“So he attacked you and you turned him into a foal?” Rainbow Dash asked incredulously.
“No! I mean yes, but not on purpose!” Twilight sounded flustered. “It was an accident that caused this and I don’t think I can turn him back.”
Twilight’s voice and expression held no small amount of distress. Her previously calm demeanor evaporated with this revelation.
“He attacked me, but Spike protected me. Spike won, and I was getting through to him, but just as I did, his magic became unstable and, and-” Twilight was silenced by an orange hoof on her lips.
“This problem’s gotta be bigger than all outdoors. Ah haven’t seen you that worked up in years.” Applejack took her hoof away. “Now how about we back up a little bit? Who’s this little feller?”
Twilight groaned and rubbed her eyes. She tried to think of how best to explain it, but after several seconds she was drawing blanks.
“That’s not an easy question for me to answer.”
“Why not? Do you know him?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I did,” Twilight answered, remorse building up. “Until two days ago he was the captain of the Royal Guard. Now, I don’t know anymore.”
“Because he attacked you?” Rarity asked, shocked. Even after all the adventures they’d shared together, life kept finding new ways to surprise her.
Twilight’s voice was breaking. “It’s more serious than that. For ten years I trusted him with Equestria’s safety, and I’d considered him a friend for even longer. When he was reduced to a foal, his memories were lost. He might be physically alive, but the pony he was is gone. It’s no different than if he’d perished.”
“No wonder you’re so worked up.” Applejack looked at Pinkie and Fluttershy who were both still mostly focused on him. “How was he turned into a foal?”
She kept her gaze on said foal. “The reasons for that are… complicated.”
“So uncomplicate them.” Dash retorted.
Twilight took a deep breath and thought about how best to describe it. “He wasn’t as powerful as he was through natural talent alone. His body was modified with magic.”
“Modified?” Dash asked, looking slightly confused.
Twilight glanced at Applejack and Rarity, seeing they were just as confused. She lit her horn and a purple grid appeared in the air, a silhouette of an earth pony, a pegasus, and a unicorn appearing across it.
“It’s called an enhancement spell, and it’s used on a foal to enhance desired traits in them, as the name might suggest.”
The intensity of her magic increased ever so slightly.
“It could be physical strength, wing power, even a unicorn’s magic. Whatever it’s meant to enhance and how rapidly is tailored to the recipient on a per-case basis, and if the spell is done correctly it tends to produce exceptional results.”
As she spoke the earth pony silhouette grew bigger, the pegasus’ wings expanded, and the unicorn’s horn brightened.
“And if it’s not done right, Twilight?” Applejack had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answer.
The question made Twilight look uncomfortable. The specifics were around a field of magic not commonly practiced or even understood.
“Bad things, very bad things. If the spell isn’t done exactly right it could cause cancers, bone growths, horn problems, and other things that can lead to mental and physical harm.”
Everypony was stunned silent for a moment before Rarity’s face morphed into one of anger.
“Why, that’s just deplorable!” She declared. “What parents would knowingly put their own foal at such a risk?!”
“Suppose your child was an earth pony and you wanted them to grow up to be incredibly strong, a pegasus to be a shoo-in for the Wonderbolts, or maybe your child is a unicorn you hope could become a powerful magic-user. This spell could theoretically make it happen, but the more likely results are the horrible side effects. That’s why it’s so eschewed, but apparently there are still some ponies who think it’s worth the risk.” The topic left Twilight with a bad taste in her mouth.
“Rarity’s right, that’s awful!” Fluttershy stepped away from the crib to join her friends. “Look at what it did to him!”
“So what exactly did happen?” Applejack glanced at him before going back to Twilight. “You said this happened when you fought, right?”
“It happened afterwards. Spike won, and I started to get through to him, but just as I did, his spell failed. Magic arced off of him before he burst into green flames.”
She cringed, remembering his cries of pain. “I tried to cast a disabling spell to help him, but I didn’t know what was going on at the time. It put out the fire, but a few seconds later he was reduced to a foal.”
“Green fire? That sounds like changeling magic.” Pinkie Pie chimed in, glancing at her friends.
Twilight looked uneasy, remembering when Queen Chrysalis had banished her to the caves beneath Canterlot. She’d been surrounded by a ring of it and felt a wave of heat radiating off it. He must’ve been in agony before Twilight acted. “You don’t know how right you are, Pinkie. Enhancement spells are made possible by changeling magic.”
Dash raised an eyebrow. “How does that work?”
Twilight remembered what she’d read about it recently, “You need a very skilled enchanter and a certain amount of changeling magic to infuse into the recipient, depending on the degree of the alterations you want to see.”
She shuddered at the thought of a spell like that being used on her, but she didn’t have long to dwell on it before Dash’s voice interrupted her thoughts, looking slightly green.
“Sorry I asked.”
“Twilight,” Rarity asked, “why did his spell fail? Why only then?”
Twilight thought of feeling from the hug they’d shared. It was warm and she’d thought she’d really made a connection, only for him to be gripped in agony moments later.
“His magic had been spliced with changeling magic when he was young, from before they metamorphosed. My theory is that the changeling part of his magic went through the same sort of change that theirs did, but since it was integrated with a pony it couldn’t do it properly, causing him a great deal of pain and leaving it unstable.”
Applejack’s mind quickly made the connection. “That disabling spell you were talking about earlier, you mean it-”
“-Caused his current condition, yes.” Twilight finished. “What I don’t know is why. I didn’t even know such a spell existed until this happened, and there’s no information about what happens when it’s removed.”
Dash cocked her head slightly to the side and glanced at where Fluttershy had been earlier. She couldn’t help but look at the foal just a little bit differently now.
“Is there any way to get him back to how he was?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Twilight grimaced. She’d been dreading that question the most but knew it would inevitably arise.
“I don’t think so. I’ve been looking into solutions since this happened, but none of them were promising. I can’t restore his memories unless I first return him to how he was physically, but I can’t do that. It’s meant to work gradually, and it must be given at some point during their foalhood. If I tried to use an age spell on him and then give him the enhancement spell it wouldn’t take effect, and if I gave it to him as a foal and then used an age spell I’d end up burning out his body.”
“That’s like having to choose between nettles and cockleburrs.” Applejack didn’t know a lot about magic, but she was smart enough to understand a no-win situation when she heard one. “There’s no other way?”
All she received at first was a head shake from Twilight. “With everything I’ve learned and no evidence to the contrary, that’s what it looks like.”
“You mean he’ll never get any older?” Rarity realized it sounded like a silly question, but with all the surprises their adventures had given her she’d learned to never assume anything. “What’s going to happen to him, then? Will you be sending him back to his parents?”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed, her teeth clenching at that question. “Not a chance in Tartarus. Jet Set and Upper Crust didn’t choose him because they wanted a foal to love, they chose him because he was a promising unicorn! They had their chance, and they wasted it!” She only became aware that she'd slipped into the Royal Canterlot voice when she heard soft whining coming from her charge.
“Sorry, sweetie,” she murmured, using her magic to wrap the blanket around him and pull him into her foreleg. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
Silence hung heavy in the air as the implications of her words set in. They’d found out more about the former captain in a few seconds from Twilight than they had in years of knowing him.
“We can come back to that, Twilight.” Applejack couldn’t help but notice just how small he looked compared to the princess who already towered over most grown ponies. “Why’d he attack you?”