//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Things Fall Apart, the Crystal Cannot Hold // Story: The Twilight of the Crystal Heart // by WanderingPony //------------------------------// Timelessness passed in the Astral for a little glowing purple cloud of light, surrounded by eight glowing blots that discolored the endless white with their own tones. They waited, patiently enough by mortal standards as a day, a week, or a year to them was generally not all that much time by the standards of spirits whose "life" could be measured normally in aeons. The red one crackled first as it "spoke" in tones that would only be familiar to those being incinerated by dragon's breath. "SHE HAS NOT MOVED. DO WE CAUSE THE MOTE FEAR?" Purple responded with the sizzle of a thunderhead being danced on by the population of Cloudsdale. "The mote does not understand being without form. Shall I give her a shell?" White, Black, Yellow, Green, and two different shades of Blue agreed, in both a rare fit of unity and impatience. "It would be polite to wear a shell for the mote as well, lest we confuse her further." Seven of the colors swirled and let their normal disorderly energies form into forms that made considerably more sense to mortal eyes, while White refused to even acknowledge Purple's statement. Two wooly, massive hooves patted the mote into something pony-shaped, molding a horn, wings, and the very semblance of life itself into the small glowy bit of Astral debris, then let a single fat spark leap from his horns to set the results. Ectoplasmic pony fur and large amounts of static electricity do not mix. Ramuh gently drained away most of the charge, letting the mote settle from puffball to the more proper form of one Twilight Sparkle, slightly berift of bodily ties. She opened her now-functional eyes and took in the infinite breadth of the spiritual realm, the majestic forms arrayed around her, elemental and radiating power beyond that most mortals can experience firsthand without being reduced to a lifeless cinder. And Ramuh, who by Twilight's calculations measured roughly to scale with an Ursa Major. A very fluffy Ursa Major. "Welcome to your final reckoning, Twilight." the gargantuan ram intoned solemnly. "I do not think you will like it, but by managing to be here, we are required to deliver it.". Somehow, the ram managed to make "eternal judgement" not sound like anything more dreadful than "laundry day". "But...but...THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO PONIES WHEN THEY DIE?", Twilight attempted to hyperventilate. Lacking air or the need to breathe, or indeed not realizing she wasn't vibrating molecules to produce speech like flesh requires, the attempt failed other than producing a somewhat adorable look of absolute panic. "You are somewhat more than a mere pony, Twilight., Ramuh countered. "Not much compared to Sombra. He doesn't get himself killed casting spells.". Ebon hooves on twice as many legs as any stallion should have waved disparagingly at the blot in their midst, and two cinder-red eyes peered down. "No wonder Alexandrite was able to ride you so easily. Weak and pathetic." "THE FLESH IS ALWAYS WEAK, WHY DO YOU THINK WE DIDST SEEK TO REMOVE IT?", emanated from the bright cloud of light that occupied the spot opposite Ramuh's. "IT CORRUPTS. IT DESTROYS. THIS FLESH HAS RUINED AN ENTIRE WORLD WITH IT'S ACTS." "You mean she did it better than you could, you oversized ball of photons.", snapped the black, eight-legged stallion. A single spear of light lashed from the cloud, but shattered harmlessly on an unseen barrier. "She's at least smart enough to realize we're all sealed safe and sound while the ritual continues, at which point you'll go back to being locked in your little trinkets and I'll be home to watch the rest of you dying out like the failures you are." "CAN WE FINISH THIS BEFORE THE END OF ALL THINGS, YOU TWO? IF THE WORLD IS TO BURN, I WOULD PREFER TO BE DOING THE BURNING BEFORE THE MOTE LEAVES ME NOTHING TO CONSUME.", gouted Red, now filling the rough shape of a great wyrm. The inside of it's mouth let out a molten lick of sun-hot plasma to curl against the seal holding the fire-beast in it's place. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I ENDED THE WORLD?" "The mote at least has learned to match you in volume, Ifrit." , rumbled the minotaur-shaped mountain of earth to Ramuh's left. "If the mote can speak so, the mote can listen as well. Enough. The land would have it's due." "Let the mote know of it's deeds, and see what future it has wrought for us." Alexandrite's swirling patterns of dizzying light intensified. "CORRUPT, YOU CORRUPT. BRING CORRUPTION TO ALL THAT YOU TOUCH." To her right, Jolfr added- "Held, you behold. And beholden for all that you've done." The dark spirit seemed pleased at the thought as it finished, steepling it's four pairs of hooves together in neat pairs. Next, the green-tinged aether of an jade-plumed griffin cried out with a squawk more appropriate to a parrot than a predator- "Spell! Cast a spell! Cast a spell on the country you run!" -and clashed her beak, snapping at Twilight only to be blocked by the same etheric wall that had thwarted Alexandrite. The titanic minotaur continued. "Pay. You must pay. You must pay for your crimes against the earth." But it did not move to claim what it clearly desired, only transfixing Twilight Sparkle with two boulder-eyes of jasper and topaz. Ramuh followed. "Risk, ye will risk. Ye shall risk all their lives and their souls." A leviathan of oceans and white-capped waters hissed to Ramuh's left. "Deaaaath. You bring deaaath. And desssstruction to all that you touch!", and it's scales rushed it in long loops through it's cage with the sounds of a river flood. "HEX! FEED THE HEX! FEED THE HEX ON THE COUNTRY YOU LOVE!", Ifrit roared. It, too seemed amused by what it expected to happen. The final spirit did not roar. It did not cry, and indeed, it's words simply slid into Twilight's head on a thread of frozen blue. The icy form of an Ursa, azure glacial flows studded with stars of glittering ice and a mouth that simply misted out: Beg. You will beg. You will beg for their lives and their souls. The monstrous forms swirled into a blinding yet familiar blend of colors and Twilight spun with them, her spiritual form stretching like taffy as it was whirled through not-space to a vision of the past. --- From above, Twilight Sparkle beheld the majesty of the Crystal Empire, the crowds that flowed through it's streets and the joy that she could almost smell, like the essence of a carnival. For a long moment. Joy turned to chaos, windigoes and black unicorn, fighting and demons and madness as six very familiar ponies rose in a halo of unremorseful light, the Elements of Harmony clasped firmly to their flesh. The ponies wielded their light like a whip, scourging the streets of the demons and the ponies that fled them alike, then above the ruins claimed a glittering prize and began to focus on the bit of crystal floating in their circle. The spirit-alicorn knew they meant- she meant- to cleanse the world as they had cleansed the city, in light and burning and purity without mercy. The six bent horns of light to lance through into the Crystal Heart... ...and at the last moment, a black spear struck the Heart first, rebounding the spell on it's casters. The six were cast into the ruins they had made, and the Heart fell to earth with them. Two specks of flesh stood before the Heart, holding the shuddering, wounded thing together as strokes of lightning and anger tried to reduce them to ashes. They only held on for a brief time, and the final thing Twilight saw before all became white was herself, wings outspread to teleport her friends to safety. The light faded. In a broad circle miles wide, the Empire was washed away from the land in with the fury of magic and a cloud of dust. What had been living and dead blown outwards, to stain the virgin snow grey and sorrowful. All that stood were two statues of crystal the very eye of the apocalyptic storm. The vision's eye dived like a hawk. To her horror, she beheld the frozen forms of her brother and Cadence before her mind's eye rose again into the white, and the material realm faded to a ghostly image over the flow of the magical realm. A miasma of darkness spread where the glowing colors of life and joy, blotting them out with death and the echoes of pain the surge of power had etched into the ether. Memories of anguish and suffering fed on the miasma, and the bones of the dead pulled themselves together to trot across the scoured and blasted plains, while dessicated pony-skins filled with the essence of windigos and suffering rose to float like obscene balloons in a nightmarish parade. At it's center, a single spot that was darker than black- indeed, it was the very emptiness of color - hovered in the aether where the Heart had been. The Emptiness- for Twilight felt it, and it was not merely a "nothing" hungered, but it could not latch onto what it desired. Her ghostly ears twitched to the sound of her own voice, chanting. "Let the power of the world be as it should be once more!" She could feel a pull towards the Emptiness form as the spell called what had been there back to it's place. Glowing lights swirled about the Emptiness as the ritual drew them downwards...and the first, small, light reached the border between Something And Nothing. The Emptiness devoured the light and obliterated it, doubling in size and sending tendrils of Not in all directions to stab into the dancing hordes around it, piercing each and every one with it's grasp. Though only a few were drawn in, the tendrils only stretched as the force that held the spirits close suddenly snapped and the tormented essences flew away in all directions. The web of oblivion simply thinned but did not break, and the fearful spirits only stretched it across the world. Where the web touched the bright stars of living creatures, they began to dim as a bit of Emptiness latched on to feed...and as the light slowly began to fade, the hole in the Astral began to grow further, and further... Ramuh's voice echoed in her perceptions as she prayed for the vision to be false, for any rational escape from the logical progression of what she had begun to spring into her head, something to save the world from becoming Nothing. "You acted without truly thinking, demanded our power without asking, and cast billions of years of Being into the jaws of oblivion. It gnaws on us all, save you, who fed it so well. It would devour you last. For what you have done to us all, you cannot pay- but there will be justice." "Twilight Sparkle, spirit of Magic -we take what the world has given you, as you have taken so much from the world." The colors flowed into her open mouth and out every orifice of her ethereal shape, and with it her perception of the Astral dimmed to the dull greys and whites of near blindness, as her magical gifts melted away and cataracts grew to muffle her perception. The glowing, vibrant purple of her spiritual form faded to an almost colorless, ancient tone, and the ache of centuries seemed to fill every joint, every bend, every space that could become the dying embers of life instead of the flames of a mare in her prime. "Go to your fate knowing that we will use it to try and hold back the Emptiness long enough to let the world die with dignity- or die before it is consumed, so it knows no more of the pain you have brought it." At that, the withered old mare that had been Princess Twilight managed to wheeze out a few words before her body refused more. "Please....please....save...please...friends....help......save...hel-kkk." "We consign what remains to the Emptiness it has created." And with that, Twilight Sparkle found herself flung into a spot of unbeing that grew to become an all-encompassing Nothing in every direction. The world...she could not feel the world, see, hear, smell...oh, Celestia! She could not...not...not.... Time became timeless again as even time was devoured and obliterated, freezing the mind of Twilight Sparkle into what felt like the forever-contemplation of the abyss. --- In the world that remained, five ponies who had been friends of Twilight's were marched to trial at the hooves of the Houses of Lords and Commons.