To End A Life

by Diceman

Chapter III: Phantoms of the past

Chapter III Phantoms of the past

Iron Eagle pressed the button the call the elevator and waited for it to descend. As he listened to the cables above creak as they lowered the platform his mind raced with how he was to accomplish his goal. Without a doubt, they would know he was here just by the fact that the elevator was moving on its own. Maybe if he used the jem Spike gave him right as he reached the top landing, they would write it off as a mechanical malfunction.

"Spike, how much clearance is there between the top of the elevator and the machinery used to move it around?" Iron Eagle asked.

"About two or so feet between the top of the compartment and the gearing system at the most, why?" Spike asked.

"Well, I need you to press the button to send it up and then a minute or two later press it to go down again. Make it look like you're bored so she will be annoyed with you and not thinking an intruder is in her home."

"Will do, just remember; Sam will be looking for any abnormalities in the security system. If she finds you, she has a weapons system used to neutralize and imprision would-be thieves. Whatever you do, do not let her see you." Spike pointed his claw at the elevator, which had just stopped at the bottom of his cave, the metal safety gate swinging open to let Iron Eagle in. Iron Eagle nodded to Spike and jumped on top of the elevator compartment, he then crouched down and motioend for Spike to press the button to send it back up. Spike reached inside the compartment and pressed the up button with his massive claw, breaking the panel in the process and bending the gate as he pulled his massive claw out.

"Oops, sorry." Spike apologized as the safety gate closed.

"Seriously, Spike? Now they are definitely going to be suspicious.

"Wait, you're a Pegasus; just fly up the elevator shaft ahead of it" Spike proposed.

Iron Eagles ears shot up and he looked back as his wings, still tucked tightly against his body. Why do I have to miss the obvious things?
Iron Eagle Spread his wings and took off just as the elevator started to move. However, it seemed the elevator was keeping pace with his flight, it seemed the damaged console on the inside was set to high gear. Iron Eagle noticed that the cable system was moving too fast for his own comfort. Bumping into one during flight while it was slower wouldn't have been an issue, but with them moving that quickly one would easily clip a wing and send him into the gearing system below; and most likely to his death.

Iron Eagle hovered in place, allowing the elevator to catch up with him. Just as his front hooves made contact with the roof of the compartment the tip of his right wing grazed the cable going through the gearing system, quickly and painfully tearing out multiple feathers.

"Ow ,ow ,ow!" Iron Eagle reflexively pulled his wing away, blowing on it to ease the pain. "I could have sworn this kinda gearing system is supposed to be cased in metal to prevent it catching on any technicicans." Iron Eagle watched as his feathers were chewed up by the system and sprayed all over the floor of the compartment below. Well, so much for stealth...

Iron Eagle looked above him, he could see the floor where the elevator let off and above that with only a few inches to spare above the gearing and cable system; just enough to duck and hide in. As the top of the elevator reached the gate leading to the next floor Iron Eagle could see through the safety gate. Coming around the corner of some kind of large metal contraption was a floating ball of pink with what appeared to be a camera mounted in the middle; which thankfully wasn't pointed in his direction. The elevator ground to a halt with only a few inches to spare between Iron Eagle and the deathtrap of machinery above him.

This reminds me of that rainbow factory horror story all the teenagers used to tell us at school... Iron Eagle thought as he looked up into the sets of thick metal gears, each of them easily wider than his forelegs. Glad that whole thing was just some dumb story to scare the kiddies into passing their flight tests...

The safety gate below opened and the pink orb floated into the middle of the caged section below. It began to look around the compartment when it noticed a few spare bits of feather stuck on the floor.

"Scanning, initiating standard security protocols. Twilight, I have discovered what appears to be a feather of some kind on the elevator floor." A small metallic arm lowered out of the bottom of the floating pink sphere and picked up one of Iron Eagles feathers. It lifted it up and held it in front of its main camera.

"Hmmm, nah. It kinda looks like one of my feathers, just a little bit faded." The voice of Twilight said through a nearby speaker. "I might have gotten a bit flustered with Spike earlier today and shed a few, though why the alert elevator was triggered through the inside..."

"Twilight, I believe I may have found a problem." Sam motioned towards the damaged control panel inside the elevator.

"Yeah, that looks like Spike is trying to get my attention after I cut him off on the intercom earlier. I'll make sure to talk to him and say goodbye before I take the potion. Until then Sam, I want you on patrol duty. No telling if Celestia has any tricks up her sleeve to gain access to my lab."

Sam hovered in place for a moment examining the feathers it had just picked up. It seemed pre-occupied with the color and texture of the feathers, as if noting that they indeed, were not Twilight's. Sam spun in place looking around and even seemed to look upwards for a moment, directly at Iron Eagle.

Iron Eagle held his breath, he was sure that the shadows obscured him, but wasn't sure if this advanced robot AI thing could see him in ways he couldn't imagine. They stared at one another for a moment, each of them not making a move, then suddenly a beam of light illuminated the gearbox to the far left of him. He had to move quickly.He looked up above him, there was just barely enough room to squeeze above the system and on top of it. Iron Eagle slowly set his back legs against the wall and his front legs against the metal side of the gearing system and slowly shuffled his way up, just barely making it on top as the light from Sam shined on his previous position.

Iron Eagle held his breath, making sure not to make a single sound until Sam left. After a few tense moments the light turned off and he could hear Sam grumbling about a mouse problem or some other. Iron Eagle exhaled and inhaled deeply, wiping the sweat from his brow.

That was close, I guess it is a good thing I'm so small.

Iron Eagle looked about the shaft, below him; where he was standing, was the metal lid with a half square pipe latch. To his right and left were solid steel supports that dug into the stone walls; thankfully spread apart far enough to allow him to squeeze through one direction, but not the other way unless he wanted cut up by the beveled edges protruding like a reverse triangle from either side. Above him was near complete darkness with the exception of a few beams of light at the very top of the shaft.

"Not enough room to fly up for the most part" Iron Eagle said to himself in a low whisper.

Iron Eagle looked for a way up; the shaft was far too narrow to allow for flight , but at the same time just wide enough to prevent him from shimmy up it like a chimney. He looked around for another way up and quickly found it. A couple feet above his head were notches in the wall deep enough to put a hoof and possibly a leg in. They seemed to go most of the way up the shaft, ending right before the beams of light. Iron Eagle sighed, remembering how he hated doing vertical climbing during basic training. "I guess this is what they meant when they said wings will not always be the solution to mobility issues".

Iron Eagle put his left hoof in one notch and his right hoof in another. He tried at first to pull himself up, but found it difficult to do so. Part of him wanted to say the armor and grime were weighing him down, but he knew otherwise; he was just no good at physical activities to begin with.

Maybe If I...

Iron Eagle flapped his wings slowly, making sure they they made as little sound as possible, but provided at least some lift to get him up the shaft. Slowly but surely he put his front legs into the second, then third set of wall notches. As he got his hooves into the 4th set of notches he could put his back legs into the first set, allowing him significantly more leverage than before. "Well, here goes nothing."

Iron Eagle began to climb the wall in earnest and realized he no longer needed his wings to support him. Something about the wall made him feel lighter and put a spring into his every step, it almost felt like as he was suddenly spider and soon he found himself a good twenty or so feet above the elevator gearing system. The light at the top of the shaft being only a few feet away.

"I wonder if it's an access shaft to a maintenance room or-"

As Iron Eagle climbed to where the light was coming from he noticed that there seemed to be not one, but two separate souces for the light. One was an old square doorway and the other a much smaller round hatch. Iron Eagle examined both of them closely. One seemed to be about the right size for a pony to fit through and the other was shaped nearly exactly to the size of that robot AI thing he encountered earlier.

"I guess the regular door is an access for when she used to do the repairs and maintenance herself and the hatch is for the AI to do them." Iron Eagle pulled himself onto the small landing in front of the twin doors and slowly pushed the handle on the larger door, slowly opening it. At first it creaked loudly, as if it hadn't been opened in many years. Part of him wanted to retreat, but the other part; his natural curiosity, wanted to see what was behind the door.

"Whoa" the door swung open, revealing a large open room with a deep red carpet. Iron Eagle stepped through the door and looked straight up. Along the walls were bookshelves that seemed to go on forever into the darkness of the ceiling, shelves that must have been magically reinforced as they were almost thirty stories high.

"Wait, how did no one see this from the outside?Clearly a tower this size would be well above the natural tree canopy" Iron Eagle Asked himself.

"A space compression spell, maybe? If so, it makes the Grand Canterlot Library look like a joke. Now that I think about it, it doesn't even compare." Iron Eagle felt as if he could lose himself in this room. He could spend a dozen lifetimes reading all the books here and not even so much as clear a single shelf.

"Overwhemling, isn't it?"

Iron Eagle froze in place, he knew exactly to whom that voice belonged; if his hunch was right, Twilight Sparkle was right behind him. Iron Eagle slowly turned his head, to find that indeed, Twilight Sparkle was right behind him. Though she seemed a bit off. The pictures he had seen was of her as an Alicorn like Celestia, Luna or Cadence. However, Twilight seemed to be missing her wings and was slightly shorter than what he remembered from old photos, almost as if she was still a unicorn.

"Is something wrong?" Twilight asked.

There was something off, this Twilight seemed to have a faint purple glow about her as if this was an illusion. "Twilight Sparkle?"

"Yes...and no. It's complicated" Twilight responded, though in a much less angry voice than what he was used to.

Twilight walked by Iron Eagles right side and for a moment he could have sworn he saw right through her body. "Are you some kind of security spell?"

"I could be, but judging from your armor you're part of the Royal Air Forces. I'm guessing you're trying to figure out exactly what I am, aren't you Iron?" Twilight put her hoof over her mouth. "Oh, so that's who you are."

"Well, I think Twilight knows who I am; I think" Iron said, scratching his chin with his hoof. "But, you're...not her or?"

"As I said before, I am Twilight, but at the same time I am not her. I guess you have never heard of a memory phantom error?" Twilight asked.

"No, I know some about magic, but" Iron Eagle looked at his wings, a look of disdain momentarily on his face. " As a Pegasus you can pretty much already know how well I can perform it."

"If you want there's probably a couple species bending spells in this library. Though I don't think any of them have lasting power I'm afraid. Other Twilight tried, but the innate protection from what she is, is just too strong. As for me being a memory phantom; I'm not surprised. It's a very dangerous and restricted spell that spawned me." Twilight's horn lit up with a faint purple glow as she lowered a book down from near the top of the bookcases, levitating it in front of her as she manually turned the pages with her left hoof.

"Ah, here we are. The spell that created me." Twilight levitated the book over to Iron Eagle to read.

"Self time reversal spell? Wait, time magic is incredibly forbidden. There's only a few spells known and all of them are locked away in Starswirls library." Iron Eagle kept reading the passage on the spell in the book, stopping every so often to shake his head. "Is she out of her mind? If she so much as messed up even the tiniest bit, she could have easily created a timeless zone miles wide or killed her- ,oh...I see."

Twilight nodded in confirmation. "She performed the spell perfectly, however, being an Alicorn protects you from many natural hazards automatically, including time magic. She tried to reverse time on her own body to the point where she was a unicorn and thus mortal again. She kind of succeeded, but not in the way she intended."

"Explain. This spell doesn't mention your existence as a side effect anywhere" Iron Eagle said as he kept reading the spell side effects.

"You see, the spell worked, but her Alicorn powers kicked in to protect her, instead making a magical copy of herself from the intended moment in time. I'm Twilight from a few months before that fateful day when Celestia managed to transform her."

"Then why can I randomly see through you? If it made a copy of Twilight then you should be physical in form. Also, you knew my name, but if all your memories are from long before I was born..." The book in front of Iron snapped shut and raced towards where Twilight had gotten it from.

"Memory phantoms are a magical duplicate, we still think, feel and act like the original, but we lack a physical body. I am effectively the result of an unbalanced equation. The spell needed to resolve itself and the best it could do was making me." Twilight kicked the floor begrudgingly. "Kinda wish I did have a body though, I have all these memories of things I used to do, but without a body to properly interact with the world around me I just sit in this library; little more than just a ghost of what used to be."

"Still have questions" Iron Eagle said, though his voice showed concern for Twilight in its tone.

"Oh, yeah. Well, the reason I know who you are is because I am effectively restricted to this library by the spell and with little else to do I just read things. I came across my own future bloodline a few months back. You are Iron Eagle, our great, great nephew." Twilight pulled a book from a nearby shelf with her magic and let it float in front of her while she quickly turned the pages. "Yep, right here. You're related to Shining Armor, our deceased brother."

"Yeah, well. I may be related , but I'm not anywhere near as talented. My sister Emerald Sonata was blessed with all of that. I'm kind of the black sheep of the family, err, no offense to black sheep mind you. Didn't mean to come off as racist." Iron Eagle blushed in embarrassment.

"Speciest technically, also, you have a sister?" Twilight looked at the book again. "Oh, I see. There seems to be ...water damage where the picture of your sister should be. Strange."

"So, you're not going to sound the alarm on me?" Iron Eagle asked apprehensively.

"No, even if I wanted there is no alarm system in place for me to do so. I can't even shout for help since any sound I make that leaves this room ceases to exist. What I wouldn't do to be able to explore other Twilight's lab; it must be amazing. Here, I'll show you." Twilight walked up to a small brass and wood door opposite the elevator shaft and pushed it open. She opened the door and stepped forward, only to have the front half of her leg disappear. "See?"

"That is strange" Iron Eagle said as he stared in astonishment.

"This entire room is time isolated. Meaning I can never leave it and before you ask, yes, I have tried many different ways to do so. If I walk into that other room, I fade away for a moment. Then when I come to, I'm back here. I think time itself has created a slipstream barrier to prevent me from interacting with the future, though the future seems to have no problems interacting with me." Twilight stepped back and her hoof came back into the room with her.

"How long have you been here? Iron Eagle asked.

"I have no way to tell really. I think I've been here at least a century, but without any way to tell time I can't be sure" Twilight sighed dejectedly.

"Is...is there any way to help you?" Iron Eagle asked. He knew there was probably nothing he could do, being a pegasus and all, but he at least had to ask; if only to give Twilight some comfort.

"There are two plausible ways to fix it, but both of them are entirely outside of my control or ability for that matter." Twilight stared off into the distance. "One is that Twilight, the real Twilight dies. The spell will dissipate and I will fade back into my own timeline, merging from where I came. The other is far more complicated and a near complete impossibility."

"Which is?" Iron Eagle pressed the question, if there was anything he could do to help ; anything at all, he would do it.

Twilight levitated another book from one of the nearby shelves and opened it in front of Iron Eagle. The illustration at the top of the page was of two Alicorns surrounded by a dozen or so class S unicorn mages, all of them in a magic circle. Both Alicorns were firing beams of energy at what looked like a half disembodied ghost in the center.

"It's a quantum time slip. Memory phantoms are excessively rare, but they have occurred in the past. One of the solutions if to focus an opening in time to allow time itself to fix the problem. In this case the time phantom in question becomes flesh and blood." Twilight moved one of her front legs through the other, demonstrating that she wasn't entirely all there.

"Wait, from what I'm reading this could potentially rupture space-time itself on the location of the phantom." Iron Eagle put one of his wings out and began to count the feathers, randomly mumbling different numbers. "By my calculations this should be almost definite way to kill everyone in a time vacuume for a hundred miles around easily."

"Nah, time itself always takes the path of least resistance. When given the option to destroy the universe or make a duplicate, it always chooses the option that takes the least amount of energy and causes the least amount of damage. Think of it as a very lazy bus colt at a cafe. Waiting until half the customers leave to pick up all the dirty dishes." Twilight began to draw a math formula in the air with her horn. "See? E is always conserved, time itself loops this formula over and over until E is balanced. I know it kinda breaks our current knowledge of physics, but that's how it is."

Iron Eagle just stood there mouth agape, utterly confused. The stories of Twilight's brilliance were well known to him, but the books and family stories seemed to hardly do her justice; even Starswirl himself would be amazed at her complexity. Just looking at her he realized that she was doing math at an entirely different level than he; or anypony else for that matter could understand. He felt a tinge of guilt welling up in his throat. If he was to complete his mission it would mean that he would possibly doom this version of Twilight to an eternity of being trapped and lonely.

"You know. I can see you thinking really hard and while I appreciate you thinking about my wellbeing; I already know why you are here. Either Twilight has the worlds largest parking ticket or she has finally found a way to kill herself and you just barely managed to slip through the barrier when she wasn't paying attention." Twilight walked up to Iron Eagle, a smile on her face.

"You're not going to stop me right?" Iron Eagle had no idea what a memory phantom was capable of magically, but even with a basic levitation spell; Twilight could hinder him.

"No, I want you to save her. The reason she is like this is because she isolated herself, forgot the reason she was an Alicorn in the first place. She is a princess of magic, but also of friendship. The sadness of loss and the isolation chipped away at her resolve and the only way to mend a broken heart is to get out there and well, live." Twilight sat on her haunches and looked at the door into Twilight's bedroom.

"Through there is her quarters and from there is the hall and a set of stairs that leads to the lab. At least, that is what I managed to gather when Sam visits me."

Iron Eagle stared at the door and then back at Twilight. "I promise to come back for you, I'm sure Celestia and Luna will listen to your plight. Assuming I succeed."

Iron Eagle bowed courteously at Twilight and headed toward the door.

"Do yourself a favor. Don't bother trying to convince her that she is in error, find a way to drop the barrier first, then try to convince her. Assuming she doesn't outright obliterate you that is." Twilight smiled.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence" Iron Eagle replied sarcastically.

"In all seriousness, she's a tad bit unhinged and knowing myself I can do a lot of damage and not realize it when angry."

Iron Eagle smiled meekly at Twilight, an effort to reassure her that he can save her. "Wish me luck then" Iron Eagle said nervously.

Twilight sat and watched Iron Eagle open the door and walk through, listening intently, but then quickly realizing she still couldn't hear things occuring outside the library either.

I wish you the best of luck. I just hope you are in time to save us...

Comments

[Diceman]

So I decided to go with a format that's a bt more friendly to my own and other time tables. I been told that my monster 9,000 -15,000 word chapters are both much longer than average and take to long in between chapters. So in an effort to get more content out consistantly, I decided to make shorter chapters in the 3800-4800 range.

Hope this works out better than a mammoth chapter every month.

[badninja]

Poor, poor, poor Twilight. It makes me wonder why her friends did not have their descendants be there for Twilight. Or why didn't Cadance try and help her. I feel bad for her and hopefully Iron Eagle helps his Aunt out.

[Gaberdude]

7155886
Good chapter. As for the note at the end, it doesn't matter to me. As long as something else on this site is updated, I'll wait for this one.

[Artemis Fowl II]

7155886
Aw. I like mammoth chapters. Feels more satisfying reading more, but I must say I'm not disappointed with this one.
Keep going, please!

[Diceman]

7157205

Wish I could do this full time, but if much better authors couldn't get so much as 40$ through patreon for their work(that has 600+ watchers) then my middling stories wouldn't even get a dime in terms of scale.

[Artemis Fowl II]

7157618
A pity.
Hey, don't put yourself down because there may be "better authors" out there. Us reader should be grateful you're putting your free time for our entertainment, and I appreciate that. Thus, don't let the pressure of readers dictate how you want chapters to come out. I'm simply stating my opinion of how I like chapters, and if you actually follow it, I'll be more grateful. That is all