//------------------------------// // 65 The Survivalist // Story: Errant Finale // by Doug Graves //------------------------------// The hairs on Twilight’s coat stand a little straighter with every flap of her wings as she circles high above the city of Manehatten. It rankles, that this is her ‘duty’, but Celestia had proposed and everypony agreed and here she is. Her heavy duty scanning spells, which have only gotten stronger since she became an alicorn, are nearly useless at this altitude. Leaving her little more than a glorified advertisement that the Princesses are doing ‘something’. Worse, she isn't just the backup. That would be Luna. She's the backup to the backup. A contingency in case something is wrong with the area where Doug confronted Tirek. It’s not that she’s ungrateful, but there’s so much more she can be doing besides playing eye in the sky and coordinating between everypony. It isn’t like the four of them, being the most powerful magic users in Equestria with literal millennia of experience, aren’t going to involve themselves in the nitty-gritty of solving this conundrum. Worse, Celestia’s earlier argument made sense. She found herself hard pressed to say why exposing only two of them to Tirek and two of them to Doug was a bad idea. She thought she’d be able to investigate one of them or the other. But, instead, the high and mighty and oh-so-powerful Princess Celestia got to expose herself to both of them while she got neither! Hence the rankling, and definitely un-Princessly thoughts running through her mind. Though that could also be the fact that she’s been airborne and gliding around since Doug left Manehatten and she teleported here with Luna to start their investigation. It was worse when they watched bodies being carried out of buildings, and knowing there was nothing they could do. At least Luna could start scanning anything and everything. You know, actually help. While Twilight had to leave, take to the air, and avoid contact while everypony else solved everything. She has a lot of time to think, and while a good portion of those thoughts have been… unproductive, some had not. Celestia released her notes on Tirek’s spell as well as the research Sunset Shimmer did years ago, even going so far as to provide a copy of Sunset’s journal. While most of it wasn’t pertinent to their situation, the last line stuck with her. The one that talked about draining a pony past the point where magic could sustain life. It is, perhaps, the only reason she isn’t down there right now. Because if whatever is keeping everypony from recovering, that steadily worsens their condition, isn’t fixed? Then everypony who exposes themselves to the unknown cause is condemned to a slow, tortured existence before unconsciousness provides a brief respite, swiftly leading to death from a cascade of organ failure. At least, that’s the projected prognosis, with a bevy of lesser symptoms to look out for, with such tripe like ‘tiredness’ or ‘difficulty concentrating’ or ‘weakness with magic or otherwise’ that might as well be applied to every single pony who stays up past their normal bedtime. The string of resulting hypochondriacs just makes it even harder to tell if any ponies actually are new patients. Still, there has got to be something she can do. It's a little unnerving watching Luna lower the moon without Celestia next to her, but the great ball of fire rises nonetheless. It's probably the earliest she's ever seen the sunrise, given how little time she's spent on the east coast. She'd like to describe it as beautiful, but her mind is otherwise occupied. She’s too busy listening to two doctors discuss why, for no apparent reason, every single patient under their care stabilized. It might have been a cause for celebration, if things were getting better, but a lot of them will settle for ‘not getting any worse’. What would cause that sort of thing? It’s too bad nopony else has any records of this happening, they would likely have been thrown out for being a thousand years old. Wait. The Crystal Empire came back after a thousand year hiatus. The Castle of the Two Sisters has been locked up for a thousand years. Both castles, or at least the surrounding city, have rather extensive libraries that it seems almost criminal for her to not have read through. Or at least skimmed the titles and taken all the interesting books. Taken copies of, not taken the actual books. And they might have books talking about what it was like when Tirek stole pony magic, and documented what happened to any such ponies. Even if Celestia’s recollection was along the lines of ‘they just kind of got better’, there might be something else. A hastily written missive to Luna later and Twilight teleports herself straight to the Crystal Empire archives.   The librarian on duty (up even before dawn? What dedication!) stops sifting through the books they had left unorganized the last time they were there (wait, it’s been a month, maybe that’s less dedicated than she thought) and asks Twilight what she is doing there with a silent gaze. Twilight’s reply of, “I need books on Tirek,” prompts a “Who?” (okay, seriously? Was this guy, like, not a big deal or something?) One hurried explanation later and Twilight leaves with a faded newspaper and a long face, her patience growing thin. Her teleport to Ponyville leaves her a little winded, but no less agitated as she takes to the air. Now she just needs to avoid the dangers of the Everfree as she flies to the giant castle inside. Or she can just teleport again. It’s too bad the abandoned castle doesn’t have helpful librarians. Or a clearly marked floor plan. Or half a dozen friends to find all the secret passages so she can get to the library quicker. It only takes two laps around the place until she goes through a green tinted skylight into an ominously booby trapped room with a single book in the center of a scene ripped straight from Marabian Nights! The gray stone book itself is a bust, clearly dark magic that is unfortunately not associated with Tirek, despite the angsty cover with ten spikes and gold bands for binding. Seriously, this is not how you bind stone tablets. That everything collapses around her would be a problem except that she has wings, and she’s been practicing. “Thank you, Fluttershy,” Twilight says to the metal grate she lands next to, picking the lock with her telekinesis and revealing an unopened secret door. “Let’s see…” Twilight’s horn flares a bright raspberry, analyzing the seemingly solid wall. “A hidden switch on the other side of a book? Oh, this must be the library!” She squeals in delight as a latch clicks, the wall sliding to the side. It reveals dozens of shelves, books stacked to the ceiling in every one. “Yes!” Twilight pronks around like an excited filly who got not one but all of her Foal’s Week gifts on one day. She exuberantly bounces from section to section, using the up and down motion to scan every row. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Books tumble off shelves, whisked away to form a stack, then two stacks, then a veritable fort of books. “Hmm,” Twilight considers as she inspects the pile. “Maybe I need to cut this down from books I want to read to books I have to read. To solve this puzzle. Because I have to read all of these. At some point tonight. I mean, once this crisis is over.” Her selection painfully pruned, the for-later books carefully organized under a blackboard with a tiny circled note in the bottom corner that says ‘do not reshelve’, and Twilight teleports back to Ponyville. Spike was either forewarned about her intentions or he is psychic. Because he has not only prepared a piping hot breakfast, complete with coffee, but closed the library except for book related emergencies and set up her study area just the way she likes it. Twilight brings all the books there, before going to her room and pulling out one.  For some reason, she feels like reading through Starswirl’s greatest works. Several hours of reading later and Spike helpfully informs her that things are still going, well, not exactly smoothly, but aren’t getting worse. Also, that Doug has still shown no signs of anything abnormal (more abnormal that is, magic still treats him like a zero) and is returning to Ponyville with the rest of the herd. Apparently Applejack thinks work on her farm is more important than whatever is going on and Fluttershy wants to make sure her animals are all okay (Hedge had it covered, Spike checked). At least they understand they might be needed as Elements of Harmony, and will remain easily located. More hours pass, with less news and even less to do than read through accounts of Tirek’s impact on Equestria in general, but little specifics on how he affected individual ponies. Part of her wants to pick a pony off the street and conduct some ‘testing’ of her own, but that wouldn’t be right. “Urgh,” Twilight complains, flopping onto her bed in Ponyville. “This sucks.” “Still bummed they aren’t letting you do anything?” Spike asks, munching on a bowl of popcorn. “Duh!” Twilight snags a piece for herself. “Playing backup sucks. Being held in reserve. A contingency, a fallback plan!” “I don’t know, Rainbow Dash seems pretty excited at being a member of the Wonderbolts, even if she knows she’s just going to be a reservist for a couple years.” Spike tries to hide the popcorn behind himself, glaring at Twilight. Twilight doesn’t notice, she’s too busy ranting at her books, specifically Starswirl’s. “But she at least has the expectation that she’s eventually going to make the team! I should be on the team right now! There’s so much more that I could be doing to help!” “Like what?” Spike asks, munching away. “Like… spell research! Finding something that might fix this!” Twilight points a hoof at the swirls on the cover.  “Spell research?” Spike says, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn’t that require, like, lots of trials and studies that take forever to get approved?” “You’re right, Spike,” Twilight says with a nod. “And when you’re right, you’re right.” A mischievous grin crosses her face. “And I know just the pony we need.” “I don’t like that look,” Spike says warily, “And as your number one assistant-” Owlowiscious hoots, it being late evening and just around the time for him to wake up. “... Me! Spike!” The dragon glares at Owlowiscious. “Anyway. I know what you’re going to say, and it’s not worth it, getting her involved.” “But, Spike,” Twilight whines in an awfully close resemblance to Rarity, “Starlight Glimmer could be the only pony who can save us?” “Oh, come on!” Spike exclaims, throwing his claws in the air. “It isn’t even that bad! I mean, okay, sure, about fifty some odd ponies aren’t recovering. And it would be tragic if they didn’t. Except for Tirek, he can shrivel into dust for all I care. But these things happen, Twilight. And we’ll move on.” Twilight draws in a deep breath, then slowly lets it out, mouth moving as she visibly counts. “I can’t accept that, Spike. Not when there’s something that I can do to make it better.” Her eye glances outside as the sun sets, though her eyes narrow after a few seconds. “That’s odd.” “What?” Spike asks, joining her in looking out the window.  “The moon.” Twilight points a hoof as the light of the moon barely peeks over the horizon. The white orb slowly rises, wobbling, then slips backwards a few degrees. Suddenly it resumes its normal course, the stars in the sky only appearing after a few minutes. “Spike?” Twilight says as the dragon hacks up a letter. She grabs it, quickly unfurling it. “Oh, no.” “...Is it bad?” Spike asks, wringing his claws. “Worse.” Twilight gulps, her magic going out and the letter falling to the floor. “It’s spreading. Nearly every guard in Manehatten. Every doctor who was seeing the drained ponies.” She glances down at the letter; she wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t just witnessed it with her own eyes. “And Princess Luna.” Spike gulps as well, staring outside. “Their magic is being drained, too.”