The Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee
Chapter 18: A Thread Unravels
Twilight hardly had enough time to process what she had heard behind her before she felt her body forced to the ground. She turned her head to see who was restraining her. Their head was turned the other way—probably checking for any others that might be nearby—but Twilight could catch that they had a distinctly female build and sapphire blue hair. She relaxed her muscles a bit in confusion.
“Aquamarine…?”
Her head whipped back around as soon as she spoke, and suddenly Twilight felt Aquamarine smack her in the face. Twilight flinched, but once she regained her senses she lunged back at her. Her mind wasn’t focusing on who was attacking her, rather what they were stopping her from doing. Once she wiggled her hoof free from her restraint, Twilight returned the attack, hitting Aquamarine square in the face. She didn’t look all too fazed by it, but whether it was because she was a weak puncher or not was beyond Twilight, but that possibility was quite likely. Magic and other mental powers were her strong suit after all.
Aquamarine sent her hoof straight into Twilight’s face again, though much harder this time, and sent a bit of blood splattering on the floor next to them. She could feel her nose bruise up, but she wasn’t very concerned about it for the time being.
She struggled to gain movement in her leg, then kicked Aquamarine in the stomach, temporarily knocking her off. Twilight could tell that her attack didn’t do very much damage, but it gave her enough time to pounce on top of her and gain the upper hand. She forced the other mare’s arms to the floor. If only she was able to use magic it would be a whole lot easier to win the fight, but she had to make do with the circumstances.
With her eyes clenched shut, Aquamarine struggled to fight back. At least, that’s what Twilight assumed she was trying to do. After a few moments, her eyes opened, and Twilight was taken aback to see that her irises, the ones that used to be a deep blue, were now a bright crimson red. In that same instant, Twilight’s hooves started stinging as if they were being injected with a thousand tiny needles. She looked down and saw that they were in a matching scarlet aura of magic. But that was impossible, since they were fighting in a magic negation field, which prevented unicorns from using magic. But, that’s just for unicorns…
Twilight felt her body being lifted off of the ground, a similar pricking sensation completely engulfing her. She lifted her eyes up from her hooves to look Aquamarine in the face.
“What are you?” Twilight asked. Aquamarine smirked, and it wasn’t long before Twilight was hurled into the wall on the other side of the hallway. Perhaps if Twilight had better physical stamina she would have been able to recover faster, but having been reduced to a mess of blood after denting the cement wall, there was no way she could overtake Aquamarine in the fight. She groaned, blood bubbling in the back of her throat, as she saw her attacker slowly draw closer with malicious intent in her eyes. Twilight cleared her throat, spitting out an unhealthy amount of blood onto the floor and on her coat.
“Wh-why?” she asked weakly. “Why would… you do this? Aquamarine?” The blue haired mare kneeled down, grabbing Twilight’s chin in magic and forcing it upward.
“Didn’t I already tell you? I can’t let you stick your nose into places that you aren’t supposed to.” She snapped Twilight’s head upward, then stood back up. “Now do everyone a favor and stop trying to be the hero that we all know you aren’t.” She ended her statement with a knee to Twilight’s chin, smashing her against the wall. Twilight clenched her teeth and prepared for a beating to her death.
“Come now, Ondine. Just because you have to go stop her doesn’t mean you have to be so barbaric about it.” Twilight looked out of the corner of her eye and saw, accompanied with the clicking of newly polished hooves against the smooth floor, the distinctive image of Emerald Joy, giant curls and all. She scowled, but due to her current condition, she didn’t dare attack.
“Wh-what’s going on?” Twilight sputtered angrily, attempting to prop herself up on her elbows. Emerald giggled lightheartedly.
“You really did quite a number on her, didn’t you?” she asked. “Now that won’t do at all. Clean yourself up, dear. I don’t want you staining anything more than you already have.” With a clap of her gloved hooves, a clarity that Twilight never noticed was absent returned. She struggled to focus her energy, then tested her magic. Sure enough, her horn glowed weakly. She started busying herself with several low level healing spells.
“Oh, and don’t try anything silly, Twilight Sparkle,” Aquamarine added, looking down at her. “Just because you have your magic back doesn’t mean I can’t still beat you.” There was a tense pause, the only noise coming from Twilight's magic hard at work.
“So why didn’t you stop me earlier, Aquamarine? Why didn’t you come along or tell me to do something else?” Twilight muttered.
“First of all, I needed to make the act believable. I don’t know how you found the throne room, though, considering how deeply hidden it is and how well the door is guarded by magic, but one way or another you did. That’s when I decided I needed to intervene,” she explained matter-of-factly. Twilight kept her mouth shut, focusing her efforts instead on patching herself up.
“Well, while you’re busy with that, I have something I have to tell you,” Emerald Joy said after staring with dismay at the huge dent in the wall and the bloodstains for a while. Twilight perked up slightly with curiosity, but didn’t turn her way. “It seems there’s a traitor in your midst! Or have you figured that out yet? I wouldn’t put it past you!”
“What do you mean, ‘have I figured it out’? It’s pretty obvious since she just attacked me and beat the crap out of me for touching a door,” Twilight answered, her words laced with venom. Emerald Joy giggled amusedly, with Aquamarine standing to the side, her expression rather unreadable.
“Oh my, you think that Ondine is the traitor? That’s adorable!” she answered, her hoof on her cheek and the other waving in amusement.
“What else would she be?” Twilight shot back angrily. “She pretended that she was friends with me but was actually working with you!”
“Hmm, I wouldn’t exactly call that a ‘traitor’ per se. More like a ‘double agent’ or something of that variety.” Twilight tensed at the implications.
“Wait, that doesn’t mean that—”
“Oh, so you really haven’t figured it out!” Emerald said in amazement. “And I thought you would’ve noticed! No, there’s another friend of yours feeding me information! Or, at least, she was feeding me information.” She sighed. “But alas, all wells run dry sooner or later.”
“What are you talking about?!” Twilight shouted. “I’ve known my friends for years, and I know that none of them would do something like that!”
“Do you really know them as well as you say?” Emerald retorted. She smirked. “Well, that’s a question for another time. Answer me something right now: Out of all of your friends, which ones are supposed to be helping you with this little ‘mission’?” Twilight paused.
“Well, Rainbow Dash would have been helping if…” she trailed off.
“Yes yes, I’m strictly speaking of ponies who are alive right now.”
“I mean, you could say that Pinkie Pie and Applejack are still alive, but they’re not really in any condition to help right now…” Twilight added. “So I suppose that just leaves Aquamarine and... Rarity.”
“You’ve reached your answer! Bravo!” Emerald clapped, and Twilight shot her a sour look. “Rarity is the traitor amongst you! And in case you’re wondering where she is right now, don’t worry! She came to me just a short while ago asking me to put her under the spell now that her task was over! That’s why it took me a while to get here. So sorry about that.”
Twilight was numb. She couldn’t move. No, she just had to think this through, it couldn’t be as bad as she thought. The plan was still going to work!
But it was as bad as she thought. Now that Aquamarine—no, Ondine—was revealed to be on Emerald’s side for whatever reason, and now that Rarity was under the happiness spell…
That meant that she was the only one left to oppose Emerald Joy. The only pony in the city. The only pony in the world. Emerald ruled everything with what was essentially an iron fist now.
“Hm, and while we’re talking about traitors, I suppose I should tell you one other thing. I mean, it’s not too important, but do you remember that one fellow from way back when? Ike, I believe his name was?” Emerald Joy continued. “Well, your friend Rainbow Dash was right! He was just used to trick Fluttershy! But I wasn’t expecting her to react that much to his death! She really lives up to that shy personality, doesn’t she?” She laughed, knowing how much she was riling up Twilight’s emotions. “In fact, he wasn’t even a real person! It’s amazing what magic can do these days, isn’t it? Oh, but don’t worry, I didn’t make any other people to trick you. That would just be lazy.”
Twilight’s blood boiled within her veins. Talking so lightly about how unfairly she manipulated all of them was unbearable to listen to. She wanted to lash out, to take her out then and there. And before she knew it, that’s exactly what she was attempting. She kicked herself off the ground, throwing her whole body’s power into the strongest punch she had ever attempted, fueling it with all of the pent up anger towards Emerald. She aimed and swung.
“You bitch!”
She felt the punch connect, but not in the way she had expected. Emerald had grabbed her hoof, completely stopping the momentum, then forcefully grabbed Twilight’s face in her cloud of green magic, bringing it up to her eye level.
“Now that’s no good, is it?” she asked sweetly, looking into Twilight’s eyes which were twitching in anger. “This isn’t our battlefield.” She dropped Twilight and directed her vision towards the still-glowing door.
“You didn’t expect we’d let you heal up for nothing, did you?” Aquamarine added. With a sickeningly elegant flourish of her gown, Emerald Joy turned and entered her throne room, with Aquamarine tagging along behind her.