Part I: Precursors

by Auryx Saturnius

2:1- Lessons and a Show

What could be used to describe the feeling Twilight was experiencing this moment? She was reminded of the happiness and contentment from when Crescent Star read to her years ago, when she was bedridden with magic poisoning. She had found a book on corruption magic and, after deciding to practice its contents, was quickly discovered by her mentor. If the resulting punishments and scolding weren’t enough for her, the following month of vomiting, ear-splitting headaches and the omnipresent sense of fatigue and exhaustion surely taught her to never even look at a dark spell book ever again.
Crescent Star, with his willing heart and determined soul, would spend his time after school to make the trek to her house and read her Daring Do every day until dinnertime. He did it the full month with enthusiasm and joy, always willing to pause whenever she had a bad cough or a sneezing fit and would continue without hesitation.
Yes, Twilight remembered the excitement and happiness she would feel whenever his grey horn would peek through the door, aglow with maroon and a floating book. With nothing more to hold onto, Twilight went hooves first into this new experience she was participating in. The only guide she had in this adventure was a being who only called himself the Didact- once known as Vicar Saint- and his renewed memories and experience.
Compared to the feelings she was holding, this felt different and alien. Could it be exciting? Adventurous? She couldn’t conceive what the emotions for this was...
“Better... this plan is definitely better than the last one. I can’t even believe I didn’t think of this before!” The Didact closely examined her stance, prompting a blush to heat up her cheeks.
He called himself a human, and he was only twenty years old. A young man, as his society accepted. As himself, the Didact proved to be brash, indignant and either inadvertent or completely oblivious towards any form of embarrassment or personal being: always being pushy, touchy-feely in example, and in-your-face about teaching things. After a full hour of it, Twilight found it very uncomfortable to be subject of his hawk-like gaze and priority, especially when his cold hands would constantly fondle her legs in an attempt to fix stances...
Her new legs! A part only at the threshold of the new beauty she could feel with this new body. It felt like a magical beauty: slender in nature, a flowing mane that ran down her spine, skin fair and smooth. She looked down and flexed her hands methodically, each finger moving as its own individual, followed by groups of fingers that shifted until she made an entire fist.
This was the new Twilight Sparkle: a nineteen year old woman with a hypothetical knowledge of worlds she had never seen or even heard of before until under an hour ago. The Didact told her of the glory of the Seven Cradles of Humanity, giving her the choice of whichever one she wanted to be a part of...
...Erde-Tyrene... Anacreon... Kalgan... the Cygnus Worlds...
...Only the tip of the iceberg of twenty different planets that humans called home. After careful consideration, she decided on Erde-Tyrene: the Didact’s own world. Her imagination soared with the thoughts of a blue and green planet, peppered with great, sprawling cities of metal and glass, people only just beginning to reach out into the stars and their sister planets unknown to them. A race almost completely incompetent in the magical arts, but strongly connected to... something that let’s their creativity and imagination leap from their thoughts and become a reality.
Then, she was quick to learn, there were those who could master the magical arts. The select 1% that could manipulate the fundamentals of nature did so with mighty power and an adept skill that would take the average unicorn a lifetime to perfect.
The Didact himself showed Twilight a fraction of his power: first by transforming her into a Terran Homo-Sapien, second by something else she never would have expected. He addressed himself as a Chronomancer: psychophysical manipulator of the fundamentals of time itself. Naturally, she doubted him wholeheartedly: stating that it was impossible to bend or break the carefully defined laws of the six fundamental forces (humans call them Gravity, Electromagnetism, the Strong Interaction, the Weak Interaction, the Higgs Interaction and Time- for those keeping track at home). She even went on to enter a lecture on how the laws of physics prevented such manipulation or control over temporal mechanics through the power of paradoxes, discontinuities, et cetera, et cetera... the Didact himself listening as if he was actually learning something new. Confident that she was satisfied with what she had already stated, the Didact quietly nodded, turned to a window and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and slowly raised his arms from his sides, carefully and painfully inching upward towards his chest. As they rose with a steady pace, both Twilight and Princess Luna watched, dumbstruck, as the sun- stead of Princess Celestia and the sole life bringer of all the known world- peeked above the horizon and began its trek upward at it’s relatively snail pace. Surrounding it in a dimmer, fainter glow was the clear imprint of his ambient magic: a pale violet and blue. His hand was ablaze with a similar blue-violet fire in an impressive show of power and might.
Her doubts were instantly absolved one the sleepy princess cane in, frantic with confusion and disbelief. “What in Tartarus happened here?” she came in, “Who raised the sun?”
The Didact was cool and collected as the flame was calmly snuffed out and he turned to the princess. “Just a simple physics experiment, your Serene Highness...”
The calm smile he had was reassuring to look at, Twilight feelings the same sense of warmth as Celestia herself. The princess was quick to understand what had happened and, with help from her sister, learned of everything that had happened involving the Didact and his person stated. She took it in very well for such surprising information and, after careful thought, declared that the Didact may remain as an emissary of his people. As a token of appreciation, the Didact himself gave Celestia ultimately a promise of peace and offered full heartedly to teach Twilight the fundamentals of using magic as a human being.
She almost jumped at the concept and potential. Since gaining her humanity, she found herself able to think and conceive of new ideas and concepts that would have been the envy of her earlier pony-self. Hands, she discovered, allowed for a greater and more diverse range of use and dexterity that would be unimaginable with a hoof or mouth. As a biped, her flexibility was increased almost tenfold, a fact she learned after losing her balance the first time. With an instinct unknown to her at the time, Twilight’s new hands shot out as her back arched backwards and let her return to her feet with a perfect flip: one leg in front of the other with arms splayed above her head.
It was after seeing this that the Didact decided to switch from basics to a better test of balance and coordination: fencing.

“On guard, if you please.”
Twilight raised her saber, dulled and useless in an actual fight, and assumed her guard. The Didact circled around her, inspecting Twilight’s stance for another good solid minute before deciding to continue.
“More weight on your back foot,” he finally said. “Nonetheless, the stance is adequate.”
Twilight shifted her weight accordingly, muscles already beginning to cramp. It didn’t require any experience to realize this lesson he had planned would hurt. After her quick shuffle, the Didact took to his own stance, nearly mimicking her in form.
“If you are as fast of a learner as I believe you to be,” the Didact said, “Then it would be no problem for me to call your parries and for you to comply.” Twilight simply nodded and raised her blade slightly higher. The Didact began to attack, calling out various defensive movements as he lunged. “Tierce... tierce again. Now prime! Not good enough: your blade is dropping again Twi’. Now quarte! Awful... once more!”
The Didact’s movements continued, but his voice slowly began to drop off, letting Twilight choose her own parries to counter. Their sabers would flash and their feet would squeak against the marble floor, shafts of sunlight reflecting across their field of play.
After a good five minutes of it, Twilight’s legs began to tremble with pain. She could only imagine how the Didact learned his share of fencing: what subtle variations of today happened years ago to be molded into his head. Nonetheless, Twilight found her focus sharpening as they fought. The sounds of the outside world dimmed away from her conscious. The scraping of unicorns and earth ponies trying to heave the leviathan carcasses through the doors faded from her ears, leaving only the cold ring of steel and the shuffling of boots to be heard.
“Why Serbia?” the Didact suddenly asked.
“May I remind you that I know nothing of your human references,” she replied through a sharp breath.
“Wrong answer.” The Didact pushed aside Twilight’s parry and landed a touch on her wrist, stepping back slightly afterwards.
“Ow!” She cried out, grabbing her hand to rub the pain away. Even with a dull edge, she found, the metal contacting bare flesh still made a bruise.
“The knowledge may be theoretical for you, but it is still their nonetheless.” The Didact blocked her attempt at payback offhandedly. “Just focus on the facts and it’ll come to you. In war, it is important that you make sound and timely decisions.”
Twilight stared intently at the Didact’s saber. She tried to focus, but his oppressive strikes forced her attention back to reality and made her lose ground. The Didact had decided to use his greater strength against his opponent: bad news for the just learning Twilight.
“Why Serbia?” he repeated, pushing her backwards through the large empty hall.
“Because Serbia was allied with Russia!” The former unicorn found herself crying, instinctively.
“Correct.” Under the serious face, below the aching pain, Twilight let herself a moment of inner glee as the Didact backed away at her remark.
“It was an alliance of the Slavic people,” he confirmed, taking up his sword once more. “On guard, madam.”
Twilight approached warily, sword raised. The Didact only attacked again, continuing his previous onslaught. Twilight began to feel that he had abandoned fencing, this battle feeling more like... a proper sword fight. She forced her concentration to narrow, awareness extending down the length of the saber- the only thing in the world to her presently.
“Tell me, dear unicorn, who was most closely allied with the Russian Empire at the time?” The Didact wasn’t even breathless.
“Britain,” came the immediate response. She was happy to be figuring out all this information by herself...
“Not so.” Her joy deflated as the Didact’s blade slipped inside her guard, whacking her right arm.
“AH!” Twilight dropped her guard to rub her newly inflicted wound. “What are you even teaching me now, Didact? Fencing, like you originally said, or your troublesome diplomacy?”
He gave a coy smile to her remark. “You are in need of instruction in both, it seems.”
Twilight’s anger flared, her attacks becoming more of an aggression towards her opponent. The Didact simply countered and parried every one of them. “Russia and Britain had no alliance at this time, only mutuality. That said; who was allied with Russia?”
“France!” she blurted aggressively, “France and Russia had a treaty!”
The Didact pushed her back and traced the air with his saber, taking a pause. “Such a terrible position,” he teased, “Raise your sword, Twi’. I won’t remind you again and nor shall your future enemies.”
Twilight sighed and took her guard once more. With her anger, she felt her grip choking the handle, white-knuckled, so she forced herself to relax.
“I teach you all of this because of its usefulness,” the Didact sliced his saber to where it extended straight to the floor. “As a mancer, weapons only expand upon your magic and skill: especially edged weapons. Focus on my eyes,” he said. “Not the tip of my blade.”
He lunged and Twilight parried, ending in a counterattack. Her saber edge only missed his arm by a hair, but she was forced to step back and cover herself.
“Now, mon beauté, let us review.” The Didact let his sword flash and move with a natural ease. “Austria get’s revenge on Serbia. Then what happens?”
“To protect Serbia, Russia declares war on Austria.” As Twilight spoke, her mind stayed focused on the play of sabers. It was all clear to her now: every bit of it. It was clear enough so that she no longer had to forcibly think about everything happening.
“Und dann?” the Didact asked.
“Germany protects the honor of the Central Powers by declaring war on Russia.”
The Didact lunged toward Twilight’s knee, which she blocked offhandedly. “And then?”
“France makes good its treaty with Russia, and declares war on Germany.”
The Didact smiled and let him hesitate. Seeing an opening, Twilight lunged forward, unexpecting his true intention. As her saber came forward, the Didact pushed it aside with his and lunged forward with his back foot, ending the strike with his elbow inches away from Twilight’s face. She instinctively flinched.
“‘Utilize any and all strengths and exploit the weaknesses of your enemies,’ Sun Tzu.” The Didact removed his elbow from her face and smiled. “So what can we conclude?”
Twilight frowned, “That whatever you decided to do is working.” She looked down and brushed at her pant legs, standing idly by with a perfectly natural stance. “Regardless of how stupid it was, it worked.”
“Good,” he said with a straight face. “I was worried that I might have to use more... persuasive tactics to teach you...”
With a rapid realization at his cocksure grin, Twilight extended her hand out to only slap at the end of his jacket. He let out a low laugh as she, almost second-handedly now, ran after him with an embarrassed rage. After a few laps, the Didact’s feet lifted from the ground and he found himself hovering just beyond her reach, taunting her as her anger subsided.
Twilight slowed down her pace with loud footfalls. Quizzically, she thought back to their conversation. “So what does all that have to do with the problem at hand?”
The Didact spun around on an invisible axis and faced his companion below. “With the genomorphic spell, I placed within you a hypothetical knowledge of a world. My world: the destined center of humanity for centuries and millennia to come. The knowledge of a galaxy, however- beit hypothetical or actual- is beyond any one, individual mancer to instill in a single person.” He floated down gently, his large boots planting soundlessly on the marble. “Even for a mancer of my calibur.”
“Are you trying to have me figure it all out by myself?” Twilight placed her hands on her hips and shifted her weight to one leg.
“I have proven to be didactic and silver tongued in nature,” the Didact played with a jest and a theatrical flourish. “If you are to ever be in my company, I’m afraid you must get use to it.” His face hardened and grew serious. “However, you’re right to properly ask. The galactic political stage, in my several years of watching it play, has proven to be quite similar to that of on Earth (or Erde-Tyrene, officially, he made note to mention). The beings trying to kill you and your friends are from a single party, an ultimate goal teasing at their brains.
“The ones from last night were specifically military, while the deacon and his party from the night before are religious. Nonetheless they both represent the ulterior motives of a political entity known as the Inferi Church of Unitology.
“The organization has the desire for only one thing, Twilight, and that thing is war. Total war; a war for domination of the galaxy, the assimilation of those outside their system and the righteous judgment of their heathen worships, the Markers and Convergence. Under the leadership of a Rassilonian Magesterium, and with the blessing of the Inferi government, the Church plans on making martyrs of the galaxy in the name of their precious Markers and in the names of those like Kur, Xylan and Zeref...”
“...I don’t know who any of those people are...”
“It is unimportant,” he waved off. “What is important is that the Church of Unitology see these keys, as your princesses’ label, as means to fulfill their plans. The only problem, however, is that I can’t piece together why those keys are able to inspire them to think so. Do you have any input?”
“No.” Twilight lied with a quiet and weak voice. “I wouldn’t understand either...”
“She speaks fallacy, even now. A pity: such a skill can more than one allow?”
The Didact’s face lost all emotion. Twilight instead began to frantically search the room for the source of the voice, to no avail.
“Show yourself, demon!” The serious anger in the Didact’s tone was beyond evident.
A quick, barely noticeable flash of light filled the room, their attention being pulled in the direction of the throne. There, sitting upon the golden chair, was a man clad in a black cassock with a large hood. Over his chest rested a blue mozzetta, ornate with golden details, also layered under a white stole. He leaned his head on his arm, his face hidden.
“It is good to see the Didact has recovered his health,” he said. His free claw came up from his lap and grabbed at the hood. “All the more pleasing when I can deal with everything myself...”
The hood came down, taking its new place on the man’s shoulders as Twilight brought in two realizations. The first was his lack of basic humanity. Like the deacon imprisoned, it looked reptilian in nature: no nose, bright, reflective eyes sunken in over a mouth of sharpened teeth. Unlike the deacon, however, the entire right side of this creature’s face was malformed: twisted and perverted with growths of flesh dropping over the eye to cover a paled iris. Where the mouth was parted in a sadistic grin, skin stringed across the gaping maw, taut from the sagging flesh of the lower jaw.
Piercing through its entire grotesque mask of flesh was the dire feeling of this creature’s deceit and unsympathetic nature painted over his eyes and face. He was bored. This creature seemed completely uninterested in whom he was talking to or addressing. Twilight figured that if there was anything that represented the opposite of harmony and truth, this creature was the closest thing. She had prided her recent mantra, “never judge a book by its cover,” but one look towards this being made her abandon it completely.
“Well, well.” The Didact cracked his neck with a methodical *pop* as he spoke. “His Eminence, the Prophet of Truth, has decided to assess the Lord Didact’s presence personally: I’m flattered.”
The creature let out a quiet chuckle. “I deemed so necessary.” His voice was growled and scratched with the malformations, but nonetheless, the rhymes were well sounded. “If not, you would have killed any emissary.”
“An acute observation you have there...”
His remark warranted no consequential response. “Now, now dear human: you’ve proven yourself quite didactic. Would you truly believe I would come alone: a one-on-one battle so great and climactic?”
“That’s the general assumption I have for one I consider an idiot.” His words struck a nerve: the Prophet uncrossing his legs and sitting up straighter, before lunging forward with a speed and viciousness that Twilight thought could match even Rainbow Dash. Within the time it took for her to flinch, the Prophet had lunged forward and was gripped against the Didact’s arm, which served the only barrier between his face and the Prophet’s claws. The sense of rage was evident; burning within his eyes brightly, even the air around him seemingly boiled over with energy.
“You should have it known, didactic man, I do not express all the power I can.” The Prophet’s voice growled with a twisted and sadistic anger. “Of course I came alone. My power sole can tear you into nothing more than bone!”
“Am I to feel threatened, Rassilon?” The Didact remained cool and collected, even when he was facing this monster. “You aren’t the only one in this room holding back. You and your little coalition of mancers and fanatical extremists is nothing compared to me and my Agency...”
“So you think.” There came no following rhyme, his Eminence apparently deciding to abandon that false majesty. “With the help of our new partners, the Archangels can spread glorious Convergence across the stars. All stars: both in our universe, and theirs...”
He turned to face Twilight, sharp teeth bared in another sadistic smile. “Your deaths will be the first that will spark the martyrdom of the blessed millions who will die in holy crusade.”
“How dare you speak to me,” Twilight spat. “I want nothing to do with your hideous genocides...”
The Prophet gave a low chuckle. “Kaius was right. Even now, its holy patterns are able to script and dance across your mind.” His chuckle grew into a hideous laugh. “I’m afraid you’re already a part of it, dear Equine, and your princesses are nothing more than the very center of this glorious nexus.”
“What on Earth are you babbling about?”
The Prophet then proceeded to ignore her, returning his attention to the Didact. “Those keys, Lord Didact, are keys to what you would label as a weapon. For me and those who truly believe, however, it is our SALVATION!”
He let go of the Didact’s arm and backed away. “Even as we speak, my agents and the agents of the Church move across the board, preparing for the final checkmate. This is a plan that represents centuries of psychohistorical preparation. I tell you this, Didact, because I am confident. I am completely confident in the fact that you will lose. There is no force of harmony, no force of piety and no force of will you possess that is strong enough to prevent the eventual domination of the Inferi Coalition and its glorious Church.” With a grotesque smile, he finished, “And you, dear Didact, will be nothing more than a forgotten silence.”
“If you truly think that Rassilon, then you are even more gravely delusional than I previously thought.”
There was no flash of anger or response of action. The Prophet of Truth only dropped his smile and reached up to replace the hood over his head. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. All in all, it’s just a waste of atoms...”
Twilight stared at him in confusion. “What does that mean? Didact, what does he mean by, ‘waste of atoms?’”
Still no response, the Prophet only turned away instead. “Goodbye, Mr. Altman. Say your prayers to whatever sky God you worship...”
The Prophet finally disappeared in a flash of bright light, the Didact himself finally piecing together his chosen message. “It’s a bomb...”
The light of the Prophet’s teleportation expanded out before collapsing in again. Instead of fading out, like usual, the light coalesced together into a orb of energy. Twilight gulped in detestable anticipation of what would happen...
...and her vision flared with an even brighter light as the Didact jumped in front of her.

In the blink of an eye, Twilight began to watch her life flash before her eyes. It wasn’t like the stereotypical playback from start to finish... not entirely. In the blink of an eye, Twilight Sparkle lived through and felt the emotions and feelings of nineteen years. She felt the warmth of the fireplace of her fillyhood home, where she sat and read countless books. She felt the fatigue of many sleepless nights spent in study: the matched excitement of magic learned personally from Princess Celestia. Twilight even felt the emotion and fondness she had centered on Crescent Star, a friend a long time in the making.
In the end, a blink of an eye was too short. In the blink of an eye, the Didact was in front of her, coat tossed to the side and arms out. With his extended hands, he used his own magic to counter: containing the explosion the best he could. Blues and violets and whites coalesced and battled with red and orange dragons of fire, fighting any way they could against each other.
Like the classic stories of a knight in mortal combat with their counterpart, the dragon’s fire burst forth aggressively against an opponent destined to win, no matter how seemingly insignificant compared to it. Against a power Twilight had only seen come from the wrath of the Sun, the Didact held firm. But he wasn’t just holding firm, she realized, he was winning.
With a grace and practice that described his power, his force field pressed strong against the flames, tongues of red and orange having to switch to a stronger white and blue. His arms kept at the spell, denying the heat the satisfaction of pushing him away. Twilight glanced down at the flickering sweat playing kaleidoscope with her eyes. Clear liquid welled and dripped to the floor, before being replaced by peachy globs. At another glance, it looked like the skin of his arm was melting: the thought of which caused Twilight to recoil in horror at the substance that glistened against a reflective, steely underlayer.
As the Didact forced the shield to shrink, making the flames to burn with a violent white, Twilight found herself crawling backwards to avoid the danger of the intense heat. She contemplated how terrible it must be for the Didact- bearing the full brunt of energy- with his skin melting and sweating profusely, but, in the few minutes described within the previous paragraphs, he still refused to relent nonetheless. The shield continued to grow smaller and more controllable, while the explosion continued its futile attempt at escape.
Finally, the shield reached the size of an overblown beach ball and progressed no further. The explosion was no nothing more than a violet sphere of intense radiation: intense enough to leave a good sized circle of near molten marble etched into the floor.
It was long seconds before Twilight found her able to react and, with great caution, began to inch her way towards the violet ember.
“Don’t come any closer.” The hardened voice of the Didact stopped her in her tracks out of pure shock alone, but she quickly regained her composure.
“But... didn’t you stop it?”
“Laws of Thermodynamics, Twilight.” No response. “Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. All I did was keep it from expanding. The energy itself is still existent just beyond its Schwarzschild Radius and, thus, is most potent in its current state.”
The beach ball vibrated in its magic shell and physically rippled with energy, as if to solely prove his point. “The problem,” he continued, “is that it’s also leaking radiation... badly. Any closer and you would be in terrible risk.”
“But what about you?” Twilight pleaded, “Aren’t you in danger?”
“A magical field is protecting everything I need. Unfortunately, that excluded the synthetics... magic is unfaultable.” Twilight’s eyes cast down to where the melted arm hovered. With the “skin” (assuming his statement correct) removed, an understructure of metal and moving parts had become more complicated than anything Twilight had ever seen before in her life.
“But that’s not important,” he rushed. “What is important is that I need my complete focus to work out the mathematics I need.”
Twilight hushed herself, covering her mouth to instill an absolute silence. The Didact himself remained motionless, eyes closed in a deep focus. Isolating himself from outside distractions, numbers and figures flashed through his subconscious, shifting rapidly to match his thoughts and calculations. After painful seconds, the answer revealed itself to him with a simple clarity, and his body sparked to life.
He began to shift fluidly through motions long ago memorized and with magic long ago mastered. His arm became once more enveloped in blue fire and sliced through the air like it was cutting through a still pond. The sphere itself also began to react to his actions, slowly beginning to rotate and flatten into an ovaloid shape. The rotation steadily accelerated and the shape continually flattened until it was a rapidly spinning disk of energy.
The Didact seamlessly shifted his motion into a different tempo of movements and the disk began to separate into a swirling spiral of beautiful specks of light. Twilight stared in awe at the glorified show, jaw open dumbfounded at the cyclone of light before the Didact’s movements slowed down, his arms coming closer towards his center before he stopped altogether, letting his hands lower to his sides with a deep breath. The specks of light exploded in radiance and the orderly cycle was broken up into chaotic flurries that fell harmlessly towards the ground like tiny leaves.
For the first time since the Prophet’s departure, the Didact turned towards Twilight, smiling towards her as his true self. With his jacket no longer covering him, the fitting white undershirt held back the strong muscles he had built over the years. His right arm no longer held any resemblance to the rest of his body, but was completely exposed to be mechanical in nature. Advanced, unknown mechanics shifted underneath a layer of long, stretching fibers, as if to mimic the muscle layout of the previous arm. The irritation in his right eye proved to be a companion machine to the arm: an artificial lens underneath a synthetic cover, now completely gone.
Twilight finally came to the realization of one last, but probably most important truth: this was the real Vicar Saint. The real Vicar Saint was Didact, Lord of Admirals and Master of Generals of the Galactic Council of Hutter's Spiral
It was no sooner than this realization that Twilight saw the Didact, smiling and confident behind the specks of light he created, suddenly collapse, passed out on the charred floor.