I was in the stadium again.
I was surrounded by ponies of all colors and shapes, as a shadow scanned over them, covering each and every one with a cloud, and colors would vanish, evaporate, wash out, leaving only the dull, near-gray bodies.
Bodies of something which is no longer a pony, but is still somehow alive, no longer capable of caring or joy, but still, mysteriously, able to weep over losing something it does not even remember anymore. Suffering in its most abstract form, loss that leaves a gaping hole in your heart that no power can fill, because it’s not actually empty. The greatest pony virtues turning in on themselves.
What are those purple splotches in the corners of my vision?…
Right, that’s simply dark magic. These are not splotches, that’s my own energy bleed-off.
That’s my own shadow.
And when I realized that, I finally screamed so loud, that I think I heard the echo bounce off the sky.
As if to answer that scream, a dark, midnight blue figure descended from the heavens right into the middle of the field, a terrifying alicorn of judgment with a beautiful mane of stars.
I fell prone before her in a pose of supplication and squeezed my eyes shut. “Please kill me quickly, before I do something even worse,” I whispered.
Nothing happened.
“Truly, Twilight Sparkle, thou art determined to join yond most exclusive gathering of people whose most terrifying nightmare is themselves,” she finally said in a most solemn tone. “This maketh mine own duty most complicated.”
I opened one eye and found Princess Luna staring intently into it with an expression of compassion tainted with barely concealed curiosity.
“So this is a dream?” I exclaimed, trying to shake the bleed-off trails out of my eyes.
“Most certainly,” Luna nodded, “thou art asleep and this is thy nightmare. Thou art… You are not capable of such atrocities in the waking world, and never will be.”
I felt my cheeks heat up. Luna noticed, and turned away from me. She lit her horn and I saw her inscrutable dream magic at work, as the ponies in the seats started transforming, from damaged and terrified husks into peacefully sleeping, bright splotches of color.
“In the morning, while the girls set up the Crystal Faire, I have to recover the Crystal Heart from where Sombra hid it,” I explained grimly after taking a breath. “I… don’t feel confident I can cast the spells required safely, and I am terrified of what I might do if I fail.”
I needed to formulate it for myself even more than Luna needed to hear it. I’m sure she could tell at a glance what happened, anyway.
“Dark magic is a temptation indeed,” Luna replied, without turning around, still working on my imaginary ponies, “but the dangers it poses to your mind are subtle and insidious. It does not turn you instantly into a monster. Were you to truly give in to that temptation, you would find a darkness of your very own, rather than a pale imitation of another’s.”
She would know. She does, she knows better than anypony.
“It might not even turn out to be evil,” she added, throwing a cautious glance at me over her shoulder. “At least, not for quite a substantial time. You are, unquestionably, a righteous pony, Twilight Sparkle.”
She is entirely serious, isn’t she.
Luna turned around. “Sister has received your brother’s telegrams, but they were terse beyond measure. While the occasion is hardly apropos, you might as well use it to tell me of what transpired in detail. It will calm your soul, and sate my curiosity as well.”
I took a breath and started talking. I’m not sure how long it took. Dream time is very subjective, and it could be anywhere between a few seconds and an eternity, but I told her everything – of the battle with Sombra’s slave army, of the depths of pony suffering that I saw, of the storybook we found in the library, and of our plan to use the Crystal Fair to counter the amnesia spells.
“Mary seems certain this is going to work, but I can’t say I understand the mechanics of the process well,” I admitted. I felt so excited about it when we found the volunteer’s manual, that I burst into yet another heartsong just to tell everypony about it – two heartsongs in one day, if that’s not an indication I’m in shock, I don’t know what is – but now that I had a chance to sleep on it, I wasn’t quite so sure anymore.
Having Cadance and Shining Armor sing with me was wonderful, though.
“Doubt not, it shall work,” Luna replied. “I must admit I envy you terribly, to be present for the first activation of the Heart in a thousand years. It is an experience just as enlightening as it is exhilarating. I have never had the honor of knowing her sister, but Amore herself was a genius, and I was proud to call her my friend. Even in death, they saved the Crystal Empire.”
That …actually, that calmed me down a lot. All my troubles have one, known solution. I just have to execute it well.
That’s actually the problem, but at least, that’s just one problem. No hidden variables.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand at all,” I said. “Who was Sombra, really?”
“A mystery,” Luna replied. “One thing we know for certain is that he was a citizen of the Crystal Empire, an orphan found in the northern wastes. We know nothing of the origin of his dark powers.”
“So what exactly happened?” I asked, “I understand it’s probably classified for a good reason, but… Something triggered the emergency vault spell.”
An earthquake? Does this place even get earthquakes? I felt the ground of the field trembling slightly under my hooves.
There was a long, awkward pause, as I pulled back from Luna’s motionless gaze. “For four moons, we had no knowledge of what really transpired,” she said finally. “Winters are long in the Frozen North. All we knew for certain was that the Crystal Empire had a disorderly change of succession. A situation not entirely unheard of at the time, and the Accords had no provision for us to save ponies from their own rulers. We were horrified by the rumors, but could only hope that Amore is still alive and well in his dungeons.”
“But she wasn’t…” I realized. Lyra mentioned several vaguely similar incidents that she researched. Most of the old pony kingdoms were founded by leaders who had the charisma to get ponies to follow them into the unknown even when they didn’t have the skill to keep them happy and fed. Ponies who thought they could do a better job and felt it important enough to use violence to take over still needed every bit of support they could get. Some usurpers would force a formal marriage just for the illusion of legitimacy, consigning their “spouses” to a life in a gilded cage. The more confident ones would simply imprison or exile the previous rulers. Execution was off the books, that’s what monsters do. Monsters like Sombra. “And when you found out…”
No, I’m positive the field is shaking.
“Indeed,” Luna nodded. “He spent four moons forcing the crystal ponies to create the single foulest weapon Equestria ever saw, hoping to destroy every force that could oppose him at once. We came alone, and offered him to pick one of us for an honorable challenge. Enraged, he used his weapon in a suicidal attack, as a last gesture of defiance. Right outside the weather barrier. It took us all of our power and tremendous good fortune to survive it. But when Amore’s spell triggered, the Crystal Empire was sealed, and Sombra with it.”
“But what could possibly fool that spell into thinking the Sun failed to rise for a thousand years?!” I exclaimed.
“That, Twilight Sparkle,” she spoke forcefully, leaning into my face, “is the real secret of the Crystal Empire. While it was Sombra who ordered it, while he had to enslave the entire city to do it, it was earth pony magic that made that weapon. If there are things in this world that ponies were never meant to know, this is one of them. I hope for your sake, that your judgment is sound enough to let that secret stay buried, for it is my duty to stand over its grave.”
I shivered. And then the ground shook so hard that I fell. “What’s happening?” I asked.
“Somepony has been trying to shake you awake, Twilight Sparkle,” she replied and smiled, “I have already intruded on your dream for longer than necessary and held you unduly, please forgive me. But the conversation was important. You would do well to attend to thi–”
“–S.B.F.F,” Shining Armor repeated, his hoof gently but firmly shaking me by the shoulder.
I blinked and dug my face out from under the blanket. I’m still in one of the castle’s guest rooms. This really was a dream. I just hope I’ll never, ever have one like that again.
“I’m sorry to wake you up, Twily, but we need you,” Shining Armor said.
“What happened?” I asked, crawling out to stand upright.
“Changelings,” he said simply.
“What!” I jumped up in panic. “Why aren’t you sounding the alarm?!”
“Let the poor crystal ponies sleep in their own beds for a change,” he grinned. “I have a plan.”
✶ ✶ ✶
The city was asleep, but the castle wasn’t anymore.
“Now read this yourself,” Spike mumbled, curling up on Shining Armor’s back, not even bothering to catch the scroll that he just flamed in.
“Thanks, Spike, you’ve saved us a lot of trouble,” Shining replied, pulling out a medium sized fire ruby. “Here, I hope this will be good enough compensation for being woken up in the middle of the night.”
Spike sprang to attention immediately, as if he wasn’t half-asleep just moments ago. “Where’d you get it?” he asked, grabbing for the gem and biting off a huge piece.
“We’re in the Crystal Empire, remember?” Shining grinned. He’s always spoiling my little dragon…
I unrolled the scroll and skimmed it quickly.
Dear Twilight Sparkle,
We thought it unlikely that Chrysalis would attempt another attack so soon after her defeat, but as unpleasant as this piece of news was, it did not catch us entirely unprepared.
I have dispatched the Wonderbolts and 3rd Baltimare Airborne Rangers to relieve you immediately. They should arrive within six hours. Luna insisted on leading this expedition, and I hope this response will be sufficiently forceful to deter the changelings without a battle.
I am going to stay in Canterlot, because we can’t rule out the possibility that this is a feint. It is fortunate that you already have the Elements with you. Please use them for the good of Equestria in whichever way you see fit, with my blessing.
Yours,
Princess Celestia.
“So, when are they coming?” Shining Armor prodded me.
“By dawn,” I replied, doing some mental calculations. It’s almost poetic. “Princess Luna, Wonderbolts, and all the airborne rangers. Princess Celestia must be really mad.” I shivered. I have never actually seen her mad myself, and I’m afraid to imagine what it might look like up close. Ten airships loaded to the brim with artillery and ponies even the rest of the army calls dangerous maniacs, and that blessing… Yes, that’s pretty mad.
“Oh my, we’re going to be positively swimming in dashing ponies in uniform, and I have nothing to wear…” Rarity said, sticking her tongue out in exertion, her horn glowing brightly. “I thought the United Kingdoms can’t interfere.” Even despite being woken up in the middle of the night, she mysteriously became the very picture of elegance by the time we assembled here. Sometimes, I wish I had that skill, I probably look like a hedgehog right now.
“In fighting Sombra, yes,” Shining Armor replied. “The changelings are an external threat. Celestia’s actually compelled to deal with it by the Accords, regardless of who’s in charge in the Crystal Empire, and she is allowed to call in foreign allies. We just have to hold out until they arrive, and I think we will do fine. Disabling this shield from the inside isn’t that easy.”
“Ah, it’s not working at all, and I’m already exhausted!” Rarity complained. “It’s like it bleeds every little bit of magic away into the aether the moment I feed it in!”
Shining Armor’s plan was actually put into action much earlier in the day, soon after Sombra was defeated. Teams of unicorn guards would take turns boosting the capacitor of the castle little by little for the entire day, and the moment the swarm was spotted amidst the blizzard outside the weather barrier, the built-in shield spells were turned on. Crystal Empire certainly earned the designation, this is one of the biggest static shields ever made.
And now, the six of us – me, Shining Armor, Cadance, Rarity, Moondancer and Lyra – were standing in the parabolic chamber at the base of the castle, covering the six points of the glowing snowflake circuit and doing our part to keep the shield up, by trying to feed magic into the capacitor faster than the shield was burning through it. Mostly me and Moondancer, really. Shining Armor and Cadance are still recovering, and don’t have much to spare. Neither Lyra nor Rarity can boast a high magic capacity in the first place. But every little bit helps.
Sometimes, being the strongest unicorn available isn’t much fun. Especially when you have to perform the magical equivalent of filling a leaky teapot by carefully pouring water in through the long and thin spout with a teaspoon, a process just as fiddly as it is mind-numbing.
“It’s not very efficient,” Moondancer replied, her horn blazing. “It never needed to be, they had a miracle engine.”
“Miracle engines don’t exist,” I objected. “They aren’t even just a theory, they’re completely unscientific.”
“I don’t know how you can say that with a straight face while wearing the Element of Magic on your own head,” Moondancer glanced at me.
I tensed my ears, feeling the weight of the crown between them. A miracle engine is a hypothetical arcane device capable of ignoring the laws of thaumodynamics. Is that what the Elements are really doing?
Princess Luna told me that meeting my friends was a miracle, too. I never really thought about it, because I have never had a chance to wear this crown for the entire day before, but I can feel them through their Elements right now. Like we’re standing back to back, even though we are actually apart. Rainbow Dash is sleeping soundly. For the first time since the first changeling attack, she feels proud of herself again. Rarity is right here with me, trying her best. Applejack is too tired for dreams, she carried several cars worth of supplies in on her own back. Fluttershy is still sad. Pinkie is not asleep. She has her nose buried in the Crystal Faire Volunteer’s Manual, reading the margin notes left behind by party ponies of the ancient world.
It’s those little experiences that defy explanation that make me think what Luna said is true. Friendship is magic… and that magic is beyond magic. An idea that is definitely true, and yet difficult to think of in words. Even simply saying it sounds a little bit embarrassing, like I’m a little filly just learning to talk and trying to recite a rhyme to my parents, collecting words into sentences without fully understanding what the result means.
“The Crystal Heart collects something, and more goes out than comes in,” Moondancer continued, treating my silence as an invitation for a rant. “I can’t say I believe in ‘love energy,’ it goes against all the thaumic theory we have, but I can’t just ignore the evidence when I’m in a city built on it, under siege by creatures that supposedly eat it. So yes, Twilight. It’s a miracle engine, it amplifies love on a massive scale, and the thaums that go into the capacitor are just a waste product. If you want a humbling experience for a post-classical magic theorist, look no further. An alicorn princess of love is a unique occurrence. This was built by ponies like you and me.”
“Some things have to be seen to be believed,” Cadance commented. “Love needs to be believed to be seen, Moondancer.”
I wish I could just use the Element of Magic to power the shield and let the girls sleep in peace, but I only have the vaguest idea how, and no time for experimentation. It’s like instead of us invoking the Elements, it’s the Elements imposing themselves on the world through us. It is evident the world has a moral dimension. It might not favor good over evil, but it certainly delineates the two. So is harmony the natural order of the world, or is it something ponies bring with them?
“It’s the theoretical implications that make it difficult,” Moondancer replied, “Like I’m reenacting the endless dispute between Morari the Maneless and Star Swirl the Bearded in my head. Now I feel like Snowfall Frost who doesn’t believe in friendship. It’s not exactly easy when you can’t consciously understand it. How did you do it?”
“Not knowing anything about unicorn magic at the time was part of it,” Cadance replied with a smile. “Ask me how to make a cloud, and I might tell you something useful. I’m not a scholar. Just a princess.”
Rarity looked up and stared at her. “Just a princess?! There is such a thing as being too humble for your own good, darling!”
“Yes, Rarity, just a princess,” Cadance said. “I can see love, or rather, hear it. I don’t ask myself why. I know how to nurture it and I wield magic that helps it grow and restores it. But if you ask me how it works… There’s a reason I never went to the School for Gifted Unicorns.”
This really is not going as well as it should. As an alumna of the School for Gifted Unicorns and Princess Celestia’s personal student, I should be able to figure out a better way to do it. We’re already covering all six endpoints, the relative power of the individual participants shouldn’t matter, it’s a self-balancing vortex. But what if the imbalance results in canceling some of the power out before it gets into the circuit? Getting better throughput could be as simple as swapping some of us around. Me, Rarity, Cadance, Moondancer, Lyra… wait a moment.
“Lyra… Please don’t be offended, but I think you’re doing it backwards,” I said. It’s almost like she’s sucking magic out instead of feeding it in!
“Huh? Oh yeah?” she glared at me. “Well, how do you know you’re doing this right?”
Is she just cranky because they woke her up from a pleasant dream? She hasn’t said a word ever since she came and took her place. I was about to launch into a lecture about how thaumic capacitors work, purely out of habit, but then I noticed it.
“Never mind. Did you feed Grayswandir today?” I prodded experimentally.
Rarity threw a curious glance at me. Of course it’s nonsense. Lyra is just the sort of pony to play off this nonsense and say something witty in response. She never took her crystal off since that night, not even once. Bon-Bon actually complained about it at the wedding. It was just a passing expression of annoyance, but that was what got Lyra talking about it in the first place.
“Of course I did,” she replied, as if this was perfectly normal.
“You’re not really Lyra Heartstrings, are you,” I said, staring hard at her.
She stared back.
“You’re sabotaging the charge, you don’t have her crystal, and you don’t even know anything about it,” I pressed on. “Tell us where the real Lyra is, and you will be treated as fairly as the laws of the Crystal Empire allow.” I’m sure Cadance will back me up on this promise even if, somehow, she isn’t allowed to make law on the spot. In any case, we might be able to extradite the changeling to Canterlot for participating in the Canterlot invasion.
Instead of the answer, there was a swirl of green magic, the same swirl I observed when the changeling queen transformed in front of me, and everypony instinctively recoiled from the hissing, black insectoid face.
That hiss was cut mercifully short, as a blunt end of a spear belonging to one of the guards standing watch outside the chamber slammed into the back of the changeling’s head, and she dropped down, motionless.
Or is it a he? They appear to have no distinctive sexual characteristics whatsoever, do they even have any sexual dimorphism? Queen Chrysalis exhibits an almost predatory femininity, but she might be the only one…
“Quick thinking, Power Gate,” Shining said, breathing out.
“Just doing my duty, sir,” the guard saluted.
“Now…” Shining Armor continued, “Get the changeling out of here, we’ll deal with it later. Send a squad to check on Lyra and Bon-Bon. Pass on the word that we probably have more infiltrators. Use the passwords. Twilight, just how much damage did it do?”
I quickly cast my favorite enchantment inspection spell, lighting up the intricate arcane circuitry in the walls. Oh… “Well, it made us waste half an hour.”
Rarity cringed.
“Have I come at a bad time?” Mary inquired, peeking out of the doors. A stubborn strand of hair sticking out sideways from her mane indicated that she neglected the morning rituals just like I did. Seeing it on a creature usually so prim and proper felt slightly weird.
“We’re under siege by another army of changelings, they’re trying to sabotage our attempts to charge the shield, and I suspect they have Lyra and her marefriend,” I replied. “It’s a bad time for just about anything.”
“I noticed,” Mary said. “I just have a quick question.”
“Oh?”
“Does the word ‘centaur’ mean anything to you?”