'I give everything. My own soul, my own life, my own mind. All shall be sacrificed to suppress you!'
That was the meaning brought into existence by the memory. Once more an image of the sealing entity appeared, this time beaten and broken, faced with a thousand enemies.
Once more the world changed, and the figure of the monster underwent a miraculous metamorphosis. It hatched like an egg, cracks filling its form from which a pure white light radiated outwards, and then it broke apart completely, giving way to a sphere of silver that grew both upwards and downwards, becoming a majestic tower that was incomprehensibly huge and seemed to exert pressure on every corner of existence.
It's mere appearance almost killed Twilight, whose fragile illusion form wavered due to that incorporeal presence, but Twilight was not the target of that tower, and the pony's soul carried enough will to force her illusion to remain in existence.
The real target of the tower was Trixie, and her form appeared to flicker for a split second before her magic reaffirmed her existence. The illusionist unicorn smiled widely and spoke:
"Wow! We've really gotten a focused audience today! This doesn't happen often, so I hope you don't mind if I pull out all the stops!" And she turned left, then turned back and declared "Let there be light!"
And two massive suns came into existence, glowing with power and heat incomparable. They were only images, purely there for effect, as even in her current state Trixie wasn't even close to being able to create true suns, specially ones whose size and power were many orders of magnitude superior from Equestria's sun.
But that was fine. Having such powerful suns appear on the battlefield for real would undoubtedly kill Trixie, as their heat would be enough to instantly vaporize her body and annihilate the boundaries of her magical space, thus also killing her dreamsoul. Those suns were only props to shape the real attack.
Once more, Trixie manifested a concept, this time the very essence of the sun, bringing into being a meaning that contained both extreme power and heat, made more real by the presence of a fake "source", and being a pure concept instead of a natural phenomenon, it didn't spread around the battlefield but was directed purely into the opponent.
The top of the tower glowed, its shine so far away that none in the battlefield could perceive it.
And the concept broke, its meaning crushed under overwhelming power, the suppression of the tower being so absolute that the immateriality of the concept seemed to provide it with absolutely no defense.
And yet, that hadn't been Trixie's real attack. At the same moment as the tower acted, the twin suns glowed even brighter, this once more being just for effect, as Trixie brought forth another concept of the sun: Light.
Despite the vastness of the space, all of it seemed to be engulfed at once, every corner and every moment being brightened up leaving no darkness behind, and its shine shackled the tower.
Then the top of the tower glowed once more, and the space was cast into darkness once again, as every corner that had been brightened up became a pure and bottomless void, which sucked in all the brightness that could exist, and indeed seemed to forbid the very existence of light. This time, even the two suns disappeared, causing Trixie to recoil as if struck.
It didn't stop there. The tower activated once more, and this time it targetted Trixie. With the same unmatched power it had showed before, the will that was the tower crushed Trixie's very being, dissolving both her form and her essence into the surrounding environment and denying the possibility of their resurgence.
However, in the following instant, the unicorn Knight remade herself. She did not do so by defying the prohibition set by the tower, as she did not have such strength. What she did was different, as she herself explained.
"Welcome! You are in the presence of the all-new, all-different Trixie!" She declared grandly "Trixie shall never let the show stop, so it's good to change to keep things interesting. So how about this?!"
Obviously Trixie was exaggerating. She was only slightly different, but those differences were everywhere: Her body, her clothes, even her thoughts and memories had been slightly rearranged and reshaped. It wasn't enough for any differences to be visible, but it was enough that the magic of the tower could not recognize her existence as the same that had been suppressed.
Said magic was undeniably powerful and minutious, but it was also extremely specific, it could not affect every single variation on the concept of a person, and so the Knight was able to escape the fate of certain defeat, gaining the chance to keep on fighting.
The whole time the fight was happening, Twilight was carefully analysing each aspect of the magic on display and each feeling that it evoked. Her previous embodiment of the hero concept had been far too rough. She had not truly understood her opponent, and she had not truly constructed the concept that would focus her power.
It wasn't purely her fault, as she hadn't had the time, but now Twilight had the opportunity to truly learn and develop, think and plan. She also knew Trixie's magic very well, and could draw conclusions about the enemy based on the way its magic affected Trixie's.
Seal. That is the basis of the tower. Twilight's thought reached that conclusion, and she kept thinking. What is sealing magic? It is magic whose meaning is lost without opposition. In order to seal, there needs to be something to be sealed. Sealing is suppressing something, shackling something, blocking something. Overall it is preventing the effects on the world of that "something".
That's not enough. How do the seals work? They are different for everything. Each and every phenomenon had its own counterpoint, its own way of being sealed. Wasn't that similar to how her own "retribution" worked? Quite, and what had she realized about that power? That it required understanding.
The power of seals is the power of understanding and adaptation. What would be its opposite? A refusal to be understood? A denial of information? No, even those could be worked around by sealing them first. She needed something more primal. She needed... to not have anything that could be understood. To have no meaning. To have no self. And yet she could not give up on herself, on her goal of victory and return home.
To have no meaning while having meaning. To exist while having no self. Those were contradictory, but was it not true that contradictions were the very essence of chaos magic?
Twilight felt like she had hit upon the core, or at least the deepest she was able to delve, but she did not start casting the magic. Not only had she not found any way to survive using that spell in an illusionary body, but even doing so would not guarantee her victory. The power of the enemy was simply far beyond what she could conceivably overcome. She would be able to fight it like Trixie was doing, but she wouldn't have any way of defeating it.
Her power wasn't enough. Even if she could do like Fluttershy and draw strength from the world, it still would not be enough, as there was a limit to how much foreign power one's soul could support, and it was far from enough to shorten the gap into something crossable.
Twilight needed something different. A way to wield power without needing to support it, a way to place the burden of such phenomenal strength somewhere else. Her magic was named Retribution, but that penalty could not be applied by her. Which left... her opponent?
She examined the thought closer. How could she get someone to retribute themselves? Every action had a reaction, but their reactions were already accounted for in the world... So what is not accounted for? Reactions that don't exist, from actions that are similarly null... But what exactly is an action? Could someone or something be an action? And in that case, wouldn't the reaction also need to be someone or something?
If the action was the enemy, couldn't the reaction be... her?
Twilight opened her eyes, burning with determination. She turned her magic inwards, unleashing chaotic energy across her very being. The act was nearly lethal, the illusion warping in ways that would have left Twilight crippled with pain had she not shifted her entire awareness into her magic.
Ironically enough, the illusion body was also a help, as she could shift such a fragile existence much easier than her real body. She focused on the enemy, drawing a connection between them, her understanding shaping the meaning of her existence. And so, she became a reaction, chaotically able to force such a meaning into herself.
And it was the law of the world that there could not be a reaction without action, and so existence flowed backwards, making into an action the only possible candidate: The enemy.
But if the existence of the enemy was an action, it's reaction should be not only opposite, but also equal, and thus the very power of the entity flowed into Twilight to achieve balance. The illusion gave way to the real, and the Knight's body was forcefully recreated, accomplishing in an instant what would take a long time and an immense effort back in Equestria, and it did not stop there.
"Retribution Magic: Unknowable Time." Twilight declared, bringing to life for the first time a spell that would become legendary.
With that, Twilight's body changed. It became misty and dark, it blurred away from sight, and the sight of it became scrambled, as if innumerable shards of twisted funhouse mirrors were orbiting around it, bending and distorting all light. An even bigger change was her magic, which ceased feeling like Twilight to become something so ambiguous that it could belong to anyone.
Still, Twilight maintained an awareness of herself, she approached the tower (though anyone else wouldn't be able to tell anything more than a general approximation of her position) and blasted it with raw, undefined power. That power still belonged to the enemy, and Twilight's opposition of them was the same thing as hurting one's hoof when punching a wall.
And for the first time, the tower actually got visibly damaged. Even further, though it acted again, its power fizzled into dissipation for not being able to lock into the target that had prompted the attack. And yet Twilight had to dodge away from her position, as a big crystal ball manifested itself around her, covering all the area where it was possible she could be.
"Oh, we have a new challenger over here! Trixie will have you know that no one can steal her show!" Declared the unicorn.
One demerit of making oneself unknowable was that not even your allies knew who you were, let alone Trixie in the state she currently was.
The tower activated again, sealing off the damage caused to itself, and then the battle reached a new stage. Twilight was fighting in two fronts, both using her new power to attack the tower and dodging or countering Trixie's constant assaults that showed an amazing versatility which was still threatening despite how powerful she currently was.
One, two, three attacks and Twilight was finally beginning to make headway against the tower's constant repairs when it changed tactics, taking a page out of Trixie's book and attacking the general space where Twilight should be, sealing off motion itself to trap her.
The unknowable Knight managed to just barely escape in time, extending the possibility of her presence just a little bit outside the range of the attack and then unknowably reaching there. And then she ran into a net of illusory threads, backed up by the concept of stillness, holding her back for a few crucial moments as the tower sealed motion again, redoubling the power of her prison.
Twilight refused to give up. She reduced her essence to the minimum she was capable of withstanding, forcing the seal to shift to accommodate her new shape, and then explosively enlarged herself during the brief period the lock loosened, crashing bodily against the magical seal. It shuddered but held, so she did it again. And again.
And then suddenly the seal vanished, and Twilight soon understood why: Trixie had taken advantage of their struggle to attack the tower again, but this time she had aimed at the cracks left by Twilight's previous attacks, and so her magic could infiltrate the tower, and it made itself into the figure of a pony, one backed up by the concept of severing.
Twilight had a crazy idea, and in such a crazy state, she did not hesitate to put it into action. Forcing herself to follow Trixie's magic as fast as possible, she nearly bent causality to be able to touch the illusion before the tower could respond. She was cut in half by the force of the concept, but she had been expecting it, and it didn't interfere with her next move.
Twilight took advantage of her unknowable nature, to essentially say "maybe I was Trixie's illusions this whole time". Such a possibility would only be considered for an instant, as that same nature would reject a solution, but during that instant Twilight infused the concept with every scrap of power she could muster.
The world seemed to skip a few moments ahead, as the overpowering concept severed away both space and time, and Twilight suddenly found herself a big distance away from the battlefield. But the tower was falling, cut in half in the middle.
Twilight felt some of her extra power fading away, thus realizing another weakness of her magic. But she could also tell that things weren't yet over, even before the "shard" of the sealing entity appeared again.
'This frozen existence of mine may last for all eternity. That, is my final wish...'
Once again the meaning was passed, and the figure appeared. Except it was far more familiar this time, as it showed the sealing entity in front of the seal, just the same as they had seen after arriving in this world.
The falling tower vanished, but instead of changing into something else, all that it was got drawn into the shard, causing it to change. Said Shard (because it had definitely earned capital letters) got the magical power to match its presence and became far more solid than before, to the point that it seemed more real than anything else that could exist.
The Shard grew, not to the point of the tower, but huge enough to seem like a mountain, but the biggest change of it all was that it seemed to develop an actual will of its own. It wasn't true awareness, just a singular thought with a singular meaning without the possibility of changes.
Twilight's spell faded, but she had been connected to the tower when it changed, so she already understood the identity of the new enemy. It was the concept of eternity, a will that fated itself to never change and to never fade away, regardless of time or anything else.
And so Twilight also understood that this was the final enemy. The last and most powerful memory the Shard could bring into existence. It was represented by the very thing that had called it to life, as nothing could more perfectly characterize the essence of the caster who had done everything and sacrificed everything in order to realize their will.
"Retribution Magic: Ephemeral Time." Twilight cast, bringing to bear the opposite concept.
The ephemeral represented the moment, it was something that didn't last, but left an impact while it did. In truth, the magical knowledge of the Knights included concepts derived from the ephemeral, such as the idea of making spells incredibly short-lived so one could increase their power without increasing the energy expenditure.
Twilight showed that familiarity via her transformation. Her body that had just returned to normal once again changed, and it changed far faster than the first time. For a moment her body shone with immense power that would overshadow even all alicorns combined, her very matter seeming to have attained a higher level of existence. In the next, it faded away faster than a dream, losing all color and life to the point where even Twilight's very essence seemed to disappear.
And finally Twilight's body returned to normal, as if she had not done the transformation at all. Except that a feeling remained that the Knight could return to either of those extremes at a moment's notice, as if both of them were contained inside her.
It was fortuituos that all those changes ocurred so quickly, because the Shard would not wait. Some part of its body waved (Twilight was still unable to perceive her true form) and a thousand beams of starlight barrelled down at her, coming from stars engraved in the gigantic barrier that seemed to have always been there, even though Twilight hadn't seen them before.
"Ephemeral Word: Darkness Blink." It was also at that moment when Twilight finally figured out how to cast actual spells while in retribution form.
Her body briefly changed back to its extreme power form before inverting into nothingness, and along with said inversion the world itself faded into darkness for the briefest of moments, but even when the darkness left, the beams of starlight shattered, as the stars lost power from having their eternity broken by an interruption.
"Ephemeral Word: Myriad Dashes." Twilight cast, turning towards the offensive. The same transformations happened with her body again, this time repeatedly as she appeared to multiply herself over and over, all of them dashing into the Shard.
Such assault made the gigantic enemy stagger, but it quickly rallied, stepping forward and releasing a wave of power that fused with the space between the combatants and expanded time itself, slowing Twilight down as her actions seemed to stretch towards infinity, and revealing that it had just been the one Twilight, moving fast enough to appear multiple. Her spell broke and she reeled back, but before the Shard could take advantage of it, it was stopped by the appearance of an exploding planet.
The planet was an illusion, but it was backed up by a real concept, as Trixie showed that she was still in the fight.
Once more the battle became a free for all, but Twilight noticed that something seemed different. And it took a few seconds for her to realize (which in that kind of battle, was enough for a dozen exchanges of moves) because of how subtle it was, with the only hint being that the pressure on her seemed to have eased slightly.
That was important, so she devoted some of her attention to figuring out what was going on. And slowly Twilight began to notice that the difference was Trixie. The illusionist was attacking both other parties, but a significant amount of times her attacks turned out to be feints to attack the Shard instead, or they went a little bit slowed than it seemed like they could, or they were a little bit easier to counter.
Twilight was barely able to suppress her rising hope. Perhaps having connected with Trixie's illusion previously had jarred something loose inside her fellow Knight? Regardless of the reason, it truly seemed like Trixie had gotten closer to a sane state. And so, Twilight decided to trust in it, and proceeded to do something incredibly ill-advised:
Faced with an attack that was like a whip made of pure space, she declined to take any defensive measures, relying only on the resilience of her form to survive.
The whip hit her, and it was like the moon crashing into the earth. Twilight nearly lost consciousness from the feedback of the impact, and the very retribution spell she was using had its structure damaged.
But Twilight had managed to aim herself, and she got launched right next to Trixie. She extended a hoof towards her and spoke:
"Trixie..."
And the miracle happened. And the flower of recognition blossomed deep within Trixie's eyes.
"Twilight...?" She replied uncertainly.
That was all the time they had, as the Shard attacked them, and both of the Knights were forced to defend, but as Twilight returned fire, she heard a few words encoded in magic that she knew very well.
'I... I have shown a behavior unworthy of a Knight.'
'It's okay. You're back now, and we need to work together to win.' Twilight replied in the same manner.
'Still... I will atone for my actions by giving up the main role for today. I trust that you can beat this thing given some time to prepare?' Trixie's words still carried a sense of humility that was quite out of place for her.
'Yes.' Was Twilight's response.
'Then I shall give you the time.' And Trixie moved.
Her Realm of the Unreal moved with her, as Trixie was preparing to stake everything on her next move, as she knew that was her only choice if she wanted to truly delay an enemy that was so much stronger than her. She endured the attack the Shard threw at her, rebuilding the missing parts of her spell that had been annihilated, and finally arrived in front of the enemy, enveloping both of them with her Realm, risking her very existence as it was now extremely vulnerable to whatever the Shard could do.
She only had a single move to make, so it had to be the best.
"Let's see how long your eternity lasts, against the Erosion of Time!" Trixie shouted, and unleashed the concept of the passing time.
For both of them inside the Realm, it seemed like thousands of years were passing. Trixie's experience was exceedingly hard and lonely, but she persisted with the thought of her ally. As for the Shard, it existed.
The concept of eternity it had earned was based upon the will that did not break for an inconceivable amount of time, so it would not lose to Trixie. However, that overpowering concept was also its weakness. Faced with the passage of time, it could only endure. The will behind the Shard wasn't developed enough to manipulate its concept, and the idea of breaking the stalemate actively was beyond the concept. That was the relationship between Time and Eternity.
Were the Shard only fighting Trixie, it would outlast her, but Twilight was also there, and she was preparing.
Twilight's form had changed into the faded version, except this time it seemed to be permanent. both her magic and her very life seemed to slowly dissipate, and the damage that her spell had received spread further and further, the very stability of her current form coming into question.
That was all in preparation for the strongest magic Twilight could possibly use. The ephemeral was the power of the moment, and Twilight was restraining herself in order to create the greatest moment. She had even given up on maintaining the spell afterwards, purposedly allowing it to break in order to maximize the power of the concept.
It would be one attack carrying the meaning of the entire spell and all of the power she was purposedly leaving aside. Twilight endured as the pressure of that one impending action grew and grew until it felt like her whole existence was about to be crushed.
Then the spell reached its breaking point, and Twilight acted:
"Ephemeral Word: Legendary Charge!"
An explosion of energy that was far beyond anything else in the previous fight lit up the entire world. Twilight's body was reduced to a mere outline as the power overshadowed it, and the explosion turned into a magnificent golden lance.
Twilight charged, and her charge was like the creation and destruction on an entire world. Her lance pierced into the Shard and slowed down for an instant so brief none could perceive it. Then she went through, leaving behind the collapsing form of the enemy, and pierced into the body of the actual Sealing Entity.
At that moment, feeling as the life of that existence faded away, Twilight tried her best to feel anything from them. But the World Sealer was silent. There was nothing left inside.
The spell finally broke, and Twilight felt like she had been launched out of a cannon that was being carried by a tornado. She completely lost grasp of where she was, and only when Trixie approached a few seconds later did her confusion end.
"Well, the seal is collapsing." Said Trixie "I hope you have a way to get us out of here."
Twilight raised her left foreleg, revealing a piece of paper taped to it with a spell formula written "This should get us back home." She said "But you're gonna have to power it yourself. I can't use any magic at all right now."
Trixie sighed in resignation before shouting:
"Overdrive!"
+0+
At roughly around the same time, in a dark place beneath a mountain, a voice spoke.
"Finally, I am free once again." There was a pause "Once more, I will take all that rightfully belongs to me, all the power in the world!"
Cloud of Chaos Arc End
Next: Tirek Arc