//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 - Crystaline capers composed of confrontation // Story: Golden Grace, Headless Headaches // by Thadius0 //------------------------------// Love is simple, love is kind. Love is beautiful, love is blind. Whoever said that never met Cadence. At least two of those do not apply. I appeared at the base of the Crystal Palace and was, near instantly, surrounded by guards with spears. Once I asked to be taken to their princess, Shining showed up. Sarcasm-nade, away! "Well hey there, horn-head! How's the brain treating you? Been tricked by anything that even your sister could see through lately?" Okay, maybe that was a touch too cruel. But if you could see the look on his face, I'm pretty sure you would have done the same thing. It was anger mixed with confusion in the most wonderful of patterns. His left eye squinted at me while his right eye rotated dizzily. I wish I had a camera. Ah well, the memory will have to tide me over. Eventually he focused and simply glared at me. He opened his mouth to return fire, but I cut him off with a healthy dose of disrespect. "Save it, Shiny. I need to see your wife, because if I'm not mistaken, she's the highest authority around here. And what I have in mind needs for Cadenza to be informed before she can offer her input." Shining bristled* a lot at my words, barked some orders at the guards, and began leading me up into the palace. I grimaced at the thought of more stairs and was about to do something about it, like my own anti-gravity bubble, when I realized just how low my power had fallen. I would need either a good night's sleep or a hefty dose of Psynergy stones (apply directly to the forehead) before I could indulge again. Just as I finished my ruminations as to how to best recuperate, Shiny led me into the throne room, where Cadenza was going over some bill or other. Before he could ruin my entrance and (technical) first impression, I dropped into a sweeping bow towards her. "Princess Cadenza, it is a great honor to meet with you." Her eyes took in my unusual form and my bipedal stance while her ears relayed not only the words I had said, but the words Shiny was saying about me suddenly appearing. She smiled the sort of smile you would see on small children after having figured out a particularly tricky puzzle and showed me that pulling the wool over her eyes would not be a simple affair with one question. "Well, you're not Dullahan, so how do you know him?" At that, I visibly cringed. "Permit me to answer a question with a question, Cadenza. When is two equal to one?" Shiny inserted himself into our conversation with a snort and a rebuttal. "Impossible, it doesn't happen." Cadenza held a hoof up to her chin and hummed. "When you add another one. What relevance is that to this situation?" I smiled myself then. "The Dullahan you knew is the two. Whereas the Dullahan that exists today is the one. Which leaves me with the uncomfortable role of the other one. Auric Fulcrum, Cadenza. We've technically met before." The princess blinked a few times, then her eyes narrowed. "And what was your role in the Dullahan that existed then?" I clapped my hands a few times. "Bravo, Cadenza. You're the first to ask. I was the overriding spirit, the will, the controller." She nodded at my explanation. "I can believe that, though I will admit that you are no more easy to deal with now than you were then. What brought on this change?" I waved a hand at her. "It's a long story, and we really don't have time. I was recently in Canterlot, and there I came across a most disturbing story." I suddenly had their attention and interest. "What sort of disturbing story? My aunts haven't sent me anything concerning such developments." I kept on a cheery, upbeat attitude. It would really mess with them while I delivered the news. "Well, it would seem that there are those who would make a study of Psynergy and those who wield it, but they don't do so in a very nice manner. Why, we found five little changeling bodies, with the daughter of Chrysalis almost numbered among them. Fortunately we found her in time and managed to learn a few things about the one I'm looking for." Both of them were conflicted. On the one hand, neither of them had any real love for changelings, and I can't blame them. On the other hand, I've yet to come across any normal pony who is comfortable with the idea of killing anything. Driving off, yes, no problem. The guards are capable of dealing out violence, yes, and they will to they who deserve it. But killing? That's not something any of them like to even consider. The fact that they were now being told someone out there had killed five changelings, bordering on six, caused them a bit of nausea. I paused to take in the effect of my words, then continued. "See, first thing we know is, it's a mare. The next thing we know is she speaks in a cold, emotionless voice. And the most important thing we know is that she's studying Psynergy. Or, perhaps, trying to find a way to steal it. We don't quite know what she's up to, but seeing as how we have five bodies to explain, along with the fact that her escape tunnel led towards the train tracks, I'm inclined to think that she'll come here, and I can learn from her then." Saying this shocked Shiny into action. He turned towards the guards and began barking orders. "I want a detail at the train station at all times to check any and every pony that comes in that matches the des..." At this, he turned to me, and I nodded. "We don't have a description quite yet. However, we do know the way she talks. Cold, emotionless about everything. We also know that it is a mare. And I have a very strong suspicion that she's either a unicorn, or has some device specially built to knock out changelings." My mind whirled then, trying to come up with everything that could be attributed to this mare we had yet to even meet. "She'll probably have a few extra bags or pieces of luggage to transport her equipment, and for all we know, has some sort of ties to the Canterlot Research Academy." Plans were drawn, patrols were made, schemes were laid. We would not let this mare go unpunished. ----- Of course, the next day, all our planning was for naught, as we saw both the sun and the moon in the sky at the same time. Now, being from Earth, I didn't panic at the sight. It's not abnormal, it happens sometimes. However, in Equestria, something like that doesn't fly. Not without something happening to both Celestial Sisters. Cadenza was in a tizzy, though. Something about her aunts being in danger. It was a little funny to see her staring at the horizon and hyperventilating. Just a little. I snapped my fingers in front of her, which got a reaction. Barely. She looked at me for a second, then went back to the horizon. I sighed and sat down nearby. "Look, Cadenza-" "Cadence." I blinked a few times. "Beg your pardon?" "You're pardoned, and I would prefer if you called me Cadence." I blinked a few more times. "All right then. Cadence, I am quite aware how bad it looks out there." She snorted once, quite possibly in disbelief, and I rolled my eyes. "Doubt me all you want, but the point stands. I know how the sun and moon move, and the fact that they aren't anywhere near where they should be implies drastic things. But ask yourself one question, m'dear." I got up and stood in front of her, staring her in the eyes. "The crystal ponies are quite likely aware of the situation. They need someone to tell them it'll all be okay. Are you that mare?" Cadence blinked then, and slowly shook her head. "I don't know that it will, though. This has never happened before, and-" I held up a hand to cut her off, and she glared at me, but I pushed on. "Twilight was on her way to Canterlot before I left. From what I have heard, she dealt with Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, and Sombra. Whatever happened, she'll deal with it in some fashion or another. And considering she's an alicorn now as well, she'll find a way, or make a way." Cadence slowly nodded. "You're right." And then I saw her will rally behind her eyes. "You're right." Her eyes were of fire and steel now. "Twilight will figure this out, she is the smartest filly I know. And in the meantime, I will hold the Crystal Ponies together. They must not lose hope, lest the shield falter." Shining came in just in time to see his wife leave and raised an eyebrow at me. I shrugged. "I told her what she needed to hear. How are your guards doing? Catch anyone?" He frowned then. "Quite the reverse. I had to alter several schedules to make sure there were no looters or rioters or the like, what with the sun and moon both in the sky at the same time. Fortunately, the guards were already on it, but by the time I had set down defined schedules, the ones sent to guard the train station had abandoned their post while a train pulled in. For all we know..." I waved a hand at him as I finished the thought. "She is already here." ----- It seemed to last forever, this whole 'sky being dominated by both astral bodies' thing that was going on. We couldn't even get a message to Twi or whoever was running the show. I still had every faith in, if not them, then at least Discord's ability to pull them out of whatever hole they'd fallen down. Helps when you have extendable arms. No, seriously, I checked. Thus, I don't quite know when the first disappearance happened, but it was about an hour before the sky was resolved that we got word that a crystal pony had vanished. A stallion by the name of Quartz Quarry had been shopping with his filly Rose Pane, when the filly had dashed ahead to a sweets stall that some pony (I'm blaming Pinkie) had set up. When she turned around, her daddy was gone. We consoled the poor filly and grabbed a map of the city, with an expanded view of the market, and marked down the path they had taken, right up to the disappearance. What bothered me most about it was a simple fact about Quartz that most didn't bother asking about, but the filly gave when I prodded her with just one question. Her father was an auxiliary Guard, and spent weekends guarding the Heart. The Heart that was right under the giant green Venus Light. I brought this up with Shining, and he agreed with my assessment. And so it was decreed that ponies needed to go around with a buddy system. Those that had the most exposure to Venus' Light were to be given higher consideration, and what few Adepts we knew of were to never be allowed out of someone's sight in public. There were only a few, but once this mare had what she wanted, she'd likely not stick around. And we needed to catch her. That's why it hurt when, the next day, there was another one gone. Agate, a mare, had been browsing the market, looking for a little extra to stock her pantry with, when the next thing her friend, Sapphire, knew, she was gone. She'd taken her eyes off her for a moment while she was looking at a stallion coming down the road, and when she turned back, gone. What we found most interesting was the fact that they had been walking down the same road, near the same place, at around the same time the other disappearance had happened. Of course, the fact that the mare had taken another probably indicated that she needed another, which didn't speak too highly of Quartz's survival rate. Both me and Shining wisely decided by virtue of that ancient pact of 'not it' that we would not be the ones to break the news to Quartz's filly. Rather, the first guard to bring the topic up with us would be. But now that we had narrowed our window, Shining and I came up with...a plan. ----- Did you know that crystalline roofs are highly uncomfortable to lay on? All sharp edges everywhere. 's brutal on flesh. Even with my new duds. I was shifting around when Shining jabbed me with the butt of his spear. "Quit it. It's nearing noon. If the pattern stays, she'll be taking another soon." I hissed my reply back at him. "Let's see you shave yourself down to the skin and try to lay on this. It's not comfortable up here." Nonetheless, I complied, and wove a simple illusion around myself. Light is either a particle or a wave, or a particle acting like a wave, or both, or neither. Point is, light has to bounce off something and enter your eyes for you to be able to register it as being there. The illusion I was fond of using did nothing more elaborate than treat my entire body as the world's best solar collector and refuse to permit light to leave me, while weaving a subtle suggestion spell around my body. So long as I didn't touch anyone, it tended to hold up. Nobody was looking at me, because there was nothing to see, and the suggestion spell suggested that they didn't need to look too hard in my general direction. Shining flicked his eyes at me, then flicked them back to the market while muttering. "Stupid biped di-" Then he closed his mouth and thought about what he was saying. "Wait...that's his illusion. He's still here." He knocked a hoof into the side of his head a few times. "Get it together, brain." I chuckled slightly. "Good to see it works, then, Shiny." And then there was a scream from below us. "My colt! My baby boy is gone!" I grimaced as I ran my eyes over the street and alleyway we were next to. Yeah, one of the potential Adepts was a colt, aged ten, known as Jade...something or other. He was showing remarkable affinity for growing things and curing away minor wounds. I scanned the street quickly, and finally caught something that reminded me of my own illusion. There, near the alleyway, was a...distortion, ripple in the air. It was definitely pony-sized, but if that was just one pony, I'd eat my hat. Note to self: get a hat. I drew my blade and jumped down, focusing on the distortion I had seen. A door down near the end of the alley banged open, and I pursued, narrowing my eyes as I did. Unknowingly, I also channeled a bit of Reveal into my eyeballs. I caught on fast, though, when the world faded into black-and-white. Still, it made finding the mare in front of me all that much easier. As if realizing her disguise was worthless she tensed near the doorway and slowly turned to me. I pointed my sword at her with my right hand while my left called up what remained of my power. I pointed at the colt then, who was knocked out and on her back. "That is not yours to take." I snarled and grabbed the little guy in my power, then threw him up to Shiny. The mare didn't even bat an eyelash. Instead, she responded in the same cold voice that I'd heard the young changeling princess use. One that didn't sound like a voice at all, really, and if not for the fact that it was coming out of a pony mouth, I might have mistaken it for a robot's voice. "Interesting. This subject has displayed a most unusual mix of power, one not typical to most unicorns or that of other subjects. This will require further study." I snarled again, and closed the gap between the two of us, ripping her cloak off as I did so and slamming her into a wall. She faded back into the visible light spectrum, and I dropped my disguise as well. "Now you're going to answer my questions-" "The researcher is the one that does the asking, not the subject." I narrowed my eyes and dug the blade of Eureka in a little harder, not drawing blood, but definitely shaving a few hairs down. "-Or the next ability I'm gonna see if I can replicate will be something from Jupiter. Ever hear of electro-shock therapy? Replace that last word with torture." Now that I could properly see her, I saw her coat was white while her mane and tail were two-toned black and gray. Her cutie mark was a flask of some sort with a green, bubbling liquid in it. What caught me most off guard were her eyes. Brown and set beneath her horn (really should have noticed that sooner), they appeared to have a fine film over them. Almost as though- "Fine, ask your questions." I was snapped from my line of thought by the mare acquiescing. "First things first. Those other two crystal ponies you took. Where are they, and in what condition did you leave them in?" "The first two subjects should still be alive. They did not have the power I sought, and I was only going to dispose of them here once I had found one who had. They should be in one of those rooms." Here she gestured with a back hoof at the building she had been going into. I nodded then. "Who are you working for?" She remained silent. I shaved a few more hairs down. "ANSWER ME!" "I will not reveal those I work for." I snarled at her again, and her eyes roamed up and down my body as I ranted at her. "You see this sword? This is Eureka, the blade of Understanding. The first two who touched it were Discord and Luna. Discord became the cooky Lord of Chaos everyone knows about, and Luna became twisted into Nightmare Moon. And that was when I didn't think to ask the blade to control itself. I could make you Understand anything, from the substructure of the Universe, to your victim's pain. So you will answer me, or I will rip the secrets from your mind with another Jupiter technique, and then I will do the worst thing to you I can think of." That was when I heard a clicking noise, and her eyes jumped back up to mine, but now the film was gone. And her voice was different. It wasn't her dead voice anymore. Nor was it a mare's voice. It was a stallion's voice now. One that spoke of both sophistication and corruption. "Well. I must say, while I had eventually planned on bumping into you, it wasn't like this." I blinked at the unfamiliar voice a few times, and the damned voice actually chuckled. "Oh come now, don't be so surprised. You did well tracking my operative, but if the thought of something like this happening didn't cross your mind, I'd be of a mind to doubt your intelligence, good sir." I growled a little at that and began scanning the unicorn while I replied. Had to keep him busy, after all. "So, to whom do I have the utmost honor of addressing?" The voice chuckled again. "Afraid I can't tell you that. I don't know how much you know, and I'm loathe to reveal any more than what you know. So I'll tell you nothing, I'm sorry to say." I frowned as I contacted something that was decidedly not organic within the mare's body. Have to keep him distracted. "Then allow me to speculate. You're a stallion of considerable standing. Possibly even a member of Cel's court. When you saw me arrive the other day, you had your operative here pack up in a hurry, just in case, and had her come here. You're looking into Psynergy; why, I don't know, but you either want to understand it, or steal it." The body waved a hoof around in my general direction. "This is a fascinating story so far, do continue." Found you! The object was a small, hard stone that reminded me of a D8, located near where the skull met the spine, just beneath the skin. I wove my power around it and found threads of its power running through her body. I would have to locate all of those, cut them off at once, and remove the damn thing. Who knows what kind of safeguards were embedded in it. "Not much more to tell, really, except what you should know about me. First and foremost, I am Auric Fulcrum, and you've made an enemy of me this day, whoever you are. Wherever you are, I will hunt you down, and you will pay for what's happened here and in Canterlot. I have a creed, you see. No physical harm to ponies and they that do not deserve it. But frankly, whether or not you're a pony, you deserve it." The stallion actually laughed at me then. "You don't even know who, where, or what I am, and you make these promises! That's rich, that is!" The stone was now my fish ready to be netted, I would have to do it quick. "What I do know is threefold. First, you're a stallion in Cel's court, or with connections to it, so you'd better believe I'll look into all of them, especially any recent resignations or sudden rises to power, doubly so if it looks like any paperwork has been tampered with. Second, you're a cold, heartless, son of a bitch, and will do anything to get what you want. And third, you're not nearly as smart as you make yourself out to be, otherwise you would have seen this coming!" And with that, I cut the power the stone was using to control the mare's body, teleported it out of her, and held it up in front of my face, letting the now limp form collapse to the alley. It really did resemble a blue, crystal D8, if the numbers were replaced with runes. I heard an indignant squawk from the stone as the stallion on the other end realized what I'd done. I held it up in front of my face and dropped my voice an octave as I made my vow against the male on the other end. "I am Auric Fulcrum, Wielder of Alchemy, Knight of the Eclipse. In brightest day, the promise of darkness, and in deepest shadow, the promise of light. I am both kind and cruel, merciful and wrath-filled, just and vengeful. You who pulled this mare's strings, know you now that I will see you burn for this." There was silence on the other end as the stallion was coming to terms with the loss of his asset. Then he asked a question which, in hindsight, shouldn't have distracted me, but did. "How in the world did your outfit change colors like that?" I looked down for a split second and noticed that yes, it had changed colors. Where once there was orange, there was now deep, royal blue, and a rich purple had taken hold where yellow used to be. In short, my outfit had gone from Day to Night, Light to Shadow. I didn't get to look at this phenomena for too long, though, as that moment of distraction was also when the crystal exploded. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ * It's funny seeing a unicorn bristle, actually. Earth ponies snort and scrape with their hooves, Pegasi spread their wings and ruffle some feathers, but Unicorns have an unconscious reaction that charges their fur with magic, in case they need to quickly draw on it. Makes them look like they've got a bad case of static electricity, though no two manifestations are the same.