I sat on the grass with my friends and Family around me, looking at the newcomers that were standing a few feet away; the pets and familiars also stopped to look who arrived, and their masters, except me and Niner, cut the energy so they collapsed and returned to the state before the summoning. Lupine and Icicle Star both smiled at us, Lupine calmly and Star brightly, before walking closer, Star with arms open for a hug. I smiled and stood up before accepting the hug, being followed by the others. “How did you come here? I doubt you managed to make Star sit still for the half-a-day journey from Pyria to here.” I asked Lupine.

“A blunt impact on her head and a few sand bonds were sufficient for that. “ Lupine joked, earning both a glare and a giggle from Star at the same time. “Nah, we asked Lightning if the Teleport Rune was ready, and when she said it was we came here and asked her to keep it a secret.”

The wolf pony had a light brown fur and a darker shade for hair as well as eyes; she was wearing a beige shirt with a large neck, so that only her right shoulder supported the shirt while the left sleeve hung on her arm and showed her collarbone, it had the words ‘Sand Weaver’ on her chest; her denim pants was black with three silver buttons on her left hip near the pocket’s seam, and she had a loose ‘belt’, which was a chain of yellow beads that looked like various vortex of dust and seemed to be hold in place by thin air, as the chain holding it could only be seen if you really paid attention to it.

“I wanted to surprise you two!” Star said with a smile and a little jump of excitement. Unlike her twin, Icicle had a sky blue fur and a grayish blue hair; she was using a white shirt that stopped a few inches above her hip, the words ‘Crystal Dust’ on her chest; she also had grey denim pants with a few sky blue crystals on the pocket instead of buttons, and instead of the belt she had two icy blue chains just above her hooves. The resemblance between the twins was obvious, and their clothes only contributed to that.

“Oh shit, another one…” Eclipse muttered.

“Trust me, her schtick is just similar.” Scarlett whispered to the zebra.

“I really wanted to visit you, but thing’s been… weird lately.” Star shrugged.

“Weird?” I asked with curiosity.

“Yeah, the mission we went in on the day you left ended in an unusual way, and now we have a new member on the group.” Lupine said with a nod. “She’s been fitting in nicely, especially with Shadow’s help.”

Scarlett blinked. “Shadow got a girlfriend now? Huh, didn’t think I’d live to see this day.”

Lupine snorted. “I don’t think she’s his girlfriend, but chances are they’ll sleep with each other within the month.”

“Knowing him…” I trailed off, shaking my head with a smile before suddenly my eyes widened and I snapped my talons. “Ah! Guys, these are Lupine and Icicle Star, both are friends of mine since we created the Storm Weavers. Luppy, Starry, those are my friends from here: Spike, Mirror, Eclipse, Sapphyra and Soul; you already know the others.” My friends smiled and nodded when their names were said and shook hands with the twin wolf ponies before Icicle turned to look at the Familiar I was holding close.

“And who this might be?” She cooed, petting Illuse’s head. The little griffoness giggled and tried to swat the hand aside. Star giggled and took the griffoness from my arms and cradled her.

The griffoness stopped giggling, yawned, and turned on Icicle’s arms, so that her head was on top of crossed arms and her tail was hanging, before closing her eyes and snoring softly. The girls of the group ‘daww’ed at the sight while Eclipse gripped his chest and groaned before falling over.

“Aren’t you supposed to have Fairy’s mind? That’s not exactly what a near eighteen would do.” Spike said with a raised eyebrow.

Illuse opened one eye. “And lose this opportunity to look adorable? No chance in hell.”

“Aaand the moment’s gone.” Eclipse sighed as he stood up.

I giggle-snorted before stroking Illuse’s hair. “That’s Illuse. Niner just taught me how to summon a familiar.”

“And you’re doing an amazing job.” Niner commented. “Normally a fisrt-cast Familiar only stay up for a minute or two before collapsing.”

“I’m good with effect-over-time spells. My mana pool is pretty small, compared to yours, but after training to keep my chains up for hours, my mana regen got really high.” I countered.

“Fair enough. Most of mine are released in a single burst instead of continuously.” Niner conceded with her hands up. “And now we know why you got so tired when you first cast her, you must’ve burned more than a half of your pool.”

I shrugged. “And since I’m not accustomed to the drain of keeping her a Familiar up, I’m regenerating mana much slower than normal.”

Illuse lifted her head for a moment before teleporting on top of my head; she Looked down and tapped my head twice. “Then unsummon me until you’re recovered. It’ll be like, an hour?”

“Probably.” I nodded.

“Ok then. See you guys later.” Illuse said with a wave before I cut the link and she disappeared. ‘You’re hearing me?’

‘Loud and clear.’ I answered.

‘You’re going to let me talk while I’m inside your head or…’

‘Just don’t be annoying; but I honestly think I’ll keep you summoned for a few days so I can master this spell before I learn to ascend you. Arcane Familiar: Illuse is too much of a mouthful to be used in the middle of a battle, especially when I learn the Ascend. Also, it’ll be a good training since I’m sure your Ascended form will be even more draining. Gimme a few weeks.’ I shrugged before turning to my friends. “She’s okay. So, did you two come here just to see us?” I asked the wolf ponies.

“Yep!” Star confirmed with a nod. “Well, it’s the main reason at least. We also wanted to see the country.”

“Didn’t you want to give them something?” Lupine asked her sister.

Star’s eyes widened and she quickly inspected her body for something, each second growing more panicked before Lupine finally rolled her eyes and cleared her throat. The brown wolf pony held up a hand and sand started moving around it, forming a sphere of sorts. Suddenly, the sand structure collapsed to reveal a book with a brown cover and the image of a black mountain on it.

Star blinked before smiling sheepishly and doing the same as her sister, but instead of sand she controlled crystalline dust, which formed another book. This time the book had a two-colored cover, the top half was light green cover and an image of a blue diamond, while the bottom half was an icy blue with a white snowflake barely visible.

I inspected the books for half a second before realizing what they were and my eyes widened in surprise. “Wait a minute…”

“Your boss sent those for you. He was going to ship them to you, but when Mist told him we were going to visit, he asked us to deliver them ourselves.” Lupine explained, handing her book to me as Star did the same to Scarlett. The moment they released the books, the covers changed. Mine turned pink with the image of a six-pointed white star and Scarlett’s turned blood red with a black heart.

The others stared at the book, surprised with what just happened. “What was that?” Spike asked as her stared at the book.

“Didn’t think you’d get a Spirit Spell Book; makes sense that the boss was the one to give it to you two.” Lobis commented.

“A Spirit Spell Book is a magical book that reads your aura and what spells you can learn so it can determine spells you can learn.” Scarlett explained. “It used to be really popular a few years back, but now they’re almost an antique; mostly because you can simply search for spells on the internet.”

“I honestly think these books are better; it’s way easier to search for a cool spell here, ironically.” I shrugged before handing the book to Spike. The moment the book left my hand it turned green and crimson red, the image of a black dragon head over the green and a black bonfire on the red. “The color and the image represent your element, and if you have more than one the cover will be divided to represent all, like it happened now.”

“Cool.” Spike muttered before flipping the book open. “Huh, it really have all my spells listed here. It even says which ones I already mastered.”

I looked the list and raised an eyebrow. “You mastered Fire Blade? Neat.”

Spike nodded. “Yeah, I got it working three days ago. I didn’t need to use it, though.” He flipped the page to see the spells the book thinks he’s able to learn, and blinked in surprise. “Hey, it says here I can learn Dracon Chain.”

“Wait, really?” I looked the page he skimmed through and quickly found the spell. “Huh. I can teach you this one, if you want. Arcane and Dracon are pretty similar when it comes to create physical constructs, like chains, shields and knives.”

“Sure. Maybe after it I can learn that Chain Trap of yours; I need a Crowd Control spell.” He nodded again.

“We’ll see this tomorrow during training. Now, let’s show the town to these two.” I gestured to Lupine and Star, and my friends nodded in agreement.

“We’ve seen a bit of the town when we were trying to find you two, but it’d be nice to actually know what some of the buildings are.” Star admitted.

“We only know about those that are pretty obvious; the bakery, the boutique, the music shop…” Lupine trailed off.

“Let’s go, then.” Sapphyra called, already walking towards Ponyville.

During the next hour or so, we led Lupine and Star through town much like Spike and Eclipse did to us when we first arrived, though now we also pointed out a few places we ‘discovered’ during the past three weeks, ans even Sapph, Soul and Luna pointed out a few places with didn’t know much about. Lupine commented on the fact that the library itself was on the castle – a room near the lobby that’s a public library during a certain time of the day – and said she’d visit it sometime to see if there were anything she liked; Star decided she would pay a visit to the boutique some time later, since they needed to return to Hybrios quite soon.

“It was really cool visiting you. We’ll come again someday.” Star commented with a smile as we walked back home so they could use the Teleport Rune.

“Probably on your birthday party. But hey, you’re going to the event next week anyways.” Lupine said with a shrug.

I blinked in confusion. “Event?”

“Wait, you actually forgot?” Lupine asked in disbelief. “Next week’s the Paint Storm.”

I immediately facepalmed. “Holy shit, I completely forgot about that!”

“The Paint Storm?” Eclipse asked.

“It’s a festival held every year, it’s basically a huge paintball tournament for the whole country.” Dolph explained excitedly. “They prepare a huge area near the town that’s holding the festival on the year, and they simply throw everyone there with a paintball gun.”

“It’s more of a magicball tournament, actually.” Viper commented. “The guns shoot a blast of magic that marks the place they hit, and a device on your wrist shows your ‘health bar’, sensing the places where you’ve been hit; if the bar hits zero, your gun stops working and you receive an alert before being teleported out of the game. It’s easier that way, since then you’ll be able to fight indefinitely, and the ‘recharge’ is when the gun’s crystal overheats and shuts down for like, two seconds.”

“But the cool thing on the festival is the variety of guns.” I continued for my friends. “There are a lot of them; submachine guns, snipers, shotguns, pistols, hand cannons… seriously, there’s every kind you can think of. It’s a great way to see if you can fight with a gun aside from testing them on dummies.”

“And there are also the special rounds.” Scarlett decided to end the explanation for us. “After fifteen minutes of game, they whole area is affected by something for five minutes; gravity is lowered, guns only hit ten feet in front of you before stopping midair, your gun suddenly changes, one hit counts as two… it’s the time where shit hits the fan, really. The same happens at thirty minutes, forty five, and so on.”

“So you’re going?” Star asked.

“Fuck the hell yes!” The four of us exclaimed together.

“It’s only for Hybrians?” Soul asked.

“Nope. Everyone can fight in it, actually. If you guys want to go, I can register you there. We can even meet the others, actually; they always fight in it. Well, everyone except for Shadow Talon, he’s fucking hopeless with a gun.” I snickered.

“Yeah, the only time he participated he only lasted three minutes. They guy that eliminated him was seven feet away with a sniper while Shadow had an AK-47. He missed all of the shots.” Lupine added with a laugh.

“Damn…” Spike muttered. “I hope I’m not like him, then. Well, I need to ask Twilight if I can go or if there's too much work to make it possible; I'm still her assistant, after all.

“Great! See you guys there!” Star exclaimed with a bright grin.

“I hoped we could stay for some more time, but we really have to get back; Sarah wanted to talk to the whole team about something.” Lupine frowned.

“It’s ok, even if I really want to have a battle with you two. I need to see if Sarah’s leadership is making you stronger or fucking you up.” I joked.

The twins glanced at one another and smirked before jumping away from the group with a high backflip. During their time airborne, Lupine got hold of her belt and unclasped it while Icicle Star’s chains morphed into boots. The moment they impacted the floor, they entered their battle stances:

Lupine held her left hand near her right shoulder and her right hand on her left hip, one of the ends of the beads of her belt was on her right hand while the others floated in a circle around her; the weapon was clearly based on the Rosary from Okami.

As for Icicle Star, she had both hands open near her hips and was floating slightly on the air, as the boots had blades below them that made her fluctuate; the blades seemed to move independent of the boots, but never floated more than a few inches away, sufficient to act as both a super suspension for this glorified ice skate and a dagger made to be controlled by her hooves on more or less the same way my Soul Rippers move.

“Believe me; we also really want a battle with you two, to see how well you fight with your new weapons.” Lupine grinned as her Sandstorm Swirl spun faster around her.

“And I’m pretty sure your friends can also fight.” Star matched her sister’s expression, lifting her right leg up as that hoof’s Crystal Shredder’s blade spun like a saw. “But I’m afraid we really don’t have the time.” Both sisters sighed in unison and deactivated their weapons, Swirl going back to being a belt and Shredder returning to its chain state.

“Cool weapons.” Eclipse said with a thumbs-up before we returned to our walk towards the house.

“So, are you two Dancers as well?” Sapphyra asked, gaining nods from the wolf pony twins. “Huh, I didn’t think I’d meet another one so soon; especially with weapons so similar to mine.” The orb and blades that formed Sapphyra’s Radiant Aurora floated above her head and spun slowly, so the twins could see her weapon of choice.

“Neat.” They chorused as we finally reached my house.

We entered the place and walked straight through the living room – nodding to Draco and Flora that were watching TV at that moment and opened the door to the Teleport Rune. “Well, see you later.” I said with a wave.

“See ya.” They said together, walking to the wall on the other side of the room. They touched a rune craved on the wall and put their energy on it, lighting it up as well as the giant rune craved on the room’s whole floor. The rune pulsed weakly a few times before releasing a much stronger pulse and making both wolf ponies disappear in a flash of light.

We stood there for a few moments with emotions ranging between contentment and awe before Spike broke it. “Never show this to Twilight.”

“If she asks for it, I’m asking Lightning to put one on your castle.” I said simply.

“She’s your runist?” Soul asked, looking at me from the corner of his eyes.

“Yep.” I nodded. “Well, since we don’t have anything to do now, wanna play COD on Draco’s PS4?”

“Sure.” They said together, already knowing Draco was going to said it was okay.

We walked to the stairs that led to the bedrooms and Spike suddenly stopped. “Wait, isn’t it today that you Twilight ask you things about Hybrios? To study and all?”

I slowly came to a stop and became silent for a few moments before hanging my head. “Oh, motherfucker…”

Author's Notes:

Well, let's see... ENEM's over, so is PAS, and my internet stopped trolling me for the time being.

Yep, I guess that settles it.

HEY BITCHES, I'M BAAACK!!!

It'll probably be a few weeks until I'm accustomed to writing again, but it won't take months to update either. My thanks to those that are still reading this shitty-ass fanfiction after I put it on hiatus, and also to those who started reading the fic after the hiatus started.

The next chapter is going to be a bit of an information dump - I'll explain the Soul Spells, Spell Terminology, the Spirit Spell Book, and maybe a few of Hybrios cities - but eh. Good for those that are wondering what the fuck these things are.