//------------------------------// // Chapter 47 // Story: The Siren // by McPoodle //------------------------------// At 9:06 P.M. a black shape with holes in it raced through the ballroom, out the front doors, and out of sight. “Monster!” cried one of the guards. At 9:07 P.M. on the dot, the population of Canterlot and neighboring Ponyville went collectively insane. Inside the palace the ponies screamed in a hundred different ways as they each lost the battle against Discord’s command. And after that, they did their level best to bash each other’s heads in. Luckily for them, they were all spectacularly bad at it. Outside of Chrysalis and her changelings, the number of individuals who were able to resist was pitifully small: 5 ½. The ½ was Siren Twilight Sparkle. The hate that the Siren part of Twilight Sparkle had absorbed in the past half-second had made her the dominant personality for now. However, she was now drowning in the metaphorical chocolate fountain. It was not just that there was more hate in the air than she could possibly handle. No, it was the fact that all she was absorbing was the hate being given off by the rabid pony in her head. That magic she was absorbing was actually her own magic. If this kept up, Siren Twilight would be forced into unconsciousness, and the pony would take control. So, Siren Twilight’s first order of business was to implement the Midnight Protocol. The origin of the Protocol was as follows: Pony Twilight had devised a spell to imprison Siren Twilight after she had learned of her existence. But then the two of them reached an accord, so the spell was off the table. But then “Lesson Zero” happened, and Pony Twilight pondered what might happen if she did finish that spell, if she did become an alicorn, and if sometime after that she was pushed into going Nightmare. (Nightmare Twilight Sparkle needed a name for the protocol, so the two Twilights eventually agreed on Midnight Sparkle. The runner-up name of “Twilight Dullness” was reserved for the scenario where all of the joy was sucked out of her.) Who could possibly take out Midnight Sparkle, the Bearer of Magic, especially if a lucky shot managed to take out Pinkie? The answer, supplied by her other self, was in fact herself: Siren Twilight. And so Pony Twilight had altered her spell, so it could be used by either one of them to temporarily lock the other’s mind in a mental prison. This being Twilight Sparkle, the resulting Protocol was written out on one really fat scroll listing all of the rules—when it was fair to use it and the penalties for abusing it—which was at least three times longer than it needed to be. Siren Twilight was now in control. And after a millisecond to absorb hate from ponies other than herself, she immediately cast the spell that Sonata had taught her. The Hate that everypony was suffering from was far too dangerous; with Sonata’s spell she was able to alter the command just enough so that everypony pulled their punches. Ponies would still be going to the hospital in droves after this, but none of them would be going to the morgue. It was the best she could do, given the overwhelming power behind the original spell. Siren Twilight’s spell had spread out to cover the whole of Canterlot, an easy task with how much hate-spawned magic she had absorbed. And even a few seconds later, she had recharged to the point of being practically the equal of the abnormally calm alicorn who had been standing right next to her this whole time. Speaking of Princess Celestia… “What’s happening?” Siren Twilight asked her. She practically had to scream to be heard over the screams of every other pony in the palace. Then she got a good look at the Princess. The Princess didn’t look so good. She was clearly losing the battle that everypony else had lost in a millisecond. “Get the Elements,” she grunted, summoning a bronze copy of her horn which dropped to the ground between them. “Discord…but don’t…” And that’s when Celestia felt herself losing control. She teleported away, likely saving everypony in Equestria by doing so—there was no way that Siren Twilight’s spell would affect her. Siren Twilight thought about what she had just heard. To deal with the masses of ponies that were trying to pony-pile her, Twilight projected a field of hate absorption. The field made the ponies around her passive enough to only fight back against ponies who attacked them first. Again, it was the best she could do against the power of Discord’s Hate spell. Siren Twilight had access to all of her pony half’s spells. So, she looked for magic, and found two sources: Discord and the Elements. Discord was walking through the ballroom, admiring His handiwork. (And making sure that the Bearers were in no position to stop Him.) So, she fell flat onto the staircase she was standing on and allowed the passive ponies around her to jump her, hiding her from sight. "Wait a second,” the god declared, standing less than a ponywidth from her. “Somebody’s messed with My spell! Who…” He looked around Him, and settled on the spot right above Twilight, the spot where her partial counter-spell had originated. And then He detected the strongest magical signature from that very spot. “Celestia! You did this, didn’t you?” He pondered for a moment about whether to re-cast His spell, but then He used his magical senses to look at Ponyville, and saw that the spell had been altered there as well, but by somebody else. Celestia was gone. But perhaps He could catch the other do-gooder. “I’m coming back for you, Celestia,” He snarled under His breath, before teleporting out of Canterlot. Siren Twilight waited a few moments afterwards to be safe, then grabbed the bronze horn and teleported herself to the location of the Elements. She had to hope that the extreme chaos being generated by His spell made it impossible for Discord to sense what she was doing. She had no idea what the horn was for, until she found the vault door with a magical lock in that very shape. The room containing the vault was itself locked from the outside—which was a pity, as it had an amazing stained glass panorama of Twilight and her friends defeating Nightmare Moon and saving Luna. Ponies occasionally pounded on the outer door, but none of them made a concerted effort to get inside, because their only order had been to hurt each other, and they had no idea there was a pony to maim on the other side of the flimsy wooden barrier. Having unlocked the vault, Siren Twilight put on the Element of Magic, and willed it to activate. Nothing happened. The Siren was afraid of this. Her pony-half’s research had shown that the Elements had to be used together to do anything, as a safety precaution. Only Princess Celestia had been able to wield all of the Elements at once, and that had resulted in her permanently losing the ability to use them ever again. Twilight was just trying to fix her pony half’s insanity. She very much needed to keep using her Element after that. There was another possibility…Starswirl’s ascension spell. She could cast it. But…what if it put Siren Twilight permanently in charge? She didn’t want that—she’d be fine ending up as an advising voice in the back of Alicorn Twilight’s head, but the opposite scenario horrified her. So that option would be held as a last resort only. ~ ~ ~ After determining that Discord was in Ponyville—for some reason—Siren Twilight teleported herself back into the palace, with the goal of rounding up the other Bearers. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do after that, but she thought she might as well carry out the one step she was sure of. She had hoped that maybe another of the Bearers might have proved resistant to Discord’s spell like she had, but she had no luck: Rainbow Dash was trying to take down the Wonderbolts all by herself, and was spectacularly clumsy in doing so, like a part of her was fighting the compulsion. Twilight tried to talk to her but was unable to get her to understand anything she was saying. Fluttershy was wrestling with Prince Blueblood’s waterlogged tail and had succeeded in completely immobilizing it. Anytime the Prince would attempt to attack anypony, she would sit on that tail, and make him fall over. She also was immune to Siren Twilight’s arguments. Rarity was attacking the rest of Prince Blueblood, and he was trying to attack anypony but her. Applejack was…Twilight wasn’t sure what Applejack was doing. It looked like she was trying to suck the breath out of everypony. Despite the fact that nopony dared to fight her, she looked like she had lost ten fights in a row. And Pinkie Pie was…standing in a closet. Completely immobile. With her eyes closed. And her mane straight. Like every other pony, she refused to respond to anything Twilight had to say. (In reality, Pinkie Pie and Pinkamena were engaged in the most-epic pie-throwing contest of all time…located in the arena inside Pinkie’s head.) She scanned the crowd of brawling ponies, just in case there was anypony doing anything to stand out. And that’s when she saw the pink blob floating over the heads of the other ponies. Near as she could tell, it was scanning the ponies the same way she was. “Hey!” she cried, pointing at the creature. “Come over here!” The creature had the nerve to point at itself with a tentacle and look to its right and left. “Yes, you!” she cried. “I want to talk to you. Just talk.” Slowly and hesitantly the floating tentacle monster floated over until it was inside Twilight’s field of not-so-much-hate. “Yes?” she asked with a metallic voice. “You’re not up to no good, are you?” Twilight asked. “No,” the creature replied. “I was trying to figure out who was responsible.” The creature looked her up and down. “Did you accidentally do this?” “What?! No! Although, given her reputation, I could kinda see why you would think that.” The creature noticed the use of the third person but chose not to comment on it. “I’m Rozetri,” she said. “I’ve been living in hiding in Ponyville for some time now.” “And I’m half of Twilight Sparkle. I don’t feel like explaining that right now.” She did nothing to follow up on Rozetri’s statement about her origin. Unlike Pony Twilight Sparkle, Siren Twilight Sparkle was not infected by hyper-curiosity. As for Siren Twilight’s statement about being half a pony, Rozetri appeared to know exactly what the Siren was talking about. “That makes sense. Do you know what happened?” “Discord. He must have escaped from His prison,” Twilight explained. “I have the Elements, but I need to free the Bearers before we can use them.” “Where is Princess Celestia?” “She teleported away before she could be affected. Probably to someplace safe.” “What about the other Princesses?” Twilight nodded—this was a good avenue to pursue. “No idea. Hey, do you know if your resistance to Discord’s spell requires you to be conscious?” “I resist Discord’s spell because I am not from this world.” “Oh,” said Siren Twilight. Inwardly she sighed—since her pony half would have all of her memories when all of this was over, that last admission guaranteed that Pony Twilight would be hunting this poor creature down for an intense question-and-answer session once she was again in control of this body. “Can Princess Luna visit you in your dreams?” “…I think so. I haven’t wanted her to so far, but yes, she could.” “Then I’d like to put you to sleep. If Luna is in control of herself, you’ll be able to contact her and get some advice.” “And if she’s not in control of herself?” the blob asked. “Then you’ll experience one second of the most-horrific nightmare imaginable, before I wake you up.” “Wonderful,” Rozetri said in a deadpan. “But I fail to see a better option. You may try your spell on me, and we will see if it works successfully.” Twilight cast her sleep spell. Rozetri sank down to the ground, its one eye closed. And after a minute of peaceful sleep, she awoke. “Both Princesses Celestia and Luna are in a room that blocks most forms of magic. They can only be freed by somepony outside the room—obviously after this crisis is past. Also, these are for you.” The creature closed its eye, summoning a sphere of magic, which then popped into a pile of scrolls which dropped to the ground. (Considering the limitations of dream magic, what Rozetri had done was memorize the appearance and contents of the scrolls, and then recreated them from scratch in the waking world. Mass photographic memorization was one of her species’ talents.) Twilight picked up the first scroll and recognized it: it was one of Pony Twilight’s Friendship Reports. She gave Rozetri a confused look, then picked it up and read a line: “Real friends don’t care what your cover is.” She floated up another scroll: “Friendship is a wondrous and powerful thing.” And another. “And like the path cut through the orchard, there will always be a way through.” She began to actively think of the experiences tied to each lesson. “The best thing to do is stay true to yourself.” “Everypony had a special…magical connection…with her FRIENDS!” “That’s it!” she exclaimed. She dropped her head and took a few deep breaths as the personality in charge switched. “It’s memories! I was able to break the spell with memories of my friendships! Thank you, Princesses!” She gathered up the scrolls and walked over to Rainbow Dash. Staring at Rainbow, she cast the spell that she had used with Rarity and Sweetie Belle, but with herself and her memories of her friendship with Rainbow Dash as the source. When the spell entered Rainbow’s head, it caused her to rocket back into the far wall. “Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed, using her magic to part the squabbling crowd as she ran over to the prone pegasus. “Are you alright?” Rainbow raised her head and shook it. “Whoa…” she said. “What did you do to me?” “I cured you,” Twilight explained. “With a little help from Rozetri here.” Rozetri floated over. “Oh, so you know her now?” Rainbow asked. “You already knew about her?” Twilight asked. “Why didn’t you ever introduce us?” “Well for one thing, to avoid the grueling Q&A session,” Rainbow quipped. Pony Twilight looked over at Rozetri to refute the accusation and had to physically control herself from using her magic to strap the alien down in the nearest chair to answer her questions. “Hrgh. Point taken.” “So now what?” Rainbow asked. “I need to cast this spell on everypony else,” Twilight said. She then looked over the ballroom. There were hundreds of ponies here—how many of them had relationships with her strong enough for her spell to work? Rainbow Dash looked over the same crowd, tight-lipped. For when that memory spell touched her, she had absorbed it. Absorbed it and mastered it. The one thing keeping her from being a full-fledged grepp, the ability to manipulate memories, was now a permanent part of her. Twilight would have had to put something personal in the spell she cast on each pony to save them from Discord’s control. But Rainbow knew she could liberate every pony in this room in an instant. And in so doing out herself as a monster hiding in a pony’s body. “Casting the spell on everypony would be a bad idea,” said Rozetri, inadvertently saving Rainbow’s secret. “The Princesses told me that Discord would be able to tell if you did something like that. You must only free the Bearers, and then immediately attack Discord with the Elements. Even then, you’ll need some kind of distraction, or you’ll have no chance of defeating him.” At that moment the air was split by a piercing scream. It was not the scream of a pony. For one thing, it was about a hundred times louder than any sound a single pony could make. And then the ground shook with a powerful thump. The three lucid beings raced for the nearest window to the source of the noise. They saw a gigantic creature stomping its way through the streets of Canterlot. “Is that…Spike?” Rainbow ventured.