I struggle to suppress my glee as I slowly sneak into my fellow pupil's tent. I can't believe how long it took me to figure out! His magic is so weak and pathetic, leagues behind mine, there is no way he would be chosen. So obviously this is just a test. Slowly my eyes scan the room before landing on the object of my desires. What a foal, leaving it under his bed like that? As if that would keep it safe. My horn glows as a light blue aura enshrouds it, pulling it from under the bed and bringing it to me. It... is beautiful.

To most ponies it might just look like a walking stick. To a spellcaster it would probably look like a ancient staff long past its expiration date. But to me? It's the most beautiful thing in the world. I slowly pull it close and was going to kiss it. You know, for luck! But a groan stops me.

"Oomii? What are y- give that back!" The alicorn in the bed quickly gets to his hoof and lunges at me. But he's not a fighter, he's a pathetic wanna be. How did he even think for a moment that he was anywhere near my level?

I smile at him though as I tap into the staff's power. As it's power flows through me a green glow enshrouds both me and the weapon. "You never deserved this. You're an ant. You might as well be a diamond dog for all the magic power you have!" It's time to test my new staff. I raise it high over my head as the air flows around me and in a moment I am behind him. I can't help but let out a little giggle as I aim the staff at him and a powerful gust of wind forms and slams into him, sending him flying out of his room and onto the cold dirt outside his tent. He's pathetic. I can't believe our teacher ever trained such a sniveling worm. The glow around me turns brown as the ground under my one time peer erupts, sending him flying into the air and returning him sprawling to the ground.

"Oomii, please. I'm sorry. Y-you can have the staff, please stop it!" I can see the fear in his eyes. What a coward! He calls himself an alicorn?! Where's his pride? His dignity? An alicorn does not cower and beg! An alicorn is a force of nature!

"I can't believe how weak you are! Fight back! Defend yourself! Show some pride for once in your life!" I understand his fear ofcourse. Facing me, who wouldn't be afraid? "Pathetic wretch." I raise the staff one more time as my aura turns red. "I'll bring you beaten and broken before our teacher, and then she'll have to accept me as her successor. You're nothing but a failure. Why don't you just... Just..." I freeze in shock as ice rains down on me, making me scream in pain as my body is frozen to the spot.

"Oomii. What have you done? Stealing, assault, endangering your comrades with reckless casting... This is precisely the reason you're NOT my successor. And after this you will no longer be my student!" I freeze at those words far more than I do her ice magic. No longer... Her...

"You're... Sending me back? To the academy? But..."

"Yes. I thought I could teach you some control. Apparently a pony like you is beyond help. Give me the staff."

Slowly I lift the staff. It was mine though. I'd earned it far more than that sniveling worm. If she can't see that then... Then I'll make her see! The staff glows as once again magic flows from it, the ground under my teacher erupting into lava and forcing her to shield and heal herself. While she is momentarily distracted I do the best thing I can... I flee. My aura switching back to green as I use the winds themselves to amplify my speed.

So um... Yeah. My day so far has been quite interesting. I'm probably going to be running for a while so I can tell you what's going on. You see, I'm an alicorn. Not like the 'raise the sun and moon, goddess of the world, love and peace blah blah blah' kind that the normal ponies are always blathering about. Seriously, if those so called 'gods' of theirs ever existed why haven't they gotten off their fat lazy flanks and done something? You'd think if you could raise the sun you could throw a giant dragon into it! But I digress. See, I'm one of the new alicorns. My parents were both ponies who were transformed, making them first generation, while I was born like this, making me a second generation.

Now for those who don't understand, it means I'm a better breed of pony. To put it in perspective, ponies are like... Rocks. Me? I'm a mountain, born from rocks that became mountains. Sadly, most my problems in life come from other ponies not realizing just how amazing I am. Even when I first began researching my chosen arts in the school of statics, I constantly had my teachers nit picking all my designs. But they all were silenced on the day I graduated when I unveiled my first creation, a golem designed specifically for wing and horn maintenance. Sure there were a few minor bugs, and a few of my teachers had to have their feathers glued back on, but who cares about a few mishaps in the pursuit of progress? I even won the award for most terrifying invention!

So after graduating you can imagine just how many teachers should have been fighting to make me their protege. Instead it took me two weeks. Two weeks of boredom and being forced to work as a lowly academy assistant. Then I found a teacher not only worthy of being called my teacher, but also able to see how amazing my abilities were. Her name was Blinga, and not only was she a brilliant teacher, she was also an amazing elementalist and helped me to develop my considerable talents. As far as I could tell she only had two flaws. She was always talking about control and mercy, and talking about how magic was a delicate instrument that needed to be applied with minimal force for blah blah blah. Magic isn't like that at all. The most powerful forces in the world are those that have vast amounts of magic, and I intended to be one of those. Even in the academy I was one of the best duelers around, I could easily paralyze the other students before blowing them away with sheer power. And the ones I lost were only because my opponent cheated! And I'm totally getting off topic again. Her other flaw... Well, you'll see soon enough, now as I was saying.

Blinga took both me and this annoying alicorn called Dook as her students. I mean this kid was completely worthless! He could barely do the most basic of spells and was just constantly causing problems. I don't see WHY she would teach him, let alone make him her successor! He can't even use earth magic! What kind of elementalist can't use earth magic? Well, atleast after a few weeks of training.

Blinga trained us both however. And after a few months we began working on a special project directed by our teacher. It was going to be tracking unit utilizing arcane energy to locate and pinpoint the specific wavelengths of magical radiation inherent in certain artifacts. While I am willing to admit our teacher did do most of the designing, I was pivotal in the testing and honing phase once the first prototype was finished. And I suppose Dook did help a little bit in the hardware phase. We were suposed to enter it into the Sparkle competition, a special yearly tournament held by the alicorns to determine who the best and brightest was. And thanks to from interference from the nightmare moon court... Well, thats where everything started getting complicated. And our first official field test.