Twilight slowly and carefully walked with the others into the Everfree Forest, the scan data already plugged into her Nav-Unit along with Aphelion's scan of the entire forest. With that, she had a complete map of the Everfree's more permanent features, and a partial layout of those features that were less sedentary. The plunder vines proved a partial difficulty for the six mares and one baby dragon, especially as they proved somewhat resistant to fire. A quick rethink had led to Twilight dispensing FTF Omegatech Frost Cannons to everyone for use in defense. Much as Twilight had anticipated, magic vines with resistance to flame lacked the corresponding resistance to frost.
"Just be careful not to cross too many streams," Twilight warned. "These were part of Qwark's 'Friendship Through Firepower' initiative, and the effect amplifies geometrically as more of the same weapon locks onto the same target."
"Wait...that goofball tried to weaponize friendship?" Rainbow asked in surprise.
"...I'll ignore that 'goofball' comment due to accuracy," Twilight spoke up carefully, "but he is my BBBFF, and has well earned the title of one of the Universe's Greatest Heroes, whatever he believes. I can count three times off the top of my head for which I owe him my life...once at nearly the expense of his own. Please keep that in mind when you talk about him."
"...sorry," Rainbow apologized softly. "Guess he's always been a pillar to your life-"
"When I first met him he was an egotistical fool working for criminals with the collective IQ of Snips and Snails earwax who were destroying multiple planets, all so he could finance his 'heroic return', and led to one of the first of the traumatic experiences of my life," Twilight interrupted just as calmly.
"So it's not just Celestia you're messing with!" Rainbow accused angrily. "You're trying to give all of us nervous breakdowns trying to make sense of things?!"
"It's a perk," Twilight allowed with a teasing smirk.
"So how exactly is he your bro, anyway?" Applejack asked carefully. "Fraid I wasn't really following most of the story. Kinda went over my head..."
"He was an orphan," Twilight explained easily. "Never knew his parents. At the absolute lowest point in my life, I was on the verge of total mental collapse...only to be pulled back out of it when I learned how much Clank cared for me, in addition to how much Daddy did. That's how Clank became Mommy."
"Aww..." Rarity cooed, having loved every moment of the thrilling tale.
"So sweet..." Fluttershy agreed.
"As we were moving on from that, I overheard Daddy saying that if it's what it took to get me talking and moving again, he'd put Mommy in a dress and switch his voice chip to Wagnerian Opera."
"Is that the space version of the one with all the Valkyries?" Rainbow Dash asked curiously. "Cause if so, that's hilarious!"
"Sounds about right," Twilight confirmed. "He also said if it made me happy, he'd even adopt Qwark. At the time, he didn't exactly have the highest opinion of him."
"And then Qwark told you all that the reason he followed you around all the time was because you were the closest things he'd ever had to family, and you said you'd always wanted a big brother!" Pinkie supplied perkily. "And being accepted into a loving family laid the foundation for him to grow into the hero he once believed himself to be!"
"More or less," Twilight confirmed, glad at least one of her friends wasn't too disturbed by all the changes. Then again, Pinkie could be considered to be disturbed in her own way as is.
Applejack said nothing, but she glanced back towards Ponyville - where Qwark had already taken charge of finding safe places for the foals and elderly from the viney assault before the mares had even left the library, as well as repelling the attacking vines with blaster shots, energy whips, and his own punches when necessary - with a speculative look on her face. Tough fella... she thought silently to herself.
"Applejack, watch out!" Fluttershy called out, snapping the farm mare out of her reverie.
"What the-Whoa nelly!" Applejack screamed as she rolled back out of the way of the lunging cragodile. Before anyone else could react, an electrified net shot out, wrapping around the cragodile and carrying it into a nearby tree, pinning it there.
"Fluttershy, let the cragodile know it won't take injury from the net if it holds still," Twilight stated calmly as she checked over her Omega Mag-Net Cannon for any heat damage from the quick firing.
As Fluttershy went to do that, Rainbow flew over and elbowed Applejack in the side. "And you thought we should leave her behind!" she offered teasingly.
"Aww, shuddup!" Applejack snapped, taking a swipe at Rainbow with her hat. "Thanks fer the save, Twi."
"No problem," Twilight responded readily. "Stay close. We're going deeper."
It wasn't long before the group reached the depths of the Everfree Forest where the signals led. After a brief pause to marvel at the ruins of the Palace of the Pony Sisters, the original capitol of Equestria - and to mark the spot on the Nav Unit's map for later visit - the group proceeded down into the chasm around it by means of a staircase. Within the gorge was a cavern that led to a massive crystal tree that the Elements of Harmony - which the group had brought with them - resonated with. The plunder vines bound the tree tightly, suppressing its light, and two large forms were bound in vines until they could not be seen beneath the vines to either side of the tree.
"So...any idea what we're supposed to do now?" Rainbow asked curiously.
Twilight tapped her nav unit. "Could someone patch me through to Discord?" she spoke calmly.
"I've got him right here!" Nefarious responded immediately.
"Calling me out again so soon?" Discord purred softly. "I'm flattered. Seeking the benefit of my eons of experience?"
"Absolutely," Twilight confirmed. "You've got that knowledge, it only makes sense for me to avail myself of it as frequently as reasonable. There's a crystal tree out here the Elements are responding to, and the plunder vines are attacking it-"
"Oh, so that's why they took so long to spring up!" Discord declared with the air of someone making a significant discovery. "The Tree of Harmony's been keeping them in check all this time! It must have run out of juice from having the Elements gone from it for so long."
"Thanks Discord, that's all I needed to know," Twilight replied as she cut the comm link.
"So...we give the Elements back to the Tree?" Pinkie asked curiously.
"That seems to be the most efficient solution," Twilight confirmed.
"But...what if you girls need the Elements against some new threat?" Spike asked worriedly.
"I'm assuming I made a list of all possible Element related threats at some point that you have on you?" Twilight inquired curiously.
"Uh, right here?" Spike offered, pulling a rather thick scroll out.
"Read off those we've actually used them for first, followed by those connected," Twilight instructed.
Nodding, Spike unrolled the scroll. "Let's see...Nightmare Spirit infuses someone?"
"If it's Luna, combine Shrink Ray and Nether Rift tech to send Clank into her magical aura to battle the Nightmare directly," Twilight dictated as Spike wrote it down on a separate list. "If it's anyone else, have Luna take us into their mindscape via the dreamscape to battle the Nightmare Spirit directly. Next?"
"Discord runs amok?" Spike continued.
"Have Qwark punch him, make sure to tell Qwark Discord is punchable," Twilight responded. "Enough punches, and he'll go back to enjoying the chaos of me bringing modern galactic technology to Equestria and Equestrian magic to the universe. Next?"
"Princess Celestia develops her own Nightmare."
"Same as Nightmare Spirit situation. Failing that, tell Qwark she needs a hug and that I treated his uniform with a special coating that's immune to magic sun fire."
"Ya seem ta be relyin' on Qwark for things that main strength shouldn't work for..." Applejack pointed out worriedly.
"He generates a reality warping field based on faith, the strength of which is relative to the strength of his faith," Twilight explained. "If he has reason to believe he can do something and not a shred of doubt that he's capable of it, he'll pull it off no matter how many physicists it drives to drink."
"Oh, like the orks in that game my little brother loves so much," Fluttershy murmured softly. "...yay..."
"Think we can introduce them?" Rainbow asked hopefully. "Maybe Qwark could knock some sense into - or out of - Zephyr?"
"Unknown new villain?" Spike continued down the list.
"Superior firepower," Twilight responded immediately. "Failing that, send Nefarious back in time to the day before the threat revealed itself to download the events into his own brain before Orvus turns time back six minutes so Nefarious has the information without actually being sent back in time, so we have another week to try and fix things before doing it again. Repeat until a successful solution is created."
Spike blinked, running down the list. "Umm...so 'blow it up' or 'abuse the laws of time and causality so we have infinite time to develop a workable solution'?" he clarified.
"In essence, yes," Twilight confirmed.
"Yeah...I don't think there's anything else on this list that doesn't cover."
"Alright, giving the Elements back," Twilight declared. "Then study the tree until I'm able to create mobile receptacles that allow us to draw Harmony energy through our friendship so we don't need to remove the Elements from the Tree in order to borrow their power in the future. Girls, keep the vines off me."
The girls traded glances, only to shrug. Twilight seemed to know what she was doing.
Before long, the Elements were back in the tree and the vines were gone. Celestia and Luna were freed from the vines holding them, only to stare in disbelief at Twilight. "Do...do you really think you can do such a thing?" Celestia managed to say at last.
Before anyone else could speak up, the tree extended a root which developed a bud, only to open to reveal a crystal box that looked different from every angle save for having six keyholes. "...perhaps the Tree is giving her a way to do it as is?" Luna offered nervously.
"A crystallized quintessence hypercube storage unit?" Twilight squealed eagerly. "Oh, I can hardly wait until we figure out how to open it!"
"Twilight, does the royal treasury have enough to pay you to take over the government?" Celestia asked pleadingly.
"And deal with the headaches of a feudal nobility?" Twilight tsk'ed disdainfully. "Not even for a week."
"It was worth a try, sister," Luna sighed in resignation.
Not much I can say except - wow. Once again, excellent job on the exchanges, emotional content, action, humor and future chapter set-up in all the right places. Yeah, Twi's list of contingency plans could put Batman to shame (mainly because there is very little chance of THESE contingency plans falling into the wrong hands). At any rate, I'm going to guess that, in this reality, Twilight gets the final key from the ponies of Our Town by teaching them about REAL friendship AFTER she and her friends defeat Starlight (given Tirek would stand pretty much no chance against her firepower). Then again, that guess COULD be wrong and I will admit to that. At any rate, I will definitely be looking forward to more of this as soon as time and inspiration will allow. Oh, and congrats on hitting the 300 k words mark on this story. :-D
7864200
I think you should reread the chapter "Interlude: Normal Family".
lol nice try Celestia
She is dealing with all this well
Problems with your feudal nobility, Celestia? I vote have your office run by Mr. Zurkon for a day. Problems will fall over to solve themselves!
See, at this point Luna should offer to pay Nefarious to... remove, so to speak... the Nobility, so there's no reason for Twilight to deny Celestia's request.
I'm positive he'd enjoy having all those unicorn test-subjects so he can replicate magic and other such stimuli as a means of furthering his relationship with Twilight.
I want to see how she would deal with Blueblood now.
7864200 ha starlight dosnt stand a chance i see 1 of two things happening
option a: starlight steals her cutiemark which sends twi over the edge and causes darkstar to come out
Option b: twis bullshit detecter is set to max and the moment she sees starlight she pulls out the rhyno mK whater the fuck it is now, and starlight surrenders
7864236
...while not Nefarious' sort of thing, I'll make note of that for "My Little Killing Machine" and "My Little PWNY".
I spy a reference.
7864204
*Rereads chapter* Oh, I had forgotten about that little trinket. Yay, foreshadowing!
7864248 The answer is 3.
Yeah, I thought of that episode too.
Use a gun. If it fails, use bigger gun.
Now we got to have her be a part of the Court someday
Or she needs Celestia for something and she picks her up from Day Court and the nobles throw a tantrum over it, she just needs to release her pet (does she still have that beast thing or whatever it was called from one of the arenas?) or she could throw a Groovitron at them
that was all beautiful
7864237 3 words, Friendship Through Firepower
Looks like Applejack's got her eye on Qwark...Also, as always, Twi's got all her proverbial ducks in a row
I wonder if Fluttershy was referring to Warhammer or something, not that I've played the game.
7864200 there's not much that anyone else would be able to do to USE her contingency plans. Batman's.were made to be possible to be viably used by anyone because he was worried he himself could end up a villain.
7864329 Or just more gun.
7864329 "When all else Fails. RYNO"
7864369
I suspect it's reference to WAAAAGH the psychokenetic field generated by WH40k Orcs if they think something should be faster because it's painted RED the WAAAAGH will tell reality to go sit in a corner and make that red THING FASTER when it really shouldn't More Orc BOIZ better WAAAAGH works.
I'd say not bad for a bunch of bipedal fungus with more muscles than brains.
7864496 Only cause she likes her friends too much to build a Death Star.
Wow Twilight I would have thought that getting rid of the unnecessary bureaucracy of Equestria would help you bring Equestria up to the galactic standard would be a priority.
Also I guess superior firepower will not stop Tirek. As Uncle says "Magic must defeat magic!"
When all else fails....
Cut! Twilight doesn't fail.
7864608
Silly. Superior Firepower IS Magic!
Every chapter you put out reminds me of how much I love this Twilight. Looking forward to more.
Keep up the great work. Deus tecum.
7864642
When in doubt, throw Quark at it, after telling him he's immune to it for whatever made up reason.
7864597 So I was kinda right, then? Cool. Those Orcs are funny.
seem's like celestia is going to drink enough to down dragon's 10x the size of dragon lord trouch.
7864369
I do believe so, seeing as Orks in 40k ave their WAAAGH field, which seems to make all of their technology function better and more reliably.
Somewhere in a parallel dimension, Sunset Shimmer suddenly became highly aroused.
7863850 I know right?!
ok just love how quwark is the second best choice after messing with time though it would be funny to see him punch teriks stolen magic out
In other words, Twilight will make whatever changes she sees fit without bothering with the government, so Celestia will still be stuck with the paperwork.
7864244 Good point. I just mean, unlike Tirek, Starlight actually WOULD have the sense to surrender.
7864393 Okay. I suppose THAT's a good enough point.
7864204 Yeah. I see your point (sheepish grin).
Still, though, for some reason, I keep getting these images of Twi trying to play "matchmaker" for Flutters concerning Discord and Pinkie concerning Cheese Sandwich (and Ratchet noting that, at least THIS time, HE's not the one she is trying to play shipper with). Okay, those images might be out of line and I DO profusely apologize if they ARE.
7864329 Says every American ever
Very nice list of possible foes and ways to defeat them!!!!
Hold on... doesn't that what Pinkie usually do?
7866657 With her they skip the drinking and just croak from the alcohol poisoning, via IV
7866657
Nah. Pinkie just has cartoon powers.
Twilight paladins. Will Twilight establish the Galactic Scouts to help patrol the Galaxy?
7864608 Then use Magic Bullet
You KNOW Twilight either has or is working on this currently
7864608 Nope. Say hello to the Tactical Super Nuke.
YES!
FUCKING CALLED IT!
7864369 she was.
Da Orks ar da best race in da ol galaxy an do wateva dey wan a do!
I want Qwark vs Discord to happen.
7973540 Twi here would actually make a pretty decent Ork. If it was actually possible to have enough dakka, she'd be pretty damn close.
nicely done, though Spike forgot to mention the possibility of Sombra returning in some way, shape, or form
8244752
That was covered by "Blow it up or abuse the laws of causality so we have infinite time to devise a workable solution".