//------------------------------// // 15 Turning the Tables // Story: The Twilight Enigma // by iisaw //------------------------------// Chapter Fifteen Turning the Tables A smart pony learns from her mistakes. A wise pony learns from the mistakes of others. A desperate pony invents entirely new and fascinating mistakes. May 6th, 1014, Twilight, edging toward Night Between the heavens and the deepest depths . The rubble of the landslide blasted into the air as I hit it with a concentrated cone of telekinetic force. I shot upward as fast as my wings could carry me, trailing dark purple flames and a roiling darkness that was not smoke. "WHO DARES DEFILE THE HOME OF THE NIGHT-BRINGER?" I bellowed out with all the force I could put behind the Royal Voice. Several small falls of rock tumbled down as my shout echoed within the cavernous space of the eye socket.[1] ---------- [1] During the short trot from the top landing to the base of the stone stairs, Rarity had convinced me that it would help my plan to frighten away most of the zebras if we made a dramatic entrance. Of course, Rarity likes to make dramatic entrances no matter the occasion, but I agreed with her in that instance. ---------- There was an airship tethered beside Nebula and two holding station overhead, just above the rim of the eye socket. A small squad of zebras were running full speed for the tethered ship. Apparently, they had been standing guard near the landslide, and rightly assumed that anything that could fling tons of stone around was something they didn't want to face down. So far, so good. The first thing to do was to free Nebula's crew and regain possession of the Eye of Rushwa, so I immediately swooped down toward her. Rainbow Dash's job was to provide me with air cover. The rest of the girls were to pitch in wherever they felt it would help the most. Just before we made our grand entrance, I had cautioned them all to stick to tactics they would normally use, and not try to rely on their newfound, temporary abilities. Right. Just try giving Pinkie Pie and Rarity wings and telling them not to use them. The engines of the two airships above roared to life and they began to accelerate away, leaving behind a couple flocks of pegasus mercenaries to cover their retreat. At a glance, it was ten-to-one odds, assuming Pinkie and Rarity went to support Rainbow Dash. The pegasi-for-hire were in for a rather unpleasant surprise. The tethered ship began to rise but I ignored it as I dropped into the group of zebras on Nebula's main deck. I glared balefully around at the zebras, bared my fangs, and said, "SUCH TENDER MEAT FOR MY DINNER!" I'd always wondered why villains tended to be showy and loud, and finding out that it was a whole lot of fun was a bit of a shock. "Do not fear this illusion here!" cried a mare near the center of the group facing me. From the gourds slung on her saddle and the bandoleer of glass bulbs across her chest, I assumed she was an mganga. The rhyming was a pretty good clue, too. Her word must have carried a deal of weight with the warriors, because they all stopped shuffling away and threw a volley of spears at me. As long as I had energy to burn, I could use something a bit more fun than a simple shield spell. I locally increased the entropy around the spears, while simultaneously spreading out the waste heat caused by vastly accelerated oxidation. Before they got anywhere near me, the weapons transformed into dusty streaks of rust and ash that dissipated on the wind. "I will reveal the form you conceal!" the mganga shouted, and threw a half gourd of powder at me. I was just about to fling it back in her face when I recognized it: It was the Truth Powder that Zecora had used on Spike and me when she'd thought we were changelings. So I grinned and let it hit me in the chest. All the fight went out of the zebras. The warriors dropped their weapons, and most turned and leaped over the rail. Only one of the stallions remained, and he moved to place himself between the mare and I. For her part, she desperately fumbled at her bandoleer until I used a bit of magic to shove her forehooves down and stick them to the deck. Then her head drooped, and she leaned against the stallion's barrel. "This is the end." She shut her eyes and laid her head against the stallion's neck. "Goodbye, old friend." Well, that dropped a wet blanket over my plans. Spooking the enemy was fine, but I'd been revealed as a princess of Equestria, and I had to comport myself like one. "DON'T BE AFRAID!" Oops. Inside voice, Twilight, I told myself. "If you surrender, I won't hurt you! I was just trying to scare you away! I'm not really a monster." The mganga opened her eyes. "My spell is true. A fiend are you." That angered me. "I am a princess of Equestria, and you should know what that means!" They both just stared at me, resigned to their imagined fates. I growled. Just because they were murderous, red-hoofed lackeys of a despotic ruler didn't mean they should assume everypony else was the same! Making them realize exactly what the situation was had suddenly become a challenge. I turned to search out my friends. Applejack had gone belowdecks, and from the hull-shaking thumps, I assumed that there had been a few zebra guards left with the prisoners. Blasts of air, swashbuckling battle cries, and high-pitched giggling told me that Pinkie, Dash, and Rarity were still dealing with the pegasi, and evidently enjoying themselves. That left Fluttershy. It took me a moment to spot her, because even with alicorn-sized wings, she wasn't in the air. She was tending to the wounded and dazed pegasi that littered the sand at the bottom of the eye socket. She would be perfect. "Look," I said, turning back to the terrified zebras, "Here's somepony who will vouch for me. She's the nicest pony I know. You'll see!" I teleported Fluttershy onto the deck next to me. She gasped in surprise and then, catching sight of me, gave a little squeak of… well, it sounded an awful lot like fear. I resisted the urge to stamp my hoof and chide her. "Tell them I'm a good pony!" I demanded. "Twilight is a good pony," Fluttershy said, woodenly. "Most of the time." "YOU'RE NOT HELPING!" Fluttershy squealed and flattened herself on the deck, peering out from behind her wings. I didn't want to take my anger out on her, so I rounded on the shivering zebras. "YOU ARE GOING TO ADMIT THAT I AM A GOOD PONY OR I'M GOING TO PEEL THE STRIPES OFF OF YOU!" I really don't know what would have happened if Applejack's sharp voice hadn't snapped me out of my obsessive little feedback loop. "Twilight!" she shouted at me as she came up from belowdecks leading the freed crewponies. "What the hay are you doing?" "I AM… uhmn… I am trying to convince these stubborn, stupid zebras that I'm not going to hurt them!" She looked at me for a long moment as one of her eyebrows slowly climbed up her forehead. "Uh-huh. And how's that workin' out for you?" There was no reason I should have been angry with her, but I felt a flare of heat in my cheeks and my teeth clenched at her impertinent snark. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. I didn't bother with the hoof gesture, but I visualized it. It helped. A bit. Before I could say anything, Applejack spoke again. "Look, sugarcube, I've got bad news. The crew is fine, 'cept for Ket. I don't know where she is, and neither do any o' these lot." "That's not too bad, " I replied. "She's probably hiding out among the zebras." "That ain't the bad news. The Eye o' Rushwa is gone. The zebras took it, an' it's on one o' their ships, on the way back to the sultan in Nagala." "We can't let him get that gem back!" I said. "He'll kill thousands of innocents!" "How're we gonna stop 'em?" I thought furiously for a moment and then reached out for the mganga's weapons. The thaumophobic coating on the gourds and glass bulbs made it difficult even for my supercharged telekinesis to take hold, but that didn't stop me. I surrounded each container with a little shield and tore them off off the zebra's saddle and bandoleer. I then conjoined the fields and threw the whole mess out toward a distant patch of sky. It made a very interesting explosion when the shield released. I turned to Nebula's crew. "Tie up these two. We'll release them later when it's safe." Mr. Fairlead peered at me doubtfully. "Is that you, captain?" "Huh? Oh yes, just regular old me. I… uhmn…." Several of the crew were bowing, and I heard a muttered "Highness" or two. I may have heard a whispered "Nightmare," but I wasn't certain. They weren't buying it. "Look! This is just temporary. We found an ancient magical artifact and... Argh! I'll explain later. Right now I've got an airship to run down." "I don't know if'n I can fly all that well, Twi," Applejack said. "It's all right, AJ. I don't want to depend on the magical boost not wearing off when we're all mid-air. You stay here and keep an eye on things. Get everypony together and be ready to lift as soon as I get back." "I'm not so sure that…" I teleported away before she could finish. = = = I reappeared so high up that the sky above me was black and pocked with stars. The fleeing airships were easy to spot. Even from my vantage point, it was simple to figure out which one carried the Eye. It had to be the fastest one, the one all the others were trying to screen from pursuit. They must have taken off with the Eye as soon as they had recovered it. The ships were already through the Dragon's Teeth and approaching the city walls of Nagala. I didn't have much time to stop them. The envelopes and gas cells of the warships were shielded from direct magical attack, and burning though that protection would set fires that could endanger the lives of the crews. I didn't much care at that moment, but if what I was doing was to be laid at the hooves of Equestria, as it looked all too likely it might, I had to show some restraint. So I threw rocks at them. I threw them very, very fast. Hundreds of hoof-sized stones rose from the desert below and accelerated. The cascade of sharp bangs as the missiles broke the sound barrier was fairly impressive. The armor and shielding didn't slow them down at all and they passed through the forward two cells of every ship except the one carrying the Eye. The nice, neat formation of warships fell apart instantly. They swerved off course and pitched downward. I had to use a blast of magic to shove one away from the lead craft to avoid a collision. It would take the concerted efforts of all their crews to land them safely, and that left me free to address the real problem. Taking a page from Applejack's book, I tried the direct approach. I swooped down to half a furlong from the transom of the ship carrying the evil crystal and called out to them. "SURRENDER THE EYE OF RUSHWA TO ME OR DIE HORRIBLY! MWAHAHAHAHA!"[2] ---------- [2] I really got the laugh spot-on that time. The secret was to let go and enjoy myself. ---------- Quite a number of arrows, catapult shots, and strange spells comprised their immediate answer. I was shielded, of course, and let it all bounce harmlessly away. Perhaps I had not been direct enough. I tightened my shield around myself and dove on the ship. A second before I landed, I heated my hooves up so that the deck smoked and charred where I stepped. I thought that was a nice touch. Lots of things continued to bounce off of or shatter on my shield, and it was beginning to annoy me. I cast a general stunning spell and dropped all the unprotected zebras in their tracks. One, who had been in the rigging trying to draw a bead on the back of my head with a crossbow, hit the rail and went over as he fell. It was hard luck for him that I didn't feel like saving a pony who had been trying to put a steel shaft through my brain. There was no sign of the Eye, so I paused and extended my magical senses. I found it below decks and surrounded by a network of other spells. Well, I wasn't about to go crawling down hatches in search of the thing. The whole imposing foe act was hard to pull off while crouching in cramped quarters, so I tore away the intervening decks and flung the shattered timbers overboard. And there they were. I certainly couldn't be considered an expert in zebra magic, but I'd studied with Zecora for several years and had a good grasp of the essentials. So it only took me a few seconds to realize what the six waganga surrounding the Eye had set up. Three had created a shield around it and themselves, designed to violently collapse if any one of them stopped feeding energy into the spell. Just the feel of the mana field told me that the implosion would be more than strong enough to shatter the gem. It was, essentially, a deadpony switch. If I tried to interfere with what they were doing, we would all die in the resulting release of hideous force. As close as we were to the city, many of the inhabitants would be killed as well. But the sultan's war-witches didn't seem to care about that little detail. I was starting to lose sympathy for them. The other three inside the shield were crafting a set of directives to guide the power of the Eye into an attack. An attack directed entirely at me. I knew the thing contained enough dark magic to infect a whole kingdom with a deadly plague, and suspected that it would be more than capable of dealing with me. That left me with a decision to make, and not a whole lot of time to make it. I mentally ticked off the obvious choices. I could back off to a safe distance and throw one last supersonic stone, condemning thousands of innocent zebras because of the evil of their ruler. I could flee, give up on recovering the gem, and let the Sultan carry out his vile plan. I could try to act in the instant between when the waganga would have to drop the shield and when they would launch the attack... and probably die uselessly. Or I could devour them. I've never thought of myself as a truly bad pony, not even when I'd first returned home and found myself branded as… unworthy. I'd made mistakes, of course. What pony hasn't? Because I am more gifted than most, my mistakes can have extraordinary consequences, and I have always tried to be mindful of that. With a few exceptions, for which I am properly ashamed, I have always tried to do what is right and correct and good. And that is why I spent several precious seconds announcing my intent. Oh, I'm sure they could hardly hear me over their own chants of "Sifa Rushwa! Heshima Rushwa!" and I spoke in Equuish, which they may not have understood in any case, but I needed to say the words. "For your crimes against everything that is good and right in this world, I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, condemn you to death. I am truly sorry for what I am about to do." Maybe it was the tone of my voice. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it was my imagination. But in the instant before I struck out, one of the zebras met my gaze and her eyes widened in horror. She couldn't have known what I was about to do, and she had obviously been fearless in the face of death. But I was sure she looked at me… and was terrified. The needle-sharp lance of force that I had carefully shaped rammed through the defensive shield and pierced the gem before anypony could react. The dark energy erupted out of the hole and my precisely crafted tubular shield guided it into my waiting jaws, the flow accelerating as the collapsing spell of the waganga crushed down on them and their holy relic. The zebras were killed, disintegrated in a fraction of a second, and their magic and their essence joined the flood that I struggled to absorb. = = = If a foal is forced to eat nothing but garbage, she will grow up sickly and weak. If a brilliant mind is forced to learn nothing but lies and dogma, it will never develop the ability to reason clearly. If a heart desiring goodness is forced to do evil, can it ever come back to the light? I don't know. I spread my wings wide and grinned with satisfaction at the huge, jagged shadow I cast across the walls of the city. Crowds had begun to gather in the streets, and I could hear cries of surprise and fear in the still evening air. A light flick of my razor-edged pinions drove me forward and downward, toward the palace complex. Sultan Zatar and his corrupt court were about to become an object lesson. Oh, it was going to be such fun! = = = =