//------------------------------// // Lies and Laboratories // Story: Twilight, Mare of Power // by Banops //------------------------------// Yes, that’s right take the low road. I need you to take the low road. Don’t be better than everyone else. Be afraid of death. Be afraid of your friend’s death. I hoped that the white pony that stood in front of me, the one who called herself Celestia, would accept my bargain. After I had made my point clear to her, the pony before me visibly rued her predicament. Of course I was lying to her about this vessel being destroyed, but she was going to have to believe that for now. I needed more to bargain with, and she seemed like the only pony that could be of any help. “Yes that’s right, you and your precious Twilight will die if you do not help me.” The princess put a hoof on her forehead. A second or so passed and I could hear her pouting to herself, or maybe her alternate consciousness. Then she removed the hoof from her face and stared calmly at me appearing to have made relative peace with her situation. She gave a long, exasperated sigh, and then spoke. “We… need to get you out of here.” She said. “And…” I added, “…what are we waiting for?” “We can’t just get up and leave…” I could see that she was deep in thought, though I wasn’t sure why. “You’re the ruler right? Just take me with you. I’m sure your subjects would not dare question your authority.” She waved a hoof in the air, dismissing my statement. “It’s not as simple as that. I’m expected to take you to the Canterlot dungeon. That’s not where I need you however.” She stated plainly, then her voice changed to a disappointed tone and she said, “Up until a few years ago, I would have thought I could do anything unquestioned. Oh my ponies, they’ve started questioning my authority. After ruling them for all these years…” her voice trailed off. I could tell she was frustrated. “Then where do you need me?” I asked in an attempt to get her back on subject. I tried to be patient, but, loathe to admit it, my life really did rest in her, umm, hooves. “Just hold on let me think. We need to go somewhere where we can safely search for answers.” She paused, eyes going left and right, calculating a plan only she would know. She visibly strained herself in effort to work out what we were doing. After an uncomfortably long time, I decided that she had been taking too long. I spoke up to her, “Come now, we don’t have that much time. Perhaps maybe the place we met? How about there?” She shuddered as I said mentioned the white room and said, “What, the Canterlot facility? Yes… Yes, that will do, at least for a few days. And we shouldn’t need more than a few.” “It very well better not take more than a few days.” I said bitingly “Like I said…” I gave Celestia a cruel little grin and then acted out the balloon-popping image I had put in her head just moments earlier. “Yes I know!” She replied hurriedly, “How long do you suppose we have.” “Until what?” I asked dryly. I knew what she meant. I wanted to hear her say it. “Well, until… umm well…” She choked on her words. “Until we DIE?” I stated callously. “Ugh, don’t say that! Just answer the damn question!” Ah, now there was the assertiveness I expected from a queen. Up until this point, she had been cowering in fear, relatively speaking of course. She was tough to be sure, but even she had feared me, as she should. But now she was warming up to me. Perhaps it was because we had leverage over each other, perhaps because of our mutual interests, our forced coexistence. My face dropped all expression and I answered her question as plain as I could. “For you? I do not know. It could, in theory, be in several cycles, or it could be in just a few seconds. It all depends on your mental and physical strength, and several other unknowns.” I paused a bit after letting out the truth. Then I continued. “As for me, I’m afraid I cannot answer that either.” Of course I knew that I had maybe a week or two, but I thought maybe I could press a sense of urgency, to get things going quicker. She stamped a hoof on the gray seedy cell floor in due frustration. She muttered something under her breath, something I could only assume was a hard swear from her language, “fan-bucking-tastic,” she said. “Which is exactly why we should make haste, my queen.” I said. I had meant to make the words ‘my queen’ sound ironic and sarcastic, but it didn’t come out that way. It rather came out genuine and sincere. “Indeed.” She replied. “I don’t suppose you could take us back to the chambers, could you? I know you can teleport.” I gave it some thought. At this point I had plenty of power to spare so long as I only used it when it was needed. “Yes I can, I’d prefer not to exhaust my power if I can, but yes.” “Good, good.” She gave a sigh. “‘Cause I don’t think I have the strength to travel myself.” It was only now that I noticed how spent she had looked. She hadn’t exactly come across as healthy when she first came through the door, what with the bloodstained face and pale complexion, but now that I looked at her again, she clearly was paying the price for her high stress state. Based on her demeanor, I could also guess that she hadn’t gotten much sleep since we met either. At least I had the privilege of being unconscious for several hours. “Well what are we waiting for,” I asked after another few moments of silence, “are you ready?” “Huh… Oh right, yes let’s go.” She looked about ready to fall over. I, for the first time in my existence, was able to sympathize with someone, knowing how tired Celestia must be. I began to draw power from my essence, feeling the warmth spread throughout the vessel. I could feel the so-called barrier surrounding the room we were in pushing against the power I conjured. It had been a pathetic attempt at keeping me trapped in here. I merely pulsed my energy, and the barrier shattered. Not that we could see it, it was invisible, but I could feel it break, like a thin glass sheet. I looked at the queen who was completely unaware that I had been building my essence to transport us. I spoke to her, “Let us get going…” “Wait hold on.” She said abruptly, “I must notify my guards. I cannot simply disappear without explanation.” “We do not have time for this! We must go now!” I demanded. “But…” “You can worry about your insubordinate subjects later, right now we need to survive. Let us go now!” I said with authority. This time I didn’t wait for her to protest. I sent my energy surging throughout my body, filling the room with my essence. I willed some of my power over towards the princess, enveloping her in the rays of soft red light. Then I focused on our destination, the white room. All it took was its image in my head, and before more than a few seconds could pass, we were there. The white room came into view in all of its familiarity. It was a large, white-tiled box. In the middle of the room rest what looked to be a cross between a bed and a chair. Above the reclined chair-bed hung a large needle-like protrusion, which dangled like a horn from a unicorn’s head. This was the place I remembered, the place where this journey had begun. How long had it been? Two days? Two days… and my existence had flopped, threatening to go belly up. Curse this place. I curled my vessel’s foreleg and slammed it into the ground in anger. I looked up at the ceiling and raised my cuffed hoof and shouted, “I’m here because of you, you thrice damned bastard! I put my own life on the line for you!” I didn’t know what I was hoping to accomplish with my outburst. I had never felt this way before, but for some reason it felt good to yell my anger away. Then I looked around the room again and saw Celestia standing clumsily just a few feet away. We caught each other’s line of sight and she quickly averted her eyes. I had, for just one moment, revealed weakness, and she saw the ugly truth it held. She had been about to say something, but my venting had interrupted her. I saw her face, worn and exhausted, fade into an expression of anger when she realized that we weren’t in the holding cell anymore. “Ah! Wait no take me back! I need to give them an explanation!” She demanded, then she quickly took it back. “Gah… What’s the use? There is no explaining this. I can only get away with so much…” Her otherwise disgusted look faded from existence, replaced by dejection. “Indeed.” I mocked as I felt my pulsating anger fade. Celestia looked back up at me, eyes defeated and glistening with wetness. I wondered if she was about to shed tears over this. Then I spoke again, dropping my biting sarcasm for a more appropriate serious tone, “So, Celestia, what can we do? Do you have any ideas where to start?” She only stared at me, face broken, beat, and scarred. She gave no hint that she would say anything, just a blank stare. I gave a sigh and said, “You obviously need sleep. You will be completely useless as you are now. Do you have any room here where I can do some research, a study perhaps, records, history, any sort of written material that I can read?” She nodded. Then she turned around and began to walk off. I guessed she had intended for me to follow her so I did. *** Celestia led me through an elaborate network of hallways. The building we were in impressed me in the way that it was very advanced, at least compared to what I had seen elsewhere on this planet. The light fixtures that lined the ceilings flooded the hallway with a depressingly pale white florescent light. It took me a while to notice that these lights were not actually electric and did not even come from glass bulbs, but rather, the light that they shed was magic based and was cast by small carbon deposits. However, there still existed traces of circuitry connecting these magical stones in the form of exposed wires, which hung from the ceiling. This intrigued me. A race that not only possessed magic, but in-fact used it to better themselves technologically. Truly this was the sign of a potentially hyper-advanced civilization. I admired various other aspects of the facility on our way to… somewhere. Celestia neglected to mention where she was leading me. She didn’t say anything she just kept walking. Time and time again, we would turn, into yet another long stretch of hallway, indistinguishable from the previous one. At one point I started to get the feeling that Celestia, who had been maybe a few feet ahead of me, had fallen asleep and was actually sleep walking aimlessly, but eventually we reached a door with no visible way to open it. This door was identical to every door preceding it except that it had next to it a panel. The smooth metal panel rested on the wall adjacent to the door, and in the middle of this shiny platform sat a button, a button that Celestia abruptly slammed her hoof into as she fell against the wall it sat on in a display that was about as graceful as a bludgeoned fawn trying to ice-skate on sandpaper. She pushed herself back up right and removed her hoof from the button and I saw that the button had lit up, giving off the same eerily white glow as the magic lighting. The door slid open almost immediately revealing a box shaped room hardly big enough for several ponies to fit. We stepped in side. I could guess what this kind of room was, though it did look very strange compared to the rooms I had seen that were like it. In keeping with the all-white aesthetic of the hallways I had walked through thus far, this room was solid white also. There was one discrepancy; one of the four walls of this room was slightly different from the others. Instead of being made of one solid slab of the material the other walls were made from, it had been composed of small white tiles that were maybe about as big as a pony’s hoof, a form of button I presumed. As if she could read my mind, Celestia asked me, “Have you ever been in one of these before?” I didn’t look her direction, but merely answered, “Yes, I have. Why?” She didn’t say anything for a moment, so I turned my head to look at her. She had a puzzled look on her face. “Really?” She acted surprised. Quite a bit in fact, considering how close she was to passing out. “This is the only room of its kind.” She had, I realized, asked a rhetorical question. “What do you mean, this is the only elevator you ponies have? Surely you jest.” I shot a wicked smile at the slouching alicorn. She stared into my eyes. After a second, she put a hoof in the air and moved it toward the tiled wall, never breaking her eye contact. As such, I didn’t drop my evil smile either. Her hoof pressed against the wall at about knee height, then she slowly slid her hoof up the wall, leaving a trail of faint magical light. Her hoof traced a line all the way to as high as she could reach, the topmost tile. “Elevator…?” she said, “Yes… actually… but how…” “Where do you think I’m am from, dear queen?” I asked, feeling an intense sense of superiority over her. She stared at me, again, obviously not sure how to answer. I expected this. I’ve seen this same reaction countless times from those whom I said this same thing to. I felt pressure on my hooves as the lift started to rise. “The Everfree forest?” She asked with absolutely no certainty in her voice. “The what?” I blurted out, but then shook my head followed it up with, “No, I’m not.” “Then where are you from?” She asked, not able to hold back her curiosity. There was and high-pitched dinging sound and a second later, the elevator door hissed and slid open. We stepped out of the elevator. The room we stepped into was a lavishly decorated reading room, or study room. This room offered a nice break from the bland white washed hallways on the lower level. Instead, almost every inch of the walls were covered with portraits and paintings. Most paintings depicted sophisticated looking ponies, dressed in expensive silky clothing and wearing crowns, and other jewelry. Other paintings depicted Celestia herself and another blue pony who was similar in size and also had both a horn and wings. She too looked to be part of this strange pony royalty. Interestingly enough, almost all depictions of these two ponies related them to a star and a moon. Above, below, on, or behind Celestia consistently sat a sun in every picture, while the other one had the moon. I had the impression that I was looking into two bloated egos. I especially got this feeling by one enormous painting of Celestia hanging over the back of the room. This Celestia gazed maternally over the room as if she were watching, protecting the room like a mother protecting her children. Behind the Celestia in this picture floated an even larger sun that seemed to glow. The painting covered the entire back wall. She equated herself to a star? Who did this pony think she was, a goddess? Hah, comedy! What wall space that wasn’t taken up by these extravagant pictures held bookshelves, quite literally overflowing with books and documents and scrolls and other pieces of parchment. This must be where Celestia wanted me to be to study at my own leisure. I scanned the rest of the room. The floor consisted of a soft carpet like material and was mostly red except for small gold insignias gilded into the pattern, which were spaced evenly through the entire floor. The room was well furnished, a golden-bronze pleather chaise lounge sitting at my left halfway across the room, as well as several other fabric based comfy chairs also golden-bronze scattered evenly throughout. At the end of the room, sitting in front of the massive Celestia portrait rested a dark wooden desk, which I assumed was where Celestia spent most of her time studying the sciences. I turned my mind back to our conversation. “Where am I from? Hah! Wouldn’t you like to know! I’m not from here, that I can assure you.” I thought about what I had just said, and then dropped the ‘holier than thou’ voice and said with a release of breath, “We will discuss this, and much more, later. As for now, you need rest.” She raised a hoof and opened her mouth in an attempt to speak, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she walked on further into the room. She trotted over to the chaise lounge and collapsed on it. I began to ask where I should start my research, but she was already out cold. I could tell by her lack of response, and her steady breathing. I gave a sigh, I guess I could flip through these books to see what information I could gather. Now, where to start? I made my way to a bookshelf. I ran a hoof along the middle row of books and scrolls, feeling the bindings and paper beneath my vessel’s hoof. Then my hoof stopped on one particularly large book, which I then rested my hoof on top of. I pulled the book out from the shelf sending a small cloud of dust flying into the air. Forgetting that I didn’t have any way to keep the book in the air, the book dropped off the shelf and hit the ground with a deep thud. I looked over at Celestia, who had not been at all disturbed by the noise. “Curse these impractical bodies.” I muttered to myself in annoyance. I lifted book up off the ground with nothing but the will of my power, surrounding the book in red translucent coat. I carried myself and the book over to one of the chairs and fell into it, my fall cushioned by the soft fabric pillows of the seat. I looked at the front of the book, which read, “The Known Intelligent Species of Equestria.” This would be a good place to start. *** This was incredible! This book claimed that there were over forty hyper-intelligent life forms on this planet. It wasn’t just the ponies. No. The book had information on all sorts of creatures: dragons, griffons, and bulls to name a few. Not once in all of my existence had I ever come across a world with more than one higher intelligence. If this were true, then maybe, just maybe they would be consumable… Maybe I would have no more need to fear death. I had nearly finished flipping through the last few pages of the book, when I heard Celestia stir. I looked over at her. She had lifted her head lazily and scanned the room. She looked confused for a second, as if she had forgotten where she was. Then I saw the realization hit her as her half-asleep face jolted with life. She sprang up from her resting place and began to pace around the room. After a few moments, she made her way warily over towards me. “Did you find anything useful?” She asked after yawning as she approached me. She stopped just a few feet before the seat I was currently occupying, and then sat on the carpet, waiting for a response. “Indeed.” I said, mustering up as much confidence as I could. “Oh, please explain, what have you found?” She asked growing excited. I began my answer with a question, “You wouldn’t happen to be friends with someone of another species, would you?” Her eyes widened even more. Now instead of curiosity, she had a look of deep surprise and contemplation on her face. “Well I…” she managed after a bit of staring. “Come on, my dear queen, this is important.” I said. “Yes but… You…” She was having trouble deciding on what to say, and then she mumbled the words, “Oh Twilight, forgive me.” After that she spoke up again and said, “Y-yes I do, WE do. We know a young dragon.” “Oh really,” I mused, “and where can we find this young dragon?” Celestia looked torn.