//------------------------------// // Breaking Point // Story: Metal Gear Spark: Peace Zero // by GreenS21 //------------------------------// Twilight groaned as she stretched her legs, letting out a sigh as she brought her forelegs back down. She was still mostly asleep, but she could already tell she was feeling better after that nap. She must not have had any dreams for a change, a welcome respite. Now that she was refreshed, she had to get going. It was time to find a new path for herself. But… she felt so warm and comfortable right now. It would probably be a while before she felt like this again. Maybe that path could wait a while. She snuggled back into the mattress, rested her head atop her pillow, snuggled… into… the covers… Twilight’s eyes shot open and she sat up and looked around. She quickly realized she was not in the basement of her old home, where she remembered falling asleep. She was in her room in the crystal castle. “How did I get here?” she wondered to herself. She looked down and noticed two more things: one, she wasn’t wearing her Sneaking Suit anymore, and two, all the bandages she had wrapped around her right hoof were gone. She moved it a bit and touched it with her left hoof. She felt no pain; it was like she hadn’t broken it the day before. Sensing something out of the ordinary, she looked up and glanced around. Her eyes settled on the doors, realizing they were open a crack. Through the crack, she could see a familiar dark blue coat and a cyan eye looking at her from the other side. “Luna,” she realized as the two locked eyes for several moments. Their contact was broken when Luna closed the doors and began walking away. Twilight grimaced slightly. That look in Luna’s eye meant one thing: she was expected at breakfast, and if she didn’t show up, she would really get it. Seeing no other option available, she climbed out of bed and began to get ready. A short while later, Twilight made her way through the castle’s halls, her mane and tail straight and her Sneaking Suit on. She had taken a bath and got her mane and tail back to their straightened look. Much as she didn’t want to keep Luna and the others waiting, she felt the need to not look like she just crawled out of bed even though her mind had been nagging at her that she was taking too long and only delaying the inevitable the whole time she was doing it. She made it to the dining room and pushed the doors open. Inside, she saw Celestia, Luna, Shining, Cadance, and Spike all sitting around the circular table in the center. Twilight could hear them talking as normal before she opened the doors, but as soon as she did, they all stopped and turned to look at her. Twilight stood in the doorway waiting to see if someone would say something, but after a few moments, it seemed like no one wanted to be the first to speak up. She walked over to the table, saying a quiet “Good morning” before she sat down between Spike and Celestia near the head of the table. An awkward silence followed. Spike, Shining, and Cadance all looked like they wanted to say something, but Twilight noticed that they kept glancing past/next to her at Celestia. She sighed internally; she had snapped at Celestia and pushed her out of the way, so it made sense that Celestia would have the right to speak first. Twilight glanced up at her. There were no hints on her face as to what she might be feeling. In fact, she wasn’t even looking at Twilight; instead, she seemed to be studying her cup of tea, staring down at it intently as though she was looking for something. Finally, she spoke. “Twilight,” she began, immediately catching the lavender alicorn’s attention. “A number of words were exchanged yesterday at the lake. And quite a bit of anger as well.” Twilight shrank into her seat a little as Celestia spoke, the princess pausing to mull over how to continue. “I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to continue fueling that anger when that may be what you’ve had to get used to. There hasn’t been time for you to tell us everything you experienced while you were away, and the state of the world you were in is likely due to too much anger building up over time. As well as things that should’ve been shared between friends but, for one reason or another, were not,” she said after a few seconds. Twilight looked up at her, “Princess?” Celestia looked down at her, “Of course there are things I’d rather not bring up in conversation. We all do. But I have a feeling what I keep to myself is not what prompted what happened yesterday. I think perhaps it was simply due to exhaustion. Your friends mentioned that, while they were looking for you, a number of ponies told them that you’ve been doing a lot of work for them since you returned. Is that true?” Twilight resignedly answered, “Yes. I, uh… I needed some extra bits.” Cadance asked, “For what?” Twilight replied, “To pay for the destruction of the library. The town council demanded it.” Celestia said, “Strange that they did not notify us of such an outstanding debt. We are all Princesses of Equestria; we try to share each other’s burdens.” Shining asked, “How close are you to repaying them, Twily?” Twilight became nervous at this. “Uh, I just paid them back yesterday,” she said. Shining tilted his head, “You made enough from helping out ponies around town?” Twilight began to fidget in her seat, not sure how to respond. Celestia spoke up after a few moments, “Twilight, your brother asked you a question.” When there was still no response from the lavender mare, she asked, “If you didn’t make enough helping the ponies around Ponyville, then how did you repay the debt?” Twilight started, “Um, I might have, uh…” only to trail off and mutter the rest under her breath. Celestia asked, “What was that, Twilight?” When she did it again, she pressed, “Speak up, Twilight, and tell us. If you continue to do this, it will not…” Twilight cut her off by blurting out, “Life savings! Life savings covered the rest!” Shining looked shocked at this. “What?! Twilight…” Twilight said, “I was worried about the Mayor! She said she was trying to keep the council from doing anything too rash and they were breathing down her neck for it! She was doing her best to keep them in check and I didn’t want it to all be for nothing! I…” She lost her fire as her eyes focused on the table. “I didn’t want her to get in more trouble…” she stated weakly. Luna looked up at Celestia after a few moments and noticed she seemed to be contemplating Twilight’s words. "Sister?” she ventured. After remaining silent a little longer, Celestia spoke, “I believe we can put all the confusion and instability these last few days behind us, Twilight. This entire situation regarding the old library’s destruction… I’m not certain anyone involved was acting as they should, and I am no exception.” Twilight looked up at her in confusion, “Princess?” With the exception of Luna, everyone else also looked at her curiously at that. Celestia closed her eyes and hung her head, “I… I have not done right by you at all, Twilight. When you first awoke and I saw how you acted despite your injuries, I let myself believe your time away had not fundamentally changed you, that things would happen as I thought they were meant to and I could leave you to take up your new role. What a foolish assumption that was.” She opened her eyes and looked down at Twilight, “Of course your time away has changed you. You’ve been in the company of beings who have had a different world to grow up in and different views towards things as a result, views that have become a part of your own view as you became closer to them.” Twilight started, “Well, I don’t think…” Celestia interjected, “No, Twilight. You’ve spent months living and fighting alongside them, making new friends, developing new habits and adjusting your views in the process. After everything Luna and I went through so long ago, I should’ve known that it would take more than a few days for you to get used to being back in your old life. In all this time, we haven’t even properly celebrated your return.” She extended a wing and wrapped it around Twilight’s back, pulling her closer into a hug, “Your friends and I would like to make that up to you now, if you’ll let us.” Twilight couldn’t help but rest in Celestia’s embrace, feeling the warmth and compassion and enjoying it as she remembered moments like this in the past. Part of her wanted to argue against all this, but in her current state, there was only one thing she could say. “Of course, Princess. I’d really like that,” she murmured. Celestia relaxed her hold and smiled down at her. Twilight held her gaze for a moment before she glanced off to the side and said, “Um… There’s just one thing I’d like to say first.” Celestia and the others blinked at this. “Snake and I, we… we weren’t friends. Not really. Just… throwing that out there as long as we’re… clearing things up.” Spike asked, “I thought you were, Twilight?” Twilight shook her head, “No. We were more like… workmates? Partners? Colleagues? …That’ll have to do. We never got closer than that, no matter how much time we spent together.” Luna cleared her throat, catching everyone’s attention. She spoke, “Speaking of things that should probably be mentioned, Twilight… You were not alone when I found you last night. There was someone, or perhaps more accurately something, else there.” Twilight tilted her head, “What do you mean, Luna?” Luna explained, “It looked like a human, but its feet were not touching the ground. It also seemed somewhat transparent, and it vanished into the ground shortly after it noticed me. That leads me to believe that this perpetually smiling human wearing a hood and glasses… was a ghost.” Spike looked a bit nervous at that. Twilight, meanwhile, glanced up. “Hmm…” she murmured as she thought about Luna’s words. After a few moments, she looked back down at the alicorn and said, “No, that doesn’t sound like anyone I know, Luna. Is that all you could tell about the person?” Luna was a bit taken aback by this question, but replied, “Well, yes. It was too dark to make out any other details.” She wasn’t the only one since Shining commented, “You don’t seem very surprised by the idea that you might have been visited by a ghost, Twily.” Twilight shrugged, “Probably because I’ve seen ghosts before.” Spike was shocked at this. “You have?! Wait, ‘ghosts’? As in more than one? Where did you see ghosts?!” he exclaimed. Twilight replied, “In Snake’s world.” Cadance asked, “You mean like with Peace Walker? Do you mean something similar?” Twilight answered, “No, no, not like that. I… I remember we had a few retrieval missions that involved encountering the supernatural. The areas we had to retrieve the items from had the bodies of almost dead soldiers lying around, and their ghosts were never far away, standing, or rather floating, guard.” Shining asked, “Really?” Twilight nodded, “Yeah. They were never happy if they caught us sneaking around, though a few good chest compressions were usually enough to send them screaming home.” Spike raised an eyebrow, “Screaming?” Twilight said, “Yeah. When we’d attempt CPR on their physical bodies, they’d start wailing as they tried to float away but couldn’t as they were dragged back to life. The radio would even get all weird when we were near ghosts. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t gone on one or two of those missions.” Spike got nervous again as he asked, “So… that means ghosts ARE real?” Twilight smirked, “Spike, if all ghosts are like the ones I saw, you’d know they were real. Trust me.” The breakfast conversation continued on for a while, the tense atmosphere from earlier long forgotten, but while Twilight was seemingly acting like herself again, Luna couldn’t help but notice she was still insistent on wearing her Sneaking Suit. She had a feeling that it and the bandages were hiding physical reminders of things she didn’t want to talk about. For now, she let it go, but she hoped she would get a chance to talk to Twilight about it later. A little while later after breakfast, they all made their way over to Sugarcube Corner, where the rest of Twilight’s friends were waiting with everything all set up for a party. Everypony was relieved and happy to see that Twilight was back to being her more upbeat self, the events of the previous afternoon almost entirely put behind them. Discord showed up after the party had started, much to Shining’s displeasure. The draconequus seemed to turn his nose up whenever he was near Twilight, though it was hard to say if that was due to him not forgetting what happened yesterday or him being his usual self. Still, Pinkie announced that everyone was there and dashed into the kitchen to get the cake. What she came back with surprised everyone. It wasn’t usually a surprise when Pinkie went all out and baked a large cake, regardless of the occasion, but the large circular cake she wheeled out was certainly a new achievement for her… from what they could see. It looked like it was almost half the size of a kiddie swimming pool, and it had a sheet draped over it. “Cake time, everypony!” she said cheerfully as she came to a stop in the middle of the room. “Pinkie, what kinda cake did you make?” Applejack asked, obviously curious about the sheet. Pinkie grinned, “Oh, I’m really proud of this one! Take a look!” With that, she grabbed the sheet and whipped it off, not disturbing the cake at all in the process. Twilight stared in awe. The cake itself was obviously a confectionary marvel, but Pinkie had put together a model on top of it, specifically a scale model of Mother Base, the support legs of the struts even extending down into the ‘water’ covering the top of the cake. Twilight walked over to Pinkie and asked, “Pinkie, how did you make that?” The party pony replied, “From memory, of course! And a bunch of little things! Nothing that’s food, though; that way you can always have a little model of Snake’s sea fortress to look at and remind you of all the time you spent with him, even if they weren’t all great times. Imagine how much bigger it might be the next time you see him!” Twilight smiled wryly at her, “Pinkie…” Rainbow spoke up, “So, uh… what’s the water made of, Pinkie?” Pinkie answered, “Sugar, of course! It took a long time to get it just right.” As everyone moved closer to the cake, Discord looked at it appraisingly. “Hmm… it feels like it’s missing something,” he said. Everyone looked at him as he continued to examine the model. After a few moments, he spoke, “Ah! A fireworks display! That’s what it’s missing.” Shining looked at him dubiously, “Fireworks?” Discord replied, “Well, it IS a base and all. Surely it should have some way of lighting things up.” Pinkie had a realization at his words and let out a loud gasp, catching everyone’s attention. “CANDLES! I forgot the candles! How could I forget…?” She sat down, staring at the floor with a sad expression. Twilight put a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder and said, “Pinkie, it’s okay. I love it! It looks amazing! It doesn’t need anything else.” Pinkie uttered, “But I wanted this cake to be perfect for you. I didn’t even think about the candles when I was preparing it. And now there’s no place for them…” Discord spoke, “Oh, wipe that frown off your face, Pinkie.” He demonstrated by using his lion paw to literally wipe his mouth off, though it reappeared a few seconds later in a smile. “I can fix that little problem without disturbing anything!” he finished. Twilight got an odd look on her face as she started to say, “Uh, that’s really not necessary, Discord…” He either didn’t hear her or ignored her since, with a snap of his fingers, candle wicks sprouted from the top of the Mother Base model and small candles emerged from the sugar water. Twilight began to get nervous and started to move towards Discord as she said, “Okay Discord, that’s enough. You don’t have to…” Once again, her pleas fell on deaf ears and a second snapping of his fingers lit all the candles, causing her to stop in her tracks. Twilight stared at the lit candles, watching them burn and flicker all over Mother Base and in the ‘water’. It added something to the scene, something that caused a sensation of horror to rise up in her. It brought to mind a sight she’d only seen once, but once was more than enough. She could almost see it playing out right in front of her. The collapsing struts, the buildings collapsing and burying all underneath, choppers on fire in the water, the flames engulfing everything… She came out of it and back to the present when Spike, not noticing any sign of her inner turmoil, shook her and asked, “Hey, can I blow out the candles, Twilight?” Twilight nodded slightly, numbly saying, “Y-Yeah, sure. Go ahead, Spike. Blow out the candles.” As the dragon climbed up onto the cake, she whispered, “Please put them out. Please put out the fires.” Once he was hanging onto the edge of the cake, Spike took a deep breath and blew it out, putting all the candles out. Twilight let out a sigh at this, relieved, but her terror flared up again when the candles lit up again. Spike tried blowing them out several more times, only for them to relight each time. Almost everyone laughed at Discord’s use of relighting candles, but Twilight’s turmoil was only getting worse with each passing moment as she took a few steps back and sat down, a cold sweat running down her head as she began to breathe faster. Shining stopped laughing long enough to glance over at where Twilight had been standing, at which point he realized she wasn’t there. He looked around and spotted her. His good mood vanished when he noticed the distant look in her eyes and her horrified expression, causing him to turn and trot over to her. “Twilight? Twily? What’s wrong?” he asked, trying to get her attention, but she couldn’t hear him. The relighting candles had caused Twilight’s memories to become more vivid and twisted, causing them to cloud her mind. She was no longer in Sugarcube Corner; in her mind, she was reliving the horrors once again. The base was on fire and they were under attack. She could see the shadows firing on her fellow soldiers, their screams ringing out through the air. Blood spilled across the decks and the smell of death filled the air, mixing with the smell of the flames around her. Twilight was too terrified to move as, amidst the slaughter, the man from her dreams calmly and slowly emerged and walked towards her. She could only look up at him as he got closer, tipping his hat up to reveal the tightly stretched skin on his face that melted away to reveal his skull as it suddenly caught on fire… By this time, everyone noticed Twilight’s state due to Shining’s attempts to reach her and were looking at her with great concern. It was only when Shining touched her with a hoof and Spike loudly called out her name that she finally responded. All of the ponies that were out around Sugarcube Corner stopped and winced when they heard a loud scream of terror come from inside the building, the scream almost sounding animalistic. They all immediately turned to look, only to see Twilight running out in terror, tears streaming down her face, her friends and family coming out after her and stopping on the front step as they called out to her to no avail. She just kept running, fear being the only thing that was pushing her on.