Down in the basement, less than a minute after Pinkie Pie burst into the library, she and Twilight were already growing exasperated with one another.
“I mean it, Twi!” Pinkie insisted, “That stallion from earlier today, he’s one of those alchemists and he knows about that!” She pointed to the bulge on the table, still hidden beneath the white cloth.
Twilight Sparkle ran a hoof down her face. Why oh why had Princess Luna included that ridiculous postscript about alchemists? Maybe it was her idea of a joke, resuscitating a centuries-old conspiracy theory.
“How do you know?” She asked the pink mare.
“I know because he tried to trick me into thinking he and that filly were spirits!” Pinkie said after a moment’s thought.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I mean, how do you know he’s an alchemist? Did he have ‘I Heart Perverting the Powers of Nature’ written on his flank or something?”
“This is serious!” Pinkie cried, stamping in nervous excitement. “He actually said he was a spirit and that you brought him here. How would he know about that if he didn’t know what we were trying to do this morning?”
This gave the unicorn a moment’s pause. Verity had guessed exactly what she was up to, and identified the Element of Magic. Could those two strangers really be up to something?
But... alchemists! In this day and age, no less! Twilight just couldn’t wrap her mind around something so ridiculous. No, it must just be another misunderstanding, like what had happened with Zecora. Small town ponies were pleasant folk, but they could be so credulous and provincial! There had to be another explanation that didn’t involve ancient bugaboos.
“Did he just volunteer this information on his own, Pinkie, or did you ask him if he was a spirit?” Twilight said, giving her friend a doubtful look.
Pinkie went from outraged, to thoughtful, to sheepish in the space of a couple seconds. “I, um, well... he had been doing all these strange things, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t an ordinary pony, and um...”
Twilight raised her eyebrows and stuck out her lower lip.
“I asked him if he was a spirit.” Pinkie squeaked.
“Well there you go! He must have just been playing along. Nothing to worry about.” Twilight nodded to herself, satisfied, and reached toward the Element of Magic.
“B-but he’s still an alchemist!” Pinkie spluttered. “You’re in danger!”
Twilight turned back to her anxious friend, looking equal parts apologetic and disappointed. “Pinkie, I’m sorry I got you involved in all this. I know you get carried away sometimes and you worry about the strangest things, but I thought you could at least keep your promise.”
Pinkie was flabbergasted. “I—but—what? I did! I didn’t tell anypony anything!”
”You might as well have!” Twilight exclaimed, “How can I keep this a secret if you’re going to go around asking every new pony if he’s a spirit in disguise? There’s all sorts of folklore saying the spirits are supposed to be connected to the elements. Somepony will put two and two together eventually.”
The pink mare pouted, still quite certain Concord was an alchemist. Twilight was just rationalizing and using her smarts to fool herself instead of facing the terrible truth. What did the number four even have to do with anything?
“He’s gonna be here soon, though. I told him to get Verity and meet me here back when I thought he was a spirit. We have to be ready to catch him before he tries anything!”
Twilight was still fairly certain there was no actual danger, but she worried about Pinkie. The breakdown on her birthday, the way she’d behaved on Nightmare Night, her worries that Rainbow Dash would forget her over the course of a week... it was as if the bubbly mare went out of her way to scare herself silly for the silliest reasons. Twilight patted her friend on the shoulder and smiled reassuringly at her. “Well that’s fine then. Go up and wait in the library and I’ll be up there in a second and we’ll get this all sorted out, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you or me or this,” she said, hooking a knee toward the Element of Magic.
Pinkie gulped, nodded, and trotted back up the stairs. Twilight waited until she heard the basement door open and shut, and then whisked the cloth off the table with a spell.
The Element of Magic was still right where she'd left it. Twilight Sparkle exhaled, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. Now she’d just hop back upstairs, have Spike send an affirmative reply to the princess, read the rest of the letter and get this business with Pinkie and the new ponies sorted out.
The door at the top of the stairs creaked open and two sets of hoofbeats descended. Twilight hastily hid the element again. “Pinkie! Don’t bring him down here!” she called up the stairs.
It was neither Pinkie Pie nor Concord who emerged into the laboratory at the bottom of the stairs, but a pair of mares Twilight had never seen before. A red-orange unicorn with a braided black mane and a green pegasus with a yellow mane and—
Twilight gasped.
Instead of a pony tail, the jointed, barbed tail of a scorpion twitched and curled above the pegasus’s hindquarters.
“Who are... what...” Twilight stammered, dropping into a wary stance and placing herself between the bizarre strangers and the table.
“Twilight Sparkle,” The pegasus said, scowling as if the name tasted bad on her tongue. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t know who you are, but nopony is allowed down here without my permission,” Twilight said, trying to sound as authoritative as she could.
The unicorn and pegasus traded glances. “Look at this! She summons us and then acts like we’re trespassing,” the latter pony complained.
“She was flinging spells willy-nilly,” the red unicorn replied. “She had no idea what she was doing.”
“Hey!” Twilight yelled, “You two better tell me who you are and what you’re doing here or I’ll show you some real spell-flinging!” A pink-yet-menacing nimbus of magic emanated from her horn.
The other unicorn shrugged languidly and without concern. “Very well, introductions. I am Fortuna, Most Harmonious Spirit of Fortune, She Who Turns the Great Wheel, Keeper of Necessary Evil, et cetera, et cetera.”
“And I am Just Deserts, a spirit of justice. Don’t think that I’ll overlook your threats and inhospitality just because you’re in the Big Six, Miss Sparkle.”
Fortune? Justice? Those weren’t any elements of harmony Twilight had ever heard of. She kept her horn lowered and glowing. “You don’t look like spirits to me,” she said, “You look like a unicorn and some kind of mutant pega-scorpion.”
Just Deserts bridled at the description. “We’re just as you materialized us, Miss Sparkle. If you have any problem with our looks, blame your shoddy spellcraft!”
“What ought we to look like, after all?” Fortuna asked, her eyes laughing.
Twilight chewed her lip and looked from one pony to the other. Pinkie had been right about one thing; something was up. These two knew far, far too much about what she’d been doing. If she grabbed the element and teleported she could easily give them the slip, but she couldn’t go far. She had to report to the princess, and Spike and Pinkie were still back upstairs. At least, she thought they were. These menacing strangers must have walked right past Pinkie to reach the stairs. Why hadn’t she done anything? Or... had they done something to her? Well, they hadn’t made any threatening moves yet, and Twilight was certain her magic could handle any two ponies who didn’t have the drop on her. What did harmony spirits look like, anyway?
She raised a spherical shield around herself and the table. “Okay, you say you’re spirits and I somehow brought you here without knowing it. Got any proof?”
Fortuna began walking around Twilight toward the covered table. “Tsk, so skeptical! Fine, let me see old Magic over there and I’ll put your doubts to rest.”
“Oh no you don’t!” the purple unicorn said, dropping the shield for a split second to throw a warning blast of magic from her horn. The spell scorched the floor inches from Fortuna’s raised hoof. “Don’t come any closer, and don’t try to cast anything or I’ll zap you senseless and be halfway to Canterlot with this thing before you hit the floor.”
“Don’t make this worse than it needs to be, Miss Sparkle,” Just Deserts said, skirting around the other direction and coiling her new tail.
The other unicorn said nothing, but smiled mischievously and took another step.
Twilight’s response was lightning-fast. Another spell-ray lanced from her horn at Fortuna, this one made to stun rather than burn.
It missed by a hairsbreadth to shatter a beaker on a shelf behind Fortuna. Twilight cast again, and then once more, but each time the spell’s bolt flew wide as Fortuna continued her leisurely advance. This had never happened before. Even novices had no trouble sending magic precisely where they wanted it to go. Twilight tried to seize the other unicorn with telekinesis, but the elementary spell simply fizzled.
“What’s the matter, dear? Having a little miss-fortune?” Fortuna asked, giggling at her own pun. “You all rely so much on my favor. When tiniest little things suddenly go wrong; a neuron misfires here, a muscle twitches there; you can’t do anything.”
Twilight was about to reply when she felt something sharp pressing against her neck. While her shield was down to attack, Just Deserts had snuck right up next to her and placed the stinger of her scorpion tail atop an artery.
“This is what I needed to discuss with you, Miss Sparkle,” the scorpion-pony said matter-of-factly, withdrawing an ominous-looking manila folder from beneath her wing. “Your flagrant mis-use of your powers is unbecoming to a bearer of the Element of Magic. Just look at this:” she opened the folder and thrust it in Twilight’s face.
The purple unicorn was in no condition to comply. “You’re crazy! Get away from me!” she shouted. Twilight tried to erect a magic barrier around herself and the crown again, but this spell too refused to materialize. Behind her, Fortuna smirked and pulled aside the cloth covering the table. Twilight tried to grab it back, but Just Deserts pressed the barb more firmly against her skin.
Miserably, Twilight gritted her teeth and slowly sat down on the floor. No shielding, no teleporting, her magic was being suppressed, and she didn’t understand how. There were spells designed to do that, but they were all fairly obvious. She didn’t detect anything of the sort around her. She glared at the two interlopers. “What do you want from me?”
“Oh, I’m just here on principle,” Fortuna said humbly, picking up the crown with her magic and slowly spinning it in the air. “Justy’s the one who wanted to see you so badly.”
“Well, first of all, let me thank you for giving me the opportunity to take the more direct approach to promoting justice,” the other pony said. “In return, I’m going to do everything in my power to set you back on the straight-and-narrow.”
“Th-the what?” Twilight choked, her eyes darting between the stinger and the element.
“She means she’s going to convict you of whatever bad things you’ve done and then dole out some sort of penalty so you won’t do them again. Justice spirit; it’s what she does.” Fortuna smiled and polished the crown with a corner of the cloth. “Don’t worry, it won’t take long, and I’ll look after Magic here in the meantime.”
If these weren’t spirits, Twilight wondered, why didn’t they drop the act now that they had her dead to rights? What did they stand to gain? It wouldn’t be the first time some of her spells worked in an unexpected way, but good grief, this sure wasn’t how she imagined the re-discovery of the spirits of harmony would go!
“Fine,” Twilight said through clenched teeth, “just tell me first, what did you do to Spike and Pinkie? The earth pony and the dragon upstairs, I mean. Why haven’t they come down here or anything? They should’ve heard the yelling and spells.”
Just Deserts nodded sympathetically, but didn’t lower her barbed tail. “Your concern does you credit. Mr. Spike is just fine and Ms. Pie is better than fine; I improved her demeanor earlier today. She won’t be able to interfere with any sort of spirit-business for the duration of her punishment.
Twilight Sparkle’s eyes widened. “Punishment? What did you do to her!? Pinkie’s... she’s one of the nicest, most conscientious ponies I know!”
“Conscience? Pah! A fat lot of good that ever did!” Just Deserts spat, suddenly incensed. “But enough about her,” she continued, returning to her dry, official tone, “we need to talk about your misdeeds. Please direct your attention to your permanent record.”
The mostly-pegasus flipped through the contents of the folder. “Now, there’s a whole litany of smaller abuses here, and I might have let those slide, but then came the ‘tardiness debacle’ a few months back.”
As Just Deserts paged through the folder, entry after entry had the same word in red block letters at the top: SLAVERY.
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Twilight insisted. “I never enslaved anypony! Are you sure you didn’t get the wrong folder?”
Fortuna winced in sympathy. “Ooh, it’s best not to contradict her like that. She’ll remember it in sentencing.”
The spirit of justice’s eyes narrowed in scorn. “It says here you used a form of magical compulsion to usurp the wills of no less than forty-six ponies, forcing them to brawl with their family and neighbors until the enchantment was dispelled. It reflects... poorly upon you that this was not a memorable event.”
Twilight laughed nervously. “What, is this about that time I enchanted Smarty Pants? That wasn’t on purpose! I was under so much stress and the spell got out of hand! I didn’t want everyone to start fighting like that! A-anyway, the princess pardoned me herself!”
Just Deserts clapped the folder shut. “Ms. Sparkle, from the victim’s perspective, the major difference between mind control and murder is that the effects of the latter are permanent. To take away a pony’s very self and replace it with some simulacrum of your own fashioning is a grievous crime, no matter the circumstances. You should have known better; weren’t Ms. Pie and your other friends on the receiving end of just such an injustice not long before you committed this crime?”
The purple unicorn’s shoulders slumped. This crazy scorpion pony might or might not be a spirit, but she had a point. What might have happened if Princess Celestia hadn’t arrived when she did to break the spell? The other ponies didn’t seem to remember what had happened, much less know who was responsible, but what if one had been seriously hurt or even killed?
“I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.
“That’s a start,” Just Deserts replied, smiling broadly. “But you don’t know what it’s like, not having control over your own self, do you?”
“No, but I can ima—OW!”
Just Deserts withdrew her stinger-tail from Twilight’s neck. From the other end of the room, Fortuna laughed.
Twilight rubbed the welt on her neck. “Why did you do that?! I did what you wanted!” she cried. An icy, tingly sensation began spreading from the site of the sting.
The spirit of justice nodded. “Yes, and now I want you to remember what you’re about to experience the next time you decide it would be convenient to start casting mind-control spells on your neighbors.”
“Next time? You poisoned me!” Twilight exclaimed, already beginning to feel her extremities seize up.
Fortuna rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be such a crybaby. It’s not even literal poison, just a dramatic way for her to render judgment. I would suggest making sure your eyes are shut before it fully takes hold, though. It might be a while before your friends find you!”
Though curing poison is something of a natural ability of unicorns, even the most magically inept, Twilight still couldn’t get her horn to cooperate with her thoughts. She tried to call for help, but she couldn’t force enough air from her lungs or even open her mouth. It was all she could do to even breathe. The last thing Twilight saw before she took Fortuna’s advice was the face of her tormentor. Just Deserts smiled cruelly, and her eyes slowly changed from the wide, liquid eyes of a pony to the piercing golden orbs of an eagle.
The two spirit ponies turned away from where the paralyzed unicorn sat and headed back up the stairs.
“Well, that was diverting,” Fortuna sighed, “but hardly worth my time. I thought you said you needed my help for a big turn, something that would get the old wheel really going again!”
“I do, I do!” Just Deserts insisted, grinning. “Now that both ponies who know we’re here are taken care of and we’ve got Magic with us,” she said, indicating the element with a flick of her tail, “there’s nothing to stop us from bringing the most stolid, long-standing and guilt-ridden institution on this miserable rock crashing down to a well-deserved fate!”
“You don’t mean—” Fortuna gasped, eyes wide with delight.
“I do!” the pegasus replied, putting a wing over the unicorn’s shoulders. “Regime change!”