//------------------------------// // Blades That Cut In A Direction That Doesn't Exist // Story: Rites of Ascension // by CvBrony //------------------------------// “Well, look at this.” Twilight hopped down through the hole, under the floor where Flicker had been working.  Flicker gave Twilight a foul look. “What, you didn’t think I’d just let you do whatever you wanted down here, did you?” Twilight responded. “For all I know, you were trying to sabotage this thing.” “That would be like trying to sabotage a time bomb that's set to go off. You're as likely to kill yourself as your intended target.” Flicker pointed at the scene in front of them. “It's as much a marvel as it is a freaking maze.” Underneath the floor of the reactor room was an uncountable number of pipes. The larger ones flowed with ice-blue mana, but most were smaller and opaque. There was a catwalk of sorts leading back behind them, and many pipes were running alongside it. Most of the pipes, however, were following the ice-mana ones, plunging down into a bottomless pit. Some of them were leaking ice magic, lighting the whole of the underground area but also obscuring where the pit led. The sheer torrent of magic getting pumped to who knows where would be more than enough to power all of Equestria, if it could be converted to electricity efficiently. Questions automatically filled Twilight's mind, ones that she voiced aloud. “How deep is it? And where does the mana go?” Flicker leaned on a railing overlooking the pit. “No idea. I mean, I know there's a sink of some kind. Something to dump out the mana safely, but how that works wasn't revealed to me.” Twilight leaned on the rail next to her. “Which begs the question: Revealed to you by whom?” “Well, I can't exactly tell you.” Flicker narrowed her gaze. “But I bet you can guess, to an extent.” Twilight swallowed, images of the sealed off underground lab underneath the pirate base. “Yeah. Can't forget the letters.” Flicker looked like she was about to say something but she fell off her train of thought as it was leaving the station. “Say what now?” “Flicker. Where's Shifting Current? What happened to him?” Flicker’s mouth made an”oh” shape. “That guy. What, did you find some journal of his or something?”  “In a manner of speaking. What did you do to him? Where is he?” “Gave him funding, and then he…” Flicker pulled out a piece of cherry gum and popped it in her mouth. “I don't know all the details. Not my business. But he went bonkers despite our—my— efforts to keep him functional. Nothing we did was meant to hurt him. He was valuable! Honestly, I think something went really wrong in his brain. Some chemical imbalance we couldn't figure out, maybe? Piss, it could have been a tumour or something, come to think of it. But once his mind was gone, his body followed.” Flicker almost choked on her gum. “Ack! Bad wording. He's still alive. Or he was when we last had him with us. He just… ran away, and we couldn't find him. You'd think a nutbar like that would be easy to find, but there's billions of ponies out there, and if you haven't noticed, a good chunk of them are crazy already.” Twilight set her tongue to “snark.” “Yeah, some of them worship dark gods and try to overthrow benevolent immortal leaders.” Flicker huffed. “If that's what you really think, then you don't know anything at all. But I swear to you, Shifting Current was alive and physically healthy last I saw him. We wouldn't hurt him; he was making incredible breakthroughs for us. He was the one that figured out how to get into the Ginnungagap.” Twilight's eyebrow stayed raised. “Uh-huh. But why would he work with you?” “He was crazy?” “Says a lot about who he worked for, I suppose, but let's be real for a moment. Given what happens when you say the name that starts with I and ends with nos, you can't be surprised that he went nuts.” Flicker’s tail swished in irritation. “Let's just get on with this. Come on, it's time to get the Element.” “One moment. I need to check for something.” Twilight switched to her Sight and looked around the pipes, looking for spells. “Still don't trust me?” Twilight pulled back on her vision and squinted. “We are about to fight, probably to the death. I have to make sure you didn't set up a trap with these machines to take me with you if you lose. And that alarm sound earlier was sketchy, you have to admit.” “Oh, that!” Flicker turned and trotted down one of the paths, then grabbed onto one of the blue mana pipes with her hooves and turned it. The mana flow shut off immediately, and the same alarm as before sounded. She opened and closed the pipe a few more times, then did the same to another one to the same effect before returning. “I think it's something that should happen automatically. Flow in the core stops, the drain should start. I think some of them just aren't working quite right.” “Logical. But I still want to check.” She turned to the depths, gazing down into the hole. There were paths down there, set up in a kind of spiral. I can't see it all at once… Going to have to go down there and look around, maybe check Flicker's body language as I go. “Follow me.” They walked down the winding way, Twilight both checking the walls with her Sight and noting Flicker's reactions. Both, however, were cold as cucumbers in a freezer. There was an unreal amount of power flowing around them, which meant the potential for mass destruction. Since the means with which the machines moved that power was opaque to her, there was little to check. No runes or wards could be found, and if any active spells were around, they were impossible to find. Still, she only turned around when the ice mana concentration started to form crystals on the bottom of her hooves. “Ok, I'm…” Twilight chewed on her words. “I wouldn't say satisfied, but I acknowledge that I'm probably not going to be able to find anything on any timescale faster than geologic. So, if you did do something, well done: I'm not able to find it.” Flicker clapped her hooves. “Still not trusting me. But I get it. I wouldn't trust me either, if I was in your position. Ready to get the Element?” “Yeah. Let's go.” It took several minutes to climb the stairs, but eventually they were on the second-highest level of the main chamber, and Flicker was messing with some lever behind a panel in the wall. “One thing I heard about this place is ‘redundant.’ At first I thought that this whole building was a backup for something, but then I found these.” She took out a book with a bunch of loose papers in it from her bag. “Notes from the traitors. I pretty quickly figured out it meant that this place has a ton of backup systems, and backups for those backups. This was in the notes.” She started pumping the lever, and a glass bridge started to unfold from under the catwalks and extend to the middle of the reactor core. The core itself had no colour in it anymore, except for the bottom part, which was brighter than ever. Twilight smiled and folded her forelegs. “Well, that bridge is convenient, at least. I was honestly thinking they'd use ice magic to make a staircase or something. I mean, I could do it, but it would've taken a bit to be careful to not screw up next to this much power.” Flicker chuckled as she put the panel back. “I seriously wouldn't bet against this place having something like that back in its day. But hey, redundancy.” “Probably the only reason this place is still standing!” Twilight pressed a hoof on the bridge, pushing down to try and make it crack, but it held without so much as a squeak. “There's no way this is just glass.” “The notes say there's aluminum in it? I dunno, but as long as it holds, I don't care for the moment.” Flicker marched towards the core, and Twilight made sure to stay right next to her. “Here goes nothing.” Twilight's stomach twisted itself. “I sure hope we aren't encased in ice magic for a thousand years or something. That's a lot of power in the bottom part.” “Oh ye of little faith!” Flicker grabbed the center part of the core and twisted it, then pulled. An assembly of sorts slid out, obviously meant to hold something that wasn't in there now. What was in there was the brilliant, orange, apple-shaped gem of Honesty, still on its necklace. Twilight let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. “There it is. Honesty. It's been a while since I've seen it. There's really nothing that can compare to these masterworks.” Flicker picked it up with her hooves and held it so they could both see. “Agreed. I've only seen them twice before, and by the heavens I could stare at this thing all day if you let me. It's like I see a new detail each time I blink.” “Question is, what do we do with it while we fight?” Twilight asked.  An ice cold chill went up Twilight's spine, and she knew it wasn't from the mana. It was from Flicker, and it wasn't something so complex as magic. It was a pure killing intent from the bottom of her soul.  “Oh, leave that to me,” said Flicker. Twilight readied to pull her sword as Flicker reached into her bag, but the other mare didn't pull a weapon. Instead, it was a roll of tape on a handle. There was only one possible response: “What?” “Mega Muck’s Magic Mega Tape!” Flicker held the Element on the core, just above the assembly they had removed, and ran the tape over it. “Resistant to spells and attempts to strip it by telekinesis! Stickier than a diamond dog's thieving paw! Cold can't degrade the glue, and water can't dissolve it! Heat resistant to three hundred degrees! You could build a boat out of it and a few sticks and it would float!” Flicker put another piece of tape over it to make an “X” shape. Then, she put a piece of purple plastic or something on the end of the tape roll, which was likely there to grip it without getting stuck in a spider web of one's own making. “There. Which means when I win I'm going to have to spend an hour trying to peel it off.” “Uhhh…” Twilight's mouth was hanging open. “Are you, like, an owner of that company? Or are they in cahoots with the Majestics somehow?” “Nah, I'm just a big fan. You'd be surprised how useful I've found this stuff.” Flicker stuffed the roll back into her bag, then pushed the assembly back into the core. “Let's head outside. We can have our fight in the city. Like I said, I don't wanna blow this thing up.” “Understandable. I hope you're ready to bring your A-game. Everypony that's underestimated me so far has had a really bad time when I crossed their path, and you will be paying for the ponies you've killed.” Flicker froze, looking up. “Maybe one day, you'll be right about that last part. I've got a lot of red in my ledger. But what I'm fighting for is worth it.” She locked eyes with Twilight, revealing that same killing intent. “Which means, I can't afford to lose.” The outside was much as Twilight left it, except that the light was running low. Flicker must have noticed it, too, as she dropped another piece of solidified magic into the generator powering the spotlight. “No sense in fighting in the dark.” Flicker rotated her right shoulder. “I'm sure we could use our magic to compensate, but since we'd be on even ground there, might as well charge up the light.” “I have no objections to that.” Twilight pointed in a direction she hoped she was remembering right. “I think I saw a hint of an open area a few kilometres that way. It should be far enough that we can fight there without risk to the reactor.” Flicker's smile had a little fang in it. “Oh? Just how much magic are you throwing around these days? Our intel says you should be more limited than that.” “You could ask Farriér — but you'll have to reassemble his atoms, which are likely scattered throughout not just the San Palomino desert, but time as well.” That got raised eyebrows from Agent F. “And you say I'm a murderer? Yeesh.” Twilight sighed. “Let's not go down the ethics rabbit hole again; we won't get anywhere with each other that way. Follow me; I think I remember the way.” The rest of the walk was spent in silence, each mare keeping a regular pace. No hints could be given about any weaknesses. When they were a few minutes out, Flicker started charging a spell. “Shields time. Or are you going to be relying on your bonded armor?” Twilight grimaced, then pulled the emotion back with a hard yank. No weakness. She started up her own defensive spells, putting them through some extra complications to hide her exact formulas. Flicker might have been able to guess at a few of them, but she had so many layers going through the spell, some already heavily encrypted and memorized, that there was no reasonable way for her enemy to compromise them by seeing them deployed. She put up a few dummy layers anyway. Not long after they were both done, they were taking up positions on either end of what was likely once a small park. No plants were left, but bare dirt just wasn't likely in a city such as that. To Twilight's back, in the far distance, were the palace of Lord Glacien and the strange reactor building. Ahead of her was Agent F and a large collection of medium-sized buildings all made of the same odd material that the rest of the city was made of. The two mares stood opposite each other, maybe twenty meters apart, stances wide and hearts ready for battle in the still air of the underground. Twilight looked at Aurora, who deployed while the Grand Mage drew her blade, pointing it squarely at her enemy. “Last chance, Flicker. Not just to avoid my wrath, but probably One’s as well.” Flicker’s youthful face had no joy left in it. All that was left was the contempt Twilight had seen when she first laid eyes on her. “How do you figure?” “We never found the one who managed to kill General Towers. Given where he was, I’m betting that they'd send a pro to infiltrate Canterlot Castle when it was in high security mode. Given that they likely don't have many true ringers at that level, probability suggests that was you. Which means we've met before, and you didn't kill me. “There's only one way that series of events could have unfolded as they did — you were under orders to leave me alone. An order like that could only come from One.” Flicker licked her teeth. “Bravo, Lady Sparkle. That's some solid deductive reasoning. You're correct; that was me. And yes, I'm supposed to leave you alone. But I'm not under a geas, and you've proven too resourceful to risk keeping around, in my opinion. What's the old phrase? ‘Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission?’” Twilight let out a little breath, and locked eyes on the sword handle sticking out of Flicker's bag. “You're not even going to do me the honour of fighting me with your sword?” Flicker whipped out an orange telekinetic blade and some kind of bauble from her bag that was not the sword handle, combining the two items into a fiercely hot telekinetic blade. “Nah. What you see on my left isn't a weapon, it's a tool. This is my blade. It's all the extra weaponry I've ever needed outside of my own mind.” “Suit yourself.” Twilight put power into her sword. No spells, only power. Then, she reached out with her heart to hook her magic into her shields.  “You're going to try it? Here? Now?” If not now, when? Twilight bent her knees for the style. “This is a mess of your own making, Flicker. I'd say I hope you find it all to be worth it in the end, but that would be a lie.” “Enough talk, bitch!” Flicker growled and pawed at the ground. “Bring it!” Twilight's magic flared, and the world rushed towards her. In the blink of an eye and a rush of wind, she was behind Flicker and bringing her blade down on her back. It was logical to use Passage against someone with the name of “Flicker,” as surprise would be paramount. Flicker was behind Twilight. Twilight turned her head, only to catch sight of the kick to her rear. The impact was no mere unicorn kick, or even that of an earth pony. Her shield flared and belched heat even as Twilight went flying, crashing into an empty building and reducing it to rubble.  “That was a bad hit!” Aurora cried out. “I'm going to try adjusting the shield for impact and fire damage.” “Ugh.” Twilight pulled herself up and pushed off some of the rubble, feeling the chill of leaking ice magic welling up. “How in Tartarus did she do that?” “That's for me to know—” Flicker appeared on a remaining piece of the roof. “—and for you to ponder in the Summerlands.” “Keep dreaming.” Twilight rose to her hooves. “I'm not even close to being out of tricks yet.” Flicker laughed through a grin too wide to exist on a head her size. “By all means, pull out all the stops. I'll crush them one by one, you spoiled brat!” The air cracked with thunder, and Twilight launched herself through a teleport that had her popping back into reality on Flicker's left and flying at a few hundred kilometres an hour. Flicker didn't use Passage, or teleportation. In one tiny fraction of a second, she was one place. The next, she was somewhere else. Even how she was standing was different, somehow balancing herself on the edge of Twilight's blade. The following kick to the face felt like getting run into by a train. This is going to get repetitive real quick if I don't try something new. Twilight pulled herself out of more rubble, then lifted the surrounding material all together in a mass telekinetic field. A literal ton of material hard as rocks floated around her, and she gave it a spin. In seconds, a donut shaped kill field was ready to bash in anything unlucky enough to find itself in the way. “Blind spot up above!” Oh, it's not blind. Twilight broke into a gallop, rushing headlong back into the battle. Flicker leaned to one side and smiled as the full force of the debris was about to rain down on her. When the mare disappeared, Twilight kicked off her spell that brought all the chunks of building bits up in a cone over her head. When Flicker appeared in front of her, Twilight reached out to grab her and drag her under the falling debris. When the mare vanished instead, Twilight turned the grab into a leading punch, then turned that into a roll to get herself out of the way. She twisted her sword with magic pulsing through it, swinging it behind her and sending out an arc of energy where Flicker was likely to be.  Flicker appeared in mid-air a dozen meters away and landed with a laugh. “Ha! Good instincts! But you’re still nowhere near my league.” “We'll see about that.” Twilight fired off magic all around, the little sparkling stars landing on the ground and sticking. One landed near Flicker and immediately burst with a cracking pop. By themselves, they weren't much. Flicker rubbing her ear after that, however, told her that the hundreds she was firing off could work.  Twilight rushed forward, leading with another thrust and letting her opponent dodge - right into one of her traps. It went off with another bang, and Flicker stumbled. Her instinctive move away from the noise put her right into another one. One by one they went off, ringing in their ears. Twilight's shield, however, was already adjusted to accommodate shockwaves from loud noises. She could still stand, run, and drive her blade home. It plunged forward, ready to tear through Flicker's shield and chest. Flicker vanished again, but only just. Her body was now millimetres away from the blade, and Twilight pulled right to cut through her. Flicker moved again and again, perhaps a hundred times in a second, always to just outside the strike. “It's automatic,” Twilight said, stopping still. “A shield matrix that's moving you so you don't intercept anything ever. Clever, but not good enough. I'd be willing to bet it'll run out of juice long before my shields do.” Flicker grunted and shook her head like she was trying to dislodge water from her ear. “In your dreams.” Twilight pointed her blade at her again. “Your wobbling says otherwise.” “You're not the only one who can adapt their shields!” Flicker pointed her blade in kind. “That trick won't work anymore.” “Oh, I have tricks for days.” Twilight put power into her horn. I hope. Don’t choke, filly.  Flicker was at Twilight's side, and an enemy blade was grinding into her shield.  What should have been Twilight instinctively kicking Flicker directly in her muzzle was a complete whiff, and her enemy simply switched sides. Can't intercept her like this… Twilight pulled as much magic as she could into her horn, and let it sputter about with only a barely cohesive string of casting. Magic spewed out from her and decayed, bathing the underground in light as she jumped away. Flicker was stock still, eyes closed, ears twitching. She kept forward, blade aiming for Twilight's heart. It struck only air as Twilight teleported to her side and struck with a splash of fire magic. The heat should have bypassed a shield not built for it, but Flicker merely popped into existence a few meters away. So it's not entirely based on her perception, either. Fully automatic, but can be controlled manually too. In another blink, Flicker was grinding her blade into Twilight's shield again. She responded with a ring of fire blossoming from her horn like a flower, which only had Flicker backing off for an instant before she was at it again. “Twilight, something’s off about her attacks. Her blade isn't doing much to your shields. They could take this for quite some time.” Twilight raised an eyebrow and stopped. “Huh.” She put out more fire, then followed up with a basic barrier outside of her combat shields, making it an encompassing dome around her. Flicker was immediately back at her combat shields, inside the still intact basic barrier. Barriers don't stop her, but my combat shields do. Why? And why attack with so weak a hit I can stand here and ignore it? The connection in her mind clicked together. The fourth dimensional shift! She doesn't know where I am in 4D, so she's trying to decode the final dimensional coordinate! “Gotcha!” Flicker pulled back, thrusting forward like she was flying. Twilight teleported away in an instant, leaking magic to make sure it was as bright and booming as possible, then followed it up five more times to let the roar echo off the dome. “That's not going to work anymore.” Twilight's eyes opened wide as she turned to see the voice behind her. Her teleportation was only a millisecond before Flicker would have struck home, and when she reappeared there was a column of light where she had been. Flicker appeared in front of her a second later, licking her lips. “I told you, that's not going to work anymore. It's checkmate.” Another lunge, and this time Twilight pulled on her shield and the world moved around her. She was two city blocks down the road in the blink of an eye with no teleportation bloom, and Flicker was still after her without even having to open her eyes. Three more times she escaped, and three more times Flicker was following her easily, laughing all the way and leaving behind blasts of magic that were spewing columns of blue and gold energy. “This is it!”  Twilight brought forth the power to teleport again, but the spell snapped in two, blasting magic out in a ring around her. The columns of power blinked from where they were to spots all around her, holding the ring in place. It grabbed her and kicked Twilight in the gut, lifting her up into the air. A searing light burst from Flicker's blade as she soared to meet Twilight. Spell circles appeared around Twilight, holding her in place above the city and aiming lances of energy at her heart. “Your tyranny ends now!” Anger, hatred, rage, and determination were all words needed to describe what Flicker looked like in that moment as she readied the strike, yet they were all woefully inadequate.  Twilight sighed as the blade came. “I'm sorry.”  Flicker screamed and landed her blow, right after Twilight reached into her shields, found one of the layers, and gave it a spin. “Quantum Tear!” Heat and light blasted in a detonation that shook the very foundation of the city, raining down radioactive fire and thaumic contamination. Buildings infused with ice mana caught fire, and those that were too close crumbled into little chunks. A rip in spacetime closed, sending off one last crescendo of photons across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Seconds later, bits of rock were still falling down onto the ground. There was no way to tell if they were from buildings or the dome ceiling. Dust choked the area beneath the blast, mostly some smoke and steam from vaporized structures. “I did it…” Flicker said through her pants. “I really did it.” “Sorry to be the Bearer of Bad News.” Twilight stepped through the smoke, blasting it away with a swing of her sword. “But you missed.” Flicker froze, eyes wide and jaw open. “That's… that's im—” “Impossible?” Twilight smiled. “That's what I was thinking about you a minute ago. You, my dear enemy, are a macroscopic quantum cloud.” Flicker's heart was stabbed with a knife made out of pure fear.  “You're not actually where I'm seeing you. You're everywhere around us, in every possible orientation and pose simultaneously. I'm guessing there's a radius of what, ten meters? Twenty five? A hundred at most, but I doubt it’s anywhere near that wide.  “Anyway, what I'm seeing is just your most likely position resolving as you're being ‘observed.’ Somehow, your shield matrix allows you to quickly shift what is ‘most probable,’ even doing so automatically when needed to avoid getting a hit landed on you. I have to admit, that is one hell of a trick. I see now why you've been so effective.” Flicker was once again grinding her sword against Twilight's shield, and sweating like she was in a sauna. “You can't be alive! I saw it hit!” Twilight rolled her eyes, and reached out to her shields again. One of the layers separated and showed itself, and Twilight spun it so Flicker could watch the variables blink and change. The mare dropped her sword. “But you need to know exactly where I am to get by my fourth-dimensional shield, don't you? A normal barrier would be easy to bypass, just change the probability of where you are. But if you goof up against my barrier, you'd get ejected. Sorry to tell you: it's easy for me to change the exact value of that coordinate. I can even set it to cycle around.” Flicker’s leg shook as a tear ran down her nose. “Fine, then. The first time I found you, the shift was only point four seven micrometres. So the range isn't that great. I'll just have to rework the math, cut across it all at once!” Twilight yawned at the mare picking up her sword. “If you could have done that, you would have beaten me in seconds. But now that I know your trick, let me show you one of mine.” She poured a beam of fire magic into a vein of ice mana, then twisted it and embedded a spiralling spell. Magic balled up into a vortex of red and blue. Ice burst forth from the vein, blossoming out a flower of crystal the size of a sports stadium. Each little piece of it was made of an ice sheet only a few molecules thick, crumbling when it hit a solid object.  Flicker, true to her name, wasn't solid. At least, she wasn't until she slammed into the city's rock ceiling. A sonic boom cracked and echoed throughout the city before the mare fell and landed hard on the ground. Twilight approached with a trot, finding Flicker struggling to stand and coughing up blood. “Looks like I was right about the quantum cloud thing. I learned a ton about it from Neighsenberg himself about six years ago at a conference. An increase in certainty in position will decrease certainty in momentum, and vice versa. Which means, if I deny you the ability to manipulate your configuration in your bubble, your momentum becomes impossible to control.” The Grand Mage chuckled as the ice melted in seconds, raining down on her and coating everything in a thin layer of water destined to freeze in minutes. “I don't even need to work hard to do it. This ice is so thin, any other opponent would've been completely unharmed, even with no shields or armor. I could do it with this, with fire, with itty bitty barriers…” Flicker barely rose to her hooves as a cut on her head dripped blood and her breath bore curses.  “It's foals’ play for me, really.” Twilight lit her horn and put up a few extra barriers around her. Triangular and spinning, they were arranged in a cube around her in just the right spots to stop a particle mare from being able to resolve herself near her actual barriers. The little smile that was growing on her sent a delightful chill to the back of her head and down her spine. “Now that I’ve figured it out, I’m betting you won’t be able to land any more hits on me.” “That's a bet you'll lose!” Flicker all but vanished from sight as she rocketed forward, hoof out to deliver a locomotive blow. A face of Twilight's shield exploded on contact, sending out a shower of tiny — and solid — shards. The wind from Flicker going flying pulled Twilight up into the air for a moment, and she decided to use a teleportation to follow it. A visceral whud echoed in the cavern and kicked up dust and debris from a building down below. At her command, wind pushed Twilight left and down to meet ground zero while her horn charged with red power. Landing evenly on all fours, Twilight trotted to the crushed building and waited out front. When a green hoof pushed open the front door and she locked eyes with Flicker, she let go of the power she was holding. “I call this one Pyrostorm.”  Flames rushed out of her like a waterfall, splashing and swirling down the street. Heat yanked up in them, twisting the blaze into a tornado of fire. When Twilight strode out of the maelstrom, rocks were crumbling on the outside city dome ahead of her. A few teleports later, and she was there.  Flicker was under the rocks, but was not buried alive. Rather, she was emerging from them with grunts and staggers. Twilight smirked at her. “You shut off your quantum cloud spell. Otherwise getting buried like that would have set it off again. Think you can take me without it?” “If I have to fight dirty…” Flicker pursed her lips, then spat out a tooth. “I don't mind playing in the mud.” Twilight turned slightly, then pawed at the ground. “Bring it.” Flicker blurred out of existence. Twilight pulled herself to the right, and led with a punch. It caught Flicker's chest as she came out of her Passage jump, breaking something, though Twilight didn't know what. Flicker was wheezing out all the air in her lungs as she was knocked back. Somehow, the mare had stayed standing, though desperately panting for air. Let's change that. Twilight ran at her, knocking away the punch Flicker lunged her way and followed it up with another punch to the chest, keeping her foreleg out and lifting the mare off her hooves. With a yell and grunt she tossed the mare, swinging around and kicking her with both hind legs before she could hit the ground. Flicker slid back into the rubble, then curled up in pain. She spat up blood, and coughed as she rose back to her hooves.  Twilight shook her head, exhaling into the damp air. The flames in the distance were dying out, dimming the world around them. Flicker's horn sputtered with magic, but fizzled out save for a few sparks that fell to the ground, the bits of dancing orange light a pale reflection of her wellspring. Twilight shot a beam of magic across the ground, drawing a line between them. “This line between us? It represents a thousand steps. I'll give you credit for a masterful trick, but now, you're out of magic, out-gunned, and left with nowhere to run. Surrender.” Flicker roared and lunged, tears leaving her eyes in a stream. Twilight swatted her away with the back of her hoof. What little was left of Flicker's shield broke into splinters, and the exhausted mare hit the ground a couple meters away. “Last chance, Flicker.” Twilight drew her sword and pointed it at the mare’s head. “You're too dangerous to try and capture without surrendering and putting the hobble seal on yourself. If you don't, you'll be leaving me with no choice but to kill you, since I don't know if you have any tricks left.” Flicker pushed herself up again, but her leg gave way and she flopped on her side. “Damn you. I hate you so much. Why does somepony weak enough to offer mercy to me get to be a pampered hero.” “Because if I didn't offer mercy, I wouldn't be the hero. Killing you now would be easy. It's a much bigger pain to try and secure you for capture.” “So you're a hero for being inconvenienced? Go buck yourself, Sparkle. You're no hero. You're some brat that got everything given to her.” Flicker broke into a coughing fit, heaving up a lung in the process but managing to sit up despite that. “Besides, I got one last trick in me, and you got no way to stop it.” Twilight swung her head to look at the giant reactor syphon almost on instinct, and only felt the vibrations afterwards. Flicker tried to laugh but only coughed more. “Your instinct to look for a bomb was basically on the money. But I didn't do crap to the core. I didn't need to, because whenever this city got sent underground like this, it lost the connection to its emergency mana sink, the Volca volcano.” Twilight's eyes shrank with her gasp. “Then that means…” “Yup.” Flicker’s bloody grin regrew on a face painted in swelling and bruises. “And it's just about time.” Brilliant blue light overtook the giant building, and in a flash it vanished. This, however, was no mere explosion. What replaced it were cubes inside cubes - millions of blue tesseract shapes floating away in the air before dissipating. There wasn't even a ‘bang.’ “Okay.” Twilight tried to swallow, but the inside of her mouth had turned into sandpaper. “Here's what's going to happen. You're going to tell me everything you know about what just happened, or you'll wish you were next to that thing just now.” More chuckle-coughs escaped Flicker's mouth. “Emergency teleportation. The whole building. I told you, there's redundancy after redundancy in that place. Even if everything went wrong, it would use the power buildup to perform some kind of dimension shift automatically. Maybe it was supposed to go somewhere in particular, but who knows if that still worked after what Discord did to the world.” Twilight's heart thumped her chest with a hammer. “So you don't know where it went. Odds are it sent it somewhere far away to protect the city. The spell would have found someplace… wait…”  Everything about Twilight’s insides twisted around like a wet rag. “The core was drawing away a huge amount of power from the krene, and without it there to do so…” Flicker wobbled up to being able to sit. “Now you get it. Without the core here, a whole crap-ton of ice magic is going to flood out and freeze Moscolt solid… unless it goes up that giant, ancient staircase under that farm. Guess what happens then.” The blood in Twilight’s veins turned colder than the krene herself. “The whole region gets flooded with contamination. It'll be uninhabitable, permanently. Probably within days, maybe just hours.” She ran her blade's edge across the ground, fire carving a slow groove. “But that still gives me an awful lot of time to deal with you.” Flicker's smile was painted with her own blood from her eyes to her chin. “Or, you could put a stop to it now, before anypony else gets hurt. But that means letting me go.” “And let you get the Element?” Twilight put her sword’s tip an inch away being between Flicker's eyes. “I should end you right now and go find Honesty.” Flicker grabbed hold of the blade with her hooves and pushed the tip in a little. “Go ahead. The teleport range of that thing has to be enormous. In fact, I bet that to use up the power built up in it, we're talking a minimum radius of a few thousand kilometres. Could be across one of the rifts in the ocean. Gonna be hard for either of us, even with a head start.  “Or, I could open up the Ginnungagap. You could walk out of it in Moscolt’s Red Circle. Plenty of time to save a city from the miasma, maybe even find a way to stabilize the krene.” Twilight huffed. “If it works that well, what's to stop you from traveling to the place where the Element wound up?” “Good question. Rule number one of Ginnungagap travel: if you try to go too far, you'll miss. By a lot. Going from one end of a big city to another is pretty reliable for me, but if I tried to go from Canterlot to Shanghay, I could wind up in Manehatten or even Prairie. The farther you try to go in one trip, the more likely you'll screw it up, and the more likely that screw up will cost you big. This probability skyrockets if you try to go someplace you haven't already been to, which is another reason I can't use it to find the Element. I know of the building, but not where it is. “But if we're just talking about getting back to somewhere near Moscolt from here? Cake, even for a newbie. You get to save the city, I get to run away… and maybe get killed by One, but hey, I'll cross that bridge when I get there. The sword in my head is more important right now.” Twilight shook her head. “That still leaves too much of a chance you get the Element.” “There's also rule number two. I don't know where it is. You need to try to travel to something fixed, that's been somewhere for a while. The core just teleported by tesseract who knows where. Trying to go right there would be a guaranteed failure. Might even get lost in the gap, and I wouldn't wish that fate even on you.” Twilight snorted back a laugh. Her very first thought was I can't believe I'm even thinking about taking this deal. I must be crazy, this sounds utterly impossible. “Twilight,” Aurora spoke in her head, or perhaps her heart. “Celestia taught us to err towards mercy. Besides, this could get us something almost as valuable: Intel on the Ginnungagap! We need to know how they're moving around, and maybe find out how to shut it down, or use it ourselves.” Twilight sighed. “Okay. Deal. But if I sense you're about to double cross me, I'll kill you. You won't even see it coming.” “I'm out of backstabbing tricks at this point.” Flicker pulled her head away, and a fresh river of red flowed from the wound. “I'm going to reach in my bag, okay? Gonna pull out a potion and the little sword.” “Do it slowly.”  Flicker nodded and did as she said, cautiously getting out a flask and the short sword sticking out of her bag. The sword’s surface had no real edge to it, though the tip could still wound a pony with a strong thrust. Its surface was mainly light blue, but it had a rainbow of colours all over it that seemed to swish around. It could have been made of cloudy water with a thin coat of oil.  The flask itself was nothing out of the ordinary. Bare-bones steel, available from anywhere. It didn’t even have an engraving. Flicker unscrewed it and took a swig. In seconds, her wounds sealed up, though only just. “That's better. Gotta stop the bleeding.” “No stalling.” Twilight pointed at the sword. “Is that what you use to travel the Ginnungagap?” “Yeah.” Flicker exhaled a spicy cloud. “It opens the way. But traveling it is up to you. “Once you enter, at first it looks like you haven't gone anywhere. But you keep going, because if you don't, you can get lost. Reality will start to look weird, and as you go you'll get choices. Left, right, up, down, forward, back, slightly up and to the right, all kinds of choices. Often two, sometimes many more. “And here's the crazy thing: every direction is potentially correct. They're in a superposition. What makes something right or wrong is your choice. If you decide that one way is the correct way to your destination, and believe in it, it'll be correct. Then you do it again and again, until you either get to where you're going or fall back out into the real world someplace else. Or get lost. Don't do that. Keep focusing on your destination, no matter what.” Twilight folded her forelegs at her. “I'd call you insane, but that lines up disturbingly well. Did you come up with your shield matrix using that as inspiration?” “Nope. Before that. But that's not important now. Whatever you do, don't stop moving. If you stop, it'll be like a dream, your options keep changing, and your ability to choose a correct path will vanish.” Flicker sucked in a deep breath, and exhaled while shivering. “You broke my shields, so I’m getting cold. Let's do this.” She picked up the sword with her mouth, carried it over to the door of the nearest intact building, and then kicked said door open. She grabbed the blade’s handle with her hooves. With a flick of her fetlock, the edge made a “snick” sound as she cut horizontally across the doorway. A crack popped off as she finished. Almost nothing appeared different at first, but as Twilight looked on with her Sight, she saw a black line in the air within the doorway. Air rushed in, including puffy bits of frozen fog rising off the ground. The edges of the line peeled away like curling wallpaper, spreading out to an opening that looked like a big smile with long black teeth that folded in on themselves. As it widened, the other side looked exactly as it had before, just leading into the building. Twilight gestured at the portal. “That is creepy. After you.” Flicker shook her head and put away the blade. “It'll close after I go through. We step in together. On the count of three. And remember, no matter how weird it gets, keep moving.” Twilight lined up next to her. “Alright then. One, two…” “THREE!” The two yelled together and stepped in, striding forward. Two doors were on the other side of the room, and they each chose a different one.  Twilight almost stopped to ask something, but caught herself and pressed on. The next room had three doors to identical rooms, and she chose the right one. Will this only be doorways to rooms? The next had a staircase going up or down. Welp, that answers that. Gotta keep focus. Gotta make it to Moscolt… Gotta go to that mansion with the barn. She climbed up the stairs, and found a hall with several doors, and pressed on forward to the door in front of her. It led to a tunnel in a cave, which had an assortment of paths in various directions. If what she said was true, then I don't need to think too hard about this. I just point and go. She chose the one leading up, and several other options after that.  This could be harder than I thought… The next area didn't want anything to do with Euclidean geometry. The window to Twilight's right clearly led to the room to her left, given the unique red flower on a table — no vase, it was growing from the table — dancing in the wind in perfect synchronization. There was also the fact that she could see her own rump at the top of the staircase to her far left. She chose the doorway to the right, because why not, and did her best to keep that mansion in her mind. However, the next room after that looked more like the palace in Moscolt, but at least it was a bit more normal. Whichever version of Twilight on her internal mental committee who made that observation was immediately sent to her room upon entering the next area. The wall to her left was covered in mirrors, and the furniture was on the ceiling. There were no walls to her right, it just ended and opened up to an infinite twisted sky. Since leaping into the sky wasn't on her to do list, she followed the hallway. As she walked, the hall kept stretching into the horizon. So where's the… Wait… She looked to her left, and the mirror didn't show her reflection. Well, when in Roan… Putting her forelegs in first, she tumbled over as she entered the next room on the other side of the mirror and into a basement bar, or at least one from a pony who had eaten too many “medicinal” mushrooms. It was mirrored with identical areas to the left and right, and even on the ceiling.  Each side was also rotating around like they were attached to different gears. The floor was splitting and opening up, and the door at the other end was in pieces. More identical areas were below in the area opening up, and Twilight dropped down into it right away to find purchase on the floor of the next room. She ran to the other side and plowed into the door as the pieces of it came together. The living room beyond was cold, and hallways went every which way, but the big doors caught her attention the most. Pressing the door, she stepped through. She was in Moscolt. She'd just walked through the front door of the mansion where they found the frozen, dead stallion noble, and the barn nearby was cordoned off with police panicking and backing off from red miasma pouring out like there was a giant fog machine inside. The sky was now well and truly dark, with stars shimmering overhead. The police had brought lights with them, which was about the only reason she could see anything at that point. Twilight pushed back against her instinct to look behind her, but her muscles pulled her head like there was a rope attached to her nose. Behind her was that same black smile, its gaping maw closing the way to the Ginnungagap behind her. Holy moly. It worked… Flicker wasn't lying! I'm here! The sound of quacking and freaked out ducks broke her shock and brought her to focus on the barn.  She popped through a teleport to appear next to the police. “You all! Get word to Canterlot!” Some of the police pointed saddle guns at her, while others just stumbled back in surprise. One even sighted her with crosshairs. Speaking in Stalliongradi, he said, <> Twilight sighed. <> Another cop tapped him on his shoulder and said something in his ear, and he stood down. A mare officer in a face mask called out to her. “Lady Sparkle? We didn't know you were still here.” Twilight trotted up to her and shivered as she waded through a cloud of ice magic. “Long story, no time. Get in contact with Canterlot; tell them we have a catastrophic emergency brewing and we need the princesses here immediately. I'll contain the crisis for the time being.” Some of the police looked at each other. “What's going on here?” “Weirdness.” Twilight lit her horn and ran towards the barn. “Go! I need their help!” One by one, she put up panels of magic barriers to surround the barn. They were basic, but kept the miasma from flowing out any farther. When the barn was locked in, she pushed the barriers forward and melded them with a new dome barrier. When the barriers ran into the barn roof, she pushed down on the magic and crushed the barn. Wood cracked and exploded to splinters under the barrier. Nails hit like bullets, but the magic was already too strong. By the time she was done, the barn had been flattened and the barrier dome was a red swollen bump on a tiny hill.  Aurora squeaked like she was hiding behind something. “I don't think that'll hold for long. Maybe ten minutes?” Yeah, and after that, it'll pop like a giant pimple. I need to decrease the miasma’s upwards pressure… The idea crept into both of their minds at the same time, and Twilight set about creating a magic circle around the entire dome, filling it exclusively with golden astral magic.  “You're going to need to flatten the structure to—” I know. Twilight opened the floodgates and the rush of astral magic had her floating a few inches above the ground. Well, this is new. But I've never tried to use this kind of magic in quite this way before. Keeping the tips of her hooves on the ground, or at least a bit in the snow, she finished the circle and put yet another one around it just to hold the power it was going to require. It took five minutes before the “battery” was full, and the spell started to wind up. The police ponies down the hill started to get tugged towards the spell. “Get back! All of you!” Twilight put up another barrier to catch a pony about to tumble forward, then ran up to him and yanked him by his collar to drag him away. They didn't have to run far, but a few of the ducks were too close and were pulled in. Twilight winced and turned away from watching. Well, they had to be destroyed anyway, and this will be quick. Sorry, duckies! After a flash of light, the spell fired in earnest as gravity pulled down on the barn. Snow rushed to the dome and compressed into ice, and wind rushed past them to gather on top of it. “What did you do?” one of the police ponies asked. Twilight wished for a coffee as her dry tongue scraped against her parched mouth. “Gravity well. A high level astral spell that increases the gravity over a given area. I just ramped up the pull off the earth by a factor of twenty for the next three days. It gives us some time to stop the spread of the contamination, and save Moscolt.”