747 - True Self
“Would you care for some cake? We made sure to save a slice for you, lest my sister devour it all before your arrival.”
“Oh honestly, Luna,” huffed Celestia, putting her nose in the air, although the corners of her lips were still turned upward. “I was simply worried that it would go to waste. After all, we have it on good authority that our guest doesn’t care for sweets.”
“Fortunately, Pinkie’s never met a pony that she can’t plan a party for,” grinned Twilight, her horn lighting up as she telekinetically lifted a cake knife, placing a piece of the confection in question and putting it on a plate. “And that means serving all of their favorite treats, even if it’s their first time having them!”
“I still can’t believe that she made a prune-flavored cake,” chuckled the alicorn version of Lex, eyeing the dessert that Twilight was serving. “How did she know I’d enjoy that?”
“Sometimes Pinkie is impossible to figure out,” answered Twilight sagely, though like Celestia she was fighting down a grin as she did so.
“Indeed,” nodded Luna, her solemn expression ruined by a cheeky smirk. “That mare commands powers that defy understanding.”
“Though in this case, she used a more familiar magic to solve the mystery of what you’d like: the magic of friendship,” finished Celestia, allowing her smile to come forth in full. “Which is to say, she asked Sonata what your favorite foods are.”
All four burst into laughter again then, leaving Lex – the one without wings – watching the display in wide-eyed trepidation, his gaze fixed on his other self as he tried to figure out what was happening.
On the other side of the table, his duplicate was a near-perfect copy of himself, save for having become a blend of all three pony tribes. At his side were wings, their feathers the same slate-gray as his coat. He was slightly taller as well, his height just barely above that of Princess Luna, and he had a slightly more defined musculature as well, a testament to his having the build of an earth pony.
But as notable as the changes were, what wasn’t there captured Lex’s attention more. Namely, all of the alterations that he’d gone through over the last twenty-one months, both voluntary and otherwise, were absent from his twin. His foreleg had no wire wrapped around it. His shadow fell in the same direction as those of the ponies around him. His horn was gray from base to tip, and even as Lex watched, his counterpart used it to playfully tug on the plate Twilight was serving the slice of cake on, causing it to light up with a silvery aura which Lex had long since resigned himself to never seeing again...and which didn’t cause his duplicate’s eyes to change color.
What in Tartarus...?
Giving up on his impromptu game of tug of war, the other Lex glanced at his wingless counterpart, his laughter fading into another easy smile. “Listen, all joking aside, you really should come and relax a little. I promise, you’ll feel better if you do.”
The reassurance did nothing to quell Lex’s unease. If anything, it caused his anxiety to rise even further, and he moved out of the doorway in favor of circling the edge of the balcony, wanting more room to maneuver if hostilities broke out. “What is this?” he growled, eyeing the four of them with naked suspicion. “You’re all obviously illusions created as part of the Rite, but what’s your significance? Tell me!”
Closing her eyes, Luna shook her head. “An illusion is a poor way to look at it.”
“Think of it more like a possibility,” added Celestia.
“A possibility?” sneered Lex, spitting the words out as though they left a bad taste in his mouth. “To do what? Become as vapid and indolent as the three of you?”
Ignoring the insult, Twilight nodded toward his double even as she kept her eyes on him. “To achieve what you’ve wanted your entire life.”
“Preposterous,” shot back Lex, giving his winged counterpart a look of contempt. “I never cared about becoming an alicorn until a day ago. My only life-long wish has been-”
“Friendship,” finished his alicorn-self, standing up and spreading his wings wide, the feathery limbs spreading out to indicate Celestia, Luna, and Twilight. “The ability to understand others, and make yourself understood to them in turn.”
“And how exactly did...” Lex stopped speaking abruptly, his breathing catching in his throat as he suddenly realized the answer to the question he’d been asking.
His expression knowing, his twin gave a slow nod. “That’s right, Lex. This is a world where you succeeded in not only recognizing all the unspoken aspects of interpersonal communication, but decrypted them, as well as figured out how to respond appropriately in a social context.” He smiled a little then, giving his wings a single beat. “Though I’ll admit I was as surprised as anypony when doing so caused me to gain these.”
Scarcely able to breathe, Lex felt himself start to tremble as he realized the full scope of what he was seeing. For as long as he could remember, his every interaction with others had been an exercise in frustration, which had only grown as he’d come to realize that there were undercurrents of meaning in their facial expressions, body language, vocal inflection, and other subtle cues that he was unable to register.
He’d spent his entire life trying to catalogue and decode those subtleties, keenly aware of how his inability to do so had isolated him from everyone around him. But despite years of study and tens of thousands of conversations to draw upon, he’d made no progress. It had gotten to the point where the continual review of new data had become rote, performed automatically despite his long since having lost hope that it would ever give him the breakthrough he wanted so desperately.
Indeed, that had been his entire reason for inventing a new form of magic. If whatever deficiency he was stricken with kept him from forming sufficient ties to fully partake in his community – and the moral framework he’d developed in his childhood made it clear that contributing to the welfare of his people was among the highest of virtues – then he could at least undertake a grand advancement on their behalf as a compensatory measure. Of course, that undertaking had also met with a seemingly insolvable problem, which was why he’d turned his thoughts to rulership upon being cast into the future and seeing the dismal state of his homeland after a thousand years of mismanagement. If nothing else, he could use his skills to give everyone in Equestria the government they deserved, rather than the inadequate one they’d long since settled for.
But he’d never stopped dreaming of finding a way to cure, or at least work around, his inability to understand others.
And now, his heart’s desire was right in front of him.
Except...something was wrong...
The joy that he should have felt as seeing that his dream could still come true wasn’t manifesting. The upswelling of hope at learning that his efforts until now hadn’t been in vain was nowhere to be found. Even his curiosity as to what exactly his counterpart had done in order to complete the seemingly-impossible task he himself had despaired of ever completing was so muted as to be almost completely absent.
Instead, the only thing that Lex Legis felt at that moment...
Squeezing his eyes shut so tightly that it was painful, Lex put a hoof to his head, trying to regain control of himself. “No,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “This is a falsehood, and an obvious one at that.”
Lifting his head, he didn’t even realize that he was breathing heavily, as though having run a marathon, as he pointed balefully at his alicorn-self. “Even if I did figure out how to properly interact with others, it wouldn’t have restored my horn. It certainly wouldn’t have reintegrated that offshoot of my mind with the rest of my consciousness, nor dissolved my pact with the Night Mare.”
“Not by itself it didn’t,” agreed Celestia, still wearing that infuriatingly placid smile. “For that, you needed help.”
Twilight nodded. “And once you were able to ask for it, we were happy to provide it. For instance, figuring out how to regenerate your original horn wasn’t that hard, since we did the same thing for Rainbow Dash’s wing.”
“And the specter haunting your dreams was quelled once you allowed me to confront it,” added Luna.
“Hardest of all was breaking away from the Night Mare,” admitted the other Lex, glancing down at his foreleg before giving a shudder. “She...wasn’t happy about that.”
Letting out a slow breath, alicorn-Lex put his hoof back down, giving his wingless counterpart a steady look. “But even if it was a hard decision, it was the right one. After Cadance brought me back to life, everypony else was convinced that I truly wanted to make amends-”
“AMENDS?!” shrieked Lex, stamping a hoof. He knew his eyes were blazing then, but he didn’t care, gnashing his teeth. “What exactly do I have to make amends for?! Protecting my people from the monsters that these incompetent fools couldn’t?! Dragging Equestria into the future after it lay fallow for a millennium?! Punishing criminals who dared to prey on others?!”
Standing up from where she’d been sitting, Twilight took a step toward him. “Lex, please, calm down-”
“Don’t you talk down to me!”
His horn lighting up, this time with the familiar purple aura, Lex telekinetically shoved Twilight back, her eyes widening as she tripped and went stumbling. The aggressive action caused Celestia and Luna to jump up, but before they could do anything, his other self caught Twilight with his wing, helping her up. She stammered a thank you, but he acknowledged it only with a grim nod, keeping his eyes on his double. “What are you doing?! She only wants to help you! That’s all any of us want!”
Black crystals grew around Lex now, despite how low his dark magic reserves were. He barely noticed them, seething. “Don’t you speak to me about helping other ponies! All you’ve done is help yourself! Letting that treacherous bungler” – he canted his head toward Luna, who was regarding him sorrowfully – “inside the confines of your mind, are you insane?! And going back to your original horn?! That power is necessary in order to rule!”
“I don’t rule. I don’t want to rule.”
Lex had thought he couldn’t be surprised by anything else his double had to say. But he was proven wrong then. “...what?!”
Pointing to his head, his alicorn-self met his gaze evenly. “I’m not wearing a crown. I gave it up when I repudiated the Night Mare. Celestia and the others wanted me to stay a prince, since I’d become an alicorn, but I said no.”
“THEN HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO GUIDE EQUESTRIA?!”
“The same way everypony else does,” answered his counterpart calmly, in sharp contrast to Lex’s disintegrating self-control. “By pitching in and doing my part.”
Turning to stand in profile, this time he pointed at his cutie mark: a podium in front of an amphitheater. “I thought this mark meant that my destiny was to administrate, to run a government, but I can see now that I was wrong. It was to advise others, to offer them my ideas and insights, rather than forcing them to abide by them. And now that I’ve overcome my communication disorder, I can do exactly that.”
Stunned speechless, it took Lex a moment to find his voice. “No...no, that’s not my destiny! THAT’S NOT MY DESTINY! I’M SUPPOSED TO RULE EQUESTRIA, FOR ITS OWN SAKE! THAT’S WHY I WAS FLUNG INTO THE FUTURE! THAT’S WHY I WAS SENT TO THAT MISERABLE WORLD CALLED EVERGLOW AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN! WHY I WENT THROUGH SO MUCH HARDSHIP AND SACRIFICE AND PAIN! IT WAS ALL FOR THIS, AND YOU’RE THROWING IT AWAY!!!”
Unfazed, his alicorn-self shook his head. “That’s the Night Mare’s warped religion talking.”
“I CAME TO THAT REALIZATION BEFORE I EVER MET THE NIGHT MARE!”
“I know.” This time, it was his other self that approached him, moving slowly and nonthreateningly forward. “You wanted to find some meaning in all the misery you’d experienced. Your childhood was one of loneliness, hating yourself because you were different. Then you lost the only ponies who loved you. It was only natural that you’d try to console yourself with the idea that those were stepping stones on the road to something greater.”
Had he not been at the edge of the balcony already, Lex would have retreated, all thoughts of his feather-falling spell completely gone from his mind. “Stay back!” he hissed.
But his counterpart continued to approach him. “Then you lost your entire world, sent into a place that was more hostile than anything you’d ever known. You were terrified, angry, and almost completely helpless. Is it any wonder that the Night Mare was able to manipulate you into embracing your worst impulses?”
“She did not manipulate me!” roared Lex. Around him, more black crystals erupted from the ground, but his alicorn-self ignored them. “I made my own decisions! My own choices! AND THEY WERE CORRECT!!! NOW STEP BACK!!!”
But his double didn’t seem to hear that last part, continuing to advance. He was almost close enough to touch now. “You don’t really believe that. You’ve been tormenting yourself over and over for your failures, thinking that it will make you stronger. But it doesn’t. All it does is cause you more pain, which makes you that much more desperate to find a way to make it stop, not realizing that it never will unless you change yourself, instead of trying to change the world.”
Finally halting his advance, his counterpart glanced back over his shoulder at the other alicorns. Behind him, Celestia and Luna had both formed auras around their horns, readying themselves for a fight, while Twilight was hovering in the air, wings beating nervously.
His alicorn-self didn’t say anything, just smiled and shook his head once.
Lex himself couldn’t determine what the gesture meant – there were any of a thousand possible interpretations, all of them equally valid based on what he was able to observe – but the three mares did, with Celestia and Luna frowning even as they let the glow around their horns die down, while Twilight landed, tucking her wings away. It was the sort of wordless communication that he’d been observing, and trying to replicate, all of his life to no avail.
“You see?” announced his double as he turned his gaze back toward him. “This is what you really wanted. Friendship and understanding, not power or authority.”
Holding out a hoof, his double offered him a kindly smile. “Don’t give up on yourself, Lex. Reject the Night Mare, and you can finally start living your dreams.”
Lex hesitated then, but not because he was considering the words of his counterpart. Instead, he was momentarily paralyzed as the feeling that had been growing inside of him ever since he’d realized what was happening finally overflowed past his ability to control it, consuming him completely. It wasn’t the anger that he’d willfully embraced so often throughout his life, nor was it the despair that he’d repeatedly run away from, nor frustration, self-loathing, or anxiety.
What Lex Legis felt then was pure, unmitigated hate.
It was so powerful that it was almost a living thing, driving everything else out of his mind. His responsibility to Thermal Draft was completely gone then, as was his grief over Solvei’s death, his worry over what had happened to the mares he loved, and his fervent desire to return home. All of it drowned beneath the black tide of venom that swallowed him whole.
There was only the pony – for in that moment he’d forgotten that he was in the middle of the Rite of Sublimation – who had exposed the meaninglessness in all of the pain he’d suffered. Who had put the lie to the only source of comfort that he’d been able to find in the relentless misery that had been his life. Who had stolen the last refuge that made his existence bearable.
In that single instant, with nothing left to believe in, Lex found it impossible to maintain his faith in the only thing he had left: the self-constructed code of ethics that he’d spent his life clinging to.
After all, if the rest of his life was completely pointless, why should that be any different?
His lips moved then, trying to force a single word out.
“Hm?” His double cocked his head, ears twitching as he tried to make out what had been said. “What was that?”
“I...said...”
The spell that came to Lex’s mind then, somehow making itself known through the miasma of hatred, was one that he’d tried to cast several days ago, during his first fight with Grisela. He’d been forced to stop when Shadow Star had interrupted him, but he’d managed to break off the casting before losing the spell, leaving it stored within his mental catalogue. He called upon it now, his eyes pure green as the purple flames sprouting from their corners whipped wildly.
In the span of an instant, Lex cast his disintegration spell, the thin vermillion beam lancing out to strike his double directly between the eyes.
“DIE!!!
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Would be a pretty shitty situation if whatever happens to his mirror alicorn self is also reflected on his own body, no?
Joking aside, I am fascinated by the illusion's words since they aren't incorrect, not completely at least since with what Lex has gone through, his actions could easily be interpreted as a way to cope with his trauma. Especially Twilight should she still insist on pursuing the friendship avenue with Lex. Though that's not important right now since I highly doubt that this will be the only thing the trial has to dish out for him.
I am coming empty, I noticed from Akna trial that there is no Win condition per say, No set answer that fit neatly into the key shaped lock that is the trial. He "simply" need to overcome the challenge in a satisfactory way that leads to his transformation. In Akna's trial If I remember right She had to see her tribe getting devoured many times while she got dragged away to safety until she chose to fight and received a second form, maybe it will be the same here? The scenario will be repeated until he find the right answer or lose his will to continue the trial which is what I think is the only Lose condition.
The trouble with the subconcious social circuits in the brain, is that they can go from being mutated away, to being there but genetic variations giving stimulations from effectively nothing, to always saturated on. A whole range of disorders, thats on just one line, if it requires two or more interacting neural collections, that increases the resulting range of variations dimentionally. Quirks of behaviour at best?
i am thinking of a few things here.
lex is wrong.
lex is lonely
lex is in love
and yet not one of these is right or even close..
11339268 There are some Lawful Evil powers which use half-truths and misdirection in order to manipulate others into doing what they want. The Night Mare, however, tends to take a different tact: harsh, unfiltered truths, presented without compassion or consideration for someone's circumstances or state of mind. Of course, a wise individual would notice that these harsh truths isn't necessarily reflective of how things actually are, but that's not so much an act of deceit on the Night Mare's part as it is her own outlook shaping things; when you're a Lawful Evil deity of (among other things) tyranny and domination, things like "you're surrounded by people who care about you and believe in you" and "you're self-worth isn't determined by what you've accomplished" tend to be pushed to the side as ideals that are unimportant at best, misguided at worst.
To put it another way, nothing that Lex saw here was wrong, per se, but like so many "truths," it's still just a point of view, one heavily filtered through the Night Mare's view of things. Unfortunately for Lex, he was already leaning in that direction before he ever met the goddess, and more so in the time since he became her Champion. So it's no surprise that he was willing to accept and internalize the indictment of himself that he saw here (which is really what this was).
As for how he responded to it, well...it remains to be seen how well that will work.
11339305 Insofar as we know, there isn't a "win" condition. Based on what Akna and Lex have both experienced, the core of the Rite involves being presented with some ugly truth about your own existence, with the results being judged based on how you respond to that. Clearly, some answers are better received than others, but there doesn't seem to be a particular metric for making that judgment, though I suspect that adherence to the Night Mare's dogma would help in that regard.
11339320 The real issue is that Equestria is such an idyllic place that it doesn't really have any conception of needing to develop societal support systems for ponies that have these sorts of difficulties...mostly because ponies don't seem to have these sorts of difficulties. The only instance of a pony with mental problems that we see in the series (that I recall) has a cutie mark making it very clear that being that way is her destiny. So it's probably not seen as something that needs fixing, per se.
In that regard, Lex is an anomaly. With no apparatus in place to diagnose his condition (which he's able to recognize, but doesn't know how to treat), there's no real way for him to manage it beyond the (failed) compensatory method that he's spent most of his life trying. The test he's undergoing now essentially rubbed in his face that everything he's done recently has only made things worse, rather than better.
11340237 All of which are true, but which this test has largely ignored or sidelined in favor of pointing out that he's in pain. By itself, that's nothing he can't deal with, but pointing out that all the suffering that he's willingly gone through has been for nothing...that was more than he could bear. (Although, given his state of mind for the past few days, with failures and tragedies piling up faster than usual, it's perhaps no surprise that he was already at his limit.)