//------------------------------// // The Power of Harmony // Story: Dark Matter // by moguera //------------------------------// Chapter 32: The Power of Harmony Twilight Sparkle stumbled a little. Using the Elements of Harmony was tiring work. The feeling of tapping into a force far greater than herself or any other pony...or all ponies together...was incredibly overwhelming. It always made her feel that she was at the utter mercy of an otherworldly power that only moderately acclimated to her will, but otherwise exercised itself as though it were merely acting through her. She supposed that was the power of Harmony in a nutshell. It existed outside of themselves and they were only able to tap it because it saw fit for them to do so. The sound of somepony falling to the floor beside her reached her ears and Twilight looked over frantically, fearing that one of her friends had been hurt. To her relief, it was only Rainbow Dash slumping to the ground in complete exhaustion, her wings limp and her eyes drooping. Otherwise, she was completely uninjured. "Hey," said Rainbow, her voice slurred and sleepy, "Diiid we do it..." "I think...so..." Twilight's voice trailed off as she looked back out over the throne room, becoming little more than a horrified squeak as the light now faded to reveal the results of the Elements' power. The rainbow of light created by the Elements of Harmony wound up and down the central focus of the array, coiling and spiraling like a massive prismatic helix. As Twilight watched the power of Harmony, which had purged the darkness from Nightmare Moon's heart and even struck down Discord, was pulled inwards towards the surface of the focus and then, finally, through the surface, where the rainbow continued to swirl and undulate from within. Wight Shade stood beneath the array, unfazed by Harmony's power, having seemingly been left completely untouched. "Well," he said after a moment's pause, "it worked." "What did you do?" demanded Twilight, stepping forward. She froze in place as a humming sensation filled the room, making the blood in her veins and even her very bones hum in sympathy. Above Wight's head, the focus pulsed once, its form seeming to double, then triple outwards. The swirling rainbow within dissolved into white light before fragmenting into colors that looked completely alien to Twilight's eyes. The focus pulsed again and released a wave of...something...that washed out across the throne room and the world beyond. Twilight felt crushed from without and solidified within, as though her body had become a completely solid object surrounded by an all-encompassing outside force that threatened to crush her into a bloody pulp. She couldn't breathe, as her lungs and sinuses felt like they were packed with cement. Her eyes burned and she felt something wet start trickling down her cheeks. Twilight wasn't sure whether the sensation was tears or blood. The sensation dragged on and on and on... And then it was gone. Though it seemed to have gone on for an eternity, Twilight realized that less than a second had actually passed before the sensation had faded. Things almost felt normal...almost. However, Twilight felt a faint, clinging sensation on her skin, as though her body was wrapped in some weightless, transparent material. Wight had also turned his attention up to the array, smiling contentedly, the smile of a pony who had achieved a lifelong ambition and had found it to be everything he could have ever hoped for. His expression was warm and serene, utterly at peace with what he saw. "What did you do?" demanded Twilight again, her eyes narrowing into a glare. Her body seemed a bit afraid to move and fought her for a moment, but she managed to take an angry step in Wight's direction. "I activated the array," said Wight before hesitating, "Or...rather...perhaps it is more accurate to say that you activated the array." "What?" gasped Twilight, her eyes going wide with horror. "You aren't familiar with the theory behind my design," said Wight calmly, his eyes still glued to the strange, stalactite-like formation hanging over his head, "I told you the basic gist of it, as has Celestia. However, none of the particulars were written down in the archive you inherited from me. Suffice to say, my approach to opening a way beyond the world is a bit different from any other that has been taken." "Really," said Twilight, her voice skeptical. Beside her, she could hear her friends shifting uncomfortably, unsure of what to do. A straightforward fight was out of the question. Should they use the Elements again? "What is the typical method used to open a way?" asked Wight with the air of a professor quizzing a promising student. "Usually, a way is opened by focusing an enormous amount of magical energy into a single point and rupturing the texture of reality," said Twilight, "The edges of the opening rapidly absorb the energy and matter of its surroundings and the opening expands explosively, becoming impossible to contain with typical magic...or, at least, containing such an opening would require power of an order of magnitude greater than what was used to originally create the opening in the first place." Given that said openings required an enormous quantity of magical power to be made in the first place, it meant that the energy to contain it would be all but impossible to muster. Like a chemical reaction going out of control, the rift would expand at an exponential rate until it consumed everything around it. The only reliable way to stop such a rift from swallowing the entire world would be to use the Elements of Harmony, which essentially "corrected" the rift out of existence. "That is correct," replied Wight, "That is the orthodox manner of opening a way beyond the world...insomuch that any manner of doing so could truly be called orthodox, what with so little research being done into the subject, for good reason of course...As you might guess, my method is a bit...different. "The purpose of my array, the reason it was so large and so complex that its design had to encompass the whole of Equestria, was that it was meant to simulate the existential workings of a whole plane of existence, a whole world, if you want a simpler way of putting it." "You created an entire world?" asked Twilight, tilting her head as she tried to wrestle with the concept. "Not in a literal sense, mind you," said Wight, "You might call it an intangible simulacrum of this world, one that occupies the same space and time as the world we actually live in. The initial activation of the array, the exterior foci, served to impress this template upon the fabric of our reality. "Imagine our plane of reality as a plane in the more literal sense, like a sheet of paper. That's probably the best metaphor for this process, though not the most precisely accurate one. Activating the exterior foci, which, as you'll recall, I did some weeks ago, essentially laid a second sheet of paper over the first. Laid one on top of another, two sheets of paper held equally flat would be indistinguishable. "In its original state, this template of an alternate dimension is an inert existence. It is merely there. That is because, even though the template for its existence is in place, the critical component giving it actual existence is missing...a most powerful, fundamental creative force, the essence of life and living itself...a force that you and your friends most conveniently provided for me." "The Elements of Harmony!" gasped Twilight, "It wasn't that you didn't think they couldn't harm you. You actually needed them in order to complete your work." "That is correct," said Wight, "A long time ago, I had determined that the Elements of Harmony were the critical tool to completing my work. I thought long and hard about how to access and apply them. The easiest way was, of course, to trick you and your friends into believing I was an all-powerful foe who could only be defeated by such a force. That is why I arranged things in such a manner." "Arranged things..." Twilight thought over what Wight had meant, her mind trying to piece together the events of the past two days and figure out what he meant. Wight had initially pretended that Flash Spark had escaped the restraints placed on him and that Flash Spark had blasted his way out of Canterlot to make his way to Ponyville. However, the fact that Wight had then used his power to actively send Flash Spark to Ponyville via teleportation (or whatever that strange method of translocation was called), as well as the fact that Wight had recalled Flash when he was in danger of being defeated by Dawn, Perlin, and Firefly, had given away that Wight Shade still had full control over his pawn. That had allowed Twilight and her friends to realize that Wight had deliberately staged Flash's "escape" to distract from something he was doing in Canterlot. They had immediately set out because of that realization... Except that...if Wight Shade had really been trying to hide the fact that Flash Spark was still under his control, he needn't have bothered to teleport Flash to Ponyville or even retrieve Flash when he was about to die. After all, Wight had shown that he could have just as easily outfitted hundreds of ponies with similar, if somewhat inferior, armor and use them as living weapons to protect his new stronghold. Given the timeframe involved, it would have probably even given Wight a larger window of opportunity if he had simply let Flash fly all the way to Ponyville, because it would have taken everypony longer to realize the truth. But instead, he had sent Flash, via that teleportation method he used. Doing so called attention directly to the fact that Wight Shade was still very much in control of Flash's actions...in other words, he'd done it deliberately. Wight Shade had wanted to be found out and, just as he both predicted and wanted, the Elements of Harmony were mustered and brought to Canterlot to be used against him. We've been dancing on the frog of his hoof the entire time, thought Twilight, her body quivering with horror. "Now," said Wight, "Returning to my lecture...you'll recall the metaphor of the stacked sheets of paper. Applying the Elements of Harmony as a catalyst essentially brought the dimensional template created by the array into a definite existence. Those sheets of paper now have definitive definitions distinct from one another, so imagine bending the sheet on top away from the sheet on the bottom. The separate existences can no longer occupy the same space. As a consequence, they will naturally repel one another..." "...and create a space where none existed before," finished Twilight, the final pieces of Wight's explanation clicking together into her head, "The point of separation between the two dimensions becomes a space in the fabric of reality and a way beyond the world will open." "Indeed," said Wight with a pleased smile, clearly impressed that Twilight had grasped the basis of his theory, "And because the opening was created without rupturing the fabric of reality, it should be containable. All I need do is maintain the separation between dimensions and the distance between them will determine the size of the rift that forms." "That's...actually viable..." said Twilight, cupping her chin thoughtfully. It was a completely radical approach to the concept. Of course, given that research on the subject, much less practical experimentation on it, was completely forbidden, the whole idea counted as radical in and of itself. Very few theories had been formulated on how to safely open a way beyond the world and practically none had been tested. Wight's idea of using his Dark Matter, which was made by actualizing an entire world's worth of unique physical laws and using it to give birth to matter that would not exist in this world otherwise to form a conceptual "world" based on the matter he'd created was the most novel approach that Twilight had ever heard. Given what she'd learned about the array now, Twilight could actually conceive that it might actually open a stable way beyond the world, one that wouldn't swallow everything until it consumed the world in its entirety... Despite that realization, Twilight's fur was still steeped in a cold sweat, her legs shivering. There were still far too many unknown variables. Even though the theories for the reason for the rifts' instability focused on the fact that a rupture in the fabric of reality was naturally prone to expanding from its initial size, that was probably only part of the reason such rifts expanded so quickly out of control. There was what actually lay beyond that rift, where everything that was swallowed by it actually went. There was no way of knowing the environment of wherever that rift opened to, whether it was a place where ponies could actually survive. Wight Shade had staked all his work on the belief that it was a way that would ultimately lead him to the Akashic Records. But there was no evidence supporting that notion whatsoever. Wight's efforts were the ultimate example of reaching blindly in hopes of reaching the end that he desired. Though he referred to his work as an experiment, his methods weren't scientific in the slightest. It was the ultimate shot in the dark. What lay beyond the rift he was attempting to create, whether a pony could even survive there, whether the environment beyond the world would have any effects on Equestria itself if it were opened, whether such a method of opening a way beyond the world was as stable as Wight Shade truly believed; all of these concerns were completely ignored by Wight in favor of accomplishing his goal, which amounted to little more than simply seeing if it could be done. "You have to stop," said Twilight, "There's way too much that could go wrong." "You're quite correct that there are plenty of gaps in my knowledge," admitted Wight with an indifferent shrug, "However, the best way to fill those gaps will be to go through with my experiment. Even if I can't manage to pass through the opening this time, I'll have gained critical data on how to better execute it in the future. It will also give me some knowledge about what lies beyond and how to achieve my ultimate goal. It's win-win really." "Not even close," said Twilight, "You're threatening the entirety of Equestria, if not the whole world to satisfy your curiosity. We could all die before you could get any answers and it would all be for nothing." "Still...at least I tried," said Wight. He gave Twilight a surprisingly sober look. "I'm a bit disappointed in you at the moment. You should know all too well that I've been through this little song and dance with Celestia as well. Do you earnestly believe that you can talk me down at this juncture when I was willing to court Celestia's wrath before I'd even started work on this project? You should know by now that I have no intention of ever stopping my work, no matter what arguments you present. That being the case, there is only one option truly open to you. If you wish for me to stop...then you will have to be the ones who stop me." "Much as Ah hate to admit it, he's right, Sugarcube," said Applejack, stepping forward to stand next to Twilight, "We ain't gonna get anywhere by talkin'. We're gonna have to take 'im down." "As much as I agree with the sentiment of the idea," said Rarity, coming up on Twilight's other side, "Does anypony have any notion as to the method?" "Th-the Elements didn't work," said Fluttershy timidly, still hiding slightly behind the others, "A-and I don't think we...we'll have much luck if we try to fight him...not that I really want to fight him." "Maybe the Elements didn't work because he's standing underneath the big crystal thingy," said Pinkie Pie, bouncing eagerly, "I bet, if we can get him out of there, we'll be able to blast him for real and everything'll be hunky dory." "That's right," said Rainbow, forcing herself up onto her hooves, "Let's get him out into the open and give him some Harmony to the face." She lifted a hoof to step up and take action on her words, but stumbled slightly and groaned before beginning to sway, barely able to remain upright. Fluttershy had to come up next to her and support Rainbow so that she could stay standing. During his lecture and listening to the girls' conversation, Wight's wings had pulled themselves back into his body, leaving him resembling a regular unicorn once more. He listened impassively, clearly untroubled by the fact that they were preparing to attack him directly. "As interesting as it would be to see if you could make good on your threats," he said, "I'm afraid that I'll have decline actively fighting you. As formidable as you six are, I imagine that it would actually be within the realm of possibility for you to completely exceed my expectations and succeed. Also...I need to move on to the final steps of my project, which means that I have no more need for five of you. Because of that...I'm afraid I will have to have you girls exit the stage now." "What-?" asked Twilight, wondering, with a growing sickening feeling in her gut, what Wight meant about not needing five of them. However, she didn't even get a chance to phrase her question before Wight's horn began to unravel, uncurling into a ribbon-like helix that tapered into a small point. Light that wasn't light flared out from the base of the "horn," where it met Wight's forehead. Twilight's ears picked up a low sound, like a large balloon bursting and felt some sort of pressure off to one side of her. She looked over and gaped as Applejack and Rainbow Dash were blown off their hooves and slammed into the wall at the back of the throne room. The two of them dropped to the floor, unmoving. "No!" Twilight whipped her head around to face Wight again, her mind whirling as she tried to comprehend what had happened. There had been no signs of a spell, no aura, no structure, nothing that would indicate the presence of unicorn magic. She couldn't even begin to understand the nature of how Wight had struck down her friends. She could see the power forming at the base of his horn again. Wight was going to launch another attack. Where? Is he going after me next? Glancing off to her other side, Twilight could see that Rarity was lowering her horn, the blue aura of her magic already gathering at the tip as she prepared to attack...presumably. Twilight's thought process really kicked off and everything around her seemed to slow down. Think! Wight attacked Rainbow and Applejack because they were the most aggressive and prone to attack. That means he's responding to Rarity right now because she's going to use some form of offensive magic. She's his target. But how does his magic work? I couldn't detect any spell or understand what the actual mode of attack his magic took was. She thought back to all her studying of Dark Matter. The matter Wight Shade created behaved according to its own physical and magical laws. Presumably, his horn was composed of Dark Matter as well, which meant that it didn't abide by the laws of magic as typical unicorns understood them. Rather, its effect was produced as a result of an alien magical form interfering with the laws of magic and physics of the mundane world. Doing so produced a result that would be Wight's equivalent to a spell. What I need to do is determine the nature of that interference and how it affects the mundane world. From there, I can determine the nature of his attack. Rather than trying to block his magic, I need to counter the interference it produces. Twilight's mind was running at lightning speed as she put the pieces together. There's no line of attack. The effect appears at the target point instantaneously. So the magic is spatial in nature, rather than a projectile. Wight's magic takes effect at the target point and bypasses the space between it and him. From how it blew away Rainbow Dash and Applejack, it must be a shockwave produced by using a spatial distortion. Traditional barrier magic would be useless against such an attack because the spell never actually passed through the barrier itself. Twilight realized that it was better to think of it as a form of teleportation. What she needed was to cancel out its effect at the point of arrival by stabilizing the space at the point of attack. Her horn glowed and Twilight looked carefully, trying to figure out the point where Wight's attack would emerge from. There! Right in front of Rarity's chest, if he means to blast her back against the wall like he did Rainbow and Applejack. Violet light blossomed out from the space in front of Rarity's chest, where Twilight had determined the point of attack was going to be. As the beginnings of Twilight's spell took shape, she saw something in the area her magic was covering begin to twist in on itself. She immediately fixed upon that point. It was within the effect of her spell. I can make it! Rarity grunted as a much softer sound, still sounding like a bursting balloon, filled the air. She was pushed back a few meters, but remained on her hooves. However, the dazed look on her face told Twilight she'd been stunned. Twilight had failed to cancel out Wight's magic completely. But she'd been able to counter it somewhat. If I can get a better fix on his target point, I can do it! "Remarkable!" exclaimed Wight, a wide smile on his face, "Celestia was utterly helpless against that, so much so she couldn't even bring herself to keep fighting after I'd hit her twice. You actually managed to discern its nature and devise an effective counter after seeing it only once. I knew you were a magnificent mage." "Thanks," deadpanned Twilight, glaring at Wight. Rarity was still recovering from the near miss of his last attack. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were with Rainbow and Applejack, trying to get the stricken mares back up onto their hooves. It seemed to be a losing battle. Applejack was barely responding to Pinkie and Rainbow was out like a light. Even the glancing blow that she had suffered appeared to have left Rarity struggling to function. "It seems things are going as planned," said Wight, "I just need to cut down on a few distractions." The base of his horn flared again. "No!" shouted Twilight. This time, she started with a detection spell, one derived from spells used to detect incoming teleports. It was an ad-hoc application of a spell, but one that would hopefully give her a better idea of Wight's target point. Beneath that, she prepared the spatial stabilizing magic she'd used last time. Her detection spell went off. It wasn't a teleport, but some form of spatial contortion was occurring. The spell wasn't able to recognize the effect, but it did give Twilight the location. She immediately cast the stabilization spell at the point, which was right next to Pinkie's barrel. This time, the pop sounded like a tiny bubble bursting and a slight flinch was the only sign that Pinkie had even noticed it. Wight attacked again, aiming to completely incapacitate Rarity before she could recover. Once again, Twilight was able to detect the distortion. Now that she had an idea of how to find it, her timing and spacing were perfect. There was a tiny flash of violet light right above Rarity's head and no sound at all. Twilight had managed to cancel out the effect perfectly. "My," said Wight, sounding genuinely impressed, "You truly are a magnificent pony. You are, quite possibly, the single most brilliant mind in all of Equestria. It appears that Swift Stride's assessment of you was correct." "Huh?" Twilight blinked, wondering what Wight meant by that. However, she was forced to concentrate on the task at hoof as Wight launched another series of attacks, aiming for both Rarity and Pinkie Pie, along with one that appeared to be aimed at keeping Applejack down. Twilight had her hooves full detecting and blocking those effects. As she did so, she desperately tried to figure out a way to turn the situation around. Being able to defend her friends was all well and good, but that was only a temporary solution to their problem. If Wight switched to another form of attack, there was no way that Twilight would be able to figure it out in time to keep his first blow from landing. Rainbow and Applejack had been essentially sacrificed to allow Twilight to figure out the one attack that Wight Shade was using. If he switched to another one, Twilight knew for sure that another of her friends wouldn't be getting up. I need to go on the offensive, she thought. She remembered Celestia's description of her fight with Morning Star, back when he'd been banished. The wings that Wight had produced earlier would automatically deflect any incoming attack that she sent and were even capable of turning her own magic back on her in a different form. Regular attack spells, even the more powerful forms of battle magic that Twilight had learned would have no hope of penetrating that defense. If she wanted to win, she had to get creative. So I use magic that isn't battle magic as battle magic, thought Twilight, moreover, she realized that she could use the same approach that Wight did for his attack. What she needed was not typical battle magic, however advanced, but a way of using magic to strike at Wight, however indirectly. She fixed on a point by his left ear. She tried to work out the calculations in her mind for a teleport spell. However, as soon as she did, she felt her detection spell falter. She only barely got it up in time to deflect another space-warping attack aimed at Pinkie. I can't keep up my defense and attack at the same time! I need some way to protect my friends without having to worry about... Her thoughts came to a screeching halt as she realized she did have a way. Twilight took advantage of a lull in Wight's attacks to shift her magic from her horn to the golden ring concealed partway up its length. The gold band with silvery etchings shimmered into existence. Twilight began channeling her magic into it immediately, already knowing what she wanted to do. Channeled through the ring, the magic became actualized, transformed into physical substance. Bone-white plates appeared across her body as the barding she summoned came into being. Rather than overlapping plates, her armor appeared as separate plates of white across her body. This wasn't a typical battle, so there was no need for typical armor. Instead, Twilight shaped it to assist her with the magic she was currently using. The champron and criniere merged seamlessly around the golden tiara she wore on her head. Wight paused in his onslaught and cocked his head. "Ah...that is quite beautiful. Which, considering that I don't have much of an eye for aesthetics, probably isn't saying much on my part." Smiling grimly, Twilight narrowed her eyes, hoping that she'd done everything correctly. She'd find out in a second when Wight attacked again, assuming he didn't change up his method. It didn't seem he was truly interested in fighting her with everything he had at his disposal. Celestia had said that Wight didn't have much of a head for actual battle, preferring to simply rely on his magic and the unique properties of his Dark Matter. If he hadn't changed methods of attack, it was probably because he wasn't all that interested in actually beating down her friends any more than he already had. True to form, Wight attacked again, relying on the same spell he'd been using the whole time. There was a faint burst of silver fire off to one side of Rarity, who cringed away from it, accompanied by a tiny popping sound. Twilight's smile widened. She'd done it. The actualized magic that formed her armor was, in fact, the combination of the detection and cancelation spells she'd been using before. The armor was those spells given form. They would react to any spatial dislocation within a certain radius of Twilight and cancel it out. With her friends now protected, it was time for her to go on the attack. Once again, Twilight fixed on that point by Wight's left ear. It was time to turn his own trick back against him, using it her way. Working quickly, she cast a modified version of her teleportation spell, teleporting the the air away from a small space directly by Wight's ears. The air she teleported away, she teleported back into a cone over the very space she vacated it from. The vacuum she'd created when she'd teleported the air away drew the air from the surrounding area into the empty space with a loud crack, not unlike thunder. At the same time, the cone she'd made from the teleported air served to focus the direction of the vibrations, from the explosive noise, sending them rushing straight down Wight's ear. Wight's head lurched sideways so hard that it actually blurred in Twilight's vision. His crimson eyes widened in surprise as he recovered and looked up at her. She returned his flummoxed expression with a smile and tried another spell. Twilight had once used gravity magic when she and Spike were looking for the Crystal Heart that King Sombra had hidden. Back then, Twilight had simply used it to make the long climb up a flight of stairs much easier. However, that application of the spell had merely been switching up and down. But what would happen if, instead of a vector, she made "down" into a single point? Adding to that, she worked in a transmutation spell, using it to up the quantity of hydrogen in the area of its effect. The point Twilight designated was directly in front of Wight's chest. Adding to that, she raised her strongest shield spell and shaped it into conical construct so that the open end was pointing towards her opponent. There was a sparking flash of light that filled the room, followed by an enormous burst of heat and force that completely blasted away the floor in its vicinity. A blazing wave of fire slammed into Wight, blasted past him and blew a line all the way down the length of the throne room and out the doors, blowing all the way through the walls on the other side, until it blasted its way out through the side of the Palace. "Uh..." said Twilight, her eyes wide and her lips peeled back in a terrified grin, "Whoops! I didn't figure for how much power a fusion reaction of that size would release. I really hope nopony was outside there." "I don't believe anypony was." Twilight's heart stopped for a moment as Wight Shade's voice reached her ears. The blast from her attack had blown away the floor, peeling it back until the sections of the Palace that ran underneath the throne room were visible through the gap she'd opened. Now that the light was fading, she could see a mass of white feathers hovering over that gap. Slowly, the feathers peeled back into six distinct wings, revealing Wight still hovering there, completely unharmed. "You never cease to amaze me, Twilight Sparkle," said Wight, "I was already quite impressed that you could defend against my magic, something that not even Celestia could manage. But you also managed to attack as well. That might have hurt even me if I hadn't defended in time. Fortunately, the auto-response function of my wings is very quick." As if to emphasize his point, his wings flapped, then shifted, rotating on his back as though they were mounted on a turntable, rather than coming right out of his shoulders. "I don't wish to do unnecessary damage, but it appears that I will have to take this fight much more seriously if I want to move on with my work." "Pinkie Pie! Rarity! Fluttershy!" shouted Twilight, not daring to take her eyes off of Wight, "Get Rainbow and Applejack out of here!" "B-but wha-what about you?" asked Fluttershy, quivering. "I'll keep fighting," said Twilight, "But it's going to be hard if all of you are still here. Get Rainbow and Applejack out and help them recover so that we can use the Elements." "Be careful, darling," said Rarity as she used her magic to lift the unconscious Rainbow Dash. Beside her. Fluttershy was helping Pinkie to settle Applejack onto the pink pony's back. Twilight grimaced, focusing all of her attention onto Wight, waiting for his next attack, expecting him to hit just as her friends were trying to get away. However, he instead waited patiently for her friends to escape out through the servants' entrance they'd come in through. "Why?" "I have no interest in attacking those who are not going to attack me...unless it actually serves my purposes," said Wight with a shrug, "Though it's probably arbitrary of me, considering the possible consequences of this project, it would seem that even I balk at the idea of attacking a mare guarding two lives." Wight seemed as perplexed by this as Twilight was. "What does that mean?" asked Twilight. Replaying the last few minutes of the fight back over her mind, she immediately noticed that, for all the attacks Wight had directed at her friends, there was one pony in specific his spells had never tried to touch. "It's immaterial at this point anyway," said Wight with a shrug, "Shall we continue?" Twilight frowned and gulped. Wight had been playing around before. If he was about to get serious, she couldn't afford to wait for one of his spells to go off in order to analyze it. He'd knock her out with the first hit otherwise. She had to figure out what he was up to before he'd even launched his attack and have a counter in place. Her first step was to recall all the research she'd performed on Wight's archive, all the Dark Matter he'd created, up to the point where he'd been banished, its functions, its effects, and the interference it created in the mundane world. From there, she'd have to hypothesize for the Dark Matter he'd developed in the time since he'd been banished, since none of that would be in the archives. She'd have to build a working model of his magic and how it affected the world, how he used it, what phenomena it could produce... There was very little time. Wight's horn was already changing its shape again, going from a helix pattern to wind in on itself and form a series of looping rings over his head, like a textbook drawing of an atom. In the center of that formation, a spark of white light appeared before flaring out. There was a burst of indescribable sound and the space between Wight and Twilight seemed to contort in on itself. Twilight's horn lit up and a burst of violet energy flared from within the center of the contortion, the whole thing burst out in a soundless explosion. As if that had been some sort of signal, the two of them burst into furious activity. Wight's wings snapped down in a powerful flap that sent him hurtling at Twilight like an arrow. Twilight's arcanasteel ring blazed with silver fire. Plates of silvery-gray appeared, hovering in the air over her shoulders, their narrow, overlapping shapes like the feathers of a pair of wings. Their surface was blurred slightly, as thought they were sheathed in crystal. Wight Shade closed in, his wings already lashing out at Twilight. The hovering plates separated and moved to intercept the incoming wings, intercepting them with a series of loud rings, keeping them at bay. The armor around the back of Twilight's head shifted, the gap where her champron met the criniere shifting to give more room. A second horn, sparkling amethyst in color, sprouted up from the back of her head, off to the side of her poll. A third one, a deep magenta hue, emerged from the other. All three of the horns Twilight was currently sporting burst into a dazzling array of colors. Right in front of her, Wight's horn shifted its configuration again, twisting constantly, forming a series of bizarre and grotesque shapes, almost perfectly matching time with the burst of light from Twilight's horns. All around them, the marble walls of the Royal Palace cracked, then shattered. Holes appeared so quickly that the sections of wall they'd erased simply seemed to cease to exist. Columns bent in on themselves and vanished, tearing free from the ceiling and floor with great, cracking sounds. Only the crystal focus at the center of the room remained unaffected, the great, rounded stalactite, with the Rainbow of Harmony still swirling within it continued to pulse calmly. The space between and around them was filled with soundless, lightless explosions, reality itself bending and warping as their battle ascended to a plane beyond that of mundane reality. Twilight called upon every ounce of her training under Arkenstone, working desperately to keep up with the sequence of Wight Shade's attacks and intercept them before he could complete them. In terms of fighting ability, she was clearly superior. Her mind was working at incredible speed, despite the terrifying intensity of the situation. She'd maximized her skill at streamlining the casting time for her spells, formulating even the most complex ones in mere fractions of a second. Furthermore, she was using her armor of actualized magic to supplement her abilities, building it in concert with her magic to better counter Wight's magic and adapt to his moves. By all rights, she had every advantage in the world. She should have been able to win... Instead, she found herself locked in an endless stalemate. Every time she countered one of Wight's spells, he immediately shifted to another one that she was forced to decipher and counter without skipping a beat. It was like fighting against an opponent who used a completely different set of rules and, whenever it suited him, he could change to a another, different, set of rules completely at will. Because of that, even with all her ability and skill, Twilight found herself lagging perpetually behind Wight Shade by a single step, always doing her best just to keep up as his magic elevated their duel into greater and stranger heights, to the point that Twilight no longer had the words to describe the effects of his magic and was forced to simply shift her own and shape it as best she could to generate the effects that would counter it. She strained her mind to its utmost limit, not relying on spells anymore so much as directly shaping magic to generate whatever effects she needed. I have to do more than this, she thought. Only the fact that he had no formal training in battle magic and very little experience in combat was keeping Wight from overwhelming her completely. If this kept up, she would be the one to break first. That much was clear to Twilight. Her repertoire of spells was all but exhausted. What she needed was more than new spells or new types of attack and defense. She needed a completely new form of magic, one that Wight wasn't able to defend against. She had to create a form of magic, a type of magic that had never existed before... Though she should have been at her limits, her reserves depleted, Twilight's magical energy surged. Her eyes blazed completely white. On top of her head, the starburst of the Element of Magic blazed with violet fire. At that moment, Twilight's mind went completely blank. The armor, actualized through her arcanasteel ring, evaporated as the portion of Twilight's focus dedicated to maintaining it vanished. Her whole body began to glow and levitate off the ground, the light of Magic filling the air around her. In the hallway behind the servants' entrance, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie all noticed that their Elements were beginning to shine as well. Even the ones worn by the unconscious Rainbow Dash and Applejack were glowing. They all felt the urge to immediately go to their friend's side and lend her their power. The light around Twilight seemed to solidify, then shattered as Wight Shade's wings collided with it. The light vanished from Twilight's eyes and the Element of Magic at the same time, leaving her exactly as she was, alone and unguarded as Wight's wings surrounded her from all sides. "Truly magnificent, but poorly timed," said Wight, "I'm afraid I can't give you the time to do that." His wings closed in, wrapping around behind Twilight, the feathers that formed them seeming to multiply until they completely cut off the world around her. In fact, they seemed less like wings and more like masses of endlessly multiplying feathers swirling endlessly around, even cutting off her view of Wight himself as they moved to completely encompass her. Her last glimpse of Wight Shade showed her his horn contorting itself yet again, a different light shining through it from where the base met his forehead. Twilight felt her awareness fading, as though she was sinking slowly into a stupor, her world going from white to black. She no longer had any thoughts to spare about the battle, her friends, Arkenstone, Dawn, Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Equestria. In fact, she no longer had any thoughts at all. Then...everything went away. "Too bad, Twilight Sparkle. I win."