When Spike awoke in the morning, his usual routine would be to check on the library, get some breakfast, make Twilight some breakfast, and then fall asleep again. Sometimes it was interrupted by a letter from the Princess, but what could he do about that? The fact that his fire-breath was magical and transported most things burned by it to Princess Celestia was - or so he had been told - the fault of his hatchling self who’d eaten something he wasn’t supposed to. Clearly the castle staff had never known any dragons before because they should really have known to keep an eye on a baby dragon who was teething.
He’d curled up in his bed in the library after the return trip from Canterlot without Twilight, who according to Joe, had stolen one of his tables. Princess Celestia had taken him to the scene of the disappearance when he woke up, and though no words were exchanged, both of them at least understood that something magical had happened. Magic like that in the air left a sort of tangy taste on his tongue. Neither of them knew exactly what, but the Princess had faith that her student would return, and Spike knew deep down that Twilight would never willingly abandon him. His friend would come back.
All of this considered, waking up to find Twilight sitting pensively in the middle of the library floor had first been surprising before he’d launched into a joyful hug. After a moment, Twilight returned it, before returning to what Spike recognized as the ‘thought-journal zombie stupor’. Most of the time, while she was doing this thing that she did, she was completely unresponsive to a lot of things happening around her. So Spike did what he always did: made breakfast then went back to bed again.
I’ve sent requests for each of my friends to meet me here this morning. I’ve got a bad feeling that whatever it is that Trixie’s going to find in that vault, wherever it is, is going to need the six of us. We’ll bring Spike, so after that, if we need the Elements of Harmony, he can send a letter to Princess Celestia and request them.
While I’m thinking about it, I should probably note down the current condition of those pages I had in my bag. It suddenly occurred to me after pulling myself from the lake last night that they wouldn’t survive a dunking, but to my surprise this morning I found that they were all intact save for the slight charring some of them received in the fire. I had a quick flick through them. Hooves are crossed but it didn’t look like there was anything on par with Prophetia in them. Mostly they were sketches of paintings I’ve already seen, and some notes on more artefacts, some of which I knew about - Flash Magnus’ shield, for example - and some, like the Firespeaker’s Staff in the book itself, which are completely new to me.
…
I’m having a hard time believing that the Princess doesn’t know anything about any of this. In 611, she sensed the presence of her sister only to find nothing. In 656, I saw her take the rainboom painting with the workbook in the back. It can only have been her who hid the book in the library and sent the painting to Rainbow Dash, but why? Why didn’t she tell me anything about this? It would have helped!
I keep telling myself that, but, actually, I’m not sure I really believe it. I only got here because of my drive to answer the questions myself, and if Princess Celestia flat out told me that I was going to be traveling to the past… well, I wouldn’t believe her, actually. Just as I didn’t believe that the future of Equestria depended on me making friends.
So I’ve called a summit, a round table if you will. We are going to sit around this table and brainstorm. Where is the vault, what is Trixie looking for in it. She already has the means to opening it, and if Stalleonardo was right when he said I prophesized it, I think he meant the prophecy I made when I left 611 but I don’t remember. At all. He would have written it down, though, in the workbook which Trixie has. It’s probably another silly riddle, as all of my prophecies have been, but she’ll figure it out.
Augh, if only I’d looked through the book more closely!
“We can prob’ly rule out Ponyville,” Applejack said. “Th’ whole town knows Trixie, and she’d stick out like a sore hoof.”
Twilight nodded, and sipped her tea. Of course, there were such things as disguise charms, handy in a pinch if you didn’t want anypony to recognize you, but this was Trixie they were talking about. Never in a thousand years would she willingly do that by herself. “True. And if it was in Canterlot, the Princess would probably know about it and have it guarded.”
“What if it’s out in the middle of nowhere, though?” Rainbow Dash was so far unamused by the morning’s proceedings. Apparently there had been some more arguing amongst the weather patrol yesterday. “How’re we supposed to find it then? It’s a vault, so it’s gotta be secret, right?”
Rarity, who had been occupied with a dress design for the few minutes they’d been going, looked up. “What if it doesn’t mean that kind of vault?” she put in. “I quite like the effect given by vaulted ceilings, for instance.”
“Or it could mean jumping over things!” Pinkie Pie added, having foregone the offered tea for a carton of Phruit Phizz, which to Twilight’s disappointment hadn’t stopped being a thing yet. “Speaking of which, I’ve got loads of things for jumping over at this evening’s Equus Day party! It’s gonna be amazing!”
“But those kind of vaults can’t really open, can they?” Fluttershy murmured, looking between each of the others. “If it can be unlocked…”
Everypony nodded in agreement. While arguably word-based prophecies should be open to creative interpretation, given all the clues Twilight had gotten about it there seemed to be no other possibility other than it being a literal vault to store things in. On the table sat a few pieces of paper, upon one of which was written Twilight’s first prophecy. Another was the transcription Spike had taken of the sandstone slab in the Meditation Chamber. The third was the envelope which Dinky had drawn the Iris on. They were the clues. They weren’t really enough. They needed the prophecy Twilight had made in 611, but… neither Twilight nor Spike could remember it, Reeds had still been half asleep, Princess Luna was likely asleep herself now, and da Colton’s workbook was with Trixie.
“If I wanted to keep something secret,” mused Rarity, sitting back, “I would hide it somewhere private, a place only I knew about.”
“Ooh! Like your diary that you keep in th-mmmph!” Rainbow had shoved a hoof into Pinkie’s mouth, but it was too late, and the white unicorn was glowering at the pair of them.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing!” Rainbow said, far too quickly, and she laughed nervously. “Just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie! Personally,” she continued, in a desperate attempt to change the subject, somewhat derailed by her attempt to act super-nonchalant about what Pinkie had been about to blurt out, “I’d hide it right under everypony’s noses, just right out there where they can all see it but they don’t know it’s there.”
“Well, Ah agree with Rarity.” Applejack glanced at her, then at the nervously giggling earth pony and pegasus, before reaching across the table and sliding over the paper about the sandstone prophecy. “Do we know anythin’ about this ‘Life-bearer’?”
Only that she’s a tall unicorn mare who uses four swords, Twilight said to herself. That was, of course, assuming that the Iris had been previously owned by said life-bearer, and that the dream manifestation had been a direct copy of its master’s image, so she didn’t say it out loud. None of that really helped, anyway. History was full of swordsponies.
“Not really anything,” she admitted out loud. “I’ve never come across anypony in my studies who was titled ‘Life-bearer’, in which case it’s likely she - and therefore the vault - pre-date the banishment of Nightmare Moon.” The legend of Mistmane came close, but all the stories there were bearing her name were fairly consistent in her appearance and behavior, neither of which the construct had exhibited. If anything Mistmane was a paragon of common sense as opposed to the apparent stupidity that Princess Luna seemed to think the Life-bearer was fond of.
“So this vault may not even still exist.” Rarity did raise a good point there, actually. If the vault was over a thousand years old, what guarantee was there that anything beyond the door was still there? Well…
Twilight tapped the table, and lifted out the Iris, which, rather suspiciously, was at about the same power level as it had been when she’d plucked it out of the Meditation Chamber in the first place. “Considering that the Life-bearer probably once owned the Iris, which I’d say has, or should say had, a magical potential level on par with the princesses, with that amount of power it would have been trivial to cast a spell to sustain anything for a thousand years.”
“Are we sure it isn’t one of the Princesses?” Surprisingly, and everypony turned to look at her in disbelief, that suggestion had come from Fluttershy, who looked up from her tea, noticed that everypony was staring at her, and blushed intensely. “Oh! Um, I mean…” In a fluster, she tried to stammer out a justification. “…if it was b-before Nightmare Moon, then maybe… it was one of the Princesses back then…?”
All eyes now turned to Twilight, and the unicorn was forced to rack her brain. Could it have been Princess Celestia or Princess Luna who set all of this up? Was this… she examined the Iris more closely. True to the manifestation’s word, she’d been unable to call up the interface at all after they’d pulled themselves from Ponyville lake, and that was a shame, since she really could have used the answers right about now. Well, the Iris had been a part of Princess Luna’s telescope…
No. She rejected that idea almost as soon as she had it. Considering what she’d seen in the workshop, it was likely that the Iris’ inclusion to its design was part of Stalleonardo’s refurbishment. Besides Princess Luna actually knowing what the charm was called, and her familiarity with its construct, her connection to it was tenuous at best.
As for Princess Celestia…
She shook her head. “No. It wasn’t either of them.” It wasn’t just her knowledge of Princess Celestia that led her to that conclusion. While it was only a memory of a half-forgotten dream, Twilight could still remember the look on Princess Luna’s face when she’d been talking to the tall mare. That kind of sadness… nopony could fake that. “It’s talking about a completely different pony.” Had there been more ponies with that level of magical ability once? Star Swirl the Bearded, sure, but all of his works that Twilight had come across were… mechanical, for want of a better word. They did what they were supposed to and nothing more, whereas the Iris evoked feelings, you could talk to it and it would give its own opinions. Not his style of work.
…Which meant they were back to square one. She thumped her head face down onto the table and groaned. She didn’t even have the enthusiasm to push away the carton of Phruit Phizz that was slyly pushed her way. This was hopeless.
“Twilight~?”
“Pinkie Pie if you say the word ‘glums’ one more time, I swear to Celestia…”
“I wasn’t gonna say that. Why would I say something like that?” Twilight lifted her head and sent a sort of withered look in Pinkie’s direction. “I was gonna say, you still know that spell, right? Just prophesesize us finding it! Prophesize. Prophesesize. That’s a hard word.”
“I hardly think it’s that simple, Pinkie Pie,” said Rarity. “If it were, I’m sure Twilight would have cast it already.”
“Yeah,” snarked Rainbow, leaning back. “She’s already gonna have enough to write her own book of dumb riddles.”
“Excuse me, there are over a hundred entries in Predictions and Prophecies! Stalleonardo da Colton had 45 years to fill just one book, and—” she stopped, her irises shrinking, finally realizing something that her brain had been screaming at her. Of course! Why didn’t she think of that before?! “Rainbow Dash, you’re a genius!”
“Wait, I am?”
In the blink of an eye, Twilight had shot up and over to the mythology shelf. “Stalleonardo da Colton wrote Predictions and Prophecies! It was his last work! It’s been right next to us the whole time! My first prophecy even said it, remember?!” She didn’t know whose note it was at the time, but… Out came the blue book. “Importance lies in his last note!”
There was no time to even pause as her friends gasped, perhaps a little too dramatically in Pinkie’s case. Twilight set the book down on the table, and started flicking through it, carefully setting aside the rest of Dinky’s envelopes. V, V, V… “Vault of the Lifebearer!” She must have passed over this page, read it, several dozen times! How could she not have seen it sooner?!
Written upon the page were four lines, and the instant that Twilight read them, they fell neatly into place within the gaps in her memory.
“The Lords and the Ladies came out to play
To celebrate their lifebearer’s birth
But one lone Royal was absent that day
Still she guarded her vault in the earth.”
Stalleonardo da Colton, thank you very much.
“Like I said,” Rainbow Dash commented, once the dramatic silence had ended. “More dumb riddles.”
But it wasn’t dumb, and Twilight pointed each thing out. It gave them a time, it gave them a place. To celebrate their lifebearer’s birth. In her own thought-journal after Hoofington with Trixie she’d suggested that an alternate meaning for ‘lifebearer’ was ‘the planet’. Equus. Pinkie had said it herself, it was Equus Day. The vault was opening today. Vault in the earth. The vault, or at least the majority of it, was underground.
“Where underground?” Applejack cut straight to the chase as always. “This don’t really help much in terms of where.”
Well, if Trixie was going to figure it out from the version in the workbook, then they had to be able to work it out for themselves now. Time to break it down! Twilight left the others to speculate while she dived into one of the hastiest thought-journal entries she’d ever made.
[Lords and the Ladies] Term used to refer to nobility, ponies with official titles.
[came out to play] Not typically something nobles are seen doing. Titles, then.
[To celebrate their lifebearer’s birth] Equus Day.
[one lone Royal] Royalty? One of the Princesses or the higher level duchy?
[was absent that day] A royal who wasn’t there?
[Still she guarded] Female royal, or the image of such?
[vault in the earth] Underground.
A member of the royalty guarding something… sounded an awful lot like some places where statues of Princess Celestia were used to ward off would-be thieves. That was frighteningly nonspecific, though. It would take weeks to search all the places like that—
“Why is ‘Royal’ capitalized?”
Hmm. Again, Fluttershy raised a valid question. Was it just a mistake? No. In Twilight’s mind, the word was distinctly capitalized, like a name.
Exactly like a name, in fact.
A Royal who wasn’t there…
Her jaw dropped. No way. No way in Tartarus. There?! But that had been an accident! But… Trixie had been the only other pony there…
Something waved in front of her face. “Um, hello,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering a few inches in front of her. “Equus to Twilight Sparkle, come in Twilight Sparkle! Did’ja work something out?”
For a few seconds, she couldn’t articulate the word. It was so unbelievable, and yet… that had to be it!
“Hoofington,” she breathed. When the others just stared at her, she continued. “In the courtyard in front of the museum! Remember all those statues?!” Already she was grabbing a saddlebag to put the Iris in. Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Spike all nodded. “Most of them were statues of the nobility! But, remember? Only Sweet Royal was missing! The Ursa destroyed it when Trixie and I were in the town in the past!”
“Whoa.” Pinkie Pie suddenly disappeared from view, and leaning around the table, Twilight could see that she was flat on the floor, dumbstruck. “That. Is. Coool.”
“Come on!” Now everypony was moving. “Get what you need to, and meet me at the train station! Spike, send a letter to Princess Celestia! We need to get to the vault before Trixie does!”
For the whole duration of the train journey, Twilight was giddy both with anticipation and nerves. She still didn’t know what was inside the vault that was so bad, but the hints were certainly making it seem that way. A secret unleashed. Power within. The last thing Equestria needed was some more thousand-year-old magic on the loose. It’d had enough of that with Nightmare Moon and Discord. Imagine if he was what was inside there. Fortunately, the actual chance of that happening was zero, as Twilight had seen where Princess Celestia had been keeping his statue after his escape in November, in the bowels of Canterlot castle.
Her concern wasn’t shared by her friends. Pinkie Pie, as usual, was exuberantly enthusiastic; Rainbow Dash was convinced that nothing was going to happen; Fluttershy was performing the same action from the last trip of staring out of the window quietly, and Rarity again had her crossword; Applejack had pulled down her hat and was catching some more sleep; Spike had won his argument about the baby seat but too had fallen asleep. Train journeys just did that to ponies, apparently.
Honestly, Twilight really wished she’d brought a book with her. But even then she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on it. She had the awful feeling that a lot was at stake, and Equestria’s future - maybe even the bad future that Stalleonardo had predicted - hung in the balance.
Initially, she had hoped that Princess Celestia would meet them there, but an immediate form letter response via Spike had downed that. She should have expected as much. Princess Celestia always, without exception, presided over Canterlot’s Equus Day celebrations, and this time she would have to introduce her sister to the proceedings too. No doubt Princess Cadance would be struggling to explain the concept to her own subjects as well. Equus Day had only really started being a holiday in around the 800s or so.
They would have to go it alone. At least, until the speeches in Canterlot were finished.
In her head, she ran through the parts of the prophecies that hadn’t yet happened. Maybe she could… ahem, predict how things were going to go down.
Where her own prophecy was concerned, only a few lines of it remained unsaid. Rainbow band, done. Final pillar, done. Shock, done. Deep, done. Shatter, done. Power… eh, kinda done. That line hadn’t forced itself out of her mouth yet but now it was fairly obvious what it referred to. Last signs float, done. Last note, done. Seventh hourglass, done.
That left Rainbow Dash helping whoever ‘flee their fate’, the Iris opening up the gate which was coming up soon, Princess Celestia seeing some kind of truth? Maybe she’d reach the vault and confront something. Applejack and Pinkie Pie in the balloon. As far as she was aware, both balloons were still being fixed… but with the introduction of time travel, that could be done before they’d even been damaged. Hurricane’s call…
Okay. Turn back to answer Hurricane’s call was the odd one out. It was the only line of the prophecy for which the image had been entirely ambiguous, and still had two options. One, it was a seismometer, and there was going to be an earthquake at some point. Two, it was a thaumometer, and again it referred to the moment of Twilight’s magical explosion. That was the thing, though; Hurricane had only completed construction in CE 996. In that case it would have to refer to something, or somepony else. Who? Who would the prophecy describe as a ‘Hurricane’?
Her first prophecy had been very disjointed, pinging around the future and the past. But looking back at it, a few of the lines had actually clustered together, and in chronological order, to boot. Did that mean the rest would work the same way?
Time for Trixie’s prophecy. Fluttershy+hat, done. Iris from mailbag, done. Both caped ponies, both her, both done. Crusaders, done. Lightning, done. Trixie looking smug, done. Nearly done there, Twilight just needed to lock a door and drop a book. Comparatively easy.
Number three, the prophecy from the sandstone slab. This one was a little more vague in places, and unlike the others, less than half of it had come to pass; only the bell and the past rising. She still had to doubt trusting the revealing light of a star, Trixie hadn’t - or at least, Twilight hoped she hadn’t - opened the vault yet, and its contents remained sealed, no magic circle, no time travel for the bearers of Harmony to 990 again.
Yet.
At the very least, the loops regarding the workbook and the painting had more or less closed, she didn’t have to fret about how they’d gotten where they had and from where. The instance of the Iris she held, taking everything else into consideration, had to go back in time with them and take its place in the Meditation Chamber for her past-future self to find. One by one, the loose ends were being tied together, and the circles were unraveling into straight lines.
But… if that straight line led to that wasteland da Colton had painted…
No. That was what they were trying to prevent. And if they didn’t know what was in the vault, chances were Trixie didn’t know either, and was just trying to find something with which to one-up Twilight again. When they’d been in Hoofington - the first time, in the present, before this had all gotten horribly complicated - she had been going on about proving who was the better magician once and for all. She still didn’t get that Twilight’s intentions weren’t the same as her own.
Best case scenario, they’d get there first. If Trixie beat them to it, that was okay as long as she hadn’t touched anything. After that they really had to worry. Twilight didn’t fancy dealing with more old world magic. Prophetia was quite enough, thank you very much.
As would be the case in most settled places in Equestria, Hoofington’s Equus Day celebrations were in full swing by the time the train slowly crawled into the railway station, and even if they wanted to they couldn’t run through the throngs. Ponies from some of the smaller surrounding villages had packed into the town to join in the festivities. Whatever Trixie was planning, she certainly had an audience for it, probably her reason for doing it today.
The Great and Powerful Trixie presents magic the likes of which has never been before seen! Behold, the most powerful unicorn in Equestria! And ponies would stop and listen, because they were all inquisitive by nature, and whatever happened next… well, that would be up to whatever magic Trixie thought she was casting.
It took what felt like an age to reach the museum plaza, though in reality it was probably only about ten minutes. Everywhere you looked, there were ponies chatting, participating in games… Rarity had to keep a tight grip on Pinkie’s mane to stop her from bouncing away and joining in. Together, the seven of them cut an arrow directly to the empty base where Sweet Royal’s statue had been demolished eleven years ago. Here, right here, had to be the entrance to the vault.
“Alright, we’re here,” announced Applejack, quite happy to state the obvious where she felt it was necessary. “Now how is this gonna work?”
The base for Sweet Royal’s statue was identical to all of the other bases in the courtyard, which formed an arc, its centre at the museum. Clearly the museum wasn’t over a thousand years old, but for this one out of many to hide such a secret, did the statues’ bases outdate the main building? There was no sign of any indentation which the Iris might slot into, and the charm itself felt no different than it had five minutes ago. Was this really the entrance to—
“Oh, Pinkie Pie and her friends!” Hey, wait a minute…! “Didn’t expect to be seeing you here!”
A grin spread across Pinkie’s face even before she turned. “Hoofington Mrs. Cake!”
Really, Twilight should have expected to see Fairy Cake somewhere amongst the crowd, but for her to be selling confections from a stall near to Sweet Royal’s statue base wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind. Naturally, this meant the proceedings were delayed for a couple of minutes as Pinkie insisted on introducing the baker to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and for the whole group to acquaint themselves with Eccles Cake, who looked bored out of his mind.
When she finally managed to get a word in edgeways, Twilight took the opportunity. “Sorry if this seems a little out of the blue,” she started, “but have you seen Trixie anywhere today? We’re - ah - looking for her.”
Fairy Cake hummed. “It’s funny you should ask that, you know,” she said after a moment’s consideration, batting away a pink hoof that was sneaking its way towards the merchandise. “I thought I saw her a while ago, poking around that base there, but she must have left.”
“No, uh, grinding noises?” If Fairy Cake hadn’t heard anything opening, then maybe Trixie hadn’t been able to figure out how to get inside either. “Or any weird noises, at all?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Looks like we’ve got nothing to worry about, like I said,” Rainbow Dash repeated, flopping backwards onto the platform. “We’ve come all of the way out here just t-whoa!” Suddenly, the pegasus’s eyes went wide, and she… disappeared from view, downwards into the stone.
“Rainbow Dash!” Everypony else clustered around the stone disc, all chattering at once. What? How?! Where had she gone?! There hadn’t been any teleports, or… or…
A chill ran up Twilight’s spine as she felt something grip around her foreleg, and pull—
Straight down through the base and into a small cylindrical room below, a few heads taller than Twilight was, in which the cyan pegasus was doing her best not to laugh at the expression on the unicorn’s face. “Gotcha!”
Without getting up, Twilight stared at her. “How did— what— you—”
“Relax, Twi. It’s not solid from this side!” To demonstrate her point, Rainbow reached up through the stone again, felt around, and grabbed something else, now pulling a petrified Fluttershy down. “Oops, sorry Fluttershy. Meant to grab Rarity.”
Twilight shook her head. “We don’t have time for this. Give me a leg up, would you?” The pegasus’s reluctance was obvious, but after a few seconds she relented and allowed Twilight to climb up on her back. Raising her head through the stone felt kind of like swimming up through a layer of water, and she didn’t want to risk exhaling and trying to breathe in. Whatever spell was holding this together, she wasn’t quite willing to blindly trust it like she had certain other spells recently.
The ponies remaining on the surface gasped when they saw her head emerge. Fortunately, it seemed that nopony else was paying attention to what the group were doing, caught up in the town’s own events, for if somepony else had seen a unicorn head rising out of the floor like a ghost there would certainly have been a panic.
“Guys,” she said, in a voice low enough to be heard by them, but not calling too much attention to herself, “the stone isn’t corporeal. It’s safe to step into it, but watch out for the drop.” Automatically, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Spike stepped towards the stone. “Not you, Spike,” she added. “I want you to stay with Fairy Cake. If Princess Celestia comes, you need to tell her where we’ve gone.”
“(Twilight!)” she heard Rainbow Dash’s voice, muffled by the stone, below her, as Spike fought off the disappointment and saluted. “(You’re heavy! I’m gonna— whoa!)” Abruptly, the support beneath her hooves faltered, and Twilight found herself falling into a pony pile. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Pinkie didn’t dive in and land on top of them.
Now that she had a chance to examine it properly, Twilight found the cylindrical chamber beneath the statue base to be dimly lit, with bare walls and a ramp leading somewhat steeply away downwards in the direction of the museum. This was strictly utilitarian, the design of a place only ever meant to be used as a means of ingress. Nopony who found themselves here would be here for very long.
The ramp was narrow; maybe it would fit one of the Princesses, but certainly nopony walking alongside them. The group of six were still forced to walk in single file, with Twilight leading the way, lighting the darkness ahead with an illumination spell. Behind her, she could sense both pegasi getting antsy. But at least this wasn’t as deep as the marble mine. All they had to do was say, and they could be outside again whenever they wanted. Not her, though. She needed to see this through.
Eventually, though it couldn’t have been too far, the passage dead-ended in a large, empty chamber, dominated by a metal door of monumental proportions. It had to be at least four times their height! Yeah, if Twilight had harbored any minor suspicions that it still could have been Mistmane, this put a rest to them. Nothing about her said that she was this… dramatic.
“I’d say that qualifies as a vault door,” Rarity murmured, as the group filed into the room. “Imagine the secrets you could hide behind it!”
“I’d rather not know, if it’s all the same to you…” was Fluttershy’s comment. “What if something really bad was locked up, and we’re about to set it loose?”
Twilight shook her head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. Look.” She pointed at the floor, where their hooves were making tracks in the dust. None of them had yet gone anywhere near the door, yet there was a set of hoofprints that disappeared over the threshold. Somepony had been here recently, probably Trixie. “If there was something like that in there, it’s already out.”
Perhaps that wasn’t the best way to put it, Twilight mused, as Fluttershy whimpered and tried to hide behind Pinkie’s tail. If something alive had been in there and left they’d see its footprints, or there’d be a magic trail, or something. But it was the truth, no matter which way they looked at it; the vault had already been opened once recently. They could do nothing but follow.
“So if Trixie’s already in there, and she’s got the key—” Applejack began, but Twilight shushed her, pulling out their instance of the Iris.
“We’ve got our own.” The unicorn turned to the door, and to the very prominent octagonal impression in its centre. Was there some special way to put it in, or did it just go in at any angle? “The Iris opens up the gate.”
Technically, if this instance was going to go back in time and eventually become the one that Trixie had, this was the first time it was being used to open the vault in over a thousand years. That was a little daunting.
It was also not working.
Confused, Twilight pulled the Iris out and put it back in a few times, spinning it to different angles for good measure. Nothing appeared to be happening. “Huh… I don’t…”
“Give it here!” shouted Rainbow Dash, growing impatient. “You’re not doing it right! You’ve just got to give it a good old—” she snatched the Iris out of Twilight’s grip and rammed it home into the slot “—whack!”
“Be gentle with it, Rainbow Dash, it’s…” Twilight trailed off.
The Iris’s familiar glow had returned, and now trails of light were snaking out from it, radiating towards the edges of the door, filling the room with a blue-green aura. As one, the ponies stepped back. This was it! What was behind the door? With a familiar whine of abused magic, the huge portal groaned open…
Revealing a smaller, pony-sized door behind it.
Again, unanimously, all six ponies slowly facehoofed.
“Well then…” Twilight stepped towards the small door. “This is it, girls. Be ready for anything.” Compared to the huge door, this was pretty anticlimactic. Oop, can’t forget the Iris… she plucked it back out from the keyhole and stored it back in the saddlebag. Couldn’t lose it now. Cautiously, she reached a hoof out to the door, and pushed it open.
As they stepped across the threshold into the vast open space beyond, magic began flowing around the room, lights flickering on, more of the same blue-green that the Iris had produced. The vault was huge! It had to extend under the whole plaza, maybe even under the museum, too! How had nopony ever discovered this before?
She completed a quick sweep of the area with her magic, and as she’d predicted, there was a Protection spell - though not one she’d ever come across before - preventing the room from deteriorating. Everything in the vault was exactly as it had been when the last pony had left over a thousand years ago. Honestly? She didn’t know what she was expecting. Some kind of library, maybe, or piles of treasure.
What she hadn’t expected was… nothing.
Trixie was nowhere to be seen, there were a few antechambers she could be hiding in, but besides them, and the lights, and a few indentations where things clearly had been once, the vault was completely empty. Twilight had to cast an analysis spell to be sure, but the place was so big she wouldn’t get the results back for a while.
“Oh, come on!” Rainbow Dash protested, before any of the others could quieten her. “All that fanfare for nothing?!”
Nothing… nothing… nothing… nothing… her cry echoed around the cavernous space.
Then, in one of the antechambers, there was the sound of something shattering on the floor.
There! Twilight was running before her brain caught up, and the others were right behind her. Please, Trixie, don’t do anything rash… Don’t have broken anything magical… Don’t…
They rounded the corner, and sure enough, there was the blue unicorn, wearing her signature cape and hat, the Iris fastening it together. Next to her on a bench were a variety of potted plants, a conspicuous gap where one of them had been knocked to the floor, da Colton’s workbook, another book which Twilight had never seen before, and a variety of magical construction frames in various states of disrepair. Behind her, though… wow.
Twilight would be one of the first to admit she didn’t know much about botany and Equestria’s flora. She’d made an effort to learn more after the poison joke incident of last year, but Zecora had remained infuriatingly stubborn on some of the rarer species which she was cultivating in her hut, and it was all well and good knowing the germination period of calla lilies, but that hadn’t really helped when the pony-eating flowers had attacked them on their way to rescue the Cutie Mark Crusaders from Queen Chrysalis. It… didn’t really help now, either.
The… plant (it had to be a plant, right?) was bigger than two ponies side by side, growing up the wall of the vault and spreading out vines across the ceiling, its roots disappearing through cracks in the stone floor. Atop it was one of the biggest flowers Twilight had ever seen in her life, and certainly not anything from a genus she’d seen before. And it was magic, too - visible pulses of magic ran up and down its roots and shoots, some of which transitioned directly off the vines into the vault’s light sources. This was… living magic!
Unfortunately, Trixie had worked that out too.
“How did you—” she began, but she shook her head. “This is Trixie’s discovery! She will prove once and for all that she is—”
“—the most powerful unicorn in Equestria, we get it.” Rainbow Dash had just about had it. She still hadn’t forgiven the showmare for trussing her up when she’d been in Ponyville the first time. “Do you ever think of anything besides trying to show ponies up?”
Trixie bristled. “Do you think of anything besides trying to go fast?” she countered. “Pot calling kettle!” She turned back to the flower. “Alas, Trixie hasn’t yet figured out how this works, so she’ll just have to take it with her, somewhere more private.”
Finally, the results of the analysis spell came back, and— “Trixie, stop!” Twilight leapt forwards, but it was too late; the blue unicorn had summoned all of her magic and pulled the flower’s largest root free of the stone.
For one tense moment, nothing happened. Then all three unicorns winced as their horns lit up in an onrush of magic, both earth ponies found themselves unable to stand still, and both pegasi were practically blown across the room. The explosion was reminiscent of Twilight’s first, only wilder; this wasn’t a young unicorn venting all of her magic reserves, this was wild magic, pure and untamed, spilling out into the world at a titanic rate.
To her credit, Trixie looked ashamed for a moment, even as she turned and fled in terror. There was no question she knew what she’d just done. Twilight called after her, but to no effect. She was gone again.
“Twi, what’d she do?!” Applejack had grabbed hold of Pinkie Pie to try and keep still, which perhaps wasn’t the best move she’d ever made. “What’s goin’ on?!”
“This also makes my voice sound silly!” added Pinkie, her inability to grip the floor not bothering her at all.
What Trixie had done…? Unless the six of them acted and acted now, she’d just triggered the end of the world as they knew it. “Girls!” Twilight shouted, once she’d managed to dull the pain in her horn down to a persistent ache. “We need to get that root back in! That’s world magic she’s just unleashed!”
The voice of Rainbow Dash from the other side of the vault was only just audible over the magical windrush. “What gives?! How much of this magic is in there?!”
“ALL OF IT!”
The analysis spell had revealed something that shouldn’t have been shocking for a place such as this, that it was built on top of a ley line, specifically the one that ran between Tartarus and the Everfree Forest. Somehow, the Lifebearer had managed to get this flower to plant its roots directly into the line, feeding off its magic, which needless to say was unprecedented and would revolutionize the field of magic-flora relations. With the root removed, the line was now bleeding - and even a small hole would purge the entire ley line network! If they didn’t stop it… all of Equestria’s magic would vent through the hole until there was nothing left. Da Colton’s bad future would arrive.
Even though it was painful, Twilight had to use her magic to levitate Applejack and Pinkie closer, their earth pony stamina was going to be necessary. Rarity… she could sort anything that got hooked on the stone or caught elsewhere. As for the pegasi, hopefully when everypony else had stemmed the tide they’d be able to fly over and lend a helping hoof. Right now, the magic rush was just catching their wings and knocking them away before they could even get close.
She set both earth ponies down next to the discarded root, and they immediately began shoving, hooves desperately trying to find purchase on the stone floor on which friction seemed to have stopped working. On the other side, Rarity began pulling as hard as she dared. Breaking it at this point would be unthinkable, but it seemed to be fairly solid. When Trixie lifted it it had looked so easy… but she’d had her full magic available to her.
“Oh, come on!” Applejack turned around, tried to buck the root, and slipped over. “Ah can’t get any purchase on this darn floor!”
Because her earth pony boosted grip thanks to the magic in her hooves was being disrupted, but Twilight didn’t say that out loud, it would just discourage her. “Keep trying! We have to fix this! Otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?” Rarity asked from next to her.
Otherwise…
Twilight roared and pushed even harder. “Otherwise everything ends!”
Magic was still thundering out of the hole in the stone floor. It would probably take hours for the whole network to drain, but this amount already would be causing serious problems. She imagined that above them, the plaza’s festivities were being disrupted, the ponies clueless as to what was happening beneath their hooves.
“It’s moving!” Pinkie shouted, her hind legs a blur of motion. “It’s moving! It’s moving!”
It was moving, slowly but surely. Just getting it into the hole would be a good start. That should free up Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, and then together they could all push it right the way in, and then… hopefully the Lifebearer knew what they’d been doing and prepared for this eventuality. Doing something of this caliber and not having a backup plan would be extraordinarily stupid.
The word echoed through her head.
Stupid… stupid… stupid…
How had Princess Luna described what the manifestation of the Iris had always done?
Something catastrophically stupid.
But surely even something of this magnitude…! How could anypony look at this and think it was perfectly safe?!
Probably the kind of pony who would take on an army of Changelings, even imaginary ones, armed with only swords, and who approved of a crazy plan involving burning off magic whilst falling at terminal velocity towards a burning city…
Okay. No backup plan. It was all up to them. Six ponies standing between Equestria and its sure decimation. Again. When Twilight had left Canterlot a couple months shy of a year ago now, she had not expected to be making a habit of this! Nightmare Moon. Discord. Queen Chrysalis. King Sombra. Did the Flim Flam brothers count as an Equestria-threatening evil? The six of them were attracting Equestria Weird Things almost on a daily basis. How had her life become so… interesting?!
For a moment, the root shifted a little faster than it had been, and Twilight suddenly found herself scrabbling both to retain purchase on it and to stay balanced. Come on… Of course, they also had to make sure that none of them fell into the hole. It wasn’t recorded what would happen if a pony were to suddenly plug the leylines and it would be an incredibly ill-advised idea to find out. All of the world’s magic being routed through a single pony… There was just no telling what it would do to them.
Then—
“Gah!” Applejack slipped, but her fall knocked the root in the opposite direction, to the edge of the hole in the floor. This was it! This was their chance to— Another shove, and gravity joined in, the end of the root slithering in and half of what remained above following it. Already the blast of magic past them was growing weaker, and that should allow the pegasi to… even as Twilight was thinking it a pair of blue hooves appeared to her right and a yellow pair to her left. Now all six of them were working on it.
“This is not what I had in mind for doing today!” Rarity shouted.
“What did you have in mind?!” Rainbow Dash called back.
“Oh, I don’t know! Not trying to push a dirty plant root back into the ground!” Banter was good. Banter was great, actually, it meant that things were going well.
With six ponies, and the traction of the two earth ponies among them improving by the second, more and more of the root slipped into the hole. Not much more. All the way back in, and it should plug the leyline and then—
Oh, nuts, Twilight realized as Applejack rammed into the last loop and let gravity take care of the rest. All the magic had come out… and if she knew her leylines, it was about to…
For a moment, there was blissful silence.
“Whoo!” Pinkie cheered, hoofbumping Fluttershy. “That was great!” Then she noticed Twilight, who had gone pale. “Uh, Twilight, what’s—” and then the blowback hit.
Later she’d form a hypothesis that the mere existence of the plant acted as an anchor for the world magic, and that when they’d reconnected it, it had straight up sucked it all back in again. Where the source of the magic was nopony knew, but now, it was replenishing itself using every single thaum it had just lost. It had to be later that she came up with it, because at the time half of the magic was also getting passed through her own magic reserves first and boy did it hurt.
All of the magic was deafening. She needed… she needed to not be there, and at the same time to get rid of all this magic somehow— even as the vague possibility of it crossed the corner of her mind, the Iris in her bag decided to join in, and it started pumping its magic in too, although it wasn’t going into her reserves. It was going straight into the spell matrix she was forming, which wasn’t Prophetia…
Circle be writ. Of course. It wasn’t a magic circle, it was a time circle.
The time traveling spell exploded out of her horn and wrapped around each of her friends, much to their surprise. It wasn’t like Twilight had a choice, the spell was basically running on autopilot now. “Guys!” she shouted above the din. “We’re about to travel back in time to 990 again!”
“Say what?!” Applejack shouted back.
“It’s okay! Just stick together! I know what to do now!” And for the first time that whole adventure, she actually did. “There’s something I need to do at the castle!” She wasn’t sure how much of that made it to their ears, because now the stressed Iris-fueled time travel spell was whining in her own ears, making her deaf to everything else. Applejack’s mouth was moving, but no words were coming out of it. Rarity was clutching her head. Fluttershy was curled up into a ball, Rainbow Dash was making a grab for her, Pinkie Pie was vibrating with excitement—
and then they were gone.