Ah! Here we go. Magic Aptitude and Vessel Capacity studies by Star Swirl the Bearded. Something something something, innate magic in all creatures, yatta yatta yatta, vector conduit for casting magic and ancient relics...
"My, Tiara, it's already gotten quite late. Shouldn't you head home and inform your parents that you'll be staying over again today to continue your studies?" The Princess herself now too seemed worried for Mary, as she hadn't seen her step outside of the library in several days.
At first, Twilight's concerns were a result of having Tiara researching magic on length after she first appeared at her castle's doorstep. Now, she was really starting to concern herself with Mary's health as no one had seen her pry from those books in a long while. The Crusaders had come in and out to check in on her and feed her since she would often forget to do so, but none of Twilight's friends nor Spike had seen her so much as move an inch off the mounds of books at her table, much less roam the halls or step into the outside world.
What could have happened to put Tiara in such a desperate state? This must've been the question on Twilight's mind as she magically brought a mug of hot cocoa for her to consume mindlessly as she dared not stop reading.
To answer this question, we would have to look at what had disturbed Mary so thoroughly that she felt a deep desire to start training our magical vessel. Which is an interesting thing to note, because we are earth ponies, and we're not exactly known for casting magic. In absence of a horn and all that. But both Mary and I know that magic, or more importantly, the logic of this world lies further than the knowledge that exists of it now. The future of Mary's world had shown us possibilities not yet available to us. And now she was preparing herself, myself, for something yet to come.
And it all started with Silver Spoon.
"Tiara? Hey! Tiara, wait up!" Silver Spoon's voice had stopped Mary dead in her tracks.
Both Mary and I had dreaded this moment. Silver Spoon had distanced herself from us for a long time now, ever since Mary took over and began interacting with the Crusaders more. She was finally starting to enjoy her life in Equestria after gaining enough friends to not feel like she was all alone in this world. But this moment was the wake-up call that both of us needed.
"Oh... hi, Silver Spoon. Um, what do you need?" Mary responded meekly, not sure were to begin conversing with her.
In truth, both of our feelings for Silver Spoon were very conflicted. She had been Diamond Tiara's foremost partner in crime in Mary's reality and early in mine as well. While I was usually the one to take the brunt of punishment for any evildoings, Silver Spoon occasionally saw a bit of that too. Although unlike myself, she had a much milder personality and there were several instances in the show where she had been given enough reasons to be redeem. From not always agreeing with what I did, to actively refuting or going against me. She was a good pony at heart, but she had followed along with many of my plans and actions for almost similar reasons to Mary.
Silver Spoon partly admired me. But that's where the similarities with Mary ended. She only ever stood by my side to gain something. Money, status, power, or even her redemption, she never tried to talk me out of my ways or concerned herself with me when I fell. But do not think badly of her. I never gave her reasons to care for me. I actively pushed her away or yelled at her for any little thing that upset me. I only ever saw her as a lacky. A pony of little worth. But in a different reality... both Mary and I could imagine a life where we could've been good friends had I gone a different route.
Maybe this reality could've been just that. Maybe this was our opportunity to be a good friend to her, and vise-versa. But what she decided to do next took both of us off-guard.
She lead us away from our friends so that we could talk in private. Honestly, it should've been obvious to Mary that this wasn't going to be the chance we wanted to make up with her, as the location she chose was somewhere deep within the Everfree Forest. In a small clearing where a large pond resided. But Mary was hopeful, and she wanted it so badly after all. She wanted to make as many close friends as possible so that I could live my life with ponies I could trust. And so she didn't think twice about the kind of implications this whole meeting with Silver Spoon was bringing about.
The very air around her seemed to turn dark when she spoke to us at last. Mary was forced to her knees by the overwhelming forces of magic coming from the trinket that had replaced Silver Spoon's pearl necklace.
The Alicorn Amulet...
"Silver Spoon...?" Mary struggled in vain to pull free from the red energies that bound her to the ground, to no avail. My efforts to tell her to run since the moment she had entered the forest's perimeter had been in vain, and all I could do was watch as dark clouds began to loom over her in a twisted premonition.
"I'm sorry, Diamond Tiara. We just wanted to have a small talk with you is all. But we can't have you running away just yet. I'm sure you understand."
"We?"
Silver Spoon proceeded to tap on the Alicorn Amulet with one hoof, and from it darted the red energies of its magic, creating several visages of semi-transparent figures. Thanks to the knowledge that we had from Mary's world, we could easily tell what most of them were... Tirek, Sombra, The Storm King, The Pony of Shadows, and even Luna's and Celestia's regrets formed from their magical energies in the shape of Tantabus-like entities. Above them, the Windigos watched them all.
Strangely, there was also a new creature thrown into the mix that neither Mary or I could recognize. It was a green silhouette in the shape of a particular shape-shifter that we both knew, and who was strangely absent from the mix. But this figure was her, no doubt. Much like Luna and Celestia's Tantabus, it was a creature compromised of nothing other than magical energy.
"To think this weakling is meant to be OUR champion. What a joke. She is nothing more than a little girl. Look at her, shivering down to the bone at the sight of us." Tirek huffed indignantly as he laid eyes on Mary cowering for dear life.
Neither of us could have expected this outcome. It had come too suddenly. The show had never depicted anything like this, and we couldn't have known that this would be a possibility. How or why this had happened, we had no answer.
"Settle down, you oversized goat. The story is simple. Diamond Tiara is to lead us into glory, so whether you question her ability or not is besides the point." Silver Spoon responded back to him with annoyance in her voice.
"But how can we trust it to be real? Our futures seem set in stone. Some of us have already been defeated in exactly the same way as our visions predicted." Sombra bit back with his words, his image weaker and more transparent than the others.
"That's why all of you are here. Why I'm here. The future that we know has changed. Being together like this has proved it."
"Alright, we'll play ball for now, Silver Spoon." The Pony of Shadows replied. "Your champion better be all she's cracked up to be. We're only being given one chance here. And I'm not about to have you ruin it."
Silver Spoon finally turned to look at Mary and forced her to stand up with the amulet's powers.
"You are nothing like the Diamond Tiara I know. Making friends with the Crusaders of all ponies? Being so nice all the time? It seems the future has changed for us in more ways than one, but that won't matter. You will act out your role whether you want to or not."
At her words, fear struck my own heart as I felt an overwhelming pang of pressure fill our lungs.
"I won't!"
No! Mary... Do you not understand the position you're in?! You should know as well as I that these are not creatures you should be talking back to! You big moron! As if to signify how horrible those two words had been, the Windigos neighed in their discontent and thunder roared along with them at the anger that it had incurred in the rest of the villains there.
"What is the meaning of this!?" The Storm King brought down his staff in his fury to make an echoing boom throughout the forest.
"I'll never join your side! You villains!" Ah, my brave but stupid girl. I cannot fault your strong heart, even in the face of adversity like this. Much as I want. Much as I REALLY want to.
"Calm yourselves!" The Alicorn Amulet in Silver Spoon's possession let out a resounding blast, tearing up the earth around her and amplifying her voice ten-fold, shutting everyone up from saying another word. "Diamond Tiara, dear, it's so strange to hear you say those words. I thought we were on the same page."
"I don't know what's gotten into you, Silver Spoon, but this is wrong. This isn't you."
"What do you know about me?!" She yelled back at Mary, practically letting her hate flow through. The malicious energy in the Windigos began to grow at this, evident by the clouds they rested on growing bigger. "You never bothered to learn a thing about me! Despite all that I wanted to be like you... My future was supposed to be filled with redemption. I should have been one of the good ones. But you just had to turn good before I could've been redeemed by piggybacking off of your fall. So guess who the most hated pony in Ponyville is now!"
Mary was silent at this. There were some serious implications in what Silver Spoon was saying. Inadvertently, Diamond Tiara's roll as a villainess had been filled by Silver Spoon replacing me. It seemed that Silver Spoon was taking this all very personally, so there was likely no indication that she was being possessed in the same way as I had been by Mary. The story had changed somehow. It seems the villains were now aware of their own future like it had happened in Mary's world. By who? By what? There was no way to find out now.
"I'm sorry Silver Spoon..."
Silver Spoon composed herself. In front of an audience, she needed to take charge as its new leader. At the very least, the other villains now seemed a little intimidated by her save for the Windigos who were feasting on all that hatred around her, so she was doing an excellent job of that.
"I despise you, Diamond Tiara. I always have. I tried to like you, and you spit on my good intentions. Don't think for a second that I'm going to let you back away from your role as a villainess. You will fulfill your duty. Whether you want to or not. I'll personally make sure of that. This will make sure of that." She flicked the alicorn amulet with her hoof and all the apparitions of the villains faded from view. "So run along now. I have no more need of you. I just wanted you to know you have no option to refuse me. Lest I tear down everything and everyone you've begun to care about personally." She proceeded to cast an invisible ring of magic around her throat. A spell that would make sure she could not speak of this to anyone.
So now we had a proverbial clock ticking in on us. Equestria's enemies understood that they could not win on their own, and we we're somehow a key to a future where they could. Too many questions, not enough answers. For now, it seemed that this conquest of theirs was far into the future.
Mary had thought that avoiding any conflict with the major villains would eventually lead to an ending where she would never have to confront the bad end that she saw for me in the show. But it seems my fate was too strong. My destiny was literally trying to chase me down. And the only thing that was going to give her the avenue to save me was to train my body to be strong enough to fight against it. And so began this grueling endeavor of hers to do just that.
Picking up where she left off with Twilight, she turned to the Princess after finishing her mug, and in a small whisper, she said, "It's okay, Princess Twilight. I'm sure my parents don't even know I'm gone."
Ah, Mary. How thoughtless of you. Saying such sad things without a hint of what that might cause. I know you don't brood over such uncaring parents, since the memory of your family in your world gives you all the love you need to continue on, but no one else can know that except me. I only wish you were a little more perceptive, you foolhardy girl, because maybe then you'd see the terribly concerned face on the Princess. She bites her lip and walks away without saying another word in order to leave Mary to her own devices.
Already she seems to be on a warpath towards the conquest of the purple regent herself, accidentally. She had already won a dozen or so ponies over in a similar manner, and now it hadn't taken much at all for this one to fall hook-line and sinker. If I had, had an ounce of Mary's natural talent, I might have won as one of the bad guys a long time ago. I just thank my stars that I didn't, for I've now seen the err of my ways thanks to her. As I watched her study and practice with such intensity, I could only feel grateful for how much she was willing to go through to save me.
Even if the creature is unable to cast magic directly, a large magical vessel can still be useful to them as it helps their magic resistance. The theory is always the same. I imagine it's like adding a drop of poison into a body of water. In a small glass, it will not take long at all for it to mix into every corner of that pool. But if a magic vessel is big enough... it would be akin to dropping that same drop of poison into an ocean, diluting it into ineffectiveness before it ever has a chance to cause ill-effects. Unfortunately, magical vessels are something we're born with so our maximum capacity is determined at birth. Although no method exists to increase one's own magic capacity, if a method is found, it could revolutionize our world as we know it. Already the forces of magic we have are powerful enough to shape the world and even the stars to what we want them to be. But if that limiter should ever be unlocked...
Then that could change reality entirely...
...
Is that really the case? Do we really have that option? Whose to say the gods won't intervene again then? Equestria's or Earth's? Or maybe even those writers that created the show initially... It certainly seemed that this story of ours was intent on having its way. I'll be honest. I was never hopeful that things would change. But Mary certainly seemed to believe that it could.
She already had the answer that Starswirl didn't. Because the one who found that answer initially was me. In my original future, I had stumbled upon it by accident. And I had almost destroyed everything in my hatred... We both seemed to tremble as we thought on it. Obtaining that power was the only way for us to assure that we could fight back... But the villains certainly seemed to think the we were the key to their victory, perhaps even for that reason.
But what kind of victory was that? My idea of victory was complete scorched earth... No. It was total erasure. A void with nothing in it. Maybe only then I could be surrounded with something so similar to what I used to be.
They want me to be their villainess, that much is for sure.
But even if the world should turn against me, I will fight this destined fate of mine for Mary's sake. For her vision of me. The future she so dearly wished for me to live.
If I am to be anyone's villainess, I will be...