still excited about showing off. He hoped the two pegasi wouldn't interfere too much. They could get hurt.

"Now, this little liquid of magic," he smiled, levitating the last jar of zap apple jam, "Is a synthetic state of both Earth and Atmospheric magic. This alone is many times more efficient than coal for producing energy. Unfortunately, it runs into a few problems. A lot of problems, actually. It is insanely volatile when treated with magic, and will invariably get transfigured into slood, a highly dangerous magical substance. However, what I am planning to do with it is to release it from its reality anchor. So..."

He poured a few drops of the precious liquid into the dampener when it had stopped spinning. Then he cautioned, "Everypony stand well back. I have no idea what would happen. Worst case scenario, certain...no, uncertain death, and Celestia herself would have to fix the hole punched in space-time. Fortunately, the odds of this are very low, and if it did happen none of us will be in a suitable state to shoulder any blame." Intel did not seem concerned by this. If anything, he seemed ecstatic.

Then he started walking away from the tiny device. "Best case scenario, one more step in unlimited magic for everypony!"

That amount of jam, he thought, would need a distance of...say 50m? If it did more than that, even bits of Ponyville wouldn't be safe, he supposed. But the rewards were oh so high not to take this opportunity.

"Come on!" he shouted to the others.

Shala grunted at the two pegasus ponies asking her how she was. She waved them away with a hoof and took a sizable swig of her flask before letting out a sigh of satisfaction. Once she got that taken care of she caught up on what Intel was saying.

"....Wait...Intel. You do...dangerous stuff? Like blow things up? You never told me that. I thought you were some super boring book worm that like....studied the meaning of life and other boring things." She said as she followed him, occasional rubbing her head close to her horn. The idea of danger though made everything more appealing to her deep down.

"Come on!"

Golden jumped, then after gathering his wits, quickly flapped his wings and brought the cloud with him to the ground. He put the cloud down next the the Unicorn with glasses and then stood atop the cloud.

"Just in case... If something does go wrong jump behind the cloud."

Golden smiled sheepishly. Nodding his head to Quill, beckoning him over.

"You were talking of Speed Burst earlier."

Golden smiled at the memory.

"I remember those speed drill still, I think my favorite was the rise and fall exercise."

Said Golden, as his wings pulled tightly into his body.

"What do you think is going to happen?"

Golden asked, pointing a hoof towards the dampener and jam.

Quill smiled at the memories of the rise and fall drills he did in camp.

"Yeah those were the best."

He looked at the dampner and thought a moment

"I'm not sure, this is the first time I've ever actually seen one of those before."

"The meaning of life is not boring," Intel said defensively before remembering himself, "And I try not to blow things up. They just...do."

He then turned to the pegasus with the cloud. "If something does go wrong, I highly doubt a cloud would do anything to help. In fact, considering the nature of zap apples, it might make it worse. I don't know. I tried to talk to the Apple family about them, but all I got was the strange ramblings of their discoverer. They didn't really study the crop at all."

He grumbled a bit at this. After all, if one was going to release a product into the market, one would have made some notes at least. Filthy Rich was much more receptive, agreeing to send some of his to Canterlot for further study.

But for now, it was magic time.

After reaching a safe distance- a reasonably safe distance, anyway, Intel turned around and focused his gaze on the speck of his vision. He could hardly see it, but when he did, his horn glowed intently with a colour change spell. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but a jolt of pure magical energy shot up into a tree, which did two things.

1. Combust into the curious monochrome flame.
2. In turn, sent multiple jolts to the objects around it, including clouds, leaves, other trees, and one unfortunate sparrow.

The 'shocked' objects then started displaying similar characteristics. It was very strange to see a cloud on fire, then see it shock another cloud, setting it on fire. Soon the whole area around the dampener had turned into an electrified bushfire. The good news was it wasn't going towards the group.

The bad news was it was heading to Ponyville.

Shala snickered at Intel's upset to her comment about the meaning of life. She would have pursued the conversation, but what was going on was much more demanding of her attention. Here eyebrows went up as the 'experiment' spread.

"...Well I guess you got some fun times ahead of you then." She said before slapping him on the shoulder. "Now, before you panic, do you want to try and fix it?"

Golden was in a state of panic... well to be more precise a state of utter fear. Golden flew over the fire, shielded his face then flew back. Picked up the cloud and flew with it while holding it above his head till it was over the fire. He flew above it ready to jump on it causing it to rain, but hesitated and flew back to Intel. He tried to something about rain and monochrome flame mixing, but the words never came out, so he flew back to his cloud but by the time he got there it too had caught fire, the culprit being the original cloud that caught fire. Golden flew back to the group of ponies. Breathing heavily he landed on the ground his wings limp agianst his side.

"What the buck do we do?!"

Quill looked at the fire, then at Bolt flying back and forth. He was deeply concerned about the fire, and now worried about the fate of Ponyville.

"What the buck do we do?" Bolt asked.

"I don't know!" Quill replied. "I've never seen a fire like this before! How is it possible that even the clouds caught fire?"

"................wow."

Intel stared at the scene before him in awe. The true majesty and potential of magic, unbound by unicorn thought was in front of him in all it's terror and glory. It was wonderful. Marvellous. Fantastic. Enchanting.

But none of those words ever meant safe.

It was the same feeling he had, long ago, when he saw the school hall get absolutely smashed by that particular unicorn filly who had lost control of her magic. The same feeling that inspired him to study its intricate details, uncover its secrets, and crawl into its hiding places. Every cell in his body tingled with excitement as he saw clouds (clouds!) combust and spread the magic. He gasped as he realised that though the trees were burning, they weren't burning down, and the sparrow that was struck was still alive, even if it was still writhing in pain. If that was the case, what was the fire using as fuel?

Intel got out a notepad and started scribbling down his observations. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice questioned where the fire was going, but it, like the voices of the others, were ignored in favour of more important matters.

[i]The curious flame seems to have no fuel, it leaving the actual object intact. The most obvious alternative would be that the fuel is magical in nature, but as there is no unicorn providing any such energy, and that both trees and clouds seem to combust, it would seem that the fuel is some sort of ambience, that is, an object's very existance seems to fuel it. Does that mean that one's existance is magically finite? I...[i]

Intel looked at the initial tree. It seemed to have gone blurry, like a badly erased pencil drawing. The blurriness seemed to mesh with the flame. Then Intel finally spoke.

"I should have brought a camera."