//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Remmus Nus Noitarbelec 
// Story: The Alchemist 
// by Valystine 
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The sun shone valiantly over the Crystal Empire. The sky was like a Sapphire twinkling in the morning sun and not a single cloud be seen. In the city below, ponies hustled about, buzzing excitedly with the chatter of the annual Summer Sun Celebration. A soft breeze fluttered through the crystalline streets, gently tossing about the manes of citizens and the decorations that were hung or pinned about the city.
The crystal ponies were particularly excited for this year's celebration, as it was being held in the Crystal Empire. Since being freed from the tyrannical clutches of Sombra, this was the Empire's first ever Summer Sun Celebration. Because of this, each citizen of the great crystal city took great pride in making this year's celebration one that nopony would forget. To ensure the celebration was a huge success, Princess Cadence invited Twilight Sparkle and her friends to come and help. Delightfully, Twilight had accepted her step-sister's invitation and- along with her friends- boarded the first train to the Crystal Empire. From the moment they had arrived, Twilight Sparkle and her friends did everything they could to aide the Crystal Empire.
The Princess of Friendship now stood a few feet from the Crystal Heart politely barking orders at crystal guards and citizens as they came and went. In her magical grasp, she held a long checklist that was only a couple tasks away from being completed. A very happy Pinkie Pie bounced up to Twilight with different colors of icing covering her mouth.
“All the yummy goodies you wanted made are all done and ready to be eaten!” Declared Pinkie Pie as she happily licked the icing from her face.
“Great. Thanks, Pinkie,” Said Twilight as she checked off another task on her list “all we need now is Rarity to finish with dresses and decorations she's making, then we'll be ready for the Princesses to arrive.”
“Speaking of Rarity, darling, I've finished with my assignment,” Said Rarity with a proud grin as she trotted over to Twilight and Pinkie.
Twilight ticked off the final box on her list and rolled it up happily. Everything was now completed with a half an hour to spare.
“We've got some free time until Celestia and Luna get here,” Twilight said with a smile “how about we go find the others and play some trivia in the castle?”
"Sounds like a fabulous idea, darling," Rarity said with a flip of her mane.
Twilight rolled up the scroll and tucked it away safely inside of the saddlebag strapped around her waist. The soft breeze blowing gently tossed her mane as she and her friends began to trot away. Before they could go very far, somepony called out to them. Twilight turned to see two crystal guards quickly approaching.
“Princess Twilight! Princess Twilight!” Called out a Crystal Guard as he approached the trio.
“You need to come with us immediately, Princess!” Called out the other.
“What? Why? What’s going on?” Twilight questioned, worry and panic beginning to fill her voice.
“We don’t know. There’s some kind of-of purple smoke covering the celebration stage,” The first guard answered.
“These strange voices are coming from it too,” The second guard said, “they’re reciting some sort of poem.”
“We’ll head to the stage, you two find Fluttershy, Applejack, Starlight Glimmer and Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said sternly.
“Yes, ma’am!” Both guards exclaimed in sync before galloping away.
As they galloped off to find the rest of her friends, Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie took off towards the stage Princess Celestia was to stand on as she raised the sun that night. They politely pushed past the sea of ponies currently crowding around the celebration platform until they reached the front. As the guards had said, a lavender colored, mist-like smoke shrouded the stage. Three distinct voices came from the smoke and took turns speaking. Two of the voices were female while the other was male. One of the female speakers had a higher pitched, raspy voice while the other spoke in a lower, maturer and smoother voice. The male’s voice was deep and gruff.
“‘The world outside is dangerous,’ the strings warned the little puppet,” Spoke the raspy female.
“‘You are frail and made of glass. If you leave, you’ll surely shatter,’ the puppeteer apprised,” Spoke the mature female.
“‘And without us, you’ll go nowhere,’ They chirped in unison,” Spoke the gruff male voice.
“‘Useless, worthless, weak and frail. If you leave, you’ll burn in hell,’ They chanted over and over again,” The voices spoke in unison.
“Useless, worthless, weak and frail. If you leave you’ll burn in hell,” The voices chanted together.
The voices repeated the phrase once, twice, thrice times before erupting into a fit of wild laughter.
“Show yourselves and tell us who you are and what you want this instance!” Demanded Twilight as she stepped closer to the stage.
The voices begun to laugh louder, seemingly at Twilight now.
“I am Princess Twilight Sparkle and you will answer me!” Twilight barked.
“Cool your jets, princess,” Sneered the mature female voice “is nopony allowed to have fun in your kingdom?”
“Who are you? What do you want?” Twilight questioned sternly.
“Who am I? Who am I?” The voice countered.
As the voice begun to laugh loudly, the smoke shrouding the stage quickly dissipated towards the edges to reveal two mares and a stallion standing. Big smirks spread from ear to ear on all three of their faces. The mare who stood in the front appeared to be the leader. Her coat was a shade of dirty lavender and her eyes were two different colors. Atop of hazy yellow eye whites stared magenta and green eyes. Her mane was styled into a mohawk in the back that morphed into pointed waves in the front. The mohawk section of her mane was dark purple with two broad stripes of medium lime green in the middle and at the bottom. The other portion of her mane was white with three wavy strips of lime green. Her tail matched the mohawk part of her mane color wise and was short and spiky.
Standing behind her to the right was the other mare. Her mane and tail were brown in color and styled into similar to the other mare’s, only it was a bit wavier. Her coat was a soft shade of yellow and was accented by dark blue swirling, curving lines all around her legs, stopping at the tops of them. Similar markings sprouted from a heart-shaped marking of a similar color in the middle of her chest, going all over neck but never once going onto her to face or back.
Standing next to her on the other side of the first mare was the stallion. If not for the lack of markings and a slightly different styling of the mane and tail, he would have been identical to the second mare. Their very physical characteristics told Twilight they- in some way- were related.
“Well, I don’t really expect me to know you who I am,” Said the first mare “not yet at least.”
“To answer your question, Princess Egghead, it’s not what we want, but rather what our master wants,” Said the second mare.
“And that would be for you all to know that our master has your precious, pathetic pony princesses,” Said the stallion “ha! Try saying that five times fast.”
“Precious-pathetic-pony-princesses, precious-pathetic-pony-princesses, precious-pathetic-pony-princesses, precious-pathetic-pony-princesses, precious-pathetic-pony-princesses!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed with a giggle-snort.
“Pinkie Pie!” Twilight scolded.
“Sorry,” Pinkie Pie half-laughed with an apologetic smile.
“Tell us immediately what you have done with our Princesses!” Rarity demanded.
“And ruin the fun of the game? Psh- no way!” The first mare laughed.
“Who ARE you?!” Twilight demanded, her eyes scowling in anger “I’m only going to ask you one more time.”
“The name’s Nunya. Nunya Business,” The first mare snickered “coincidentally, that’s my pals’ names too!”
“I don’t want to, but if you keep this up, I’ll have no choice but to make you regret your actions,” Twilight said sternly, her horn lighting up with magic.
“Ooo~ I’d love to see you try, Princess Egghead,” The first mare sneered “in fact, I want you to. Do it. Make me ‘regret’ my actions. I’d love to see you make a fool of yourself.”
“My name is NOT Princess Egghead!” Twilight growled, “I’ll give you one more chance to tell me your names and your intentions!”
“We've already told you our intentions; to tell you we’ve got your princesses,” The first mare says coolly “Sunbutt, Moonbutt and Heartbutt. You'd better tread carefully, Egghead. You're next.”
“Wha-? How dare you!” Twilight snapped “nopony talks about the Princesses like that! To Tartarus with you!”
Ponies looked on with bated breaths as a beam of magic shot forth from Twilight's horn. The magic enveloped the mare and begun to glow brightly. In the blink of an eye, the magic dissipated. Onlookers gasped in surprise and started to whisper in worry. There, on the stage, the mare stood firmly in place- a huge, wicked grin spread ear to ear- as she stared at Twilight.
“What?! How can this be?!” Twilight exclaimed, “you should be in Tartarus right now!”
“Yeah, see, here's the deal, Egghead,” The mare snickered “I’m impervious to magic. Them too. Magic does not- and will never- affect us.”
“See, we're not flesh, bone, and blood like you,” The second mare piped apprised “not in the same way, at least.”
“We weren't conceived from the womb of a mare,” The stallion said “no, on the contrary. We were birthed from a cauldron.”
Twilight looked at them in horror, as did everypony else. These three ponies were not true ponies. As they had said, they were not birthed by a loving mother, but rather from a mixture of ingredients a few incantations. Twilight had a hard time understanding how this could be possible.
“Aw, don't look at us like that,” The first mare chuckled “our… condition… isn't impossible. As our master likes to say, 'The improbable is not impossible’.”
Twilight found herself at a loss for words. As did Rarity and Pinkie Pie.
“Oh, one more thing before we go,” The first mare smirked, “it's going to be hard to save the day when you've got a little less than half your friends, isn't it?”
“What?” Twilight questioned.
It suddenly dawned on her that Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Starlight hadn't shown up to help yet.
“You- ah! Give us back our friends!” Twilight growled.
“So you can ruin the fun just like that? No way!” The first mare snapped “have you not caught on to our game yet? Telling you our names and our master’s name would be practically spoon feeding you clues and giving you back your friends and princesses would make things way to easy.”
“We know good and well the good guy will always win in the end,” The second mare said, “but that doesn't mean we can't make it hell for him until then.”
“In other words, you'll probably end up winning this battle in the long run,” The stallion said “but until then, we're going to have fun making it hard for you. We're going to carry out our master's every order to a tee.”
“With that, we'll take our leave,” The first mare said with a wave of her hoof as she bowed.
“It would be rude to show up to a party without at least bringing some presents, no?” The second mare asked her cohorts.
“You're right,” The first mare agreed “that would be very rude of us. How about we give them our presents? Look at them just prancing with anticipation at the thought of our wonderful gifts.”
“We hope you like them,” The stallion snickered “we give them with sincere love from the bottom of our non-existent hearts!”
With a wild cackle, magic enveloped their horns and shot out into the crowd of ponies. Several onlookers cried out in either pain or shock- or a mixture of both. Twilight turned to see several crystal ponies with their faces upside down. A few were missing their faces entirely while others lamented discoloration or inverted coloring. Twilight overheard a few crying out their bodies had been switched while others showed symptoms of a prank gone wrong- almost as if they had just pranced through a field Poison Joke.
Twilight turned to confront the troublemakers, only to find an empty stage. Defeatedly, she sighed and angrily stomped the ground with a hoof. They had gotten away, had most of her friends and the Princesses. Twilight knew next to nothing about them and stopping them from completing their plans- whatever they were- nearly seemed impossible.
"Twilight, whatever are we to do now, darling?" Rarity questioned worriedly. 
"What every great problem solver does," Twilight answered "we research until we can find some sort of lead. Luckily, the Crystal Empire has a pretty decent library."