Elixir Master

by Pen Stroke

The Final Problem

“Perhaps the spheres were creating a parallel dimensional space where time was working faster… if I could… no, that wouldn’t work… because the failure of the domes should have flung us then into a dimensional fracture… we got back, so that couldn’t have been it. Maybe I can leverage what I know about Starlight’s time spell. Maybe the root principles...”

When facing a really hard problem, Twilight knew she had a tendency to talk out loud. It had helped on occasion, where uttering a random thought would let some other part of her brain latch onto it. She could work in silence, yes, but then the silence would surround and engulf them.

The graveyard quality silence, if not kept at bay, would have been like an all-consuming madness.

The temporal spheres that had contained her, Meadowbrook, Zecora, Trixie, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie had collapsed about an hour prior, and yet the world had not changed in any manner that Twilight was able to discern. The audience members were still as statues. Their faces were frozen mid-cheer, mid-laugh, and even mid-bite. Flags that had been waved out in support of the audience members’ favored contestant did not fidget in the slightest, as if the fabric was caught in a sudden deep freeze.

The judges were no different, except that perhaps their expressions were ones of worry. Starswirl, Celestia, and Starlight had all been in the process of standing up. Their eyes were fixed on where the temporal bubbles had once been. Celestia’s lips were peeled back, her teeth bared. She had been caught mid-syllable. Pinkie had rattled off earlier that perhaps the princess had been trying to shout “Discord,” and she had only managed to get as far as “Dis.” Twilight personally didn’t believe that knowing the definitive answer to the question “what was Celestia saying” would do them any good.

Discord himself was floating above the center of the stage. His eyes were on the audience, his lion paw and eagle claw above his head. Fireworks had been shooting out of his fingertips, the sparkles now frozen in the air just like everything else. Twilight couldn’t deny, it annoyed her a little bit that he seemed to be so wrapped up in entertaining the crowd, signaling the dramatic end to his contest, that he didn’t notice the temporal bubbles failing. Fluttershy had defended Discord, saying it probably caught him off guard. Whether or not Discord had noticed the failure was debatable, but Twilight doubted anyone would disagree on the fact that Discord had let things get out of control.

Discord, the judges, the audience, and everything else was frozen in time. Even the world beyond the coliseum was equally frozen. Zecora and Fluttershy had gone to their respective forest homes but had found no change in the situation.

So what had happened to them? That was the puzzle Twilight found herself facing. She was using magic to project an ethereal chalkboard, and was using it to work through numerous theories of not only what happened to them, but how they might escape their current predicament. Her constant, comprehensive calculations manifested as numerous diagrams and formulas on the ethereal chalkboard. But even as Twilight contemplated a freshly drawn formula, something about the magic spell created an irritating itch in her brain.

The spell writing was hers. The spell drawing was hers. Yet, as Twilight looked at all her work, it did not shimmer and glow in a pleasant purple. No, instead the magic’s natural color was a pale blue.

Twilight still found herself in Trixie’s body, the last traces of the I.M.B.E.C.I.L.E disease keeping her and Trixie’s minds swapped.

The thought of Trixie made Twilight take a moment to look away from her work to check on the others. Trixie, Pinkie, and Fluttershy were working to clear the last of the frozen star-leaf leach vines from Meadowbrook’s lab. Trixie seemed to be behaving, but Twilight couldn’t deny a deep suspicion that, when she wasn’t looking, Trixie was striking silly poses and practicing silly princess walks.

Still, the fact they were able to interact with the labs at all hinted at the strangeness of the situation. Twilight had done some modestly thorough initial research into what they could and could not do in their present states. They could do anything in the labs, using them as normal. However, while they could reach out and touch things frozen in time, they could not manipulate them. This raised the question of how they were even alive. How could they be breathing frozen air, or move through it?

Those were two questions Twilight had written on the chalkboard to help remind herself of them, though they were fairly low on the prioritized list. Of course, Twilight ensured “How do we escape?” stayed at the very top. It was also underlined, circled, and highlighted. It was the most important question, after all.  

Sitting up straighter in her sitting cushion, Twilight took in a deep breath as she stretched and tried to release some of the tension in her body before letting her eyes wander to Zecora’s potion lab. There, Meadowbrook was offering some assistance. She had a working theory that one means of escape would be to restore power to the temporal bubbles. It was a sound idea, but so far, Meadowbrook’s experiments in cooking up chaos magic to feed to the bubbles had been largely fruitless.

It would have been much easier if they could have asked the clerks in the supply cabinets for samples of chaos magic, but that was something else that had annoyingly changed. Looking to the cabinet, Twilight reconfirmed for herself that the clerks had vanished. She and the others could still open and access the vast stores of supplies in the cabinets, but without a copy of Discord to be the clerk, it was like the ruins of some long past civilization of hoarders.

While Twilight was looking at Meadowbrook and the green potion lab, she noticed Meadowbrook turn and glance at the supply cabinet. A few moments later, Twilight was able to tell why. Zecora, who had been given the duty of exploring the space within the cabinets, had just emerged.

Though, Twilight quickly found herself writing a new question on the board. Zecora had originally stepped into the endless warehouse through the cabinet in the red potion lab assigned to Meadowbrook. She came out the other cabinet in her own green lab.

“How did you manage to come out over here?” Meadowbrook asked, voicing the very question Twilight had been writing down at the bottom of her priority list. That was one thing she appreciated about the situation. Twilight felt like they had a much better chance of escaping because she could work with not one but two brilliant potion makers. She might have preferred Starswirl, but that was because he was amazing. Still, Twilight turned back to looking at the green potion lab, wanting to hear the answer Zecora would hopefully give.

“Retelling the path I took is beyond me, I fear. I simply cannot explain how I got from there to here.” Zecora picked one of the boxes off the pushcart, passing it to Meadowbrook. She, in turn, got to work stacking the boxes just away from the cabinet’s door, the pair of them forming a two-pony box brigade. “Still, my journey was not in vain. I bring supplies, including as much food as I could obtain.”

“Food!? Finally! The Great, Powerful, and Princessly Trixie is starving!”

Twilight’s ears flattened as even those few words formed a spike of annoyance that stabbed her in the brain. Though the words were spoken in Twilight’s voice and came from Twilight’s body, there was no denying the intonation of Trixie behind them. Trixie happily abandoned what she was doing, leaped into the air, and then shakily glided the short gap from one potion lab to the other. She then quickly began helping herself to one of the boxes, rummaging around inside and setting its contents out on the nearest available counter space. She was not unlike a young filly raiding a family grocery run for her favored box of colorful cereal.

“Ooo… peanut butter… jelly… tell me you found bread. I would put on a great and powerful performance for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich… even just peanut butter and crackers would be divine.”

“Bread I did find, though not in loaf nor sliced form.” Zecora passed another box to Meadowbrook but took a moment to poke her head inside. She pulled out a square pan and set it down on the counter next to Trixie. “I found this cornbread, fresh and oven warm.”

“Cornbread… peanut butter… and jelly sandwiches.” Trixie rolled the words around in her mouth, acting like she had taken a bite of the concoction and was on the verge of spitting it out. For the moment, Twilight had to agree that it didn’t sound very appetizing to her either.

“Well… cornbread is like bread. Perhaps I, The Great, Powerful, and Princessly Trixie can use her mighty alicorn magic to turn it into sliced bread.”

Twilight began rising from her seat. No! No, Trixie wasn’t going to actually try a transformation spell. Yes, turning bread into another kind of bread should have been easy. Yet, Twilight watched in growing horror as Trixie charged the magic of the spell.

With a gentle pop, the cornbread disappeared and became a teacup.

“Trixie! What did I say about using my magic!?” Twilight shouted, settling back down onto her cushion now that the pending crisis she feared could have formed became an annoying false alarm.

Trixie looked over and met Twilight's annoyed glare with one of her own.

“How is it fair that you get to use Trixie’s magic while you forbid me, the Great, Powerful, and Princessly Trixie, from using even a drop of your magic? It is simply unfit for royalty to have to do everything with hooves.”

Twilight used a hoof to gesture at her chalkboard. “I’m using your magic for a very simple visual aid spell. It is a spell I know very well and is well within your capabilities as a unicorn. You don’t know how to properly cast a transfiguration spell. On top of that, you don’t know how my alicorn magic works! Any spells that aren’t cast properly run the risk of backfiring, and if alicorn magic backfires, who knows what will happen? That is why you shouldn’t be using my magic.”

“Oh, so you’re saying I shouldn’t do something like this?” Trixie turned her head, calling on the magic in Twilight’s horn. Meadowbrook quickly had to step back as the telltale glow of a levitation spell enshrouded the boxes she and Zecora had been moving. Swiftly, the boxes flew out to the center of the area, stacking themselves neatly in a very stable, if slightly off-kilter, configuration.

“See, Trixie can levitate things just fine,” Trixie said, putting on a smug smile and gesturing to the boxes as if she had just made them all appear out of thin air.

“Trixie, that’s my body, and I don’t want you using my magic.” Twilight turned to resume work on her diagrams and formula. “Please respect that.”

Twilight expected it to be done after that. She heard the sound of Trixie walking with stomping steps. Twilight listened to them but began to notice the sound wasn’t moving the way she expected. It wasn’t going from one lab to another. It instead sounded like Trixie was getting closer.

“Well then, Trixie says you can’t use her magic either.”

That was the only warning Trixie gave before Twilight’s vision was suddenly invaded by the hoof of her own body. A hoof that crossed in front of her face, took a gentle grip of the horn on Trixie’s body, and then flicked it. Twilight slammed her eyes shut as she felt the sharp, vibrating pain lance into her brain. A flicked horn would never cause permanent damage, but the act of flicking almost always resulted in two things. A brief but notable pain for the spell caster, and an interruption in the spell caster’s magic.

Forcing her eyes open, Twilight looked to where her ethereal chalkboard had been, only to see nothing but empty air. Her face quickly distorted into one of panic. “No! I was so close to…”

“What? Getting frustrated and erasing it all for the fifth time!” Trixie snapped. “Face it, Sparkle! You don’t know any more of what’s going on in here than the rest of us!”

Twilight turned to glare at Trixie. “First, I never erased it all. I erased what I knew wasn’t going to work. Second, I’d like to see you do any better!”

She knew there was no point in arguing with Trixie. She should have just recast the chalkboard spell and tried to rewrite what aspects of her diagrams she could remember, but… she was getting stressed and Trixie’s antics were not helping. It was becoming easier to lash out as a single, sinking feeling of dread settled into the air the longer they were trapped.

What if they couldn’t fix this? What if they were trapped in a frozen world for days, weeks, months? If Twilight wasn’t engaged in a fierce argument with Trixie, the thought could have easily sent a chill down her spine. What if she and her friends, and Trixie, were trapped here like the pillars of Equestria had been trapped when they sealed the Pony of Shadows? Worse, how would they survive in a limbo where time could possibly move forward for them even as the rest of the world was frozen?

Were they destined to live out the rest of their lives in this new limbo?

Zecora settled into one of the available cushion seats, happy to get off her hooves after exploring the vastness of the supply closets for so long. She, along with Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Meadowbrook, were seated on the floor inside the red potion lab, which the group as a whole had agreed would become their meal kitchen while the green lab would be left dedicated to potions, in case they came to a realization about a potion that would help them escape their current predicament.

Zecora noticed that Trixie and Twilight were absent, though they were not hard to find. Turning her head slightly, Zecora could see Twilight focusing on her diagrams and equations, even choosing to ignore the call for dinner. She just sat in the center of the stage, still writing and rewriting on her chalkboard spell, as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

To a passerby, Twilight might have just looked focused, but Zecora could tell her frustration with the problem was building. Zecora could see Twilight’s equations were becoming more haphazardly written. Her diagrams had less clean lines. Zecora felt like she was watching the tides of a war, a brutal conflict between Twilight’s intelligence and patience against the complex problem that was their situation.

From what Zecora could see, it did not seem to be a battle Twilight was winning.

Turning away from Twilight, Zecora tried to refocus on her meal. It was simple, but its sweet and savory aromas teased the senses. There were some steamed and seasoned bits of cauliflower, and some freshly washed strawberries with the stems trimmed. Though Zecora believed it was usually considered a side dish, the main course of the meal was a heaping helping of fried rice with sliced carrots, peas, and green onions.

It was not a meal combination Zecora could say she had ever had before, but the warmth and care put into the meal was already helping to wash away her exhaustion. She shifted in her cushion from a sitting to a lying position, intending to take her first bite of the fried rice.

“Why yes, Princess Luna. I’m sure I, the Great, Powerful, and Princessly Trixie could put on a spectacular magic show for you. I mean, I am a master of illusion. Some of my most recent tricks are so astounding, even Twilight can’t figure them out. Then again, she’s sure having trouble figuring out Discord’s trick, isn’t she? I’d maybe go back and double-check some of her magic school tests. Trixie would surely not say anything out loud, but Trixie can’t deny her suspicions either.”

Zecora winced, flicking her gaze upward so she could glare at the royal box. That was where Trixie had flown off too, taking her meal with her. After her last argument with Twilight, it seemed that Trixie was content to brood from her lofty perch. Trixie did not, however, seem at all content to suffer in silence. Zecora could not discern a rhyme or reason to it all: with little warning, Trixie would just start projecting her voice so that it reverberated across the coliseum. It would always be some made up conversation with Luna, and even as Zecora finally took the first bite of her meal, Trixie began another performance.

Zecora knew that Trixie’s behavior was simply an overdramatic way to insult Twilight, and not the first buddings of insanity. Twilight had also yet to answer Trixie back, though Zecora wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful or annoyed. Twilight’s silence ensured Trixie wasn’t encouraged to continue her rather juvenile behavior. At the same time, Zecora couldn’t help but wonder if it was Twilight’s mental fortitude or her magic that let her keep such a cool composure. If she had cast some spell to ensure she could not even hear Trixie’s voice, Zecora found it a bit cruel that they had had to suffer Trixie’s overdramatic, aggressive performances while Twilight possibly remained blissfully unaware.

“So, this is some… good food, right?”

Zecora looked at Pinkie Pie, who had spoken up as the last echoes of Trixie’s most recent tirade faded. This was the fourth, no the fifth, conversation Pinkie had tried to start while the four of them had been eating. Some conversation had gotten off the ground, but so far, all had been doomed to be interrupted by Trixie. Still, if they did not talk, then the only sounds that remained would be that of them chewing and fussing with their plates.

So, like all the times before, Zecora was happy to engage with Pinkie and her attempt at conversation, even if it was fated to be short. “You surely did grandly with the supplies. Appetizer, Entree, and well-portioned sides. Though what do you still have in the oven, over its fire? Its sweet aroma sings to me like a choir.”

“I’m just trying to make some dessert bars,” Pinkie answered. “I may be improvising a little with the recipe, but they sure are smelling good. Just have to let it get a little bit warmer and a little more gooey so the bars take shape.”

“I am sure they will be divine, the best enjoyed by any equine.”

Pinkie waved a hoof. “Thanks, but I know they won’t be that good. I mean, the ingredients don’t quite go together, but it’s not going to be bad. It’s not like the time I tried switching around the amount of salt and sugar in a recipe.” She visibly shivered. “That was like biting into a pie baked out of beach sand. Still, even a kind-of-good dessert is better than no dessert, right?”

Zecora nodded, grinning at the unexpected pearl of wisdom that Pinkie had tossed into the conversation.“In every life some dessert should exist, a treat that we simply cannot resist. Maybe it’s a slice of pie with an ice cream scoop. Perhaps it is simply spending time with friends in a group. A simple moment of joy, with its sweet embrace, carries with it surely some divine grace. While dessert cannot be enjoyed all the time, to deny yourself forever is a crime.”

Zecora finished, having closed her eyes for the last few lines of her rhymes. When she opened them again, her gaze was met with a bit of an unexpected sight. Pinkie Pie was staring straight at her, with big, attentive, excited eyes. Her grin reached from ear to ear, and for a few moments, she just kept staring. Zecora began wondering if something had happened, if the dinner had somehow poisoned Pinkie, when finally Ponyville’s party pony spoke.

“That… was the best piece of super cool rhyming wisdom I’ve ever heard about dessert.” Pinkie leaned forward in her cushion. “Do one about frosting.”

“Now, I don’t think we need to be expecting Zecora to rattle off her rhymes to entertain us for dinner,” Meadowbrook said with a chuckle. “Though, guess you’ve gone and showed me up on that, too. I’ve heard of ponies messing up language learner potions before, but they usually end up unable to make a lick of sense. Maybe you did make a mistake back then, but you owned it and mastered it. Can’t say I’ve been that sensible about some of the mistakes I’ve made.”

“It does lend me a certain indelible tone, recognizable by any creature I’ve ever known,” Zecora said before popping a piece of the steamed cauliflower into her mouth. It was while she was chewing that morsel that she noticed someone else was staring at her, though not her alone. Fluttershy was looking at both her and Meadowbrook, watching them both. Zecora could imagine Fluttershy wearing a similar expression on her face as she watched two kittens fall asleep curled up with one another. “Fluttershy, why such a curious gaze?” Zecora asked once she swallowed her mouthful of food. “You seem to be in a blissful daze.”

Fluttershy blinked, Zecora’s words seeming to shake her from her thoughts. She then blushed. “Sorry, I’m just so happy to see you two getting along. I’m glad that through all this, Discord was able to help you to be friends again.”

“That chaos dragon-snake thing sure has a strange way of going about things, but guess it did help. We got off to that rocky start, and couldn’t respect one another as potion makers. And if ya don’t respect someone, it's darn hard to really be a friend with them. But through this contest, each of us got shown how talented the other is. The proof was in the pudding, and Discord made sure we couldn’t avoid eating our fair share.”

“Oooo, I should have made pudding for dessert. That would have been way easier,” Pinkie said, even as she began serving her fruit jelly based dessert bars. “But yeah, Discord was so excited last night when he came and asked me for help. And it was super fun. Super strange, but really super fun to plan all this on such short notice. It was like making a party to celebrate a party.”

“Something strange in your view? I’d never expect to hear that from you,” Zecora said before sneaking a bite of the dessert bar she had been served. She would, of course, finish the rest of her meal as well, but in such a situation, surely no one could fault her for enjoying her dessert at the same time as her meal. The dessert bars were a tad odd; They were a bit too chewy and sticky, but Zecora could not deny their delightfully sweet flavor. Pinkie had done pretty great despite her claims that it was something of an improvised recipe.

“Well, yeah. Like, he was dead set on having Celestia, Starswirl, and Starlight as judges, but while we were setting up the coliseum, he made space for someone to sit with the judges. It was like he was expecting Trixie. Oh, and I suggested that maybe we just use some existing venue. I thought that it would have been great to have it in Canterlot or maybe a big arena in Manehattan. But Discord insisted it be here in Ponyville, and that this coliseum had to be made out of Ponyville! He said he wanted it to be ‘something no pony could possibly ignore, no matter their to-do list.’” Pinkie said the last part with a gruffer tone of voice, a quick and crude attempt to impersonate Discord.

Fluttershy and Meadowbrook chuckled at the impression, but Zecora found the words odd. She could not say she knew Discord well, but she had interacted with him on at least a few occasions. His behavior was random, chaotic, but never without purpose. Zecora was a creature that, if building a row of dominoes she wanted to knock over, she’d try to do it from start to end as much as she could.

Discord was a creature that would randomly place the dominoes, and yet by the end, he’d have a well-spaced line that was ready and eager to tumble.

Zecora took another bite of her fried rice, chewing it as her mind continued chewing on its current thought. To-do list… Of the ponies Zecora knew, one was surely the princess of to-do lists: Twilight Sparkle. If what Pinkie said was accurate, then Zecora couldn’t deny it. It sounded like Discord wanted to ensure Twilight would attend his contest.

Discord wanted Twilight here, and it sounded like he wanted Trixie in attendance as well. That would explain why he asked Starlight to be a judge. Starswirl and Celestia made some sense. They surely both knew something of potion making. On top of that, each was a celebrity in their own right, and some ponies who would otherwise have no interest in such a contest would come just to see one of them.

That ensured the seats were filled, and the show would be big enough that Discord would have every excuse to keep it going. It was another domino… another step in his plan that he assembled in his own chaotic way.

But Starlight wasn’t a potion maker nor was she much of a celebrity. So why invite her to be a judge? Why not invite some modern doctor, or perhaps even some other potion maker? Zecora was absolutely certain that she and Meadowbrook could not be the only two experienced potion makers in Equestria. A more scientific and modern potion making methodology was even taught at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

So what reason could Discord have for making Starlight a judge? Zecora could only think of one. Starlight was Trixie’s best friend, and if Discord timed it right, he could have invited Starlight while Trixie was in proximity. That meant Starlight’s attendance could have simply been a means to ensure Trixie attended.

Yes, that made sense to Zecora, and it was another few pieces of Discord’s plan. He wanted Trixie and Twilight in the stadium. He likely planned for them to be the victim of his I.M.B.E.C.I.L.E disease from the start, but to what end? This whole contest was supposed to settle the rivalry that had formed between herself and Meadowbrook, wasn’t it?

But no… Fluttershy had just said that she was happy Discord was able to help them be friends again. Another domino fell into place in Zecora’s mind. Discord’s intent, despite being an antagonist, was to help her and Meadowbrook build the friendship that had been derailed the day before. He was fixing their problem, but if that was his goal, and this was all going according to his plan, then why wasn’t the contest already over? Their budding friendship had been restored once they worked together to save Twilight and Trixie from the worst part of the I.M.B.E.C.I.L.E disease.

If this was all part of Discord’s plan, then… could he have predicted they would use leach vines? Maybe she was giving him too much credit. Maybe Discord was just very good at improvisation, or maybe he had multiple paths roughly laid out that would lead them to the same desired point: being trapped in time. Still, if this was all part of Discord’s plan, then perhaps the contest was still going on. That would explain why they were stuck in time. The round wasn’t over yet. But why wasn’t the round over yet? What problem did they still have to fix?

“WHY YES, PRINCESS LUNA! I AM A HORRIBLE DANCER!”

Trixie’s bellowed insult at Twilight… it rang in Zecora’s head, threatening to ruin her train of thought before suddenly adding to it. In a moment, Zecora saw the last domino fall into place as if Discord’s own claw had reached out and placed it into her own mental metaphor. Perhaps the day before his intent had been just to repair her friendship with Meadowbrook, but Discord was ambitious. He planted the plunder vines while mocking Princess Celestia and Luna, just in case they did have a means of defeating him. Discord was capable of a one-two punch sort of plan.

“That sneaky, chaotic, horned, noodly creature! He’s been planning a double feature,” Zecora said, looking to the others with a smile on her face.

“Sorry, what was that?” Meadowbrook asked. She, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie were all looking at Zecora with a bit of confusion. Zecora realized now that she had perhaps been tuning out some longer conversation the others had been having, but she’d apologize for that later.

“I think I see the grand design. I think I see Discord’s tangled twine. We are frozen in time, yet we can survive. We can breathe and eat, we can stay alive.” Zecora stood and began to pace, the simple act of moving helping her articulate what she wanted to share with the others. “We can interact with the labs, but not the world beyond. The cabinet clerks are gone, yet their supplies we can abscond. An arbitrary space with arbitrary rules, where we still have access to all our tools.”

Zecora turned back to face Meadowbrook, Pinkie, and Fluttershy. “The challenge is not done. The final round is not yet won. I.M.B.E.C.I.L.E is what we were asked to cure, but our focus has gone on a tangential tour. We surely fixed part one, but the test is only part-way done!”

Zecora kept pacing, but out of the corner of her eye saw Meadowbrook, Pinkie, and Fluttershy stand up from their sitting cushions. They were beginning to smile, looking on eagerly. Zecora could feel the excitement building in them just as it was building in her.

“It sounds like you know how to get us out of here, Zecora,” Fluttershy said.

“It is hard to say, I could be wrong. I may just be dancing to Discord’s mad, siren song. But I believe my logic is sound, and that I see his machinations for this round.”

Pinkie took one bounce closer to Zecora. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Tell us!”

“It’s hard to properly explain what has formed in my brain. The path ahead I feel is clear, though a curving path we must steer,” Zecora assured them. “We must finish the round and cure I.M.B.E.C.I.L.E. We will be free once no one is ill. Yet, the potion we need to undo the change requires ingredients both rare and strange. They exist in the cabinets, of this I am sure. Yet, without the clerks, we simply cannot pursue that cure. However, a magical fix would be much quicker, but this is where the plot gets thicker. The spell is something Twilight can surely comprehend. Her body also has the power to make the swap come to an end. I think this is where Discord’s hidden test does reside:

“Trixie and Twilight must mend their divide.”