Catalyst sat down to eat her dinner with a contented sigh. Things had gone very well for the first week. Luna had returned with Chris and the two of them had been studying hard the whole time. Luna was a hard teacher, but Chris seemed to be putting forth significant effort. They had identified seventy Humans' Magerium' and the results were almost always different. Some had passive Nouns and Verbs and some didn't. Some were blind to many Nouns and Verbs and some had them all. Catalyst was over-all very pleased with the Humans' progress. They were eager to learn about magic and they had picked up the basics with unprecedented alacrity. The only substantial issue was that there were already reports from the Ponies of New Humansville of some Humans practicing their magic outside of the classroom. The development was far from surprising but it was certainly highly concerning. There had not been any reports of injuries yet, but Catalyst knew from experience that it wouldn't be long before it began.

She sat by herself, away from the other volunteers. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts, 'The Humans seem to think that all they have to do is wiggle a few of their fingers and they can do whatever they want. They are going to hurt themselves if they keep practicing like they are. Something has to be done and quickly. The Humans are curious about magic and that part of it is fantastic, but they are already showing signs of carelessness. The fact of the matter is that magic is almost too easy for them. They just have to think and wiggle a few extremities and it works, they all learned how to open their Screfula in just a couple of days. Thank goodness none of them can access their full power, otherwise I fear a goodly number of them would already be dead.' Catalyst sighed as she chewed her Garden Garbage Medley, 'We have to show them exactly how dangerous magic can be because right now, they're trying to play with it like a foal who found their parents' House Power Crystal. The question is, how do we show them how dangerous magic is without injuring somebody?' Catalyst swallowed her mouthful of fried weeds and levitated her cup to her mouth for some water, 'The worst part is that a lot of the Humans are strong in Mind magic but the teaching and practice of it is illegal. How do we demonstrate how serious it is without violating the law?' The questions were challenging and Catalyst couldn't help but to worry over them, 'The vast majority of the Humans don't even realize yet that they don't need rote practice with spells to use magic they can nearly make up spells whenever they want to. I fear once they make the connection the instances of unmonitored practice will increase exponentially. The main problem is that we developed our spells through long eons of careful practice and study. The Humans can't use spells the same way we can because they have no horns and we don't have fingers or toes. Their focus points are flexible and nearly random while those of Unicorns are rigid and set. The other concerning thing is that the Humans have almost no Finesse. They have to 'aim' the spells with their hands if they want to levitate an object. They are generally more powerful in their Nouns and Verbs, but tend to have fewer available, but I strongly doubt they will ever be able to have anywhere near the pinpoint precision or accuracy that we do. It's like the difference between a heavy mining pick and a fine jeweler's chisel.' As she sat there, she had no way of knowing that Princess Twilight Sparkle was having similar issues.

* * *

"I'm so sorry Twilight!" Artex apologized pleadingly.

Twilight grunted in annoyance,
"For the eighth time Artex, it's fine. It could have happened to anypony." she said trying to find the metal spoon.

Spike was under a different impression as he held his little hands in front of his mouth to keep from laughing,
"I don't know Twilight, I never saw YOU embed a spoon into a wall before! From the look of that hole, it might have gone all the way through."

Razor Wit had to place her left fore hoof up to her muzzle to keep from giggling at the scene. Twilight and Artex had finished working on him practicing his Plants magic for the day and they had been working on his Earth, slowly pulling a spoon toward him when Spike loudly burst through the front door and startled the jumpy Human. In his surprise, Artex had accidentally reversed the polarity of his magic and the poor spoon shot across the library and embedded itself deeply into the far wall right next to the door to the basement. The spoon was so deep in the wood of the wall that none of the occupants of the library could even see it, all they could see was the spoon shaped hole in the wall.

Twilight grunted in agitation and threw her head back,
"Gra! How could a spoon have THAT much momentum and kinetic energy behind it!? I can feel it. It's back a good three hoof lengths into the wall but I can't seem to pull it out! The force must have built up heat from the friction when it went through and the sap from the tree must be holding it there like pitch or flash dried resin!" she lowered her head and gritted her teeth and raised her head, "Fine," she groaned, "I'll just have to use a level two Metal Noun to get it out."

Artex spoke up suddenly,
"Wait, what do you mean? I thought your Noun for Metal was a five."

Twilight began powering up her horn while she explained,
"A Unicorn doesn't have to use their full power levels every time they cast a spell, it would be absolutely exhausting. The more levels we use, the greater the strain on out R.U.T.E. It takes time to build that back up since our bodies need to consume water, food, or air to do it." she pointed her horn to the spoon shaped hole and the spoon pulled free, "There is a definite down side to that as well. The more we eat, the more calories we ingest, the more we have to work off. Food is the most direct manner of restoring one's R.U.T.E. but because so many of our foods today are not completely fresh from the ground, they carry less Natural Unrefined Latent Thamaturgic Energy because much of it it has been cooked out. The fresher the food and water, the more Natural Unrefined Latent Thamaturgic Energy it retains. In ancient times the more powerful Ponies would eat what was called 'A Raw Diet' so their R.U.T.E. would be restored much more quickly. They also had a rigorous exercise regimen which kept their bodies in excellent physical condition. The problem with that life style was that they were so busy with their exercise and 'Raw Diet' they rarely had time to find love or have foals, which in turn, led to the vast majority of the most powerful Unicorns dying without ever passing on their genes. Commoners, who were generally Earth Ponies, were encouraged and often expected to have a lot of foals so they could work and produce food for the other classes and tribes. Unicorns were the powerful Royal caste, Pegasi were the warrior and weather caste, while Earth Ponies just grew food. Because of the social expectations, a great number of powerful Unicorns never had foals and Ponies began to grow weaker as a species. In ancient times, a Unicorn with Nouns and Verbs all at level three or four was fairly common, but these days a Unicorn with a two in everything is incredible. However there is another end of this spectrum. Due to less powerful Nouns and Verbs, Unicorns have developed much greater Finesse than our ancestors had. Most Unicorns today can cast and maintain two oftentimes three spells at a time. Such a feat was absolutely unheard of in ancient times. There was a great Unicorn mage, Star Swirl the Bearded, he could cast and maintain two spells at a time and he was considered extremely powerful. His Nouns and Verbs were close to mine, but he was unchallenged in his studies. He also developed a type of spell called the 'Amniamorphic Spells'. An Amniamorphic spell is a single spell that the caster can alter on a whim. For example . . . " she grunted in exertion as she pulled the spoon free of the wall and held it in front of her, "I'm using an Amniamorphic spell right now. I used one aspect of my magic, in this case Control and Earth, to pull the spoon out of the wall. In ancient times magic was much less precise. Had I not used an Amniamorphic spell the spoon would have come out of the wall like a catapult stone and crashed into something else with equal power as it required to remove it. With the use of an Amniamorphic spell, I can alter the spell and add Change to the Control and Earth. By adding Change, I can reduce the energy behind the movements of the spoon, thereby not only pulling it free but also having the capability of levitating it and moving it around at reasonable speed."

Artex knelt down on the floor,
"Why didn't anypony think of doing that before?"

Twilight trotted over to the coffee table and set the spoon down,
"There were plenty of reasons but I would guess the most likely one was that Ponies back then didn't like change, in fact they actively avoided it. Let me explain a bit about Pony history. Back before the Princesses came into power, the three tribes lived far to the north in a land known as 'Hale Valley'. Star Swirl the Bearded was so named because he was a stallion and at that time, stallions were considered too stupid to understand anything complex. Most Unicorn stallions used to go their entire lives without ever using magic because learning was forbidden for them. Stallions had three purposes: working, fighting, and breeding. A stallion had two possible occupations: warrior or laborer. After every day was through every stallion was expected to . . . " Twilight looked uncomfortable, "They were expected to 'service' at least one mare every night. Back then Ponies died on a daily basis, and not just old ones from age. Ponies were killed by hundreds of things, disease, predators, warring tribes, catastrophe, the expected life span of an average Pony back then was less than fifty years, so a high birth rate was necessary in order to maintain a semi-stable population during those times of population numerical fluctuation. Stallions were considered both valuable and expendable. They were expendable because they had violent tendencies and stronger bodies than mares, but they were valuable because there were so few of them. Back then, older stallions were considered more desirable because the very fact that they were alive at all meant they were strong and tough and mares wanted those traits passed on to their foals to make the tribe stronger. Back then, the tribes of Ponies were not on friendly terms and often fought in small skirmishes. Nopony wanted to risk open warfare because each tribe begrudgingly knew they needed the others. Pegasi controlled the weather, Earth Ponies produced food, and Unicorns raised the sun. The tribes absolutely never interbred and even today there are families of Ponies who follow that tradition and only marry others of their own tribe . . . "

"Uh, Twilight." Artex interrupted, "No offense but are you done? My brain is hurting from all that info dump."

Twilight blinked twice rapidly then smiled sheepishly,
"Eheh, oops. Sorry Artex, I sometimes get carried away like that."

Artex waved at the Alicorn Princess,
"It's not a big deal. I'll need to learn about Equestrian history eventually. For now though, why don't we try that again?"

Twilight set the spoon down on the table and stepped back, verbally guiding the Human,
"Remember to open your Screfula first and let the magic flow into your hands. Once you feel ready, flex the correct fingers on your hands that correspond with the Nouns and Verbs tied to them, then apply your will to the task. Don't force it but be firm. The magic flows through you like a gentle river, let it guide you at the same time as you guide it."

Artex extended his right hand, the appendage glowing a hazel aura while a matching aura surrounded the spoon, the Human closed his eyes and grunted in exertion,
"Feels more like a raging river to me." he grit his teeth and tried to exert his will, "It's like fighting against a current of rapids and trying not to get swept away."

Twilight sighed and placed her right fore hoof on her forehead just to the side of her horn,
"Your magic is agitated because you are agitated. You need to relax and direct it gently, not try to force it. Back off with your will but keep the magic latched onto the spoon, take some deep breaths and let them out slowly then try again. It takes years of practice to find the balance between the give and take that comes with controlling a spell. You cast everything easily, but your mind isn't used to moderating the fine control involved with precise manipulation."

Artex relaxed his fingers and let the magic go as his hand flopped limply at his side,
"No, it's not that." he said running his fingers through his hair, "It's more like I'm not even capable of finite control. I can direct things in a direction, but the force and speed seem to stem from how far I flex my fingers." he took a step back and held out his right hand, fingers in a grip-like posture, "I can bring something to me," the spoon was enveloped in a hazel colored aura and flew into his outstretched hand, zipping across the distance almost instantly, "Or I can send it away with equal ease," the spoon flew out of his hand and clanged against the far wall of the library, making the trip in a fraction of a second, "But the fine control just doesn't seem to be there at all. When I try to move something slowly, it just doesn't work."

Twilight brought her right fore hoof up to her chin,
"Do you think this has anything to do with what you said yesterday about distance making the spell easier or more difficult?"

Artex shrugged as he held out his hand, the spoon flew across the room and landed in his hand perfectly,
"Yes I do." he said turning the utensil over in his fingers, "And I also remember how you said distance shouldn't matter, but it does for me." he held up the spoon in front of his face, "It took me nearly twice the effort to pull the spoon from across the room as it did from the table." he stepped up to the table and set the spoon down, "You already said that Human magic and Pony magic are different," he shrugged, "Maybe this is one of the differences."

Twilight gave the matter some serious thought,
"Perhaps, but I'd like to continue having you try to develop fine control for now. Let's give it a couple of weeks and see if there isn't any improvement. If you still haven't developed any sort of fine control by then, we'll see about other options."

* * *

Catalyst finished her dinner and brought her plate back to the Human cooks, levitating it in her magic,
"Thank you," she said to Alex, "It was as good as always."

Alex Ludwig nodded his head and stuck the plate into the soapy dish water he was using,
"My . . . pleasure." he said in slow Velensovth, "May me . . . I come . . . to you for . . . tutor tonight?"

Catalyst smiled,
"Of course. You are welcome to come to me any night for tutoring."

Alex had an almost unnatural level of control for a Human and showed the most potential for honing fine manipulation. In truth, he frightened Catalyst, he and Cessily both. They had passive Nouns and Verbs that dealt with Mind magic. Cessily had Comprehend and Alex had Change. Alex could literally change the mood of a room to match his own mood and Cessily was the only Human to become completely fluent in Velensovth in only a week. Catalyst had discovered that Cessily could read minds if she so much as looked at another being and she could project her thoughts into another's mind with equal ease. Both Cessily and Alex had been working very hard trying to learn to control their magic, just like Mike and Darryl. The Humans with passive Nouns and Verbs were highly concerned about their magic and there had been no small amount of friction because of it. Other Humans had begun avoiding them for fear of having their minds read or altered. The task before the volunteers from the School For Gifted Unicorns was shaping up to be both difficult and lengthy.

Alex smiled at the Arch Magister,
"Thank you."

* * *

Mike finished his plate of fried fish, raw broccoli, and baked potato and set his plate down next to him,
"Alright everyone, time for Muster."

The members of Parliament were mostly finished with their meals and every eye turned to Mike,
"I've been putting this off for a while, but we need to get going on a proper roster for the C.W.G. We need to be ready for when New Humansville is up and running. I've already named my commanding officers and most of you should know who they are. I'm going to send a message to Celestia and ask her to send in the volunteers and other officers who are going to be working with us." he laced his fingers and brought up his right knee, "We need to put together a curriculum of what needs to be taught." he turned his gaze to Darryl, "You're our resident firefighter so you are going to be in charge of detailing how we work to put out fires. A lot of these new homes and buildings are made almost entirely out of wood, so fires will be a definite concern. Get to work outlining what we need to learn."

Darryl nodded as he chewed on his grilled asparagus, Mike turned to Bobby,
"You know more about medicine than anyone else here and thanks to you, we'll have a proper hospital soon, but our C.W.G. members will still need to know enough about the more complex aspects of First Aid to save lives. This is going to have to deal with both Humans and Ponies, just to be safe. I know the Ponies are supposed to know how to handle their own but we can't afford to take any chances."

Bobby crossed his arms,
"Yeah? Well then somebody needs to make sure ALL the C.W.G. members, both Humans and Ponies, actually pay attention to the fucking class. I'm not going to be held responsible for some goof ball who wasn't paying attention in class, giving a tracheotomy to someone who only needs the Heimlich Maneuver. I need the authority to kick somebody out of my classroom if they're screwing around, and I'm sure as hell going to be giving EVERYBODY," he said waving his hands around to encompass the group, "A fucking hard ass test to make sure they know the material well enough to make sure they don't accidentally kill someone. In order to ensure that everybody knows what to do, I'm going to ask that one Pegasus doctor to write up her own curriculum and teach it with me. She'll teach about Ponies and I'll teach about Humans."

Mike nodded,
"Sounds good." he swept his gaze over to Eduardo, "Did Princess Luna send you one of those uniforms yet?"

Eduardo shook his head and swallowed his mouthful of broccoli,
"Naw, we supposed to be getting one this week though. Then I got to figure out how this mierda works. If it don't come with instructions, I'ma need a bit o' help."

Mike bit his lower lip and turned to the resident 'brains',
"Morris, Chris, do you think you can lend him a hand?"

Chris shrugged,
"Sure, no problem. Luna and I finish our lessons around noon anyway and she always looks like death warmed over anyway."

Morris, on the other hand, wasn't so certain,
"I'd like to, but I already have my hands full with trying to work with the gunpowder."

Jason moaned piteously and hung his head,
"I can't even go one meal without hearing about gunpowder."

Mike quirked an eyebrow,
"What's the problem? I thought you said you could make it."

Jason raised his head and frowned as he laced his fingers in front of his face,
"I can churn out BLACK powder all day, but the problem lies in the fact that our modern firearms didn't use black powder, they used gunpowder flakes as a propellant. Black powder makes tons of smoke and leaves behind a fair bit of residue that has to be cleaned pretty much after every shot. In order to have a useful cartridge, the propellant needs to be mostly smokeless and leave behind much, much less residue. Add that to the fact that each cartridge would need a primer, which are high-explosives by the way, and I have no earthly clue how to do this. I can make barrels and barrels of black powder, but modern smokeless powder and primers? Forget it. I'm LITERALLY trying to reinvent the wheel on this. I need tons and tons of chemicals and the types of labs we only have in the modern day. What I need is a chemical compound that turns into a gas when burned and has a high expansion rate without the danger of blowing up the gun, leaving tons of messy residue, or making butt-loads of smoke. Basically, I have no way right now to make what we need. It's going to take me a long time before I have something ready. The only direction I can see this going right now is if we used a solid cast block of nitrocellulose for the propellant, so we've been focusing on that."

Morris nodded sadly,
"Yeah, the old gyrojet ammo. It's the only thing we could hope for right now and there were oodles of problems with gyrojet weapons. We've been working on a way to make them function properly, but it's an uphill battle and we're using archaic equipment to do this. We need a full production team and manufacturing equipment to pull this off and even then it's probably not going to be anywhere near the standards we're used to. As of right now, all we have is about twenty pounds of nitrocellulose or in layman's terms 'guncotton' and it's tough to store properly. We're going to be all used up for a while on this one."

Mike waved his hands,
"Alright, I get the point." he turned back to Eduardo, "Do you think Chris will be enough?"

Eduardo nodded,
"Yeah, I'd prefer just one person anyway."

Mike shook his head,
"That leaves three areas that still need to be covered: unarmed physical confrontation, verbal force, and law and practice. I'd be the best choice for verbal force." he looked around gauging the others, "I would have liked to have Spearman here for the unarmed portions, but . . . " he trailed off thinking of their fallen comrade, "That leaves you, R.J. You're the next best at unarmed physical confrontation. Does that work for you?"

R.J. crossed his arms and leaned his head back,
"Yeah man. But what about dealin' wit' Ponies? They're tons stronger than us, even the weaker ones could overpower most of us. Hell, any Earth Pony could bend Kolo in half without breakin' a sweat an' he's the biggest dude we got. We need the Princess to send us a specialist to help us out with this."

Mike nodded,
"I'll mention it in my letter. For the law portion, I'd like to ask Andrew."

"Me!?" Andrew exclaimed.

Everybody jumped at the suddenness of his outburst. Andrew Masonete was widely known to have a passive Noun and Verb combination that effectively made him invisible unless he was talking.

"I don't think that's a good idea Mike. If I stop talking the whole class will forget I'm even there." Andrew said.

"I'll teach it." Kaneesha said, "I know plenty about law and practice. Just give me a written copy of the laws and I'll have a rough draft ready inside a week."

"Thanks Kaneesha, I really appreciate that." Mike said, "Moving on, the second reason I'm pushing for the C.W.G. to get going so soon is I've heard rumors of some people practicing magic outside the classroom and away from any of the instructors. If this keeps up, according to what the Arch Magister tells me, we're going to have dead bodies on our hands and soon. We need to be able to enforce the laws and these practices are outright dangerous. The Arch Magister approached me about it earlier this evening and asked for someone to use as an example of what can happen without proper guidance and monitoring. We need to catch someone in the act of practicing and bring them to trial publicly. I'll need a small team to find these people and apprehend them, then we need volunteers from the C.W.G. to represent them in a courtroom scenario in accordance with Equestrian law."

Darryl was the first person to raise his hand,
"I'll do it!"

Mike smiled, having expected the Marine to volunteer,
"What's the radius of your passive now?"

"It's about fifteen feet give or take. The Arch Magister has been weaning me off the meds very slowly. It plays hell on my mind most of the time, but I'm slowly learning to cope with it. I'll probably be stuck at about fifteen feet for the better part of half a year before we can lower the dosage again." Darryl said.

Kolo raised his hand,
"I'll help ya, Mike. Got to keep them goof balls from blowin' themselves up an' erething. "

Andrew raised his hand,
"Give me a few hours and I can find out where they're practicing."

Kaneesha raised her hand as well,
"Yall already know I always work with Andrew."

Cessily piped up suddenly,
"When are we going to be hearing wedding bells from you two huh?"

Kaneesha eyed Cessily furiously,
"Maybe when we get our asses off this fucked up rock!"

Cessily held up her hands defensively,
"Hey there, easy girl. I was just asking, but you should be asking yourselves something, what if we never get to go home?"

Kaneesha simmered down slightly,
"Then we'll build us a life together here."

"We should ask some of the Ponies to help us out." Alex ventured.

"As long as it isn't Luna." Leo said with a chuckle.

There was a round of quiet snickering from the entire body of Parliament. Once Luna had returned with Chris, from her bedroom no less, rumors began circulating about her only wanting him because he was big and male. Everybody remembered the days when they were all naked and there were more than a few young women who gazed at Chris with bulged eyes. Since the incident with Luna had occurred, some people had begun calling Chris 'Italian Stallion' both because his heritage was full blood Italian and the Ponies looked like, well, Ponies. The name calling came to a screeching halt once the young men who pioneered the name began showing up with mysterious black eyes and an obvious fear of Chris.

For his part, Chris just rolled his eyes and crossed his arms with a heavy sigh,
"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up."

Tina suddenly let out a squeaking yelp and clutched her swollen, pregnant belly with a pained expression,
"Ouch! Dang it, that's the bladder!"

Tina's exclamation served to bring Parliament back into focus,
"Alright everyone," Mike said clearing his throat, "We need to talk to the Arch Magister tonight and get set up for this." he looked around the members, "Does anybody have anything else to add?"

There was a notable absence of raised hands or voices,
"Alright then, let's get going." Mike rose to his feet, "Meeting adjourned."

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