• Published 16th Jul 2013
  • 3,264 Views, 212 Comments

It's Impossible! - AlicornPriest



Twilight discovers that magic is impossible. Things go from bad to worse in a hurry.

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New End 3: Mastery is Impossible! (part 2)

Previously on: Mastery is Impossible!

***

"It seems the situation is critical. We have no choice but to deploy... Honeycrisp."

***

"Ye've got an apple! Are ye one of ours?"

"Fer sure! Name's Honeycrisp."

***

“Well, as it turns out, cupcakes are a great source of thaumodigestive enzyme. Any baked good, actually. It's the yeast that gives it off during anaerobic oxidation.”

"...Really? 'Thaumodigestive?' What lazy hack came up with that?"

"It's an alternative universe. It's theoretically possible."

"It's passing the buck, is what it is."

***

"And here's my team: Me, Speedy, Wind Chill, Brush Stroke, Sweet Treat, and Evergreen."

"Wait, are you guys clones of us? Because you have personalities that are really similar to us."

"Fusions, actually. There were some hints last chapter saying which was which."

"So two are like me, two are like Applejack..."

"And so on and so on, right."

***

"You... you blew up my house!"

"Eh, it was gonna blow up anyway."

"Hey, spoilers!"

"It's been three seasons. Let it go."

***

"We've got to find her! Ponyville needs her!"

"Don't worry! With 11 of us, I'm sure we can find her and bring her back safe and sound! Who's with me?”

“Yeah!”

And now, the conclusion...

***

The search for Twilight Sparkle had been difficult at first. She'd left very little clues as to her potential location. It was almost as if she'd intentionally been vague so they wouldn't follow her and try to stop her! In any case, it had taken the combined intelligence of all 11 Bearers to figure out that she had traveled to Trotonto, and by then, they were over a day behind Twilight. Once they arrived, they split up and canvassed the area, promising to reconvene at the main square in two hours.

The Bearers of Harmony were much less traveled than those of Knowledge, so this was a special occasion. Their idea of "looking everywhere" may have involved a lot more tourist-y things than might be wise. After two hours, they came back, Fluttershy wearing a headband shaped like the Stallion Tower and Applejack and Rainbow Dash wearing baseball caps with the logo of a local brewery.

Honeycrisp was not amused. "All right, y'all. Did any'f ya find a place where Twilight might be?"

The Bearers of Knowledge gave their reports. "Didn't see her at the gardens." "Thought she might have gone by the ports, but there wasn't any evidence." "We checked the university--no sign of her." "Nothing up in the cloudline."

Honeycrisp sighed. "All right. Harmony team?"

Wordlessly, they all pointed in the same direction. Honeycrisp looked over that way--they were all pointing straight at the Trotonto Reference Library. She nodded slowly. "Eeyup. Shoulda figgered."

Pinkie drank a slug from the soda she'd purchased, then asked, "Well, what are we standing around here for? Let's go!"

Once at the library, the team faced a new problem: where Twilight was studying here. The Bearers of Knowledge began to bicker over which topic she might be focusing on. Honeycrisp wanted to focus on theoretical magic, but Sweet Treat thought Twilight might have been the most intrigued by thaumodigestive enzymes, and would have gone to the section on microbiology. But that got Wind Chill and Speedy arguing for anatomy and pegasus aerodynamics, while Evergreen argued for environmental sciences and Brush Stroke thought they were in the wrong place altogether and wanted to check the museum.

After a minute of this, Rarity suddenly interrupted them. "Darlings! We know where Twilight is. She's in the group study rooms downstairs."

"What?" asked Honeycrisp. "What makes you think that?"

"We asked the librarian," said Fluttershy.

The Bearers of Knowledge simultaneously facehoofed. Honeycrisp sighed and motioned with her hoof. "Very well. Let's go."

They made their way to the staircase, which led down into the basement. When they reached the door, Wind Chill stopped them. "Okay, you six. What trick are you going to use this time? Gonna reveal a secret call you use that she always responds to? Maybe recognize which room she's in by smell? What's the plan?"

Rainbow Dash peeked in the door, then began laughing her head off. Wind Chill got even angrier. "What? What's your secret?"

"Just... just look!"

They opened up the door, and down the hallway were over a dozen doors to the study rooms. Each was identical to the last... except for one about two-thirds of the way down. An entire rainbow of eldritch light was beaming out underneath the closed door.

"Don't take a genius to figure that one out," said Applejack.

"Fine, fine, I get it," said Wind Chill. "Let's go and save your friend's butt already."

They raced to the study room and opened the door to reveal what Twilight was doing. It didn't look good. She was hovering three feet up in the air, surrounded by black-green books belching dark magic out and around them, while a giant portal swirled in front of her, a single clawed hand reaching through.

Like I said, it didn't look good.

"What are you doing?!" Honeycrisp called out to her.

"I'm learning about magic! What does it look like?" Twilight replied.

"Looks like you're trying to use dark magic to summon a demon!"

"No, I'm..." Twilight blinked for a moment, then looked around herself. "Huh. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing."

"Don't think that's a good idea, pardner!"

Twilight thought about that for a bit. "No, it's not really, but I don't have a choice! I have to learn about magic, something nopony has ever learned, or else I'm just a big fraud!"

"You do know about magic! The magic of friendship!"

Twilight's horn suddenly glowed, and then all the books closed and the portal fizzled, leaving only the echoes of the demon's howling. "Look, Honeycrisp, we both know 'friendship' isn't really magic. There's magic powered by friendship, which, whoop-de-doo, but that's not understanding magic, it's just taking advantage of a quirk of one particular set of magical artifacts. The only reason I'm the leader of my little friendship group is because I'm the outsider different enough to hold them all together, like the particle of smoke in a drop of rain. I'm not special, I'm not any good at magic--I just happened to be at the right place in the right time. If I really want a claim to Magic like my Element says, I need to have the wide knowledge base about magic you have. And that means knowing something about magic nopony else knows, which means transforming grimoires of dark magic into their original forms, which means getting accidentally possessed by them and trying to summon their grim master! What's so hard to understand about that?"

Honeycrisp paused for a beat. "So yer just jealous that you didn't get picked fer an Element of Knowledge."

"I would have been a shoo-in for chemistry and alchemy! It's not fair!"

"Easy, easy," said Speedy. "You just said yourself that's not how it works."

"We were all brought together one way or another. Pure coincidence, really," said Wind Chill.

"We have our place in the world, and you have yours," said Sweet Treat.

"And, 'sides, that thing 'bout smoke and rain? That sounds like a real insight into friendship."

"Zis is exactly how Honeycrisp et nous came together! She came to us exactly when we needed her, and she made us a team!"

Twilight sniffed and wiped her snout. "R-really? That idea was actually useful?"

"Sure! You may not think your studies into friendship are meaningful, but that's far from the case!"

"Friendship is one of the most important parts of our lives as ponies. Shoot, I wish there were more ponies researching friendship!"

"And all the lessons you've learned... they're not obvious."

"All the lost and lonely ponies out there... they need your research."

"And your great thesis? The one that earned you your wings?"

"It's the most fundamental concept of friendship, but it's the hardest to accept."

Honeycrisp stepped forward. "We can't do it alone. We're all incomplete, each in our own way, and we need each other to fill in the gaps. If we open up our hearts to each other, nothin's impossible. And that? That's real magic."

As they were speaking, a small pink heart began to float in the center of the air. It grew bigger and bigger until it encompassed the whole room. Then, at Honeycrisp's last word, it expanded beyond the walls of the study room, flooding the whole library with the Fire of Friendship. When it finally went away, they looked in awe at each other. They'd each turned into astonishingly unique and collectible forms, the kind that, if this were actually canon and not a fanfiction, would be perfect special edition toys for kids to collect. (New main cast, plus both forms of the Bearers of Knowledge! 18 different models*! Gotta find 'em all!)

Twilight looked down at the books around her. "...Did the Fire of Friendship just turn all of these dark magic grimoires into normal books?"

Honeycrisp touched one of them. "Sure looks like it."

"Oops. Those were, uh, really valuable historical artifacts. The librarians are gonna kill me."

Author's Note:

*Technically, yes, there are 18 models, but one of them is Fire of Friendship Spike, even though he isn't even in this scene, and Applejack doesn't get one. Obviously.