//------------------------------// // 2 - A Troubling Invocation // Story: A Dangerous Sparkle // by David Silver //------------------------------// Twilight looked over the dusty tome, reading the section from the start. Arranged in front of her was a wide circle of strange runes that she had meticulously drawn with powdered crystals imported from the Crystal Empire. "With a dash of life's fluid, and an intent unshakable, turn your heart to the goal, let your will be unbreakable," she read as she cantered to the center of the circle and held out a hoof. With a quick flick of a dagger she kept around for such emergencies, a few drops of her blood fell to the ground and she winced. "I hate blood magic," she groused to herself as she set the dagger aside. The forces she had unleashed began to coil and twist in faintly visible chains of eldritch power. Spike's voice rang out from elsewhere in the great crystal tree-house. "Food's ready!" Twilight huffed at the timing, but a loud rumbling from her belly overruled her. She turned away from the circle and descended the stairs. She spotted her dragon friend setting out a few plates and flashed him a warm smile. He saw through her in an instant. "Caught up in another experiment?" he asked, "I'll let you get back to it, but even a princess has to eat." He wagged a scaly finger at her and hopped up onto a seat across from her to enjoy his own meal. She settled into her usual spot and raised an eyebrow at the dragon, "How did you know?” she asked. Before he could answer, she added, “And I'm not caught up. I'm doing everything slowly and by the book!" She looked down at the flower sandwich, glass of orange juice, and pair of muffins Spike had set out for her. She started on the sandwich, holding it aloft in her purple magic as she voraciously destroyed it. Glancing across, she could see Spike had made some kind of gem-studded brownie that crunched loudly with every bite. "So," said Spike between chewing, "what are you working on? You got really excited when you found that book." "When you found that book," corrected Twilight, "The castle must be filled with forgotten magic books, and my number one assistant is the best at finding them," she said, petting the blushing dragon with her magic, "It's full of spells I've never seen before. The spell I’m working on claims to let you see and travel to distant places. I was hoping to use it to make a portal of sorts, to the Crystal Empire. Then I could visit whenever I wanted instead of taking the train." "We haven't had good luck with portals," Spike pointed out before taking another bite, "I mean, there's the one to the human world, and the one to the opposite world. You remember, where we met the good version of Sombra and the bad version of everyone else and almost collapsed the universe?" Twilight waved a hoof dismissively, "We're not going to another world this time, just up north. There shouldn't be any trouble at all." Spike stuffed the last of his treat down his gullet before replying, spraying the table with a few shreds of chocolate and sapphire, "I'm coming with you. You don't know how to behave in new places, you know, if it goes funny." Twilight rolled her eyes and took a moment to sip from her orange juice before nodding at Spike, "Nothing will go wrong, but the ponies of the Crystal Empire won't be upset to see their savior again. It will just be a short hop, to make sure it works, then we come straight back, and get some sleep." They completed their meal in companionable silence. Spike finished first and began bouncing in place while he waited for Twilight to finish. When Twilight was done, he was quick to grab all of her plates and hurry them to the kitchen before reporting for duty with a sharp salute. Twilight giggled at the display, but obligingly led him up the winding stairs. As they reached the top of the stairs Twilight saw that the spell had been progressing while she was away. The circle pulsed softly with a deep purple light. Twilight clapped her forehooves together in a giddy rush, "Oh look, it's ready for us!" she exclaimed as she hurried to the edge. The book had mentioned that she could peek through it to see if it was working properly, so she did just that. Spike hurried up alongside of her and leaned over to inspect it himself, "That doesn't look... right?" he said, gesturing at the temperate wilderness he could see on the other side. Twilight was already levitating the tome with the spell in front of her eyes and reviewing it. "The second circle... angle to the... crystal purity..." she rambled to herself as she circled the portal slowly, inspecting it for flaws and checking it against the book. Her eyes settled on the words, turn your heart to the goal, and she huffed. “It’s hard to concentrate on the goal while you’re cutting yourself,” she muttered. Suddenly, the portal began to unravel. "Twi?" squeaked Spike as he backed away from the whips of blue energy that began violently crackling across the room. "What is it, Spike? I'm try--" Her words were cut off as a lashing tendril of magic whipped across her book. The tome was drawn rapidly through the portal and dropped to the grass on the other side. Twilight gasped and dove after the book, only to be caught between two other chains of power. They wrapped around her tightly and hauled her the rest of the way into the portal. The portal began to buckle and wobble. Spike glanced left and right, then looked back at the portal. As the portal started shrinking, he rushed forward and leaped through the hole moments before it closed completely. The fabric of both planes quickly mended itself, leaving little trace of the exchange that had occurred. Twilight's world faded to darkness as she struck the barrier between worlds. Though she couldn't see, she could feel the forces that bound universes pulling and tugging at her in a disorienting but slightly familiar way. She wondered for a moment if she had accidentally bored back into the human world and if she'd emerge with hands again. In what felt like forever and an instant all at once, she felt gravity return. She rolled over several times in what felt like grass before her snout bumped up against the book that had started it all. She snapped her eyes open, or tried to. Everything looked hazy and blurry, and she was quickly developing a headache, but she could smell the book. She smiled and wrapped it in her magic. The sound of Spike's yelling reached her ears and a moment later, something crashed into her flank. Twilight opened her mouth, hesitated, then snapped it shut. She said, "Spike, take a note. I can still perform magic. We're not at Canterlot High." Spike gave a groan as he clambered to his feet, "I feel funny," he said in an almost drunken slur, "Where did we end up?" Twilight's vision was returning swiftly, allowing her to take in the lush grasslands that surrounded her on all sides. She forgot about her surroundings completely as she caught sight of Spike. "Spike?" she asked, reaching out a hoof to tap him on the shoulder. She hesitated before reaching him, noticing her own hoof looked different. It was more complicated in structure, instead of the elegantly simple cylinder she knew before. Looking herself over, she could see that her new form had a lot of bumps, ridges, and other intricacies that her old world had little use for. She was still a pony, at least, and her cutie mark was intact, along with her horn and magic. As she extended her wings and tested them in slow flaps, Spike began to come around. "Hey, Twi, you look funny." "We both look funny, Spike," she retorted, "You're... stronger looking." She had been about to say “meaner” but she caught herself before the words could emerge from her mouth. "Yeah," agreed Spike as he looked himself over, flexing and waggling his claws at her, "I bet Rarity wouldn't think I was just a baby now." Twilight rolled her eyes as Spike continued to strike poses and admire himself. "Well, unfortunately, she isn't going to see it. We should get back right away. We didn't even tell anyone where we were going and we don't want the entire town going into a panic." The studious alicorn levitated the book again and flipped back to the start of the section that described the portal magic. After a moment she felt Spike's new claws tapping her on the shoulder. "What is it, Spike?" she asked without looking up, "I need to figure out how to get home." "Uh," said Spike, "Somepony's coming this way, and they don't look happy to see us." Twilight looked in the direction of his extended arm to see two strange figures riding ponies large enough to rival one of those Saddle Arabian ponies. They had flattened faces, green skin, and great tusks jutting upwards from their mouth. Their forelimbs ended in hands like a minotaur and each of them was using one of these distinctive appendages to hold long spear. Twilight yelped, grabbed Spike in her magic and tossed him onto her back. He landed more heavily than usual, but she scarcely noticed. She turned away from the dangerous-looking riders and spread her wings wide, but something was wrong. Her wings pumped the air in powerful motions, but did little more than create eddies in the grass, leaving her firmly grounded. Before she could consider the matter with any depth, the natives had reached her. Without hesitation, they lashed out with their spears in cruel stabs. The first caught her across her right thigh, leaving a red line. She howled with pain, but instinctively conjured a lavender bubble around herself, deflecting the second strike. She curled her useless wings back against herself and began backing away from the strange creatures. Their mounts stared at her with unintelligent eyes, devoid of the spark she was used to seeing in the eyes of ponies. Their riders, however, glared with obvious hate as they wheeled around, trying to pin her between them. They spoke in guttural tones that neither Twilight nor Spike understood. As if seeing her confusion, one of them pointed at the ground with his spear and said something loud and authoritative. Spike leaned in to whisper in one of Twilight's ears, "I think it wants you to give up." "What? That's stupid! It stabbed me, there's no way I'm trusting it," said Twilight with wide eyes as she tried to back out from between the two, "This doesn't make any sense. Last time we went to another world, we came out looking like the natives." The two natives spoke to one another, gesturing at the alicorn before breaking off from one another and coming in from opposite sides, spears leveled. Twilight squeaked with fright. She didn't want to see if her shield would hold up against the assault and focused her mind on another spell instead. With a loud pop and a flash of white and purple, she and Spike vanished, to reappear about thirty feet away. The two riders pulled up just short of crashing into one another and wheeled around. By the time they spotted her, Twilight was already running away at a full gallop. Spike held onto her as if his life depended on it, which seemed to be the case. Twilight peeked over her shoulder to see that her assailants were easily gaining on her. The mounts, for all the intelligence they lacked, were long of leg and powerful of body, and Twilight felt a small but brilliant flash of pain every time she moved her injured leg. Spike had turned his head to look with her, speaking up, "I don't think we're getting away from them." "No," she agreed, skidding around to face them, "We're going to have to fight."