By train, it took about two hours to reach Ponyville from Canterlot. Most pegasi could generally manage the trip by wing alone in a matter of four hours of hard flying; a pegasus chariot took a little longer, at five hours.
Luna and Celestia arrived in Canterlot within ten minutes.
“I am not certain I am comfortable leaving the remaining Elements behind,” Luna said as the two landed in Canterlot gardens. She was looking around, taking in everything. Celestia wondered just how different her castle, her Canterlot, was from that Princess Luna’s. A thousand years was a very long time for changes to occur, and though their two worlds did seem to run in rough parallel, there were also numerous differences.
Celestia inclined her head to Princess Luna’s concern. “If Discord breaks free,” she said, “I would rather there be some distance between him and my little ponies. We would be able to buy some time, however short, for them to prepare – and give our students a chance to repair the Element of Magic.”
Luna shuddered slightly as the two trotted through the garden. “He has broken free in the past?”
“Just last month. The Elements passing to my student and her friends caused his prison to weaken enough for him to break free.” She looked to Luna. “Has he not yet in your world?”
“No,” Luna said, shaking her head, “although thank-you for letting me know. I can preempt him now…” she stopped trotting, staring straight ahead. “You’re kidding. You’re kidding, right?”
The two of them had reached Discord’s statue within the Canterlot garden. He was exactly as he had been: turned into nondescript gray stone, a look of shock on his face, coiled and twisted as he tried to fight the Element’s binding him into his current rocky form. Celestia had been sure to replace him exactly where he had been before, down to the very direction that his eyes had been pointing. The only change from the last time Celestia had seen the statue was the light layer of snow covering it.
Celestia looked to Luna, who was staring with her mouth hanging open slightly. “What?” she asked.
“In the garden,” Luna said. “You are keeping the personification of chaos, evil, and disharmony in the garden.”
“Where else should I keep him? If he were to break free of the Element’s binding, he would easily break past any defenses I might put in place. Here, at least, he is easy to access and keep an eye on.”
“I had him sealed in concrete and buried underground behind eight layers of protective wards regardless,” Luna noted. “My concern is not so much with Discord breaking out under his own power, as much as somepony trying to free him.”
“Who would be so mad?”
“There have been ponies…”
Celestia pressed her lips tightly together at that thought as she set her horn glowing, examining the statue. To her eyes, nothing seemed to change – it remained, to all outward appearances, simply a garden ornament, exactly as it was supposed to appear to any magical examination. Luna finished her own examinations at the same time.
“Nothing?” Celestia asked.
“Nothing,” Luna confirmed.
“Excellent. In that case, there is somepony I must see immediately.” Celestia grimaced. “I imagine that she may be in quite a fit right now over your stunt in Ponyville earlier – ”
“Celestia!”
The Princess of the Sun started at the exclamation, as Luna’s mouth had not moved, though in a second Luna seemed to break apart into star-stuff, a glowing, sparkling blue mist that retreated behind Discord’s statue. Celestia frowned slightly at that as she turned and saw, galloping across the garden from the castle, Princess Luna – her sister.
“Celestia!” her Luna cried again as she neared, eyes wide. “The Moon – the Night – it was not my doing, I – ”
“I know, Luna,” Celestia said comfortingly, stepping close and nuzzling her little sister. “Hush now. I know. The past few hours have been…eventful.”
Luna shuddered slightly in relief at Celestia’s reassurances, returning the nuzzle wholeheartedly. This close, it occurred to Celestia that there were slight differences between her Luna, and the visitor from another world. Her Luna was a little shorter, by several inches. Her stance was also different – more guarded, more on-edge, more pensive, her wings rarely settled at her side, but rather poised and ready to emote or carry the younger alicorn away. She also appeared to be in just slightly better shape – not that the otherworldly Luna was out of shape by any means, but rather, she was clearly a pony who, while concerned for appearance, had also grown relatively comfortable in her position. By contrast, Luna, as Nightmare Moon, had spent the better part of the past thousand years constantly training her mind and body for what she believed to be eventual combat with Celestia, and it showed.
Celestia pulled away from Luna, looking her sister in the eye. “Now, Luna,” she said, “behind me is a pony I want you to meet. I want you to promise me, however, that you will not…overreact.”
Luna’s gaze switched between Celestia’s eyes. “Tia, is now really the time for introductions? There is a being in Equestria who can override my control of the Night! We must find that pony and…”
Luna paused at Celestia’s slightly bemused smile, and she frowned. “The pony you speak of is the one you wish for me to meet, isn’t it?”
“Yes, she is.”
The Princess of the Moon’s face hardened somewhat. “I would have words with her, Tia.”
“I understand, though I assure you that she means no harm.” Celestia nodded, turning around and standing next to her sister, draping one wing over her. “Please, come out now. We don’t want to draw this out.”
“I am having second thoughts,” a voice – notably not that of Princess Luna’s, but rather magically changed to sound higher and more airy – said from behind Discord’s statue. “Perhaps it would be better if I left – ”
“No,” Luna insisted, stepping forward and out from her sister’s wing, spreading her own wide. “Thou hast violated my sovereign control over the Night. Thy careless actions have doubtless caused mass panic across Equestria and rocked the faith of its citizenry in my person. Show thyself that thou might defend thy actions, if thou canst!”
Celestia winced slightly at Luna’s lapse into older language habits. She was still getting used to the modern form of the language, and early-modern Equestrian was still more natural for her, especially if she was annoyed or concerned. Celestia almost trotted back over to Luna, wanting to protectively put her wing around her again, but she recognized that Luna, right now, felt almost violated. The Night was very much a part of her being, and so have that part of her dominated…
Slowly, almost guiltily, the blue mist that the otherworldly Luna had become drifted out from behind the statue. Luna’s own eyes widened at the sight, even more when the mist coalesced into a pony-shape, before finally solidifying and taking on definition and form – that of the otherworldly sovereign Princess Luna.
Celestia’s sister balked, backing away a step at the sight. “Imposter!” she cried.
“No, Luna,” Celestia corrected, trotting forward and placing a re-assuring hoof on Luna’s withers.
It didn’t help much, as she retreated from Celestia, wings beating frantically. “N-nay, sister!” she insisted. “I swear to thee, I am the one, true Luna!”
“Yes,” Celestia confirmed. “You are my sister, Luna, and she is not. I do not doubt that for a moment. She is not an imposter, because she has not claimed to be you.”
“Wherefore then does she wear my face?” She turned to glare at her counterpart, then back to her sister. “Sister, I am in a foul mood right now, having been awoken by the raising of the Night without my willing it, sensing a great magical calamity in Ponyville, and unable to leave Canterlot for fear of leaving ponies leaderless, even as I have had no fewer than three ponies ask me if I have ‘gone Nightmare Moon’ again! I demand an explanation for what is happening, now!”
Celestia inclined her head, leaning in and nuzzling Luna, an action her sister accepted, if only reluctantly. “Of course, Luna.” She looked to their visitor. “Please, it might be better if you explain.”
The other Luna did not immediately respond, seeming to focus more on Celestia’s nuzzling of her sister than on what was being said. When she noticed her counterpart glaring at her, however, she straightened herself. “Very well,” she said, looking to her doppelgänger. “A thousand years ago…”
---
“Argh! My eyes!” Trixie cried out, putting her hooves to her face.
“Yeah, that’s what I meant when I said take it easy!” Lulamoon said, rolling her own eyes. “You’re channeling raw magic into them!”
“Trixie was taking it easy!” Trixie objected, rubbing her eyes. “She has very precise control over her magic from years of practice!”
The two were sitting in the front of Trixie’s wagon, while Twilight and Sparkle had retreated inside, doing something involving magic that Lulamoon, while somewhat interested in, was not interested in enough to want to spend time with them. Unfortunately, that left her outside with Trixie as she guided her wagon to following the location spell that Twilight had cast. The gem that contained it was currently attached to Trixie’s cape.
“Uh-huh,” Lulamoon said, reaching out a hoof and moving one of Trixie’s own away from her face. The only way she had been able to get Trixie to stop acting haughty and full of herself had been to teach her the magic sight spell she knew. “Hang on, let me check and make sure you didn’t make them explode or something…”
Trixie pouted at that, lowering her hooves and glaring at her counterpart. Her eyes were watering slightly as she squinted at Lulamoon, but looked otherwise fine, though they had taken on a slight pink glow from the magic she was channeling through them. She squinted at Lulamoon. “You’re…glowing pink, in your barrel, and up to your horn.”
“That’s what unicorn magic will look like,” Lulamoon explained. “Earth ponies are a kind of dark green, with their magic spread across their whole bodies, and pegasi are sky-blue, with their magic is concentrated along their wings and hooves.”
Trixie looked at her own hooves, then glanced around. “And…there’s magic all over the place. I can see it! Like threads of silver and gold…” she reached out a hoof, clearly trying to poke at one such thread. Lulamoon knew that her hoof would pass through it, as though it were an optical illusion.
Lulamoon couldn’t help but smile slightly. She made sure to make it seem smug, however, lest Trixie get any ideas as she stood up, horn glowing slightly. “Okay,” she said. “Now look at me. Pay attention.”
Trixie did so, squinting slightly. Her eyes were still watering, and turning a little red – she needed to get used to using the spell still, though Lulamoon had to grudgingly admit to being impressed that despite using the spell, she was still at the same time keeping her wagon moving. She resolved to make her lesson a quick one. “Okay, see my cape?” she asked, taking her cape off and throwing it off of the wagon. Trixie leaned over, watching it hit the forest floor, before looking back to Lulamoon, nodding.
Lulamoon closed her eyes, thinking to one of the simplest spells she knew, and also a perfect one to demonstrate her magic sight with. She set her horn glowing, magically reaching out to her fallen cape – it was easy to find, given the several small but useful enchantments woven into it. She imagined her magic as a string, with one end tied around her horn, and the other end she wrapped around her cape. Finally, she gave a slight tug.
From the forest floor, her cape disappeared, then reappeared in front of her inside of a blue sphere that popped after a second. She caught it before it could fall, and looked to Trixie. “Did you see?” she asked.
Trixie considered, closing her own eyes as she took off her hat and set it down in front of her. Lulamoon raised an eyebrow at that – she was actually starting small?
After several long moments of concentration, tongue clenched in her teeth and visibly straining, her horn glowed. Her hat popped from reality, and then popped back into being in front of her, encased in a pink sphere that swiftly dissipated. Trixie let out a long gasp at that, but smiled brightly as she purposefully picked her hat back up and put it on her head.
Lulamoon felt a slight itch from her cutie mark; she scratched it as she focused on Trixie and sat back down. “You okay?” she asked.
“Trixie is fine,” she said, crossing her hooves and pointedly stopped panting as heavily. Her eyes still had a pink glow to them. “She has just learned two new spells in as many minutes! How would you be?”
“Not so bad, actually. Though I guess you don’t have nearly the same amount of practice as I do. Still, you figured it out without exploding your eyeballs, so I guess that means you’re not beyond hope.”
Trixie harrumphed. “Trixie has not had an alicorn teaching her the nuances of magic for ten years. But she has the same potential as you. And now that she knows how to see magic, she can realize that potential! And she shall do it without letting herself go.”
“What?”
“As Trixie mentioned before,” she said, standing and delicately extending a front and rear hoof, striking a pose, “Trixie has finely toned musculature from years of wandering the roads of Equestria. Indeed for the longest time, Trixie had to pull her wagon, like a common earth pony! But you…you are just a little chubby.”
“I am not! In fact I’ll have you know that, one, I exercise every week with Raindrops, and two, I am almost exactly average weight for my height and length!”
Trixie grinned. “Almost?” she echoed.
Lulamoon stood. “I take some of my valuable time and try and teach you some magic, and you call me fat?”
Trixie tapped a hoof to her mouth. “More…comfortable, Trixie would say.”
“Oooh I’m going – ”
“ – to kill you!” A voice shouted from within the wagon. Its top was thrown open, and Sparkle came stomping out, teeth gritted as she passed between the two Trixies. She turned around quickly, however, pointing down at Twilight.
“Clover the “Clever” was a hack!” Sparkle shouted, as Trixie and Lulamoon looked at her, then to each other, in confusion. Trixie couldn’t do it for long, however – she still had her magic-sight active, and Twilight and Sparkle were exceptionally bright, forcing her to look away. “All she did was compile what Starswirl the Bearded had written and add in mostly useless notes on how the spells were created! Her only contribution to magic was one spell that can’t even be cast without a pegasus and an earth pony around to serve as a focus!”
“Clover’s insights into the spellmaking process were invaluable!” Twilight countered. “Half of what Starswirl wrote would be indecipherable without Clover cleaning up his notes and journals and re-constructing a lot of his matrices! Starswirl may have been the most important conjurer of the pre-classical era, but he was terrible at showing his work!”
Lulamoon rolled her eyes. “Academic problems,” she noted quietly, preemptively covering her ears and closing her eyes, sighing. Well, at least it wasn’t just her and Trixie who couldn’t get along –
That was when something leaped from a nearby tree, landed beside the wagon, and shoved at it with deep blue telekinesis. Lulamoon, Sparkle, Trixie, Twilight, and the wagon all went flying sideways, screaming.
---
The pony grinned brightly as she charged after the wagon she had shoved. It had landed on its side in a thick tangle of pine bushes. She skipped forward a few feet, then leaped and landed atop the fallen side of the wagon, spinning in place on one front hoof as she looked around for her quarry.
She spotted Twilight first, climbing from the wagon’s back door in surprise, looking bewildered and a little bruised, but unhurt. The pony let out a laugh of glee as she leaped through the air, spinning in place and landing in front of Twilight, horn glowing. Before Twilight could react, there were a series of pops around her, and she found herself trapped in a square of four doors of different colors that had sprang into being from nothingness. The pony smiled as, with a flick of her head, she opened all the doors inwards at the same time. She heard Twilight cry out from being struck on all sides.
“Ha!” The pony laughed, hitting Twilight again, then a third time. She would have continued for some time, but Trixie appeared then, charging out from behind the wagon, eyes wide and glowing pink.
The pony let out a whoop of glee at the sight of her other target, horn glowing bright as she gathered fire at the tip of her horn, then threw it. Trixie let out a yelp of surprise, ducking the fireball, and scampering away and out of sight when several more fireballs followed. The pony forgot about Twilight as she charged after Trixie.
Rounding the fallen wagon, she caught a glimpse of Trixie’s tail disappearing behind the wagon’s next side. After a second, however, Twilight and Trixie ran out from their hiding spots, Trixie’s eyes no longer glowing blue. Twilight had probably teleported from her door-prison.
Trixie and Twilight looked between one-another, grimacing, before Twilight’s horn glowed a bright lavender. A wall of snow appeared over the pony’s head and fell towards her. She ducked down, covering her head as the snow landed, grunting at the force of the impact. In a moment, however, she was standing again, body glowing with heat and melting the snow off of her.
The pony leaped forward, front hooves spread wide. When she landed, her body shimmered, and two of her seemed to step out from the same pony and complete the charge. One of her slammed into Twilight, sending her tumbling and reeling away and into a bush. Trixie, meanwhile, smirked, apparently deciding to ignore the other, thinking it was fake as she readied a spell. She was taken for surprise, then, when that pony body-checked her as well, slamming her against the fallen wagon’s roof. She gasped in pain and fell to her knees and hocks.
Both copies of the pony were dragged together after a moment, slamming into each other and merging into a single whole again. She gasped at the sensation, shivering slightly. It was painful, yet strangely fun, like blood rushing back into limb that had fallen to sleep. She didn’t have time to focus on it, however, as Twilight appeared again, behind her, finally showing her bruises from the door-attack. Her horn glowed bright as she picked up all the nearby rocks, branches, and even dirt, hurling it forward as hard as she could. The pony simply caught it all in her own telekinesis, then smiled as she packed everything together into a single four-foot-wide ball of pain, and threw it back. Twilight leaped out of the way, but still caught some of it in a glance across her flank, causing her to stumble. She audibly growled from where she’d landed, horn glowing an angry lavender as she shot a beam of pure magic at the pony.
This time, the pony didn’t dodge quick quickly enough. The beam of magic sent her reeling to her knees, nearly paralyzing her – nearly. She laughed aloud at the feeling as he horn glowed brightly, sending a burst of magic at Twilight that sent her tumbling away. The pony laughed again, a laugh that died only when Trixie, eyes glowing pink once again for some reason, leaped and landed on her back.
The pony was almost forced to the ground, but began bucking like a bronco, swinging her head and whinnying as she did so. Trixie was thrown from her back and to the ground. The pony was on her in an instant, wrapping a hoof around her tail and dragging Trixie across the forest floor. The pony cried out in pain as she was dragged against the wagon, lifted Trixie up telekinetically, and head-butted her, careful to not also include her horn in the process. Trixie and the pony both stumbled away, dazed, but the pony only shook her head and enjoyed the feeling – she’d never head-butted anypony before, after all – while Trixie collapsed next to Trixie.
Wait, what?
The pony shook her head again, putting one hoof to her head and deciding that no matter how fun the sensation was, she would avoid head-butts from now on to cut down on the double vision. The double vision was not helped when Twilight appeared twice right in front of her, each one with their horns glowing bright lavender as they readied a spell.
The double vision was just killing the fun, though. Growling, she stopped their incoming spells, whatever they were, and telekinetically grabbed each Twilight, pulling them forward with all her might as she turned around, raised her hind hooves, and bucked at each one as they came forward, figuring that she was bound to hit the real one this way.
She had not expected both hooves to solidly connect, nor to hear two distinct cries of pain. The pony was unnerved enough to trot away several paces before turning around, looking back at her battle.
One Trixie was nearly unconscious, reeling and with a bloody muzzle from the head-butt she’d been on the receiving end of. Another was banged up and shaking her head, but standing. Both Twilights were on the ground, clutching at their stomachs where they’d been bucked, but one of them, somewhat more bruised, was taking it harder, while the other had managed to move into a sitting position, breathing heavily.
“Two…Twilights?” the pony asked aloud. “Two Trixies?”
She considered.
“It’s like Hearth’s Warming has come early!”
---
Sparkle was in a considerable amount of pain, and was fairly confident that if not for the adrenaline high that was still in the process of kicking in, she would have thrown up, passed out, or both from the buck she’d received.
Sparkle stumbled, getting up onto shaking legs as the pony that had overturned Trixie’s cart and attacked them pranced and spun in place happily, like a foal being told they were going on a trip to Cayo el Bayo. The pony was about her height, with deep blue fur, almost tinged purple, and much more obviously purple mane and tail, the latter two of which were wide wild and unkempt. Her eyes were solid purple, lacking any kind of pupil.
But Sparkle’s eyes were mostly drawn to the pony’s cutie mark: a crescent-shaped, deep blue nebula, with a six-pointed purple star set between the horns of the crescent. The colors were much darker, but casting a glance at her own cutie mark, and that of Trixie’s or Lulamoon’s…
“Who…” Sparkle breathed. “Who are you…?”
The pony stopped prancing in place, looking to Sparkle with a wide smile – a touch too wide. “The Dark…and Omnipotent…TWIXIE!”
Sparkle stared, as did the other three ponies, in utter confusion. The pony noticed their confusion, and seemed to backpedal. “IS NOT MY NAME!” she exclaimed, pointing a hoof at Sparkle. “You won’t call me that! It’s not my name! I’m…uh…”
She paused, looking away from them, brow furrowing and mouth hanging open. She was breathing heavily from the fight she’d started, Sparkle noted. After a moment, she looked back to Sparkle. “My name doesn’t matter!” she exclaimed. “Because I am Dark! And Omnipotent! And I am going to kill you!” she paused, putting a hoof to her mouth. “Dark Omnipotence? Omnipotent Darkness? Not bad names…they don’t really sit right, though…”
Sparkle grunted, calling on her magic. The pony saw, and her own horn glowed – black, not the deep blue it had been glowing earlier. Sparkle lashed out with a bolt of lightning. The pony, meanwhile, had conjured a jet-black orb in front of her, attached to her horn by a long strand of black magic. The lightning hit the black orb, and did not emerge from the other side.
The pony smirked, and shoved her head forward. The black orb shot towards Sparkle at the same time, closing in on and enveloping her before she could react.
She screamed. The orb wasn’t hot, or cold. It wasn’t wet, or dry. It wasn’t physical. It wasn’t anything – it was like a ball of pure, absolute nothingness enclosing her, and trying as hard as it could to make Sparkle a part of it. She coudn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t smell, couldn’t breathe! Sparkle tried to teleport out of it, but found she couldn’t – she couldn’t do anything magical while within the orb, in fact. She rifled through six spells in succession, the last being a simple attempt to make her horn glow – but they all failed. Worse than failed, in fact – they never even began to take shape in the first place.
The sphere withdrew, and Sparkle let out a gasp as she fell to her knees, tears in her eyes. The pony who had attacked them smiled brightly. Sparkle could feel her magic returning to her – she could use it again – but the pony was conjuring more orbs of utter blackness, surrounding all of them with them on all sides, building a chaotic space full of bubbles of nothing.
“My special talent,” she said, “is anti-magic. Now isn’t that the scariest thing you’ve ever heard?”
“Why are you attacking us?” Lulamoon demanded, picking herself up fully, and helping up Trixie as best she could.
The pony looked to Lulamoon with a look of stunned surprise, before it twisted into a leering smile. “Because you made me, Trixie,” she explained, as though she were talking to a foal. “You, and Twilight, and I supposed Trixie and Twilight as well.” Her eyes widened, and she perked up. “Are there more of you? More Trixies? More Twilights? Oh, please say yes.”
Twilight had picked herself up, and trotted over to Sparkle, placing a hoof upon her withers, trying to calm her down. She glared at the pony. “What do you mean, we made you?” she demanded.
“Oh Twilight,” the pony said, shaking her head, as her horn continued to pulse with black magic and create more and more orbs of anti-magic. “Do you really suppose that cracking the Element of Magic wouldn’t have consequences?”
The four recoiled at that. “We…freed you?” Twilight asked.
“No, you created me!” the pony said. “I’m not some eldritch abomination from the dawn of time. I’m six hours old! Oh, but it gets even better.” She pointed to Trixie, smiling. The four ponies looked to her, at last remembering the location-finding spell encased in a gemstone that Twilight had created and attached to Trixie’s cape. Its light had gone out, but the pony stomped a hoof, and it started up again – and the gemstone pointed right at the pony, or more specifically her cutie mark.
“I’m also the Element of Magic,” she said, brushing one hoof against her coat. “I am all the bile and hatred and doubt that you four felt, put in a pony-shaped suit conjured up by the dying embers of the shattered Element, and given life and sentience! Without you, I wouldn’t exist!”
Sparkle’s heart skipped a beat at that, as the pony threw her head back and laughed. The globes of anti-magic began to spin around slowly. Whenever they passed through a tree, or rock, or other feature, that thing seemed to grow somehow…lesser. Less alive. Less colorful. Less real.
“You’re going to die,” the pony said, skipping around in place a few times. “The good news is I’m pretty sure I have to kill all four of you simultaneously, so it’ll be quick. I’m thinking…crushed under a falling wagon!”
The pony’s horn stopped glowing black, reverting to its deep blue coloration, as the wagon behind the four of them lifted itself off of the ground. The four also found themselves seized by telekinesis, and forced together in one spot, while they were surrounded by orbs of anti-magic. The orbs seemed to sap at every spell they tried to cast – they weren’t utterly prevented from conjuring magic, as Sparkle had been when inside of one, but none of their spells had any effect.
“Wait!” Sparkle called out, struggling to escape from the telekinesis that held her. She couldn’t however, and her eyes were locked on the wagon hovering over them, rising ever higher into the air. “Wait! You don’t have to do this!”
“Of course not, idiot, but I want to.”
“You have to know this is wrong! I can’t believe that the Element of Magic would create something so evil!” Twilight tried.
The pony glared at her. “Evil?” she demanded. “Evil? Am I evil just because I want to kill you? Am I evil just because I would rather tear you limb from limb and watch you bleed out one at a time, and I’m genuinely sad I won’t be able to? Am I evil just because after I’m done here I’m going to go to Ponyville and slaughter everypony you four have ever loved out of pure spite?!”
“Yes!” Twilight exclaimed.
The pony’s smile brightened. “Excellent!” she declared happily. “I like knowing my place in the world! So few ponies do. Any last words from any of you? Trixie, you’ve been quiet.”
Sparkle looked to Trixie, eyes wide. The poor mare had been utterly outclassed by the other three of them from the beginning, had been all but dragged into this situation. Her muzzle seemed to have stopped bleeding, at least, as she stood up and away from Lulamoon. “Trixie has three things to say!” she exclaimed.
“Goody! I’ll allow them.”
“Firstly – you owe me a new wagon, you psychopath! Second,” she looked between Twilight and Sparkle. “Library, understand? Library! And finally, Trixie must compliment you on your anti-magic spheres. They are cancelling our spells magnificently. But there is one problem!”
The pony smiled, trotting closer to the four. “Oh?” she asked.
“The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t need spells to do magic!”
Trixie reached into her cape with one hoof, and then threw her hoof forward. A series of small capsules fell to the ground at the pony’s feet, and then exploded into smoke. The pony’s eyes widened and she whinnied in surprise, rearing back onto her hind hooves and letting her concentration slip. She lost her grip on the wagon overhead. It remained in place for just a moment before beginning to fall – but the anti-magic spheres she had conjured also dissipated into nothingness.
Sparkle stared in shock, frozen for an instant. She then felt hooves closing about her neck, saw Trixie grabbing her, and realized what she had meant by library, even as Twilight had grabbed Lulamoon, horn already glowing lavender. Sparkle snapped her eyes shut, thought of Twilight’s library back in Ponyville, and teleported.
Even as she did, she heard the pony who’d tried to kill them scream.
“No you don’t!”
Something pulled on Sparkle even as she tried to teleport. For the briefest moment, she thought she saw Twilight’s library. Then, in the next moment, everything went black. When the darkness cleared, Sparkle found herself looking not at the comforting surrounding of books and wood and perhaps a warm fireplace.
Instead, she found herself a thousand feet in the air over the Everfree Forest, and falling fast.
I see the Great and Powerful Trixie is a follower of Starswirl the Belled, following the idea that why do you need a complex spell when I can just buck the damn thing to get it to work. So lets see... Luna meets Luna, and the Twixie appears and is nutter than a fruitcake. Oh boy this won't end easily
Well, buck me gently with a chainsaw, that escalated quickly.
Psycho!Magic is clearly a few dozen apples short of a bushel.
I love the character differences between Luna and Luna.
And wow, Twixie is a bit of a powerhouse, isn't she.
Nerdfight!
Also, you seem have a rogue italic in there.
Buwhahahahha, Twixie. That is a great joke name, I hope she does get something better. Else her cutie mark is going to turn into a picture of Twilight and Trixie making out.
Okay... Question.
Is Not-Twixie or whatever-we're-supposed-to-call-her based from anywhere in particular?
Because her petty equicidal tendencies seem... really familiar somehow...
GAH! I hate cliffhangers, THEY ARE EVIL!
Crap. This new mare is one another level in more ways than one.
That was GOOD.
Ah, here's the Anti-Monitor analogue.
Merfle.
It's not often a new story chapter manages to break my sense of reality in the first two paragraphs. I don't usually pick on seemingly trivial details like this, but... Those two paragraphs hit me like a slap in the face.
> By train, it took about two hours to reach Ponyville from Canterlot. Most pegasi could generally manage the trip by wing alone in a matter of four hours of hard flying; a pegasus chariot took a little longer, at five hours.
How can this possibly make sense? I reckon those cute little steam trains can't possibly hit more than 20 MPH on the flat, but they also have multiple stops along the way (unless it's an express train), plus they have multiple switchbacks coming down the mountainside. (And it would be even slower going the other way, chugging up the hill!)
Meanwhile, a pegasus pony can surely exceed 30 MPH with minimal effort, in a straight line, with no stops along the way. So, assuming Canterlot and Ponyville are between roughly 20 and 40 miles apart (it can't be much more than that, given you can see the castle in the distance from Ponyville), as the pegasus flies, then you are looking at: maybe an hour for a normal pegasus, probably half that for Rainbow Dash, or a big chunk of your day if you are riding the train. But wait, it gets better...
> Luna and Celestia arrived in Canterlot within ten minutes.
And no explanation of how this feat was accomplished. We've just been told it's a four hour flight, so apparently they didn't fly in the normal way. Assuming it were possible to teleport the entire distance (something that's never been hinted in canon, AFAIK), it would presumably take less than 10 minutes. So, I just don't know what to make of it.
RDD, you didn't have to even mention how long it took them to get there -- if you're going to say it took ten minutes, though, then please show your work!
This made me laugh out loud.
Conclusion: Trixie is Batman.
Obviously, this new pony's name should be Nerevar.
It´seems the Trixie side was stronger in Twixie. Attacking suddenly the four mares without observing and studing them? no plan at all, besides a not even half worked, cliche, evil boasting speech?
And i thought Sombra was a pathetic villain
It don't agree with the first couple of chapters about the time it takes different ponies to reach Canterlot But otherwise great chapter!
2402369
I like to believe she's all four of their magical power combined into the essence of curbstomp.
Toasty! Looks like we'll have the alternative method of uniting four arguing, animous ponies: against a common foe! I love it!
Oh, and you spelled Twilight's name wrong right at the end.
2402521
One thought is that a pegasus has to pace herself. Like an Olympic sprinter can hit a good clip, but that's not so good for a trip to the grocery store.
As far as the Princesses, I think the implication was Celestia & Luna are fast and have enough endurance to stay at top speed all the way.
Go old-school. Stab the damn thing with your horn!
1,000 feet is fine. It gives you enough time to act. 100 feet would have been far worse.
I'm here to see how the protagonists interact with each other. This villain distracts from that. Partly, this is because the villain consumes screentime that could have been spent focusing on more interesting characters. Partly, this is because the gaping hole where a motive would normally be draws attention, even if the character is specifically intended to be flat.
2402521
I'm pretty much in agreement that a pegasus drawn chariot must be faster than train; otherwise, why would Twilight have traveled by way of the latter in the pilot?
I don't, however see the problem with mentioning the princesses' travel time as being so much shorter, the implication that they are just that fast is pretty obvious.
Ah, explaining your powers and motives to your opponents. Brings back such memories.
2402521
Granted, the estimate that it takes Pegasus more time then the train is entirely preposterous, But the whole "They got their in 10 minutes" thing is to establish that Luna and Celestia are pretty well gods, and can exceed basically every pony who has ever lived ever.
2402648
Are you expecting complex motives and reasons and grand plans from a creature created by strife and conflict after just 6 hours of life? I don't even think she'd have the capability yet to even consider anything other then messy, destructive, pointless conflict.
I hereby dub the new pony, Curbstomp.
2402648
The evil doppelganger gets everything from Trixie and Twilight except a moral compass. EVERYTHING.
Good chapter, I really liked the attention given to the princess's (I like their travel time) though I don't recall Discord ever being refereed to as personification of chaos, so much as a spirit of it (though I guess spirit is a term that can be played with) Interesting discussion between Celestia and Luna regarding their different methods and expectations/concerns about him getting free (regardless of my personal views on the the respective power dynamics) Though I thought that the reason Celestia kept him in the garden was because she thought him permanently defeated/vanquished?
I loved the Luna/Celestia/M!Luna scene, just the entire scene was fantastically written, the interaction between all three of them, Luna hiding behind the stature, the impostor "I am your sister" bit all those nice little background details, I can't wait to see more of this explored in later chapters. Watching Twi and Sparkle argue over Clover was fantastically entertaining and the Trixie/Lulamoon scene was also a very good read. The battle was hectic and fast paced which worked really well (Twixie! was hilarious) I figured it was probably either dark magic or anti magic she was using and Trixie pulling out a trick/spell like that at the end was awesome! (Also I loved her response to the "you must know this is evil" dilemma. Overall great chapter looking forward to seeing more!
I like this villain. She's fun.
Holy shit, Spellgleam Lunaspark is a Voidlock.
She has Void Magic.
Then again, it's kind of obvious, when you think about it. Right?
An inverted Element of Magic, poisoned by psychopatic tendencies...
I'll tell you though, it is lucky for these four that none of them have comprehended their natures as Arcanists yet, or that would have been a painful-to-lethal experience.
Also, Spellgleam over here is really contrived, cliche, and flatter than an anorexic pancake, but that's probably the point, isn't it?
Pines don't lose leaves.
HA! Silly evil pony! Just got schooled by sleight of hoof.
Good thing too, she was kinda kicking their asses.
Why do I imagine a Rocky training montage when I read that line.
Wow talk about a cliffhanger, that's one you don't see to often.(well outside series involving teleportation of floating cities)
2402521>>2402926
Indeed, the implication is that Luna and Celestia are just that damn fast. Specifically they were flying at supersonic speeds for that entire time. Alicorns in the Lunaverse, and therefore in this, are pretty much physical gods. As a general guide, anything Superman can do in the movies (especially Superman Returns), an alicorn can do.
Pegasi do have to pace themselves. I haven't concretely set the distance between Ponyville and Canterlot, but I use the distance from my home town to Boston, MA as a rough guide. On the train, it takes two hours to get there, accounting for stops and assuming no delays.
I figure that four hours for an unladen pegasus is pretty reasonable. For that kind of distance, it's not about speed, but pacing. While a pegasus may be able to travel at a hundred miles per hour over a short distance, I don't think they could do so for mile after mile after mile.
The pegasus chariot thing, I just assumed that even two pegasi working together to pull a chariot are going to be slower than a single unladen pegasus. As for why Twilight took a chariot rather than the train - maybe she prefers them when traveling alone? Maybe she missed the train (unlikely)? Maybe the train didn't run to Ponyville yet at that point in the series? Maybe she just felt like it? Or any number of other possibilities.
2403126
Celestia may have had him in the garden the first time because she thought he was done for good, but after he returned she would have to know that he wasn't.
2402521
Stop making assumptions about things, then trying to make others follow it. Just don't do it.
Steam engines get around 50-70 MPH. You're basing it's performance on it's looks, which is not a good idea. Considering there doesn't appear to be any population centers between Canterlot and Ponyville, once it hits the base of the mountain it'll be a straight line to Ponyville.
Pegasi cannot sprint the entire journey. They have to pace themselves.
They flew. They're demi-goddesses that can fly unbelievably fast. It's not that hard to figure out what the author was going for there.
2402648 2402884>>2403305
Give her some credit - she's six hours old and excited to finally get to her self-appointed purpose in life! Also...I've never written for a complete psychopath before.
2402948
Exactly this, as well.
2402430
No direct references as of yet, but there are a few obvious inspirations for her character (but most especially, Super Buu, King Piccolo,, and Ladd Russo).
I want to write somepony that's sadistic and also a bit masochistic. Who's genuinely fun-loving but also genuinely evil - utterly, completely, irredeemably, and with no particular reason for it. She wants to hurt everyone and everything not because mommy beat her or daddy abused her, not simply because of what she was born from, but because she genuinely finds it fun.
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! LET...THE GALAXY...BURRRRRRNNNN!!!!
2403583
Well first of all, a "psychopathic" character (which is a lot different than the medical definition of a psychopath) wouldn't be so much as eager to do evil. A good way to have approached it would be to either have shown her incapable of discerning right from wrong (which at this point, you've pretty much cemented her as being aware of how reprehensible her actions are, and liking it), or to have made her not care about the morality of it at all. I would have picked the first option, myself, to underscore how naive a newly created being like this would behave; treating it like a fun game with no consequences.
Honestly, I guess the entire thing boils down to her being way too mentally developed for a character that was supposedly just created. By showing her capable of higher faculties like moral weighing and whatnot, you've made her less of a psychopath and more of a card-carrying villain, which usually only works when the villain in question has the charm, character, and presence to keep the audience's suspension of disbelief intact. Without that level of Razzle-Dazzle, the facade falls flat and makes the audience realize how dumb that kind of motivation is.
Also, your Anti-Magic is basically Voidmancy, right?
2403583
Well, if you need help writing a psychopath, you could always ask me for help. I have experience with that kinda thing.
Hm. Way for Trixie to show her chops, finally. The least magical of the quartet, but the most useful (for that reason) in this situation.
Celestia and Luna's talk was nice and touching in a way. The academic debate between Twilight and Sparkle was funny too, though one wonders if they're talking about two different Clover the Clevers. Probably not--this universe seems to diverge only at the one point--but even so it seems worth considering.
Luna meeting Luna?!
Oh this gonna be good!
2402430
Kinda reminds me of Kefka. Also, she kind of makes me think of Power Rangers or Kamen Rider villains.
2403700
I have no idea what voidmancy is (still haven't gotten around to reading Crisis: Equestria; sorry. Actually I've been intentionally avoiding it so as to make sure to not let anything from it accidentally slip into this).
If anything her little balls of void magic are based off of the Sealed Card from the second Card Captor Sakura movie.
If I made her not understand what she was doing, that would engender sympathy, which is the totally wrong direction to take her. If I made her not really care...well, that's a good option, I suppose, but that to me suggests a more apathetic, distant character, which this pony emphatically is not.
2403794
That's exactly what I was going for. The Joker, Kefka, Rita Repulsa, Megatron...she is evil for the sake of being evil. We don't get that enough these days. It's the kind of villain that I grew up watching on Saturday morning TV, and remains my favorite kind of villain in general.
Also, that one villain on Kamen Rider Fourze. The one who makes Japanese puns that are still kind of funny in English. For example:
Whatshisname/Twixie: The number of guys/ponies stronger than you is like the number of times bunnies mate!... A bunch.
Are the other members of the lunaverse elements of harmony going to talk to the other canon elements of harmony?
2403495
Fair point there, I hadn't thought of that.
2403583
King Piccolo probably suits her origin best considering he was all the evil expelled from Kami, though in terms of personality she definitely remind me of Ladd Russo (who is crazy awesome, evil but awesome!)
2403918
Perhaps she can best be described as King Piccolo within minutes of his "birth." I doubt he had much of a motive, either, at first. And of course, Super Buu is the guy that killed almost everyone on planet Earth just so that he could fight one guy in particular that much faster.
2403851
Now, you see, therein lies the problem; you're trying to make a spontaneously created character act like characters that have that sort of legacy and presence to them and expecting the same result.
With the Joker, and the New Series Master, what is the worst position you never want to find yourself in with these guys?
Being alone with them. Because then, whatever they want to do to you, they can just do it. There's no way you can fight back, and no one around to save you.
The Joker is one of the most feared Crime lords in Gotham. Kefka is a murderous chancellor with armies following his petty whims and the ear of a king. The Master is the Prime goddamn Minister of Great Britain. They aren't just feared because they are crazy, but because they're crazy and untouchable. They aren't entertaining just because they're evil, but because they take that evil to not just absurd, but clever extremes.
On the flipside, Spellgleam is one pony-entity with a gimmick power up against a literal multiverse of people that, if they were to find out about her, would quickly find an effective way to stomp her shit. The problem is that she has no leverage. She obviously doesn't care about being discovered. She doesn't have anyone under her control. There is no context to show exactly how powerful she is, other than what she has claimed her goals are, and her threat level just doesn't seem high enough from this one fight to really justify classifying her as on the same level as The Joker.
For a Villain, what is better; to be feared, or amusing?
Either is fine, preferably both. The important thing is to avoid becoming boring.
As for your Anti Magic?
If it's Black, Starry, Deconstructive and Anti-life by nature, and is the natural result of the inversion of the Element of Magic, it's BASICALLY Void Magic. Also, if it comes from the space between dimensions. That just compounds the deal.
That's a good thing if it is, though, because that means my ideas for crossing the CRISIS Dark-Equestria-V into the Lunaverse has precedent.
I'll explain that later, though.
I'm looking forward to never hearing the actual name (because if I have to call it Twixie I will die from lack of oxygen) and instead every person here just uses any name they want. Right now I'm for wont of Blarg!! (Yes that's with two exclamation points in the name)
2403945
Actually the Master regeneration I posted was after he was Prime Minister; it's his End of Time incarnation, when he was just a wandering psychopath that was so. HUNGRY.
If you say so...
2403583
I've read about your opinions on this character as well. and I too that has a character that enjoys being evil for the sake of evil because it's fun. I think this might be the first time that any of the girls on either dimension ever meets a villain that is just pure evil that needs to be destroyed, or in this pony's case, revert back to being a crystal of pure goodness ASAP. They'll probably try to talk to her first, but I think I know one of the ways to truly defeat such a thing is a trope that's called "Evil Cannot Comprehend Good." Anyway I understand what you mean about having an evil thing that just needs to be stopped, just like Dark Matter, Kirby and co. never understand why it does these things, but whatever it's doing is very wrong and it needs to be stopped.
2404019
...You realize that that was the iteration of the Master that became sympathetic and had a moment of redemption before his death, right?
That really puts everything into perspective, I think. And I know that I might be painting a big target on myself when I say this. I don't want to be this guy. I HATE that I feel like I have to say this!
But...it sounds like you're trying to bring back a style of villain that was never good. Like, okay, you love those old Saturday morning cartoons with irredeemable villains, sure. But there's a reason that characters that are obsessed with Objective Evil are considered jokes, intentional or otherwise. People don't act like that. And while we might desire, at times, a wholly unsympathetic target to unleash our frustrations on, but that really isn't why we usually enjoy villains.
We, as humans, use villains as a way to examine ourselves--mainly by asking a simple question. "Why would someone wrong another?" That question basically informs the motivations of every single Shakespeare character, save one: Iago. He's the guy that you're talking about; a wholly irredeemable villain, who seems to only desire to make other people's lives worse.
And yet, that isn't quite why he is so iconic about him. The reason why people are fascinated to this day about the Iago archetype stems from his final moments in the play, where he is given the same chance as all other Shakesperian villains, to give a motive for his evils and to allow the audience to finally empathize with him.
But he refuses this tradition, by his own free will, for his own reasons. And that is what makes him such a compelling villain, is that he denies us as an audience the answer to the question we were looking for the whole time.
We aren't attracted to evil. Not really. We're attracted to the question of evil. We ask characters like Iago and The Joker, "Why do you choose to do Evil?" And time and time again, they refuse to answer.
TL;DR: If you're trying to write for the sake of Generic Evil, you're going to get Generic Evil, unless you have more than just that one idea to build off of.
Jesus Christ, do I get introspective when I'm tired.
EDIT: Also, no, not if I say so. It's your universe, you have the right to shoot me down if you're not feeling it.