//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Shadows on the wall // Story: Displaced into Nothing // by Rockstar_Raccoon //------------------------------// “Alright.  Let's begin!” “Ready when you are!” “July 24th, 4 LR.  While performing routine observation of the Harmonic Aether as part of the ongoing study, (see Harmonic Aether Survey, 4 LR) I have discovered what appears to be a large spellform held within the 5th spiral of the current.  This finding is significant, as spellforms are typically broken apart soon after entering the flow.  This spellform, however, seems to have been built to preserve itself in hostile conditions, possibly the Void which lies outside of the Aether on the astral plane.  What's more, this structure, while far too complex to analyze, is clearly of purposeful construction by a talented mage, but does not appear similar to any comparable spellform on record.  After preliminary study, I am tempted to speculate that this may be...” She hesitated a moment, taking in a breath, “...of extraEquestrial origin.” He stopped, “Wait... You mean like... Aliens?” The mare hesitated, then nodded slowly, “Yeah, I looked through the records of this method of spellcraft, and I didn't find anything like it: no one's ever developed the use of Concept-Thoughtforms in this way, especially considering it's uses in spellcasting are mostly supplemental to different spells, and this is far too complex to be an experiment... That doesn't exactly rule out something from our planet, but it definitely rules out any culture we have contact with.” “...wait... What if this is some sort of Invasion?  Like in that movie!  They didn't send their spaceships, they sent a machine to terraform the planet!” She rolled her eyes, “Calm down Spike, it looks more like a time capsule filled with information than anything else, and even if it was, I just put it in a Thaumatic Isolation Chamber.  It's not going to be able to do anything because it won't be able to act upon anything outside of its containment.” “Are you sure?  What if it's a mind-control spell?  What if there's more of them?  We should tell the Princess.” “Ok, first off, this thing didn't exactly blend in with the background radiation.  I'm sure if there were more I'd have noticed.  Second, I am a princess, and I'm going to have you send a copy of this to Celestia when we're done.  Third, there’s no reason so far to believe the creators of this spell were hostile, or that it’s even a spell with destructive capabilities.  Now, any other emergencies, or can we get back to documenting these findings?” Spike sighed, “No...  Ready when you are...”  He lifted the quill back to the parchment. She nodded with a little smile.  “Alright, where was I?” “ExtraEquestrial origin.” “Right.  To prevent potential degradation of the spellform, and to isolate it for closer study, I have placed it in a Thaumatic Isolation Chamber.  I will proceed to run routine analyses on the spellform before directly experimenting with it.  As the only known spellform of its kind, however, I will avoid anything which might damage it at this time.  Attached are the results of my observations. Signed, Princess Twilight Sparkle, Doctor of Magical Sciences.” Spike finished copying down the notes.  “... Magical Sciences.  Got it.  What's next?” “Well...” Twilight looked around her lab, thinking, “I have the machines set up... I suppose you could go back upstairs for a while while I run some tests...” “You sure?  I could stick around and write things down if you need me...” She shook her head, “No, it's fine, just don't leave the castle in case I need an extra set of hooves.” Spike nodded, heading for the stairs, “Right... I'll get back to cleaning...” Twilight smiled a little, adding as he rounded the corner, “I love you Spike!” “Love you too Twilight!” Twilight beamed for a moment before turning back to her work... Twilight opened her magical vectors, reaching out towards the corners of the room, wrapping her aura around several machines which had swiveling wheels attached to their bases.  She solidified her magical grip and pulled the objects into the center of the room, arranging them around the isolation chamber and starting them up, one by one. Her thaumatic spectrometer was first: she hadn't been able to get this thing's frequency in the wild, but now that she had it isolated, she could find out for sure what kind of energy it was made from.  She started that machine, and moved onto several others, such as her lattice distribution analyzer and her aural lithograph machine, before standing, herself, in between two of the machines and observing the spellform directly, pencil and notepad held in her magic beside her.  She began the process of carefully sketching and analyzing the various patterns in the spellform, but she quickly realized she wasn’t going to get it all down.  There were so many complex details here that it might take her a whole week to actually map it out, and on top of that it was moving: a whole section of it was just a stack of rotating circles, not far apart from each other.  She counted about 500 discs in that stack, but it was only a guess: they were like a stack of papers that had suddenly decided to start spinning as if they were gears in a clock.  She also noticed that parts of the spell seemed entirely structural, there for the sole purpose of keeping the numerous sections which looked like they were just piles of information secured to the main mass.  She'd found a few pieces which had broken off, and had kept them in separate containers, but they weren't something she could interpret without any other information... She wondered if this was maybe the caster's way of giving the spellform information to draw on, but it was an inefficient way of doing it: why not just link them in directly and have them be called when needed? The last machine made a beeping noise, and the sounds of the last papers finished tumbling.  Twilight put the final touches on her notepad and set it aside: there was no way she could analyze this thing in one day, but she could probably find time in the next few days to make more detailed sketches of it...  She picked up the spectrometer’s output papers, pulling over her swiveled chair to sit down. “Hmm...” she mumbled to herself, “That's... That's definitely not equestrian... Let's see...”  She rolled over to her bookshelf and pulled a reference book, flipping through for anything that even resembled that, but after glancing over every section it became clear that the only reading she could recognize on this was background radiation from the Abyss... “'nother point for aliens...” she muttered, setting that down and grabbing the next paper.  The more she looked at it, the more questions came up: it wasn't just the method of spellcraft that was unusual, it was the very nature of the magic which had made it.  It's lattice work was in about 50 different patterns, as if the work of at least that many mages, looked nothing like a unicorn’s, or anything else she'd seen for that matter, and was more haphazard than anything she'd make, but not haphazard enough to be a chaos mage.  Some parts looked like they might’ve been symbolic, but she didn't recognize any of the symbolism or numerology involved, and wasn’t even sure what the basis for most of it was... She was starting to wonder if parts of it were obfuscated or randomly generated, or if it had been mutated by intercosmic radiation. There were endless possibilities, but no answers in sight... Twilight sighed, arranging the notes she’d taken in a box on the desk.  She’d gathered every bit of data she could in one hour, all of it inconclusive.  She stared at the shimmering mass floating in the chamber.  She wasn’t sure whether to be excited or annoyed: here she was on the precipice of what was probably one of the most important discoveries in the history of her planet, and she couldn’t make heads or tails of it... “Hey Twilight!” a scratchy voice interrupted her brood, “You done down there?” Right.  The investigation. She’d already informed the royal guard of the activities of Starlight Glimmer, and had a bulletin put out for her, but the new EBI wanted to talk with all of them together just to make sure there weren’t any details missing and to figure out how to proceed... She was pretty much done for the day anyway.  She gave the spellform one last glance, and turned to walk back up the stairs, reaching out to flick the switch for the electric lights she'd had installed overhead... She’d figure this one out... in time... “Alright... Day three... Ready?” “Uh... Twilight?  ...Did it look like that last night?” Twilight glanced at the chamber which Spike was pointing at with a hesitant claw.  “...No... It... changed overnight...” she muttered, eyes widening, ”Spike!  Help me get some readings!” What had once been a shimmering white mess of spellform had congealed, becoming a grey blob of shimmering energy, sparks floating between sections like tiny static discharges in a cloud.  Parts of it reached out from the main cloud, like tendrils, and slid gently against the crystal glass lining the container.  Other than that though, the blob just bobbed lazily in the air, as if suspended on the surface of a liquid... Twilight scrambled about as the set all the equipment to record, finally just putting her face against the glass, horn alight as she frantically scribbled notes to describe the new structure, drawing diagrams of it and noting the many changes.  It had broken apart the structures connecting the data clusters and rearranged them for fast, organized access, just as she’d been thinking the day before...  Her eyes widened: it had done more than that.  It had created new superstructures for sensory input, and substructures for better storage and processing... Her jaw shook as she struggled to vocalize.  “...it... it’s self-optimizing...” she breathed, “I... I’ve never seen that before...”  The machines began to stop, and she tossed the notepad haphazardly on a nearby desk, yanking the paper off the thaumatic spectrometer and pouring over the data, breathing intensifying as more numbers came in... “Celestia...This is incredible...” Twilight breathed, eyes tearing slightly as the gravity of the situation began to dawn on her. “What... What’s going on?” Spike was shaking a little, a different sort of gravity dawning upon him. “I mean... We knew that it was possible to make an adaptive spellform... In theory, a conceptual spellform could be built to self-modify, but... This isn’t just self modifying... This is completely reconstructing itself into a new spellform, suited for the new environment inside the isolation chamber... Like...” she stopped, breathing almost cutting out as her eyes widened, “Like a living organism... Spike!  Do you know what this means?!” “Uh... That it’s turning into an alien?” Spike said, increasingly anxious. “No Spike!  It means we’ve just found something which could prove and disprove a whole book worth of models on the nature of magic!  This could be one of the greatest finds in the history of magical theory!” “I dunno Twilight... You just said it’s ‘self modifying’... What about that story you showed me where the self-modifying construct went rogue and destroyed its creators?  How do you know this isn’t like that?” “I don’t!” Twilight grinned, “That’s what makes this so exciting!  We’re literally looking at something that’s more advanced than anything ever developed in recorded history!” “Twilight!  Think about what you’re saying!” Spike took a step forward, “This thing could be really dangerous!” “Sometimes science involves studying things you don’t understand,” Twilight defended, “even when they’re dangerous. Especially if they’re dangerous!  I thought I’d taught you that much.” “Twilight, this could be a Grey Goo Scenario!“ he fired back, “You can’t let it out of that chamber!” Twilight rolled her eyes, “Oh come on Spike.  I’m eventually gonna have to interact with it directly if I want to know what it is...” “No!” Spike put his foot down, pointing a finger at her, “You just told me this thing is dangerous, like really dangerous.  We need to tell the other Princesses what’s going on, and develop some sort of, I dunno... quarantine policy with this... this thing!  Nopony should be screwing around with it unless they have somepony else watching them!” Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but stopped herself.  Her head sagged, and she sighed, “You’re right... I taught you well...”  She grumbled, “Probably too well...”  She straightened up a little, “Fine.  We’ll tell the princesses and I won’t open the chamber unless somepony else is there to watch... ok?” Spike nodded, relaxing his shoulders, “Right...”  He took a few steps forward, putting a hand on her shoulder, “I’m just looking out for you Twi... You know that.” Twilight looked away, a half smile forming, “Yeah... Sometimes I let my excitement run away with me... It’s good to know I have a good friend to help pull me back.” Spike smiled, “Any time Twilight, any time...”  He grabbed the paper off the last machine to record its readings, “So... What exactly changed that’s so impressive?  Looks like it just got darker to me...” Twilight took the paper and arranged it in front of her with all of the other output papers she’d collected.  “It did more than that Spike... These are the readings from yesterday, and these are the readings from today... The spellform has maintained the same spacial dimensions and only had a small decrease in usable energy, but the threadcount has almost tripled overnight.  It’s like it’s building new pieces into itself with the energy it had when I found it.  Not only that, but look at the spectrometer readings: yesterday, it had frequencies which were entirely alien, but today, it’s started to actively harmonize with the Aether of our own planet... I think it’s pulling in the energy that the containment isn’t blocking to build a superstructure that can maintain stability on our world AND trying to optimize and improve its own functions to be faster and use less resources as it does so.  That’s the kind of thing that requires a strong background in spellcraft to even attempt, and by that, I mean even Celestia would have to really concentrate to optimize a spell this well... And this isn’t a caster, it’s an actual spellform weaving itself!  Whoever created this has mastered the art of spellcraft so thoroughly that they can literally make spells which do their own advanced spellcraft!” Spike blanched a little, “Woah... You don’t think this was... just one person who made this, do you?” “If it was, it had to have taken them weeks of work: this thing is so complicated, it would’ve taken me that long just to figure out all of its capabilities... And that was before it started self-modifying.  At this point, I’d say that with enough time, it could have virtually limitless capabilities.” Spike shivered, “Right... Just another reason to be cautious...” he turned to step towards the chamber, looking up at the little lights flitting about within the cloud... They ran from the tendrils, which seemed to almost “lick” the glass as their ends seemed to feel at it, down into the central cloud, where they were lost in the scattered mass of tiny sparks flitting about within.  “So... What do you think those... things... coming out of it are?  They look like they’re sending the lights into the cloudy part...” “...I... I think it's recording information about its surroundings... I can literally see the patterns traveling from these mechanisms to this information processing center... Like a thought traveling along a neuron...” “Wait... So it’s... watching us?”  Spike lowered his voice, taking a few, slow steps back... “‘Watching’ is a bit too loaded as a word... I’d say it’s more like it’s sensing what’s going on... It’s obviously sensing the sides of the container, it probably has some information about the space outside the container, and it might even recognize that we’re standing here talking, but there’s no way it could interpret that we’re having a conversation about it, let alone parse what we’re saying.  Think about it: if it’s not even from the same planet, how could it know Equestrian?” “Right... right... but... you don’t think it’s like... ‘aware’, do you?” “Spike, it’s a spellform.  Attributing equine behavior to it is tempting, but that would be the Pathetic Fallacy.  I doubt it even really thinks, at least not in the way you or I do...” “But... What if it did?” “Well...” Twilight looked idly at the chamber as she humored the notion in her mind, “That would be an explanation for its ability to adapt and improve itself so well... But it would completely rewrite our understanding of this kind of magic.  Things like Rogue Nightmares can be vaguely self aware, but they get that way because somepony fixating on them, and actively imagining them to be that way for a long time.  Even then, they aren't capable of doing this kind of spellwork, even the ones that escape the Dream World.  Besides, this seems more like passive information gathering to me, like an amoeba feeling about the space it lives in.” Spike nodded slowly, “Alright... Well... I'm gonna head back upstairs... Just don't let it out while I'm gone, ok?” Twilight nodded, “Don’t worry.  I’m not even thinking about it anymore...”  back to the spellform... Well... If it was changing... maybe she could at least document the changes...  She went for the time-lapse-camera, the spectrographic film, and the thaumic shield.  She wasn’t able to see the macro changes at this point: it was happening too slow, but she might be able to see the changes if she watched several hours of footage at one frame per minute...  She set everything up, aligned the camera, and set it to watching... She looked over the setup one last time... everything seemed promising.  Part of her still couldn’t believe what was happening: the more she learned, the more questions she had.  She longed to meet whoever had created this thing.  She could learn so much... But now, she felt like she was in the dark... a primitive pony whose world consisted entirety of a cave she’d been trapped in, huddled around her fire, staring at the shadows on the wall, wondering what they meant and desperate for some outsider to come along and take her into the true light... Spike’s voice interrupted her contemplation from the top of the stairs, “Hey Twilight!  Letter from Canterlot.... Looks like Luna attached some notes to this one!” Twilight grinned.  Luna’s dream magic functioned mostly off of conceptual thoughtforms, making her one of the leading experts in the subject, even after a thousand years worth of developments in the field.  Maybe some questions would be answered sooner rather than later... “Woah... That’s... creepy...” “Yeah... Reminds me of the Tantabus...” Spike chewed his claws a little, “You don’t think that’s what it is, do you?” Twilight shook her head, the shock wearing off, “No... The spellform is completely different from the Tantabus... I think it’s... Mimicking... me...” When Twilight and Spike had come down to check on the entity for the day, it had changed again, this time, far more drastically.  Standing before them now was an alicorn shaped cloud of shimmering magic, too thick to see into, complete with a pair of dimly glowing eyes.  It had no other differentiation for things like its mane, tail, wings, or hooves, but the shape was uncanny, and it had started to develop a membrane of... What might be actual, physical matter... Twilight wasn’t sure yet, but it covered the entirety of the “spellform “, if it could even be called that at this point... “It’s just standing there... All rigid and stuff...” “Remember Spike, it’s not advanced enough to really understand equine behavior... It’s probably just trying to build a form it can remain stable in, and used mine because, well, I’m here.” “Right... If you say so... Still creepy...” “Well... Let’s document the new changes...” Twilight walked over to the side of the room where she’d left her notepad... “Yeah... Document the creepy ghost po-HOLY SHIT!!!” Twilight jerked around to see Spike scrambling away from the chamber on his back, pointing a trembling claw at it.  The entity’s head had changed position so that it was now staring at him...  Twilight mouthed for a moment.  She spoke slowly and carefully, “Calm down Spike... It can’t get out of that container... And it’s just....” she wasn’t really sure what to describe this as... The creature’s head jerked.  Its featureless face pointing at her now. Twilight’s wings shot up a little, hoof raising as she leaned back, “Ok Spike.  I agree.  It’s creepy.”  She looked it up and down, measuring her breaths as she reminded herself that, one, there was no evidence that it was a hostile entity, two, it was inside a chamber which prevented it from getting out, and three, she’d be able to quickly destroy it if it tried to do anything.  “Spike... Come over and stand with me... I don’t see any reason to believe it’s dangerous...” “Do you see any reason to believe it’s NOT dangerous?!” he yelped. “No priors.  It’s literally done nothing but sit there recording information and self modifying...” “Ok, then what’s it doing??” The entity’s body shuddered a bit, its hooves jerking about to turn to face her, moving in a rigid, disturbingly unequine manner like a corpse in a sack being used as some sort of marionette... “It’s...” Twilight gulped, hesitant to even say it... “I think it’s... Watching us.” “‘Watching’?  Who’s committing the Pathetic Fallacy now?” he shot her a brief glance from where he was on the floor, but didn’t let his eyes leave the apparition for long. “I think the fact that it’s attempting to take the form of a pony is enough evidence that I can no longer rule out an actual intelligence.” The entity’s neck jerked.  Its dead stare was once again directed at Spike. “...So... Now you’re saying it’s alive?” “Well... Think about it.  The structures seemed haphazard earlier... But they would appear that way if they were generated organically... The rate and direction at which it’s self-modifying implies more than just random iteration, but is too complicated to be mathematical... And now it’s trying to mimic the appearance of something it’s been observing.  Out of all the different things it saw, it chose to imitate the living organism that’s been observing it... Yeah, it looks like it might be....” she stopped.  Her eyes widened a little... “A what?  Twilight, what the hell is this thing?”  Spike had moved back against the wall now, eyes not leaving the chamber. The entity jerked again, it was now looking at Twilight.  Another spasm, and its head was tilted to the side. “...I don’t think it’s a spell anymore... think we may have discovered a magic-based life form...” “Right.  Not some crazy alien spell, it’s a real life fucking alien.” Spike said, his wavering voice undermining the attempted snark. “Spike.  Language.” “Language?  Twilight, there’s a fucking ALIEN trying to TURN INTO YOU, and you’re worried about the words coming out of my mouth??  TWILIGHT, WE ARE IN A REAL-LIFE HORROR STORY!  You need to get your priorities straight!” The entity shuddered again.  It was looking at Spike, head slightly raised. “Spike!  We can’t panic here!  This is an amazing discovery, and we can’t jump to conclusions!”  She took a step towards him, wings flaring a little. “‘Jump to conclusions’!?  Twilight, it’s not from this world, it can self modify, it can absorb and create matter, and now you’re telling me it’s actually an alien consciousness.  Twilight, that is the very definition of dangerous!”  He narrowed his eyes at her, “Why aren’t you afraid?” “I am afraid!  I’m just accepting that sometimes discovery is scary!  This could be one of the most important moments in the history of pony-kind, and you won’t stop yelling about your emotional reactions!” she stomped over to him... “Because you’re not taking the situation seriously!  Twilight, you can’t just keep carrying on like this isn’t a threat!  It’s literally trying to become you!” he was almost shouting now, leaning in towards her, face inches from hers... Twilight’s nose pressed against her assistant’s, her own voice rising even higher, “Just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean we should be afraid!  It’s in a powerful containment, and so far it hasn’t even tried to brea-” THUNK. Twilight and Spike went dead silent.  They hadn’t been looking at the chamber.  That noise had come from the chamber.  Slowly, they turned their heads, looking over at it as if it could break out and attack them at any sudden movement... The creature’s head was pressed up against the side of the chamber.  There was a soft scraping noise as it slid the top of what passed for a snout against the crystalline material. “Twilight,” Spike whispered slowly, “Why is it doing that?” “I think it’s...” she swallowed, “I think it’s... testing the barrier.” Spike just stared at it, eyes wide. They both stared in silence for a moment. Finally, Spike opened his mouth to whisper again... “You’re sure it can’t get out...?” Twilight shook her head gently, not willing to look away from the chamber.  “Not in its current form... That chamber is rated to contain twenty thousand joules of force.  It would have to give itself a more solid form to actually break it.  Based on the current rate of development, I’d say we have.... at least forty-eight hours before it’s capable of escaping.” Spike just stared, slack jawed for a moment. ... Spike held the notepad and quill out in front of him, “Fuck it.  I’m out.”  He opened his hands and let them drop to the floor, then turned and started towards the stairs. “Spike!  Wait!” she started after him, holding out a pleading hoof, “I’ll put stronger wards around it!  It hasn’t even come close to getting out of this one!” “Twilight, I can’t take this anymore!  This is insane!  You can’t just keep this thing in here and watch it alone!  At what point are you going to realize that you’re putting your life in danger!” “My life?  Spike this science!  Science IS my life!” “No Twilight, you’re MY life!” Twilight stopped, blinking at him. Spike grabbed her, pulling her into a hug, “I don’t want to lose you... But you keep getting so close to this thing and it’s scaring the shit out of me... I keep thinking this is like some horror movie where it’s going to eat you or kill you or take over your mind, and I just... I can’t watch this anymore...” his eyes started to tear up, “Please... Please don’t make me watch this anymore...” Twilight stared off into space for a moment.  Slowly, she put her forelegs around him, hugging him back, “I... I’m sorry...” she whispered, “I didn’t think about how this felt for you... You don’t have to come down here if you don’t want to...” “Just... Just promise me one thing Twilight... Promise me you will never, EVER let that thing out...” he pointed a claw towards the center of the room. Twilight looked over at the entity, it was now pressed against the side of the chamber, mouth snapping open and shut as tendrils reached out to... it looked like it was “tasting” the barrier with a fan of tiny, wormlike tongues.  She shuddered at the abomination that had floated in from the abyss, that she had allowed safe haven to grow into...  This.  She held Spike tighter, “I promise... I won’t let that thing hurt anyone... I won’t let it out...” Spike sniffled, nuzzling at her neck, “T-thanks Twilight... I just don’t know what I’d do if we had to fight that thing without you...” Twilight nodded, giving a weak smile, “You won’t... I won’t put myself in danger...” They stayed like that a little longer, sighing deeply before letting go. Spike was the first to speak up, “I’m gonna go... tell the other Princesses what’s going on... I’ll be right upstairs if you need me...” Twilight nodded, “Right... I’ll go figure out exactly what changed...” Spike walked up the stairs, casting a worried glance behind him as he went.  Twilight glanced back at him, then looked at the chamber.  The creature had gone back to just standing there, staring with dead eyes.  She took a deep breath... and walked to the side of the chamber. The creature’s head followed her, turning fluidly on its stiff body. “Getting better hang of fine motor control I see...”  She glanced over it, horn lighting slightly as she enhanced her vision and looked it over.  “Looks like you’ve put some sort of lattice of solid magic around you... Actually... It looks like you’ve somehow transmuted it into actual matter, but it doesn’t look like it’s made of anything real... Are you trying to make some sort of skin for yourself?” The creature tilted its head, jerking again. “I can’t see your spellwork too well anymore... Looks a lot denser though... At this point your complexity is increasing logorithmically... I wonder how long you can keep that up...” The creature jerked its head to the other side. Twilight stopped, giving it a puzzled look, “...Are you... Trying to understand me?”  She leaned in a bit, staring into its eyes... They didn’t seem so dead now that she looked at them close, not two single lights, but a mass of tiny flickering lights which drew information back into the creature’s mind. It jerked into a straight position, leaning slightly into her, eyes boring back into hers with sheer force of will. Twilight backed away a few inches.  She could practically FEEL the will coming off of this thing... Spellforms did not have their own will.  Spellcasters put their will into spells.  This thing was definitely alive, and it was determined to do... something... with her... “Are you... Are you trying to communicate with me?” she asked tentatively. The creature stared. “Go ahead, say something.”  She opened her mouth and gestured with her hoof, “Speak!” The creature stared. “I.  Am.  Trying. To.  Communicate.  With.  you.”  She said, loudly and clearly, making solid, resolute gestures to try and communicate intention. The creature stared. “Come on!  Just open your mouth and show me you can communicate!  Go ‘ahhhh’...” she opened her mouth wide and just tried to get it to understand that simple concept of having sounds come out. The creature’s mouth was suddenly open, and for a moment, Twilight was left staring wide-eyed into the roiling mass within, instinctive terror freezing her in place.  With a loud screech, a shuddering, grainy wail began to emanate from its mouth, causing various objects in the room to vibrate. Twilight took a few steps back, eyes wide at the response. “Woah, woah!  What’s going on down here?!” Spike was running down the stairs, quill in hand. “...communication... I’m trying to get it to interact with me, but it doesn’t seem to understand enough of what’s going on for us to figure out a system yet...” “Aaand... You think that's a good idea?” “Well, Spike, if it is intelligent, the only way we'll know is if it tells us... In fact, at this point, that may be the only way to learn more about it...” Spike nodded slowly, and was interrupted by a sudden burn of magic in his chest, “Ah... getting a letter...” he opened his mouth and let the magic out as fire, a scroll materializing in the air.  He snatched it out of the air, checking the seal, “Looks like Celestia sent a message back.  Want me to read it out loud?” “Um...” Twilight looked at the ponnequin-like apparition in the chamber. It stared back at her with the eyes of a funeral mask, silent and rigid. She took the scroll in her magic and unfurled it, both of them reading it in silence... Dear Princess Twilight, As a fellow princess, I trust your judgement and will not presume to tell you how to proceed.  In my opinion, however, this entity you have found is definitely capable of threatening Equestria, and I highly recommend that you do NOT release it from containment. My sister, Princess Luna, has been reading your reports, as she is the leading expert on this form of magic, and has already planned to join you in two days.  Expect a letter from her tonight with her current thoughts, and expect a visit from her after sunrise in two days. In the meantime, please continue to monitor the spellform, send your observations, and maintain isolation procedures.  I implore you, however, not to open the container. Your Friend, Princess Celestia “Well...” Spike spoke slowly, “There you have it.” Twilight nodded, “Yep... That pretty much settles the matter, if it wasn’t already.” Spike nodded, “I’ll go tell her that...” he turned to leave again. Twilight turned back to the chamber, “Right... I’ll get to work on those wards...” Twilight wandered down the halls from the kitchen to the lab, the cold oats she’d eaten for breakfast sitting in her stomach like dirt... Spike had been too scared to spend the night in the castle, leaving her alone...  She glanced at a mirror she passed in the hall: she’d been spending most of her time trying to understand the creature in her lab, and hadn’t even been outside the castle in at least a day.  She'd barely slept the previous night, having spent hours looking over her time-lapse footage, reading over Luna's notes, cross-referencing her books, and working through the math of how fast this thing was changing... Maybe Spike was right, maybe she was letting this turn into an obsession. No...  She had to see this through...  For science. She made her way down the stairs to the lab, reaching out with her magic to flip on the switch for the electric lights as she walked towards the container... The sight stopped her dead in her tracks. There was no blob of spell matter in the container.  She was in the container. Twilight Sparkle.  A mirror image staring back at her. ...Though... Not quite.  What was in there looked like her: it was an Alicorn, the same size as her, with the same mane and tail cut, the same wing and hoof shape even... Like a perfect copy of her silhouette, but... the colors were all off... Instead of purple, its fur had taken on a shade of grey, its mane was jet black, and it had no Cutie Mark.  The only color it had was its eyes, which looked like painted glass orbs, their irises yellow as they stared at her dead, unmoving.  The doppelganger showed an emotion too... It had a look of worry on its face... It's entire body, actually, standing tense and straight, as if it wanted to bolt at any moment... Its mouth opened... A sound came out... ...it formed words... “Twilight... Sparkle.”