Chapter 161: Limbo?
Twilight set right to work on reading through Starswirl's journal again, calling upon Starlight and Sunburst only as needed to decipher it.
Despite the apparent progress, neither Starlight or Sunburst seemed aware of what Twilight had discovered. For one day they were strolling through the castle hallway together, chatting as good friends often do.
"I still can't believe one of the greatest discoveries of our time was all set into motion by a find in a bargain barrel of all places," Starlight commented to Sunburst. "When I learned you'd bought it at a store here in Ponyville, I thought you were crazy."
Sunburst grinned and beamed with pride. "Told you it was worth the bits it cost. And trust me when I say that's not the only thing I've stumbled across in those barrels. Sometimes good things can be find in the most unexpected of places."
"So, I guess you're going to head back to the Crystal Empire when Twilight's all done with the journal, and you'll start reading all the spells?" Starlight questioned with a sigh. "I was kind of hoping this extended break from your crystaller duties would give us more time to spend together. Seems like we don't do much of anything even after getting back in touch."
Sunburst reached out a hoof to reassure his friend. "You know that's not true, Starlight. I always look forward to your visits to the Crystal Empire. And being in Ponyville with you has made this whole experience all worthwhile, far more than any old journal," Then he started to stroke his chin as he added. "But I wouldn't say the mystery is solved just yet. It's a step in the right direction but there's still so much we don't know. So many things we've barely even scratched the surface on. It could take a full team of magical scholars years to fully understand what Starswirl's written, and that's assuming they'll even know how to read his horn writing. Never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad my mom signed us up for those horn writing classes."
"Didn't seem to do a lot of good for me," Starlight blushed. "My horn writing's still pretty bad."
"At least that's something you and Starswirl have in common now," Sunburst teased. "Don't tell Twilight I said that."
Fortunately, there was no need for Starlight to even dwell upon the matter. Because at that very moment the library door swung open, and an eager looking Twilight popped out as she declared! "Good news! I think I understand Starswirl's spell! Tell Shining and his friends to meet me in the throne room! You won't believe what I've discovered!"
A short time later, the six stallions were all gathered in the throne room alongside Twilight and Starlight. Twilight was practically beside herself as she declared! "Never in all my life did I imagine I'd get a chance to solve a mystery related to Starswirl the Bearded! Ever since B.B.B.F.F completed one of his spells and got his wings, I always wondered what other unsolved works Starswirl might have left behind in the wake of his disappearance. But this was a spell on an entirely different level compared to what Shining managed to pull off. Was it an explosion of magical feedback? An evocation? A kind of incantation? It's Star Swirl, so the possibilities are endless!"
"That goes without saying," Shining nodded. "But how did you manage to figure it out so quickly, Twilight? Even with Sunburst's help I could barely make heads or tails of the writing. Old Ponish is hard to translate."
"Oh that's easy, Starlight and Sunburst were big helps!" Twilight smiled in response. "Starlight in particular since she was able to point me in the right direction with Starswirl's horn writing," She paused to laugh and snort as she added. "I mean, he was a genius after all. So I guess we can forgive a little messiness in the pursuit of knowledge. Anyway, I went through the journal again, and it's amazing!"
Soarin arched an eyebrow upward. "What's so amazing, exactly? And why do I get the feeling this is somehow related to the six of us?"
Twilight replied by clutching the journal in her hooves as she ominously declared. "Why, only the fact that Starswirl and the Pillars sent The Pony of Shadows to limbo!"
"Hold on, they did what now?!" Big Macintosh asked.
"I told you, they sent The Pony of Shadows to limbo!" Twilight replied as she presented a diorama depicting Ponhenge and lit up her horn while moving her hooves. "Allow me to explain: They used their combined magic to open a portal between worlds – to limbo – and pulled The Pony of Shadows inside, taking themselves with him. They had to use Ponhenge, because Starswirl knew that was were feats of magic otherwise impossible for even the highest level unicorns to pull off could occur." As she finished speaking her diorama disintegrated with a poof of magic."
Fancy Pants let out a gasp! "Twilight, your diorama! And you worked so hard on it too!"
"Oh that's okay, I made more!" Twilight proudly declared. "I always come prepared!"
"But why exactly did the pillars have to go to limbo too?" Braeburn wondered aloud. "If they could use Ponhenge to banish their foe, why would they need to go with him? Seems a bit unnecessary to sacrifice themselves like that."
But Twilight shook her head. "They had no choice, Braeburn. They knew the only way they could even open a portal to limbo, was by taking The Pony of Shadows there with them. That was the ultimate sacrifice Starswirl was referring to in the final pages."
"I see," Big Macintosh realized. "So they all got stuck too. At least now we know where they are."
Thunderlane let out a gulp and shuddered. "The Pony of Shadows must've been really awful for them to do that."
Braeburn couldn't help but ponder. "You know, maybe bein' in limbo with your sworn enemy wouldn't be so bad if you were actually doin' the limbo," As he spoke he found himself actually doing the limbo. "But that'd still be pushin' it. Not my idea of what I'd like to do for all eternity. Sure hope none of my relatives ever got stuck there."
"Well that's the thing," Twilight spoke up. "I think I can pull them out, with a little help from all of you of course."
Sunburst let out a gasp! "Twilight, are you being serious?! You could actually free the most important legends of all time?! The very pillars of harmony?!"
Starlight gulped. "I-I don't know if that's a good idea, Twilight. Opening portals between worlds didn't work out well for me as I'm sure your brother told me. And there's the whole fiasco with that other world you can apparently access through a mirror, even if that one seems pretty stable."
"That's a valid concern, Starlight, but there's one thing you're forgetting," Twilight corrected. "When you opened portals it was through time, not between worlds. Messing with time is dangerous for obvious reasons and you were lucky your actions caused no permanent damage to the time stream. Heck, I made the same mistake myself once, and I think I ended up unintentionally creating a time paradox. But opening portals between worlds isn't as risky if done properly," Then she added. "On top of that, Star Swirl wrote the spell we used to travel through time. If he'd been here, he could have stopped us. Equestria would be much safer with him in it again. We have to save him."
"Uh, you'd be savin' all the pillars, right?" Big Mac asked. "Doesn't seem right to leave them there if we can pull one of them out. But are we sure they're even still reachable? They disappeared over a thousand years ago, who knows how old they are now?"
At that the unicorn giggled. "That's the funny thing about limbo, Big Mac. It isn't one place or another. It's actually in between, so time stands still. If we can pull them out, it'll be like they never left at all."
But Shining (who had remained silent up to this point) frowned and adopted a noticeably troubled expression upon his face. "I'm actually siding with Starlight on this one, Twilight. Not that I mean to question your magical expertise, but you do have a tendency to cause just as much trouble as you fix when the answer comes down to a spell. And the last time I messed with untested magic, well let's just say it was a good thing I got my wings and was able to come back," Then he added. "And there's one thing about your whole plan that has me really worried. Assuming you could pull the pillars out of limbo, what's to stop The Pony of Shadows from getting out as well? If the pillars are what's keeping him imprisoned, wouldn't removing them effectively undo their attempt to contain him? I'm just not sure it's worth taking that big a gamble, especially since if something went wrong we might not have time for a back-up plan."
"You know, I never thought about it like that," Starlight added. "But I think you should listen to your brother, Twilight. He's never been wrong before."
But Fancy Pants frowned. "I'm afraid you're wrong on that, Starlight. Shining's made questionable decisions before. He did tell you about what he did while we were traveling beyond Equestria to get allies in our battle against the Storm King, didn't he?"
"Actually, I don't think he did." Starlight realized.
Now it was Soarin's turn to frown as he bitterly remarked. "I still don't know what he was even thinking when he decided it was okay to just swipe the Pearl of Transformation, and send us to distract Queen Novo so she wouldn't find out. And the worst part was, he nearly succeeded."
"Is that true?" The mare asked her teacher as she looked him in the eyes. "Please tell me it's not true."
But the prince shook his head as he reluctantly confessed. "Much as I wish it wasn't, I'm afraid it is. Not exactly my finest moment. At the time I told myself it was the only way, that I had no choice but to do it. Of course in hindsight I realize that was stupid and short-sighted, but I wasn't in the best state of mind at the time. I did a lot of things on that journey that I wish more than anything I could take back, but as Twily just pointed out trying to mess with time for any reason is dangerous and not worth it."
"For what it's worth, Shining, I think you have a point about the pillars," Twilight spoke up. "I guess maybe I was a little too eager to meet my idol. But when I first settled on the idea of maybe getting the pillars out, I ran a few calculations in my head and..." She paused for a moment. "I'm ninety-nine percent positive I can pull them out without freeing The Pony of Shadows as well."
"And that other one percent?" Shining questioned.
"Well in that case, there is the possibility The Pony of Shadows will escape somehow," Twilight declared. "But I'm actually about ninety-nine point nine percent positive I can free the pillars without any complications. It's never going to be a one hundred percent guarantee, but then again there aren't usually guarantees in life. And you can't let that stop you from making decisions. It's up to you, though. If you don't think it's worth the trouble, if you think there's something I haven't considered, then you can say no. I may not like it, but I understand that as Captain of the Royal Guard and Equestria's only alicorn prince, you have the safety of the entire nation to think about."
All eyes turned to the prince, but he didn't answer right away. He stood there, thinking over everything in his head that he'd just been told. It was true that this endeavor was a huge risk that could backfire, and Celestia had warned him specifically to be careful. But on the other hoof, if there was a chance he could rescue Starswirl and the pillars from limbo then didn't he owe it to them and to everyone else to at least try?
At last the stallion with a coat of white gave his answer. "We did promise the princesses that if we could find out where Starswirl and the pillars went, we'd try to rescue them if possible. And if the odds are really that high for getting them out without complication, I say it's worth a shot. Of course, this is strictly a volunteer thing. I don't want you guys to feel like I'm forcing you to do something if you'd rather not get involved. I'm sure you have some concerns about my judgement after what happened last time."
"Nonsense, Shinin'," Braeburn reassured his friend. "You made mistakes, but so have we. What's important is that you've learned from 'em so you can be a better pony. If we expected perfection from you or anyone else, we'd be disappointed."
"Whatever help we can offer, we'll be glad to give," Fancy Pants added. "So what can we do to help?"
"Good question, actually," Shining spoke up. "Twilight, you're the expert on these pillars. Any ideas on how we're supposed to go about freeing them?"
"If I'm right, what we need is to find items that are connected to the Pillars in some way." Twilight explained to the group.
"You mean, like things that once belonged to them?" Spike guessed.
Twilight nodded. "Exactly, Spike."
"Okay, but exactly what would we be looking for? And more importantly, where would we look?" Thunderlane pondered. "I mean... maybe Cattail still has Mage Meadowbrook's mask in her old home, but even then are we sure that's the item she had the strongest connection to?"
"Well it's a good thing Starswirl took a lot of notes, I'm sure we'll find the answers within this journal," Twilight declared as she began to read aloud. "'My compatriots are as varied as the realm itself and hail from every corner of our land, bringing with them artifacts and talismans of great power.'"
As Twilight spoke, the thrones all began to shimmer and then glow. A fact that did not go unnoticed by Starlight who interrupted Twilight's reading by asking. "Um, Twilight? What are you doing?"
"I'm not doing anything!" Twilight protested. "It looks like the map is trying to tell us something!"
Suddenly, one by one objects that were instantly recognizable to the group appeared on the map and came to rest over various locations. Some recognizable and others not so recognizable.
"Rockhoof's shovel!" Big Macintosh exclaimed.
"Flash Magnus' shield!" Soarin commented.
"Mistmane's flower!" Fancy Pants remarked.
"Mage Meadowbrook's mask!" Thunderlane declared.
"And Somnambula's glowpez necklace!" Braeburn realized.
"And I'm guessing Starswirl's journal is connected to all of them as well, since those are the objects we saw in the holograms at Ponhenge," Shining realized. "Seems like we don't need to guess who should get what. The map has given us each an objective. We'll each spread out to retrieve our assigned object, and then we'll bring them all to Ponhenge."
Twilight beamed with pride. "Great! Sounds like a plan! And with Sunburst and Starlight helping us, we should have more than enough magical power to open the portal to limbo and free the pillars!"
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9281525
Yeah. Those are pretty valid points. Thanks again.
Once more this is a really good chapter. Thanks greatly for the work that went into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up in all the right places. And thanks again for liking one of my dialogue ideas enough to use it.
Indeed, you made some really good points in the author's notes.
Here are some possible dialogue ideas for later:
1. At an appropriate point, somebody of your choice can comment "Well, there are A LOT fewer places in Equestria these days that have the darkness the Pony of Shadows would need to regain his strength and between us, you, the Princesses and others, we've got a lot more firepower these days that we did then, so the odds of us being able to defeat the Pony of Shadows without sacrificing anyone are quite good."
2. At another appropriate point, somebody of your choice can comment "Are you kidding me? Are you trying to say that you tried to banish him as a FIRST resort rather than a LAST? Honestly, talking things out might have been a long shot, but it would have still been worth a shot. Banishment should ALWAYS be reserved as an absolute LAST resort."
3. At the appropriate point, somebody of your choice can point out to Stygian, "Okay, I can see where you would be frustrated, but you should have talked things out with the Pillars BEFORE things ever got that bad in the first place. I mean, I get that Starswirl might be REALLY intimidating as far as ability AND attitude go, but you did not exactly do yourself any favors by keeping quiet as long as you did. If you could have just worked up the nerve to talk to the Pillars before trying something as desperate as you did, I'm certain that at least a few of them would have TRIED to find a way to help you."
4. At the appropriate point, Stygian can comment "You're not the only one who has a lot of apologizing to do, Starswirl. I, myself, have ALSO been made to see where I have made serious errors in judgement; especially with you and the other Pillars. In short, I, too, am sorry."
and 5. Toward the very end, either Celestia or Luna (your choice which one) can tell Stygian "Technically speaking, you have already served more than a thousand years (which is MORE THAN TEN consecutive life sentences to a normal pony) if you count your time in dimensional limbo AND you were stopped BEFORE you could commit any other crimes. Therefore, there is no reason you should be punished any further as long as you behave yourself."
Of course, I can completely understand if you don't like any of these ideas.
9281909
You know, if the show listened to your ideas, there wouldn't have been a show to begin with. Just saying...
It's kind of why nobody should listen to the fans. Because they ruin everything.
9284234
Yeah. I suppose that IS a valid point. Of course, part of the fun of fan fiction (especially ALTERNATE UNIVERSE fan fiction) is being able to do your own spin on certain things.
Yeah that is pretty crazy especially one of those mysterious box lol and I always lose on those 😅
Fancy Pants let out a gasp! "Twilight, your diorama! And you worked so hard on it too!"
"Oh that's okay, I made more!" Twilight proudly declared. "I always come prepared!"
Of course you did twilight lol 😆
Yeah I remember that I mean shining armor or Twilight in some parts different universe they both want to save their home and the other ponies but it didn't help that they didn't thought of stealing the pearl which the Sea Ponies actually wants to help us they just made a bad decision