The Twilight of the Crystal Heart

by WanderingPony

Chapter 12: Spiritus Mundi

The resting place of Twilight Sparkle, alicorn, magician, occasional heroine and librarian (which, in her heart of hearts was a greater title than "heroine", considering it let her read more books) was a warm place filled with the very breath of life.

This is a polite way of saying that it had turned into a containment chamber for a miniature, purple-red sun's worth of enough magical life-energy to obliterate a small continent. Not that Twilight was into obliterating entire continents. In truth, the mind of Twilight Sparkle was currently tripping it's hooves off on the gifts she'd been given by the elemental titans of the astral planes.

She was exploring the stellar engine at the heart of the Equestrian sun. Listening to the utter black silence of a cave forty miles deep that had never so much seen the touch of light or even life. Drifting along at the glacial pace of...the heart of an ice flow in the northern polar regions. Pushing a swarm of Breezies gently through the sky, touching them in an intimate way only the wind could manage. Enjoying the taste of a fine blend of scandium-yttrium-equuite as her senses trickled down a 12-mile vein. Riding the product of a wild, massive thunderhead as it plunged dozens of forks into the sea, down, down into the whirling currents that took her to a gaping chasm of hissing lava vents, preparing a new island to rise.

And she rose. And fell. Spun. Drove along at the speed of light, immobile as a pebble welded to a high cliff wall. And she Was them all and none at once, connecting, sparking bonding splitting-

twilightcanyouhearustwilightitscelestiaweweresoworriedweloveyouwakeupletushelpyoupleasepleasepleas-

The spirit in the world briefly collapsed down into a single point of pony, All became merely one bit of All as it realized that really, it really shouldn't be Magic with a capital M if it wanted to be Twilight Sparkle and found itself being reminded that indeed, it really wasn't all the magic if it wanted to be something else. But....but...she/it could be all the magic! ALL the Magic. The Magic. Know. It. All.

Considering the delightful concept, Twilight Sparkle began to draw herself inward, preparing to send herself outward into the cosmos in a grand leap of knowledge and infinite exploration. Compared to the dark painful dreams from before? Best. Dream. Ever!

That this would make the Crystal Empire going up look like a firecracker by comparison had completely slipped the currently immaterial, power-drunk Twilight's mind, but the concept hadn't been missed by others.

---

"This can't be happening!", Celestia thought as her horn desperately drank in the gouts of power that would otherwise have shattered the walls of her erstwhile dining room like so many bombs. Luna, equally confused and amazed held up a shell of energy that sheltered six little ponies behind it.

Nothing even remotely mortal should hold that much power- could hold that much power in one place, and it was only getting stronger. Twilight was in the middle of it, nothing more than motes of glittering purple in the congealing ball of mana that was pulling itself rivers of essence from every ley line on the planet. Spells that would have left even an alicorn exhausted for weeks were trivial to cast even in the eddies of the torrent- and if they had not, there already would no longer have been a Canterlot, or her little ponies, and likely a new sea before Twilight burned away even that to turn herself into a star to rival Celestia's.

But she was. A unicorn filly having an uncontrolled surge of power as she came into her own had been enough to turn ponies to plants, eggs to full-formed dragons. Twilight Sparkle was having her second childhood come of age, and an alicorn connected to the primal forces of the world was a much, much more dangerous cutie-ceanara.

Her horn shivered and twinged as Celestia realized Her own sun was quite happy to go nova if she kept using it as a mana sink and informed her that yes, all this delicious energy would be quite enough to bake the planet to a cinder, could I have a bit more please?

"LUNA!!", she blasted through the solar roar.

That would be the last thing Princess Celestia would remember until the end, as the proto-star of Twilight eagerly sucked Princesses, pony-friends, and all into it's fulminating mass and proceeded to finish what it'd started when she'd had that unfortunate disembodiment.

---

The arcane-nuclear chain reaction that was Twilight Sparkle found itself suddenly full of eight pony-shaped control rods, neatly tied to her by her own ritual. Near-cosmic awareness plunged to a much more uncomfortable self-awareness, much akin to waking up the morning after Cider Week in Ponyville.

It came to Twilight in the natural yet absurd form of a checklist.

One: I am currently ponifed plasma excited to a highly aetherial state. Check.

Two: Ponies do not do well as highly excited plasma, and I am beginning to express very unponylike things like massive gravitational fields, lethal amounts of radiant mana, and a desire to explore the cosmos via stellar expansion. Whether I want to or not. Check. (Becoming part of a G5 Binary, no less. A small part of Twilight's suddenly sober mind gibbered that at least she'd be an INTERESTING stellar formation.)

Three: If I don't express this potential energy via a controlled manner (ie, spellcasting), I will start a chain reaction that will turn Equestria into the newest star in the Faustian Cosmos, or perhaps an asteroid belt. Charbroiled.

Four: Consider what on Equestria could channel so much potential energy in a controlled manner?

---

"Told you that not even magic can make a cutie mark appear before its time."

The last three forlorn footballs faded from Apple Bloom's flank as Twilight bowed her head, exhausted.

"It's hopeless! Hopeless!"

---

If Twilight Sparkle hadn't already been generating enough light to drown out Los Pegasus during tourist season already, one might have been able to glimpse a light bulb conjuring itself into existence about where she'd have a head, if she HAD a head, squared her hypothetical mental hooves, and chose the most hopeless spell she'd ever cast, focused every erg of energy from the runaway channel of mana she had become...and threw the spell out into the world.

An eight-colored sigil of power formed in the room, a ball of prismatic, burning energies that surged into eight lines of color that fed into six little ponies and two not-so-little alicorns. The colors flowed into Twilight's first targets of her spell, turning them into pony-shaped effigies of magical light- and then gushed from their flanks in twinned threads of light and dark, white and green, yellow and purple, blue and red. The threads wove into a tornado of colors that rose to the ceiling, melted it away as if it had never been to rise into a column of sparkling glory, and tightened, tightened, twisted and wrapped themselves together-

And as all glory does, it passed, the threads bursting at their tangled seams into a rain of luminous shards that would find themselves in every corner of the world, a harmless light show that seemingly pierced through skin and hide of every species without so much as a tingle, eventually to vanish as they buried themselves into ground or water, burned themselves out in the air, melted into a campfire or faded into the frozen hearts of glaciers.

Save for ponies. The excess of energy from the gifts Twilight Sparkle had received from the spirits found them all- earth and sky, sea and deepest cave, even unborn foals waiting for their first breath to the eldest granny finishing her last one. Each and every pony in Equestria suddenly felt a bond they mostly didn't even think of suddenly...loosen a bit as Twilight's magic set cutie marks worldwide to imitating a firefly convention, and even blank-flanked fillies found their haunches tickled and spitting sparks like a unicorn's horn. A few even found something extra, as the tales would tell.

None of them had a clue to what happened then of course. But in the years to come, it would be known as the beginning of the Age of Adventure.

The nine ponies at the center of it all were sprawled across a marble floor so clean you could have used it for dinner AND open heart surgery in a roofless castle room in Canterlot. None of them were awake to appreciate that eight had indeed become nine, nor what else had happened to them. Pony number nine slept on the warm, sunlit stone, curled up with her nose tucked under a glittering wing. Bits of gleaming magicite in fanciful shapes of apples and suns and crescent moons and other shapes surrounded her, and her cutie mark indeed did sparkle, as if someone had painted it on a foundation of glitter.

I would like to say that they were left to wake up, tranquil and well-rested after what had to be truly one of those days from a nap even Rainbow Dash would have found sufficient unto the day. Really, after a day like this, you deserve a nap. A hero's reward.

The Royal Guard managed to get there at about three minutes into Day One, A.O.A and mess the whole thing up.

Comments

[WanderingPony]

4433690
Equestria's monarchy is a tad more balanced- while indeed, Celestia could have done quite a lot by royal fiat- she didn't. Pardoning the Elements outright would have left the impression of a coverup and when six of your subjects are being considered for obliterating a neighboring country- you don't do that if you want to keep any kind of political power whatsoever.

The power to override the people is a potent one- but blatantly using it can mean we'd be looking at the pony equivalent of a Cromwell rising up. Queen Elizabeth wouldn't likely pardon mass murderers, and to the outside that's exactly what the Mane 6 are- the ones who left the Crystal Empire a charnel house full of ghosts, undead, and worse and an entire species of pony demanding answers (never mind her subjects, who are about as horrified).

(SPOILER WARNING)
As for Blueblood- "he" was playing dirty. Pushing all of Celestia's buttons at once and playing on her guilt for the entire thing would make you THINK he'd get slapped for it...and look at what happens to the REAL Blueblood later. Shoved off a balcony by "Royal Guards" to plunge to his doom! Chrysalis borrowed the one royal shape big enough to pull off easily, abrasive enough to get away with being her almost-usual changeling self, and because it's a MALE, the last thing most people would expect the QUEEN of the changelings to imitate.

As it is, if the real Blueblood isn't found alive at the end (DUN DUN DUN!), he becomes the stallion who was brave enough to speak against the tyrant Celestia despite the risk of treason, who had him killed along with his special somepony (the disfavored student, and remember- no Equestria Girls happened here, so she's no Element-stealing criminal) to bury two problems in one river. Nasty fake rumors take on "proof" and suddenly, the Royal line isn't pretty Princesses with blood all over their hooves. Justice for Blueblood! Justice for innocent young Sunset Shimmer, drowned in the flower of her youth for being in love with the right pony at the wrong time! Did Celestia send her Element flunkies to destroy a rival nation behind the hand of "friendship"? Tear down the Diarchy! (Hint: This would be a bad end.)
(SPOILERS END)

And as for Bahamut? Have you been looking at my future chapter drafts, O reader? :) I