Broken: Magic

by Knackerman

Is Unbound

Blinding light pierced the veil of unconsciousness. The harsh beams sent a stab of pain deep into Twilight’s brain. Her head was already hurting. There was a burnt taste in her mouth that she just couldn’t seem to get rid of. ”Spike...close the curtains, I’ve got a horrible headache.” The rays relented and blessed darkness flooded back before the unicorn's eyes. However, as she tried rolling over to go back to sleep, she realized she couldn’t move. She was lying on her side, legs bound by heavy chains connected to the cold stone floor that wouldn’t allow her to so much as budge from her current position. Sudden terror welled up in her soul as memories struggled back into her mind. Her eyes flew open to take in her surroundings. There wasn’t much to see. Her tiny cell seemed to have been carved from living crystal, every surface was slick and smooth, offering no purchase. The one break in the monotonous reflective surface was a single iron door. The light that had woken her was still there. Princess Celestia, in all her radiance, peered through the bars at her once faithful student.

“Oh Twilight...such a disappointment.” This is all she said before receding from the door, mane trailing hauntingly in her wake. Twilight wanted to yell, to scream for her to stop and come back, but her mouth was so dry the noises coming from her barely sounded like words. As Celestia retreated, so too did her illumination, leaving Twilight in pitch black darkness. There wasn’t so much as the flicker of a distant torch. Just how deep under the earth was she? Was this part of the Canterlot Dungeons or were they somewhere else, somewhere older? She’d never seen a cell made out of pure crystal before now. Her headache worsening, she tried to cast a spell of illumination so that she could better take in her surroundings. This was a horrible idea. Not only was she unable to produce more than a few scant sparks of light, but when she did her head exploded in agony. The smell and taste of burning worsened, making her gag and cough. This did no favors for the pain in her head. Her face felt wet, as though she had been crying. That didn't make a lot of sense since she had just woken up, but there were far more pressing concerns.

What had happened to her? She had no memory of being brought here. She could barely recall confronting someone...was it Princess Luna? Why would she want to fight Luna? Had she become Nightmare Moon again? No, that didn’t make any sense. If Nightmare Moon were back and she had defeated Twilight, why would Celestia throw her in prison? Celestia was apparently disappointed in her, true, but why? It hurt to think. Twilight didn’t notice the bits and pieces of luminous sparks showering from her head until one or two bits of the stuff stung her eyes. She tried her illumination spell again, this time going for the soft glow of fireflies. It was still agony, but not as bad as before.

“My gracious! Look at you. I didn’t have to be this way.” Between the slots in the bars, Twilight could just make out the form of Princess Luna, a look of regret etched upon her haggard features. She was no longer wearing her royal armor, save for her tiara. Star light danced in her mane as she continued. “Please understand, we meant to bring you in without harming you. But you resisted and harmed many of my guards. You are at least partially to blame for your own injury.”

Injury? Twilight tried to use the polished surface of her crystal prison to get a glimpse of herself, worried about what she might see. She found if she moved just so, she could untangle her limbs ever so slightly from their chains, enough to rise on her knees but no higher. She whimpered as she got a good look at herself for the first time since her blackout. Her horn was broken right down the middle, by who or what she had no idea. It was split into two jagged chunks laced with hairline fractures that branched out like the limbs of some awful tree. Worse, the cracks seemed to trace themselves through her skin, leaving a bloody, branching structure spreading across her face like cracks in a mirror. That explained the wetness on her face at least. Blood steadily oozed the open wounds, trickling into her eyes and down her muzzle. “What happened to me?” she asked, her lower lip trembling.”

“A bolt of lightning. Harmless enough in the hooves of a professional, but deadly when used with precision. I’m so sorry about your pain Twilight. My sister should have healed you already, but she refuses to do so until you are brought before her to stand trial for your crimes.” The sparks that cascaded, quite steadily now, from the unicorns forehead were chunks and pieces of her horn breaking off and rolling away to wink out in the darkness. That was one source of the burning smell, the other was the obviously charred and blackened flesh around the injury, which Twilight now realized was the source of her migraine.

“How can she just leave me like this?” sobbed Twilight, “What have I done to deserve this?”

Luna hesitated for a moment, “That, I’m not sure of Twilight Sparkle. Assaulting a servant of the crown is a heinous offense, but this? Refusing to treat your injuries? It just is not like my sister.” Luna seemed to be agonizing over something, clearly unsure if she should say what was on her mind. “She has been different, since my return. I know a thousand years is a long time and ponies change. Even so, my sister was always the kinder and gentler of the two of us. Always quick to forgive and forget. There is a coldness about her now that I cannot account for. The strain of ruling by herself must have been terrible on her.”

A memory flared to life behind in Twilight’s mind. “She was the one to forgive and forget...but she didn’t forgive you when you tried to make the night last forever. Not the first time, at least." Some of the agony faded as Twilight continued to speak, "She sent you to the Moon and locked you away there for a thousand years. Yet when you returned, you begged forgiveness, and she forgave you without hesitation. Does that make sense to you?" Twilight slowly raised her slightly glowing eyes and locked them with the Princess of the Night. "Luna...was it truly the Elements of Harmony that changed your feelings towards your sister?"

The warden of the night looked confused, the question had caught her off guard. “Of course Twilight, you were there. Your friends drove the darkness from me using the Elements of Harmony. Taking that shadow, that hatred from my heart is what allowed me to ask forgiveness for my crimes. I am truly grateful to you and your friends for that.”

“Why?” This question further shocked the Princess, “Don’t get me wrong, no pony but you wanted it to be night time forever. But why should you thank me for thwarting your plans? A better question, why are you so quick to forgive the one who banished you for a thousand years without hope of reprieve? Luna, you have to listen to me. Celestia has this machine that...its hard to explain, it makes you forgets things, changes who you are! I know she used it on me and my friends. I think she might have used it on you as well!”

Luna shook her head in disbelief. “Twilight, listen to yourself. She is my sister! I admit we have had our differences, but Celestia would never do anything as heinous as that. I was rightfully punished for my crimes against Equestria. If you cannot see that, then clearly your injuries are worse than we thought. I shall appeal to my sister to heal you immediately! A pox upon her trial!” With that Luna whirled as if to go, however she came back in a few moments, flustered. “I am sorry Twilight, but there is one here who wishes to speak with you in private. I hope you can give her a moment or two, but if you feel yourself over taxed, please feel free to send her away.”

“Don’t worry Princess, I just want to see how she’s doing! I feel just awful about what happened to her.” The voice was familiar. Twilight almost called out to Luna, asking her not to leave, but a fresh wave of pain stilled her voice and blurred her vision. When at last it cleared, there was no sign of the warden of the night. Only a little grey pegasus. “”What a mess. Not the worst I’ve ever made, I’ll grant, but I almost feel bad about it.” The voice was high and sharp and sweet. The pony that everypony knew as Derpy Hooves hovered in the air just outside of Twilight’s cell, her eyes glowing brightly in the darkness from some unseen illumination. “Poor little Twilight, you just don’t know what went wrong, do you? Still want me to enlighten you?”

Her words broke a dam confusion that let loose a flood of half formed memories inside Twilight’s shattered skull. She grit her teeth as a rage she hadn’t realized she felt welled up like a wildfire in her soul. “You did this, didn’t you!?”

“I thought that was pretty obvious. Of course, it was by Celestia’s command that we brought you in. I'd planned on putting you in the hospital for a while and calling it an unfortunate freak accident!” Her voice changed for a moment on the last three words of her sentence, becoming briefly the old, innocent Derpy before she continued with a laugh. “Hah...guess this little compromise is the best of both worlds. I really must have done a number on you if the vaunted Twilight Sparkle is this slow. Then again, if your conditioning really is starting to wear off, I guess your intellect would be the first thing to go.” Derpy focused both of her eyes on Twilight. “What does it feel like? Your mind slipping away? All those false memories evaporating into thin air? You really shouldn’t have tugged at this string Twilight. A mind is a terrible thing to watch unravel. Especially from the inside out.” The last was spoken with true pathos, as though Derpy herself had been there.

“So you admit that Celestia brainwashed me...and my friends.” Twilight shuddered at the enormity of it all. “What’s going to happen to us now?”

“Us? Oh you mean you and your friends." The grey pegasus brightened up cheerily, "Well I’ve got some good news for you there. What happens next is entirely up to you! Isn’t that wonderful? If you cooperate, you can be back in your library enjoying a delicious breakfast muffin as a new day dawns, with no memory of this ever having occurred.” It was the old Derpy who said all this, full of sunshine and joy, her eyes straying apart from one another in a way that must have been intended as humorous.

Twilight didn’t see anything funny about the situation. “And if I don’t cooperate? Will I end up like your mother?”

The temperature changed like a cold snap in spring. Suddenly Miss Hooves was all business again, eyes firmly locked with Twilight's. “You don’t want to go there Twilight. Not if you don’t want to listen to your friends scream. They’re here too you know. There’s oh so many thing we can make them forget. You’d be surprised how ponies will accept that somepony has always been missing an eye, or a leg, or a wing." A cruel smiled flickered between her lips as she said this. "Even if we get a little carried away, well, its pretty easy to make them forget entire ponies if need be. Is that plain enough for your addled little brain? I hope I don’t have to draw you a picture. I’m afraid I’m running low on red ink.” The injured unicorn trembled with a mixture of disgust and anger. She believed her. “What do you want to know?”

Derpy's smile changed, all sunshine and lollipops again, “That a girl Twilight! You see, you came by a lot of information that literally no pony is supposed to know. Even if we were to reprogram you, the Princess worries that you’d stumble onto the information again and we’d be right back here again! Waste of everyponies time, you understand. Once we get you back to your cushy little life of being Celestia’s favorite, we want you to stay there.” The grey pegasus paused as Twilight began to laugh. Derpy frowned deeply, it wasn’t a pretty sight, the cracks in the unicorn's flesh opening and closing with the movement. The jagged cuts seemed to spread with every gust of laughter.

“No worries there then,” Twilight beamed, madness tracing its fingers through her mind. “I destroyed it you know...couldn’t have you or somepony else getting their filthy hooves on it and using it against me!”

“Use what against you?” asked Derpy suspiciously.

“Why, the book of the Broken of course! And you call me slow! If you’d bothered to ask any of my friends, that you claim are in your custody, they could have told you that!" Twilight's eyes glowed brightly in the darkness, swirling with insanity. "Everything that was or ever will be was written in that book, that pitiful piece of barely literate fiction. Not anymore though... Hahaha... No, not anymore! Nothing but ashes and soot when I left it!” Twilight grinned manically, tears streaming from her eyes, burning as they trickled over her freshly opened wounds. “So go right ahead and ‘fix’ me if you think you can! Maybe it will stick this time.”

“The book of the...” Derpy began, her eyes crossing in confusion. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. You expect us to believe that you found out about Project Harmony from a magic book? Your friends are right, you are going crazy. I guess you need a little more time to recover before we’ll be able to get the truth out of you.” This just made Twilight laugh harder. Derpy seemed to be genuinely disturbed by her reaction, but soldiered on regardless. “Rest up Twilight Sparkle. You’re going to be here for awhile after all.” With that the pegasus flew off into the gloom of the dungeon, leaving Twilight alone to laugh quietly to herself. Given that she’d just sentenced her friends, and likely herself, to hours of torture for nothing, the unicorn had no idea why she couldn’t stop giggling.
----------------------

Time passed, though the only thing that Twilight had to mark it with was the steady deterioration of her condition. She was hungry, thirsty, and tired. Luna’s appeal on her behalf must have fallen on deaf ears. She was beginning to suspect that it had just been part of the old good mare, bad mare routine. No pony had been by since Derpy had fled from her howling laughter. The only thing she had to occupy herself was watching bits of her horn steadily crumble away. At least her wounds had stopped bleeding, settling into a steady ooze that burned and itched.

A moment of lucidity settled on her pain addled mind and she couldn’t help but start sobbing uncontrollably. She had been betrayed so utterly and thoroughly that there were no words to express her desolation. Princess Celestia...she had looked up to her since she was a filly, wanted to be just like her when she grew up. It was why she had studied magic at all, striving to become as knowledgeable as Star Swirl and the other great unicorns of antiquity. But was that even true? Derpy wasn’t lying, she could feel her mind unraveling moment by moment. Soon even the simplest spell would be beyond her control. Had she ever really been good at magic, or was that all lies planted in her head by the ruler she had trusted so implicitly? What was Twilight Sparkle without magic?

Did she even truly admire Celestia, or was that more brainwashing, changing her into the alicorn’s pet? She choked on her sobs as she thought of all the adoring letters she had written over the years, how Celestia must have laughed! She barely ever received a reply, looking back. Why hadn’t Twilight realized then what was going on? Her blind worship of the monarch of Equestria couldn’t have been the product of a healthy mind. So what was she then? What was she meant to be? She remembered how the words had torn into her mind as she had read them. A unicorn who didn’t even have a spark of magic. The very thing that had been required to ignite the power of the Elements of Harmony, yet when she was a filly she had not had even that bare minimum of magic.

Reflecting on it, it should have been obvious. She had always struggled with even the most basic of spell work, having to study twice as hard as any other pony to achieve half the results. But then something would take over, some part of her that she didn’t understand and the magic would just flow, raw and unchecked through her. If she were any kind of spell caster, any kind of true unicorn, she could have controlled her spells. Instead that spark eluded her in her youth...just as it had when it came to making friends. She could barely stand to be around any pony else. How could she have united with her so called ‘friends’ and awakened the Elements without outside tampering? She was such a foal!

“Twilight... Twilight dear is that you?” The words barely reached her ears. “Sweety, its Rarity. Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

“Listen to her wailing Rarity, does she sound alright to you?” Rainbow Dash’s brash voice was filled with annoyance. “Did those guards rough you up Twi? I swear when we get out of here I’m gonna kick their..”

“Easy Dash. Give Twilight a chance ta speak up why dontcha?” Applejack’s voice was calm, but full of concern.

“Yeah...Yeah it’s me. Where are you girls? It’s so dark...” Twilight said this, but her cell seemed to be brightening the longer she was in it. She didn’t realize it, but the cracks in her skin were starting to glow now that the blood had stopped flowing.

“Well Ah dunno about the others, but Ah’m in a room made outta some kinda purple crystal,” Applejack replied. “Amethyst,” came Pinkie Pie’s voice, oddly hollow.” It’s Amethyst. we used to grow them back on the rock farm. They looked like plain rocks on the outside, but inside there were all kinds of purple crystals. You could grow them pretty big, but these are way bigger than anything we ever managed to produce. They must have been down here for millions of years!”

“Why you’re right Pinkie, I hadn’t noticed.” Rarity said, a bit of longing coming into her voice. “Oh my, imagine the kind of dresses and accessories I could make from crystals this size!”

“Um... I think the others may be a little distracted,” came Fluttershy’s quiet voice. “So uh...are you okay Twilight? I mean as okay as you can be under the circumstances?”

“No. No I’m not okay.” Twilight pouted, the tears welling in her eyes like glistening pearls. “I’m... I’m not who I thought I was. I don’t think any of us are! And I don’t know what to do about it! I feel so betrayed!”

“What do ya mean betrayed?” asked Dash. “I know Luna’s involved in this since it was her guards that came for me and Fluttershy, but they said we were just being brought in for questioning.”

Twilight couldn’t stifle a laugh. “Questioning? Oh, Rainbow Dash, for someone so quick, you can be so incredibly slow. The only questioning that they’re going to do is going to be on the edge of a knife. Or a searing hot iron. Or who knows what other instrument of torture they can concoct. They don't even have to worry about you remembering it! And all because of that stupid book. I guess you’ll at least be prepared for it Dash. Last time this happened to you, they nearly melted your hooves off! Guess that explains why you can’t stand anypony touching them. Celestia did a decent job making you loyal to her. Pity she couldn’t make you more loyal to your friends. Let me guess - you tried to run when they came for you? Don't bother answering, running is what you’re good at!”

“Twilight...you’re scaring me,” whimpered Fluttershy, “you sound so mean, so angry.”

“Angry? You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you Fluttershy. It’s just beneath the surface, even now. Your fear is just part of it, the part that Celestia found acceptable. But push you into a corner and watch out! You’re like a powder keg waiting to blow. Take away your kindness and what are you but a pitiful antisocial shut in with an animal fetish? I don’t even want to think what you would be like without Celestia’s programming...you’re about the only one of us I can really understand her tampering with.”

“Twilight! That’s not right of ya ta say! Besides, it ain’t the truth! I told ya before, Celestia would never do all them horrible things ya’ll are talkin’ about!” yelled Applejack.

“Oh truth!” laughed Twilight darkly, “That’s rich coming from you, ‘Honest’ Applejack. Always trying to find a loophole so you don’t have to say something inconvenient. How many promises have you ‘bent’ through omission or circuitous logic? No, don’t reply. I think I got a pretty good measure of just how honest you really are during that business with Smarty Pants and your brother. How is he by the way? Ever bother telling him what really happened that day? Ever bother telling him about the pony that gave her life for him? No? Maybe you at least had the guts to tell him how you really feel? Hah... I doubt it.”

“Twilight, really dear, I know you’re upset but that’s no reason to dig into your friends like this,” spoke Rarity, trying to calm things before tempers could flare further. “We’re all we have right now, the last thing we need is to be turning on each other.”

“All we have? That’s all that matters to you isn’t it Rarity? What you have. What you want. What you need. As generous as you’d like us to believe you are, you’re just so transparent. You don't want us to stop fighting because you care, you just don't want to lose something you think belongs to you! Our supposed friendship isn't a commodity you can hoard!" the injured unicorn spat in disgust. "I don't even know why I bother talking to you. Everything you do, you do for praise and recognition. Well pardon me if I don’t feel like being charitable with you or anypony else's short comings right now." Twilight smacked a hoof into her forehead as a new idea dawned in her head. "I can’t believe how blind I was! We were NEVER meant to wield the Elements of Harmony!”

“Maybe you’re right Twilight,” spoke a calm, stoic voice. It was hard to tell it belonged to Pinkie Pie. “Maybe everything we knew was a lie. I mean look at me. I was raised on a rock farm. We never laughed or smiled, it was a completely foreign concept to me. Then one day, out of the blue, I’m suddenly a maniac for being cheerful and trying to cheer up everypony around me. What kind of sense does that make? But then again... What really was the harm? Was I better off how I was before...how...how I think I’m starting to become again? I haven’t laughed in over a month. I'm not upset or angry, really, but I can barely smile. Is this really better?”

For reasons even she didn't understand, Twilight’s temper suddenly exploded. “NO! No it’s not better! Each and every last one of us have been used by Princess Celestia, our natures twisted and changed. What we were before might not have been horrible, but knowing what we can never truly be is worse. We were forced to be better than we ever could hope to naturally be. And now? Now we’re sitting here waiting for them to either decide to change us back and let us carry on trying to ignore our imperfections, or let us rot in the darkness, tortured and despairing of ever seeing the light of day again!” She screamed, her anguish giving way to a rage so strong she began to physically shake. It wasn’t just her, the entire cell began to vibrate, her chains rattling. “And for what!? So Celestia can sit on her throne and tell the rest of us what to do and how to live!? So she can manipulate us for who knows how long and force us to do her dirty work for her!? It’s no wonder she can’t use the Elements of Harmony...she’s a bloody bucking MONSTER!” The cracks spread over Twilight’s face, ripping down her body as her face contorted in pain and rage. She was coming apart at the seams, bloody lines tracing themselves down from the remnants of her horn to the tips of her hooves. Light surged from the broken fragments jutting out of her forehead, lancing down through the cracks in her flesh and causing her entire body to glow. Her eyes shone brightest of all, a mixture of hatred and insanity illuminated by uncontrollable magic.

“Now just calm down sugarcube.”

"Yes dear, let's not get carried away.”

"You...you’re scaring me...Twilight...please stop!”

“W-w-what’s a-a-all th-that sh-sh-shaking? Th-th-this is-s s-s-so n-not c-c-cool!”

“M-m-m-my v-v-v-oice s-s-sounds-s-s s-s-silly-y-y-y!”

With a scream loud enough to make her friends ears bleed, Twilight gave herself over at last to the pure fury that had been building inside her for weeks. Her crystal prison shattered, breaking into a thousand pieces, ripping her chains from the broken floor. An aura of pure magic crackled over her body as arcane energy coursed through her very flesh, her entire body a network of glowing cracks and scars. Crystal shards rose around her and began to orbit about her body. Twilight’s mane and eyes swirled, madness and hatred a part of her very being now. She didn’t notice the mess that she had made of her friends, leaving them lying bloody and in various stages of unconsciousness beneath piles of broken stone. But they had never truly been her friends, had they? They were like everything else. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, LIES! She didn’t have room in her mind for friends right now. There was only room for one thing.

Revenge!

Comments

[Firestorm]

"I guess you’ll at least be prepared for it Dash. Last time this happened to you, they nearly melted your hooves off! Guess that explains why you can’t stand anypony touching them." *mind blown*

[UmbraEquinae]

The cage has opened, the floodgates burst wide...
Raise your voice to the sky, Twilight, and let your roar stretch far and wide!