After Luna’s nighttime outburst, it was a few days before Thistle deigned to forgive her, but eventually forgive her she did. Quietly, as someone who had suffered from long term insomnia, I was halfway to agreeing with the dryad’s ire. In any case, things ended happily enough and I was content to put it from my mind. I had other things to be concerned with.

There was, of course, the matter of Luna taking on the responsibilities of keeping Canterlot running while Celestia was away. Thankfully after our late night chat and bowl of mac and cheese, she seemed to be in a much better place to deal with that particular issue.

The other major thing on my mind was that Summer had finally decided my training was at the point she felt I could start participating in rookie level tournaments. The tournament she had signed me up for was a little over two weeks away and I was diligently training.

The rules were fairly straightforward; it would be a single elimination MMA style match with the only restriction being no tools or weapons. This brought me to my current conundrum. How was I going to deal with magic?

While I could use magic, I had to rely on runes and potions. I had no way to channel magic through my body naturally like a Pegasus does with their wings or a Unicorn with their horn. The most obvious solution would be to use chi attacks, but there was an issue I was wracking my brain trying to overcome.

The most universally applicable of Ranma’s repertoire of chi attacks was no doubt the Moko Takabisha. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the boundless confidence the real Ranma possessed. Likewise, while I certainly had my moments in the past, my depression had never been consistently bad enough to fuel a shishi hokodan, let alone use it consistently in a fight.

So naturally the solution would be to find an emotion I personally resonated with enough to create my own variation of the attack. This was easier said than done. So it was I was pounding on a training dummy while trying to do enough self-reflection to find the answer to my problem.

My mind initially considered avarice as a potential fuel source, which probably says more about my opinion of myself than I want it to. In any case, it was quickly dismissed. As much as I thought I could be greedy, it didn’t fill me up nearly enough to materialize a chi blast.

I tried and discarded several different emotions, some positive and some negative, until I tried hope. There was a spark there. Not quite right, but I could feel I was getting close. What was like hope, but not exactly hope?

I ruminated on this for a little while before it hit me. What is the hope for a better tomorrow without the determination to survive until the dawn? What is hope without the determination to see all the obstacles before you and press on regardless? Even in my darkest hours there had been a core of determination at my center that saw me through.

I focused my thoughts and my chi and in my hand a small orange orb flickered in and out of existence. I was overjoyed, but tapered down on my excitement and tired to focus on my determination to win the tournament with this new skill. Of course, it would take more than this, but with renewed dedication, I resumed training. Now all I had to do was think up a silly name for my attack.

My sleep specialist has vanished off the face of the earth. My new one won't be available until July 21st.