Chapter 1.5: The Visions of a Vigilant Princess
Twilight Sparkle swung her left hoof in anger, knocking her stack of books off the table and falling to the floor with a clatter, the letter she had just received still clasped in her other hoof. A pained look was etched across her face.
“This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening!” she cried in anguish. Spike the Dragon merely looked onwards in confusion, discomfort and mild amusement.
“Twilight, it’s just another homework assignment, you don’t need to take it this seriously!” he appealed to the distressed mare, the edges of a smile beginning to form on his scaly lips. Twilight whipped her head around and glared Spike directly in his eyes, a manic expression on her face.
“Just another assignment? Just another assignment?! JUST ANOTHER ASSIGNMENT?! THIS IS A RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT INTO GRIMOIRE-LEVEL MAGIC FROM PRINCESS CELESTIA HERSELF! THIS IS A TEST FOR ME TO PROVE MYSELF, I KNOW IT! IF I MESS THIS UP SHE COULD THREATEN TO SEND ME BACK TO MAGIC KINDERGARTEN AGAIN!” she screamed at the wide-eyed dragon, the force of the air escaping her lips tossing him across the room like a rag doll and sent him crashing into a nearby bookcase. Spike picked himself from the ground like nothing had happened and tried to reason with the hyperventilating mare in front of him,
“Twilight, she never threatened to send you back there in the first place, that was something you made up yourself! And you know what she thinks about you being tardy, there’s really nothing for you to worry about.”
“But this is magic I’ve never dealt with before! I have to prove myself to the princess or she’ll lose faith in me, and she might disown me as her personal pupil!”
“Hey, you know full well that’s not going to happen!”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no! This is horrible, I’m not ready, I haven’t done any research into Divination before! I might fry my horn, bake my books, cook my brains, or...” Spike dashed off into the Golden Oaks kitchen while Twilight was ranting and fetched a small pail, took a stool, set it up next to the sink, climbed the stool with the bucket, filled it with water, cimbed back down again, rushed back to Twilight, and tossed the water directly onto her face. Twilight silenced immediately, a dazed and confused look plastered on her face.
“I’m sorry Twilight, but you were going crazy, and I needed to snap you out of it! You remember what happened last time you went mad like this,” Spike pleaded, Twilight’s eye twitching under the brisk cold of the water. The baby dragon suddenly realised in horror that he made a grave error; throwing water inside a library. Full of books. In front of Twilight. Into her face. While she was angry. Ooohhhhhhh shiiiii...
“SPIKE, DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOUVE JUST DONE?!” He gulped, this was going to be a bad one...
Twilight laid on her bed, hooves spread out in exhaustion, with the letter she had received suspended in front of her face, the paper and her horn glowing with a purple aura.
My Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle
It has come to the time when I have decided to take your magical studies to the next level, and I have thus decided to allow you access to the knowledge of some of the darker secrets included within the pages of the Royal Grimoire of Magic. I would like to educate you in the art of Divination, one of the most chaotic and unpredictable schools of magic in existence. I reason that, as your bond with your friends has grown to the extent that you were able to withstand the onslaught of the living avatar of chaos, the magical energy you have gathered from these experiences should be enough to withstand the more dangerous applications of this magic. As such, I have included three tomes of beginner Divination to start you off in your studies, and I shall expect a detailed report on your progress by this time next week.
One last note of importance - Do not, under ANY circumstances, attempt to look more than two weeks into the future during this one week period, as the knowledge bestowed from Divination can be dangerous to a mind not well versed in its ways. Even great sorcerers such as Hexworth the Feared, Charmcaster the Enlightened, Arkana the Mystic, and even the great Starswirl the Bearded and the current Minister of Magic, Aurora Aegis the Blind, have suffered great consequences while dabbling with aspects of Divination they did not fully understand. While I have utmost faith in your magical abilities, I still believe it would be wise to not subjugate you to visions of any period longer than the two week timeframe I have specified. I wish you the best in your studies.
Good luck.
Princess Celestia
It had been six days since she had read that letter, and Twilight was still yet to experience a single vision. It was eleven o’clock in the night, two hours later than her normal bedtime, and the stress was beginning to take its toll. She rolled around in her bed, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in, but ultimately found herself lying on her side, aimlessly staring at the clockwork timepiece resting on her bedside table. The clock was one of her prized (non-book) possessions and had been a personal commission from her to the local town timekeeper, “Time Turner”. It was a masterpiece of clockwork and magi-electrical engineering, and showed the time correct to the nearest micro second on all the several time zones on the planet, with several different alarms scheduled for each one of her personal rituals situated throughout the day. That, and it was beautiful to behold, an enigmatic amalgamation of a curved body, decorated with several turning cogs emerging from the main body, which was imprinted with circular designs and a style of art that she could not associate to any specific art period in Equestrian history. It almost looked organic in nature, like it was grown instead of built by pony hoof, a notion that she still found laughable despite its convincing appearance. When Twilight had questioned her clockmaker on it, he had merely laughed it off, claiming it was a style of building he had taken from his homeland. She had always found that pony fascinating, his Trottingham accent contrasting with his otherworldly mannerisms and exotic personality. She admired the stallion’s handiwork and unusual intellect for a simple clockmaker, and even found her thoughts occasionally wandering to him in times of loneliness when she wasn’t with her friends. But the rumours were he was dating the local Pegasus mailmare or something like that, a notion she was none too happy about. The clock was a nice reminder though, and she found herself comforted by it when she found her mind clouded with advanced psychokinetic modulation equations or suchlike, but this time it was not working like it normally did. There was something nagging her mind, like there was some sort of dread lingering over her, and she just couldn’t seem to be able to shake it off. Twilight tossed and turned in her bedsheets, the stress of Celestia’s assignment and the dread eating at her own mind depriving her of any chance of an easy night’s sleep. Eventually, she decided she couldn’t take it; she needed to have a vision, or it was going to drive her mad. She rolled out her bed, and she fell face down straight onto the floor, slamming her muzzle into the wood. As her face impacted with the cold timber of the bedroom floor, she was stabbed with a strange feeling of Déjà Vu, a needle of fear and doubt burrowing its way into her mind. She shook it off as paranoia, stood onto her legs, and staggered out of her bedroom, shutting her bedroom door quietly behind her. She made her way down the staircase tentatively, a hoof resting on the banister, guiding her. Twilight plodded across the library floor, and down into the basement, where her own reading desk was situated. She slumped down onto her stool, and lazily opened the books from Celestia to their correct respective pages, focused her horn, and prepared to cast the spell. A great surge of magic permeated her body, and purple energy emanated around her horn.
And then... nothing. Nothing at all. The spell fizzled out and the purple aura enveloping her horn disappeared. Twilight sighed in despair.
“I’m never going to get this right,” she groaned in despair, the six days of stress finally delivering the coup de grace on her confidence. At was at that moment that something ignited inside of her, a mixture of determination and terror, a fear that promised to her that bad things were going to happen should she not complete the spell, and a resolve to protect her friends from whatever danger it might be. She gritted her teeth in determination and prepared to attempt the spell again, and focused her magic, and all of her being, into casting the spell. The incandescent glow returned to her horn, and she rested her forehooves onto the desk, so as to use the energy that would be used in keeping herself upright into casting the spell. Her mind analyzed the text, decoded the paradigms and solved the contrasting situational equations, and she felt a resounding bolt of energy resonate through her body, physically feeling the kick, as she let her mind focus on the future.
And then... nothing. Still nothing. Once again, the aura around her horn dulled to nothing, and Twilight sighed in resignation of her lack of ability, tears beginning to leak from her ducts. Her eyes closed and she slumped head first onto the desk.
“Oh Celestia forgive me, there’s no way I’m going to get this spell right for you tomorrow,” she groaned, sleep starting to creep over her vision. Her mind glanced back to the different parts of the spell as she began to slip away, and just as she passed into sleep, her horn glowed once more...
She saw pain.
Pain everywhere.
Everywhere in sight, he could see ponies running in abject terror, mares weeping tears streaked with flecks of red as they tried in vain to defend their foals from the carnage surrounding them, attempting to herd them away from the floods of the water, the rain and the fire that threatened drag them away to oblivion. Princess Luna and Celestia themselves were trying to guide the survivors into a forest that appeared to be the Everfree, possibly the only safe haven left in the world of fire surrounding her. She saw Fluttershy’s cottage as no more than a pile of scorched timber and charred animal carcasses, the visage of a cremated rabbit apparent amongst the rubble. Her eyes welled up with tears in despair, and she had to rip her head away to save herself the pain. The view that greeted her was no better, as she finally scoped the scale of the destruction, the cause of all the chaos and bedlam.
They were three great bests, similar to hairless maleapes in appearance, save the hair on their heads and chins, so tall and so gigantic that they blocked out the sun, casting shadows over their daunting and muscular forms. It was hard to concentrate on a single one, as the scent of salt, blood and ozone permeated the air, filling her nostrils and turning her stomach, but she managed to focus on one; a bearded male, dripping with water, armed with what appeared to be a humongous trident that pierced the sky. She watched as the tip of the trident collided with the weapon of one of the other combatants, another male, yet with shorter hair and a thunderbolt clasped in his massive hands. The thunderbolt armed titan parried the strike of the trident before turning and throwing his weapon at the third; a gaunt figure with a scythe blacker than the night, a helmet seemingly crafted of pure darkness resting on his head. The thunderbolt extended from his hand and leapt towards the dark figure, who evaporated into mist and shadows before the lightning could come into contact with him, reforming into his fearsome visage shortly after.
It was at this point that she decided to look behind her, whereupon she staggered back and fell to the floor in alarm; there was another being like the gigantic ones doing battle behind her, only this one seemed only around six foot tall, compared to her four foot when stood on all fours. He was dressed in worn blue fabrics, the colour faded with soot and oil, with a mop of unruly black hair upon his head. Rarity would have had a heart attack. There was another titanic body crouched behind him, proportionally slightly smaller than the other giants, his face and body seemingly scarred and crippled, but with fire and passion burning in his ancient eyes. The figure did not move however, just standing and staring at the fighting gods, sadness etched all over his hardened face. The smaller ape looked away from the fire-faced man and Twilight noticed that there were many other creatures just like him, and her friends, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie stood nearby as well, their coats also dulled with soot, each standing before their own humongous avatar. Twilight was confused as to the absence of Fluttershy, but she expected the worst, and the tears welled in her eyes finally flowed free, as she realised that this vision was the soon-to-be truth. Her friends seemed to notice her, and smiled weakly, but their attention was soon taken back to the three warriors engaged in mortal combat with one another.
And then she felt the earth groan beneath her feat. Twilight span around, intent of locating its source, and what she saw was beyond what she could have guessed, one of the enormous ape beings was knelt down beside her in supplication. She reasoned that the being was a female, being of slender body and frame than most of the other titans, and the feminine clothing she was wearing seemed to accentuate that fact. The being was clad in a dark cloak, black as the night and lined with luminescent blue and sapphire gemstones, a pentagram pendant hanging around her neck. Her face was one of the most warped sights Twilight had ever seen, not counting the other titans or its alien visage. Two illusionary faces were mashed either side of her central head, yet when she focused on any of them, they dissolved from vision. However, when she just observed the face without concentrating on a single aspect, the sight of a woman with three faces greeted her eyes. The woman’s six eyes all focused on Twilights alarmed face and a look of compassion and understanding, intertwined with a deep concern and despair greeted her face. Twilight didn’t know whether to be comforted or disturbed, but due to the overwhelming anguish and grief surrounding her, she decided on the primary; she wanted some comfort, any relief at all from the deplorable world she was trapped in, or she was going to go insane.
She couldn’t stand at all the pain and fear and suffering surrounding her, this was not what she had expected when she cast the spell. She didn’t expect to find a future as bleak as this, and decided that Divination was not worth it. Knowing the future at the cost of your own sanity was not a price Twilight wanted to pay. She was speechless as she witnessed the three gargantuan beasts clash into each other as they traded blows, neither being fully able to penetrate the defences of the others. With each strike of their weapons, offshoots of energy crackled from their clashing blows, each spark, flare and flood laying waste to the town of Ponyville, finally clear to Twilight as she saw her very own Golden Oaks library being incinerated by the black flames of the scythe-armed monster. She swallowed a gulp of grief at the destruction of her own home, the flowing tears staining her coat a darker shade of purple. Her moist eyes, vision distorted by the water around then, scanned the rest of the town for some signs of hope when her eyes laid upon three figures standing in the Ponyville town centre, each armed with what appeared to be a mechanical blade affixed to their left arm, and each standing at an equal distance away from each other. They seemed to be yelling at each other and waving their arms around and slapping them against their blades, yet Twilight could not make out a single word they were saying, as the cacophony of the duelling giants drowned out most of the sound in the area. Twilight snapped her head back around to stare at her giant, eyes pleading. Something in her mind felt attuned to the beast, like it was a comrade, an ally, a friend. Even though she had never met hr before, she felt a bond between the two of them.
“What do I do? Please tell me, what do I do?” She begged, eyes wide with desperation. The goliathan woman merely smiled and brought her face closer to Twilight’s snout. She spoke in a remarkably soft voice,
“Go to them, it will enlighten you.” Twilight’s teary eyes leaked in fear and sadness. She felt so abandoned.
“I miss my friends. They’re right there, but they aren’t the friends I know. I feel so alone,” Twilight sobbed, distracted from the command by her own anguish.
“This is only a vision, your real friends are mere mile away, so do not lose hope. Your friends will never abandon you, and as long as you stand by them, the oncoming storm shall be resisted. The vision you are seeing is what will happen if you don’t stand true. Keep your friends close, and nothing can withstand you.” Twilight sniffled, blinking tears out from her eyes and managing to crack a smile,
“Thank you, and you’re right. As long as I have my friends, I’m going to be okay.”
“That is true. And very soon, you’ll be making some all new friends as well.”
“What did you say?”
“You will find out soon enough.”
“No! I have to know! What’s going to happen?”
“You have to trust me, you shall find out very soon.”
“How can I trust you if I don’t even know who you are?”
“You will find out who and what I am in very little time as well, please remain patient. If you trust me, very soon, all your questions will be answered.”
“I don’t like this one bit.”
“And I’m sorry for what you are going to go through, but to prepare you for what you will face, I must give you a gift,” The behemoth reached out a single hand, a stack of cards, tiny in comparison to the rest of her body, rested at the tip of a single finger. Twilight cautiously levitated them off the finger and up close to her face, flicking through them in confusion,
“These are just blank cards, what’s going on?”
“This is still a vision, and the cards have not yet made a contract with their duel spirits. When this has happened, the cards will reveal all.” Twilights draw dropped,
“Duel WHATS?! And a contract? This doesn’t make logical sense, I’ve never heard of these spirits before, and I’ve done extensive research into all the magical creatures in Equestria, and these “duel spirits” aren’t one of them!”
“That is because they come from beyond Equestria. The new friends you will make are from another world, and it is them that will bring this destruction with them. But do not blame them, for it is not their fault. They are also the ones that will be Equestria’s salvation from its most ancient and deadly evil.”
“This is too much, I can’t concentrate on all this,” Twilight yelled, dropping to the ground in mental exhaustion.
“You must have faith, believe in yourself and everything will be alright. This is the most important thing I can tell you.” Twilight looked up, a glint of hope sparkling in her eyes.
“Okay. I don’t know why, but I believe you.”
“Good, all will be explained soon. Now go and examine the three duelists, and you will understand the cards.”
“What are Duelists?”
“The ones with the arm blades.”
“Ooooh,” Twilight acknowledged. She gritted her teeth in determination before galloping off to investigate the aliens. The goddess smiled and turned away,
“The fate of the universe rests on her shoulders, and the shoulders of few others. If luck is on our side, they will unite together in camaraderie.”
Twilight galloped as fast as she could, dodging the energy flares and the spreading fires of the town that was once her home. She ran down an alleyway, flanked on both sides by tall, burning buildings. A beam of wood broke off from an overhanging archway over the alley, which plummeted to the ground where the unicorn was running. Twilight only just managed to see it coming in time and rolled to the side, dodging it by a hairs breadth. She hastily scrambled to her hooves, panting in fright and fatigue, before scrambling to her feet and continuing at an accelerated pace. Her hooves pounded at the ground, sending up small clouds of ash and soot as she ran. She muttered words of encouragement to herself as she strained against her physical boundary, trying to push on despite all the pain and fear she was experiencing. After ducking through several back alleys and main streets, she arrived at her destination, the Ponyville town square. Twilight made special care to stay out of sight of the aliens shouting at each other, and instead opted to watch, terrified from a corner.
“You can’t defeat my god! No matter what you try, I will stop it and I will shut you down!” yelled a boy with long, curly brown hair and a dark coat, “there’s no way you can defeat the Lord of the Underworld!”
“Your monster can’t hold out forever, soon your life points will hit zero and your part in this story will be over!” Cried a tall, well built ginger man with an enraged face and a stern frown.
“Over my dead body!”
“How appropriate, given your pathetic excuse for a deck.”
“Cut it out Shane! His deck is three times the deck yours is!” a blond haired boy with a very handsome face declared, much to the distain of the ginger man, and another argument soon broke out. Twilight couldn’t believe it; these people were just teenagers playing a card game! A game in which the very lives of the ponies she cared about were gambled and toyed with like playthings, seemingly harnessing these eldritch abominations with the cards they were using. Twilight looked at her own deck of blank cards, and realised what was going to happen very soon, she was going to have to use these cards to harness spirits, gods and other monstrosities, and she was going to have to use these cards to save her home and her friends, and if she failed, this was what was going to happen. She sighed and turned around, ready to leave, when a much smaller equivalent of her giant from earlier appeared directly in front of her. Her mouth dropped open again, and before the goddess could speak, Twilight spoke, her voice and face emotionless with pain,
“This is what it is? Some argumentative teens playing card games? This is the thing that’s going to decide the fate of Equestria?”
“Yes.”
“But that’s monstrous! How can the destiny of an entire nation revolve around a trivial game!”
“This is no game,” the goddess replied, “This may seem like any old card game, but from their world, this is a game of great and terrible power, and it is what governs their lives. Where they’re from, card games are serious business, and it is your world that is unfortunate enough to be chosen as the battleground.”
“But this isn’t fair, why Equestria? What did we do to deserve this?”
“Nothing, that’s what’s so sick and twisted about all this. The universe itself seems to have conspired against your world and decided that it shall be the one to be ravaged by this inevitable war.”
“But WHY? There must be something special about this place that makes it the perfect place for a war like this!”
“It’s difficult to explain, but you’re smart, I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s good. You see, from the world these “Humans”, as these aliens are called, possess souls just like you ponies, but very few have the potential for magical power sealed within them. When a human plays the game, they put their heart and soul into their deck and their deck responds by their cards forming their own souls and providing luck in return. But the humans with magical abilities, their powers take this a step further, their powers bring these monsters, spells, traps and magics into life. On their world, this is very rare, but when the battlefield is somewhere where magic flows everywhere and through everyone and everything, this would allow humans without magical powers to bring their cards to life.”
“So, for whatever this war is for, it needs this planet for all the combat to take place. Whoever orchestrated this whole thing chose Equestria so that their plan could fully come to fruition!”
“Exactly.”
“So, who is this orchestrator?”
“I don’t know. But for someone to trap all of us, the gods of a whole planet, inside paper cards would require them being a creature of unfathomable power”
“Oh horseapples...”
“And it’s at this point that I must leave you, but I promise that we’ll see each other again.”
“What? No! You can’t go! I still have more questions!”
“All will be answered in time, be patient.”
“How can I be patient when my whole way of life is in danger?!”
“Have faith, and nothing bad will happen.” The ethereal goddess smiled at Twilight once more, before turning around and walking away, gradually fading into nothing. The lavender pony looked on in bewilderment, but a scream from the duelists caught her attention. She whipped her head around, and watched in dumbstruck awe as the “Lord of the Underworld” thrust its scythe into the sky, and a great flash of blinding black light saw two other gargantuan figures manifest themselves next to him which morphed into two beings, one of another man, also equipped with a scythe and a pair of jet black alicorn wings spread out behind its back, and the other of a terrifying three headed dog with fire for eyes and a coat as black as death. As she continued to watch, she observed the goliath permanently doused in water thrust its great Trident into the sky, a typhoon of water spinning around the extended lance, and a great eruption sounded from the ocean several miles away. A magnificent sea monster, a beast of a thousand-tentacles surfaced from the waves, water cascading from its slimy body, an all consuming mouth falling into view as its tendrils fell about its body. It began to crawl its way onto the land and shuffle its way towards the combating titans, its massive bulk crushing the earth as it went.
Finally, the titan armed with the lightning bolt thrust his sky spear into the heavens, thunderbolts erupted from its tip and resonated through the clouds, the sound of ringing thunder and flashing light filling the sky. The clouds surrounding the point where the spear pierced the heavens began to circle around one another, gathering momentum and speed, until the hurricane itself glowed with crackling electricity and formed its own body from its thick clouds. The living storm broke free from the cloud layer above it, and its new form stood spinning on the ground, preparing to demolish all the enemies that its master commanded it to. Twilight was an experienced spellcaster, she’d even been told that she was one of the best in Equestria, but she knew that with even all of her arcane power, she couldn’t muster the energy to perform even a fraction of what these gods were doing before her very eyes. She realised with shock that not even the Princesses could stand up to these otherworldly beings and their card game playing masters, and she sobbed with the knowledge that the masters were draining the planets natural magic to fuel their chaotic battle. She did the only thing that a sane pony would do in that situation; she turned tail and ran. Twilight ran faster than she had ever run in her life, unable to escape the vision she was locked in. She had just passed the remains of her beloved library, destroyed by the fire and the water that the duelling beasts had unleashed on the planet, when all seven of the all powerful behemoths collided. The shockwave reach her and it evaporated Twilight Sparkle on the spot.
Twilight awoke falling off her chair, as if she had been kicked off by some invisible foot and crashed into the floor with a resounding thud. She scrambled to her hooves quickly, panting and sweating like she’d just ran a marathon. She frantically dashed around the basement, searching for the cards she had been given in the vision, looking for proof that what she had seen was real.
“Come on, where is it, where is it?! That strange creature gave it to me, and it needs to be here!” Twilight cried in panic, as she spasmodically pulled out a drawer and tossed its contents onto the floor, pawing through their contents in search of the cards she’d been given. In seven minutes, she had upturned the entire basement in search of the cards, and found nothing. Twilight Sparkle sat in the middle of the bombsite that was her room and panted in exhaustion, with complete confidence that her elusive deck was not in the room.
“Oh, maybe they didn’t exist in the first place. Maybe it was all just a dream...” Twilight breathed a sigh of relief; it was so obviously all a dream, nothing more than a horrible nightmare. The concepts the goddess was preaching were so preposterous, that they were clearly the results of a cheese-manipulated dream. She made a mental note to not eat stilton before bed again, and stretched her aching legs before wearing her smile and starting to walk out of her basement, when a distressed Spike burst through the door,
“Twilight? What happened in here? Why aren’t you in your bedroom?” he asked, his eyes bright with concern. Twilight merely chuckled.
“Sorry Spike, I wanted to catch up on some extra research last night and I sorta got carried away!” she joked, laughing nervously and scratching the back of her neck with her forehoof.
“Twilight, you know Celestia doesn’t like you skipping sleep to study! You should know better!”
“I know, I’m sorry Spike, I was really nervous about my assignment so I felt that I had to come downstairs. I wasn’t that bad though, I was only up for an extra few minutes before falling asleep, so there’s no need to worry!”
“Well that’s good I... wait a minute!” Spike cried, “You never usually give up on late night studying to sleep, what happened?!” Twilight shuffled nervously, trying to find a way to explain her dream easily to Spike.
“It’s nothing Spike, really,” she decided on. Spike raised an eye in scepticism, but he decided against pursuing the matter further.
“Okay... Well then, Twilight, what’s the plan for today?” he asked.
“Oh nothing too out of the ordinary, just going for a walk with the girls around town, chatting, girl stuff, you know, the usual.”
“Ugh, you don’t need to explain what you girls get up to on your own to me. Probably getting your hooves done or something...”
“Spike! There’s no need to be rude!” Twilight scowled.
“Sorry Twilight.”
“That’s better...” Twilight walked out into the main library hallway, casting a brief spell to fix the damage she had done to the basement. She made her way to one of the bookcase, frowned, levitated one of the books out from its position using her magic and started towards the opposite shelf, “So, did we get any mail this morning?” she asked.
“I don’t know, the mailmare hasn’t come yet.”
“Derpy?”
“Yeah, you know the one,” Spike confirmed. Twilight groaned in frustration.
“Is something the matter Twilight?”
“Oh no, nothing’s wrong Spike,” she laughed. Spike wasn’t buying a word of it.
“Come on Twilight, you’re a really bad liar,” he said.
“I’m fine, honestly.”
“Is there something about Derpy you don’t like?”
“No, she’s fine it’s just she has... never mind...” Twilight sighed in exasperation, and Spike slowly began to form a picture in his head, a goofy smile slowly drawing itself across his face.
“Is somepony jealous?” he grinned mischievously. Twilight blushed furiously and dropped the book she was carrying.
“N.. N.. No! I’m not jealous of Derpy! She’s with Time Turner, and that’s good for her!”
“Oh boy, this is great,” Spike chuckled, “Now I KNOW you’re jealous!”
“What? How?!” Twilight panicked.
“I never said you were jealous about Time Turner, you just told me!”
“But but but... I...” she protested in vain; Spike was already rolling on the floor laughing.
“Twilight, you little schoolfilly!” he teased.
“Oh shut up, Spike!” Twilight laughed, poking her number one assistant in the tummy. It was at that exact moment that a loud crash was heard at the door, followed by the sound of shuffling hooves and four knocks at the door. Spike popped to his feet and walked to the door,
“I’ll get it!” he called, as he opened the door. The bright eyed smile of the gray and blond maned local mailmare greeted the baby dragon, who burst out into laughter once again. Spike fell to the floor in hysterics, while Twilight tried to avoid eye contact as much as possible,
“No way! This is too perfect! Hahahahahaha!” Spike laughed, and Derpy’s face instantly fell. She saw Twilight avoiding her gaze with one eye and watched Spike laugh at her expense with the other. After all these years, she thought that ponies would have stopped ridiculing her for once, but now the smartest pony she knew was so uncomfortable looking at her eyes that she wasn’t even turning her head to her and her dragon was laughing at her clumsiness. Tears began to build up in the corners of her eyes, and her bottom lip began to tremble. She threw Twilight’s package to the ground in a huff, quickly turned around and beat her wings, lifting her into the air. She hastily flew away, slightly tilted to the left and with tears now streaming down her face. Neither Twilight nor Spike noticed her leave and just saw the parcel left by the door. Spike finally managed to stand up and Twilight turned her head back, walking quickly over to the package left on the doorstep. A myriad of panicked thoughts began to wash back into her mind as to the contents of the mysterious parcel; was it the cards from her vision? No, they were just a dream, it must be something else. Spike noticed her troubled expression and asked,
“Twil ight, is there something up?”
“We’ll see,” she replied, levitating the package to eye contact and used her telekinesis to rip off the wrapping paper...
... A new box of quills.
“Huh,” Twilight thought, “That was an anticlimax. I can’t believe I forgot about my order of precision made phoenix feather quills!” She laughed to herself jovially, “What am I worrying about?!” Spike raised an eyebrow in confusion. Twilight simply trotted over to a nearby writing desk and unpacked her quills, inserting them into a holes in a quill rack she’d had custom built (By Time Turner as well, he was surprisingly good at things unrelated to his cutie mark) in height and colour code order. She grinned contentedly and cantered back over to the front door,
“I’ll be back later Spike! I’m going to be out with the girls for most of the day though!” she called, with her little dragon shooting from a nearby cupboard, clutching a large emerald in his hands.
“Hey Twilight, could you give this to Rarity for me please? I searched for it just for her!” he said, a happy little glint twinkling in his eyes. Twilight wore a look of sympathy and compassion on her face, yet still with a smile. She slung her saddlebags over her back and levitated the stone into the left pocket.
“Of course “Spikey-Wikey”, I’ll make sure she gets them.” She taunted. Spike huffed at her taunt and replied,
“Thanks Twilight...” The unicorn grinned at her assistant and made her way out of the library,
“Goodbye, Spike!”
“See ya, Twilight!”
Twilight stood with her fellow ponies and watched in despair as she witnessed the “humans” manifest themselves out of thin air, apparently confused by their surroundings and the events around them. The visions she had seen were completely true after all, and that in two weeks, Equestria would be completely changed forever. Twilight recognised that one of the humans seemed to be from earlier and was substantially more stressed than the other, and the other one in blue clothes seemed to be the closest thing to a peacemaker between the two. Either way, these were two of the humans who would either save or destroy her home. Twilight offered a brief prayer to Celestia, before re-concentrating on the duel. What she noticed first, however, was not how realistic the monsters looked, or how passionate the humans were about their game, it was another package that appeared out of thin air in front of her. She gulped; now knowing for certain what lay within it, but with a fairly good hint as to its contents. She lifted it from the ground with her horn magic, a purple aura emanating from it and surrounding the paper, and in one fluid motion, she ripped the wrapping from it. Her eyes were greeted by a golden sarcophagus, looking to be ancient Coltgyptian in origin with an eye of Horus symbol emblazoned on its front. Her friends were too busy concentrating on the duel between the humans, so she was able to open her box in relative peace. She held her breath as she slid off the lid...
She sat on her enshadowed throne, growling at the dark thoughts that permeated her mind. She was a metaphysical entity, yet all that she is and was was concentrated into her body to fill a physical form, and she hated it. She reasoned to herself that this body was necessary for her plan to succeed, but she still despised her very essence being twisted and contorted into this unnatural shape. She thumbed through her deck aimlessly, viewing each one of her cards in turn and analyzing their effects. Her face contorted into a warped smile when she came to her own god cards, the one of the trickster, the sun king, the warrior, the mother, the stargazer, the lover, the sky lord and her own, the card of herself. She placed her deck down with her crow-like left hand and scratched his serpentine brow with his bear-like right. She sighed in boredom and stood from her throne and hopped down from the small platform onto the throne room floor, her ironclad thigh-length boots stomping with a loud thud. She marched her way over to the window that compromised of the whole of the long edge of the room and gazed out of it listlessly, the whole of the city of London before her very eyes. She was quite surprised at how easy it was for her to infiltrate and take over the Shard building, the tallest functional structure in all of Europe, her smile becoming more distinct as she chuckled at the weak minds of humans. Despite all their complex technology that outmatched even her own understanding, the vast majority of mankind were bone-dead stupid. The one thing that had prevented her takeover of Earth was their wills, their hopes and dreams, and their willpower was what had prevented her from ruling the planet. She had found that out the hard way. Her first covert attempt at takeover had successfully seen her being able to dominate every aspect of nature on the planet, except from the will of humanity. That was not enough, she needed total submission. And that was where her plan had been formulated; she had to defeat their will. It wasn’t long after her first failure that she realised what the humans had put their will into; Duel Monsters. The game was so centralised to their way of life that all of their will relied on the game. And that was when she came up with her second plan; she had to conquer the game to conquer the world.
To enact this plan, she took her own offspring, both titans and gods, and trapped them within the cards used by the humans. She reasoned that once she controlled the aspects of nature in the form of the cards that humanity so idolised, she would, by extension, finally be in dominion of their wills as well. But while enacting her diabolical plan, something had gone wrong; the transformation had not gone off perfectly, only seven cards staying with her and the rest being sent around the Earth to be discovered by the mortals. That was when, with great anger, she decided her plans needed changing; she needed to claim them back. She discovered that the cards and the gods within them remained inactive until discovered, whereupon they would manifest themselves with their new masters. But the hologram technology used by the humans to make their duels more realistic would not fully summon the gods from their cards, and thus could not be reclaimed, with only a portion of their power leaking through. And then she had stumbled upon her greatest find yet, the planet of Equestria. In this world, mana, the magical energy that fuelled the powers of a select group of humans, flowed freely through all of life and nature. All this power could be channelled into Earth, where the humans would be able to fully summon the gods. The gods were surprisingly loyal though; in their card form they could not be taken from their owners by force, but when they had been fully manifested they could be won in a duel. That was his plan; she had to win all the lost gods back, and she knew she had to do it quickly.
She chuckled maliciously, returning to her seat on his throne, sitting with a wry smile. One of her underlings skittered in, body parts as mismatched as her own, although she was substantially larger. Her inferior trotted up to the right of her throne and kneeled before his master.
“My Queen, a new duelist has volunteered to join our ranks.” he informed. The Queen merely laughed and replied,
“And? We’ve had four new duelists joining in the last two days, you do not need to inform me of each and every one whenever one signs up, just give me a list at the end of every week.”
“I understand your majesty, you’ve told me this the last four times, but I thought that you might want to be especially aware of this one.”
“Why is that, pray tell?”
“His name is Shane Styrix, and he owns the king.” The Queen’s mouth dropped in surprise,
“He has the king?”
“Yes your majesty, he does.” The Queen stood from her chair and chuckled menacingly,
“Well, what a turn out for the books! The king, my oldest enemy, is now completely under my command. How ironic.”
“Yes your majesty, shall I send for him?”
“Yes, fetch him for me, I wish to meet this “Shane”.”
“Very well your majesty.” The underling scampered off from a small door in the corner of the room and whispered to someone out of sight.
“Well, Zeus, my old friend. Looks like you are now mine to do with as I see fit. How entertaining!” The Queen snickered under her breath, the whispers from far away ceasing. She threw her arms into herself and pulled herself inside out, transforming her body from a mismatched combination of animal limbs into a humanoid female form, clad in long flowing black robes with a mop of black hair reaching down to her knees. She was darkly beautiful with black eyes and lips matched with a pale white skin. She smiled in anticipation as a well built redheaded man sauntered arrogantly into the room, eyes locked on her all the time. He already liked this new man.
“So, you’re the kid who owns the King of the Gods?”
“Yeah that’s me. My name’s Shane, and I’m the number 1 ranked duelist in England.”
“Interesting qualifications, I can see you may be quite the addition to my team.”
“I hope for all our sakes that you’re right.”
“Indeed. In fact, I may have your first assignment all ready for you to go.”
“Oh really? Who do you want me to fight?”
“Well, two humans recently travelled to another planet, a planet where they both discovered their own god cards. But they have a third friend; a friend who I believe may get his own god soon. I want you to duel that boy and see if a card appears to him. I do not want you to steal it from him yet, though, just see if he will be a threat or not.”
“Is that it? Pah, piece of cake! Anything else you’ll need from me?”
“No, thank you very much, although your enthusiasm is appreciated. You are dismissed.” Shane grinned and waved his hand once towards the Lord, before turning around and sauntering out the door,
“See ya later... Queen Khaos.” Khaos smirked, her snake-like tongue snaking about her mouth...
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Is Twilight's God Card Hecate?
2950614 Hecate is one of the possible options...
for some reason i think aphrodite im probably wrong but hay it could have been gaea or athena for all its worth i just cant get the whole eyes thing
I'm assuming Twilight's God is Athena, but the whole "three faces in one thing" is making me think Eve, but I know that can't be right because Eve is from the Bible and is decidedly NOT Greek.
This is getting interesting. Don't know why I never Favorited this, even though I was interested in it. Oh well.
Tomorrow, I continue this. When I get home.
I'm pretty sure that the lady with three faces was a form of the three Fates. It makes sense because the Fates were the ones who controlled everyone's fate, even the god's.