//------------------------------// // Equestria Girls Revamp: Race for the Mirror // Story: Chapters of a Revamped Tome // by Snowy Helmet //------------------------------// Were she in a deeper sleep, she might have slept through it.  But as it was, her wings and the other changes to her body still had her getting used to herself on many levels, and a secondary effect from that was her sleep being light and fitful. Although it had been getting better over the last two weeks, it was still far from the same as before. So as she heard the loud thump mixed with the startled yelp that rose up right by Spike’s sleeping basket, her eyes opened and she sat up, her eyes bleary and her mind foggy, but alert enough for her to look at where the sound had come from - and see her crown peeking from a pannier strapped to the flank of a strange pony covered in a black cloak. The view snapped her awake faster than icy water.  “THIEF!” she and Spike shouted at the same time.  “Shoot!” the unicorn muttered loud enough to show she was a mare before teleporting out of the room in a flash of turquoise light and the signature popping snap. The sound repeated itself right outside the door as Twilight dashed off to it and opened it with her magic so fast it broke the bolt and tore off the lock while the door flew open. Twilight’s heart jumped at the damage while the broken lock clattered to the floor. Then her heart jumped again as she saw the unicorn mare running off with her element. “Thief!” she shouted again as she dashed off after her with Spike in tow. “She’s got my crown!”  “Catch that thief!” she heard Spike shouting behind her as he did his best to keep up. A series of doors opened beside her as her friends poked their heads out of their rooms. Twilight willed her legs to work faster. They only slowed as her subconscious screamed in fear of their new strength. She instead summoned her magic and teleported out of her spot and before the mare.  “Stop!” she shouted with her wings spread and her horn blazing so hard it lit the whole hallway.  Under her hood, the unicorn mare’s eyes widened in fear as she slowed. The feeling echoed within Twilight. She was much more powerful now. If she wasn’t careful, she might destroy her.  Her magic fizzled out even as the unicorn sped up again and charged straight into her. Twilight summoned a shield. The unicorn again teleported away. This time, her cloak stayed behind as it fell over her barrier. Her heart froze for an instant before she put the shield down and wrapped the cloak in a bundle. As the garment folded she saw her friends racing towards her with identical determined looks on their faces.  Turquoise glitter crept in from behind at the corner of her eyes. “Everypony, watch out!” Spike suddenly shouted before a dull thump conveyed he’d thrown himself onto the floor.  Twilight’s eyes barely had time to widen before the turquoise glitter filled the whole hallway. An alarmed gasp shot out of her at the view. The next instant, her mind started to fog. Reminded of her lessons, she held her breath and put her hoof to her mouth and nose, but her other three legs still swayed. Her breath then flew from her lungs as she felt what seemed like a giant hoof slamming into her back and flew forward under its force, knocking her friends down like bowling pins, her back burning from the bruise that had formed there. Her eyes stinging from the sudden sleepiness, Twilight caught one last glimpse of the unicorn’s triumphant sneer and the ecstatic look on her turquoise eyes before she turned around and again dashed down the hallway. Alarm pushed through her drowsiness as she forced herself to her hooves. A faint tick of claws behind her told her Spike had held his breath on time and was now standing up as well. The faint snorts of the others’ regular breathing were the only other sounds in the vicinity. Her mind pointed out that it was a mere Lulling Spell, and even if it wasn’t undone her friends would wake up on their own in a few hours. Her heart still clenched from concern. Her mind screamed that the intruder was getting away with Equestria’s most important means of defense. “Take care of the others, Spike!” she commanded, some vague corner of her mind remarking she sounded far too much like Shining Armor. “I have to catch her.”    ||||||| I did it! She thought, her chest about to burst from happiness even as she raced towards her destination. After so long, I finally did it! Memories of the waiting and anger and forced patience and the plotting flared in her mind, but they only made her joy soar higher. She had done it! She had gotten her hooves on the Element of Magic! Now all she needed was to take the final step, and she’d show all of Equestria what she was worth!  Faint hoofbeats rose up behind her. Her heart skipped a beat at the sound.  Right. Don’t start chanting victory too soon.   The palace in the Crystal Empire might be understaffed compared to Equestria, but it was better not to take any chances, especially when Twilight Sparkle had somehow become an alicorn since she’d last heard of her. Magic burst through her and she vanished in a burst of turquoise aura, vanishing an instant later back in the room the mirror had been in.  And straight into the face of another obstacle.  “Halt! In the name of Equestria!”  The shout came from a pegasus solar guard standing before the mirror on his rear hooves with his wings spread open. Despite herself, she froze. That voice was deeper and older-sounding than she remembered from the other side of the mirror, but it was still familiar.  The pegasus flapped his wings. A whistle cut through the room. A yelp flew from her throat even as she summoned her magic and shot up like a rocket, her aura shining around her as a burst of concentrated wind cut the air below her and slammed into the closed double door.  A thrum boomed as the pegasus also shot towards her in a split second, a trail of various shades of blue behind him. Her heart jumped. She summoned a shield. The Pegasus grunted as he slammed into it and bounced off. His wings spread open to slow the ricochet while she lost focus on the spell she’d been using to float due to his impact. Her shield burst apart as she landed. A grunt flew from her mouth. Apparently even her eidetic memory had its limits when it came to her control of her pony body and her magic.  Golden and amber flashed in the ceiling as the pegasus regained his bearings. Again she summoned her magic and a jet of turquoise glitter flew from her horn. The pegasus put one hoof before his nose and mouth and charged at her.  Her shield again burst around her body. This time the pegasus swerved left and flew in a half-circle around the room before charging at her again. She dropped her shield and the right pouch on her pannier glowed as two objects wrapped in her aura shot from it. The pegasus’ wings again snapped to either side of him as he halted. Even in the midst of his stopping he leaned left to dodge one of the stones she threw and shot his right hind leg forward to return the other one. She jumped left to dodge it even as her horn shone again and a triumphant grin spread across her face on cue with the glow on her pannier’s left pouch.  Her prize shot into the mirror the next instant. The pegasus’ eyes widened as he rushed towards it with his front hooves stretched forward. His hoofguards sent a sharp ring through the room upon falling onto the crown. A shrill screech then followed as the object slipped through his hooves. Her grin widened while the pegasus’ gasped and the Element of Magic flew through the mirror.   ||||||| On the other side of the mirror… Light flashed in the corner of her eye just as she was starting to head back. Her heart leaping, she whirled around and raised her arms like she was being held at gunpoint, ready to beg for mercy and plead her cause when whoever caught her asked her to explain her presence so far after hours.  But no voice made itself heard other than the chirping crickets’, and no light shone by other than the headlights of the cars passing in the street. Everything was just as it had been moments ago. Except for a spot on a patch of grass right by the base of the statue, glittering under the almost full moon.  Whatever it was, some stray beam of moonlight must have hit it and sent a reflection towards her eyes. But what was it?  Her curiosity peeking through her fear, she lowered her arms and tiptoed forward, fixated on her destination. Her eyes widened as she saw what had caught her attention. That’s the Fall Formal’s crown! She thought. What’s it doing here? And why had it taken her that long to notice it? She had been here for at least ten minutes, catching some fresh air while she took a break. To only see it now seemed… weird.  Then again, she just might not have been paying enough attention. It made no difference, she decided as she picked up the crown and pushed herself to her feet, jogging back inside. She’d hold onto the crown for the time being, and make sure to return it first thing in the morning.   ||||||| Back in the Crystal Empire… Fear exploded through Flash as the mirror’s surface finished rippling, the last beams of light it cast shining on his face. The Element of Magic had escaped him! With it gone… Hoofbeats rose behind him. His mind snapped into focus as he whirled around. The intruder was charging towards him, an opaque magic sphere on her horn. A grim look settled back on his face as he kicked his hind legs back. The mare's eyes widened as she summoned a barrier. His hooves hit it just before it finished forming and popped it like a balloon. She yelped and stumbled back on her hooves, then gasped as he whirled around and tackled her out of the air, wrapping his forelegs around her barrel and pressing her to the floor. “Freeze!” he shouted while he pressed his right hoof to her face and fished into a small pouch on his armor with his wing.  A magic-suppressing ring came up held between his primaries. His wing dashed to her horn. Her eyes wide, her horn blazed and her shield burst around her again. Flash gasped as he was torn from her and flew through the air. The ring flew from his  grasp. His mind screamed from effort while he flapped his wings to halt his forced flight.  Then a turquoise aura erupted around his body and he felt himself freeze. No! He thought.  Fear stabbed at him. He pushed it away and pushed as hard as he could against her magical grip. Each of his limbs was frozen like it was inside stone. He tried to open his mouth to scream as loud as he could. His mouth failed to even move enough for him to open it. Fear stabbed at him again as he mentally kicked himself. To think he'd decided it would be best to wait for her at the point of escape than to waste time getting backup that would be too thinly spread… Maybe that way she would simply have escaped faster, but still, now he was at her mercy. A sort of squirming emptiness churned in the pit of his stomach. Taking the deepest breath he could with his face paralyzed, Flash turned his focus to the intruder, getting a good look at her for the first time.  He was so taken aback he tried to gasp at the view, and though her paralyzing spell stopped him from doing that, it had no effect on the shock rushing through him.  If her features were anything to go by, she was surprisingly young, possibly not even of age by totiracial standards. She likely was of age by the standards of Unicorns, as their racial age of majority was reached at fifteen - compared to sixteen for Pegasi and seventeen for Earth Ponies - but even by generous estimates, he wouldn’t peg her as older than eighteen, which was the agreed-upon age of majority for all pony races, as well as for races of all sapient beings in Equestria. Yet the look of victory blazing on her face, only further enhanced by her wide grin, was as unsettling as the looks Flash had seen in the faces of some criminals he had faced. The only difference was that those tended to cower fairly quickly the moment they lost their advantage, and none had ever had him at their mercy like this.  The churning in the pit of his stomach increased, his veins twisting like they had come to life. Clenching his jaw to force the feeling down, Flash narrowed his  eyes and looked straight into hers, his face hardening. If she was going to kill him, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of cowering before his impending death. It might be too small a thing in this situation, but he'd been the sort who would not go gentle from a young age. A shrill snap of breaking crystal rose up from the door. The unicorn mare’s eyes widened and she tossed Flash towards the sound like he was a ragdoll. Flash swerved forward at a 90 degrees angle even as he opened his wings to stop his course.  The door flew open before him.  Princess Twilight charged in.  Twin shouts flew from them both as they tried to force themselves to halt.  Twin grunts followed as they crashed into one another and crumpled into a tangled mess of legs and wings.  “'Bye, Princess!” he heard the unicorn shout even as more hoofbeats rose up, her voice on the deep side for her apparent age but still with a youthful undercurrent. His breath catching, Flash turned to the mirror a moment before she dove into it like the Element of Magic had, likely that much closer to carrying out whatever nefarious plot she had in mind.    ||||||| Her heart leaping, Twilight somehow slipped away from the pegasus like she was made of liquid and flew towards the mirror.  A train in shades of blue whirled by her side before the pegasus floated in front of her with his wings open and his forelegs spread apart. “Princess, don’t!” he shouted. Twilight halted in midair in alarm - then realized she was flying and her wings flailed through the air like cumbersome flaps, her hooves wobbling like thrown dice as she fell onto the floor. her head and torso tilted forward, a hair's breadth away from sending her into the crystal floor face-first. The pegasus guard rushed forward and put his left leg to her barrel while wrapping his wing over her.  As her hooves settled, he again stepped back, both standing at attention and yet tense like he was ready to jump in her path again.  “I’m sorry for stopping you, Your Highness, but you can’t follow her like that,” the pegasus explained. “I know she took your crown, but if you simply rush after her, you may run into an ambush!” A knot seemed to squeeze her heart to half its width. She hadn’t thought of that. Her only goal had been getting her hooves on the now missing Element of Magic before it was used for any evil plot… but if she simply went and did it now, assuming the guard was right… Twilight shook like a slab of jelly, her mind suddenly filled with a swirling mess of pictures that were both too unclear to make out any detail and yet conveyed utter terror from a glimpse alone. She had no idea of what lay beyond that mirror, but she had read enough adventure stories, and also read and lived through enough real adventures, to know that villains having armies of underlings were a thing, even if there were important differences between reality and fiction.  True, now that she was an alicorn, she was much more difficult to subdue - it had been the only reason she hadn’t fallen under the Lulling Spell that the intruder had used even though she had inhaled some of its magic - but difficult didn’t mean impossible. This unicorn had already fared well against her on her own. Who knew how it might be in a place she knew better with help from a potential army of underlings. Unfortunately, the Element of Magic was still gone, and getting it back was still needed. They’d have to take that chance, and sooner rather than later. “I understand,” Twilight managed to say. “But we can’t just stay here! We have to catch her and fast!”  The pegasus guard nodded, his face setting into a stern frown. His mouth opened like he was about to say something, but no sound came before a series of loud hoofbeats caught their attention. Both she and the pegasus turned to the open doorway right on time to see Princess Celestia come running from around the corner, her eyes wide in fear as she gained ground in long strides, her white coat shining in the corridor, somehow looking all the more vivid due to the fact she wasn’t wearing her regalia.  “What happened, Twilight?” Princess Celestia shouted as she burst into the room and put both front hooves to her shoulders. “Spike sent me a note that there was an intruder in the castle! Are you alright? Are you hurt?” Her heart clenched at the view. While Twilight knew Princess Celestia well enough to be sure that she was a pony like all others in many ways, there was still something off at seeing her display emotion in such a raw manner. She always seemed so calm, so in control... to see such a variance from that was almost like seeing a variance from the sun's movement in the sky. Twilight knew this particular variance only meant that the princess cared about her, unlike what some of the nastier gossipers in Canterlot said, but still, seeing her distressed was not pleasant, especially when the distress was partly due to Twilight herself. After all, if she had already gotten her new magic under control, neither the intruder nor the Element of Magic would have gotten away.  “I’m fine, Princess Celestia,” she forced herself to reply. “I’m a bit bruised, but that’s it. There really was an intruder in the castle, but whoever she was, she didn’t hurt me too much.” Princess Celestia let out a small sigh at the words, her hooves leaving Twilight’s shoulders while her wing moved forward to briefly rest on the back of her head. Twilight tried to give her a reassuring smile, but she felt it coming out more like a grimace due to the way her stomach started to squirm.  She had to break the bad news now, and she could only imagine how poorly they would be received.  By some miracle - or maybe because Princess Celestia’s wing on her head conveyed enough of a feeling of reassurance -  she managed to say what she needed to. “Unfortunately, the intruder took my crown and escaped through that mirror. Me and him..." she gestured to the pegasus guard as she mentioned him "... tried to catch her, but she was too much for us.” Her heart tightened at the words.   The news that she had lost the Element of Magic had to be one of the worst news Twilight had given Princess Celestia, if not the very worst. Whether concealed by her comforting demeanor or laid bare before her eyes, massive disappointment was bound to come.  Horror started to creep up through Twilight as she saw the shift in her mentor's expression. There was no shade of disappointment or reproach, but this reaction had to be even worse. Princess Celestia's eyes had widened far more than Twilight thought possible, yet her pupils shrank to worrisome levels, her lips parting while her white coat actually seemed to blanche further in the darkness. Even her mane and tail seemed to flow through the air at a slightly slower speed, like their weight had increased all of a sudden. Her wing slipped from Twilight’s head, but it seemed to hang limply on the floor rather than fold itself alongside the other one. Twilight’s breath hitched. She hadn’t expected her mentor to react well, but this… this was scarier than any disappointment somehow. Even when Discord had broken out of his confinement, Princess Celestia hadn't looked this unsettled, like she had seen somepony rising from the grave. “Princess?” she managed to squeak out. “What’s the matter?” Princess Celestia blinked, her eyes back to normal - a view that drew a relieved sigh from Twilight - but her coat still paler than its natural shade, and her mane and tail still less fluid. To further add to the shock, she reached forward with both wings and set them on Twilight’s flanks. “Was this unicorn mare a bit younger than you? With peach-golden fur and turquoise eyes? Red and yellow mane and tail? A yellow and red sun for a cutie mark?”  Each word was spoken in utter disbelief, yet somehow hope shone in her eyes, like she both knew she should be wrong and yet wanted nothing but to be right. A shiver of dread flowed through Twilight. This had been far from an exact description, but it had been detailed enough that one would guess she had seen the intruder.  “Yes, Princess Celestia,” Twilight replied. “Why? Do you know her? Who is she?” Utter shock filled the older alicorn's eyes. Twilight’s earlier comparison, of her looking like she had seen somepony rising from the grave, flashed through her mind. Somehow, it looked even truer than the first time she thought of it.  After a few seconds, Princess Celestia let out a long sigh, her mane and tail again flowing like they normally did as she finished, her posture straightening up.  Still, her voice was thick with unmistakable sadness as she answered Twilight’s questions.  “That mare was Sunset Shimmer. The last student I had before I started teaching you. And the tale of what happened to her is a sad one indeed.”