AN
Here we go...
(The old TPC Title pic, or maybe a new one, will be back next chapter)
- - -
(44)
Twilight Sparkle: Equestria’s Strongest Couple (part 2)
- - -
“Star Light?” Cruciger eased the door to the palace apartments open just a crack. “Star Light? We’re running late, you know? Blueblood and Equinox are likely waiting for us at the ball.”
No response answered the young stallion, but he ventured into the lightless room regardless. He was already dressed for the formal double date, trading the guardpony armor for the off duty uniform and sash. He was Vice-Captain of the Guard, after all. His appearance was expected to be impeccable. He was also expected to be on time when it came to social functions, but that was looking increasingly unlikely. It would be humiliating to show up late when the Princess herself would be present.
“The Gala only comes once a year, Star Light,” he reminded her, though he wasn’t even sure she was in her palace apartments at all. “I do hope I am not talking to myself here. I am conjuring a light if I don’t hear--”
“I’m here.”
A soft blue glow filled the apartment, finally painting the walls and furniture with light. It also illuminated a hundred scrolls and scraps of paper pinned to walls and hanging from pennant-wire from the ceiling. Blinds were set up near the back, blocking off part of the room from sight. Beneath the artifacts and manuscripts and piles of books, a pony could theoretically find a bed, tables, maybe even a couch for company. All the accouterments entitled to both a Duchess and a student of the Princess Herself.
“Star Light?” Cruciger called to her again, ears twitching as he heard the sound of hooves behind the black blinds at the far side of the room. “What is this?”
“Developing pictures!” Twinkling Star Light emerged with a large square print. Her red and pink mane was a frazzled mess, her cream white coat and horn were smudged with ink and something green but otherwise unidentifiable, and, lastly, her violet eyes were bloodshot. A thick rope was still tied around her midsection, the cords periodically interspersed with iron bolts, dangling paper charms, and a length of electrical grounding wire.
“Zero! Zero! Zero! I finally identified a completely energy-neutral composite aether!” she declared with a giggle. “I had to travel across four hostile planes, but I did it! Oh! Oh. Oh, this is just beautiful! I can’t wait to see my results! And, um, don’t mind the mess in the corner there under the quarantine barrier. And don’t touch it! I had to kill some… sort of… giant insect-octopus-monster in the second dimension. I kept it to dissect later.”
“…”
“Oh, mhm, yes, but how are you doing?” She asked, hanging the picture up and grinning broadly at it. Cruciger couldn’t exactly see what was on it. Very likely something that would drive most ponies mad.
“We are late for the Grand Galloping Gala,” he reminded her with an upset rumble. He brushed aside a semi-clean area of the floor to sit down. “Why would you travel across planes without me, Star Light? What if something happened to you? Last time we almost--”
“I had my tether with me!” she objected, referring to the rope around her stomach. “Anyway,” she grumbled, using her magic to toss a letter his way. “I had to rush ahead. No time. No time anymore. See for yourself.”
Cruciger caught the letter in one large hoof, deftly flipping it open.
His eyes narrowed only a few sentences in. “Your mother is in the hospital.”
“And my sister has come back home with her illegitimate daughter,” Star Light said, giving him the abstract version of the rest of the note. “Correction, her illegitimate daughter and five hundred Bitalian mercenaries. She wants Prance. She wants to take it from me.”
“It appears so,” Cruciger agreed, reading over the letter a second time. “You have often told me you do not wish to rule. Are you certain…?”
“I have no interest in being Duchess at all,” Star Light reminded him, pinning up another pan-dimensional photograph. “Not even a little bit. But Prance is yours, just as you are mine, and I am yours. I will not let my yellow-yellow sour-note sister take Prance from you or from our foals!” Another picture went up, hanging next to the last one. “No! Not at all! No way! Not even one village! Not even one trash heap!”
“Hrm,” Cruciger growled. “I agree, of course.”
Twinkling Star Light looked past the picture to her fiancé. They were both still too young to actually marry, but that was legally. In their hearts, they had been married for years. No pony would get between them. No force in the universe. Anything that did? Anything that threatened their union…?
“I’m going to grind her into the dust for this,” Star Light told him, her eyes returning to one of her dimensional pictures. “I hate to rush my research, but I needed to finish up here. I’d like you to sweep aside those five hundred mercenaries the Quartz have sent to back her claim. Will that take long?”
The young Guard Vice-Captain chuckled darkly. “No. Not long.”
“Good! So you agree. No time for Galas, too many places to conquer. Maybe next year.”
- - -
A half dozen sharpened stones wavered in midair, crackling with competing star fields. Twilight and Star Light were both wreathed in flowing cloaks of burning magic, the waste heat and magic undulating away from their white-hot horns. Every time one pushed a stone spear forward, the other countered it. Over their heads, one of the telekinetically manipulated granite blocks finally cracked and came apart under the strain.
Both mares were gritting their teeth and straining, not just over control of the stone spears, but against their opponent trying to use sorcery against them directly, amplifying their normal magical resistance to new heights. Slowly, despite the strain both mares were under, Twinkling Star Light began to laugh.
“Fifty counters to fifty different spells of the sorcery sub-type!” she cried between pulses of magical energy. “As expected of your strongest magical proficiency! Very good!”
“It feels like we’ve been at this all day!” Twilight growled through her clenched teeth. “How many spells do you even know? We could be here for hours!”
“How many spells?” Star Light asked, eyes widening. “I could tell you, but first, why don’t we move on? We really have spent too much time in red.”
Her horn flashed, and the Horsehead Nebula responded instantly, the colors shuffling all around them.
‘Green?’
Instantly, the telekinetic magic overhead evaporated, nullified on the spot. Ten stone spears fell lifeless to the ground with a succession of thuds. An eleventh, having already broken in two, ended up partly sticking out of the ground. The twelfth, little more the rubble, fell like calcified rain. Just as quickly, the vast sorcerous shrouds the pair of mares had generated around themselves turned to glitter and wind.
‘Green! But what’s green stand for?’ Twilight asked herself, trying to adjust to the new colored tint that warped her vision. ‘Wizardry? Alchemy, or…?’
“Let’s try a Transmutation,” Star Light helpfully announced, closing her eyes and firing up her horn. “How about ‘Fiddler’s Frightful Fen!’”
Alchemy!
Twilight jumped into the air as the ground beneath her hooves liquefied, surging upwards like a torrent. What had once been solid ground turned almost instantly into a toxic, bubbling cauldron of alkaline-mud. She could smell a hint of chlorine in the air.
“Sodium hydroxide, huh?” Twilight Sparkle hung in midair, her horn blazing and crackling magenta. “Partial Transmutation! Air to Water! Eddy's Energetic Elements: Hydrogen Chloride!”
A blast of heat surged away from the ground as she returned to her hooves, splashing down into the sticky mud without harm. A rolling wave of air spread out and across the battlefield, neutralizing the pH of Fiddler’s Frightful Fen. It was still muddy and hard to run in, but it wasn’t going to cause any chemical burns today.
“You know Eddy’s old triverbums?” Star Light asked, snickering. “I thought his spells were out of fashion these days? No alliterative subdivisions and all.”
“I love chemistry,” Twilight replied, hooves splashing against the mud as she charged. “And I can Mass Transmute, too! Like Water to Air! You look like your mane could use a good steam blast!”
- - -
“How long have they been in there?” Rarity took a small bite of her breakfast, a vegetarian omelet of vegetables, cheese, mushrooms, and a salad garnish. With no time limit on the duel, the army staff had been kind enough to arrange for meals for their guests while they waited for their friend to finish her epic battle.
“Almost three hours.” Antimony dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.
“This wouldn’t be so bad except we can’t SEE anything!!” Dash cried from atop her cloud, flailing her legs at the two unicorns. “Can’t you DO something? Use your magic!”
Rarity and Antimony rolled their eyes in unison.
“Check it out, Dashie! Rawr. I’m a super powerful unicorn. Zappity zapp.”
The two turned, slowly, to behold a puppet stage only a few paces behind them. On the little stage, a sock puppet with a red mane and a horn that looked like it had come from a pencil flapped her mouth. A pink hoof just barely visible behind and beneath the puppet stage threw a hoof-full of confetti.
“Pew pew pew,” the puppet announced. The target of the confetti barrage was a lavender puppet with a dark blue mane sporting a pink and purple stripe. “Take that. And that.”
“Brrrzzz,” the second puppet said, and a pink hoof held up a piece of colored glass to block the confetti. “My magical shield is super strong.”
“Pew. Pew. Brrz. Brrz. Pew!”
“How many hooves do you have back there?” Rarity asked after watching the play for a few seconds.
“I’m more wondering how she’s moving the mouths on those puppets with her hooves,” Antimony observed.
“Guys,” Dash leaned further down to whisper. “What did I say? Best not to think about it.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes, true.”
Applejack took that opportunity to just look behind the stage. “So that’s how she’s doin’ it!”
“We don’t want to know!” Rarity, Antimony, and Rainbow Dash all yelled.
“Sure you do!” Pinkie announced, emerging from the stage with one puppet attached to the curl in her mane and another on the tip of her tail. She laughed and pointed at her friends. “But it’s a trade secret! You’ll never figure it out! Never!”
It took a second for her to realize she’d stood up and inadvertently left herself exposed.
“Awww,” she groaned but pointed again, this time beyond them and back at the nebula on the battlefield. “Lookie lookie! It’s changing color again!”
“So it is,” Rarity said, facing the strange towering cloud. It had gone from multi-colored to red to green. Now it was changing again.
“How many colors does that thing have?” Dash asked, propping her head up as she reclined on her cloud. “Not that it’s even half as colorful as me! I’m just, you know, wondering why it’s doing that at all.”
- - -
Red had been Sorcery, the Art of base magic.
Green had been Alchemy, the Art of transmutation.
Rather than a color, the cloud had next turned black and white, sapping the color from everything and replacing it with degrees of intensity. This had corresponded with Thaumaturgy, the Art of ‘wonder working.’ That had been a tough one, as anything but basic thaumaturgy required the construction of magical devices. In the end it had been reduced to trading enchantment spells.
“Haste!”
“Slow!”
“Grow!”
“Shrink!”
“Fear!”
“Will!”
“Will-breaker!”
“Counter-fear!”
“Want it! Need it!”
“Had it! Returned it!”
“M-moustache!”
“Clean shave!” Star Light even countered the most mundane spells, and no sooner did it form than the bristly moustache popped right off her upper lip. Twilight hadn’t even been able to use her special full-power mustache spell in time; the spells were being thrown around so quickly and furiously. “Daze!”
“Clarity!” Twilight quickly countered the spell before her vision became too blurry.
Back and forth, the unicorn mares had dueled with enchantments, reduced to clashing horn-to-horn to transmit them all. Neither had Antimony’s cheat of using her eyes to project enchantment spells. Since they were already face to face, cracking their horns together painfully with every cast, Twilight Sparkle took the opportunity to assess just how much of her was left after an entire morning of battle with Duchess Star Light.
Her face hurt from the constant head-butting, and her horn was burning and sore. She knew her mane was a sweaty mess with at least one bloody spot from where Star Light’s horn had physically cut her scalp. Her entire body was starting to feel like putty. This sort of physical mash-up was far from her preferred activity. Her magic was in an even worse state, if that could be imagined. Where once every spellcast had come easily, Twilight could feel herself reaching into her deepest magical reserves for enough just to keep fighting… spellcasts came more and more slowly, taxing her body as she put every bit of energy she had into her horn.
Then the cloud turned Blue.
Wizardry.
“I’ve been waiting for this color!” Twinkling Star Light exclaimed, happy and completely free of any magical fatigue. She had some scratches and cuts from the earlier enchantment joust, but whatever physical damage she had sustained, her magical reserves seemed completely and truly bottomless. She was able to throw around one four and three-alliteration spell after another. It was insane.
“How about some Mirror Images?” the Duchess asked, but instead of cloning herself, Twilight felt her own body glow. To her shock, two and then four Twilight Sparkles appeared all around her.
All four spun on her, their horns charging.
Falling to her knees, Twilight opened a portal and batted her hoof towards it, knocking out one of the few things she had the magical energy left to summon. It was, in some ways, her trump card. It was…
“A book?” Star Light asked, surprised. “What are you going to do with a book?”
Twilight glared up at her mirror images and the one controlling them. “This is the most amazing book ever. I won’t let any of you read it.”
One of the mirror Twilights blinked. “The most amazing--”
“--book ever?” Another one finished. Whatever magic the two had been planning to unleash faded away.
“No way. Really?” The third asked, trotting closer. “Let me see.”
“No! Me first!” The fourth cried, lunging for the book.
“Hey!”
“Out of the way!”
“Hooves off it!”
“The book is MINE!”
“I saw it first!”
“No, you didn’t! No, you didn’t!”
Twinkling Star Light’s left eyebrow twitched as she watched the four mirror Twilights fighting over the book like a quartet of dogs scrapping over a bone. It had already degenerated into hissy fits, a slap fight, and one of them was a biter. What the heck was in that book that was so great, anyway? Maybe…
“Oh! You almost did it to me, too!” the Duchess suddenly yelled, smacking her face with a hoof. “Damn you curiosity!”
Twilight chuckled and tried to stand, but her wobbly legs betrayed her.
“I’d really hoped we could get into a summoning contest,” Star Light said, not missing her opponent’s state of exhaustion. “But I should probably be happy we got to do this much. I have to say, Twilight Sparkle, I am really and truly impressed. That a mare of your age can do this much…? Remarkable! I am very, very impressed!”
“Between you, my son, myself, and my little hubby, we are all four of us more than simply one-in-a-hundred-thousand level unicorns,” she continued, and with a spark from her horn, she dissolved the four squabbling mirror Twilights. “Do you know how the state ranks unicorns, Twilight Sparkle? Do you know what it takes for a unicorn to reach the highest possible level of magical rank?”
Twilight did. How could she not?
“Demonstrated proficiency in every form of magic before a committee of five senior mages,” she recited from memory, pausing only to take a few steadying breaths. “In addition to that, four-alliteration mastery of no less than five spells in one specialized school of magic. One of the normal seven, not the old system of five you’re using…”
Star Light clopped one hoof against the ground. “Yes. Exactly the textbook definition. It is also only half of the truth!”
This prompted a look of bewilderment. Twilight stared hard at the older mare to see if she was being truthful. “Only… half of the truth?”
Star Light nodded, walking closer but giving off very little in the way of threatening body language. “You must know that the very best unicorns of the past, just a few hundred years ago, were able to cast five-alliteration spells. Now, none can. The other side of the truth is that ponies have been getting weaker for a thousand years, and, as a result, the magical bar had to be adjusted. A modern Alpha-level unicorn of the highest rank would be a mere apprentice Beta in the old days. This means that there is a whole other level to unicorn ranking that has been retired.”
Twilight thought back to her magical tutors, all unicorns except the Princess. She knew and admired ponies who had earned the highest possible rank and become Archmages of Equestria. It was among the greatest of honors a unicorn could receive. Twilight Velvet, her own mother, was an Archmage, though of the third rank.
“Above Archmage?” Twilight wondered.
“There isn’t a name for a pony beyond Archmage First-circle anymore, not since they reordered the ranks,” Star Light explained, and she finally sat down on her haunches right in front of her younger opponent. “But the criteria still exist. To really reach the lowest rank of classical Alpha-level, a unicorn has to demonstrate ten four-alliteration spells; mastery of five of these spells in one concentration or school… and, finally, knowledge of no less than one thousand spells overall. For the time being, I’ll call this newly revived unicorn rank ‘Maître’ – Prench for ‘Master’ or Teacher.”
Twinkling Star Light gently pressed a hoof to the exhausted Twilight Sparkle’s forehead.
“Out of a population of eight million, three hundred and twenty-eight thousand unicorns registered in the last Equestrian Census, I… am the only one who can claim to be a Maître. You didn’t think I’d just roll over for you because you’re the Element of Magic, did you? Really, this fight was decided the moment I summoned this nebula. I’ll show you why.”
The Duchess leaned closer and reached her hoof behind Twilight’s head to tap a spot on the back of her neck. Her hoof then withdrew, and, as it passed by Twilight’s face, she saw a gossamer thread outlined against her opponent’s hoof. Star Light then tilted the flat of her hoof, let the string fall away, and it vanished.
“I thought you were drawing extra magic from the nebula,” Twilight realized, recalling the pinprick she felt back when the duel started. She had been so distracted by the showy four-alliteration spells being cast, and by then being named, that she had dismissed the notion that there would be anything more.
“It wasn’t the nebula at all!” She trotted back, away from the older mare. “It was my magic! You pricked me with something back there! All this time you were using my magic to cast your spells! That’s why you aren’t tired!”
“I used my magic, too,” Star Light told her, sounding a little offended. “To be absolutely clear, I simply converted your magic into my magic as needed. But you have more magic than my body can safely handle, almost as much as Princess Celestia herself, so I wanted to take my time wearing you down. Hence the rest of the duel. I also needed some time to fully analyze your magic. Didn’t I warn you? I use this summoned nebula for my experiments. It allows me to isolate magical spectra and study them without interference.”
She lifted a hoof to her horn.
“With you weakened as you are, I can now reverse the flow… and inject my magic into your body.”
Twilight grunted, feeling a tingle spread from the back of her neck across her body. Light blue bands formed around her ankles, separating into twos as the central band melted away to reveal a repeating string of tiny characters. She could feel an identical tingle around the base of her horn and then around her eyes, flush with her cheeks. Glancing backwards, she could even see one last arcane circle form around her cutie mark.
She frowned at the sight, but couldn’t help but also be impressed.
“You got me,” she admitted and closed her eyes, seemingly accepting the inevitable. “Should I say ‘I give up?’”
“No need.” Star Light raised her head high, and the nebula around them began to melt away into nothingness. “The duel isn’t over yet, after all.”
- - -
“Let’s go!”
“Finally! Maybe now we can see what’s going on down there!”
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie yelped simultaneously as a magical force snagged them by their tails, yanking them backward as they scurried closer to the dueling battlefield. The massive Horsehead Nebula had dispersed suddenly and energetically only seconds earlier, sending out a shockwave of air that completely cleared the sky of clouds – and unwary pegasus onlookers along with said clouds. Ponies on the ground had been fortunate to merely be bowled over onto their backs. Rarity’s mane still hadn’t recovered, leaving it partly swept back. Antimony yanking on it to keep her from running down to the dueling grounds would have put the finishing fatalities on her lovely (and fake) curls.
“Do not be so hasty to throw yourselves into harm’s way,” Antimony admonished the Elements of Happiness and Loyalty. “My father is still down there. It would be wise to continue to observe from afar.”
“But if that magical cloud has dispersed, wouldn’t the fighting surely be at an end?” Rarity asked, but heeded the noblemare’s advice.
“It ain’t,” Applejack answered to the surprise of the two unicorns. Antimony and Rarity both turned to regard her, and the apple farmer shook her head. “Ah don’t know for sure, but… I can feel something. Up ahead. Mah hooves are tinglin.’”
“Now that you mention it, there’s something weird with the air, too!” Still on her backside, Rainbow Dash scratched behind her right ear. “Like somepony out there is building up air pressure. It feels heavy.”
Antimony glared downrange to where the last of the nebula was dispersing to reveal a vast but shallow depression, circular in design and at least two hundred pony-lengths across.
“A crop circle!” Pinkie declared with a gasp. “The bane of all rock farmers!”
“I can see them!” Rarity had her opera glasses up to her eyes. “There’s Twilight! And Duchess Star Light! Your brother is there as well, Antimony, and your father. They all seem to be standing. Nopony is hurt.”
Looking through her own opera glasses, the Prench Baroness confirmed the news. “Did Twilight find a way to disperse the nebula? Or…” She narrowed her eyes, a hint of anger entering her voice as she whispered, “It should not have come to this in the first place. Damn it all. Brother… Brass… you’re still there, but even for you, this can’t possibly be going according to plan.”
- - -
Alpha Brass and Cruciger both turned to watch as a pair of mares emerged from within the de-summoning Horsehead Nebula. Wispy trails of crimson red, viridian green, and cerulean blue lingered in the air even after the otherworldly space returned to the void from which it came. It was very clear to see where the boundary of the cloud had ended as well, as it formed a small plateau over the shallow crater that spread out from the two stallions. The ground on that raised section was battered and broken, warped by elemental transmutation spells, ripped apart by telekinesis, and sundered by raw arcane energies.
Cruciger blinked his one eye at what emerged from the conflagration.
“So it is over, then,” he stated.
“Sorry it took so long,” Star Light answered him as she jumped down from the raised plateau that was her battlefield into the depression that was his. Twilight Sparkle followed behind her, her legs, neck, eyes, horn and cutie marks all bound by circular sigils, magically etched into or over her coat.
“Hrm,” her husband grumbled. The two parents turned to their son, the only remaining opposition left on the field.
“Things do look bad, don’t they?” Alpha Brass stated, though he hardly sounded distressed. He craned his neck as if in thought. “It seems I’m in trouble.”
“You’ve done little but endure my star field,” Cruciger stated with a disdainful sniff. “Were you waiting to see how your intended would fare?”
Twilight started towards Brass, her hooves moving of their own accord, animated by Star Light’s magic. Her eyes were open, but there was little to indicate that Twilight Sparkle was anything more than a puppet. At least, it was outwardly ambiguous up until her lips formed into a grimace as she struggled against her own body.
“Don’t be so harsh, honey bear. This filly was actually quite remarkable,” Star Light said, slowly trotting behind her puppet. The two mares were approaching Brass from one side, and Cruciger stood to pace around to the other, trapping him between the two older arch-unicorns.
“Father is upset I haven’t used my secret,” Brass explained, his turquoise eyes drifting from one parent to the next. “Like he said, I was waiting. My reasoning was quite simple: if Twilight beat you, then we would be in the best position to double-team father. If Twilight lost, then it would be a simple matter to forfeit and save myself unnecessary bloodshed. I know I cannot beat the two of you by myself. I’m quite sure I cannot beat just father by myself.”
Cruciger grumbled unhappily at his son’s reasoning.
“Don’t be angry at the boy,” Star Light insisted, stopping a short distance from her son. Cruciger did likewise.
“Let us end this farce,” the Duke growled. His horn did not glow. It burned. Literally, the dark purple magic around it flickered and licked like fire from a torch. “Boy. I give you one last chance to renounce your claims. You may still wed this Canterlot mare, but I and I alone will decide who heads the family! I offer this mercy only once to you.”
Star Light was silent as her eyes darted from father to son.
Alpha Brass remained defiantly silent.
Cruciger sneered. “Very well. If you so wish to be disciplined, then you shall be. You will have ample time to think on your decisions as you heal…”
“Wait,” Twinkling Star Light whispered. “Wait!” she yelled, eyes wide. “WAIT!” Slowly turning around in a circle, then around again, she began to back away from her son. “Something is wrong! I know my son. He said he would forfeit if I defeated his little filly, but he hasn’t-- That means she isn’t--”
Twinkling Star Light spun just in time to see a lavender form slam into her.
“W-wha--” The air knocked out of the Duchess’ lungs as Twilight Sparkle tackled her, legs wrapping around her torso. Eyes wide with shock and incomprehension, she barely offered any resistance as Twilight wrestled her to the ground. Purple hooves pinned her cream white ones to the ground and still she stared up in mute bewilderment. Twilight quickly clamped her right front hoof onto the older mare’s horn to prevent any spellcasting, taking advantage of her stunned state.
“Star!” Cruciger yelled, bearing his teeth in dismay. “What happened?”
“Y-you were under my control!” she finally found the words to object and directed them up at the Element of Magic. “I know you were! I had control over your body! My magic… I know I got the injection right! I couldn’t have made a mistake!”
“You didn’t…” Twilight told her and grunted as she countered a half-formed spell with a squeeze of her hoof on the other unicorn’s slender horn. “Don’t! I know how fast you can cast!”
“Faster than your muscles can twitch!” Star Light snapped back. “You can’t stop every spellcast!”
“I don’t have to,” Twilight countered, grinning happily at finally getting a leg up on the genius unicorn, despite her age and experience. “I only need to cycle magic into your horn every fifty milliseconds. That isn’t so hard. Hertz Hooves should do it. Fifty milliseconds makes the frequency twenty Hertz, right?”
The Duchess beneath her tried to free her hooves, but Twilight had an advantage there. She wasn’t particularly big, nor was she honestly in the best shape of any unicorn in the world, but she had always been deceptively strong. Twinkling Star Light, for all her magical power, had decidedly average physical strength and clearly little experience in anything more than horn-to-horn fencing. She wouldn’t be forcing her way up.
Twilight saw something golden appear in the corner of her vision, but she didn’t worry.
“I have your back,” Alpha Brass said, protecting her from what had to be Duke Cruciger’s steadily mounting rage at the sight of his wife on the ground.
“How?” Star Light demanded to know. “My calculations are never wrong. The magical injection--”
“It was perfect,” Twilight interrupted, focusing all her attention back on her prone opponent. “Your magic was… amazing. But you told me exactly how to beat you. Don’t you remember?”
Twinkling Star Light stalked around the younger mare. “Two-ten, twenty, one-thirty-five.”
Twilight furrowed her brow. “What?”
“If you can figure out what those numbers mean about me, then you’ll have your answers. In fact, if you don’t figure it out, you’ll definitely lose this duel.”
Duchess Star Light furrowed her brow as she remembered the exchange. “Back then…? But you never figured it out!”
“I never said I didn’t,” Twilight Sparkle corrected her. “Two-ten, twenty, one-thirty-five. Red, Green, Blue, together with an un-stated intensity and transparency. That’s the color code for my star field frequency. Sorcery: two-ten. Alchemy: twenty. Wizardry: one-thirty-five. I figured it out when we were fighting in the nebula. The color of my magic changed based on what was being blocked, and so did the intensity and transparency. That’s when I realized you had already determined the nature and composition of my magic and reduced it to a set of numbers. I don’t know how you do it… but that was my guess, and I bet I was right.”
Star Light was still glaring up at her, but her expression slowly softened. “Still,” she argued, “how…?”
“As long as we were in the Nebula, you were basically unbeatable,” Twilight explained. “You could alter the environment to cancel any form of magic of any possible intensity. If I started to overpower you with one type of magic, you’d just nullify it by changing the color of the nebula. I couldn’t think of any conceivable way to beat you… except to lose.”
“Or pretend to lose?” The Duchess Scientist realized. “You hid your magic somehow?”
Twilight winked. “Mostly, I just let you think I was more tired than I actually was. You were so used to me speculating aloud about the magic we were using and trying to confirm my thoughts with you that you never imagined I would just keep quiet about something. Every time I opened my mouth, it was to reinforce that impression and hide the fact that I was working on something in secret! Your control spell, by your own admission, only works if I’m weakened beyond a certain point. It was the perfect chance to pretend to lose, so I took it.”
“…”
“Star Light!” Cruciger called out, though he was still obscured by Alpha Brass standing between him and the two mares. “I’m going to use ‘that’ spell. Get ready to move.”
Twinkling Star Light stole a quick peek in the direction of her husband, but didn’t respond to his call. Beneath Twilight Sparkle’s hooves, she relaxed and went limp. Violet eyes fluttered as she considered her situation. Despite the looming danger, Twilight continued to stare down at her, one hoof on her horn, the others holding her in place.
“Wait,” she said and repeated it more loudly, “Wait!”
“Star Light?” Cruciger roared, recognizing something in her voice. “You can’t mean to--”
“I give up,” she announced. “Sorry, honey bear! I’ve been outmaneuvered.”
Twilight obligingly removed herself from on top of the older mare. She never really considered that Star Light could have just said that to get her to move. Rationally, it would normally have been a concern. Rationally, a pony in her position would have been leery of taking her opponent’s word at face value, especially when just seconds before, she had basically explained how she won their fight with a trick and a bluff. This never occurred to Twilight Sparkle.
It just wasn’t the Terre Rare way.
Of course, the other Terre Rare way was--
Twinkling Star Light, free to use magic again, vanished in a flash of light. She left behind her son, her potential daughter-in-law, and her enraged husband. Duke Cruciger neither moved nor spoke as his wife departed the battlefield. He made no outward sign of his displeasure, but one look – even from afar – at his wide, black eye, and there was no mistake. The scarred Black Duke glowered, and it was a cold, quiet rage that chilled pony’s blood.
Twilight Sparkle let out an exhausted sigh, and felt a leg stretch across her chest, helping to prop her up. She turned to face the stallion supporting her. “Thanks,” she whispered, “but I’m okay.”
Alpha Brass offered a sympathetic smile. “I knew you would pull through. I never doubted it.”
“I know,” Twilight replied, returning the smile and feeling her heart flutter in her chest. Just like that, the energy seemed to return to her. She had been exaggerating when she had told Star Light that she had pretended to be exhausted and that she had hidden her strength. Really, the truth was… she had never been so tired. Not since her first year of lessons under Princess Celestia. But something about this pony’s smile, his touch, his kind, confident eyes… it filled her with new magic.
“We’re almost done,” she said, and lowered his hoof so she could stand by him, side by side. “What we do next, we do together.”
“Together,” he agreed.
“Arrogance!” Cruciger suddenly bellowed, magic exploding from his horn like a volcano. “I will humble you myself!!”
- - -
“Oh! I think somepony just disappeared! I wonder where--”
Pinkie Pie yelped as white hindquarters appeared overhead, using the poor pink pony as a landing pad. She managed to get out a weak “why me?” before crumpling under the unicorn’s weight with a squeak. The perpetrator of the rump-related-rampage glanced under her backside with a curious ‘hmmm?’
“The entertainer?” Duchess Twinkling Star Light wondered. “Are you all right? For some reason, my magic misidentified the landing zone as ‘cotton candy.’”
“You wanted to land in a tub of cotton candy?” Antimony leveled a disbelieving look at her mother.
“Who wouldn’t?” Star Light pressed a hoof to the squashed Pinkie Pie and point-to-point teleported her just a meter away. “Terribly sorry, dear. I don’t usually make that sort of mistake.”
Pinkie had her hooves buried in her mane, making sure everything was in place. “At least you only landed on my head! So no harm done!”
“Duchess Star Light,” Rarity said, hoping to steer the conversation a few paces away from the absurd. “If you’re here, does that mean…?”
“I quit,” she answered, summoning up her usual pen and paper. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to record my findings before I forget them! During the duel, I came up with the most wonderful idea for an experiment! So much to do! I’ll only need a few experimental subjects… maybe as few as twenty!”
“If you quit,” Rarity persisted, despite the older mare already furiously attacking her notepad with her pen. “Is the duel over, then?”
“Hmm? What?” Star Light glanced up from her notes for just a second, just long enough to shake her head. Oh, no. No, no, no. Those two need to overcome my hubby-wubby next.”
“Hubby-wubby,” Pinkie repeated with a grin and a giggle.
“Your what?” Rainbow Dash asked with a laugh. “Oh man! Hubby-wubby? That guy?”
“More important,” Applejack reminded them, “this means Twi ain’t outta the woods yet.”
“Come on, AJ!” Dash replied, gesturing towards the battlefield, where only three unicorns remained. “That old guy’s got one eye and three good legs. How much trouble could he be?”
Rarity, a second too late, tried to use her magic to button up the brash pegasus’ mouth.
“Did you have to ask that?” she snapped. “Darling, why not just ask for trouble by name?”
“Hey! I was just sayin’!”
“Say it in your head next time, please.”
“Quit bein’ so paranoid! I’ll say it again! It’s two against one! How much trouble could he be?”
“Look up,” Star Light suggested, prompting both pegasus and unicorn to stop arguing. Together, they turned towards the dueling ponies and then up into the air. It only took a second to pick out something that really should not have been there. Something that really did not belong up near pegasus-cloud level.
Dash squinted and shielded her eyes with a hoof. “What the--?”
“Is that--?” Applejack began to say, tipping her hat so far back it fell right off her head.
“Oh dear,” Rarity whispered. “That’s--”
“A castle!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “OH! Oh! And it’s getting closer!”
“It’s falling!!” All four of them cried in varying states of panic.
- - -
Château de fer à Cheval (as handily outlined in the historical plaque next to the outer portcullis) was originally constructed in the First Century after Equestrian unification. Nestled in the hills and crags of east-central Prance, it was built on a naturally occurring horseshoe-shaped promontory, hence the name and the shape of the central keep. An earlier griffin hill-aerie existed on the site, but this was abandoned by the time ponies settled in the area in large numbers. The foundations were laid by Duke Mordre, later honored with the sobriquet “Snapping Turtle,” after his defense of the bastion in 58 AU and 64 AU. Both times the castle was besieged by the griffin Chieftain Gilda Black-Beak, the second siege lasting three hundred and sixteen days before a relief column from Canterlot saved the defenders. A second wall was added in 118 AU.
The castle ultimately fell into disrepair following the expansion of the borders of the Duchy of Prance. A rogue unicorn mage briefly took residence in the castle, and much of it was subsequently destroyed. In 568 AU, a dragon caused further damage for unknown reasons. For centuries, the castle remains were used by earth ponies for building material, but in 989 AU, a restoration effort was financed by Duke Cruciger, Lord of Prance and Deux Fleuves (Germaney). The outer walls were restored over a period of two years, but the inner bastion took six years to complete. Château de fer à Cheval remains a popular tourist destination, with weddings and other events occurring almost weekly.
It also retains a garrison of forty to fifty guardponies. The famous Terre Rare Crimsonguard!
In fact, a wedding was already underway when a bright magical ripple flowed up from the base of the castle, across the two square walls of the enceinte, one at a forty-five degree angle to the other, and finally up into the central keep. The magical ripple didn’t stop until it reached the tips of the tallest spires, and at last, the castle lightning-rod. Overhead, a magical sigil lit up the sky: a pair of horns, an eight-pointed star, and a single burning eye, all within a glowing purple circle large enough to swallow the entire fortification.
- - -
Château de fer à Cheval answered her master’s summons.
The castle appeared in midair, five hundred pony-lengths above the dueling-ground, and five-hundred pony-lengths it fell. On impact, most of the structure fared less than well. Walls taller than most ponies’ homes split apart from the strain. Tens of thousands of tons of stone and concrete hurled through the air, throwing deadly missiles so far that dozens ended up in the Puddinghead Reservoir. The center of devastation was ringed by a cloud of debris. Only the central keep, taking with it much of the original rocky foundation, survived the fall generally intact.
A growing cloud of dust slowly spread from the colossal impact.
- - -
“You can’t THROW A CASTLE at somepony!” Dash cried, hooves still buried in her mane in shock. “W-what the heck? Did I just actually see that?” She grabbed the nearest pony, who naturally happened to be Pinkie Pie, and began to treat her like a salt shaker. “You saw that, didn’t you? What the heck! What the heck! What the heck!”
“Www-ddd--uu--errr--brm--” Pinkie’s response may have been slurred somewhat by her turning as boneless and limp as a rubber chicken.
Applejack, for her part, was merely speechless, her lips moving but not making any sound.
“Twilight!” Rarity cried, and throwing aside her opera glasses she surged to her hooves.
A hoof seized her by the shoulder and quickly forced her back down onto her backside. “Calm down. She isn’t dead.”
“She isn’t?” Rarity needed to be sure. She grabbed her glasses off the ground and desperately started searching. “Where is she? How do you know? Doing that – How could anypony do that? It can’t be allowed, can it?”
“Which one did he use?” Twinkling Star Light asked, glancing up from her notes. “Looks like fer à Cheval. No loss, then. It was just a magical replica.” She turned back to her furious scribbling.
“There,” Antimony said, directing Rarity’s opera glasses up into the air. She quickly found herself mobbed by the other Elements of Harmony all trying to steal a look and make sure their friend was, in fact, not squished and buried under thousands of tons of masonry.
“I see her!” Rarity told them with a sigh of relief. They quickly started passing the glasses around to see it for themselves, setting off a round of cheers and relief. Antimony watched the display with a neutral expression.
“Rainbow Dash is right,” Rarity murmured, shaking her head in disbelief even as she came down from her terrified emotional high. “This is insane. What I’m seeing… is insane.”
“My father has no equal when it comes to raw magical power,” Antimony told her, raising her own opera glasses to her face to find her brother and her distant cousin. “Two of the most powerful creatures in the world are out there, and one of them seems to be very upset. This duel is far from decided.”
- - -
“Celestia! That was close!”
Twilight clung to Alpha Brass as the two unicorns materialized just a few meters above the falling castle. A teleport had been risky, especially since they had no idea what the upper part of the falling fortification was shaped like. The best option was just to try and overshoot by as much as possible and time it right.
Looking down, she could see the castle – thankfully empty, since there weren’t any bodies falling out of the windows or screams from ponies inside – land like a small mountain, flattening anything and everything below. It flattened on impact, spreading the destruction far and wide. Just the thought of what would have happened down there if she… no. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about at all.
“This is no joke,” she heard Alpha Brass whisper. “We need to get out of the air.”
Twilight couldn’t agree more. She hadn’t forgotten what her fiancé had told her about his father’s dueling style and magic. She searched the still settling field of rubble and smashed-castle below. “But there’s no place safe to--”
A faint beam of light tracked, streaking, across the battlefield to envelop the pair of unicorns.
They immediately began to fall, but not at the normal speed.
“Barrier!” Brass yelled, horn glowing.
Twilight had much the same idea. “We have to cushion our fall!”
Together, magic white-gold and magenta swirled in amid a symphony of light. They formed a barrier, not around but below, stretching out from the flats of their hooves and growing wider and wider. As gravity pulled them down towards the ground, faster and faster, their mutual shield solidified. Twilight and Brass hit the ground, their shield popping beneath them and absorbing the impact, allowing the unicorn couple to land unharmed on the uneven ground.
The pair rolled to a stop side by side.
“Brass! Encapsulate--!”
“On it!”
Twilight craned her neck, brilliant beams flowing out of her horn in a wide arc, each one bubbling into a roiling white-gold sphere. The weakness of Berkelium's Beam was that there was really only one that could be used at a time. Two had been an absolute limit by keeping it dangerously coiled around her body. But by combining the spell with a barrier, the energy from each one could be conserved and used independently.
“No more time!” Brass yelled, and a dark shape loomed above them, one hoof outstretched as if to trample them both into the rubble.
“First beam!” Twilight reared up and hit the first barrier-beam-bubble with her hoof.
It burst on contact, unleashing a ragged, short-range inferno of magenta magic. Fallen stone from the collapsed walls of the castle kicked up as the blast of energy fountained forward, destroying everything in its path. From a distance, it was as if a dragon had belched forth a serrated steam of reddish-purple fire, and Duke Cruciger vanished into it.
“Second beam! Third! Fourth! Fifth! Sixth! Seventh! Eighth!” Twilight kept hitting the arc of suspended bubbles. “Ninth!” She barely tagged the last one before falling backwards, out of breath. “…Brass!”
“Right!” He didn’t even need to hear to guess what she wanted. Catching her with his hooves, he landed on his back legs, angling one to brace them against a block of smashed masonry. His cheek brushed hers as he leaned forward slightly, horn glowing white-gold.
“Mass Transmutation!” he growled, warning his partner of what he intended to do. “Dragon’s Breath! Air to Fire!”
Much as he had in their magical duel, back in the Everfree, Brass inhaled deeply and exhaled a column of flame. Rather than the uncontrolled gout from before, directed harmlessly upwards, this time a spark of magic in the form of a ring concentrated and narrowed the blast of magical flame until it was as thin and deadly as a laser. The magical beam plunged right into the magenta blaze, sending out a wave of fiery spiderwebs.
Her back pressed against his chest, the pupils of Twilight’s eyes vanished beneath a white-hot glow.
“Mass Transmutation!” the Element of Magic echoed her would-be partner. “Dragon’s Breath! Air to Fire!”
Twilight formed a magical ring of her own just inches from her lips, exhaled, and her resulting Dragon’s Breath also narrowed, mixing freely with Brass’s. Winding together, coiling tightly until they became one, the dual beams of fire morphed from orange to bright white-blue. A blast of superheated air screamed with a thunderous boom and whine and the magenta inferno from before ignited, exploding with enough force to rip blocks of broken masonry out of place.
A circlet of ash twisted into the air around a seething and ever-rising orange mushroom cloud.
- - -
“I can’t see father anymore.” Antimony lowered her opera glasses and covered her eyes with the back of her hoof. “By the Princess, the fires are too intense…”
“W-what kind of spell was that?” Rarity still had her glasses up to her face, and she could see Twilight and her fiancé simultaneously breathing lines of fire that commingled and combined in front of them. “I can feel the heat, even from this far away! What did they do?”
“Free magic can ignite at a certain temperature; exceeding one thousand five-hundred degrees kelvin will usually do it. Under certain conditions, the result is similar to a thermobaric reaction… a huge explosion, in other words.”
Duchess Star Light sat upright between the two unicorn mares, pressed a hoof to her right eye, and when she pulled it away, there was a strange mechanical eyepiece attached to the side of her face. It was the same one Rarity remembered from when she had first met the eccentric noblemare.
“Interesting!” she stated, lenses clicking and shifting into place at high speed. “Neither of them can transmute fire that hot individually, so instead they’re using a sympathetic magical combination.”
“Sympathetic what?” Pinkie asked, abruptly popping in front of the Duchess. One of the party pony’s blue eyes actually expanded slightly to stare back into her magical monocle from the wrong end.
“That’s when two ponies use the same sorta magic, sugarcube,” Applejack answered, and very slowly, everypony present turned to stare at her in disbelief.
“Hey! I ain’t totally ignorant when it comes’ta magic! Ya know!” She waved her hooves at the five other mares. “Don’t look at me like yer all so doggone surprised!”
“But we are,” Dash bluntly assured her.
“Shut it!” Applejack snapped and crossed her forelegs in a pout. “Listen, Pinkie. You ever seen both me and Big Mac buckin’ at the same apple tree? Or, yer sisters… or yer parents… ya must’ve seen ‘em both combining their magic ta do this or that.”
Pinkie rolled her eyes in apparent thought. “Hmmm. Hmmm!”
In her mind, a little, pink filly happily skipped around a bleak farm while her two gray sisters kicked at a rock. Then those two fillies were replaced by an older mare and stallion, who kicked the rock and broke it open, revealing a geode. Also, the little pink filly somehow erupted out of the broken rock with streamers and fireworks.
“That part of my life is really sort of a blur,” Pinkie admitted, shrugging. “Sorry!”
Rarity and Rainbow Dash both slowly introduced their faces to their hooves.
“Point is, sugarcube, that when two ponies are real close, like siblings or family, they can combine their magic,” Applejack tried to explain again. “Big Mac and I can do together what neither of us could do apart. Ah’d bet that Mister and Mrs Cake can make better treats together than they can apart, too. That’s the power that comes from workin’ together as a team!”
Pinkie nodded her head eagerly. “OHHH! I get it now!” Her lower lip stuck out as she tapped her chin with a hoof. “But that means…”
“For Twilight and this Brass fellow to be working so well together combining their magic…” Rarity speculated.
“They must be pretty close!” Rainbow Dash concluded with a mischievous grin. “I didn’t know she had it in her! Go Twilight!”
“I don’t think ya’ll really get it,” Applejack interrupted, sounding much more sober than her friends. She squinted her eyes against the heat blasting away from the battlefield. “What they’re doin… it shouldn’t be possible. Not fer two ponies who only met maybe two months ago. That kinda magic takes years.”
“Miss Applejack is correct. The most powerful pairs of ponies have historically been either: twins, siblings, or long-term romantic partners,” Antimony further explained, gradually turning to face her mother. “Is that not correct, moth--?” She bit back her question and scowled. “You aren’t paying attention, are you, mother?”
“Hm. What? What?” Star Light had to tear her eyes away from a graph being generated in real time by some sort of magical actinography. “Oh yes. Very true! Their current output, I would estimate to be three or four times greater than they could achieve individually. A sympathetic magical resonance of this magnitude is… not normally possible under these sorts of conditions. Very true! Which means that the conditions are not what you believe them to be!”
“And what’s that mean?” Applejack asked.
Twinkling Star Light’s tinted eyepiece caught a glint of light from the firestorm below. “Don’t expect me to give you all the answers. Find some things out for yourself. After all, you should understand this sort of thing better than anyone, Element of Harmony. How long have you six been friends again?”
“More importantly,” Rarity interrupted, steering the conversation back to a more diplomatic topic before Applejack could growl about the Duchess’s evasiveness. “Does this mean the fight is over? I can’t imagine anypony surviving in that… Tartarus-storm.”
Nibbling her lower lip, the Duchess flipped another lens on her eyepiece. “Hmm. Yes. A pertinent question! To shield against that level of power… I’d say fifty.” She nodded, flicking the amber lens back out of the way. “Yes. Fifty. Fifty shield-specialists would be able to contain that fire.”
“Uh, you’ll excuse me fer askin’ then, but, um,” Applejack tried to move the self-printing ream of paper out of her face. “If that’s the case, shouldn’t you be a bit more worried about yer husband out there, then? Or yer son?”
Duchess Star Light did, to her credit, keep her eyes on the dueling ground and the rising column of fire and ash where her husband had once been. But just as quickly, she turned back to her notes and the graph.
“There is another way to survive that firestorm. A few, actually, but aside from shield spells, a pony can simply counter it by expending an equal amount of energy.”
A pillar of light split the mushroom cloud.
“My husband isn’t out of this yet.”
- - -
Twilight felt the tingle run across her skin and coat a moment before it hit.
“The – the crushing field…!” She recognized it from what Brass had explained before. She slipped out of his hooves and fell to the ground with a pained cry, her ribs protesting the ill treatment. Realizing the position she was in, she bodily forced herself to roll until she was flat, stomach to the ground.
She had to keep the angle of the g-forces perpendicular to her spine. If it was top-down, that meant orienting herself to be belly-down or belly-up. It was only a stop-gap solution, and she knew it, but she doubted she’d be able to forgive herself if she lost consciousness now, not after everything she had been through. Not with ponies counting on her! Closing her eyes against the pressure, she saw a face, and felt a hoof brush past her own.
‘Give me the strength to keep fighting! I can’t stop now! I can’t!’
She knew what she needed to do. Cruciger’s magic had to be nullified. Twilight’s horn glowed, sputtered, and flared out. It was just like Brass had warned her. It wasn’t just sustained g-forces on the body; the spell was designed in a way to also dampen and interfere with magic!
“That was a suitably intense flame.”
She looked up and saw silhouette of a pony approaching, walking with a slight limp in one crippled leg. Some sort of magic was coruscating away from him, chaffing off like flakes of skin. With every step he took, Cruciger’s hooves cracked the ground beneath him. One stone block burst instantly into dust and debris.
He was also bathed in a soft glow from overhead.
‘He caught us with the gravity beam again!’ Twilight’s eyes searched the area, trying to find where the light tapered off, but it seemed to engulf everything. She couldn’t see an end to it!
“No more spellcasting for either of you,” Cruciger boomed. “I will simply crush you into submission. Both of you. I will etch this lesson in obedience into your bodies; to carry it with you until the day you die.”
“Lighten,” Twilight heard Brass speak, and felt a hoof touch her side.
The enchantment took effect, and she greedily sucked in a breath of air. It was as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders, and she found the strength to stand, albeit with some initial difficulty. Her legs wobbled, still feeling the strain from before compounded by all the exertions of the two duels. The lighten spell, she estimated, probably cut her weight by three fourths. It didn’t solve the problem of the magic disruption field; it only made it easier to move.
“Are you alright, Twilight?” Brass asked, also standing close by.
She nodded. “Just like you said… it was just so fast I couldn’t prepare the counter-spell…”
“We can’t win unless you counter this spell,” Brass reminded her and smirked. “No pressure, of course.”
“Yeah, no pressure… oh! That was a joke!” Twilight very nearly collapsed as she reached up to bonk herself on the side of the head with a hoof. “Pressure. I get it. Ouch. Bad joke.” She glared at Cruciger. The Black Duke was watching them with one narrow eye.
“The closer we get to him, the stronger the field, right?” Twilight asked.
“So I believe,” Alpha Brass replied. “Have you factored for the gradient?”
“I need… time… to do the math.” She gritted her teeth and slowly tried to back away. “Plus, not only is this spell much more powerful than I’d thought, I’m a lot weaker than I expected I would be, thanks to my duel with Lady Star Light. I’ll have to incant the spell. Can you…?”
“Cover you?” he asked and chuckled, power flowing away from his horn like a pair of wings. “I have backed you this far, Twilight. I have tailored my future to include you. You will rebuild this country. No. You needn’t ask me to protect you.”
‘Rebuild this country?’ she wanted to ask, but he was already focused on the threat at hoof. Besides which, she had problems of her own. There was no time for distractions.
“Good luck!” Twilight told him, taking a couple more steps back before marking the ground with her hoof. Point One: in front, Point Two: the rear, Point Three: the left, Point Four, the right. She then spun around, drawing a circle connecting all the points.
“Disobedience,” Cruciger roared, stamping his good front hoof into the ground. “Behold!”
Magic flowed from his horn into the ground to his right side, uprooting fallen masonry that bulged like a fat pimple before popping. From that bulge emerged a metal barrel, twice the length of a pony. Magical wheels materialized, along with a casing and carriage. It was a cannon… an artillery cannon… and it was bearing directly down on her. A stone ball ripped free from the ground and plunged itself into the breach.
‘Was that why he summoned this castle?’ Twilight couldn’t help but wonder. ‘As ammunition?’
“Your infamous cannonade crossfire spell,” Alpha Brass stated, and Twilight forced her eyes closed. She had to believe that he could protect her while she initiated the counter-spell.
She had to trust him.
“Surprised? Two can play that game, father.”
Opening her eyes again, curious, she saw what had to be an identical bulge rise out of the ground. It was just like Cruciger’s spell! It was even the same color, which initially led her to wonder if it was an illusion. Or was it truly a copy? Or was it a bluff?
Cruciger sneered, not impressed or intimidated by the display.
“Fire.” “Fire!”
The ground shuddered and the air thundered as the two cannons belched flame and death. There was a sizzling thud and a distant boom, and she squeezed her eyes tight. The ground cracked violently, and she could imagine more of the magical cannons emerging and forming rows, each side bombarding the other with one murderous fusillade after another.
Reinmare’s Reversal.
She had to focus on Reinmare’s Reversal, or rather, the Rebuke variant. The other one would send everypony flying into the upper atmosphere at several times free fall speed. It would be an option if it could be used on just Cruciger, but the spell was either personal or area-of-effect, as far as anypony had been able to devise.
Twilight shook her head, dispelled the last of her distractions, and began the incantation.
“Illuminated by victory; crowned three times; in light, ancient, black, blinding. Venerated! Reinmare!”
The ground beneath her hooves trembled and very nearly knocked her off her balance. The smell of ozone stung her nose, and she could taste the flavor of spent magic in the air. The first verse had been spoken. Already, the words and the magic mingled, the first circle of magic taking form around her horn. It felt thick and heavy and all too solid, like a ring or a crown.
The magic repeated in her mind, gathering power.
This was no small thing. When used as an incantation, a spell would always draw the power it needed from a pony, plus whatever was needed to enhance and reinforce itself. It was the “true” version of any given spell. The one formally recorded in the scrolls and arcana. But using it had a hidden danger: if a spell was left incomplete, it could feedback violently into the pony who failed to cast it.
Potentially worse, the heedless nature by which it gathered magic from the caster could kill a unicorn if she underestimated how much magic she had left. It would literally drain the last dreg of magic from a pony, and if none was left to fill the energy vacuum, it would turn on the rest of the energy in the body… leaving behind a statue. It was the root and the inspiration for all petrification magic, repeating this terrible effect.
“Clenched Teeth. Burning Sky. Forgotten Valley. The Celestial Maw opens wide! Reverent!”
Another crown of light encircled Twilight’s horn, weighing down on her.
Lost in the trance, Twilight ceased to hear the outside world… the Equestria beyond her circle in the ground. Her eyes opened, burning white and pupil-less, her vision was a sightless blur. Her ears did hear distant roars. A bell. Thunder.
She ignored it.
“Two sisters; wailing bonds that bind eternal. Grasp the reigns of all creation. Reciprocal!”
Wind and pebbles pelted her face.
She ignored them.
“Confluence of Two Rivers. Implacable Gate. Secret Key. Secret Words. Secret Vision…”
The fourth crown snapped into place, even as she said the final word, unleashing the spell.
“REBUKE!"
Twilight Sparkle’s entire body glowed, her magic rushing out like a magenta tidal wave, leaving a trail of glittering, nullified magic in its wake. Her vision clearing, her hearing returning, she could see a battered Alpha Brass only a couple meters away. His horn was still fiercely aglow, trailing two wings of white-gold magic. As her spell passed over him, he stood more easily, glancing back at her for just a second.
“Hrrmm?”
A deep voice rumbled, as Duke Cruciger lurched in shock at the sudden change of pressure around him. Twilight could see an entire battery of cannons surrounding him, along with an assortment of huge stone blocks that he must have been using as shields. All were held in his mighty telekinetic grip, but as the gravity returned to normal around them, they flew upwards and out of control. Craning his neck with a surprised grunt, he only managed to reassert control over one in time.
“That isn’t possible…!” Cruciger’s tone was actually hushed, but still audible in the silence that followed Twilight’s empowered spell. “My magical field? How could anypony cancel it?”
“Sufficient power overcomes,” Twilight said, stumbling forward on hooves and legs that felt about to give out completely. “Isn’t that the family mantra? My power just overcame yours!”
“Big words,” Brass commented, dryly. He was quick, though, to trot to her side. “Are you spent?” he whispered.
She nodded, she sighed tiredly. “I can’t… hide it either… I feel like… I can barely think.”
“You overcame the greatest hurdle before us,” he assured her, and Twilight slumped, utterly exhausted, into his hooves. She felt him lower her down, gently, until she had to look up to see his face. “Celestia willing, I will finish what remains.”
“Will you?” Cruciger’s voice interjected, and the old stallion was in the air above them. Glittering, magical dragon’s wings held him aloft, easily twice the size of the ones Twilight remembered giving to Rarity for the Wonderbolt tryouts. That spell had drained her, too. How had this pony just cast it, after everything, after all this…?
A dark shape moved in the corner of her eye.
From the ground beneath them, shadowy lines thickened and formed into chains, winding around the two unicorns before snapping together. Twilight cried out just as Brass shielded her with his body. The shadow-chains went taut, and two dark hooks descended as well, clamping down on Brass’s shoulders and digging in, thankfully doing so magically and without drawing blood. The shadowy hooks and chains pressed the stallion down onto all fours, firmly planting him in place.
“Oh no! No! No!” Twilight frantically tried to draw on yet more magic to teleport them, but as her magic extended to encompass her partner, the black chains interfered. Eyes wide and frightened, and tried again, to the same result.
Then she felt the bite as two more shadow-hooks emerged from the ground, catching her by her front legs. Another two aimed for her back legs as well, but Brass angled his body, intercepting them. They dug into his hamstrings instead, causing his back legs to buckle forward, limp and immobile.
“What is this?” She tried to dislodge the shadow-hooks that were buried into her front legs, but they were almost like solid constructs. Except she couldn’t manipulate them! They burned, too, like cold ice pressed hard into her skin.
“Sombra’s Superlative Shadowy Shackles,” Brass told her, his head bowed so she could barely see his eyes. “Pin and crush. Like I said, my father’s favorite tactic.”
“What do we do?” Twilight asked, and she could see their opponent in the air.
Hovering.
“Sufficient Power overcomes?” Cruciger roared, holding up his good hoof.
An unmistakable sigil appeared in the sky overhead.
“I won’t allow it.”
- - -
Maerlaverock Tower.
Twenty years before the present.
The resounding slap of a hoof across his face roused the dazed stallion from his unwanted slumber. The young noblepony groaned, swaying in the air freely as he did so. A recounting of the last three days raced through Cruciger’s head as he took in his surroundings. The walls were drab, dungeon-gray. No windows. The only light came from a flickering torch set in an iron brazier.
Through the haze and disorientation, he could make out the faces of ponies present with him in the cell. Foremost among them was an older filly with a brilliant orange and yellow mane and a gray coat. She was old enough to have a cutie mark but clearly not yet a fully grown mare. The mark itself was a necklace and scepter, and where most young mares her age would have worn dresses, this one sported a small armored corset to protect the torso, studded and practical. A golden circlet rested on her brow, proclaiming her high birth.
It was a lie, of course. This filly’s ‘high birth’ was a joke.
She was Sunset Shadow, illegitimate daughter of Brilliant Moon Beam, and thus, his bastard niece in law. Her father had been a stablecolt. Her mother had run, rather than face judgment in Prance. This was no highborn mare. This was a contemptible creature, and Cruciger glared down at her just as she deserved.
“You should watch how you look at ponies, your Lordship.”
Another blow took Cruciger by the side of the face, and a hoof roughly settled over his left eye. The source of the abuse was a pony he knew, that he recognized, but not one he had expected to receive disrespect from. To say nothing of treachery.
“Black List,” he hissed.
“Aye. Your eyes do not deceive you.” The beige unicorn stallion had the same onyx mane Cruciger bore, and he was easily the tallest pony in the room. That was no surprise. The children of Arsenic had always been strong of body and magic.
The two other ponies present were silent, but no less important. Cruciger committed their faces to memory. The first was an earth pony mare in relative finery, blue mane and pale blue coat, her nose turned up at having to be present in what had to be her dungeons. He suspected her to be the Countess of Leaves, whose tower castle he now hung prisoner within. The second was a unicorn mare with a sandy complexion and a stark, white mane and eyes. He did not know this one’s name, but he knew her type and her allegiance. Second to the unexpectedly powerful Moon Beam, she was the one most responsible for his imprisonment.
The time-mage.
“Where is Twinkling Star Light?” he demanded of his captors. “Tell me.”
“That’s your first concern?” Black List asked, leaning close enough that his sneering leer filled up half Cruciger’s vision. “Not: ‘what do I have to do for you to let me go?’ or even ‘what do you want?’ You go right to making demands?”
Hanging from iron chains, shackled by all four hooves, a restraint on his horn, Cruciger still looked down on the assembled ponies. He returned his cousin’s sneer, too.
“You betrayed the family,” he informed Black List, snorting in disgust. “I care little for your reasons why. Again: tell me where I may find my wife. You may tell me now, or you may tell me later, but you will tell me.”
The Countess of Leaves covered her mouth to politely titter. “Cocky fellow.”
“He is a beast from the forests of Germaney,” Sunset Shadow, the youngest of the ponies present by far, nonetheless tried to sound like she was in charge. “No more. We will send him back… in a year or two.” She turned to the Countess. “I trust you can hold him as your guest for that long?”
“As long as your mother honors her end of the bargain,” the earth pony Countess replied.
“We will,” Sunset Shadow promised. “But remember as well that he has seen your face. The Seltene Erden are vengeful ponies by nature… more Griffin than Equine. You are in our camp whether you like it or not at this point.”
The Countess sniffed, annoyed, but nodded. “Yes. Yes.”
“More Griffin than Equine?” Black List asked, directing a less than deferential glare at Sunset Shadow.
The young mare offered a condescending smile. “Present company excluded, of course.”
Black List growled but quickly turned back to Cruciger. “More importantly, my Lord, you should know that I am no traitor to the family. I merely act as our grandmother Arsenic did, setting out on my own to forge a new dynasty!”
He grinned, his hoof burying into Cruciger’s mane to force his head to an odd angle.
“You’ll see!” Black List insisted with a dark laugh. “Under the patronage of Duchess Brilliant Moon Beam, and the fair Sunset Shadow after her, I will be the founder of a new noble family. Not another subservient branch of the Seltene Erden! A new and independent noble house! Answerable only to me, of course…”
“Under the patronage of the Quartz Clan, you mean,” Cruciger rumbled, putting up with the ill treatment but letting his hate slip into his tone of voice.
The sandy mare in the back of the cell chuckled.
“No! My mother will rule Prance!” Sunset Shadow screamed, stamping her hooves. “Prance for the Prench! A true bloodline!”
“A true bloodline,” Cruciger snarled, “beginning with the bastard daughter of a stallion who throws out shit-stained hay.”
Sunset roared, and, her magic flaring up, the young mare seized a poker from the far wall. The tip was dull, but still did a passable job cutting a line up his chest before coming to a stop at the nape of his throat. The angry filly’s face contorted with rage as she jabbed the point home, threatening to break the skin.
“My mother and I will reclaim our lands!” she screeched, eyes wide. “And never call me a bastard again! Never! Do you hear me? I will have out your throat! I will pull out your tongue! I will be Duchess! My mother will be Duchess!”
“And your Aunt?” he asked.
“Star Light?” she spat, as if the words themselves tasted of bile. “I’m sure she can slink away in a few years, once our power in Prance is unchallenged,” Sunset Shadow growled, rolling her eyes. “Her fate is in my mother’s hooves. Maybe she dies, maybe she stays here in Whinnychester. Just as long as she’s out of our manes.”
“Sunset,” Black List snapped. “You say too much. You should--”
“Die.” Cruciger’s statement drew all their eyes to him. “You should all just die.”
Blood dribbled from his chin, from the tooth he had broken loose and used to cut his cheek. Blood. Arsenic’s blood. A pony’s blood… and a gorgon’s. Three perplexed expressions stared up at him, uncomprehending. Only one – only Black List – seemed to have a sense of something amiss. With a frightened, desperate scream, he made for the cell door.
“Transmute,” Cruciger whispered.
And from his breath came death.
- - -
An hour later, he ran into Twinkling Star Light. She seemed skittish, hurried, but alive.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, very nearly jumping into him as she rounded a corner. Her violet eyes blinked, and a smile lit up her face. “Crucie!” She threw her forelegs around him in a quick hug. “I was just about to rescue you!”
“Hrm,” he grunted, as he usually did.
“They had us in the same castle?”
“The fools.” He sensed something amiss with her, even before she released him from her embrace. “Moon Beam is…?”
Star Light shook her head. There was no tears, but her anxiety was clear in her body language, in how she glanced down and shuddered. “Dead.”
“Hrm.” Really, he simply didn’t know what else to say. ‘Good?’
“I didn’t have a choice,” she explained, and, with a twinkle of magic, produced a rather unusual-looking amulet. In black iron – night iron – there was a prominent bust of a unicorn, but the base of the metal amulet spread in imitation of a pair of wings. Topaz glowed within the amulet, giving it a fearsome golden glow.
“She had this.” Star Light held the amulet up. Cruciger could see blood on the upper edge of the livery. Twinkling Star Light, for once, focused on an object without entirely trying to analyze it. “It was… this is an Alicorn Amulet… I’m sure of it! But where could my sister have gotten it? She was – she was going to kill me, and you know her magic was beyond what we expected. I… I had to take her to… that place. And… and…”
He silenced her, his hoof gently resting on her shoulder.
She nodded, understanding instantly. “Yes. Now isn’t the time. Not the time. After we win. Then the consequences.”
“Hrm.”
- - -
“Sufficient Power overcomes?” Cruciger roared, holding up his good hoof.
An unmistakable sigil appeared in the sky overhead.
“I won’t allow it.”
Maerlaverock Tower appeared from within the glowing sigil. It was a trophy castle, a symbol of victory, and now a favorite weapon. His wrath had not been sated dealing with the usurpers who had threatened his wife and their legacy. The Quartz interlopers had fled, but Black List and the Countess had not been so fortunate. It had taken a year to quell the last of Brilliant Moon Beam’s conspiracy. To Prance, he had brought harmony. Harmony derived from Strength.
The triangular stone tower fell through thin air, the base of it still dripping from the water of the moat that surrounded it. It tumbled past the hovering stallion, a titanic hammer to batter any opposition – even treacherous and disobedient family – out of existence. Rage in his one good eye, he gestured with his hoof, condemning those below.
They would surrender. They would yield. They would bow in the face of the undeniable.
In this world, there was no other option.
- - -
Sunset Shadow fell onto her face in front of the entire Solar Court.
“I shall have your heads for this!” she screamed, slashing her head and her horn from side to side but unable to physically move the pair of Royal Guards who held her down. “I know your names! Your faces! None of you will be safe! Usurpers! Fiends! I swear it! I swear it! And where is my mother!? If any harm has come to her, I will see you all to your graves!”
“My little pony, please control yourself.”
The voice seemed to momentarily snap Sunset out of her rage. Her titan orange eyes turned up to take in the majesty of Equestria’s ruling Princess and, surrounding her on all sides, esteemed stallions and mares of the Stable of Lords. Sunset Shadow’s struggles died down instantly, and she felt the restraint around her horn being unlocked and removed.
The pair of burly unicorn Royal Guards released her only a moment after the restraints hit the ground. It was a matter of respect. They were not expected to have to mare-handle her in the presence of the Princess of the Sun. Likewise, it would have been insane – suicidal even – to disrespect the Princess by taking advantage of her hospitality. Every noble in the country would turn on her, some more violently eager to defend the Princess’s slighted honor than others.
So, she swallowed her hate and stood, trying to compose herself nobly.
Like her mother had always taught her to.
“We present to the court, Miss Sunset Shadow,” she heard the herald announce.
“Lady Sunset Shadow!” she snapped back at him and turned, glaring, at all the other ponies present, daring them to refute her claim. She cowed them all with her glare. All save the Princess on her alabaster throne, whose eyes she did not dare to meet. “I am a Lady of Prance. My mother is Duchess. Where is she? Why have you separated us?”
“I am sorry, my little pony,” Celestia answered her from on high. Sunset finally stared up at her, eyes wide, as if she knew what was about to be spoken aloud. “Your mother is no longer among us.”
The young mare clenched her teeth and cried out, her wail echoing in the hall of the holy Solar Court. Her front legs gave out and she fell forward, her hooves flying up to her face and her horn. It sparked and fizzled with magic. Magic she tried desperately to contain. It was a spectacle. She knew it would be. She could already hear the whispers from either side as the nobles of the court judged her.
Her mother had attempted to seize power in Prance, and, worse than that, she had failed in her bid. Nopony loved a failure. Nopony respected or honored a failure. Not in this Noble Game, where titles were awarded to winners and only scorn was given to losers. Everypony here had a title to defend, and they would never look well on those who threaten to rock the boat of state. If mother had won, they would be courting her favor. If mother had… If she had…
“Who?” Sunset Shadow asked, hissing the question. She didn’t even care if she directed it at the immortal alicorn they all served. “Who killed my mother?”
Celestia’s mane coruscated silently, concealing one eye. The other closed, sorrowful. Yet, she did not reply.
“I did.”
Sunset Shadow spun around at the voice, sneering at the sight of Duke Cruciger farther down the carpet that led up to Celestia’s throne. The stallion sat, calmly, next to another face Sunset Shadow vowed to never forget or forgive. Her aunt, Twinkling Star Light. Last Sunset had heard, her mother Moon Beam had been putting the finishing touches on Star Light’s prison. Cruciger must have found her after his escape. He must have… killed her, then and there.
“You shall pay for it, and you shall pay for letting me live,” Sunset Shadow vowed, knowing nothing could be done here, in the hall of the Princess herself. “I swear it ten thousand times. By the stars above and with my every breath, I swear it.”
“Lord Cruciger. This is true?” Celestia asked, as if giving him a way out of what he had admitted. “My little pony, former vice-captain of my guard… you killed Lady Brilliant Moon Beam?”
“It--” Star Light began to say, though what, Sunset Shadow couldn’t begin to guess.
Some excuse, most likely.
“As I spoke it, it is true,” Cruciger repeated for the entire court to hear. “I killed Brilliant Moon Beam, as she presumed to injure me, my wife, our titles and our inheritance. For this offense--” he held up his hooves, large, even for a grown stallion “--I killed her with my own hooves.”
The unapologetic declaration provoked a storm of whispers among the nobles at court. Cruciger held his head high, but Twinkling Star Light looked away. A piece of paper appeared in a sparkle of magic, along with a quill and ink, but she quickly crumbled the parchment up and it all vanished again. She did look nervous. As she should. She was married to a monster. A murderer. A usurper. Already, she could hear ponies in hushed tones calling him the ‘Black Duke.’
“I challenge you!” Sunset Shadow yelled, having to raise her voice to be heard over the muttering of the court. “I challenge you to a duel! For my mother!”
“NO.” Celestia’s voice boomed, and, like a wave spreading across the hall, ponies lowered their heads or bowed. The Princess of the Sun set her eye on the court stenographer. “That remark is to be stricken from the record, am I clear?”
“But--” Sunset Shadow cried.
Magic muzzled her, and what was left of her voice was an unintelligible murmur.
“Lord Cruciger. Lady Star Light.” Celestia set her attention on the two ponies soon to be Duchess and Duke of two realms. Both stood straight and attended their Princess. “We are displeased by these events we hear of in Prance. We are displeased by the death of Brilliant Moon Beam, though she did wrong you both by her treachery.”
She paused to take in the room and to be assured all eyes were on her.
“All ponies here have a right to defend themselves, to defend their homes, their titles, their lands and those things that they love. The obligation to protect the realm and the small pony is at the heart of what it means to be noble,” Celestia said, her gentle tones still strong enough to fill the entire hall and command the hearing of every pony without exception. “But, my little ponies, I urge you to strive always for forgiveness and mercy. There is a wellspring of good in everypony’s heart, and nopony is beyond redeeming their past sins and mistakes. I do not know if Brilliant Moon Beam’s death could have been avoided or not. But I will mourn her loss, and pray for her orphaned daughter.”
Sunset Shadow hissed, trying to raise her voice, but nopony could hear her.
“You brought this child to me,” Celestia continued, and, full circle, she returned to Cruciger and Star Light. “For that mercy, I will commend you, though I fear it was also a cruel mercy.” Celestia sucked in a breath at her own words, then, and shook her head. “But a mercy, nonetheless. This young mare before me no longer has family in Prance, nor, I believe, would it be wise to recognize any claim she may have had to the crown there. I will raise her, and she and her foals will be of Canterlot. They will move on.”
Sunset Shadow shook her head angrily, as if to cry, ‘No! No! Never!’
“It is for the best,” Celestia said, and soon her attention and her presence weighed on the muffled Sunset Shadow. “Speak the words, my little pony. Free yourself of the burden, and let there be peace in Equestria once more. You will be of Canterlot. I will care for you and yours. Say what you need this court to hear.”
Bowing her head, the young mare remained silent and unrepentant. Her mother had lost her life trying to secure the crown of Prance. Abdicating now would mean that everything – everything – had been a waste. Fleeing to Bitaly, scratching and begging and scheming to gather a small army, all that humiliation… waiting for grandmother to finally fall ill so the throne became vacant, setting the trap for her damned aunt… all for nothing! How could it be all for nothing? How? How could such a thing just end with mother’s death? How could mother even be defeated?
Sunset Shadow remembered the necklace of power mother had said she crafted.
That power was her birthright. It would be what she passed on to her daughter, when the time came.
“I relinquish, now and for all time, any claim to the crown of the Duchy of Prance,” Sunset Shadow said the words, hating every one and every pony that had forced them on her. “I place myself at the mercy of the Princess.”
“You shall be safe under our wing,” Celestia promised, but they were hollow words that held no comfort for the fallen Sunset Shadow.
“My daughter will have a crown,” she whispered, and it was a vow none need hear. If not Prance, then some other would have to do. In the meantime, before this time and then, a roost in Canterlot could be the perfect place from which to strike back at those who most deserved it. Cruciger. The Terre Rare, first and foremost, but Cruciger most of all. He had been the one to take her mother’s life.
Though it could take years, Sunset Shadow intended to neither forgive nor forget.
- - -
“Foolish boy.”
Cruciger feared no beast, no pony, no monster. None, save his mother. Bismuth II Brandenburg sat on her throne of iron and silk, needing no adornment aside from the iron regalia worn in imitation of Princess Celestia. She was successor to Bismuth I, who was in turn successor to Arsenic the Founder, the family’s ancient grand dame, long since retreated into seclusion. Only the chosen heir was said to be worthy of being in Arsenic’s presence.
“Why, mother?” he asked, head bowed. The two were alone in the appropriately titled Eiserne Hall. “It is true, is it not? You arranged for Brilliant Moon Beam’s seduction? You enabled it?”
“Of course,” Bismuth cooed, but it was not a soft, encouraging sound to those who knew her. “Did you know, I had originally intended for you to marry Brilliant Moon Beam? Does that upset you?”
Cruciger kept his head bowed but spoke honestly. “It does.”
“Mmm.” Bismuth seemed unconcerned by her son’s response. She lifted a hoof to eye level, inspecting the intricate carving in the gilded iron she wore. “I have never approved of Twinkling Star Light’s eccentricities.”
Cruciger tensed at the unspoken threat.
“But… her sister was worse. Fickle. Flighty. Like Blue Belle…” The name was a curse among the family, for a frivolous, impulsive, and worst of all weak pony, favored by the fortunes of birth. “I needed to be rid of her, but did I force her to spread her legs for that stablecolt?” Bismuth asked with a grimace of undisguised revulsion.
“Of course not. She dug that grave with her own hooves. If she had been less of a fool, then she would be a Duchess of great power, and you would both be wed. Mayhap, you should even be glad things turned out as they did?” A low laugh punctuated the question. “Where would your precious Star Light be if that future had come to pass?”
Her son remained bowed, his eyes to the marble floor. The question, however, had hit home.
“Know this, my son, that to be truly powerful is to separate what one needs to do from what one wants to do. As the Princess said, kindness can be inadvertently cruel, and the reverse is true as well: cruelty can be a form of kindness. Do you understand?” Bismuth asked, her voice echoing in the great hall.
Cruciger remained bowed. Obedient. Dutiful.
“Put faith in our name, alone. When all is said and done, only honor and obedience to the family and to our founder’s vision matter. We will return to Canterlot and we will sit at the side of the Princess, but to get there, to serve her, we must do what she should not be asked to do. The enemies who stand in the way of our destiny: the Quartz, who scheme in the south, the Prench and Chesterians, who border us and envy us, the ponies of the steppes, the griffins of the north, the Bluebloods themselves, and worst of them all, the potential usurpers in our own midst… all must be crushed underhoof without mercy, hesitation, or remorse. Do you understand, my little pony? Are you prepared to be an instrument of this family’s rise, as I was?”
“Yes. Mother,” Cruciger warily looked up from his floor to his dam. “I understand.”
- - -
Blueblood lay broken at his hooves.
Dead.
He was dead.
The fifty first Blueblood was dead. The family honor was defended. None would think to renege on deals with the Terre Rare. Not after this. Fear would keep them in line. Fear would cow the weak of heart and keep the Quartz and Garlands at bay. None would dare to raise the flag of challenge, and so, order and harmony would be restored. The family was preserved, and all it cost…?
“You… fool.” Cruciger’s face was smashed and bloody, one eye destroyed by the Prince’s last, desperate attack. Scars that he would bear until the day he died crossed the Duke’s chest. Blood welled up from his crushed lung, threatening to drown him. Yet Cruciger could not tear his one remaining eye away from the look on his old friend’s face. The only unicorn his age he had ever considered a peer and a friend. Dead. Dead. Dead.
The pony who would become forever known as the ‘Black Duke’ stared at his fallen friend.
“It was… our friendship… or my family’s honor…” A trembling hoof brushed what he had thought to be blood from his cheek. “But… I still… I still wish we--”
But there was no telltale crimson streak; what he had wiped away from his cheek hadn’t been blood.
What was left of Cruciger’s magic surged out of him as he roared in pain and fury, barreling over those daring few who had tried to approach the pair of duelists. He screamed until his voice was hoarse, and then he screamed until it failed, leaving him wheezing like a deflated balloon. It hadn’t been blood. Why couldn’t it have been blood? Why did it have to be…
Tears?
- - -
The triangular stone tower fell through thin air, the base of it still dropping from the water of the moat that surrounded it. It tumbled past the hovering stallion, a titanic hammer to batter any opposition – even family – out of existence. Rage in his one good eye, Lord Cruciger gestured with his hoof, condemning those below.
They would surrender. They would yield. They would bow in the face of the undeniable.
In this world, there was no other option.
“Brass,” Twilight groaned, exhausted and pinned to the ground like a moth in a display case. The shadow-hook in her right front leg tightened the more she struggled against it. Standing above her, partly shielding her, Alpha Brass slowly shook his head. Up in the sky, Twilight could see thousands of tons of stone slowly descending on them.
Was – was Cruciger really going to kill them both like this?
Was it moving so slow to give them time to surrender, or just to taunt them with their helplessness?
“Brass!” she said again and tried to think of a plan. There had to be a magical counter for these chains. Sombra. Sombra. Where had she heard that name before? Prince Sombra, was it? What type of mage was he? Twilight groaned, wanting to hit her head against something. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember reading anything about this sort of spellwork!
“You should’ve told me he had spells like this!” Twilight yelled up at her fiancé. “What’re we going to do? What’re we going to do?! I can maybe cast one two-alliteration spell and then--”
“Twilight,” Brass interrupted her panicked gabbing. “You trust me, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I do, but…”
“Don’t ask questions, then,” he told her, and she looked up at him with dove-like, trusting eyes. “I’m sorry, but, I need you to finish this. Open your mouth. When I’m done, teleport away and trust me.”
“But how can I…?” she started to ask, mouth conveniently open, when he opened his mouth as well. What he answered her with defied easy description.
“-\/|-/|\/\.”
The sound burned her ears and horn.
It wasn’t a word. It wasn’t even a real sound. She felt it as much as she physically heard it. Her horn trembled like her inner ear, understanding the ‘sound’ without meaning. But her body? Her body understood it. Her body embraced it, even where her mind failed to grasp it. The sound had a primal meaning that echoed in muscle, bone, and soul.
Magic circulated within her, wild and raw and passionate and powerful. For a moment, Twilight almost thought of herself as a Helmholtz resonator, air pressure along the mouth or rim of the resonator increasing the pressure on the inside. Magic she had thought spent ignited and flowed out of her body in an uncontrolled star field.
The shadowy hooks clamped into her forelegs tore apart under the strain.
“H-how?” she asked, breathless.
“I usually do that with a kiss, but I can’t move,” Alpha Brass replied, grinning. “Now. Teleport. Go. WIN.”
Twilight’s cheeks colored at the thought of whatever magic he had done being administered via lip-lock. Was that why he had asked her to open her mouth? So this strange sonic magic could get inside her? A hundred questions assailed her, demanding answers. Brass had never displayed this sort of magic before!
But she had promised.
“You better tell me about it later,” Twilight demanded, and seeing the sky almost blotted out by Cruciger’s tower, she blinked away.
She left him pinned by shadowy chains, bound by six ethereal hooks, in the shadow of tens of thousands tons. But she left him.
Alpha Brass bowed his head and chuckled.
“Aaah,” he remarked, as if to embrace the crushing doom from above. “Well. This hasn’t gone exactly as planned, but… it will do.”
Twilight Sparkle’s love coursed through him, and, just as expected, it amplified his own magic. Just as Cadance had speculated, so long ago. The alicorn’s amplification effect was very likely superior to that he had coaxed out of Twilight Sparkle, but this was a power already at his hooftips. It was generally better to have a power close at hoof than a greater one out of reach, or so he tended to believe.
Twilight could be mistaken for feeling what she thought to be his own love in return.
He was no longer capable of such a thing, which was exactly why he had substitutes. This duel had proven that. Twilight Sparkle was already ensnared, and he had quite aptly proven just how much he could boost her already formidable power with his own. A word. A touch. A look. It was an excellent start. She could possibly be pushed just a little further before the invasion. Her interests and desires were aligned with his own, save for a few little hiccups. It would be wise to boost her power as much as was safe and prudent, pushing her beyond her limits as only he could do.
‘She’s already so much stronger than you, Cadance. I’d say only Eunomie and Euporie, my good daughters, are more valuable to me. And perhaps Chalice as well, as the vessel for Lord Sagittarius.’
“I suppose this is where I reveal my carefully hidden actual abilities,” he muttered, struggling to turn his head and stare up at the sky. “I say that, but it isn’t like I can really free myself like I did Twilight. But that’s fine. I can work with this.”
‘There he is.’
Father was still in the air, and, by now, he had to know something was amiss.
‘Chalice. Eunomie. Euporie. Cadance. And now, Twilight Sparkle. With all four aces and a joker in my hoof, what do I need you for, father? With these five cards, I can’t be beaten.’
- - -
“Amiss. Something is amiss here.”
Cruciger didn’t miss one of his targets teleporting away. How she had the energy to, or even how she had escaped from Superlative Shadowy Shackles, he couldn’t rightly guess. It did become clear, however, that his son was not about to escape. Twilight had left him behind.
“I could crush you at a whim, but still you fight me?” Cruciger roared. His control over the falling fortress tower was enough that it tilted slightly left and right as his head did the same, searching the ground for where Twilight Sparkle had fled.
“Not below,” he growled to himself, and suddenly spun around, looking up. “There you are.”
A lavender speck descended from above.
“Foalish…! To attack me like this,” Cruciger announced, the giant tower in his telekinetic grip beginning to come around like a titanic baseball bat. “I’ll swat you from--”
The faint outline of a shadowy hook appeared over his extended front leg.
“Hrrrm?”
Another hook and then another appeared, gouging into his shoulders. Then another in his other front leg, followed by two in each hind leg. Just like the first, these chains were only faint imitations of the Shadow Shackles he had used on his son, but their power was otherwise identical. Ethereal chains wrapped tightly around the Black Duke’s chest and he felt his magic begin to fizzle. It was a sensation he had not experienced in decades: a genuine loss of control.
Then the chains began to drag him down, and the magical wings dissolved from his sides.
“This…! This isn’t--”
From on high, Twilight Sparkle’s fall accelerated. A pinwheel of magenta magic spiraled away from her horn as she fell, head-first, like a living missile. Cruciger saw the magical beams solidify around her, and on top of them, like a cone of air tinted by a sheen of energy, an extended tip formed. She wasn’t just a missile. She was a magical battering ram and missile all in one. A living cannonball, headed his way. And there was nothing he could do about it.
A revolving sphere of magic filled his vision.
It was visible for miles: a flash of purple-red, almost blinding. A lilac contrail streaked from above the cloud layer and almost to the ground. A shock wave followed the flash, the sound trying in vain to catch up to the light, and, like a delayed reaction in midair, the entire suspended Maerlaverock Tower ripped apart. It didn’t break. It simply came apart into an ever expanding cloud of telekinetically spreading debris.
Only as a twisted torus of gravel, glass and crystal spread from the midair impact did the lavender meteor hit the ground with an anticlimactic thud. It was followed by a second – a very long second – of silence. Then the previously fallen ruins of the Château de fer à Cheval glowed, briefly, before exploding in a cloud of magic and dust. A hundred thousand square hooves and more of crushed stonework all turned to smoke as the magic that held together the castle-duplication summons came apart. The destructive de-summoning rocked the dueling ground with another shock wave, the largest and loudest to date.
Ponies as far as Ponyville heard the distant roar, and leaves shook in the wind at Sweet Apple Acres.
In the center of a crater, still burning with crackling magenta magic, Twilight Sparkle stood on all four hooves. Below her… was the still body of Duke Cruciger, the Black Duke. The stallion held by many as the most powerful in Equestria. The Lord of the Terre Rare. The stallion who had boasted he could camp eight thousand troops outside Canterlot with impunity.
Breath coming in ragged, pained gasps, she didn’t even notice the faint wing-shaped magic crackling around her midsection. Her eyes were white, flickering, sometimes with a pupil and sometimes without. She swayed slightly, still standing on top of her beaten opponent.
“Did…”
The words were hoarse but unmistakably her own.
“Did I…?” She managed to look down, dazed, at the prone Cruciger. He was embedded partly into the cracked and twisted crater that spread out from below her. “Did I…? Did I win?”
One of her eyes flickered in, the other out, one eye purple, the other white.
“Arrogant.”
A hoof seized her by the throat, picking her up as easily as she would her Smarty Pants doll. The suddenness and brutality of the attack caught her completely by surprise. Her vision was still a mess. She could just barely make out the hoof around her throat, the leg it was connected to, and the half-crushed, cripple of an old stallion that had impossibly emerged from the burning crater around him.
“Arr… ohh… ggggggggnntt…” Cruciger was frothing at the mouth, a mixture of spittle and blood dribbling from the corner of his cheek. The impact had dislodged the onyx and silver patch over his missing eye, leaving a gaping hole that burned with raw magical energy. Droplets of condensed magic rolled down the Duke’s scarred cheek like molten tears of wax slouching off a blazing candle.
“I am… unbeatable!” His other eye was wide and savage as he somehow managed to rise back up, shedding debris from his blackened, smoking coat. “I am… LORD of… this… FAMILY. I… am the… Instrument of…!”
He stood on his hind legs, holding Twilight by the throat, part of his arm still on fire. Her hooves desperately flew up to try and pry herself loose, but it was like trying to undo a vice. He may as well have been made of solid iron, she of jelly. Not in a thousand years could she free herself with just her hooves. Shuddering in despair, her forelegs fell limply to her sides. There was nothing left to give in her. Only…
Only one thing.
Twilight cast the basic two-alliteration spell she had saved as her emergency backup of all backups.
Her form shimmered, an illusion replacing the lavender with alabaster white. Her mane color-shifted into pink and red. It was the most basic sort of illusion. Really little more than a simple cantrip, and she had done it right before his eyes. There was no way it would fool any pony thinking rationally. Nonetheless, Twilight cast the spell and hoped.
Twilight Sparkle took on the form of Twinkling Star Light.
And Cruciger’s grip on her loosened, instinctively.
She fell onto her side with a pained grunt. He continued to stand, one leg outstretched and grasping. The fire in his empty eye socket continued to burn and sputter until, finally, it dimmed. His upper body moved, slowly, jerkily. Bits of his coat, she noticed, were petrifying and flaking away. Magical and mundane fire spread along his legs and almost to his shoulders, and Twilight could smell the stink of burning hair assault her nose.
“For Celestia’s sake,” she cried, trying to get onto her hooves and failing. Her body was spent. Absolutely spent. She couldn’t even stand. “Just give up! What’s wrong with you? Please… just… stop…”
Cruciger continued to glare, but he was still looking forward at where she had been, not where she was now. Rolling onto her side with a moan, Twilight slowly caught her breath. Any second, she expected the Black Duke to snap out of whatever his daze was and stomp her flat. But that moment simply never came. She could see him breathing. He wasn’t dead. He was just standing there.
“What are you doing?” She barely managed to lift a leg, just enough to anemically wave a hoof at him. “Come on! If you’re going to do it, then just… just… just do it--”
She couldn’t finish her demand, not even she what she wanted or expected. Still, Cruciger stood. Like a statue. Or like…
A unicorn appeared in a flash of light.
“He’s unconscious,” Twinkling Star Light explained, standing tall and reaching a hoof up to gently brush her husband’s cheek. He was still frozen in place, one hoof extended as if to crush the life out of somepony, his already scarred body pocked by mismatched bruises. He was unconscious, but still standing, still refusing to fall.
“Unconscious?” Twilight asked, breathless. What kind of a pony went unconscious like that?! She’d heard of being ‘dead on your hooves’ before, but this was nuts. Was half her family even Equine? If he had been some sort of ancient golem under his coat, she wouldn’t have been too surprised, not after seeing him throw castles at ponies.
“Then?” she dared to ask. “Does that mean…?”
Star Light hesitated for a pointedly long time before answering. “It means,” she finally said, her magic gently lifting Twilight off her side and into the air.
Duchess Twinkling Star Light bowed her head.
“It means you have won. The Terre Rare are yours.”
- - -
Alpha Brass stumbled through the dust cloud, close enough to see his mother bow to his new fiancée. Twilight Sparkle collapsed a second later, but Alpha Brass cushioned her with a magic glow, gently laying her to rest on the ground. Sparkling dust fell from the sky like snow, the glittering remains of the battle of Equestria’s Two Strongest Unicorns.
“Alpha,” Twinkling Star Light said, lowering her hoof from her husband’s still face.
“Mother,” Brass replied, approaching at a leisurely pace.
“You should apologize to your sister,” his mother stated, back to her son. “Not just for her sake,” she explained with a sniff. “For yours. You’ve backed her into a corner. You know what will come next, don’t you?”
“I think so,” he said with a shrug. “Twilight was everything I claimed her to be, wasn’t she?”
Twinkling Star Light glanced back at her son, but only for a second. “You were using your gift to intensify her.”
“Only after she beat you,” Brass objected. “It was a dual-duel, and I was merely doing what I was made to do.”
“Your special talent,” Twinkling said, softly, glancing over at the unconscious Twilight Sparkle. “It isn’t that I’m surprised it worked, since your magic resonates with anypony and not just your special somepony, but to this degree?” She turned around to finally face her son, her expression both concerned and perplexed. “Has something happened to you, Alpha? Your color is different. And what Twilight said before… what happened with Olive Branch? Did she do something…?”
For all of a second, for all of that one long moment, he actually considered telling her.
“Olive Branch is dead,” he said instead, and it was still the truth. Just the truth this pony wanted to hear. He always told them what they wanted to hear. It was a kindness.
Without further words, the two unicorns vanished, taking their significant others with them.