//------------------------------// // Twilight: Warrior Princess // Story: The Heart's Promise // by MyHobby //------------------------------// The morning came with the lighting of Twilight’s horn. Sunset departed, both she and Twilight knowing that as much as they could wish for enough time to even have a decent meal together… it couldn’t happen. They both had too many other places to be. They both had too many responsibilities dragging them elsewhere. A quick, bland porridge was all they could share before Sunset flew north with her personal cadre of guardsponies. Twilight Sparkle trotted around the ruins of the palace courtyard, a cloud of notepads floating in her wake; all scribbling a different note, and all barely legible. After trying to reread them, she settled for focusing on one thought at a time before writing the next. That was difficult enough. The ideas were coming thick and fast, all in a jumble and all wrestling for prominence. The description of Spike’s adventure within the dying tree, the void devoid of life save for a hideous monster, the whispered words of comfort that seemed to form a riddle. “By my blood shall the book be opened.” “By Spike’s blood? By his mother’s blood?” She tapped the pen against her lips and left a trace of ink down the middle. “By mine? And what book? Some heretofore unknown tome of magic powers that we can use to fight the fae? And what is the most proper spelling of fae? I should look at standardizing either ‘fae’ or ‘fey’—” “Twilight,” Spike said, tapping the side of his head “focus.” “I can’t focus! Not now! Not when there’s so much at stake!” She swirled the notepads around her in a whirlwind of nearly-dried ink and flapping pages. “Everything demands my attention and even the slightest slip of attention will result in a catastrophic upheaval of everything we’ve fought to protect!” He lowered his eyelids and said nothing, content to stare at Twilight from beneath a furrowed brow. “Fiiine, I’ll do the stupid breathing exercises.” Twilight sat down hard and folded her wings across her back. She pointed a hoof at Spike as she set the notepads beside her. “But we need to figure this out and we need to figure it out now.” “And we will.” Spike leaned forward and crossed his legs, resting his elbows on his knees. “Just as soon as you use your brain for something more productive than overheating itself.” Twilight exhale ended in a sputter, but she decided against arguing his point. Getting frustrated wouldn’t help anything. Getting panicky wasn’t helping anything. It was just a matter of careful consideration, piecing together what the riddle could mean, based on the considerable mountain of knowledge she’d built up over her life. Did the saying sound familiar? She could name off dozens of writings with some mention of blood without breaking a sweat. It seemed almost generic, as unimportant as any daily turn of phrase. “By my blood shall the book be opened.” Of course, that was taking the words as is. Perhaps it could be solved like any other problem: By looking at it from a different angle. If the book—whatever book that may be—can be opened with blood, what sealed it in the first place? That same blood? Some other blood? Blood was known to seal off wounds in the form of scabs; it was not known to be a particularly useful key. Then perhaps she should put the riddle in context. Spike’s mother—or the apparition he claimed to be such—had said his road was a difficult one, but that it would not be walked alone. Perhaps that was part of the riddle, and the rigmarole about the blood and the book was the key. “Spike?” Spike exhaled softly. He kept his eyes closed as he did their breathing exercises. “Yes, Twilight?” “The road your mother spoke of…” Twilight watched him flinch at the words. “Do you know which one that is?” He was quiet for a moment, his breathing becoming shallower. More troubled. He opened his bright green eyes and let a smokey sigh escape his nose. “It’s the Elements. Somebody needs to look for them.” The words struck a blow at Twilight’s heart. The pieces started to come together in her head, but she refused to get ahead of Spike. “This is true.” “And you and the girls can’t do it.” Spike’s tail swished in the dust of the ruins. “Not the way things are right now.” “That is right.” Twilight’s ears lay down atop her head. She turned away so she didn’t have to look at the pain in her friend’s eyes. “We’re all stuck. One way or another.” She, with her duties to the kingdom. Rainbow, with the rebuilding of Cloudsdale. Fluttershy, with the care of a golden apple tree. Rarity, with her charity work in Canterlot. Applejack was currently trying to reintegrate herself into farm life after four years in office. Pinkie might have been able to go, but to just send her without backup? Even with an army of guards, setting such a task on her shoulders alone… It seemed wrong, after she had already done so much in the last few years. But to send Spike instead? “But… I need you here, too.” Twilight thought back to Ponyville, to the Seeds of Friendship Public Library, to his friends, to all he did in service to Equestria with her. The last few years would have gone very differently for her—very badly, in fact—had he not been by her side. Even if she knew it was selfish, she had to voice her thoughts on it. She had to make sure he knew. “I can’t just send you off into the unknown without help. Without me.” “Then who?” He shrugged, and her eyes went to the scars in his forearms. “The Knights of Harmony are accompanying Luna to Felaccia. The Pillars of Equestria are either scattered or retired.” He turned his eyes toward the forest, where the soldiers and Starswirl were awaiting their return. “Or busy with tree business, in the Archmage’s case. We need somebody who knows how to travel, who understands the Elements, and who has had ties to them.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “The seventh throne in the castle says I’m the next best thing.” Yeah, Twilight thought. The smaller throne he barely fit into anymore. She clicked her tongue to banish the thought and return her to the present. “Alright, we’ll talk more later. But…” If this was the road Spike’s mother had mentioned, then perhaps “the book” was the key to following it. They’d been looking for Clover the Clever’s personal journal for some time now, to delve into its depths for the locations of the six reborn Elements of Harmony. Had Clover ever spoken about blood? “I have an idea.” She reached into her saddlebag and pulled forth Sombra’s dark tome: The Grimoire Alicorn. Many dark and foreboding things were placed between its covers, and a good chunk of it had been written by Clover herself after Sombra’s defeat. Much of her writing was contained in the margins, commenting on Sombra’s awful experiments. But some of it was wholly her, detailing her own methods of untangling the spells and brutal enchantments that—according to Sombra—would lead to the creation of an alicorn. She had never followed them through to completion. She had never done anything that could not be undone. She had never taken a life, or conducted experiments on living subjects, or attempted to morph the genetics of future generations, like Sombra did. Still, what little she had done was plenty enough to send shivers down Twilight’s spine. She came to a page that had often caught her eye. It was a diagram of Clover the Clever’s body, detailing its Fairy String network. The strings spread throughout the body, carrying magic from the heart to whatever the pony used to cast spells. For Clover, there was a large cluster at her horn, and a notable deficiency in her eyes. Clover had been born with weak eyesight, and the weakness had progressed to full blindness just a few years away from adulthood. Some theorists surmised that the weak Fairy Strings had contributed. Several other details about her physiology were written around the page. Her personal care routine, her normal diet, her blood pressure, the effects of age… “Do you think…” Spike leaned over her shoulder and rubbed his chin. “Do you think ‘her blood’ might mean that somebody descended from Clover could open the book?” “Highly unlikely.” Twilight scanner her eyes over the DNA strands Clover had mapped out. She was no geneticist, but pattern recognition was a specialty of hers. Nothing stood out just yet. “About a third of Canterlot is related to her, let alone the rest of Equestria. After a thousand years of generations, nobody’s genetics would be similar enough to hers to matter. Unless it was a small thing, like, I dunno, eye color.” Twilight got to her hooves and trotted towards the rear of the dilapidated throne room, on a bee-line to Clover’s old laboratory. “Come on, I wanna see something.” Spike grimaced as he followed along on all fours. “If we literally need her blood, we’re gonna be outta luck. Feel like becoming a grave robber?” “Not especially.” Twilight lit her horn to move a false wall on the outer edge of the palace ruins. The inside corridor was dark, dripping with ichor grown from the forest’s more gruesome creatures. A slime shriveled away from the sunlight and sank into its own goo to escape. “I wouldn’t expect anything more than dry, dusty bones out of her at this point.” Spike grimaced as he followed her in. A spurt of flame caused a particularly devilish, poisonous slime—a Malevolent Mud—to pop in a superheated bubble of phlegm. He gave the morning sky one last forlorn look before sinking his hind legs into the tunnel’s mossy, slippery standing water. “I thought we cleaned out Clover’s old lab years ago. Back when we thought renovating the palace was even possible.” “We did.” Twilight kept her horn lit to guide them forward. She crafted a spell to filter the water ahead of her, but it kept getting clogged with gunk every time she took a couple of steps. She settled for whisking the aftereffects from her knees every so often. “But if Ahuizotl taught us anything, it’s that we know basically nothing about this place. If an entire changeling city could be hidden beneath the old palace, who knows what else we could have missed? If we can’t find Clover’s old journal, then we might at least find a clue to lead us to it.” There was another wet snap as Spike obliterated another Malevolent Mud. “And hope that my mother’s riddle has something to do with it?” “If it doesn’t, then we just have to figure it out another way. Regardless, it’s something to keep in mind.” Twilight pressed her lips together. She reached the door to Clover’s lab and pushed the proper sequence of stone blocks in the wall to activate the locking mechanism. “Even if it’s not your mother… If it can go toe-to-toe with the Lord of the Unseelie Court, it’s possible it’s a high-ranking member of the Seelie Court. They have a halfway-decent track record with giving us assistance recently.” “It was my mother. My birth mother.” Spike leaned against the door frame to look Twilight dead in the eye. “I didn’t doubt it, not for a second.” She said “I trust you, Spike,” even if she wasn’t sure she believed it. She led the way into the dark and, ostensibly, empty laboratory. Her magic reached for the four corners of the room and lit hanging lanterns at equal intervals. She produced four keys from her saddlebags and raised them in front of her eyes. “Keep watch on the walls. If they start to buckle, I’ll teleport us out of here.” “Gotcha.” Hidden keyholes were arranged around the room. One hidden behind a rotted bookshelf. Another on the floor in the farthest corner from the door. A third on the ceiling in the very center of the room. A fourth right beside the door, easily missed beneath the slime of a thousand years of neglect. Twilight inserted the keys into each lock simultaneously, turning them with a single, smooth motion. A block in the floor collapsed into stairs that led down, down, down into a darkness nearly as deep as that of the Abyss. Spike offered her a lopsided grin. “What’s the point of a secret laboratory without a few spooky secret chambers to pad it out?” “I’m still tempted to install one in the castle.” Twilight paused at the top of the staircase and puffed out her cheeks. “Please slap me across the head if I do actually build one. I fulfill too many ‘loopy scientist’ stereotypes as it is.” “Violence requested as a solution…” He snapped his claws. “Check.” “Alright, have your laughs.” Twilight glanced back at the doorway, then ducked into the narrow stairwell. “Keep close. It’s been a while since anypony’s been down here.” Spike turned his shoulders to the side to squeeze through. “Any… pony.” Twilight nodded, illuminating the small room below with a magic orb that she let drift into the center. It was a bare room, lacking even the dilapidated bookshelves and desks of the room above. All it contained was a single stone pedestal. It was angled just right to let a book rest upon it, facing the foot of the staircase. “This,” she whispered, “is where Clover kept the Grimoire Alicorn.” She patted her saddlebag with a wing, feeling the familiar heft of the dangerous tome within. “It’s all that was in this room.” Spike finally squeezed in and rested his back against the cool, clean wall. The room had been sealed nearly airtight, with no room for even a slime to enter the darkest of dark halls. “Ostensibly.” “Ostensibly.” “But you think there might be more to it than that?” Twilight brought out the Grimoire and flipped to the page with Clover’s anatomical diagram. She sent a spell into the page to light up the words, so they shone clearly in the darkness. She rested the book on the podium. It slotted into place neatly, the podium having been carved especially for it. She examined the stone from every side, taking note of the artistic etchings that had been formed on the surface. “There’s more to it than just a book stand. I took rubbings before but could never make heads or tails of it. I was always missing one key component.” She coated the carvings with a paper-thin sheet of magic, then pulled the spell away from the stone. She flattened the swirling, spiraling, leaf-like shape, bending and shifting it here and there. Straightening it out until it made some sort of sense. Twilight read Clover’s words from the page, her voice slightly shaky in the chilly room. “‘My body has been weak since the day I came to this world. Magic is my only release from the pains of mortality. It is my only strength, my lifeblood. I have dedicated my life to its pursuit, and it has been both a blessing and a curse. Now, as age slowly drains the strength away, the thought of becoming an alicorn draws all the fiercer, all the brighter. So it is that I must hide this book away from even my own blind eyes. Lest it corrupt me as it did Sombra. As it did my dear friend Hurricane. If you find this book, know that it can only bring suffering, not healing.’” “Lifeblood.” Spike appraised Twilight’s handiwork, comparing it to the image glowing on the page. “She considered magic as valuable as life itself.” Twilight backed away from the enchantment floating in midair. She lifted the diagram from the book and held it in front of the podium’s carving. When flattened out, they were one and the same. “By my blood… by my magic… the book shall be opened.” Spike wrung his claws together, his forehead furrowing. “Some say that magic is the soul of a pony made manifest. That could take it from being just ‘blood’ to being ‘lifeblood’. Maybe.” “Maybe…” Twilight’s eyes ran along the illusion of Clover’s Fairy Strings until she came to the epicenter; the heart. “Or maybe, it’s the organ that deals in both blood and magic.” She ran her hoof along the side of the podium until she felt where the etchings converged. The heart of the podium, and of Clover the Clever herself. She probed the spot with magic, detecting nothing enchanted. “I already examined the podium last time I was here… so it’s gotta be something I missed.” She pressed her magic against the spot, peering closer at the stone, feeling its curves and compositions. Finding it… hollow? She walked around the book stand and looked closely at where the heart was carved, finding a small seam around the outside that was imperceptible to the eye, and nearly imperceptible to even the strongest magic. She allowed her horn to glow all the brighter, reaching into the podium until she could slide her consciousness around the inner workings of it. Yes, it was hollow, and it held something. Yes, the heart could turn, but it was locked with a series of tumblers not unlike a high-security latch. She pooled her magic beneath the heart, forming it into a solid mass of shimmering power. She gave the heart a quarter-turn. Something within the podium clicked. Behind her, the wall fell open, revealing a room barely big enough to fit a pony into. She gave Spike a look and allowed her illusion spells and the enchanted key to dissolve into shimmering dust. On the far wall of the tiny alcove, a simple bound book lay on a small shelf, preserved with some sort of low-level stasis spell Twilight didn’t know. She reached out and took it with a foreleg. She opened to the first page and was immediately confident that it was what they were looking for. I am Clover, hoofmaiden to Princess Platinum of the Crystal Empire. I have been requested by my mentor, the Bearded One, to keep a log of the happenings of our journey south. We are hopeful we will be able to find livable land, far away from the scourge of the Windigos. “Of all the things she wanted to hide,” Twilight whispered, “why did she want to hide this the most?” “Because she knew what we would do with it.” Twilight and Spike spun around to find themselves face-to-face with an image from their darkest nightmares. It had the shape of a pony, but with no skin, no muscle, just a pile of bones held together by malice. It was clothed in black, with a heavy overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat. A noose hung around its neck, frayed off as if the body had been cut from the tree it was slain on. But it was no body; Twilight could tell that much by the magic surrounding the being. The magic was not of pony origin, but of the world beyond. He held the Grimoire Alicorn in a chipped, gnarled hoof. Spike hunched his shoulders, lowering his head in preparation to charge, should the event warrant it. “Who are you?” “I am Merimna of the Unseelie Court, Acting Princeling of Equestria.” The fairy spoke with a toneless hiss from a mouth without lips. “Thank you for finding these books for us. I’m afraid I’m here to take them off your hands.” Twilight lit her horn to grasp the Grimoire Alicorn, but the book vanished into the folds of his coat. She opened her mouth to snap at him, but saw movement behind him. A dark-clothed pony scrambled up the staircase, the tome tucked beneath one of its forelegs. “Spike! Up there! The book!” Spike launched himself forward on all fours, crawling around the fairy and taking the stairs three at a time. Twilight and Merimna found themselves facing each other alone in the bowels of the old palace ruins. “I’m afraid one book will not be enough to please my master.” Merimna tilted his head as his soulless eye sockets bored holes into Twilight. “I’m taking that journal, princess!” Twilight Sparkle placed Clover’s journal in her saddlebags and cinched them tight. “Well, Sunset, time to see if your hypothesis works…” Spike ran as hard as he could to catch up to the pony. He could only catch glimpses of him as he vanished behind doorways and into dark corridors. As he went, he noticed that he and the thief were not alone. Dark figures gathered at the edges of his vision. More fairies? Or more ponies? Both, he realized as they broke through into the courtyard. Dark shadows hid within the heights of the ruined walls, while a semicircle of stallions in black hoods cut off all escape. He was within leaping distance of the thief, but he held back. Tackling the pony with his full strength would kill him outright. He had to outmaneuver him. He glanced down at the rubble by his feet. Or… He kicked a rock as lightly as he could, sending it skittering across the cobblestone floor. The stallion continued blindly, until his hoof caught the edge of the spinning stone fragment. It wasn’t enough to topple him, but it was enough to slow him down. Spike grasped the thief’s tail in his claw and held tight. He didn’t pull for fear of hurting the stallion irreparably. Instead, he let the pony’s own momentum yank him off his feet and send his nose into the ground. Spike winced at the sound. Three arrows zipped through the air and struck Spike in the chest. Two bounced off, but one hit hard enough to stick. Spike brushed it away and scooped up the Grimoire Alicorn, sticking it as deep into his shoulder-slung bag as he could get it. He swiveled on his feet. He had been surrounded. Several bows had been pulled taught. Several spears shimmered, their heads enchanted with various damaging spells. The stallions were all of like build and size, their coats dyed a deep grey, nearly black. They all wore matching black hoods to conceal any sort of individuality they might have had. Their eyes were dull, as if they were looking right past Spike. The drake shuddered; even Ahizotl’s minions, the Painted Ones, had some sort of personal investment in their service to their god. These ponies, on the other hand, didn’t look aware enough to put on their own horseshoes. The spears-wielders lurched towards him like puppets on chains, thrusting at him with blazing heat or chilling frost. Spike batted the cold away, but allowed the fire to hit him. The spells fizzled out on lava-proof scales. The thief spoke with a raspy voice. “Don’t harm the book! No spells!” As one, the ponies reversed their spears to menace Spike with the blunt end. They battered him relentlessly, bludgeoning him rather than attempting to pierce his thick, scaly hide. Spike covered his eyes and ears, but nothing else on his body was vulnerable to the assault. Still, he was trapped. He could break free easily enough, but it would be far too easy to maim or kill these ponies accidently. All it would take was a single stray punch. Or a misplaced spurt of flame. A tug at his bag’s strap stole his attention. One of the stallions was trying to steal it! Spike grabbed the strap and rolled, sending the pony head-over-tail. It took out another stallion during its flip through the air. The two crumpled to the ground, either winded or unconscious. Spike took his chance and burst through the gap they made, barreling towards the camp. He was nowhere near as fast as the stallions, though, and they caught up with him in an instant, riding alongside his headlong charge and attempting to surround him again. He reached out and pushed the lead pony’s spearhead into the cobblestone, where it stuck fast. Unable to halt himself, the hooded stallion tripped over the haft. The two stallions behind him plowed into his body, becoming a tangled mess of pain and limbs. He looked ahead and saw the rangers gathering just outside the palace courtyard to investigate the commotion. Starswirl the Bearded opened his eyes wide as he caught sight of Spike in a headlong charge away from the group of stallions. He directed the rangers to make a wall with their shields and ready their archers. The hooded ponies had the same idea. Near the rear, three of them slowed down to draw their bows and aimed them at the rangers. Their arrows sung through the air. Spike let out a yelp as he saw the deadly weapons nearing their targets. Starswirl cast a shimmering spell that halted the arrows’ flight and dropped them to the ground, broken in half. He waved Spike into the protective circle of shields. “Come, young drake! To safety!” Spike removed his side bag and tossed it to Starswirl. With the book safe, he turned and faced the charging stallions head-on. He gritted his teeth and awaited the impact of six strong bodies moving at high speed. What he hadn’t expected was for their spears to reignite with chilling, sub-zero spells on their tips. The first spear struck his scarred shoulder and send waves of pain shooting through his boiling bloodstream. Three more spears struck his scales, each one pouring cold magic into him, seeking his heart. He grasped a spear haft and snapped it in two with a twist of his wrist. It didn’t seem like he had the strength to do it again. Let alone five more times. He sucked in a breath and let a hot fire well up in his lungs. He released the blaze across his body, melting some of the spearheads and allowing some small bit of life to return to his limbs. Even so, he knew that if the attack continued, his internal fire would go out, and his life along with it. While the hooded stallions beat the fire out of their coats, he used the moment of respite to drag himself towards the rangers. Starswirl gave the order, and a hail of arrows rained down on the stallions. A few fell instantly, while the others retreated back towards the palace at a full gallop. The rangers pursued their opponents, while a field medic rushed up to Spike. “I’m fine,” Spike said. “I just need to warm up.” The medic nodded, and proceeded to hurry after his fellow rangers. Starswirl clicked his tongue and gave the bag back to Spike. “A foolhardy move, young Spike. You might have been killed. The rangers had things well in hand.” Spike turned away from the battlefield, burying his head in his claws. He rubbed the frost from his shoulder, shivering as his blood returned to its desired temperature. “I’m sorry. I thought it was the right thing to do.” Starswirl glanced back at the bodies full of arrows. He said nothing, but simply rubbed Spike’s back. With nothing to really lose for it, Twilight opened with a concussive blast from her horn. Pure magic being used as a bludgeoning instrument. One of the more brainless spells in her repertoire. As expected, Merimna seemed unfazed by the attack, and simply sidestepped it. The wall behind him shuddered, and the very foundations of the palace shifted. Merimna shook his head. “You intend to bring the entire palace down on our heads?” Twilight gritted her teeth. “If I thought it’d stop you.” “It would not.” Merimna walked backwards up the stairs, and Twilight moved to follow. “I am no mere being of flesh and bone. I am a fairy, created from pure magic, who knows not the rigors of time nor the wear of age. Even the mighty alicorn is subject to my influence and power.” The two of them entered Clover’s main laboratory. Twilight spread her wings, grateful to be free from the confines of the hidden chambers. She gathered magic to her horn, letting her heart pump strong and fast. She thought back to Sunset’s spell, recalling the details to memory as easily as she took breath. She felt her hackles stand on end. Shivers ran down her spine. The bones that made up Merimna’s body shone with inner light, revealing the magic that made up his true essence. Swords and sorcery were of no use, Twilight thought, but wizardry might have its place… She fired the spell with all that was in her, but Merimna faded into the shadows. He became a roiling morass of magic and darkness that filled the entire room, surrounding her with the same inky substance that had entrapped Spike the night before. She felt bones and claws scratch at her back. Whispers forced their way into her ears. Her wings were pulled this way and that by winds that were far from natural. “I can be everything,” Merimna said, “or I can be nothing.” The darkness grasped her eyes and forced them open, coating her senses with strange magic. She found herself in Ponyville, beholding a procession of chained ponies being led southwards. The horizon was full of fire, and Ponyville’s buildings were dilapidated or destroyed. One of the chained ponies turned towards her and spoke with Merimna’s voice. “This is your future, Twilight. Everything you do to prevent it brings us closer towards it.” Rage flared in Twilight’s heat in an instant. “Shut up!” She fired a spell at Merimna’s head and connected. The fairy fell, and the rest of the prisoners ran away, screaming for their lives. Twilight’s first instinct was to reach for them, to calm them down, to say she wasn’t going to hurt them. Reason took over, and she refused to be led astray by Merimna’s vision. “Turn around, princess.” Mermna’s cold voice called to her from a great distance. “See the fruits of your labors.” She knew what she was about to see, but she turned regardless. Five bodies lay among the rubble of the city, each one lifeless and gray. Each one representing her friends’ futures. Their future… according to Merimna. “There is no path to save them.” The pony Twilight had struck rose up and shambled towards her, its injuries rendered in lifelike façade. “There is no path to avoid failure. You are already failing them. You have already failed your kingdom. Everything you’ve worked for is crumbling. You no longer bear the Elements, nor will they respond to your call.” “If not me,” Twilight said through gritted teeth, “then someone else will take up the mantle.” Merimna’s illusory puppet favored her with a most grim and gruesome smile. “What use will it be when your world is reduced to ashes?” Without warning, Twilight ignited her horn to its strongest point, when her magic became pure white. She shot the spell not at the puppet, but at the world Merimna had crafted to trap her. A screech unlike anything she had ever heard before ripped at her eardrums as pure timeless rage poured out of the fairy. As she blazed forth her magic, Twilight worked on the fly to weave her waves of power into something resembling Sunset’s crystallization spell. Color flared alongside the pure white of her spell to grasp each and every part of Merimna. His destroyed, burning world vanished. She could see the palace walls one again, crumbling around her with the force of her sun-moving magic. Merimna had spread himself thin to create the illusion. She saw a shadowy, impish form writhing and crawling around the floor, attempting to escape her. The glint of crystal could be seen at the fringe of the shadow. It was working! It was working, and she’d already drained most of her reserves. She wouldn’t be able to move the sun at this point. Not without a week of rest. She pressed her teeth together and powered through the spell, holding onto Merimna as if her life depended on it. He was too slippery. He was too strong. His centuries of life had given him a mastery over magic that even Twilight could not match. If she could not beat him with finesse, she would have to defeat him with sheer overwhelming strength. She drew magic up from her heart of hearts, the deepest wells of anger within her. At the edge of her mind, she could see King Sombra’s dark, dangerous crystalline spells. The ones powered by fear, and rage. She nearly reached out to touch them, to give her spell an extra bite. To make sure that Merimna never hurt anyone ever again. But she kept herself in check. She kept her eye on the goal. Mermina’s bone-white head squealed at her from beneath the buffeting waves of magic. “You shall all suffer for this insult! I’ll see Spike’s blood spilled across the entire continent!” Something clicked in Twilight, shifting from mere anger to something else. Something deeply rooted within her. The desperation in her mind turned to certainty. Her frenzied drive became the resounding clang of a hammer crushing its target over, and over, and over as she pounded the spell against Merimna’s essence. She watched closely as minute by minute, inch by inch, Merimna’s ethereal body became solid crystal beneath her power. “M-Master,” Merimna hissed, all confidence having fled from his voice, “Jeuk… help me…” With a final flash of her horn, and a final flick of her spell, all the magic that had made up Merimna was reduced to a pony-sized pile of purple crystal. She rested her hoof on it; she could feel the life within, trapped, unmoving, unable to so much as speak. She wasn’t sure it could hear her, but she still needed to say something. “Never. Threaten. Spike.” A stone fell from the ceiling. The entire palace shook around her, causing her legs to tremble with it. She scooped Merimna’s crystal onto her back and carried him out through the corridor into the light. The stones crumbled and fell, causing Clover the Clever’s empty laboratory to finally become a lifeless pile of rubble beneath the one-time Capitol of Equestria. The rest of the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters followed suit, coming apart until it was like the Ancient Changeling City beneath it. Twilight gaped at the destruction that had been caused by her spell; by her own incredible power. A building that had stood for a thousand years against both storm and war, now reduced to nothing by a fairy-sealing spell. As a side-effect of the spell. She reached up to touch the necklace that hung around her neck, the one that allowed her to speak clearly despite her throat injury. She found the gemstone had been cracked by the magic and rendered useless. She checked her saddlebags in a rush of panic and was met with relief. The journal had not been affected by the spell, only the magical artifacts on her body. Thankfully, it seemed that paper could be spared the rage of an alicorn, if given the proper care. Spike and the rangers ran up to her, their eyes filled with varying degrees of shock, fear, readiness, and caution. Spike himself skidded to a stop not too far from her, looking her over for any injuries. “Twilight? What happened?” Twilight Sparkle shook her head. She kept her voice low, so that the rangers couldn’t hear her strain against her scarred vocal cords. “I performed Sunset’s spell. It worked… after a fashion.” She lowered Merimna to the ground and gestured for a ranger to carry it back to the camp. “What about you? Did you get the tome back?” Spike patted his bag, brushing off a few snowflakes in the process. Twilight gave the flakes a double-take; it was early summer. Spike grimaced. “I’ll tell you about it later. For now…” He pointed at her saddlebags, his clawtip trembling. “Shall the book be opened?” Twilight Sparkle pulled Clover’s journal from her bag and held it close to her chest. “Yes. We need to get back to Ponyville Castle.” Pumpkin Cake walked through the outskirts of Ponyville, soaking in the early morning air. She held a notepad and set of colored pencils in her magic, drawing as she went. She clutched Chewie, her rubber chicken, in her mouth, chewing him and eliciting repetitive squeaks that probably would have gotten her kicked out of any reputable establishment. Thankfully, her destination wasn’t exactly home of the highfalutin. She caught sight of Fluttershy’s home and quickened her pace, packing away her art supplies and rubber chicken. She had a job to do, and it wouldn’t do to get distracted. She was taking care of one of the most precious plants known to ponykind: A golden apple tree. The last of its kind, as far as anybody knew. A tree whose fruit could grant strength where there was none, clarity beyond the ravages of time, and life to the feeble. An apple that could reverse the more sinister effects of age. The only way to alleviate Discord’s memory problems. It was still a sapling, several decades away from maturity, but Pumpkin Cake knew that there was no other way to help the zany draconequus. And she had a strong desire to help her friends in any way she could. She left her bag by the front door and walked in without knocking; Fluttershy’s home was generally open in the morning to give visiting animals free reign. “Fluttershy! It’s Pumpkin! Helloooo!?” She continued walking through the house, expecting the usual greeting. No answer came. Pumpkin furrowed her brow and swiveled her ears. Fluttershy couldn’t have still been sleeping, could she? She got up with the sun most days, and a little earlier sometimes. And yet, the house was quiet, lacking even wildlife chatter. “Fluttershyyyyy! Where are yoooooou? I’m invading your privacyyyyy!” True to her word, Pumpkin poked around the house. The bed was made. The bath was dry. The stove was cold. Even Angel’s food bowl was empty and spotless. Wherever Fluttershy was, she had been gone for hours. No notes gave an explanation. There was just no sign of the pegasus. Pumpkin’s stomach did flips as she came to several conflicting conclusions all at once. Only one thing was sure: she needed to contact somebody who could do something about it. And the only person she had a direct line to who could actually help was Twilight Sparkle. She rolled her eyes. As long as the guards would let her in the castle. She filled the water can and gathered the mix of fertilizer as quick as she could without making a mistake. She found the tree on the east side of the house, nestled in its own personal corner of Fluttershy’s garden. It was a lovely specimen, its bark glittering with gold that led down to its roots. The first real leaves could be seen budding on the tip of its singular sprout. Pumpkin sighed as she patted down fertilizer—a recipe specially mixed by Adagio Dazzle—around it. She carefully measured the water, and found the early morning portion of her duty finished. “Fluttershyyyyy!” She gave her search one last try and got the same result. With her heart firmly in her throat, she packed up and headed straight for Ponyville Castle, with the hopes of somehow, someway getting this to Twilight Sparkle’s attention before the end of the day. If nothing else, Pumpkin Cake knew that it was a very bad time for one of the heroes of Equestria to go missing.