The Twilight Enigma

by iisaw

13 Weaponized Virtue

I'm not a good fighter. I just don't have the temperament for it. That may sound strange, coming from a pony who owns a suit of armor that's worth more than a Manehattan penthouse, but it's true. I'm often very effective in combat, due to the combination of my magic, earth pony strength, tactical ability, and improvisational skill, but I never want to hurt anypony. Not really. Even in dire circumstances, I subconsciously hold back.

Except when I lose my temper.

I'm sure my friends understand that about me. That's why Applejack's hind hooves smashed into the shield I popped up an instant after I flipped the Amulet's chain over my head and the Nightmare's magic flooded into me. She probably thought I would be slow to defend myself, as I had been so many times before. She bucked twice again, trying to penetrate the shield, no doubt hoping to "save" me by applying some blunt force trauma to my head. Applejack is nothing if not direct.

"Stop that, AJ," I said calmly. "You'll hurt yourself."

I felt good. All the pain and bone-deep exhaustion had vanished. Without my own magic at full strength as a balance, the Nightmare's own certainly had an effect on my… outlook, but I was sure I could compensate for that.

I turned to my friends, who were all eyeing me warily. All but one. I glanced up to where Rainbow Dash had turned at the apex of her climb and was starting her high-powered dive. I dropped my shield, canceled her inertia, and teleported her so that she was eye-level with me, with the end of her muzzle lightly touching my own. "Boo!"

Dash gasped and I let go of her. The look on her face was so funny that I had to laugh. The girls backed off and held a hurried, hushed conversation, probably along the lines of, "What're we gonna do?" and "How should I know?"

"It's all right!" I called out to them. "I'm fine. You ought to know that I would never deliberately hurt any of you no matter what happens!"

"So, y'ain't gone all Nightmare Moon, then? 'Cause it kinda looks like you have."

I laughed again. It was so good to feel powerful and unconstrained again. I made a dismissive gesture with one wing. "Oh, maybe just a teensy-weensy bit, but it doesn't matter! You're my friends and I love you! I'm going to save you!" The black tips of my wings were only a minor side effect, nothing to be concerned about.

"That's… good?" Rainbow Dash said.

"And our crew?" Rarity asked.

"Oh, yes, yes, them too, of course!" I paused. "Well, I'm going to save them from the zebras, at least."

The girls traded glances.

"There's Crazy Good and Crazy Bad, Twilight," Pinkie said, narrowing her eyes at me. "Which one are you going for here?"

"Why crazy at all? Why can't it be determination and vision?" I flared my wings, beginning to feel a little bit irritated.

"Vision?" Pinkie tilted her head. "Are you seeing things, Twilight? Because along with maniacal laughter, that's one of the warning signs of…"

"Oh, don't be like that, Pinkie Pie! I don't have time to explain it all. In fact…"

"Twilight, you've got to stop and think!" Rarity interrupted. "You can't just…"

"Don't tell me what I can't do!" I snapped. "You wouldn't believe what I can do! In fact… just… go to sleep!"

My friends all slumped to the floor. I relaxed and smiled. Time to get to work.

First came the important part: The real reason I had been seeking out the crystal engine for so long. I had planned on explaining it to them. I didn't see how they could possibly refuse, but it had been important to me that they be given full knowledge of my plan, and each agree to it of their own free will. Had been important… for some reason.

I laughed once more, banishing my doubts. How incredibly naïve of me! They'd be falling over themselves to thank me when they learned what I'd done to them!

Celestia's masterpiece stood before me, the knife in the back of her merciless mother's plan for the whole universe. It did something no other magical construct was capable of. All the others used active magic to bypass the natural laws in various ways, but this could change those natural laws.

From all that I had been able to discover, the engine had been integral to Celestia's plan after the overthrow of the Red Queen. Once that had been accomplished, she had tried to change the world so that virtuous ponies were rewarded for being good as part of the basic way that things worked. When they saw that there were direct rewards for virtue, everypony would want to be good. It made perfect sense. But Celestia hadn't been entirely successful because natural laws are an intricate web, and changing one can have unintended effects on a host of others. She had done her best, and then shut down the great crystal mechanism and hidden it away.

It had taken me years to puzzle it all out. A crystal engine took consummate skill and magical strength to construct. They weren't just giant-sized versions of common amulets, because the power requirements went up exponentially as they got larger, and even one designed with a single, simple purpose involved nightmarishly complex spell-coordination requirements.

I had foolishly been awed by the dark crystal engine beneath the Crook-Tail Canyon ruins in the Badlands when I'd first laid eyes on it. It wasn't long before I knew it for the brute-force piece of hackwork that it truly was.

The Crystal Empire was a different and more subtle approach, and I was fairly certain Celestia had created it well after she had shut down the one beneath the labyrinth. It was an engine that comprised an entire city and gently drew its power from the emotional emanations of its inhabitants; a remarkable feat of magical engineering, indeed. It served its purpose well; happy ponies were good ponies.[1] It wasn't perfect, of course. There was the unintentional side effect of the crystallization of living beings surrounding and within it, that slowly became permanent over the generations. But as they took no apparent harm, that was a minor concern.
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[1] Apparently, a positive influence that was "reflected" in the attitude of the Equestrian ponies, was a bit of mind magic that Celestia had designed as a slight adjustment in her long-term plan for Equestria.
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That the Imperial City was also susceptible to corruption and misuse was a much bigger problem. An engine that broadcast happiness and contentment could just as easily transmit negative emotions when powered by dark magic. But that wasn't a failing so much as something inherent in any tool: If a thing can be used, it can be misused.

A lesser-known danger was that sometimes the great engines decided to use themselves. The changes that Celestia had made to the world had unintentionally led to the growth of the Tree of Harmony, and by extension, my castle and the map table at its heart. The Rainbow Power was a gift from a construct that somehow thought, and more importantly, judged. When Luna had rebelled and Celestia had sealed her within the moon, the Tree had severed their connections to the Elements, despite the fact that Celestia had created the definitions of good and evil that it operated on.

The Tree of Harmony's power was limited. It needed ponies to act as its agents and it wanted them to be good ponies. My friends and I had received the Elements only when I realized and accepted the goodness in them and the value of their friendship. I don't know why the Tree had decided to test us a second time, but we passed reevaluation as well. We had each made a friend of someone who we could just as easily have dismissed as an enemy.

What is the phrase? "Third time's the charm," isn't it?

We six had done great good in the world. We continued to do great good in the world. I was determined that we would always do good despite the whims of a semi-sapient mass of rock. But it was only possible because of the special bond we had. I had seen what the world could have become without our friendship, and I never wanted to see something like that again.

And that's why I had to do what I did.

I touched the engine with my magic and set it to producing the artifacts that I needed. I wove the matching patterns between the engine and the resultant gems. I tuned the spells and components with subtle adjustments of the golden knobs and levers on the obsidian slab until everything was just right.

I had the impulse to double-check all the structures, but banished it from my mind with a sneer. That was old Twilight's timidity and uncertainty trying to creep back in. I knew how brilliant I was, and I knew that there was no need for hesitation.

I started with Applejack, pulling her sleeping body to me. I smiled down at her, admiring her wonderful strength and beauty while I used my magic to shape a bit of crystal into a razor-sharp blade. Then I brushed her mane away from the base of her skull, and began to cut through her soft golden coat.

All my life, I had disdained superstition and any reactive behavior tied to it. And that is probably why I cleared my throat and said in a clear, distinct voice, "What could possibly go wrong?" before I touched the golden lever that activated the spells.

The unconscious bodies of my friends twitched a bit when the crystal engine made contact with the tiny gems I'd implanted near the posterior edge of their foramina magna. Everything was going as expected, and I was pleasantly surprised by the speed and efficiency of the spellwork.

In only a few minutes, the integration was complete.

I thought about waking them one at a time, but I was under a little bit of time pressure. Going over what had happened five separate times also seemed like it would be unutterably boring, so I just threw the lever that connected the engine directly to the power of the main World Wheel.

If the self-powered engine had been impressive in its ability to create and power the magical gems, when tapped into the magic that kept the world turning, it was overwhelming. The flood of energy was even more intense than I'd expected, and I was more experienced in channeling magic than nearly any pony alive.

It staggered me, and it woke the girls right up.

There were several seconds of confused exclamations, and then one clear voice from the crowd.

"Oh, good heavens! What's happened to us?" Rarity gasped, turning her head over her back so that she could stare at her wings.

"It won't last," I said. "It'll wear off in a fairly short while, like our crystal bodies did back when the Empire returned. I'd advise against trying to fly until you've got some room."

"Are we, like, princesses now?" Rainbow Dash asked, going somewhat cross-eyed trying to get a good look at her horn.

"No, Dash. You've just got a supercharged injection of magic from all three tribes, and that manifests itself through wings and horns. Hooves, too by the way, so try not to stamp too hard. You'll break things."

"What about you, darling?"

I frowned. "What about me?" I looked down at myself. "Oh."

It was a long way to the floor, and my coat had become jet black. I stretched out a wing and examined it. The primaries were sharply pointed and threw deep purple highlights as I wiggled them. I ran my tongue over my teeth and discovered that they were pointed.

"Y'all figurin' on doing the 'Eternal Night' thing? 'Cause, if'n you are, we're gonna have a discussion, Twilight Sparkle."

I laughed long and hard then, and not just because Applejack's hat looked ridiculous hanging crookedly from the tip of her horn. She didn't seem to be reassured, so I added, "I don't like astronomy that much!"

Nopony laughed.

"It was a joke! Why can't you believe I haven't become some kind of evil monster?"

"Maybe because right now you make Nightmare Moon look like a grumpy puppy?" Rainbow Dash said.

"What? It's not that bad, is it?"

Rarity sadly shook her head. "Of all the times to be caught without a mirror!"

"Really, Twilight!" Pinkie Pie chirped. "You are so super scary! Isn't she scary, Fluttershy? Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy had fainted.

"Huh." I thought for a moment. "Actually, this is probably a good thing! I was going to mess around with the nature of causality a bit[2] to let us escape from the zebras, but now I think I'll just deal with the situation directly."
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[2] Just a teeny bit. Nothing drastic or really dangerous. Honest.
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I trotted over to the base of the big crystalline stairway that led up into the labyrinth. "Do you girls want to help out, or are you just going to watch?" I called back over my shoulder.

"What are you going to do?" Applejack asked, as she and Pinkie Pie helped Fluttershy to her hooves.

"Improvise," I replied, shrugging. "If I'm that scary, I can probably frighten them away! What do you think?" I reared up and flung my wings wide, using the Royal Voice to amplify a throaty growl into a roar that echoed through the cavern.

The girls all flinched and their eyes went wide. Except for Fluttershy. Fluttershy fainted again.

"Oh, yeah! I can work with this!"

"Uh-huh, and that is what worries me," Applejack grumbled as she trotted over to my side.

"Trust me!" I said, grabbing her hat with my magic and forcing it down so that her horn pierced it and it slid down to its proper place.

"Alright, Twi. I'm gonna trust you for now. But I'm gonna keep a real close eye on you, y'hear?"

I wanted to tell her right then. I knew, if I explained why I'd spent so much time and effort finding the engine, that she'd see that I had the purest of motives. But there wasn't any time. It would have to wait.

I reached out with my magic and adjusted the staircase runes to set the mandala to transport us to the top of the labyrinth. "C'mon, girls! Let's go have some fun!"

It was a shame I didn't notice the binding sigils changing on the face of the engine, but they had been set up specifically to be unnoticed. Clever old mare, indeed.