//------------------------------// // To Break A Horn Lock // Story: Madison: An Archaeologist's HIE Tale // by The Atlantean //------------------------------// Celestia’s sun somehow still set over the western horizon behind Twilight. To the east, Luna’s moon rose, its silvery light shining down on the farmland beyond the town square. As Twilight turned her head to look back, she saw the sun’s orange rays turn the scattered clouds pink as the sky slowly dimmed to black. Ahead of the violet alicorn stood an impatient Blueblood, a concerned Filthy Rich, and their gang of vigilante hostage-takers. “Princess Twilight,” Blueblood called into the stillness. “I hope you've come to see that what we want is for the best.” “You want me to relinquish all my authoritative power to you, correct?” she replied. “Yes. You can remain a princess, but only in name.” Twilight glanced around nervously. “Well, I'm doubting you right now. You see, I had to come here alone just to get you to come out of hiding.” Blueblood looked surprised. “I don't know why that is so.” He signaled to his gang, and three of them came to Twilight and put a horn lock on her. Seeing that she didn't struggle, they roughly dragged her across the square. “Princess, this is just between you and me.” “If it's just you and me, why does it look like I'm being taken hostage?” “I'm covering all my bases. Take her inside. I'll deal with her later.” As Twilight was knocked unconscious and dragged into Ponyville Town Hall, Filthy Rich grimaced. He knew it was wrong, but Blueblood could have Diamond Tiara at sword point any time he wanted. Mr. Rich would do anything to keep his daughter safe. In the darkness behind where Twilight had been five minutes ago, Madison crouched behind a bush. Her hand hovered around her Colt, ready to grab and fire. When Mr. Rich walked into the building after the pompous Blueblood, she stopped fingering her gun. Twilight had thought of this, but didn't put it in the main plan. It was time for Plan B. She activated her walkie-talkie, glad to have had it in her satchel, and tuned it to the frequency of the earpiece Twilight had borrowed. Good thing I brought four of those damn purple things in my satchel. Always come prepared, I say. Finally, the fruits of my overly cautious packing habits have bloomed. Madison smiled. She hated those things, but they needed constant communication with Twilight and they were the only available option. They were line-of-sight, too, so she didn't have amazing range. But she'd manage. Madison had a weapon, which was more than most Equestrians could say, and unlike her four-legged friends, she wasn't afraid to use it on other ponies. ------------------------------ Rarity’s ears perked. She turned her tired, disheveled head to the direction of the noise. Next to her, curled up in both fear and cold, was Sweetie Belle. Her cute, curly mane looked like a trampled hoofball field, and her green, normally vibrant eyes flickered back and forth, their dark pupils filled with fright. Rarity stood as three ruffians dragged a familiar form into the room. They then opened the cell door, which Rarity was clear of, and tossed Twilight Sparkle into the cell. The white Unicorn stayed defiantly in her spot until they left. Then she pulled Twilight farther from the bars. The princess slowly came to and rubbed her head. “Ow.” “Twilight! Why are you here?” Rarity asked hushedly. “Did those thugs take you out of the library? Is Spike safe? What's happened out there?” “One at a time, Rarity. I turned myself in.” Her shoulders sagged as she sighed that last part. “Why would you do such a thing, darling?” Sweetie Belle was now awake, and, recognizing the violet alicorn before her, shot to her hooves and tackled Twilight. “You're not dead!” she cried. Twilight ignored Rarity’s question. “It's nice to see you too, Sweetie.” After a moment, she became serious. “Why is Filthy Rich helping Blueblood? Do either of you know?” Rarity had no answer, surprisingly, considering she could run the gossip mill by herself. Sweetie, however, did. “Diamond Tiara’s down the hall! I talk to her sometimes. She isn't as mean when she's scared.” “I'll bet.” Twilight pressed on her right ear. “Madison, are you hearing this?” Through the sudden sound of munching apples, the woman responded. “Yep. Spike and I are writing down everything you hear.” “Copy that.” “Wait, is Spike in your ear?” Rarity raised a bluish-purple eyebrow in confusion, something she normally considered “too unladylike.” But it came naturally now, especially since Applejack had constantly did it to tease her. “No, Rarity, I'm not in Twilight’s ear. I'm at Sugar Cube Corner with the Cakes,” he replied. A juicy crunch, presumably from an apple, followed. “But how can we talk? You're on the other side of the square!” “Wireless communication,” Madison put in. “Twilight’s earpiece converts sound into a signal it then sends to my radio, which then converts the signal into sound. And vice versa. You can hear us because it doesn’t fit Twilight’s ear as well as I'd like. Normally, only the Princess would be able to hear what we say on our end.” Madison was eating a cupcake, and spoke between bites. “Alright, let’s get down to business. Based on what everyone says about this Mr. Rich, he seems to have a shitload of cash. That might be why Blueblood is holding his daughter: to blackmail him in order for him to be able to protect her. He might just be the guy who handles the funds.” “That seems accurate,” Rarity said. “He's even come and apologized to me while he checked on Diamond Tiara. Of course, I at least gave him the courtesy of verbal acceptance, if not mental.” “So, I'll let Mr. Rich off, but the others need to go. Since I now have a horn lock, I can't cast spells and my wings are tied, so I can’t fly. I'm effectively grounded. Madison, do you have any ideas? I never thought this far down the secondary plan route,” Twilight asked. “I could go in and bash some heads, figuratively speaking. Literally, that would get me about three steps. If I use my gun-” “NO!” Twilight cried. “I could wound most of them before somebody got smart and held me down with magic,” the human continued, ignoring the princess’s protest. “They've hunkered down real good.” She let go of the “talk” button. “This has nothing to do with the current situation, but I could really go for a pizza right now,” she said as an afterthought. “I don't think your quest for unknown food helps anything,” Spike said. He’d noticed that the radio needed another battery, and began swapping it out. Madison paid no attention to his actions, instead choosing to roll her eyes at him. “Spike,” she replied, voice thick with sarcasm, “the difference between your opinion and pizza is that I wanted pizza.” “Fine. Be that way,” he grumbled. “Just remember who's been cooking your food this past month.” “I've been a single adult for almost ten years, man. I can cook my own food.” “You're that young?” “Yeah. I'm twenty-eight.” “Twilight’s about twenty, from what I can figure.” “You just swap batteries?” Madison asked, swiftly changing the subject to the present. “Yeah. You need the old one?” “Equestria is not a disposal area for dead batteries,” she deadpanned. “Or at least it hasn't been, and I plan on keeping it that way.” “Jeez, you didn't need to be so rude.” “Sorry, I thought it was obvious. My father likes using them for weird projects.” Madison turned her attention to the radio, pressing the “talk” button. “Twilight, horn locks block magic like a wall, right?” “Yes, I believe so,” came the static-muffled reply. “Why do you ask?” “Would it be possible to overload it?” “What do you mean?” “How much magic can it take at once? As in, what would it take to bypass the lock, theoretically speaking?” There was silence as Twilight pondered for a minute. “A lot. Star Swirl the Bearded’s theory on magic blocking states that a horn lock, made correctly, would be impossible to bypass by any Unicorn, no matter how powerful. Given that we've perfected it since then, it won't work.” “But you're not a Unicorn. You're one of the four alicorn princesses.” Twilight lit up like a light bulb. “Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Okay, I'll need a second.” She searched her brain, but couldn't come up with any references of an alicorn with a horn lock. Spike, on the other hand, came through. He picked up a pencil and started calculating. Madison watched, amazed by the smoothness in which the young dragon worked. Half an hour later, he triumphantly set the pencil down. Madison took the offered paper. “According to Spike’s calculations, you need to release at least 7.495 billion pounds of magical work. This number is comparable to…” She trailed off, reading the energy output in human joules, which had been converted to on the side for her benefit. “Two hundred ten petajoules. I did a presentation on nuclear weapons back in college for history class, doing conversions and whatnot, so I can find a comparable object or unit.” It clicked. “Fifty megatons. This is equal to a freaking 50 megaton nuclear blast. Enough magical energy to destroy everything within a hundred miles.” “As in?” Spike asked. “You know that video I showed you on my phone after we learned magic could recharge it? That was the Tsar Bomba, which yielded that same amount of energy. In theory, it could yield twice that, but they never tried…” Madison shook her head. “If you do try it, Twilight, make sure the magic goes away from everyone else, or we may just be incinerated by pure magic. You would probably survive, but nobody else would.” “That's not a risk I'm willing to take.” “Just shoot out the window. I can see from here it's just some bars. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. My species can harness that amount of power.” “But ‘Tsar Bomba’ sounds like ‘Tsar Bomb,’ Madison!” Spike interjected. “That's essentially what it is. A bomb for the Russian leader to use. Largest nuclear detonation in human history. Its test made Trinity look like a pinprick.” Madison turned her attention back to Twilight. “If you do it right, we won't need to worry about being incinerated and our flaming bits being blown away by the shockwave and scattered across the landscape hundreds of miles away as the destroyed, uninhabitable, burned-out remains of Ponyville set in for a centuries-long nuclear winter. And that's putting it bluntly.” Rarity almost screamed at the thought as soon as Madison mentioned the flaming bits. But she calmed herself down, taking deep breaths. “And what will happen to Twilight if she fails?” she inquired worriedly. “Given she's extremely powerful, her own magic might protect her. If it doesn't, she and everyone in Town Hall will be atomized by the sudden blast of magic and instantly consumed into a large orange mushroom cloud as it rises hundreds of miles into the sky. Anything that remains, which I doubt there will be, will slowly come back down to earth, saturated in pure raw magic.” “Come again?” “You die.” “Oh. You made it sound much more dramatic.” “Trust me, my dad's been a nuclear engineer for thirty years. It's a quick and painless death if you're caught in the explosion, like everyone in Ponyville will be. If not, the magical fallout would saturate your cells and cause irreversible damage to your DNA, and you would slowly but surely die of what the techies back home call ‘extremely acute radiation poisoning.’ That is, you'll be cooked. Given that I can see Canterlot from here during the day, that's most likely the fate everyone there will endure if they're not killed outright.” “And your species just casually wields this power? The power to destroy entire civilizations from existence with just a few explosions?” Twilight’s concerned voice hovered dangerously close to a well-blended mix between fear and rage. Fear of total annihilation, and rage that somepony even had that capability. “Well, if you count nuclear power stations, then yeah. But we stack so much safety precautions on because we'd rather not die that if anything comes through, we can shut it down and pray to God we don't have a meltdown on our hands. Just don't worry about it and you'll be fine.” Twilight sighed, knowing it was her only option. She took in a huge lungful of air and slowly let it back out. She closed her eyes in deep concentration as the bottom of her horn began to glow with her distinctive purple magic. Rarity edged towards the wall, pulling Sweetie Belle with her. Twilight’s wings snapped the ropes holding them to the princess’s body and became outstretched, their violet feathers bristling with pure alicorn magic. Rarity’s precautions saved her and Sweetie from a sudden rope burn. Twilight’s body began to visibly shake. Unpreened feathers floated to the ground as they were rattled loose from her wings. Her mane and tail fluttered in the wind that had started to swirl around her. The cell's iron bars creaked and groaned, unable to quietly protest their strains. One broke loose and impaled itself in the wall only inches from Sweetie Belle’s horrified face. She screamed and ducked behind her sister. If Twilight heard, she paid no heed. The full force of her mind was bent on breaking the horn lock that held her back. Her magic leaked into the lock, twisting, turning, trying to snap it into a thousand pieces. Sparks flew off like embers from a crackling campfire. They impacted the stone floor and spread out, forming a meter-wide circle of dancing, swirling magical energy around Twilight. Tears of pain streamed down her face. The horn lock was fighting back, physically stabbing her with miniscule but incredibly painful bolts of lighting. Then, with a flash of light brighter than the midday sun and a shockwave of magic more powerful than Applejack’s bucking, the horn lock blasted apart. Violet magic shot out of Twilight’s horn and out the bar window she'd been facing, melting the bars and burning the grass outside. The entire building shook violently for a few terrifying seconds as Twilight’s magic dissipated and she collapsed.