//------------------------------// // Chapter Six - The Scientist // Story: Axioms // by NoPoemGuy //------------------------------// A single large, waxy candle stood in the corner of the desk, burned low and wobbling uncertainly on the thin strand of wick it had left. Its flickering beams revealed that the desk was brimming with books, books of all colors and sizes, strewn across the wooden surface in great mounds and heaps, in some places stacked up to create makeshift easels upon which other other books lay open and partially read. The great mess of information also covered the floor for several feet in every direction, and among the tomes a baby dragon was fast asleep, his head resting on a slightly crumpled scroll. The dragon had vowed to stay awake with his friend all night if she wanted to – he was her number on assistant, after all – but he'd only made it to around one o'clock before running out of fuel. As the clock on the far wall of the library ticked its way through the wee hours of the morning, Twilight Sparkle sat alone in the center of her fortress of books. She was absolutely exhausted, at least in an objective sense. Her back sagged under the weight of her upper body and her eyelids felt as though they were made of lead. The bright spark at the tip of her horn had grown dimmer and dimmer; keeping the illumination spell active for so many hours had drained her magic almost entirely. But still she trudged resolutely through book after book. She knew that once her body convinced her how tired it was, she'd be asleep in an instant, and as far as Fluttershy was concerned, that was wasted time. “The most terrifying magic of the age was held by the Ice Mages of Mount Nardioch,” muttered the unicorn, reading aloud from The Wars of the Northern Mountains, the pages dimly lit by the combination of her spell and the lone candle. She'd spent the past hour or so playing a sort of literary scavenger hunt, following minuscule hints from one book to the next as she searched for whatever magic had imprisoned her friend. She'd arrived here via a passing reference in Mountain Ponies of Equestria, which had in turn been brought to her attention by...she couldn't seem to remember the previous one, which was highly unfortunate because she'd been running a sort of depth-first search on the information graph, and not being able to backtrack would ruin it. Not that she'd be distraught over that; the whole process had led her on a grand tour of science, history, and fantastical folklore, and had turned up essentially nothing. But now...this book seemed quite promising. “The mages could freeze their enemies, rendering them incapable of movement for nearly an hour's time,” she continued, her tired eyes widening with sudden excitement. “The spells manifested as great spheres around the victim, and were famous for their...brilliant blue hue, which could be seen for miles around.” So much for that, then. Twilight heaved a frustrated sigh and latched her magic onto Mountain Ponies of Equestria, lifting it toward her to begin the search again. Nothing happened. The book glowed with that familiar purple aura, but sat stubbornly on the desk. Twilight gave it her full attention, running the telekinesis calculations through her head and sending the object a quick jolt of magic, forcing it into the air – “Ah! Ouch!” she yelped, as a splitting pain erupted in her forehead, as though she'd just unwittingly jabbed her horn into a low-hanging ceiling, while the book fell back to the desk with a soft thud and her illumination spell winked out entirely. That was it. She literally could not levitate the book. There wasn't enough fuel left in the tank. Well, crap. Now enveloped in near darkness, she rested back on her haunches and allowed her head to droop. I can't go to bed now. I'll take a little break, just enough to let my magic regenerate, and then I'll get back to work... At once, her exhausted body seized the opportunity and began filling her mind with insidious suggestions, like how wonderful it would feel to close her eyes for just one moment, and how the candlelight dancing across the bookshelves was like something out of a dream, and we should lie down for a bit, there's no way we'll fall asleep down here on the floor, right? And then Twilight started to think. And her body gave an internal scream of fury, because it knew any hope of sleep had just sublimated. She thought about the events of the prior day. They had flown at her so hard and fast that she still felt rather overwhelmed. She'd been too busy trying to find the identity of that crystal spell to give what had happened a good hard think; perhaps she had purposefully distracted herself with books to avoid doing so. But there was no more putting it off. She firmly shut her eyes – in concentration, not tiredness – and asked herself the most obvious, most basic question: How do I feel about all this? She felt...confused. More confused than she'd ever been in her life. There were so many confusing topics that she was confused about which one to be confused by first. And all those topics barged uninvited into her mental conference room, screaming over one another to make themselves the center of attention, so that all Twilight could make out of the discourse was How did Fluttershy get Celestia told me to But then Aurora might Rainbow Dash gets to help Cast that crystal spell Have to do something or else… STOP, thought Twilight firmly. She'd dealt with being overloaded by questions before. All of you, single-file line. Now. There was a great deal of mental pushing and shoving as her thoughts fought to be the first to have the floor. Soon they had grudgingly formed a line, and the most powerful thought, which had already been in her head throughout most of the night, was in front. So, do we know anything about the spell Aurora cast on Fluttershy yet? asked Thought Number One. Yes...no...maybe. Twilight had gone through just about every relevant book in the library, and there was quite a number of things the spell might be. However, the fact remained that she had spent about a cumulative ninety seconds examining the thing. She knew it was red, translucent, and nearly spherical. She knew it had lasted at least twelve hours without expending enough magic to fall apart. She knew it was immune to scrying – no, strike that one, too many assumptions – she knew that her single attempt at a Close Range Scrying Spell had come back with nothing. She had also cast a quick Novoa Magicka, which should have dissipated any lingering unshielded magical effects in the area; that too had failed. Anything other than those basic facts was guesswork. Then again, a whole lot of scientific theory got off the ground with guesswork, built a solid case for itself, and came back later to fill in the blanks. With that in mind, Twilight quickly churned through all the information she'd just crammed into her head, and condensed it into four hypotheses. The first was that the crystal was a ruby, or some other type of enchanted gemstone. Celestia's academic team had been quick to dismiss this one, but the idea was not without some backing. It certainly looked like an oversized ruby, for one. Twilight had devoured all the literature she had on the subject, and found several examples of gems being used to freeze objects in place, be it airborne dust, clocks, even ponies. It sounded remarkably similar to what had happened to Fluttershy. The difference was that these gems were used to immobilize the surrounding area, not the space...inside of them. In any case, Twilight had already devised a simple test to put this one to bed one way or the other, as soon as she could get access to the cottage. Second hypothesis: the crystal was made of some unknown magical substrate, the nature of which Twilight could hardly even venture a guess. It was a basic tenant of spellcasting that spells performed their function and then vanished, and if you needed a charm with long-lasting effects, it had to be bound to something physical. The rules of how and why this worked were something of a mystery to Twilight; it was almost an entirely separate art from spellcasting altogether. Sadly, that meant that if this was the true hypothesis, then the material surrounding Fluttershy could be absolutely anything. And the Novoa Magicka should have had some effect on it...well, probably. The third guess was that it was an active spell, keeping the trapped pegasus immobilized while protecting itself from disruption. This was quite literally becoming more improbable by the minute. Spells vanished quickly unless they were sustained; in order to create a persistent spell, it either had to be cast continuously (as in levitation) or engendered with so much magical energy that it could continuously cast itself (as in the great shielding charms that had protected castles in the Median Age of Equestria). The latter generally took the effort of numerous well-practiced ponies, and needed to be re-dosed with magic at regular intervals. Granted, Aurora was supposedly an immensely powerful alicorn, but every second Fluttershy didn't crash through Twilight's window screaming “I'M FREE! I'M FREE!” was another strike against this option. And the fourth was that the crystal was...something...else. One thing about the mysterious spell was certain: it was a brand of magic Twilight had never encountered before. Aurora had powers beyond her imagination, so it was possible that she simply could not imagine what magic had been performed on Fluttershy. This was not an option she intended to pass up lightly. Restricting her hypothesis space to only things she'd learned to date would be shooting herself in all four legs before the race even began. Twilight carefully stored the results of this think tank away for further consideration, and invited Thought Number Two to take the stand. Why won't Celestia let us help our friend? This one stung. Twilight instantly moved to quell the surge of unpleasant emotions that rose up from her subconscious: confusion, hurt, even an ugly tinge of anger. She could never, ever allow herself to be angry with Celestia, the pony who had given her everything she had. The princess loved and cared for her, she was certain of that, and she was equally sure that there must be very good reasons to bar her from the rescue effort. Twilight's Fifth Axiom: Princess Celestia is always right. But why, Celestia, why? Because she doesn't think we can do anything, offered Common Sense. I mean, is there any other explanation at all? But how was that even possible? Celestia had known Twilight for years, watched as she grew stronger and smarter, watched her master spell after spell until she could rival any unicorn in Canterlot in magical expertise. Surely her teacher couldn't think that her contribution to the rescue team would be worthless… But...she could. She really, really could. No! thought Twilight fervently. Celestia knows better, she's seen how smart I am, how much I'm capable of doing, I'm her PRIZED STUDENT – Precisely, responded Common Sense with a chill certainty. You are a student. And the unicorns tasked with freeing Fluttershy are adults. This is grown-up business, and no matter how intelligent you may be, Celestia does not think of you as a grown-up. It was a crushing thought, one that Twilight couldn't believe, didn't want to believe. Hadn't Celestia entrusted her with far more important tasks than this one already? She had defeated Nightmare Moon and freed Luna from her malevolent grip. She had returned Discord, the all-powerful god of chaos, back to his prison of stone. Surely the power she'd demonstrated meant Celestia had to recognize her as an adult, an equal… Except...it hadn't been Twilight's power or intellect that had ultimately done those things. It had been the Elements of Harmony. Which Celestia knew could only be wielded by Twilight and her friends, and would be useless when it came to saving Fluttershy. Was Twilight simply a pack mule for the Elements when their power was needed, and Celestia's cute little pet project at all other times? The wave of anger returned, and Twilight had to work much harder to keep it contained. Excuse me, piped up Thought Number Four from the back of the line, I might have something to say about this – Wait your turn, thought Twilight gruffly; she knew the perils of letting her thoughts trip over one another. It was horribly unfair. Did the princess really think that, just because the Elements of Harmony weren't usable in this one specific instance, her pupil had nothing worthwhile to offer? Twilight knew she could have spearheaded the whole effort herself. She even felt she deserved it; Fluttershy was her friend. But instead Celestia had brought on those scientists… Just hearing her own mind associate that word with those unicorns gave Twilight a headache. They were not scientists. They were academics, and not very good ones at that. From the moment she'd entered the cottage, she'd seen them do nothing but spout their knowledge at each other in awful condescending tones, as if the counter-spell to the crystal was to patronize it to death. No examination, no scrying, no tests or structured data collection of any kind. Twilight had more science in her left hoof than all of them put together. ...And now she was reduced to denigrating other ponies to make herself feel better. That wouldn't accomplish anything at all. Thought Number Three, what do you have for me? Did you see how see many pies Pinkie ate for dinner? That was like eight thousand calories, how can she eat so much without spewing it all back up or becoming rounder than – Not important, grunted Twilight, shooing the question back into the recesses of her mind. Moving on… So, asked Thought Number Four, what is that evil alicorn up to, exactly? Aurora. From what Celestia had said, they were dealing with a foe strong enough to almost take down the princess and her guard singlehandedly. Sure, she'd had the extra power of Hayley's Comet backing her up – Twilight was near certain that the comet had been involved in the prior event, the dates matched up perfectly, things like that didn't just turn out to be coincidences – but then again, Celestia had her own magic, so the amplification should have roughly canceled out. Unless Aurora knew of some secret method for augmenting the comet's effects, or maybe she was just so much stronger that the event did have a positive net outcome for her… In either case, Aurora was shaping up to be a pretty heavy wielder of magic, conventional magic as opposed to whatever eldritch powers alicorns held within. She'd already tried, and barely failed, to make herself the head of Equestria by force. It seemed a reasonable conclusion that she was back for a second try. But if she had succeeded succeeded on her last attempt, if she succeeded this time...what then? It was pointless to pursue that train of thought any further. All that mattered was that it was definitely not good. There's still a confusing piece to this, thought Common Sense. Aurora attacked Fluttershy to make sure the Elements were out of her way, that's obvious enough, but why did she do it so early? The comet isn't coming for another six days; why not do it the night before, or even the day of? All she's done is grant us a week-long opportunity to disable her spell and reunite the Elements. Twilight immediately posed this to her inner jury. Maybe Aurora wasn't positive she'd get the spell right on her first try – that was codswallop, this was the one of the most powerful sorceresses ever that they were talking about. Maybe she was afraid that Celestia would anticipate her return on the arrival of Hayley's Comet, and afford the Elements extra protection in the days leading up to it – but if Celestia had suspected Twilight and her friends were in danger, she would have done that months in advance, not days. Or perhaps removing Fluttershy from the picture was just one of several things Aurora needed to do to prepare for her coup d'etat, one that sat low on the priority list – no, there had to be some nonzero probability that Fluttershy could be rescued in time, the risk was too great...unless… The jury handed down a unanimous verdict. Unless she's planning to attack the Elements again. After all, even if Fluttershy couldn't be rescued before the night of the comet, there was a slim chance that another pony might embody the Element of Kindness well enough to work as a stand-in. But if, say, the Element of Magic was unavailable as well...that chance dropped to near zero. There was a flurry of motion in Twilight's discard pile of thoughts, and suddenly Thought Number Two was back in her mental foreground. You're in danger. Celestia knows you're in danger. Her reason for excluding you could be to keep you as far from the limelight as possible, to keep you inside Ponyville and among your friends, to keep you safe. Twilight's dismal mood cleared a little at that. The idea that she might be a direct target for Aurora was unnerving, but it was a much happier explanation for Celestia's actions than her thinking Twilight was worthless. You know, that doesn't add up, rejoined Common Sense. Rainbow Dash was enlisted to help, remember? And not only is she spending time at the cottage, she's flying alone all the way to Canterlot and back. We may have a special standing with Celestia, being her personal student and all, but she wouldn't send Dash on a mission that had a very high probability of getting her hurt. Not to mention, Celestia could keep us safe at the cottage if she wanted to; she could post Royal Guards there, or even protect us herself. Dash can run away from danger better than I can, Twilight argued. Celestia must think that's enough to keep her from harm. And she has limited resources, she can't start throwing guards at me just because I want to help Fluttershy… She would do it, if she thought you could add anything worthwhile. Which she doesn't. Twilight sighed out loud. She couldn't think of a counter-argument to that; the ugly theory that Celestia didn't think of her as a capable unicorn was well on the road to becoming a Fact. But she was still potentially in danger. Would it be prudent to submit to Celestia's wishes, to abandon her quest to rescue Fluttershy and wait for the pseudo-scientists to do it for her? Absolutely not, thought Science, who had been deeply offended at the display Celestia's team had put on. Those clowns don't have a chance of figuring it out. That's just naked paranoia, Common Sense chastised her. We have nothing but speculation to suggest that Aurora plans to attack the Elements again, even less that she's targeting us in particular. NO, shouted Friendship. Fluttershy is our friend. And unless you can come up with an extremely good reason not to, we help our friends. Well, that settled that. Twilight gave a mental approving nod to her inner personalities, and then diverted her thoughts to what was really the most central, important question of all: what was her next move? We get Fluttershy out of that thing, stated Friendship. Explain how that wasn't a stupid question? Obviously the issue is HOW we're going to do it, thought Common Sense dryly. We've been through just about every book in this library that could tell us anything useful, and we're not allowed to join the...let's just call them academics...because Celestia told us not to. Not acceptable, said Science flatly. We've got to get down to the cottage somehow. Getting more data on that crystal is the only way to move forward. Not necessarily, thought Friendship. Let's tone down the cynicism for just a moment, and assume that the academics are at least slightly above total incompetence. We could play a support role for them, ask them what their leads are and do more of our own research. The Canterlot libraries are still open to us. Celstia wouldn't have a problem with that kind of involvement, right? The academics wouldn't listen to us. Science's inner voice was growing firmer. Besides, studying the crystal ourselves will also tell us a lot more about the nature of Aurora's power, which is honestly even more important than rescuing Fluttershy. And why exactly is that?! thought Friendship incredulously. Because learning about Aurora is a good idea even if Fluttershy is already dead. Twilight's physical eyes flew open in shock. If Fluttershy...if Fluttershy was already... She couldn't believe that her own brain had produced such an appalling notion. The remainder of her queued up Thoughts gave frightened yelps and vanished into smoke, and the whole of her consciousness seemed to pile against one side of her mind, desperately trying to escape the terror of the idea. I mean it, said the voice of Science, sounding surprisingly calm and collected amidst her mental turmoil. You have to consider it as a possibility. No, thought Twilight weakly. Just, no... But her thoughts were already drifting back to the cottage, to the sight of her friend completely encased in an unknown impenetrable medium, standing stock-still and motionless as a stone...and if she wasn't moving, that meant she wasn't breathing either...and if she wasn't breathing... Friendship and Common Sense quickly organized into a joint coalition. Looking at it from Aurora's perspective...killing Fluttershy just doesn't make any sense. She could've used any ordinary bit of combat magic to do that. But instead she used some ancient and powerful spell that left her shielded from us, but completely unharmed. She wouldn't have gone through all that trouble if she just wanted Fluttershy dead... Guesses and rationalization, Science fired back. We don't actually know anything about Aurora's spell, and we don't know what her intentions are either. We're just using what we do know to prune the problem space as much as possible! thought the coalition fervently. To make it easier to solve! That's all! But alarm bells were sounding in Twilight's head, the ones she'd trained herself to hear when her thoughts weren't being honest with her. You're not removing possibilities because they're unlikely, thought Science. You're removing them because they scare you. That strategy doesn't make problem solving easier; it makes it impossible. Twilight forcibly swallowed a growing lump in her throat. This was what science was all about, after all: taking the entire world of possible explanations into consideration, and testing, pruning, refining them until you found the ones that were true. If the truth wasn't in the initial set, you were doomed before you ran a single experiment. Twilight had made difficult admissions to herself before, in the course of science; it was an ability she took great pride in, one that many scientists never figured out at all. But that was usually just admitting that she was wrong. It hurt her to do that, sometimes, but it was nothing compared to...compared to this... Perhaps this was a test. A test to see just how pure of a scientist she really was. It's just not right, said the lone voice of Friendship, for Common Sense had elected to switch sides. Friends shouldn't think...shouldn't even be ABLE to think such horrible things about each other. We're only searching for the truth, thought Science calmly. If the truth holds something terrible for our friend, then that's a fault with the universe, not with us. And if it doesn't, then we owe it to our friend to keep our problem solving process in perfect form. It's the only way we're going to save her. The candlelight dancing across the walls seemed to pause mid-flicker, awaiting her answer. Twilight opened her mouse, and said in a tiny whisper, as if she was afraid of hearing it herself, “I am willing to consider possibilities in which Fluttershy is already dead.” Then she closed her eyes, and braced herself with all her might. She expected a sudden surge of emotion, to feel that she had just done something horrible, to fall to the floor and start sobbing uncontrollably... But the anguish didn't come. Instead, she felt... It wasn't a happy feeling, or a sad one, or much a feeling at all. It was clarity, sharp and cutting, stripping all the confusion away from her mind. Science had won. The problem of Fluttershy's entrapment was now just that, a problem, and Twilight was fully prepared to solve it, even though she knew how awful the solution might be. And although a small corner of her mind observed that it wasn't exactly fair for this new state of mind to judge itself, she felt certain she'd made the right choice. So, how did she proceed from here? Twilight posed this question to her brain, and almost immediately the answer was there, clear and unchallenged, so mind-numbingly obvious that the whole night in retrospect seemed like the misadventures of a dimwitted comic relief. She got to her hooves, groaned softly as she stretched out her aching limbs, and trekked across the maze of scattered books to the staircase, extinguishing the candle with a feeble gust of magical wind as she passed. She didn't need research; spending so many hours reading about a phenomenon on which she had practically no baseline information was completely pointless, and her mind was so exhausted that she probably wouldn't remember half the stuff she'd read anyway. What she needed was data, and the only way to get it was to march down to the cottage and collect it herself. Even more importantly, she needed sleep, and there wasn't much time left for that; dawn was only a few hours away, and dawn was when she would begin her investigation, because in order to stay out of the academics' way, she had to finish her work before they arrived. She reached the stairs and began to climb toward her room, to the bed where she would no doubt fall asleep in an instant. Naturally, she'd need to take care that Celestia didn't find out about her plans. Not that she was directly disobeying an order from the princess, she'd only been told not to interfere with the team's mission, not that she couldn't go off on her own separate efforts. Nevertheless, it was safer to keep the whole thing a secret, in case Celestia did end up forbidding it, which would obviously just be a mistake on her part – NO, rang out the voice of the Axioms, slicing through even the dense calmness that Science had imposed on her. We do NOT ignore the wishes of Celestia. But what if her wishes are based on flawed logic? Twilight protested. What if, just this once, she's wrong about – Twilight's Fifth Axiom: Princess Celestia is always right. But...but... Twilight was dimly aware that she was arguing against the Axioms themselves, the most fundamental building block of her thought process, the part of herself that was truly responsible for everything she'd ever accomplished...but something told her that this was an argument she needed to have. Look, Celestia's reasoning is based on the notion that there's nothing I can do for Fluttershy. That I'm not smart enough to help. That's just unilaterally wrong, isn't it? Well, of course. Twilight's Third Axiom: I am a smart – But according to Twilight's Fifth Axiom, Princess Celestia – Twilight's Third – And then the Axioms went into a coughing fit, and although Twilight asked them repeatedly what to make of all this, they would say nothing more. It was with a sense of dull confusion that Twilight at last dropped onto her bed. She lay awake for several long, long minutes, replaying in her mind the thoughts that had caused the Axioms to abandon her, until her physical and mental fatigue took over and she fell into an uneasy sleep. Twilight's Third Axiom: I am a smart pony. Twilight's Fifth Axiom: Princess Celestia is always right. These weren't arbitrary guidelines to dictate how Twilight solved problems. They were axioms. They were the most basic rules for describing the world as she saw it. They were more than just tools for discovering truth; they were Truth itself. So why did they now seem to contradict one another?