Chapter 18: The Ultimate Punishment
The flight to Canterlot was uneventful. The two pegasi pulling the chariot didn't seem bothered by the fact that they were pulling five passengers. Celestia had probably selected her strongest flyers to handle the load. They were fast as well. The flight to Canterlot was fairly brisk, taking no more than around an hour and a half. For a few minutes, the mountainside city of Canterlot sprawled out beneath them in all its tiered glory as the chariot made straight for the Royal Palace.
However, at the last second, the pullers veered off-course, angling their flight towards a building that Twilight knew very well, the archives. It was here that she and Arkenstone had researched ponies who shared Dawn's condition, as well as where Wight Shade had shown them the secret room that contained the accumulated knowledge of one of the worst criminals in Equestrian history, a criminal so terrible that he'd been written out of history.
I guess it makes sense that the Princess would want to meet us here, thought Twilight. She hadn't mentioned the fact that she'd already seen Morning Star's hidden archive room in her letter. Celestia would probably take them down through that hidden door, thinking it was the first time all of them had been there. Should I tell her? It was the honest thing to do and Applejack would probably be all for it. But Twilight didn't want to put Wight Shade on the spot if she didn't have to. Ultimately, he'd done them a favor by showing them the archive and warning them about Morning Star. Otherwise Twilight wouldn't have known enough to think about contacting Celestia in the first place. Perhaps knowing that would get him off the hook if she did end up telling Celestia. Twilight didn't plan on explaining unless the subject came up. She just hoped that Arkenstone did the same.
Celestia was waiting for them at the entrance to the archives, her expression mostly neutral, but showing a slight strain at just how much this situation was troubling her. Twilight didn't envy her mentor's position. In addition to this latest problem, she'd spent the past few months trying to manage the Noble Court's increasingly dangerous machinations while trying to track down the leadership of a cult that seemed to focus most of its energy towards hating her younger sister.
Twilight, her friends, Arkenstone, and Soarin' all came to a stop after approaching Celestia and bowed before her.
"Rise please," said Celestia, "There is much we need to talk about."
"Ah'll say. Ah'm right peeved after learnin' just how close mah new sister-in-law's weddin' came to bein' crashed by that jerk," said Applejack in a surly tone, shooting Soarin' a dirty look. The Wonderbolt gave her an apologetic one in return.
"Yes...it's true that this issue with the stallion named Flash Spark is a much greater threat than any of us anticipated," said Celtestia, "But, ultimately, he is but a part of a much larger and much more severe problem."
"What is it, Princess?" asked Twilight, eyeing Celestia nervously as she began to lead them through the archive hallways. Twilight already recognized the route they were following to the secret door that would lead to Morning Star's "wing" of the building.
Princess Celestia sighed. "In truth, I was hoping that I would never need to bring this matter up with other ponies again, but it seems my hoof has been forced." She gave Twilight a stern look. "But then, I think you already know all about that."
Twilight felt her stomach clench under that look. There was no question now. Celestia knew. "I know some of it," she conceded.
Coming to a halt, Celestia looked away from Twilight and let out a melancholy sigh. "I shouldn't be surprised. I had been debating revealing Morning Star's existence to you myself when Luna's majordomo went ahead and did just that."
"He's not in trouble, is he?" asked Twilight.
"I am quite cross with him for going behind my back like that," said Celestia, "However, though I can reprimand him and recommend that Luna might consider somepony else for his position, the decision ultimately rests with her. She decided that it was not sufficient reason to dismiss him. She even pointed out that Wight Shade was, more or less, anticipating my own thoughts on the matter."
"Why would you show that information to me?" asked Twilight, "Why keep all that information at all. I thought your punishment should have erased everything that he left behind."
"I wanted to but..." Celestia's head lowered and Twilight could see the guilt and frustration that struggled for dominance on her face. "...Morning Star was different from any other pony I have ever had to levy Excommunicare-Equestris against. Even during the worst of it, even when he turned the very materials he'd developed into weapons against me, it didn't feel like he was truly evil."
"Why do you say that?" asked Rarity, "If what he did was terrible enough to warrant such a heavy punishment, surely he must have been a malicious creature at heart."
Shaking her head, Celestia continued to lead the way down the halls. "I wish it was so simple. In truth, I couldn't really fit Morning Star into a category of "good" or "evil," because he just didn't seem to perceive the world in that way. From a standpoint of morality and ethics, it was almost as though he was viewing the world through a completely different spectrum than anypony else. Ultimately, it wasn't what Morning Star did that earned him the Excommunicare. It was what he almost did. For, if he had succeeded, there was every chance that no one would be around to levy any punishment against him at all."
Twilight gulped. It was one thing to sentence a criminal for terrible crimes against her fellow ponies. But to pass such a severe sentence for a crime he hadn't committed yet... Just what was he trying to do? Even if it was punishment for attempting a crime, that generally carried less weight than a crime that had actually been carried out.
"There is a lot of explaining in order for you to fully understand the situation," said Celestia, looking over at the ponies that had accompanied Twilight, "Much of it involves advanced magical theories that might be a little over your heads."
"Why do you even have a punishment like that?" asked Soarin', "I mean, that sounds ridiculously harsh."
"It was harsh because, more often than not, it was what such ponies deserved," said Celestia, "Morning Star was not entirely unique...at least, not in the nature of the crime he was going to commit. There have always been those in the fields of scientific development who have let their zeal for their work override the ethical implications of their actions.
"One of the ponies I excommunicated was planning to unleash a plague upon a city of hundreds of thousands of innocents, simply to study its effects and prove a theory of hers. Said theory would end up proven many years later through safer methods, but that mare did not want to wait. She would have turned a major population center into a graveyard, simply because she wanted credit and adoration for the work she had done. Even though I put a stop to it, hundreds had already died. She fully believed that the ends justified the means and was more than happy to tell me so when I confronted her. Even more, she was willing to go to her death, absolutely certain that, even though I had killed her, her name would resound through Equestria's history.
"It wasn't just ponies like her. Back when Equestria was still largely governed with a feudal system, there had been a certain noble who had taken up a hobby of kidnapping his own peasantry and playing a sick game of cat and mouse with them before killing them in a monstrous fashion. He was almost delighted to see me when I arrived to dispense justice, sure that nopony would forget his name once I was finished.
"There were others...not many...I haven't had to use excommunication more than ten times since Luna and I took the throne. In all of those cases, I opted not to take the criminal's life, but instead strip away something that they valued far more...their posterity. I first rendered them powerless, then forced them to watch as I stripped away every memory, every remnant of their existence; destroying records, erasing birth certificates, even modifying the memories of those who had once been close to them if necessary. Mothers were made to forget that they had a certain foal. A school was never attended by a particular student. A shop never employed a specific pony. All of it was wiped away, never to be seen again as I made the entire world forget those ponies even existed. Only then did I banish them, ensuring that they knew that all their efforts left them with nothing, not even their own identities."
"Th-that's so sad," said Pinkie Pie with a slight whimper, her body shivering, "Nopony would ever know it was your birthday, you'd never get any presents on Hearth's Warming...nopony would remember anything that you did..."
"It is, perhaps, the cruelest punishment I am capable of," said Celestia, "one that is reserved for only the worst of ponies who commit the most terrible of deeds."
"Just what was it this stallion did that warranted such a punishment?" asked Rarity, "It was obviously quite awful."
Celestia paused. They had reached the location of the secret door that led down to the hidden room. Using her hoof, Celestia pushed against a section of the wall, causing it to swing open soundlessly, eliciting a gasp from everypony except Twilight and Arkenstone, who had seen the hidden portal before. Not saying a word, Celestia led them down the steps and into the room, illuminated by glowing crystals that washed everything with a strange, unearthly light. Even having seen it already, Twilight still felt her skin crawl as her mind and body completely absorbed the impression that the light was not of this world. Looking over, she could see that her friends and even Soarin' were just as discomforted by the eerie scene.
"Morning Star's crime, one that he almost committed, was opening a way beyond the world," intoned Celestia softly, eliciting a gasp from Twilight, whilst the others cocked their heads, clearly not quite assimilating the meaning of Celestia's statement.
"Um...that certainly sounds bad and all," said Applejack uncertainly, clearly not really believing her own words, "but what in the hay does that even mean?"
Again, Celestia sighed. "Like I said, Twilight is probably the only pony here with the background to fully understand this, but I will do my best to explain." She gestured to the crystals scattered around the room, illuminating shelves and cubicles containing thousands, possibly tens of thousands of scrolls, all meticulously organized. "This is the sum total of Morning Star's work when he was still my student. He was a mage beyond any other I have ever seen, well beyond even the likes of Starswirl or Clover."
Twilight let out a shocked gasp. "Princess! Even if he did create completely new kinds of matter...how could that...?"
Celestia shook her head. "Clearly, whatever you read during your first visit only merely scratched the surface of what Morning Star accomplished. He did not merely create new matter...he invented entire worlds."
"Worlds?" asked Arkenstone, raising an eyebrow.
"Soarin'," said Celestia, abruptly turning to the Wonderbolt, who looked more than a little overwhelmed by the situation, "The alterations to Flash Spark, please describe them to the best of your abilities."
Soarin' laid out his explanations as best he could, with Twilight chiming in to help supplement his explanations. As she listened, Celestia sent her magic dancing across the room, her aura picking scrolls from shelves and drifting them over, laying them out with each new detail revealed. By the time Soarin' finished, three scrolls lay unrolled upon one of the reading tables scattered throughout the archive.
"Read these, Twilight," said Celestia, gesturing to the scrolls.
Nodding, Twilight began to scan the first one. The roll was incredibly thick, the rolled-up scroll containing enough information to fill two or even three of the larger tomes that occupied her own library back in Ponyville. Even as she began to read, Twilight's eyes were widening. The one scroll she'd scanned the last time she was here had clearly been nothing more than a brief primer. She absorbed the text, which went on at length about the composition and materials of an entire world. It was clearly a much simpler model than a similar text about Equestria would have been. However, it was still meticulously detailed in describing the materials of that world and the physics that governed them. Furthermore, it also calculated how said materials and physics would interact if they came into contact with the materials and physics of the world Twilight knew, the world she was living in. As she read, she noticed a passage about vibrations generated by certain types of matter producing sonic convergence effects in the open air...exactly the phenomenon that had been utilized by Flash Spark's wings.
"This is..." she whispered, prying her eyes away from the scroll and gazing up at her teacher. Had she not been here for such dire reasons, Twilight would have been delighted to continue losing herself in the scroll's contents. This was beyond anything she had ever conceived as being possible. "It's amazing...beautiful even."
Celestia nodded, clearly agreeing with Twilight's sentiments. "That was the amazing thing about Morning Star. For the most part, his only use of magic was to create the matter in question and manipulate it. Every other phenomenon that resulted was a consequence of the physics that governed the matter he created interacting with the physics of our world. In order to fully conceive of such matter, he had to not only create the matter itself, but the physics that governed that matter, thus engineering an entire world's worth of physics to support his creation. He worked constantly, sometimes for days, even weeks at a time. His drive was incredible...possibly even mad..." Her eyes drifted shut. "...No...most certainly mad."
In a sense, Twilight could understand. To be able to conceive of such matter, produce it and utilize it to the extent that Morning Star did, his mind could not have operated in the same manner that the mind of any pony who might technically be called sane did. Thinking outside the box was one thing, but this was well beyond that.
"You understand now," said Celestia, once again gesturing to the room at large, "Morning Star's magic allowed him to create matter that did not exist in this world before and matter that was not of this world at that. This was both his genius and his downfall."
"Why is that?" asked Rarity.
"Are you familiar with the concept of the Akashic Records?"
"I'm afraid not," said Rarity.
"I know!" exclaimed Twilight, "That's the theory that there exists a repository of the sum total of all knowledge in existence, past, present, and future."
"Ooh! That's so cool!" exclaimed Pinkie, bouncing eagerly, "That means the birthdays of everybody in the world are listed there. If I knew all that, I could throw parties for everyone."
Celestia giggled at Pinkie's logic. "I suppose that would be possible."
"But..." Twilight's expression fell. "The Akashic Records are purely a theoretical concept. There's no scientific proof of their existence at at all."
"What exactly are we talkin' about here?" asked Applejack in a skeptical tone, "Some kinda big honkin' book?"
"Not really," said Twilight, "The Akashic Records are thought to be contained in a non-physical plane of reality beyond the reaches of our own. There's no proof of their existence at all. At best, there are anecdotes of some ponies supposedly being able to access the Records while in a trance or under the influence of drugs."
"Sounds like a whole lotta hooey to me," said Applejack.
Twilight shrugged. "That's why I said it's only theoretical. I've never really believed in their existence myself." She shot Celestia a questioning glance.
"I did not ascribe any credence to the theory either," said Celestia, "For the most part, I believe the idea of the Records to be a fantasy conceived by ponies who wanted to believe that there was a means of learning everything quickly and easily, with no real effort on their parts."
"I take it Morning Star was something of a believer though," said Rarity.
A slight smile appeared on Celestia's face. "Yes...he was...though he sought them for different reasons than most ponies..."
"Hello there, Morning Star. Are you ready for today's lesson?"
The rosy-pink coated colt looked up from the book he'd been reading. "Hi Princess! I sure am ready."
"Excellent." Celestia's eyes glided over the cover on the book as Morning closed it. "I am not familiar with that text. What are you reading?"
The young colt's eyes lit up. "It's talking about this place where you can see everything that's ever been known or ever will be known."
"I see..." said Celestia, "You're talking about the Akashic Records then?"
Morning nodded eagerly. "Yeah! That's it!"
"You do realize that it's highly unlikely that such a place exists, right?"
Morning nodded, though it was clear that he was reluctant to part with the idea. "Yeah. It would be kind of sad anyway."
That got Celestia's interest. "Sad? How so?"
"Well...if there's some kinda big library of knowledge out there with all the information about everything, then everything's technically already known." Celestia had a bit of trouble following the colt's logic, but she nodded, prompting him to continue. "Then...if everything that's going to be known is already known in that place, then, when we discover something or make something new, then we aren't really discovering or making it ourselves, because it all already existed there to begin with."
Celestia was surprised by Morning's manner of thinking. "I suppose that would be true..." she mused, unsure if that was the appropriate way to think about it. It was moot anyway. It wasn't as though the Akashic Records really existed.
"But..." continued Morning, clearly still dwelling on the subject, "If something like that did exist then...what if you could add something new to it yourself?"
"Come again?" asked Celestia, staring at the colt in surprise.
"You know," said Morning, waving his hooves, "What if you could just put something new in the record, like...like writing an extra chapter in a book...something like that."
"That would truly be something," Celestia conceded, smiling warmly at Morning's desire to always push the boundaries of what was possible.
So that's what Wight Shade meant, thought Twilight, remembering how Luna's chief steward had described Morning Star's obsession, That would be looking at the blueprints of the world.
"I believe that was where Morning Star's fascination, his obsession, with creating that which did not exist before began," said Celestia, "He never truly let go of his belief in the Akashic Records. He wanted to access them himself, not merely to access the knowledge he believed was contained there, but to give birth to truly new knowledge that had never before existed and never would have, save for his own intervention."
"Yer kinda right 'bout this bein' over our heads," admitted Applejack with a shrug, "But where does this crime ya punished him fer come in?"
"That..." Celestia said, her tone heavy with sadness, "came about as the ultimate culmination of Morning Star's obsession."
"He was trying to open a way beyond the world," said Twilight, "In other words, he was trying to rip open a hole in the fabric of reality."
"Is that really so dangerous?" asked Rarity.
Celestia nodded. "There are some things that are far too dangerous to tamper with. The integrity of our reality is one of them. It is one thing to alter and shift it at will, as Discord did, but even he wouldn't dare try to break through the essence of reality itself."
"Why not?" asked Pinkie.
"It's a bit tricky to explain," said Twilight, before looking at Rarity, "Let's say somepony tore a hole in a sheet of fabric...if you didn't mend it, what would happen?"
"That's rather simple," said Rarity, "The fabric would begin to unravel at the point of the break. If it isn't mended then, eventually, the entire thing could come undone...depending on the weave.
Twilight nodded. "Reality is like that. A small breach causes the integrity of our very dimension to suffer. Even if the break is a small one, it will quickly become larger until it's either stopped or..."
"...Or until it consumes the world entirely," finished Celestia, "A long time ago, shortly after Luna and I ascended the throne, a group of unicorn mages researching the matter created a breach less than a millimeter across. By the time Luna and I intervened and used the Elements of Harmony to close the rift barely two hours later, it had swallowed an area approximately five miles in diameter and had wiped nearly two-hundred ponies out of existence."
A collective shudder went through the group at the idea.
"There are theories that a more stable portal could be created," continued Celestia, "one that wouldn't instantly grow out of control and swallow everything around it. However, in order to achieve that aim..."
"...Experiments would have to be conducted," said Twilight, growing pale, "And each failed attempt could cause untold damage on its own. And if even one of them ended up not being stopped..."
"...It could mean no less than the end of the world itself," finished Celestia, nodding in agreement with her student's deductions.
"Well...that certainly sounds bad," said Applejack a little shakily.
"Is that what this Morning Star guy was trying to do?" asked Pinkie.
"Yes," replied Celestia, "As I told you, he grew obsessed with the idea of accessing the Akashic Records. He spent a great deal of time researching them. He was especially interested in using the matter that he created in ways that might allow him to reconstruct the manner in which the Records could theoretically acquire and store information. He conceived of miniature archives, which could store the information of entire libraries in tiny crystals less than an inch across. None of his creations ever satisfied him.
"He came to the conclusion that records were embodied in a non-physical plane of reality that could only be accessed by a conscious being if said being had physically left this reality. In other words, he wanted to switch his perspective to that of someone looking in on our reality from outside. In order to do that, he needed to open a way, a stable one and large enough to enable a full-grown pony to pass through."
"That's impossible!" exclaimed Twilight, "The energy requirements would be immense. The energy needed to produce even a tiny breach, much less contain it, uses nearly as much power as you use to move the sun."
Celestia nodded in agreement. "It certainly requires power beyond the scope of ordinary ponies. However, Morning Star had a way around that limitation."
"Oh!" exclaimed Twilight, looking at the archive around them, "His created materials!"
Celestia sighed. "Naturally, when I learned what he was planning, I forbade it. I told him that it was foolish to even think about attempting something so dangerous. If such a rift were opened, it would swallow the whole of our world in a matter of days, if not hours. And...with Luna gone and the Elements inert at the time, there would have been no way for me to close it."
"If ya ended up banishin' him, Ah'm guessing he went and tried it anyway," said Applejack.
Celestia nodded again. "Yes. Creating that rift required the construction of an extremely large and complex apparatus composed of the unique matter that Morning Star produced with his magic. Naturally, Morning Star could not build such a device just anywhere. Space would need to be acquired and, unless he wanted to assemble the whole thing by himself, a process that he admitted would take decades, he would need to hire ponies to assist him in construction. That was how I found out about it..."
The doors to Morning Star's private study slammed open with enough force to shake the room, possibly the entire Palace. The doors themselves were smashed to splinters by their subsequent impacts against the walls. Looking up from the document he'd been working through, Morning Star blinked owlishly at the furious Princess now storming through the sundered portal.
"Is something wrong?"
Celestia's eyes blazed with fiery light, practically miniature suns in their own right, as she glared directly at her student. The normal swirling aura of colors that formed her mane and tail had been replaced with billowing flames of blue and white. Her magic lofted a large envelope before slapping it down on the desk right in front of the impertinent stallion. "Morning Star! I specifically forbade you from making any attempt to carry out your experiment in any form! And yet, here I find proof that you have been bidding for a large plot of land outside of Trottingham."
"Well...yes..." said Morning Star, scratching the side of his head, "I was thinking of maybe a summer home-"
"DO NOT LIE TO ME!" roared Celestia, the force of her voice making the entire Palace shake down to its foundations, "You deliberately attempted to go behind my back and carry out your experiment in direct defiance of my instructions."
Seeming nonplussed, rather than frightened, Morning Star merely blinked, barely even flinching at the force of his teacher's voice. "Well...I guess I was fair caught," he admitted with a sigh.
"So you intend to press forward on this, regardless of what I have said," growled Celestia.
"Hence the whole going behind your back thing," said Morning Star in a plain tone. There was nothing mocking or contemptuous in his manner of speaking. Rather, it was a tone of somepony simply laying out the facts.
"I will not allow it," said Celestia, her eyes narrowing, "Your experiment could doom the entire world."
"Emphasis on 'could,'" said Morning Star, "I have run the numbers and I believe that I can contain and stabilize the rift using the effects of my Dark Matter...mostly..." He shrugged. "Granted...things often work out just fine on paper, but prove considerably harder to manage in reality. I suppose that the risk of something going catastrophically wrong is rather high..."
"And yet you persist anyway," said Celestia, her anger fading, replaced by an overwhelming sadness, "Why?" She didn't want to fight her student. Morning Star had been, by far, the most promising student she had taken under her wing in the entire course of her life.
"Because...I want to see if what I create is truly my own creation," said Morning Star, "I want to know that what I create is truly my own and I am not merely discovering some facet of the world that already existed. Even if the Records do exist and even if my creations are a part of them, then...if I reach the Records, then I will be in a position to add to them and truly create something that is truly my own."
"What you speak of...are you trying to become a god?" asked Celestia, truly distressed by the depth of her student's obsession.
"If creating something that is truly my own is the act of a god then..." Morning paused and thought it over for a moment. "...then I guess that a god would be what I am aiming to be. I didn't actually think of it like that."
"Please don't do this," begged Celestia, "Don't lose yourself chasing after phantoms. The Records are a myth, nothing more. Do not waste your life. Do not endanger the world pursuing a fiction. You've already changed everything with your creations. Imagine all the good you will be responsible for once the world understands what your Dark Matter is capable of. Don't throw all that away."
"I haven't really given much though to the overall uses of my Dark Matter besides how it might be relevant to me," said Morning, "How it benefits the world does not truly interest me."
"Morning! Please!"
"Sorry Princess," said Morning with another shrug, "I suppose that, in the end, you're right. You usually are. You're right to try and stop me. However, I have no intention of stopping myself."
Celestia squeezed her eyes shut, twin steams of tears leaking out to run down her face. "Than you leave me with no choice, my ex-student. I will stop you."
"If you can," said Morning, "I'm afraid that you're going to have a rather hard time of it." He bobbed his head politely. "Thank you for your guidance and instruction all this time. I'm afraid I will be leaving your tutelage now."
Celestia did not answer...not with words at least. Instead, her horn blazed with golden light as she threw a lance of pure sunfire straight at Morning. A single powerful ray slammed into the stallion, throwing him through the desk he'd been sitting at and the wall behind it...and the wall behind that one...and the next wall...and on, plowing through barriers of solid marble as though they were made of paper. Morning's flight ended with him slamming into the courtyard, digging a trench through the ground as though he were a falling meteor, rather than a pony as he left a trail of glowing-hot destruction behind him.
Her horn glowing yet again, Celestia vanished in a burst of golden energy before she reappeared in the courtyard, standing at the start of the trench that had been dug through the manicured lawn before vanishing into the hedge maze outside. There, nearby, rested Discord's imprisoned form. As always, the mismatched creature seemed perpetually locked in a bout of amusement, as though he was delighted by this violent disagreement between teacher and former student.
"That was impressive," said Morning, not even sounding winded as he stepped forward out of swath of destruction his body had carved out of the maze, "The power of the one who moves the sun is not to be trifled with."
The fluttering of wings, the clack of hooves, the clank of armor, and the hum of magic indicated that the members of the Royal Guard had arrived on the scene, arraying themselves behind Celestia in an arc as they moved to provide her with support. Their eyes narrowed as they glared past their ruler at Morning Star as he strode nonchalantly out of the maze, seeming untouched by the ferocious assault.
"Your orders, Princess?" asked the leader, glancing up at Celestia. He was not so foolish as to suggest that the Princess step back so that they could fight in her stead. She had clearly started this fight, so she would most likely insist on being a participant, maybe even the only participant.
"Leave us," said Celestia in the cool tone of a commander, "Secure the area and make sure that nopony approaches. Other than that, do not interfere."
The frown that crossed the Guard's face suggested he was not happy with the idea, but he was not about to argue with Celestia when she was using that tone. "As you wish." The Guards dispersed to carry out her orders.
"Ever since you took the position of the mover of the sun, you've relied on the sun's power to fuel your attacks," said Morning as he continued to step forward, "It certainly is a force to be reckoned with. The fires of the sun are hotter than anything else in the world. Not even a dragon's flames can compare. Those flames will burn through any magical protection and turn everything to ash within an instant.
"However, what if those flames encountered something that did not react to heat as a destructive force, but merely altered it into another form of energy that was less dangerous? Such materials exist in this world, but their efficiency is not enough to completely neutralize one of your attacks. However, such rules do not apply to my Dark Matter."
Celestia gritted her teeth. Morning Star must have coated his body in some material that had done exactly what he had described. Given the way he'd been thrown all the way out of the Palace by that strike, it must have transformed the heat of her sunfire into kinetic energy, which had propelled him through and subsequently shattered every obstruction in the way...maybe.
On either side of Morning's shoulders, shimmering white protrusions forced their way up and out of his skin, swelling like pustules before bursting like they had been ruptured. However, what sprayed out was not pus, but feathers, which steamed through the air, forming a pair of wings...and then a second pair...and a third. Standing there, Morning Star now sported no fewer than six wings as he faced Celestia, all of them white, yet shimmering with strange shades of color that were disturbingly alien to Celestia's eyes. The light of her sun above seemed to filter down into them, passing through before exiting, mutated into some other form.
They were at once beautiful and hideous to look at. Their shimmering white shapes, combined with the dancing colors of the light that passed through them were mesmerizing to look at. However...they did not belong on Morning Star's body. Unlike pegasus or alicorn wings, there were none of the muscles where those extra limbs joined the body. Instead, they looked as though they had been cut and pasted on Morning Star as an afterthought. Furthermore, they did not move like flesh in blood wings, bending in impossible ways, like they had neither bones nor muscles of their own, instead seeming to be masses of feathers that had been glued together in a vaguely wing-like shape. They swelled and shrank, the feathers multiplying or dwindling in number, sometimes changing size and orientation. Celestia found herself unable to stand looking at them for long.
Lowering her horn, Celestia unleashed another blast of solar energy, aiming squarely for the center of Morning Star's chest. Morning barely seemed to even see the attack. Instead, his wings reacted as though they had minds of their own, all six converging downwards and inwards to intercept the blast. The tips of the feathers that might have been called the outermost primaries on a normal set of wings, crossed together directly in front of the blast. The solar energy Celestia had conjured hit those feathers and seemed to bend several directions at once, its entire spectrum shattering into random rays of color that streamed off in separate directions. Three streams, blazing with colors that Celestia could not put names to, came straight at her.
She'd expected a counterattack in some form or another, so Celestia already had a shield spell ready to go. A flick of her horn called a curved wall of golden light into being directly in front of her. Two of the incoming rays were stopped. One simply ceased to exist as it came into contact with the shield. The other vanished in a blaze of sparks and shimmering smoke. The third passed through her shield as though it wasn't even there. It hit Celestia just off to one side of her chest.
Nothing happened. Looking down, Celestia saw no mark or sign. The ray of light had passed through her shield without seeming to have touched it. She blinked in confusion. Her heart had stopped for an instant, but it seemed that the beam was harmless. Just to be safe, she performed a quick diagnostic scan of herself, but found no signs of harm.
"Interesting," said Morning, "I've never participated in anything resembling actual combat before. This will be a useful experience for me."
All six of his wings flapped and he surged toward Celestia at speeds that would have impressed a Wonderbolt. Rather than try to meet his attack head on, Celestia instead beat her own wings and threw herself to the side. Another beat launched her up into the air so that she was now in an arcing flight up above Morning. Once again, she launched another bolt of sunfire, this time aiming for the back of his head. At this angle, he couldn't possibly see her attack coming. No matter how fast his wings were, there was no way he'd be able to use them to block an attack he didn't know was coming.
She was wrong. One pair of wings continued beating to keep Morning's body on the move. But, at the same time, the two other pairs seemed to rotate around the first pair, as though all three wings had been mounted on some sort of ball and socket joint, then curved upwards and inwards, forming something like a protective umbrella over Morning's back. Once again, Celestia's attack hit the wings and shattered, this time into an even more brilliant display of colors, which seemed to manifest as a spray of particles that blasted back towards her like wind-blown sand.
Again, the shield came blazed to life. Most of the incoming particles rebounded or disappeared with a variety of effects. But a number once again slipped through the shield, one or two seeming to completely burn their way through, and Celestia got the feeling of being hit by a light spray of sand. However, the impact of one of the particles sent the sensation of something like an insect's sting from the point of impact. Fortunately, it had done practically no damage and even the pain was nothing write home about. Celestia had suffered more from mosquito bites.
Morning was evidently done with bantering, as he said nothing after that. Instead, the four wings that had shielded him swept downward, the remaining pair joining them so that all six wings completed their powerful strokes in unison, launching Morning back-first straight at Celestia, his head, rump, and legs dangling as though his body was simply being dragged along by his wings' power.
Rolling to the side, Celestia's eyes tracked Morning as he shot past like a missile. She turned to follow him, preparing to unleash another spell, trying to come up with something different that might be able to get through or around those wings. Looking up, she saw that Morning had stopped his rapid ascent, spreading all six wings wide like massive airbrakes to stop his body. The angle of his flight had taken him on a path directly in front of the sun, so that it now shined past him and straight into Celestia's eyes.
If he had been aiming to blind her with the maneuver, that was a serious mistake on his part. The sun was Celestia's after all. She could stare at it as long as she pleased with practically no ill-effects. Instead, she selected another spell from her repertoire of battle magic, assembled through centuries of on and off study, far longer than any ordinary unicorn could hope to spend learning magic, to hurtle at him.
Before she could cast, however, the sunlight shining between Morning's wings seemed to dim, as though the light itself was being sucked into those weird, artificial appendages. The wings themselves blazed with a light of their own, seeming to extend into blade-like shapes of light that then slashed downwards at Celestia. She immediately switched to a defensive spell, calling her shield into being once again. Four of the wings bounced away, one halted against the shield with a burning hiss as the light shining from the feathers seemed to burn its way through. But the sixth and last wing passed completely unimpeded by the obstruction and slashed its way across Celestia's chest.
A searing line of agony burned itself along the path of the attack and Celestia felt as though she had been hit by a hammer. Her body was thrown downard by the fantastic force of the blow. She barely had the presence of mind to conjure another shield between herself and the ground before she hit, throwing up a spray of earth. Chest burning, Celestia heaved herself onto her hooves, panting hard. Her legs were shaking. I must be getting rusty if getting hit once takes that much out of me, she thought ruefully. It had been a long time since she had been in battle and an even longer time, not since her and Luna's battle with Discord in fact, that she'd actually taken a real hit by an opponent actually aiming to take her life.
"Calibration nearly completed," muttered Morning, his voice barely audible as he began to drift downwards towards Celestia.
Pursing her lips, Celesta watched Morning warily, trying to discern his next move, as well as how he'd managed to get an attack past her defenses. However, his words gave her pause to think. He'd said something about calibrating, which would mean that he'd been adjusting his attacks in order to find something that would get through her shields. But just what he was doing that had made something like that possible escaped her.
Fortunately, Morning did not seem keen to press his advantage. Rather, he stood in place, staring pensively at Celestia, as though he was trying to puzzle out a difficult equation. His inexperience on the battlefield was telling if he was willing to remain idle so long with an enemy directly in front of him.
Once again, Celestia went on the attack. However, instead of launching another blast of sunfire at her adversary, she instead charged straight for him, her wings beating as her hooves slammed into the ground. Using the earth pony aspect of her nature, Celestia drew the magic into herself and hardened her body, channeling the majority of her strength into her horn, hardening the alicorn's....alicorn, so that it was now nothing less than a spear that was capable of piercing through anything in the world. It was a tactic that would be unthinkable to a unicorn, but for one such as Celestia, who possessed the capacity of all three tribes, it was an unstoppable attack.
Once again, the wings seemed to move without any conscious input on Morning's part. Sweeping around, one wing intercepted Celestia's horn, the tip of which bounced off without so much as scratching the unearthly material. Undeterred, Celestia continued onward, switching from channeling her power into her horn and instead went into a shoulder rush. She ducked her head to avoid the wing itself and dove straight in at Morning's chest, which was now wide open.
A trio of hammer-force blows slammed into her side, knocking Celestia away just before her shoulder made contact with Morning's unprotected body. Three of the wings on one side of Morning's body had arced around to strike her. The force of the blows was enough to to slam Celestia into the ground, digging another trench. As she did, she whipped her head around and lashed out with the simplest attack spell she knew, a telekinetic bolt.
Morning's defense proved to be just as impenetrable as before, one of his wings intercepting the shot and batting it away.
Celestia frowned. Just how was it that Morning was blocking all of her attacks so flawlessly? He had no knowledge of actual battle, yet his wings always seemed to be able to defend against her attacks without difficulty.
"Um...this is more awkward than I thought," muttered Morning to himself, his words only barely audible to Celestia's ears, "What to do...?"
She must have been pressing him harder than she'd thought if he was at a loss as to how to conclude the battle. Perhaps if she pushed just a little bit harder...
Getting onto her hooves, Celestia stared at Morning sternly. "Your magic has been most impressive," she said, "It saddens me that I've been forced to this."
Morning's expression seemed to betray the fact that he'd made a difficult decision. "I can understand that," he said, "What's done is done."
Celestia nodded. Her horn blazed once again as a single thin shaft of light lanced out towards Morning. However, just as it was about to enter within reach of his wings, the shaft of light suddenly branched out in several directions at once, the branching beams of energy bending at sharp angles as they raced outwards before reorienting to come at Morning from several directions simultaneously.
Morning's wings became indistinct blurs as they whirled faster than Celestia's eyes could track. They moved with flawless speed and precision, casually swatting her attacks down as they came in. Celestia's eyes widened, expecting the incoming counterattack to come at any second. It was another failure...
Unexpectedly, as Morning's wings went though the process of intercepting all of Celestia's attacks, they abruptly burst, scattering white feathers through the air, their forms seeming to disintegrate and dissolve, leaving Morning by himself, a regular unicorn once more. He blinked in confusion and looked back over his shoulder at where his wings had been. "Oops..."
Celestia did not let the opening go to waste. Before Morning could fully comprehend the dire nature of his situation, she slammed into him. Celestia used a grappling technique, using her greater weight and strength to slam into Morning's upper body even she hooked a foreleg around Morning's own forelegs and wrenched them out from under him. Her other forehoof went to the side of Morning's head, not striking a blow, but instead guiding the unicorn's head downwards as Morning fell...guiding it so that the horn met the unyielding stone Morning Star had been standing on with all the force of his weight and Celestia's.
The horn hit the stone and snapped. Morning Star's howl of pain echoed through the courtyard, filled to overflowing with his agony. Celestia's tears rolled freely down her cheeks as she looked at the pony, her student, the one she had placed so many of her hopes in, writhed in agony beneath her, agony that she had inflicted with her own hooves. "I'm sorry," she whispered.