//------------------------------// // Where The Hard Work Starts // Story: The Bug in The Mirror // by Skijarama //------------------------------// “Comfy?” Fangs asked with a raised eyebrow and an amused smirk. Minuette turned to give him a curious look, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Very. why?” she asked. Fangs rolled his eyes and leaned forward slightly as if for emphasis. “Well, it’s just that you’re… you know…” he gestured vaguely in her direction with a hoof. “Huh?” Minuette blinked and took a moment to assess her position. She was currently laying down on the floor in front of the mirror, having flopped over there a few minutes ago to wait out the remaining time before her friends showed up. And she was pretty comfortable, she had to admit. So what was Fangs smirking for? The answer came swiftly, but it turned out to be one Minuette could have gone without. “You look like a spaghetti noodle with legs,” Fangs finally declared with a sage nod. Minuette surged to her hooves, spluttering incoherent nonsense. “Wha- HEY! I am not a noodle!” she protested, thunking the glass of the mirror with a hoof. “Never said you were,” Fangs shot back, his smirk persisting. “But, that being said, you did resemble one just a second ago. A shame you stood up. I was about to start taking notes. You can be quite the contortionist when you’re sleepy.” Minuette’s cheeks puffed up with indignation. She wasn’t even really sure why she felt so offended. Contortionists were awesome! She’d seen them perform one time! It was impressive. And scary, but mostly impressive. It was probably the noodle thing. Minuette was still very tired. Before the discussion could carry on any further, a knock on the door snapped Minuette out of her indignation. She spun on her hooves to see it being pushed open by Pearly, admitting an eager Moondancer and Twilight Sparkle. Minuette, seeing an out, leaped forward, immediately enveloping her two friends into a bone-crushing hug. The sudden force elicited squeaks of alarm from both of them, but Minuette couldn’t be bothered to care. “Girls! Finally! There you are!” Minuette beamed, pulling back a second later to beam at the new arrivals. “I was wondering when you were going to show up!” “My ribs,” Moondancer whined, rubbing delicately at her side. “My poor abused ribs.” “My books,” Twilight parroted with emphasis, rubbing instead at her saddlebags, which Minuette only now realized were full to the point of bursting. “My poor, abused books.” Minuette chuckled. “Twilight, aren’t Moony’s ribs a bit more important than your books?” The tense silence that followed was heavy and thick. Minuette only realized a second later what she had said wrong and shrank back down to the floor under the increasingly hostile look in Twilight’s eyes. She put on a small, disarming grin, letting off a nervous chuckle. “Eheh… uh… I’m kidding?” Twilight’s eyes narrowed for just a second longer. Then, with a huff, she strutted past Minuette with her nose thrust up into the air. Moondancer shook her head with a roll of her eyes and a small smirk. “That’s three counts of heresy, now…” she mumbled as she walked after the pouting bookworm. “Oh, come on!” Minuette called after her, stomping a hoof. A duo of amused giggles was the answer she received, drawing an annoyed groan out of her. She turned back to the door, catching the eye of her mother. Pearly stared down at Minuette with a concerned frown. “...You have interesting friends,” she eventually deduced. “They’re cool,” Minuette chirped, immediately forgiving all of their little sins. It wasn’t like her to hold a grudge. Usually. “They can get on my nerves sometimes, but I like ‘em!” Pearly smiled warmly. She gave Minuette an affectionate nuzzle before starting to close the door. “I’m glad. I’ll leave you girls be. Holler if you need anything, and be careful!” she said. “We will!” Minuette called, waving after her before the door closed with a resounding click. A silence followed afterward that felt as if it was stretching on into eternity. Minuette closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath.  “This is it,” she thought to herself. “This is where all of the hard work really begins.” It felt kind of surreal, thinking that. Fangs had been trapped in the mirror for as long as Minuette had known him. It had been his entire existence for as long as he could remember. The mere thought of actually taking the needed steps to extract him from his magical prison was, to put it simply, daunting. Surely there had been powerful mages who had owned the mirror before her who had tried to break Fangs out themselves? Her confidence wavered for just a second, but she was quick to shake it off. “No. No, we got this. I got this! I’m the little beast! I just gotta put my head to work and do this right!” With that internalized rallying cry complete, she spun to the others with an eager grin. Twilight was already removing her copy of Amulets and Artifacts from her saddlebags, while Moondancer was pulling out her notebook and plenty of writing supplies. Quills, ink, pencils, erasers, and even a few bars of whiteout. Minuette took one more breath, retrieved her notebook from her saddlebags with a flourish of magic, then stepped forward to join her friends. “So, what’s step one?” she asked eagerly. “Let’s see,” Twilight said, flipping open her book and scouring the pages. Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she went, and she rubbed a hoof against her chin in thought. After a second, her eyes lit up, and she set the book down on the floor between all three of them. “Aha! Here we go! Right here. This is the identification spell used to discern the properties of most magic items. It should allow us to visualize the structure of the enchantment in our heads. It won’t tell us anything on its own, though, so as Moondancer said, we’ll need to take notes.” “I got us covered on that front,” Moondancer reminded them, giving her miniature blank library a twirl in the air for emphasis. A sharp look from Twilight cowed her into gently setting the supplies down nearby in an orderly fashion. Satisfied that no more blasphemy against the to-be-written word was to be committed, Twilight turned the book so Minuette could read it. “Depending on how complicated the enchantment is, we could have the whole thing mapped out anywhere from an hour from now to in a few days. It will all go a lot faster, though, if our notes are thorough and clean. So no distractions or doodles or anything, Minuette. Stay focused.” Minuette threw a sharp salute. “Yes, ma’am!” she said before refocusing on the book and reading through the spell’s instructions. It was relatively simple, though certainly a touch more complicated than many spells she had tried so far. Still, she had confidence she could pull it off with little difficulty, provided she wasn’t interrupted or put under any pressure. She smiled and nodded at Twilight. “Alright. I think I can do this!” Twilight nodded, an eager smile on her face. “Good! Moondancer?” The pale unicorn turned the book so she could read the spell. She squinted at the page, adjusted her glasses, and then put on a confident smirk of her own, locking gazes with Twilight as she did so. “Yeah, I got this.” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “Alright! Then let’s get started!” There was a flurry of movement as the trio got into position. A space in front of the mirror was cleared out of any and all obstructions - mostly textbooks on teeth, gums, and general dentistry - the notebooks were opened, writing utensils were spread amongst the group, and before long, the fillies had arranged themselves in a half-circle around the mirror. Fangs watched them the whole time. His expression was unreadable, giving Minuette pause once she was prepared to cast the spell. His eyes turned to lock onto hers, and for a moment, the world slowed to a crawl. Fangs lowered his head just a touch, his ears drooping. “Little one… Minuette. Are you sure you are prepared?” he asked in a low voice. “Are you ready to do this?” “Everypony ready?” Twilight asked, unknowingly echoing the bug’s question, albeit not his sentiment. “I am,” Moondancer replied, lighting up her horn with her signature aura. All eyes then landed on Minuette. She took a deep breath and put on the biggest, most confident grin she could. She looked into Fangs’ eyes. “I’ve been ready for a long, long time.” There was a pause.  Fangs smiled. “Then good luck, my friend.” “Let’s do this, then,” Twilight commanded, her own horn lighting with magic. Minuette answered in kind, lighting up her horn and forming the spell. Her face contorted a little with strain from the complexities of it, as well as the energy requirement, but she was quick to compensate and power through it. This was going to be a tiring process, she could tell. “Three… two… one!” Twilight counted down. As one, the unicorn fillies angled their heads down until the tips of their horns were aimed directly at the mirror. Three wispy streams of magic, one purple, one pink, and one yellow, streamed forward and into the glass surface of the mirror, filling the room with the serene ambiance of magic energy. Like a field of windchimes heard from far away. The mirror responded immediately. The entire surface shimmered with a layer of rippling dark purple. Minuette bit her lip in concern, her gaze locked onto Fangs. He appeared just as confused and concerned as the rest of them, leaning back slightly. Whatever this was, Fangs had either never seen it before, or it had been so long since he had that he had lost his memory of it. However, it only took a few seconds for the dark purple to fade. As the reaction died down, an image slowly began to stitch itself together in Minuette’s mind. It was hard to parse with her eyes open, though. She noticed Moondancer and Twilight closing their eyes, no doubt focusing on the image without distractions. She took the chance to lock eyes with Fangs. “Are you okay?” she mouthed, being sure not to actually say the words aloud. Fangs nodded, his eyes still turned up toward the top of the mirror’s frame. “Y-yes, I am fine. I just… I think...” he muttered, his eyes going distant. Then, to Minuette’s shock, he gave off a loud gasp of pain. His eyes screwed themselves shut, his hooves flying up to clutch at his skull. Minuette gasped and was about to drop the flow of her magic to rush to his side when he lifted a hoof toward her in a gesture to stop. He stayed there on the ground for several seconds, his breaths deep and shaky, before he cracked open an eye to look at her. “Another h-h-headache,” he stammered out. “Don’t w-worry about m-me. I’m f-fine. Just f-focus on your spell.” “But…” Minuette whispered, shifting uneasily on her haunches. “Minuette? Are you seeing this?” Twilight asked, cracking an eye open. She frowned when she saw that Minuette’s eyes were locked on the mirror. “Minuette, hey! Focus! We need all the eyes we can get here!” Minuette glanced to Twilight, then to Fangs. Even through the pain he was clearly feeling, he managed to smile and nod at her. Minuette wanted to protest, to say that it was wrong to keep pushing forward if it was hurting him. But in spite of her reservations, he just kept giving her that gentle, encouraging smile. The same one he had given her so many times when she was being ravaged by anxiety, or self-doubt, or even sadness after the incident with Bristle those years ago. “You will do fine,” those eyes said. “Go on and do your best. There is nothing you cannot do when you put your all into it.” Minuette took a long, deep breath, taking what strength she could from the encouraging nod of her dearest friend, and closed her eyes. With the outside world blocked out, she was free to focus on the mental image the spell was projecting into her thoughts. It resembled an enormous sphere of light comprised of many smaller spheres. Each one was connected to several of its neighbors by wavy lines, forming a complex latticework that reminded Minuette of an illustration of a brain’s neurons she had seen once. She knew all at once that this was the enchantment upon the mirror. And it was huge. “Woooah…” Moondancer breathed, her voice laced with awe at what they were seeing. “It’s gigantic…” “It’s an enchantment,” Twilight clinically explained. “They’re all like th-this.” Though the Princess’s student was projecting confidence, Minuette couldn’t miss the slight stammer in her voice. She was just as floored as the rest of them. She was just better at hiding it. Minuette licked her lips. “So… what do we do now?” she asked after a moment, shifting her weight to get more comfortable. “Cause I’m kinda at a loss, you girls.” There was a beat of silence before Twilight spoke up. “Well… we can start just about anywhere. I say we pick a sphere at the outside of the enchantment and work our way in. We can map it out as we go.” “I can do that,” Minuette declared, cracking one eye open to start drawing a rudimentary sketch of what she was seeing in her notebook. “I’m not really good with all the super technical stuff, but I do know how to draw - kinda.” “Alright, mapping out the matrix is Minuette’s job,” Twilight acknowledged without missing a beat. “Moondancer, you and I will focus on figuring out the functions of each part of the spell.” “Are you sure?” Moondancer asker anxiously. “I was expecting something complicated… but… this is…” Minuette opened both eyes to stare imploringly at her hesitant friend with her best puppy dog look. “Oh, come on! We’re all already here! Let’s go all the way! Besides, if we can figure this whole thing out, imagine how much extra credit we’re all gonna get!” Moondancer opened her eyes to stare back at Minuette. The two were quiet for several seconds, and the pensive frown on Moon’s face never faded. Minuette’s eyes flicked to Fangs. He was still curled up on the floor, head in his hooves, but his breathing had slowed and relaxed. His eyes were closed. He was clearly still in some minor pain, but it seemed to be subsiding. Minuette turned back to Moondancer, her expression pleading. “Please. I really want to do this, but I need both of you.” Moondancer fidgeted in place, adjusting her glasses. But, eventually, the look in Minuette’s eyes won her over, and she let off a heavy sigh. “Oh… alright. Sorry. I guess I just got intimidated.” “Well, I am the beast,” Minuette reminded her with a wink. “No, you’re a heretic.” Minuette’s cheeks puffed up in indignation. “If you say that one more time…!” “Both of you stop it,” Twilight scolded, silencing the banter-in-motion before it could turn into a full-on trainwreck of a conversation. “We have work to do. I found us an entry point, so let’s get to it.” Moondancer and Minuette both offered up hasty apologies before closing their eyes and diving back into the image of the enchantment their minds constructed. Minuette eyed the infinitely complicated latticework of magic for a moment. It was daunting, to be sure. She had never imagined it would look like this. And each sphere was practically a miniature spell in its own right. It made sense, of course. She may have brought in Moondancer and Twilight with the explanation that the Mirror simply had a durability enchantment, but she knew better. So much better. It not only created a physical - or pseudo-physical - space derived from what was reflected in its surface, but it had also housed and preserved Fangs for centuries, possibly even millennia. It was going to be infinitely more complex than any of them had been anticipating. But she wasn’t going to back down now. Her attention was drawn from such musings when she noticed one of the spheres on the very edge of the collection twitching and flashing with a soft lavender light. “What’s that?” she asked, quirking a brow. “That sphere that’s flashing - you can all see that?” Twilight asked, a hint of strain in her voice. The others nodded along, voicing that yes, they could see it, prompting her to continue. “That’s the aspect of the enchantment I’m focusing on. It’s at the end of its chain, so it should make it easy to start with.” “Should,” Moondancer echoed skeptically. “We ready?” Twilight asked, ignoring Moondancer’s remark. “Ready.” “Abso-toodly-lutely!” Twilight scoffed in amusement before resuming. “Alright. Let’s do this.” A silence fell over the room as Moondancer and Twilight began to analyze the sphere. Minuette cracked an eye open to check on Fangs one more time before lifting her quill, ready to start taking notes.