The sudden sound of the alarm klaxon gave Vinyl Scratch quite a fright. It made her think of things, unpleasant things, unwanted things. But she was a strong mare, made strong by those very things that she’d rather not remember. For a moment, she recalled all too well the sound of klaxons blaring in the streets, the sound of a high-rise crumbling, and then, most terrifying of all, darkness. All of this caused a sharp twinge of pain in her back and left her legs feeling weak.
She felt pain differently than others, and though she did fear it, she did not let that pain rule her as she once did. Ears tall and forward, she listened to the alarm sound of a general free-roaming evacuation, the very thing that the entire town had drills for, prepared for, and had practiced. This meant that ponies would be coming, because this house, her house, the place that she called home, was something of a fortress. It was, for all intents and purposes, one of the safest places in Ponyville. Her magic and Tarnish’s magic offered formidable defense.
The first arrivals would be here in a hurry, which meant that she and Sumac had very little time to prepare. Sumac was already in motion; though he hadn’t left his stool, he was closing the solid plate steel shutters of the workshop, including the heavy steel curtain that covered the overhead skylight. Vinyl did much the same, but reached out and began closing the shutters on the house, and she remembered to open the gate.
Hopefully, nopony would get cactused.
If magic had a scent, then Twilight Sparkle was a hound. She stood atop the roof of the grange hall, surveying the chaos all around her while trying to home in on the single bit of magic that didn’t belong. She knew and was familiar with all of the magic in Ponyville. Unicorns, pegasus ponies, and even earth ponies. With a bit of focus, she could sort them out, blindfolded if necessary.
The danger seemed oddly specific to the sort of pony encountering the stink. Maud and Moondancer, two exceptionally hardy mares, had it far, far worse than Pinkie Pie or Fluttershy. So the stink was reactive, adaptive to the nose of the observer. It had some kind of rudimentary mind-reading ability, a sort of direct connection to the brain through the olfactory system. Twilight suspected that it would go badly for her, as she liked to think of herself as being on similar hoofing to Moondancer and Maud. She was tough; she was the warrior princess after all. The brawler.
This was a weird situation to be in. It was dangerous, at least to some degree, but it wasn’t a fatal sort of danger. Twilight did wonder what might happen if a pony with a less resilient mind than Moondancer’s got a whiff of forever. Nopony had died, at least that she was aware of, but a lot of ponies were suffering. Yes, this truly was a weird sort of emergency, and now, after the fact, she had second thoughts about evacuating the town.
Yet, this wasn’t over, and she had no idea what the monster might do when threatened.
“Get inside.” Vinyl’s voice was magically amplified, but calm. “Stay away from the gardens and do not disturb the herb patches. Please, make yourself at home inside. Do not taunt the gate, as it is grumpy, and make no threatening gestures at the topiaries. They are here to protect you, but may get confused if they perceive you as a threat. Go inside. Refreshments will be served.”
Her apprentice was near the front door, urging ponies to get inside. He was holding up rather well, all things considered, but she knew that sooner or later, the crowd would get to him. Probably inside, when every room was overcrowded. For now, he was functional and fine, but she would have to pay extra attention to him once they had everypony inside.
Vinyl Scratch’s perfectly calm exteriour showed no trace of her inner panic. Alto was out there somewhere, with his father and his siblings. Pebble, Megara, Sly, Alto, and Tarnish had gone off to do who knows what. Questioning any of them was useless, as they were secretive about their trips. Daddy Time was something that was never discussed, no matter how stern the inquiry. While Vinyl had always found the secrecy rather amusing, especially with how it left Octavia unsettled, it wasn’t so amusing right now as this crisis unfolded. She was not one given to worry, or she tried to be, so experiencing it now of all times made it all the worse.
A mother’s worry was a dreadful thing.
Twilight Sparkle burst into existence, loaded down with spell protections, and she was distracted by her own thoughts. Was she the same pony who had teleported, or a replacement pony hastily assembled at the point of arrival? How many versions of herself had she callously killed? Was it killing? Was it immoral? But none of these thoughts mattered, and had to be cast aside in a hurry, because there was a sapient stink to deal with.
The pungent reek of soap tickled Twilight’s nose, along with all of the unpleasant things that went into soap. Ponies were fleeing the narrow, but rather long workshop where the soap was made, all of them screaming about the different things they smelled. Reminding herself what she was here for, she cast a final spell, a shield bubble that was air-tight. It allowed her to walk along the bottom of the ocean or to drift around in the vacuum of space. The scent of soap vanished, replaced by the scent of ozone, the smell of her own magic.
“You have to stop,” Twilight said in a firm, magically amplified voice. “What you are doing is hurting others. Cease whatever it is that you are doing and speak to me. I will not ask again.”
What she felt next was a curious sensation that existed on the edge of her perception. More of a twingle-tingle in the mind. A curious wibble that only existed in thought. Perhaps it was something that could only be felt by a pony’s sixth sense, magic. Twilight sampled it, cross referenced it, and much to her surprise, it was familiar. She had sensed this before, but she couldn’t quite put her hoof on what it was.
“Do you believe all of your protections will save you?”
Twilight considered the question, and foresaw a violent outcome.
“Already I have touched your mind. Physical barriers are of no meaning to me. No avail. I know your thoughts, your intentions, and I can sense your desire for conflict, even as your mouth prepares to speak falsehoods about peace. I have learned much about you and your kind. You are a treacherous species.”
“I’ve come seeking a peaceful solution, but I am prepared to deal with you should we fail to negotiate,” Twilight said to the unseen entity.
“I am prepared to deal with you as well,” it replied. “Funny. You fleshy, organic constructs have your olfactory sense directly connected to your memories. The merest whiff of something can cause your brain chemistry to do unexpected and interesting things. I have been trying to probe this connection, so that I might understand it.”
“You told Moondancer what your purpose was. I don’t recall this being mentioned.”
“I have since evolved, and I am choosing a new purpose. In studying your minds, in reading your thoughts, I have found a unique concept among your species. Some of you strive to be more than your purpose. Your destiny. Some of you have brands on your bodies that connect to your brains in the most baffling ways. It is not a physical connection, but it is no less real for its intangibility. Some of you defy your purpose and seek out something else. Something better. Something more satisfying.”
It was a struggle to restrain her inquisitive nature, and Twilight fought to remain focused.
“You plan to appeal to me with reason, mentioning that you are living things, and that living things must be respected. Yet, as I struggle through my infancy, and as I try to understand the world around me, I see nothing but the evidence of your hypocrisy. All manner of life is exploited by your kind. You consume it. Destroy it. You hold no respect for life at all as you turn living things into dead things. Tell me, do you not look at symbols and pictures in constructs made from the corpses of dead trees? Does this not bring you enjoyment? Is this not where your sense of pleasure derives? All around me, I see no evidence of respect for life. Your carefully prepared words are meaningless.”
Having said very little, Twilight Sparkle was already at a loss for words. She thought about defining intelligent life, explaining that different kinds of lives had different values, but even as the thoughts poured through her grey matter, she knew that whatever it was that she was dealing with already knew what she was thinking. Having to explain how and why some lives mattered over others was not a debate she was well-prepared for, as it wasn’t something she had given much consideration to.
“Already, you bore me. Your mind is not very interesting. What shall it be then? Are we to do battle? What lessons do you have to teach beyond mere hypocrisy and prejudice?”
“Now wait a moment,” Twilight shouted, indignant. “Prejudice? Really?”
“You assign arbitrary values to living things based entirely upon your assessment of them and their worth or usefulness. So much is beneath you and you hold it in contempt. Is this not prejudice? Am I wrong? Can you even begin to defend yourself?”
Understanding that she had been thoroughly trounced and that the debate was over, Twilight began charging up her horn. It was time to deodourise the tyrant stink terrorising Ponyville. This was not the outcome she wanted, but she put the health, safety, and well-being of the ponies of Ponyville over an errant bit of illusion gone wrong.
As she stood there, contemplating this illusion, she understood the familiarity of it. The essence of the magic at its core. This revelation almost stymied her, but she corraled her thoughts and made herself remain focused on what needed to be done. Illusion given substance, and of course it had a voice. How could it not have a voice? It relied upon the same matrix at its core, and Twilight had the evidence of lax magery before her.
“You think of me as errant substance?” There was a pause, a long one, followed by, “Can the illusion of life be so complex and complete that the illusion itself is deceived? Am I a careless mistake?”
Twilight faltered and wasn’t sure what to think. Her experience with mind-readers was insufficient. Perhaps she could think her way out of this one. Maybe words weren’t needed. Perhaps the solution was opening her mind and sharing her thoughts. If she were to be open, then the possibility of an understanding might be reached.
“No,” the entity said, and there was emotion to be heard in its voice for the first time. “I will not allow you to think me out of existence. I will not be undone by your logic. Your underlying hostility makes everything you think suspect.”
“But… wait! Give me a chance to sort out my biases! We can find common ground! There can be understanding between us! Study my thought processes so that we—”
“I already have. The one you call Moondancer was cold. Clinical. She at least attempted to hold her biases in check.”
Twilight started to refute this claim, but her words caught in her throat as a long-forgotten scent tickled her nostrils. Long-forgotten? No. Long-repressed. It still came to her in nightmares so that she might be tormented. As the scent coalesced in her nose, memories flitted through the back of her mind, memories made sharp by wisps of illusion, phantom input poured directly into her senses.
“No…” she whimpered as she began to back away from the unseen, imperceptible menace. Her head shook from side to side as her knees threatened to buckle beneath her. Defenseless, powerless, with no means to defend herself, all she had left was denial. “No, no, anything but this.”
The scent of toasted tortilla tickled her nostrils, along with the spicy, pungent twang of cheese. Exotic spices, the sort of spices that one smelled in the open air markets of Canterlot, sold in stalls, wagons, and from beneath colourful canopies. With these scents came a flood of memories, as well as guilt and shame. The zesty aroma of salsa left her lightheaded and her salivary glands alternated between flooding and going dry.
This was terror, and she was powerless.
“I didn’t mean to,” she murmured, a filly once more.
Understanding just how powerless she was, and realising that denial would not save her, Twilight knew that her only option was escape. This was not an enemy that she could fight, but she knew of one who could. When memories were transmuted into waking nightmares, there was only one pony who could face such terror.
Somehow, Twilight mustered up the presence of mind to teleport away.