“Hang on, you want to do this today?”
Lex could already feel a headache coming on, letting out a slow breath before answering Sonata. “It’s not a question of what I want. This duel needs to happen as soon as possible.”
“And why’s that?” huffed Aria, crossing her forelegs over her chest. “I’m all in favor of you smacking Her Royal Purpleness around, but you just said she can’t teleport home, so what’s the rush?”
“First, I didn’t say she can’t teleport home,” corrected Lex. “I said that teleporting herself and her friends all the way back to Ponyville using her Equestrian magic would likely exhaust her severely, largely due to her needing to use it several times in succession to cross such a large area. Second, the rush is that the longer this duel is postponed, the more likely it becomes that it won’t happen at all.”
“He’s right,” murmured River, sinking into a nearby chair. “The princesses would never have approved of Blueblood’s issuing a challenge like that if they’d known about it. And while Blueblood made it clear that he doesn’t respect Princess Twilight – her tagging in is probably the best concession she could wring out of him – everypony knows that he defers to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. If he gets a letter from either of them telling him to withdraw his challenge and stand down, he’ll be embarrassed, but he’ll have no choice but to do it.”
“At which point the duel will be cancelled, and this opportunity will be lost,” finished Lex. “As such, there can be no tarriance in this matter. This engagement must happen, and it must happen today.”
“Wait, wait, I’m confused.” Scrunching her face up in concentration, Sonata struggled to put her thoughts in order. “When those plus-sized princesses were here before, you were trying super hard not to get into a fight with them.” Seeing Aria wince a little at that, Sonata hurried onward. “So why do you want to get into one now? What’s this big opportunity you’re talking about?”
Lex didn’t answer immediately, sweeping the room for magic or other possible leaks of information the same way he had before telling River what he was after. It was fairly pointless to do so now, he knew; Twilight Sparkle was already aware of what he wanted should he win the duel. But the more he kept things under wraps, the less likely the chance that there would be any more unpleasant surprises. “In the event that I win the duel,” he began once he was satisfied no one was eavesdropping, magically or otherwise, “I’ve demanded that Blueblood immediately and irrevocably forfeit his royal status, and all of its attendant privileges and responsibilities, to me.”
“Oh, I get it!” Sonata smiled widely, only to frown again a moment later. “No, wait, I don’t. What’s that mean?”
“It means,” replied River evenly, “that if Lex defeats Princess Twilight, he’ll become a prince.”
Sonata’s eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. “For realsies?!”
Unlike her sister, however, Aria's expression was one of skepticism. “That’s what this is about?”
“Aria!” Sonata gave her sister an incredulous look. “Lex is gonna be a prince! Like, with a crown and everything, right?” She glanced at River then, and when the older mare nodded – a bemused expression on her face – Sonata turned back to Aria, clapping her hooves in excitement. “See?! That’ll be, like, the most incredibly stupendous thing ever!”
Aria nodded, but her expression didn’t change as she looked at the would-be prince. “I get that. What I don’t get is why you have to win a fight to do it. If you want to be a prince or a king or whatever, just say that you are. You’re already the strongest pony in Equestria, and everyone here adores you. So give yourself a fancy title and that’ll be that. You don’t need to get into another fight when you’re already hurt.”
Utterly deaf to the worry in her voice, Lex made a dismissive gesture. “Simply anointing myself with monarchical status won’t carry the institutional authority that I require to alleviate the damage to Vanhoover’s infrastructure and economy.”
Sonata glanced at the other two mares helplessly. “He said what now?”
“He means the rich ponies I brought here from Las Pegasus,” explained River. “They’re all desperate to be important, and they know that doing favors for royalty is one of the best ways to do that, which means that if a prince were to ask them to, say, fund Vanhoover’s recovery, it wouldn’t be too hard to get them to agree.” She waited a moment, and when Sonata nodded, continued. “But it’s not enough for Lex to just call himself a prince. They have to acknowledge that he is, and the quickest way to do that is for him to take the crown from someone they’ve already recognized as a legitimate monarch.”
“So this whole thing is just about money?” scoffed Aria. “In that case, I’ll just go get some ponies to raid a few more banks.”
She started to climb out of bed then, intent on making good on her word, but Lex spoke up before her hooves touched the floor. “Don’t bother. You’ve already emptied them all.”
Aria froze, unable to hide her surprise. “I have?”
“Wow,” murmured Sonata, looking impressed. “And that’s not enough?”
“It’s nowhere close.” River’s voice was pained, her eyes closed as though in mourning. “Even with the reduced population, this level of expenditure can’t be sustained for very long without new revenue coming in to offset it.”
“At our current rate, my administration will be completely broke by the end of the month,” confirmed Lex. “If that happens, the only way to prevent this city from falling back into decline will be to raid the minting facilities northeast of here, which have nothing to do with candy,” he added quickly, causing Sonata’s excited smile to immediately collapse into a pout. “Doing so will buy Vanhoover a little more time, but at the cost of adversely impacting Equestria’s economy as a whole. That’s another reason to conduct this duel with all possible haste.”
“That, and I’m worried about what else Princess Twilight might do,” added River. “Lex, if she’s on that yacht with all those rich ponies, what if she asks them to fund Vanhoover’s recovery before you can?”
Her concern received only a snort of amusement from Lex. “I’ll admit that I haven’t known Twilight Sparkle for very long,” he sneered, “but she’s Celestia’s pupil through and through. She treats responsibility as something to be avoided, particularly with regard to executive prerogative. I doubt it’s even occurred to her to wield her authority in that regard.”
“Why not just tell her that, then?” Shrugging like it was no big deal, Aria tapped the paper with the terms of the duel written on it. “She leans on those rich guys and you get paid, without having to put yourself in harm’s way again.”
But even before she’d finished speaking, Lex was shaking his head. “Blueblood has already made it clear to the Las Pegasus delegation that he has considerable antipathy toward me. Even if our duel is cancelled, I don’t trust Twilight to be able to convince them to finance anything of mine while that fop is there to undermine her.”
“Whereas defeating and having him surrender his princely title, in accordance with the terms that he voluntarily agreed to, takes him out of consideration,” added River. “Even if Blueblood wasn’t a bore, those ponies are all cynical enough that they’ll drop him in favor of Lex the instant the crown touches his head.”
“I still don’t like this,” frowned Aria. “It was just yesterday that you had two ponies try to kill you, very nearly pulling it off, and now you’re getting into another fight. One with Twilight Sparkle, the girl who defeated us, the Sirens, twice.”
“Aw, lighten up, Aria,” chuckled Sonata. “This is Lex we’re talking about! I bet he’ll do some sort of big magical stuff and be all like, kapow! Zap! Boom! And it’ll be over in ten seconds flat!” Grinning, she nuzzled Lex. “So what’re you gonna hit her with? That huge see-through pony armor thingy? Or those big balls of lightning? Or your green destructo-beam? Or, um…huh…”
Blinking, Sonata sat up, her face once again screwing up in thought. “Hey Lex? How come you didn’t use any of those spells against Starlight Glimmer?”
A shadow passed across Lex’s face then. “River, go and deliver my acceptance of these terms to Blueblood. Now.”
Nodding, the mare in question stood up. “Of course. Do you want me to tell him that we know that Twilight Sp-”
“No,” snapped Lex curtly. “As for the two of you,” he glanced at the Sirens on either side of him, “I can’t concentrate on my battle plan with you distracting me. Vacate the room immediately.”
“You’re throwing us out?” asked Aria in disbelief, Sonata looking equally shocked.
“Yes,” insisted Lex. “On your way out, tell Feather Duster that I’m not to be disturbed unless it’s an emergency.”
Sharing an incredulous look, Aria and Sonata both hesitated to obey. But when it became clear that Lex wasn’t going to change his mind, they slowly climbed out of bed, trudging toward the door. Each of them glanced back more than once, silently pleading for Lex to change his mind, but in every instance he refused to meet their eyes. Finally, with one last worried look, the two of them followed River out, leaving Lex alone with his thoughts.
Mostly alone.
Your secret isn’t so secret anymore. Stretching toward the open window in defiance of the light pouring in, the mocking words of his shadow stoked Lex’s rising anxiety. If even Sonata noticed your dearth of magical ability, then there’s no hope that Twilight Sparkle will overlook it.
Lex said nothing, not only in an effort to quiet the tulpa – the renegade portion of his mind still largely uncontrollable even with what he’d learned about it – but because he had no answer to that. While Celestia had cultivated many faults in Twilight, imperceptivity wasn’t one of them. Twilight had no doubt interviewed her senior princesses extensively about their fight with him, and Lex couldn’t imagine her failing to do the same with Starlight Glimmer now. It wouldn’t take her long to notice and begin wondering about the discrepancies regarding how much magic he’d used in the former battle versus the latter.
Nor was that the full extent of how dire his prospects for the upcoming duel were. Lex had known that his chances of defeating Twilight in a direct battle were dim even before she’d arrived in Vanhoover. That was why he’d come up with the plan involving his floating gemstones, flooding them with additional magic in order to reverse their functionality and use them to debilitate Twilight rather than augment himself.
But the unexpected arrival of Starlight Glimmer had forced his hoof, leaving him with no choice but to use his plan for Twilight on her instead. Although he’d only been able to make use of a single gem in that manner, it had still been highly conspicuous in its effect. Which meant that Starlight would no doubt tell Twilight about it, greatly diminishing the chances that she’d fall prey to that tactic now.
Coming up with highly complex strategies had always come easily to Lex. While enacting them might require large amounts of time or titanic effort, formulating a plan in the first place rarely required much of him. But he could only make plans based around what he had to work with. And right now, his available resources were almost nil.
His thaumaturgical spells were near-totally depleted. His divine spells were largely noncombative in nature, save for a few defensive enchantments. His dark magic was a known quantity to Twilight. His magic items only offered passive defenses or mild augmentations. His supply of spell-storing gems was completely gone. His shadow could be made to aid him only when he was in an extreme state of mind, something that was highly difficult to deliberately conjure. His ability to physically augment his spells and magic items was likely still at least somewhat compromised thanks to his lingering injuries from yesterday’s fight. And he wouldn’t be able to call upon the ponies who served him while fighting a one-on-one duel.
Which left him with nothing.
Your ambition has exceeded your abilities at last, taunted his shadow. And in a few short hours, everyone will bear witness as your pretensions of greatness come to an end.