Heart of Magic

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter Eighteen: Friendship Dispelled

Twilight opened her eyes. Around her she saw bright warm light and heard the soft music of a guitar in the background. The floor beneath her was hard and cold, but she was able to roll over and put her weight on her hooves. She rose to find herself in a small antechamber, the glass pane windows let in some soft morning light. Outside foals were playing and a few ponies were enjoying the morning. This was not Ponyville.

Books lined the wall to her side, including a set of encyclopedias focused on the history of magic. Behind her she heard some hushed voices talking quietly. She was sleeping on a hard wooden floor, a blanket had been laying next to her, it looked twisted and knotted as though she had fought with it in her sleep. Something felt off about her body. She wasn’t sure exactly what. The room around her felt huge as well. Maybe her perception was just off.

Twilight wasn’t sure how she got here, or what happened before. She knew only that she needed to get back home. Luna would surely be worried sick about her now.

Twilight walked out of the anti chamber speaking loudly, “Starlight?”

Starlight’s voice came out gentle from nearby. “I’m right here, Twilight.”

She looked over to see both Starlight and Sunburst sitting happily by a fireplace. Sunburst was playing a guitar. He was getting better at it. Twilight approached them and sat down. “Starlight, what happened? Why am I here? I need to get back, Luna’s going to be worried and so are my friends.”

Sunburst let out a nervous cough as he stopped playing the guitar. “I’ll uh… I’ll go um… check on our daughter. I’m sure she needs help with her magic lessons.”

When he walked by Twilight she noticed he was actually taller than her. How could he have grown so tall?

He left the room and even though Twilight couldn’t understand why, she felt like something was really wrong. “Starlight, why is he acting strange? I just want to go home.”

Starlight’s voice came out gentle as could be. “Twilight, you’ve been in a drunken induced coma for three days. We tried moving you but you kept biting us when we tried. I barely even managed to clean most of the vomit off of you.”

Twilight sniffed herself. Yep, vomit. “So… why am I here?”

“Don’t you remember what you did?”

Twilight shook her head. “Did I wet myself at one of Pinkie’s parties again?”

Starlight narrowed her eyes. “How can you suggest something like that without any shame?”

“After the fourth time it happened I gave up on the idea of shame.”

“Maybe you should start caring again now that you don’t have any friends.”

Twilight blinked. For a moment silence passed between them. Starlight cleared her throat and said, “What I mean is that uh… well… I’m sorry.”

Twilight stared at her. “Are they… is Ponyville gone?”

Starlight blinked. “Good heavens no! There all still alive and well, or well enough. Heck Trixie is even an alicorn now.”

Twilight stared at her. “She’s an alicorn now? That’s amazing! I have to congratulate her.”

Starlight put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder and squeezed gently. Her hoof was giant compared to Twilight’s small shoulder. “I’d stay away from them if I were you. In fact I wouldn’t even go back to Ponyville, not for a long long time.”

Twilight stared at her. “But… why? And what do you mean I don’t have any friends?”

“Oh gods, Twilight, how could you not remember what you did to them, what you did to Luna?”

Twilight stared down at the floor. Those words hit her harder than she expected. She couldn’t remember, the last thing she recalled was the conversation she had with Starswirl the Bearded before going back to Ponyville with Luna. She remembered that what he told her caused her to drink, a lot. After all what he suggested… how were any of them going to survive at all?

Starlight let go of Twilight’s shoulder. “Blackout drunk is it? That doesn’t fix the situation, in fact it might make it worse… at least when I went back to the town after a year I remembered starting a cult to take down the princesses, and could apologize for all the brain washing, drugs, and orgies.”

“Oh no, I didn’t start an orgy did I?” Twilight quickly replied.

“No you… you did something far worse. You hurt all of your friends, and… attacked Luna.”

Twilight met her eyes. Even though she couldn’t believe those words, she could see it in her old student’s eyes, she was telling the truth. “How did… how do you know?”

Starlight offered a small smile. “After you showed up at my house, teleporting onto our dinner table spewing puke like a fountain, I decided to find out what would drive you to drink like that. Turns out everypony except for Luna were more than willing to tell me exactly what had happened.”

“And Luna?”

“She went home to her sister’s castle.”

“So Celestia knows too… I wonder if she’ll try to kill me now…”

“Are you kidding? Celestia locked her sister up on the moon once, and was forgiven for it, I think Celestia will cut you one last break.”

Twilight looked at the book shelves. A lot of these books were gifts from Twilight to Sunset. They both shared a passion for knowledge and the only difference between them seemed to be the fact that Starlight got pregnant before becoming an alicorn.

“Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head. “What do I do now?”

Starlight wrapped her legs around Twilight and pulled her into an embrace. It wasn’t just her hoof, Starlight’s entire body was massive compared to her own. Or rather, Twilight quickly realized she had actually shrunk in size. “I think it’s my turn to do for you what you did for me. I can’t teach you magic but I can give you a safe place to live while you recover.”

“Recover from what?”

“Alcoholism.”

“I’m an alicorn, alicorns can’t get addicted to drugs.”

Starlight pulled away and met Twilight’s eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

“I… uh… don’t know anymore.”

“That’s a start.”

Twilight leaned into Starlight’s embrace and let out a sigh. “Thank you.”

“But you do have to abide by a few rules if you’re going to stay here. For me, you revoked my use of time travel magic. For you, I’m not allowing you to have any form of alcohol at all. Don’t worry though, we don’t drink in this house so you won’t be tempted.”

The thought of not having alcohol hurt, it hurt almost as much as knowing she just blew it. She just ruined her entire life. All of her friends, but most importantly, her Luna, hated her. She needed to know, she needed to know exactly what happened, so she could never, ever do it again to the only two friends she had left.

“Starlight, please tell me everything.”

Starlight pulled away and with the warm embrace gone Twilight just felt cold and empty. “Alright, but in return I want you to tell me what you and Starswirl talked about.”

Twilight nodded. “Okay, I’ll tell you everything.”

Twilight stood on top of a lone hill. The grass here was green but there was something in the air. Or rather a lack of something. There was no magic here. Even Twilight’s internal store of magic was gone, only the magic contained in her missing eye still remained. In front of her stood a tall tower, made of gray stone with barred windows and a metal door barred from the outside. This was where the most dangerous prisoner in Equestria was contained, Starswirl the Bearded.

Each step up to the front door came with it an increased weight upon Twilight’s soul. Luna was only a few hundred feet away, at the barrier with the other guard and waiting for Twilight to wrap up here. At the drop of a single word the entire tower could be leveled in an instant with explosives packed beneath and around the tower. This place could easily become her own tomb is she wasn’t careful. Of course once she reached the door she saw a face hatch. Using her hoof she opened it and saw a brilliant library inside. A fireplace which was burning by a few pieces of wood and a map of Equestria laying on a table. Starswirl was standing by the table.

“Starswirl,” Twilight said his name as if it were a curse.

Her glanced over at her and sighed. With a few steps he made his way to the door. “You. Of all the ponies who hate me in this era, you seem to have a personal grudge against me the most. Is it because you were close to Spitfire, or is it because I took your wing?”

Twilight growled. “You didn’t just take my wing, you took my future. Our future.”

He smiled at her. “No, what I did was give you all a future. But of course you’re starting to realize what I did for you, that’s why you came here. To ask about the thing I was preparing you for.”

Twilight blinked. “How did-“

Starswirl interrupted. “Do not think for a moment that I had not planned for this. You have shown over the years to be the one pony above all that I could trust to save us from this fate. You will need the Alicorn Empire before this apocalypse ends.”

“Apocalypse?”

“You’ve already seen it once. A world void of all life, with only dust remaining in the cold empty expanse of nothingness.”

Twilight thought back to the world she discovered when she first faced off against Starlight Glimmer. The final world she encountered, the final multiverse she entered. That world where nothing remained. Even a world where Tirek killed and destroyed everything was better off than that. Of course it was only the first of such worlds she had discovered once she began searching out the multiverse to try and map it.

He nodded. “You know of what I speak.”

“Worlds filled with dust and emptiness.”

“Precisely. It would seem that every world is on a sort of timer. So far ours has been lucky enough to push back that timer, time and time again. With the sacrifice of my team, the original Elements of Harmony if you will, we were able to stop the threat for a long time. We locked the darkness in a pocket dimension where time stood still.”

“Then why are you worried?”

“Because I was locked in there up until a couple hundred years ago. Then I was knocked out of the pocket dimension.”

“So you’re saying that if you could be knocked out of the pocket dimension…”

“Then this entity could as well.”

The thought of her entire world becoming nothing more than ash and dust like the various empty worlds she’d visited in the past made her stomach turn inside out. Her reflex was to bring her flask to her mouth using telekinesis, but in this anti magic zone she was forced to use her hooves to take a swig. After this conversation she was going to have two things she could do to fix this. One, get as much alcohol inside her as she could as quickly as possible, and two figure out a way to stop this threat.

“Is it possible to destroy this thing?” Twilight asked.

Starswirl was quiet for a moment as he seemed to think it over. “The only force I can think of would be the Elements of Harmony, but even that might not be enough to stop it. Locking it away in another pocket dimension would work to buy us some time, but if at all possible we should aim for complete destruction rather than imprisonment.”

“There is no ‘we’ there’s a me and my friends,” Twilight said.

He smiled. “That’s fair enough. Lucky for you you’ll have access to more alicorn magic than has ever been seen on this planet before. Not only that you also have the spirit of chaos on your side. I think it’s fair to assume that you can now keep this world safe, Elements of Harmony or no.”

Twilight had to agree with him there. If she could get the Alicorn Empire to work with her on this, they’d be able to stop any threat, even if it was some kind of world devouring monster. The only thing she needed now was a starting point for more research. “Starswirl, what is this creature I’m facing.”

“It is the evilest entity I have ever encountered. A primordial being capable of destroying the entire world if not stopped. This is The Pony of Shadows.”