//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Withdrawal // by Raugos //------------------------------// Wind rustled the treetops as Twilight lay still on the forest floor. She listened absentmindedly at first, too relieved that her latest bout of hunger for magic had been warded off for the time being. But after a while, the peaceful notes of insect mating calls soured, and the rustling of leaves and creaking of twigs and boughs grew ominous, as if promising revenge for an atrocity somepony had committed. Twilight winced. It’s me. I’m the one they’re after. Everything is not going to be all right. She rubbed her temples and groaned. “Great. Just great. You did it again,” she muttered. “I can’t believe this!” She could just imagine the looks on her friends’ faces if they ever discovered her dirty little secret. She could easily guess what they’d say about that, too. “Twilight, what the hay are you doing? That’s dark magic you’re messing with!” “Sugarcube, that don’t look healthy to me.” “She’s right, dear. Believe me; it cannot be good for you.” “Oh my, are you sure you didn’t hurt any animals when you did that?” “Silly Twilight, you’re not a bad guy, that thing’s only for a meanie-no-pants like Tirek!” She stretched out her right foreleg and took in a deep breath, bringing her hoof close to her chest as she did so, and then stretched it out once more as she exhaled. She repeated the process a couple more times before she felt sufficiently prepared for the task ahead, and then leaped back onto all fours, acutely aware of the sound of leaves and twigs being crushed underhoof. Many of them had fallen before their time, thanks to her, and if she didn’t do something about it, the damage could worsen. “Okay, Twilight, you’ve had your fix,” she murmured. “Time to give it back.” Her mouth settled into a grim line as she focused her magic. Conceptually, it wasn’t very difficult to reverse the siphoning spell. A few tweaks here and there to the arcane matrices, and she’d reverse the flow of energy with very little wastage in the process. Its execution, however, was another matter entirely. She gritted her teeth when, after a full minute of intense spell-weaving, she only managed to produce a purple trickle from her horn that quickly dispersed into her surroundings. Nothing else seemed forthcoming, so she had to abort the sequence and start over. She met with similar results on her second and third attempt, and she felt herself growing hot and twitchy-eyed. Ugh! She had to take a break for a minute when it her growing desire to snap something in half began interfering with the precision and nature of her magic. Every subsequent attempt ran the risk of producing an explosion instead of a siphon, and each failure only fouled her mood even further. Get a hold of yourself! Her failure wasn’t due to ineptitude. She was the Element of Magic, for crying out loud. But for some reason, she couldn’t get past the final step in returning the magic she’d stolen: letting go. She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let go. “Come on, you’ve gotten over this before. It’s not yours. Give it back…” Twilight kept going, but by the time she had to abort her fourteenth spell, she felt thoroughly exhausted and any thought of trying again made her feel like curling up in a corner and crying. And it wasn’t due to arcane fatigue. Every time she tried to release the power she’d stolen, some treacherous part of her would clamp down and hold it tight. She would remember the feeling of emptiness and listlessness that would surely recur if she let it go. It came back. It always came back. Why give it up and repeat the cycle over and over again? Maybe she should just keep the magic so that she wouldn’t have to come back and take it again in a few days. A permanent solution was better than swinging back and forth. In fact, come to think of it, the best plan should involve taking in a little more magic to properly sate her hunger so she wouldn’t have to— No! Twilight slapped herself before that train of thought could go any further. She snorted and paced back and forth, stomping over the detritus on the forest floor. As a princess, she was supposed to be above such base urges. She’d faced down villains like Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis, opposed their lust for power. She’d helped her friends and so many others deal with their problems. She remembered talking to Spike about how to deal with his urges when it came to building a hoard of his own, and he’d actually listened to her and acted on it. Almost daily, ponies came to her seeking help, and the thought of helping them in the day and secretly indulging in dark magic at night – and learning how to enjoy it from mimicking Tirek, no less – made her cringe. Each night brought her inexorably closer to another lapse in self-control. She’d steal magic without any rational thought, and her stupid conscience wouldn’t say a word until it was too late to do anything about it! Something trickled down her temple, and she licked it when it got close to her mouth. Salty. She was sweating in spite of the night’s chill. In fact, she felt very much the opposite of her environment. The worst parts were her face and the tips of her ears. She felt like a hypocrite. The fact that she couldn’t consistently view stealing magic with the revulsion it deserved made her feel like a traitor to everything she stood for. She’d crossed the line onto a slippery road, and a part of her didn’t want to go back. But she also knew that the only way forward led to… well... She didn’t truly know, but she could clearly see the pattern in Sombra’s and Tirek’s histories. She should never have taken that risk; her hunger could not be undone. She’d managed to turn away several times already, but she’d always come back… What would Princess Celestia think of her? What would her friends think of her? A few times she’d come close to telling them, but then somepony would harp on about how she served as an example for all ponies in all matters concerning friendship or learning, and then she’d balk and keep her mouth shut for fear of destroying that pedestal they’d put her on. It was a long fall, and she couldn’t know for sure whom it would hurt more, her or everypony who saw her as their leader. And that was just the beginning. How long before she started picking actual targets? Sometimes, even the mere thought of draining magic would quicken her pulse and ignite that greedy spark in the back of her mind. She knew where Zecora had hidden the Alicorn Amulet. More than once since her condition had manifested, she’d thought of retrieving it. Not to wear, but to take apart. To consume the power and potential that resided within. She’d even thought of using her new skills as a form of punishment. Need a villain kept under control? No problem, just send him to the purple princess. She’d take care of that right away! Twilight licked her lips and swallowed more saliva than usual. Then, she realised the direction her thoughts had taken, and she began to tremble, grinding her teeth as her vision gained a reddish tint. That’s enough. This ends now. She had always managed to give back the stolen magic. But it looked like the day she’d feared had finally come; she’d slipped past the point of being able to muster the willpower to give it back. Well, if she could not bring herself to do it directly, there were other ways… The Circle of Negation was a ward designed to serve as a booby trap for arcane vaults. Once primed, it would immediately strip anyone or anything that entered it of all non-native magic and enchantments. It had gained popularity since the changeling invasion, and she’d picked it up in short order. Its effectiveness against consumed magic was debatable – otherwise Princess Celestia surely would have used it against Tirek – but she wanted to try anyway. Perhaps it would work on her because she had yet to become that powerful. ‘Yet’ being the operative term. After preparing the ward, she simply needed to let it finish priming. So she sat right in the middle and waited; it would only take a few minutes. But barely thirty seconds later, she began to have second thoughts. She’d not tested it properly. She hadn’t gone over the checklist for safety measures. Twilight leaped into the air, and gasped at how badly she’d lost control again. A low growl escaped from between her teeth as she folded her wings and dropped like a rock. Once on the ground, she grabbed some nearby vines with her magic, twisted them together to form a crude length of rope, and proceeded to bind her wings and legs. Not long after she’d made sure that she couldn’t so easily flee on impulse, the ward finally armed. It began with a tingling sensation around her fetlocks that slowly inched upwards, but felt unimpressive for the most part. But just before she could re-examine the ward to see if she’d made a mistake in setting it up, that little tingle grew into an angry jolt of lightning that shot up her legs. She shrieked as it coursed through her body, ripping through her nerves and up her spine, towards her horn. She barely had enough time to gasp before the magic that she’d stolen began squirming and writhing once more, and her body could not muster the strength to quell it. Her vision whited out as she felt something force its way out of her mouth and eyes, and she realised that she had essentially given herself the magical equivalent of a kick to the belly; she vomited the energy she’d stolen, and it sickened her as much as its biological counterpart would have. Thankfully, the agonising process only lasted a few seconds, and the next thing Twilight knew, stars danced before her eyes as she lay prone on the forest floor surrounded by charred debris. Apparently, purging her had burned out the Circle of Negation. She seemed to have snapped her bonds as well. It was done. She’d given back what she’d stolen. Twilight heaved a sigh of relief and lay still. A nap seemed like an awfully good idea. She just needed to find a more comfortable spot to rest – if only her legs would stop trembling like that. But then she also noticed the feeling of emptiness creeping back into her chest. The euphoria of feeding had diminished to a fleeting memory that utterly failed to stave off the hunger for magic gnawing at her innards once again. Her natural magic felt so insignificant, so… inadequate. She wanted more. She needed more. Twilight’s jaw dropped. Too soon. It’s not fair. How could it be back already? It’s never been this fast. It’s not fair! She began hyperventilating. She didn’t know what to do. But one little fact stood out clearly amidst the turmoil: she didn’t want to continue feeling hollow and feeble. The forest could spare some magic. Ponies would understand if she took a little of it permanently. They had to. Nopony deserved to feel this way… “Stop… Why can’t I stop?” Twilight whispered as she prepared to siphon more magic from the forest. But as the forest’s magic pooled in the air around her once more, some remnant of her discipline flared back to life in outrage at her attempt at a second helping of stolen magic. Instead of drawing the energy in, she unleashed it before she could change her mind again. It pulsed when she loosened her magical grip on it, morphing into thermal and kinetic energy at an alarming rate. She gasped when she realised that she had inadvertently tainted it with her roiling emotions and tried to bring it back under her control, but it simply exploded out of her magical grip in the form of a shockwave that radiated from her position, sending trees and dirt flying in every direction. In the aftermath, Twilight found herself standing in the middle of a smoking crater. She gaped at the tree stumps smouldering and crackling in the heat as cinders drifted in the air like snow. She sighed and hung her head. More damage. Wonderful. She pounded her hoof on the ground, mentally screaming at herself. It sank about an inch before striking what felt like a large rock, and for some reason, its refusal to give way set her temper ablaze once more. Twilight pounded her hoof on the rock again, but to no avail. Grinding her teeth, she struck harder, but the thing stubbornly remained solid and immovable. And that was it. She snarled and pounded on it repeatedly with her hoof, throwing more and more of her alicorn strength against it with every successive hit. Before long, the treetops beyond the ring of destruction were rustling from the force of each impact. And yet the rock remained intact, sinking deeper into the ground instead of shattering. She could practically hear it mocking her in Discord’s voice. Her strength meant nothing to it. Stupid rock! With an inarticulate cry, she ripped it out of the ground with her magic, ignoring the queasiness that her magical expenditure had caused. Looking around, she spotted another rock nearby that the explosion had uncovered, and immediately began slamming her melon-sized one against it, picturing it as the head of Discord in statue form. He was the reason she’d gotten herself in this mess; if he’d just done his job and captured Tirek as Celestia had asked, she wouldn’t have had to go through all of this! Flakes and chips flew in every direction, and soon chunks followed suit as she poured more energy into destroying them. But her rock seemed to be composed of stronger minerals – probably granite – and remained more or less whole when the she’d already pulverised the other. Twilight glared at the ovoid thing and tried to crush it with her magic, but once again, it resisted all of her efforts. Oh, no you don’t. You’re just a stupid rock. I don’t need the power of four alicorns to end you. You hear me? I don’t need it! She channelled every ounce of magic she had against it, clenching her teeth so hard that for a moment she thought they might crack. Her horn grew hot with the amount of power coursing through it. The granite resisted at first, but it eventually rewarded her with a grinding sound as its slowly lost structural integrity. Little by little, she shifted the application of force to concentrate on weakened areas, and the rock gradually lost its smooth, ovoid shape. A minute later, it resembled a broken ornament that somepony had hastily glued back together. But it took a lot of power to push it past that threshold, and she could already feel pain sinking its fangs into her horn. But she kept at it, unwilling to give up. She wasn’t weak. Her magic would suffice. She didn’t need anypony else’s magic. She— The rock exploded. Twilight didn’t even have time to gasp before shards of granite grazed one side of her face and larger chunks battered her chest. Dust caked up her eyes, and she stumbled as she tried to wipe them out with a hoof. Then, the nausea hit her. She lurched forward, lost her balance and blindly threw up on the ground. Eager to get away from the mess, she tried to get back onto all fours, but she only managed to stumble a few strides to one side before she collapsed. Then there, surrounded by the scent of scorched earth and the acrid stench of bile, with the realisation of her failure and hypocrisy and hunger for magic sapping her resolve to carry on, Twilight began to sob. It’s just not fair…