After the incident with Spring Shine, it became extremely clear that there would be no easy solution to this problem. Spring Shine was one of the best dispulsion casters alive and she failed spectacularly. According to about a dozen different doctors, Looking Glass had a little over a year or so before going critical, and that’s assuming that they A) understood exactly what the hell was happening to him (they didn’t) and B) he didn’t kill himself by accident due to the whole ‘extremely powerful and extremely uncontrolled magic’ thing. In lieu of any actual treatment, Dr. Stables merely expressed his deepest sympathies and told Looking Glass to try to “plan accordingly.”
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Over the course of the next week Looking Glass attempted anything and everything possible to try and get rid of the magic, ranging from more dispulsion attempts (many of which ended in charred rooms and bruised flanks), to very generous dosages of highly concentrated formula 21 (evidently it can block spells but not get rid of raw magic). They even tried burning up all of the excess magic by just using it. They gave up on that plan after he was able to uproot and juggle three trees in air simultaneously without breaking a sweat. With each failed attempt Looking Glass lost more and more hope as it began to dawn upon him that there may be no solving this and that he was going to die.
Twilight trotted briskly through Ponyville with a saddlebag full of strange concoctions and a hopeful smile on her face. She eventually came up to the dark green house she had been looking for. As she approached her ears twitched slightly as she picked up a faint, high-pitched whistling and the sound of flapping wings. After taking her fair share of head on collisions with a certain rainbow maned pegasus, she instinctively hit the ground, put her hooves over her face and braced for impact. However said impact never happened. Instead Twilight was hit by the cloud of dirt and dust resulting from a hasty brake. Twilight looked up through the debris and saw Crimson Skies hovering a few feet away from her. “Hey Twilight, sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting have to stop so suddenly” Crimson apologized.
“You were going at least 100 mile an hour just there and you stopped less than 10 feet from the door. Were you planning on breaking the door down or something?” Twilight asked in confusion.
“Actually yeah, that was exactly my plan” Crimson confessed without the slightest bit on self-consciousness. Twilights just took a moment and stared as the Pegasus in awe, half expecting him to burst into laughter over his joke. No such burst came.
“Why the hell would you think that was even a remotely good idea?”
“Easy,” Crimson began, “the door is locked and Looking Glass has holed himself up in there for 5 days now. He would even acknowledge I’m out here.”
“He’s hasn’t left there in 5 days!” Twilight shouted in shock.
“Yup, I’m surprised you didn’t know already.”
“I’ve been in Canterlot the last few days trying to find any more on an anti-magic potion.” Twilight responded. “I got home two days ago but had to go to Zecora for help making them”
“Well good luck getting the stuff to him; he’s hold-up pretty tight in there.” Twilight turned her gaze to the house and it’s covered up widows. She then walked up closer to the door and tried the door, only to find it lock. “Oh wow, the door knob! I can’t believe I never thought of that after trying to get him outside for THREE STRAIGHT DAYS!” Crimson hissed in bitter sarcasm.
Twilight ignored his comment and shouted, “LOOKING GLASS. IT’S TWILIGHT. I’VE MADE SOME NEW POTIONS THAT MIGHT HELP.” She paused to wait for a response but found none. Now slightly frustrated Twilight tried again even louder. “PLEASE OPEN UP LOOKING GLASS. WE’RE REALLY WORRIED ABOUT YOU.” Once again silence was all that answered her. Realizing that her pleas were getting her nowhere, Twilight decided to switch to a different tactic: fury and intimidating. “LOOKING GLASS!!! LET ME IN NOW OR SO HELP ME I’LL FORCE MY WAY IN THERE MYSELF!!!” A tense moment passed as the pair outside wait for a response. Their patience and determination were rewarded… with nothing.
“Well now that you’ve failed at your attempts, please get out of the way so I can bust down this d-” Crimson was cut short by a earth shaking blast emanating from the hole where Looking Glass’s front door once was. In front of the wreckage was Twilight, horn still aglow from the massive surge of energy she released and huffing like a VERY pissed off bull. Twilight trotted into the house with Crimson Skies making sure to follow more than a few feet behind the enraged unicorn. Besides the light coming through the still smoldering hole the house was filled with darkness. Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and her horn began to glow from magical energy, illuminating the room her and Crimson were standing in. They were in what used to be a well furnished living room, though neither could tell because it looked like the aftermath of a manticore attack (or pinkie’s Tuesday afternoon; there is shockingly little difference between the two in both destruction and fatality rate). There wasn’t a single intact piece of furniture in the room. What appeared to be a self was now a pile of splintered wood and incinerated books (Twilight would make sure to weep for their loss later on). The remains of a sofa were to their left, the cushions, or rather what was left of them, on the other hand were everywhere, giving the floor a thin but relatively thorough layer of charred fabric and feathers. Everything else from the desk, to the table, to the lamps was in similar conditions. Seeing this devastation, Twilight’s rage immediately switched back to concern for her dear friend.
“Looking Glass?” she called in concern. Faintly she heard a low groan coming from the stairs across the room from them. Responding to the sound with unprecedented speed, Crimson took off up the stairs in the blink of an eye with Twilight trailing a short distance behind him.
At the top of the stairs Crimson expertly banked to his right, pulling off a hair-pin turn at breakneck speed, and headed directly for Looking Glass’s bedroom. He quickly decelerated and landed just inches away from the door. Crimson first tried the doorknob but was met by resistance. Undeterred Crimson simply started turning at the knob with more and more force, until it eventually devolved into him trying to pull the door off its hinges. While Crimson tried to solve their problem with brute strength, Twilight attempted to use reason. “Looking Glass, please. Just open the door so we can talk.” Beyond Crimson’s frantic smashing of the unfortunate wooden door, not a sound was made. “Looking Glass!” Twilight yelled, patience clearly wearing thin, “We know you’re in there, and we know you can hear me!”
Finally the two friends got an actual response. Unfortunately that response happened to be “Go away, both of you.” Crimson and Twilight looked at each other in shock that their friend actually answered. Said shock quickly evaporated when they finally realized what that answer had been. Crimson redoubled his efforts on the door, now trying to bash it inward while Twilight returned her attention to the voice coming from beyond it.
“Looking Glass, please, we haven’t seen you in almost a week” Twilight pleaded. “I don’t know if you heard me before but I‘ve made some new potions that I think might work. Can please open the door and let us at least try to help?”
“Go. Away.”
“Looking Glass be reasonable. We’re your friends and we just want to help you. You can’t just lock yourself away. There are people who care about you” Twilight said as tears began to form at the edges of her eyes.
“I said… GO…AWAY!” Looking Glass repeated with the added emphasis of basting the door from the inside, sending it, and a certain nearby Pegasus hurdling down the short hall between the room and the stairs. Twilight, having been standing a bit to the side was struck painfully in her shoulder and thrown to the ground. Twilight opened her eyes to see a copious amount of dust and smoke coming from the door frame where she could make out a dark silhouette of a unicorn huffing in rage.
In few moments, after the debris had settled, Looking Glass was able to see his surroundings. Directly in front of him was his door, behind which was one of his oldest friends. He looked over to his side and found Twilight looking up at him in fear and pain. That look immediately broke the spell of his anger as he realized what he had just done. “Oh Celestia, Twilight, I-I’m so sorry.” Looking Glass apologized as he went to her side. Her fear was gone but in its place stood concern. “Are you okay? Please tell me I didn’t hurt you.”
Twilight sat herself up, trying to hide the immense pain she was in, faked a smile, and replied “I’m okay, Crimson probably isn’t though.
“Crimson? Where is… Oh no.” As it donned on him he sprinted across the short hallway to the door. Using his hooves Looking Glass flipped the door over to reveal Crimson skies, lying on his back, eyes shut. For a brief moment Looking Glass truly believed the pegasus was dead, much to his horror, but then saw the telltale rising of Crimson’s chest. Glass’s relief was short lived as the situation fully settled onto him. Panic returned to his eyes as he fully inspected his unconscious friend for major injuries. Crimson didn’t appear to have any immediately life threatening injuries, but Looking Glass could possibly know the full extent of the damages. Already multiple nasty looking bruises were forming on the pegasus’s body, and the back of his head was bleeding a bit. He almost certainly had at least a concussion. Looking Glass heard hoof-steps behind him and he turn his head to see that Twilight had managed to get up fully and made her way over. Twilight, we’ve got to get Crimson to the hospital, he’s got at the very least a massive concussion and probably even more.”
“You’re right,” Twilight agreed, “Pick him up with your magic and try not to move him around anymore than necessary”
“I-I… I can’t you’re going to have to.”
“What? Looking Glass I’ve seen you uproot trees and toss boulders with ease”
“I said I can’t okay!” Looking Glass yelled. “Whenever I use my magic nowadays I end up destroying something! Now come on, we have to get him to the doctors!”
Seeing that there was no way around this, Twilight complied and hefted Crimson up, with a considerable amount of effort and pain, using her magic. Looking Glass then took the lead, opening the door for Twilight and Crimson, and the two headed out on the now very familiar route to the hospital.
The diagnosis of Crimson Sky’s “crash landing” was less than spectacular. He had suffered a moderate concussion, had four bruised ribs, and a fractured wing. At the moment he was still unconscious on the hospital bed, with Twilight and Looking Glass was waiting next to him. Neither of them had spoken at all during the trip over, and their silence continued into the room, as each was lost in their own thoughts. Twilight for her part, was trying to think back to what had happened before she left for Canterlot. She reviewed all the attempts over the last few weeks and saw how Looking Glass had changed since then.
Looking Glass had been so optimistic the first few times. Always being quick to stand back up after a blast and always ready to try the next solution. She now realized it had been denial, and with each and every failure he had grown more and more depressed as reality set in. Mentally she kicked herself for not noticing this earlier; she had been so engrossed with fixing the problem that she hadn’t stopped to consider what must have been happening to Looking Glass.
The purple mare turned her head towards her friend. Looking Glass’s expression was, in a word, depressed. Not sad, depressed. There’s a substantial difference. Sadness is sharp and painful; there’s no denying it when it shows up. Depression is just emptiness; a dull emptiness that can be easily mistaken for seriousness or neutrality if one didn’t know better. Twilight however knew better. She could see the pain he was in and finally spoke, to try and lessen it. “Looking Glass, are you alright?” She knew it was a horrible way to start but she couldn’t think of anything else. Without moving his gaze from the floor, Looking Glass mumbled something incomprehensible. “What?” Twilight asked stupidly. Looking Glass again mumbled, but this time it was just loud enough for Twilight to make out what vaguely sounded like “Ice n’ tarry.“ Looking Glass, I can’t hear you if you don’t speak up.”
“I’M SORRY!” Looking Glass shouted as he began to break down. He closed his eyes as tear began to form at their edges. For a moment Twilight simply looked on helplessly as the brown unicorn began sobbing uncontrollably.
Twilight reached over with her front hooves and brought him into a tight hug. She stroked the bake of his mane to comfort him. She continued this for a while, not saying a word as released his emotions. Eventually he finished and Twilight sat back up in her seat. Looking Glass looked at her with puffy red eyes. “I-I’m sorry Twilight it’s just…” he paused looked away for moment, “After all the failures we had I guess I just gave up. And then whenever I tried to use magic everything would go wrong at once and… I- I just got so angry and then you two came by and…” He stopped, hanging his head in shame. “I can’t believe I hurt you two. Crimson won’t be able to fly for weeks and it’s my fault.” Looking Glass squeezed his eyes shut as more tears threatened to appear. Twilight raised her hoof and rested it on Looking Glass’s shoulder reassuringly.
“It’s okay Looking Glass. I understand completely and Crimson will too. We can’t possibly imagine what you’re going through, but we will get you through this, I promise.”
Looking Glass turned his gaze up and stared into the magenta eyes of his dear friend. For the first time in many days, Looking Glass smiled. “Thank you Twilight, that means a lot to me. I just can’t believe I did that. I was just so angry I couldn’t think straight. I don’t know what I’d do without you guys and I don’t ever want to hurt either of you again.”
Twilight reached over and hugged him again and quietly said, “I know you Looking Glass, and you’d never hurt us intentionally. Never.”
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Author here, I’ve tried doing this in the comments for the last few chapters but that has had… less than spectacular results. That being said, I have just one request…
SOMEBODY COMMENT ALREADY!!!
Seriously, at least 100 of you guys are reading these; one of you has got to have some opinion they’d like to share. Half the reason I’m writing this is to get feedback that isn’t from my family. So far only one person has given me any useful feedback (thank you again StapleCatus). I’ll take anything; critiques, grammar issues, predictions, suggestions, opinions, anything.
P.S. Sorry this chapter took so long. Writers block, procrastination, and school do not make for fast updates.