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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Sept 26, 2011 17:11:42 GMT -5
It was a good day in Froggy Bottom Bog, compared to the rain and fog that loomed below the canopy most of the time, today the sun was shining and beams of light shone like glowing pillars through the sparse gaps in the thick foliage, lighting up meter-wide spaces on the mossy ground in high contrast with the cool darkness that the rest of the bog had. With an objective kind of thinking, one might say that the bog almost had an ethereal beauty among it today.
Why Watermark decided to take Trixie out into the bog for a new lesson on this kind of day was beyond her. The lack of clouds would be troubling for any kind of aquamancy he would have her do, added on to the fact that he was leading her to one of the dryer parts of the bog. She decided to shove any doubts to the back of her mind; she was training with Watermark, after all, and he liked to change things up almost too often for her tastes, but it always kept her on the tips of her hooves and brought out the best she could muster.
So Trixie decided to continue following, zig-zagging around the columns of light that seemed so vivid that if she tried to touch one, it might as well have been made of solid crystal. The slow trot that Watermark kept up continued for a good amount of time before Trixie made a small huff of distaste and quickened her pace to catch up to the zebrica. She came up alongside him and softly cleared her throat to break the ice, so to speak.
"Where exactly are you taking us to, Watermark?" She asked quietly, almost whispering, in an attempt to not seriously damage the peaceful silence that the two of them shared up until Trixie's raw sense of curiosity caught up with her.
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Post by Watermark on Oct 2, 2011 14:35:52 GMT -5
The tattooed unicorn was walking along peacefully, whistling every now and then, grinning to himself, but otherwise remaining quiet, even as Trixie posed the question, he halted abruptly, "Perfect!" He grinned, "It's time you learned how to illusion magic REALLY works, deceive the mind, and the body. To begin!" He said, summoning a small font of water to puddle up near him, and from said puddle raising a thin slab of ice, in which his reflection was perfectly mirrored. Surprisingly enough, his reflection then quickly stepped out of the icy mirror, followed by another, and then another, until there were now five watermarks grinning at her.
They all spoke at turn, each saying another word in a sentence, "Learn how to beguile, how to make the unbelievable believable, how to entrap your enemies in an illusion, without them realizing it." At that point all five watermarks poked Trixie, "Which is the real one?" Perhaps the question did not seem complicated, but she felt them ALL touching her. She knew this was impossible, and yet it happened. He did not have enough water to craft clones of himself, so how could this be?
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Oct 20, 2011 18:26:39 GMT -5
Trixie stopped at Watermark's reference to illusion magic. She shook her head a little bit. "Illusion magic? Isn't that what most showponies do?" She looked to the ground, remembering her days on stage before she reached Ponyville, and her career of performing magic had crashed and burned, literally. "You don't mean stuff like lights and smokescreens, do you? There has to be something much more fun than-" Her sentence was cut off as she watched Watermark give his demonstration and Watermark and his doppelgängers had surrounded her.
"Uh.." Trixie shifted her eyes among each of the five, trying to decipher which one was the real Watermark. They all were completely identical. She jumped slightly at Watermark's touch, her mind still not wrapping around the fact that there was more than one Watermark. Given it was impossible to clone, and there was not nearly enough water for Watermark to aquamance a few copies of himself, this must be a mental trick. Somehow he was using magic to get inside her mind and make her see what he wants and feel what he wants. She closed her eyes, thought of nothing, and shook her head violently. She opened her eyes again to a headache and still five Watermarks.
"Okay.." She rubbed her temple to rid the ache from her head and gave a short groan. "I wanna learn how to do that... Where do I start?"
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Post by Watermark on Nov 9, 2011 0:32:27 GMT -5
"The first thing to do, is to mask one's sight! The eyes are the most easily deceived of the senses, you know the formula for the standard illusion spell, now I want you to use it! Make more of you, confuse me, make me unsure!" The unicorn called, grinning as widely as ever and perhaps even more. It was easy for him to say, but she wasn't even sure which of the unicorns shouting at her he was.
Pacing into each of his mirror image, they disappeared one by one, and surprisingly for Trixie, the real one was not at all where the real one was standing before the mirror images emerged, and she had a feeling that one of the images that emerged was the real one rather than a fake. This was Watermark after all, and he was as tricky as they got. "And I don't want any of that transparent nonsense, perfectly solid!"
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Nov 10, 2011 7:48:02 GMT -5
Trixie was overwhelmed at the sudden request to A: create a reasonable copy, or copies, of herself on her very first try, and B: do it well enough to fool Watermark.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating on the parts of the spell, creating a duplicate of herself through magic alone. Trixie spent more than enough time admiring herself in the mirror in her hut, so she would have no trouble selling the act once she had enough experience performing it.
Her horn lit up a bright blue as she focused on the task at hoof. A magical aura formed in front of her, the shapes and edges coalescing into the form of a pony. Trixie still had her eyes shut by the time the aura had created a reasonable copy of herself.
She opened her eyes to see a pair of her own staring back. "W-what the?" She yelped and tumbled backwards in surprise, only to lean back up and see that her copy had done the same. She got up, and so did the copy. It had a bluish tinge to it, and wisps of magic were rolling off its surface like smoke. She struggled a smile through maintaining the spell, and the copy smiled back. Trixie spent the next few minutes admiring and experimenting with her copy, through waving a hoof or assuming a pose, the copy followed her exact movements without delay.
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Post by Watermark on Nov 20, 2011 4:05:16 GMT -5
"Oh my, that is horrendous, so ugly!" Watermark exclaimed, "Almost perfect!" the unicorn grinned humorously, "However, with that blue glow you won't be fooling anyone." Watermark said, poking Trixie's copy, effectively hogging the illusion, turning her seemingly completely solid and proceeding to make-out with her, not at all subtly either, not that her copy was resisting, it seemed just as eager if anything..
"Hey, you two! Cut it out!" The real Watermark called from behind her, and the two illusions stepped back with a blush, and were dispersed. When did Watermark get behind her, she did not know. Was the other Watermark an illusion the entire time, or did he pull a switch when she was not paying attention? "Silly illusions, always doing what they want. But no, you need to make it solid, so I can't distinguish between you two, that blue stuff won't work, try harder!"
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Nov 28, 2011 15:13:03 GMT -5
The glow from Trixie's horn faded when Watermark took control of her illusion and began playing around with it. The illusion stopped mirroring Trixie's actions and staying under her control, which she truly didn't appreciate. She grimaced and turned away at the sight of her illusion and Watermark making out. She shook her head with a sigh. "Was that really necessary?" She managed to blurt out before the real Watermark dispersed the two.
Trixie couldn't help but admire her teacher's skill in maintaining his illusion flawlessly, while acting independently of it. But Watermark was supposed to be just that to Trixie, a teacher. After Watermark had finished his little talk, Trixie gave him somewhat of an incredulous look. "You are trying to teach me these skills, correct?" before she could let Watermark respond, she walked over to face him directly, "but, you seem to be doing a lot more of giving me a goal and expecting me to reach it rather than actually giving me helpful guidance on how to reach it."
She sat down in front of Watermark and her tone softened. "I guess what I'm trying to say is you should do a little more instructing rather than demanding. It's just very challenging for me to do something I don't know how to." She offered a weak smile and sunk her eyes to the floor, expecting the worst.
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Post by Watermark on Dec 1, 2011 3:45:05 GMT -5
"Oh," Watermark said, "I'm sorry, it's just that these are basic level spells. As simple as memorizing a formula and keeping your focus. But, I guess if you need me to hold your hoof even for that. I don't envy you when you get to the more advanced spells though." Watermark said, pulling his shoulders in a shrug.
"Right, the first thing you should know about illusions is that they're just that, illusions. Never make the mistake of falling into your own illusion, otherwise you'd go insane." He started, "Illusions unlike regular spells are usually more lasting. You can throw a fireball, but you don't need to keep the flames running, you know?" He asked rhetorically, before continuing, "Therefore, all you need to do is focus, control your magic. Determine the goal of the illusion before creating it, is it a distraction? Is it meant to fool someone into fighting a decoy? Meant to allow you to escape?"
Walking around the clearing he called up his illusion yet again, "Basic formula and concentration is all you need to make it appear solid," But then the illusion pressed its hoof through the tattooed unicorn, who became transparent and faded away, revealing the illusion to be the actual pony, rather than the one that was just talking to her.
"Timing and misdirection. Control the attention of your crowd, make them see what you want them to, so that they are not aware of what goes on in the surrounding area." He finished explaining finally.
"Try it again, remember, misdirection and timing."
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Dec 2, 2011 7:17:55 GMT -5
Trixie's nose scrunched up in frustration at Watermark's words. She almost had the audacity to hoof him in the face for insensitively brushing off something that was so obviously challenging to her as a simple first grade telekinesis spell. Almost. But she decided against it, for obvious reasons.
Trixie just sat herself down and did her best to take in what Watermark was saying. About focusing on the type of illusion and controlling one's magic. She groaned on the inside. It was just like school... Only harder and it really mattered this time. As Watermark finished, Trixie let out a sigh and got herself up. "Understood, Watermark." She said as blankly as she could. Not trying to seem disrespectful, just understanding.
Trixie lowered her head and focused on making a simple duplicate of herself. But one thing was certain, she wouldn't be able to fool Watermark is he saw her duplicate being formed from pure magic. She put aside forming the illusion and instead mustered up a quick smokescreen spell that she had used many times before in her magic shows. A short spark of light appeared at her hooves and less than a second later the whole area surrounding her was obscured with a cloud of glittering magical smoke.
Trixie then put all her concentration into forming her duplicate, but this time she built the image around herself, letting the magic take shape over the contours of her body like a mold, instead of building it in front of her like a sculpture where she was prone to error. She kept pushing her focus until the spell simply stopped taking very much effort, at which point Trixie opened her eyes and took an exaggerated step to the right, phasing through her magical duplicate that was standing where Trixie had been. The smokescreen was intact, and she couldn't see Watermark, but it was fading due to her failing to maintain it.
Trixie patched on some more magic onto her illusion, sealing it and solidifying it, so to speak, so it wouldn't glow or look translucent. She quickly arranged herself next to her illusion, matching the posture and expression, and also hiding the glow from her horn as the smoke cleared.
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Post by Watermark on Dec 2, 2011 15:45:06 GMT -5
As the smoke dispersed, Trixie noticed Watermark playing chess with one of his illusions. Just starting a rather strange opening. His illusion countered with another move, but Watermark got up angrily, smashing the board off the table with a hoof, "THAT IS NOT HOW YOU COUNTER AN ATLANTIC OPENING!" He shouted, flipping the table over in front of his shocked illusion and turning back to Trixie.
"Oh wow, so who's the real Trixie here?" He asked, looking back and forth between Trixie and her illusion.
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Dec 3, 2011 12:41:54 GMT -5
Trixie had to stifle a laugh at Watermark's clone's expression. Noticing that her duplicate didn't react at all, she quickly straightened herself back out and assumed her duplicates stony expression. Also, Watermark's poor duplicate looked like it was about to cry, though she couldn't help but wonder if that was actually the real Watermark, or even if both of them were illusions and Watermark was up in a tree watching the whole exchange from a lofty perch.
She stiffened herself at Watermark's scrutiny, and did her best to mask the glow from her horn by making that of her duplicate glow subtly aswell. She and her duplicate shared a short glance and a grin with Watermark's question.
"I suppose that means we succeeded." both Trixie and her duplicate said in-synch, much to Trixie's surprise as her clone had seemed like an inanimate statue before. Albeit a very realistic statue, but a statue nonetheless. Trixie contained her surprise and looked Watermark in the eye, as did her illusion.
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Post by Red Charge on Dec 7, 2011 3:29:42 GMT -5
"Success is relative," Watermark said craftily, "But it looks like you got it right this time, excellent. With some practice you'll master this form of illusion. Remember, misdirection is key in illusion, attract your enemies attention elsewhere, and they'll be less likely to notice what you don't want them to."
The other Watermark, in them meanwhile picked up the table, and the chess pieces, scowling at the talking Watermark before packing them up in the board box and giving the other a rude gesture. A third Watermark, watching by the trees said, "Hey I wanted to play too!"
"Do you know how to counter an Atlantic opening?" Asked the talking Watermark, causing the other one to laugh with not a small amount of contempt.
"Shield Wall Defense, easy." He said, the other tattooed unicorn was just starting to say he was wrong before something clicked in his head,
"Shield Wall defense? That's brilliant! That completely nullifies the enemy knights!" After this short discussion was over, the talking Watermark dispelled the rest of the illusions, "I'll have to try that sometime." He said, "Anyway, mirror image power training, by next lesson you'll need to be able to make at least five illusions just like that. But for now, let's continue on."
He began making an illusion of Trixie, it was perfectly solid, and would be arguable if even Trixie's mother would be able to tell the difference. "Now, making illusions of other ponies, same formula, different object to concentrate on. And no, you can't create it over them." He said with a grin, "You need to make it from scratch, let's have a go."
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Dec 12, 2011 20:08:07 GMT -5
OOC: (Wrong account you got there, Watermark XD)
Trixie frowned and released her control of her illusion, letting it disintegrate into glowing blue wisps of magic that dispersed soon after they formed. One accurate illusion was tough enough, but not being allowed to form it on another pony's contours, not to mention the ability to make five of them, which Trixie just assumed that Watermark would want her to be able to move and talk independently, it seemed a little much. But Trixie had already presented that case to Watermark earlier and had received a less-than kind reply, so she just kept it to herself and decided not to try complaining her way out of homework.
"Sooo, you mean you want me to make an illusion of you, or another one of me without forming it on myself?" Trixie asked, not fully understanding the wording of Watermark's demand. She just assumed it was the former, according to what he had been talking about earlier. She sighed and began walking a circle around Watermark, getting a good look at his general body shape and build, mane and tail style and color, etc. Watermark had blue tattoos all over his body, and a very complex black and white striped mane and tail, not terribly easy features to recreate. Nevertheless, Trixie would try.
She stopped her pacing around him and stood in front of him to the right, able to still maintain an ample visual reference of most of his body. She kept her eyes cemented on him as her horn lit up, the same glow appearing a few feet above the ground a meter or so away. Her eyes traced the shape and features of his form, translating that directly to the quickly forming mirror-image. Each inch of his body was perfectly recreated on the copy, but Trixie had to focus long and hard, dragging her eyes very slowly to get in all the minuscule details, and the illusion could only be formed as fast as she could look Watermark over.
Soon enough, though, she finished her systematic look-over of Watermark, and her copy was an exact replica. She walked over to it and fixed a few things. The exact shade of his tattoos and irises, any subtle muscle-toning that would be otherwise unnoticeable unless subjected to very close scrutiny.
Trixie tapped her chin. She had spent enough time being trained by Watermark that she, at least in theory, could make the clone imitate or even duplicate his voice. She grinned and her horn lit up again, releasing the illusion from its 'design phase' and essentially animating it. She had it walk around, getting a feel for controlling an illusion past just making it talk or look at things. She liked it, it felt like she was guiding Watermark around, and he was completely under her power. Which, he was, just not the real Watermark. She trotted the illusion next to her and admired her handiwork, before turning it to the real Watermark and having it say in his voice, "The Great and Powerful Trixie believes that she has done admirably."
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Post by Red Charge on Dec 13, 2011 2:33:10 GMT -5
"Excellent work, Trixie. See? Once you put your mind to it, it's not that hard is it?" Watermark said with an approving nod, "Though for future reference, I probably wouldn't say 'The Great and Powerful Trixie', maybe 'The Powerful and Great Trixie', or even 'The Powerful and Trixie Great.' Depends on whether or not it's a week day." The unicorn reasoned, smiling.
"Now let's make it more interesting, creating an illusion from memory! Please produce Magmarhyme for me and then Willowisp. Don't take too long now, you need to be able to manifest your illusions on the fly, remember." The tattooed mage instructed, "A little tip, when making an illusion, rather than sculpt it out of shapes as you would a drawing or a statue, try pasting the appearance right on and then smoothing the edges. Remember you won't always get a good look at the pony you're copying, so you need to be able to complete the three dimensional image from your head. That's something you also need to work on." At that, Watermark stepped back, allowing Trixie space to work.
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Post by The Great and POWERFUL Trixie on Dec 16, 2011 10:20:53 GMT -5
"The Great and Powerful Trixie will change her title when she, and only she sees it fit to do so." Her sentence starting in Watermark's voice by the clone, then slowly fading back to hers as she let the illusion dissipate into the surrounding air. "And she doesn't see how the day of the week would have anything to do with her title." She retorted, huffing and holding her snout high in the air.
Trixie lowered her head as she took in the details of Watermark's next instruction. It seemed to follow the fundamental aspects of sculpting; see the final sculpture before you even begin, make a very rough outline, then carve in the finer details. But Trixie did face one problem with recreating Magmarhyme. The only time Trixie had seen her was during one of Watermark's training sessions. Willo wasn't a problem, as she was Trixie's flatmate, so to speak.
Nevertheless, Trixie conjured up what she could remember about Magma. Somewhat small, red, ash covered body with a flaming yellow mane and tail, piercing yellow eyes. A rather unique pony, to say the least, but Trixie would do her best. She closed her eyes and her horn lit up, ready to implement the image that formed in her mind. She carved out the basic shape of a mare in her head, not fully grown but not a filly either, and put that image to work with her magic, forming it in front of her. She figured the underlying coat color of black, and then effectively dusted it with crimson-rust red, forming a dirty layer with cracks and breaks that let the inner black show through.
Forming the cutie mark was easy enough, an erupting volcano, same as Trixie had seen in school, then the eyes and the face, a big, toothy smile that Magma had during the training session. Her mane and tail were the hardest, because they did actually look like fire and moved in a very similar way, so she simply re-imagined the shape and movement of the flame from a camp fire and tried her best to meld it in with the general shape of a mane and tail. Altogether, she was happy with the result she came up with in her head, then she opened her eyes and her illusion was complete, standing right in front of her.
Not in a million years would Trixie be able to imitate Magma's voice, mannerisms, and unique personality, but she figured that having a worthy illusion, plus being able to make it walk around and make facial expressions was more than enough.
"Sooooo.." Trixie started, shifting her gaze to Watermark again. "How's this for Magma?" She gave him a hopeful smile.
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