//------------------------------// // Phase 2: Escalation, Part 2 (Revised) // Story: Harmony Consultant // by jqnexx //------------------------------// “Let me at her!”         As Twilight and Applejack reentered the main room of the library, she saw the three guardsponies had positioned themselves between Rainbow Dash and Mir. One of the guards was continually repositioning in the air to block Rainbow’s flight, while the other two exchanged glares with Mir. Behind his wife, Croix stood with an air of resigned annoyance.         “What is going on in here?” Twilight stamped her hoof to punctuate the question.         “Begging your pardon, your majesty, but – OOF...” the flying guard body-checked Rainbow Dash as she tried to slip past him in his moment of distraction. “...when you exited the room, the spell you used to hold your friend still ended. We’ve been trying to keep things calm.”         “Rainbow! Please stop ruining my interrogation!” Rainbow turned to look at Twilight.         “You saw what happened with Pinkie! These weirdos have some kind of undetectable brainwashing beam. We've got to knock them out before they get us too.”         “Rainbow. There's no such thing as undetectable magic. Even Discord emits a thaumic signature when he does his tricks, even if it's not interpretable. Now please sit back down. I'm the one conducting this inter... interview."         Twilight ascended onto one of the tables as Rainbow withdrew glumly, muttering under her breath. “Now then, where were we. I believe I was going to send a message to Luna to ask her about your claimed status. Based on her normal schedule, she’ll be awake for at least two more hours. Plenty of time. Without Spike here, I’ll have to send the message myself, but I’ve learned to do so.”         A piece of paper and a quill hovered to her, wrapped in her magic aura. Dear Princess Luna. I have under suspicion a pony named “Mir” who claims she met you while you were dreamwalking and that you accepted her embassy on the behalf of her country. She further claims that the paperwork confirming this has not yet been delivered. Please confirm or deny her statements at the earliest possible convenience. Twilight Sparkle.  With the letter completed, Twilight made a brief check of its grammar and spelling. Finding both satisfactory, she carefully used her magic to emulate the magical flames Spike would use. “All right. While I’m waiting for a reply back, I’ve got something else.”         There was an odd aura in the air over the Everfree Forest. Luna could taste it practically. It was all too familiar. No. It’s not going to happen again. I won’t let somepony, someone else endure that. Her wings burned as she pressed them to greater and greater speed. Her night-ponies could not see properly in the glare of the day, and had all gone or been sent back. Even her personal guards had been forced (at her command) to leave for darkness and slumber. It would all be up to her. All she had to do was get close enough for her horn to sense it, or to catch sight of whatever had been foolish enough to use it. Thump!  Did I hit a bird? I didn’t see a bird. I’m sorry for hurting it, but time is of the essence and I cannot tarry. Behind her, Twilight’s missive floated slowly to the forest floor.         “What is that?” Mir tilted her head as she examined the two glass jars. Each of which had two glass layers, and an air gap (or possibly vacuum gap) between them, separated by what appeared to be rubber pads. They opened at the bottom, but each was currently pressed against a similarly-constructed base.         And yet inside seemed to be perfectly ordinary flower buds.         “That is the rare Lie-Lilly plant. It’s quite rare for them to have magically active bulbs, but Zecora was able to obtain two of them for me.” Twilight stalked around the small table they sat on. “These plants will only blossom when they hear a lie. A lie in this context is a statement that is in whole or part untruthful. Note that even unknowing untruths can be sensed in this manner.” Twilight levitated the jar off one of the plants. “Now, I’m going to ask you some questions, and–”         “This statement is false.” The bud wriggled, glowed, spasmed, and finally exploded, showering the room with off-white petals. Mir smirked bemusedly. “I’m sorry, but I just had to see what would happen.”         Twilight extended her hoof as she exhaled, then repeated the act. “Ok. I can understand some scientific curiosity. I have to admit I had that urge myself when I saw these for the first time. But this is a matter of national security. If you deliberately trigger the last one I’m going to consider it a confession and arrest both of you on the spot.”         Mir rolled her eyes. “Fine. I don’t like lying anyway.”         “OK, nobody but me and her talk!” Twilight levitated the second jar off. “First question, what is your real name?”         “Mir.” Twilight looked at the bulb. No reaction.         “What is your species?”         “Reyvateil.”         Twilight had never heard of that before. The unicorn had clearly told the truth, but maybe it was a word for “Changeling” in another language? “Let’s cut to the chase. Are you a Changeling?”         “I have no idea what that is.”         Twilight turned to the bud. It still hadn’t bloomed. She didn’t say no. But how could a Changeling not know what a Changeling is? Maybe there’s some kind of linguistic game I haven’t considered. Let’s try more questions.         “Do you owe allegiance to Queen Chrysalis?”         “No.”         “And how do you know the answer to that question, but not the one about being a Changeling? Hmm?”         Mir glared at her, jaw set and eyes dangerously narrow. “I know who I owe allegiance to. Everyone else, I don’t.”         “And who DO you owe allegiance to, hmm?”         “Shurelia. Spica. My husband. Not necessarily in that order.”         Hmm, let’s try a different approach. “Are you a shapeshifter?”         Mir opened her mouth, then paused. “Sort of. Not enough that I could turn into someone else.”         That’s getting somewhere. That’s still a true statement. Maybe she’s a different kind of Changeling, incapable of assuming a true disguise? That might be why she didn’t disguise that weird horn. “Why are you in Ponyville?”         “It was the town nearest to where we ended up. Some Pegasus sent us here.”         “What do you mean, ‘ended up’?”         Mir didn’t answer immediately again. I don’t want to tell this “Princess” how I ended up here. Somebody dragged me and Croix here and I still don’t know why. “I’d rather not answer that question.”         All the guardstallions sucked in their breath slightly. They knew Twilight had found a sore point.         “Were you deposited there by a wave of love energy that had knocked you out of your previous location?”         Hmm. She said it could detect statements that were untrue even if I didn’t know it. Let’s try it out. “No.” Ok, so I wasn’t… whatever she said. “Also, I was not brought here by you or anyone acting on your behalf.” Huh, good to know. Maybe I don’t have to treat the pretty pony princess as potentially hostile.         Twilight raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Do you… not know how you got here?”         Damn. A non-answer would be as good as admitting it. “There is a gap.”         “Hmm.” Twilight looked over at the clock. Usually Celestia would have replied by now. I haven’t sent too many messages to Luna, though. “Let’s take a small recess. I’ll grab a snack.”         Twilight left through the door Spike had entered from earlier. Mir turned around to look at Croix. He seemed a little nervous about the guardstallions standing between him and her, but he wasn’t panicing or anything. If she wanted to make a break for it, now was the best time. All these non-magic-using ponies could be smacked aside easily, two vs one the Princess, and then they could run. But where would they run? She had no idea how to get to the next city. It’d probably be best to see if she could negotiate her way out of this.         “Here we go. Cupcakes ala Pinkie.” Twilight returned levitating a tray of cupcakes. Each was decorated with red, purple, or brown icing. “Take one.”         Mir levitated a red cupcake up and nibbled on it. It had an odd bite and burn to it. “Mmm. It’s quite good, somewhat spicy.”         “Somewhat?” Twilight popped a red cupcake into her mouth. The instant she started to chew her eyes bulged. She swallowed quickly, then belched a small tongue of fire. The library’s extinguishing spells chilled the end of the flame out of existence, leaving a slight patch of cold air. “Dang it Pinkie, those hot sauce cupcakes are…” She paused, looked back at the lie-lily. It probably was actually funny, objectively speaking. On the other hand, Mir had called the cupcake “somewhat spicy” and hadn’t triggered it. Maybe it accounts for matters of opinion? Or possibly it could have multiple truth values: Mir’s sense of spiciness might be far from a pony’s, enabling both of them to make contradictory non-lie statements.         Croix took a red cupcake as well, and winced slightly as he bit into it, but continued eating. Sweat was visible at the edge of his mane. The guards and Rainbow took the purple or brown ones.         Glasses of milk in a red-purple aura levitated over to the ponies. Croix gingerly accepted his between two front hooves, sitting down to drink. “Thanks.”         After the glasses had been drained, the reddish-purple aura collected them once again. Twilight set them on the empty tray (Pinkie and Spike’s cupcakes having been eaten by Rainbow), then rapped her hoof on the desk. A quick look at the clock indicated that Luna really should have replied by now. Maybe I didn’t make it sound urgent enough? Celestia usually replies so promptly. It’s a simple yes or no question.         “Can you think of any reason that Luna might not respond to my inquiry in a timely fashion?”         Mir rolled her eyes. “Are you sure she got it?” She turned to the lie-lily. “Luna hasn’t read Twilight’s letter just now at all.” No response.         Luna hasn’t read it at all? Is she on some urgent errand? I’d like to think she’d tell me about it, if so. Time to change tack I suppose. “What does your country plan to do with its embassy?”         Mir scrunched up her muzzle for a moment, then relaxed. “I donno. We didn’t plan to have one. Remember, we’re not here because we wanted to. I’d probably want to trade magical research though. What you know about magic is very different than what we know about magic.”         Twilight’s eyes brightened. “What do you know about magic?”         Mir smirked. “I’ve got a couple of centuries of working with various forms of it.”         Centuries? A normal pony rarely makes it to one and a half. She’s definitely something odd. “Do you study conversion between emotional and magical energy?”         “I think I know more about it than anyone alive.”         Twilight raised an eyebrow as she looked to the still-dormant plant. “You sure you’re not a changeling?”         “You still haven’t told me what that is.”         “Let’s try something else. Do you have any hostile intent towards me?”         “Well, a little. I’ve been thinking about how to blast my way out of here if this becomes uncivil.” Mir’s smirk at this revelation dismayed Twilight, and her alarmed guards turned their backs on Croix to focus on Mir. “It doesn’t seem necessary though.”         Well. I certainly can’t fault her honesty. At this point the guards had realized they weren’t watching Croix, and one turned back around to face him. I’ve met ponies with worse attitudes. “How dangerous are you, anyway?”         “Hmm.” Mir pondered for a moment. It detects lies, but not necessarily wrong answers to the questions. Hypothetically speaking, my “most dangerous” song is Nullascension, but like hell I’d want to use it. “Well, hypothetically speaking, I could destroy this entire town in a single spell.” No reaction from the plant, excellent.         At this revelation, Applejack sucked in her breath and clenched her teeth, as did the guards. Rainbow shook slightly, keeping her nervousness in check.         “As I said before, I don’t have any intent to do anything violent here.” The guards didn’t seem to be mollified, but Twilight had turned to the plant and closed her eyes.         Well, I’m pretty dangerous if we spoke hypothetically. I’m not even sure what the most destruction I could cause with one spell would be. She does have to answer honestly, after all. I don’t know. I need some sort of tiebreaker. As she opened her eyes, her gaze fell on the book she’d disarmed the failing spell on last night. “Have you ever heard of somepony called Sunset Shimmer?”         Huh, is she asking about Sunset Shimmer Togasaki? “Yes.”         “Last night she tried to send me a message, but it got cut off by some kind of magical editing of the dimensional spells. Any idea what happened?”         “I have no idea how you’d expect to get a message from Sunset Shimmer at all. She’s been dead for a while.”         What. No… Twilight turned slowly, not wanting to see the lie-lily. But she had to know. Each degree of rotation was more hesitant than the last. She could feel tension spreading throughout her body. No reaction. Truth. Nooooo.         Twilight hadn’t gotten a chance to get to know Sunset, but she’d felt she’d wanted to. She left her in the care of her alternate-friends in Canterlot High not merely because she felt it her duty as the Bearer of the Element of Magic, but because she felt Sunset was much like herself. If she hadn’t needed to go to Ponyville that Summer Sun Celebration’s eve, what would her life had been like? She’d forsaken the ways of friendship and become a grumpier, meaner pony. She could have ended up just like Sunset. And now Sunset wouldn’t have the opportunity to change. Wouldn’t have the chance to apologize to Celestia. Oh goddesses. Celestia still loved Sunset as a student, practically as a daughter. She’d be heartbroken. Was it her fault? Was it something she’d done? Sunset was still young. Wait, maybe not something I’d done… Twilight turned back to Mir, glaring accusingly at her, wings flared. “Did you kill Sunset Shimmer?” What the? “Hell no, it’d be impossible for me to have done it because time travel isn’t a thing.” Mir’s eyes jerked away from Twilight as a soft glow sprung into being to her side. The lie-lily had bloomed. “What? Where did I err? Everything I said was true!” Twilight could no longer hear Mir over the beating of her own heart. Sunset’s future… Sunset’s redemption… Celestia’s happiness… they were all taken away by this lying murderer! This… Changeling! Twilight’s vision had acquired a red tinge as she turned back towards Mir. Her target was still glaring at the flower, oblivious to what was headed her way. “MURDERER!” A blast of reddish-purple magic slammed into Mir, knocking her over a nearby table. With a loud thump, Twilight landed on the table, wings spread, horn charging another spell.