Tower of Shadows

by Knight of Cerebus

Chapter IV: Assimilation

Twilight’s notes flickered in Celestia’s mind, and she could see each and every one of them reflected in the girl’s outraged, terrified eyes. In between all the data and formulas, lines crying out for help had shone through the pages. Help Celestia could give, if only she could push through what had held her back this far in:

I can’t keep getting sick like this. The last time I think someone might have recognized me. I only wish I had the knowledge in potions. I heard of a witch doctor somewhere on the outskirts of town. Maybe if I help protect her from the locals, she’ll help me when I’m sick…? I’ll risk it when I have more data.

I found an artifact that had gotten lodged in the ruins somehow today. There seems to be something trapped inside. Maybe someone? Whatever the case, somebody teleported it in a hurry. They seem to have had something happen to them mid-spell. Maybe they got trapped in here in the middle of their port?

In the present, the wounded animal in front of her paced. Still more dangerous than anything Celestia had ever faced before. Raw magic filled the air like electricity in a thunder storm. “Step away from the vial.” Twilight raised her hands, making sure to show how readily they crackled and how heavily she was armed. More notes flashed in Celestia’s vision.

The creature in the artifact is named Nightmare. She’s not as bad as the name would imply, though. Heh! She taught me a lot about magic in the time we’ve talked, actually. But that’s not really what impresses me...she knows something about my magic. How to control it. How to stop it from rushing out of me. She says she’ll teach me more if I free her. The wards are pretty complicated, but how can I say no? Who else is going to give me a chance like this?

She says the strangest things. I think she must have delusions of grandeur. Whatever they might be, I’m not losing hope. We’ll both be free together. We’ll see what she says to that.

She got awfully upset at me when I told her I was spending time with an owl. Said I wasn’t working hard enough. But that seems silly to me. She has to have something worth doing besides conquering and revenge, right? Maybe when I get to show her she’ll agree with me.

“You know I can’t do that.” Celestia tightened her grip on mace.

“Can’t? You always have a choice, Paladin.” Her hands began to glow an icy blue colour, the energy spontaneously beginning to snake its way around Celestia’s forehead.

The rerouting has failed. I really do need Nightmare for this. But I can’t rely on her to keep her word, no matter how easy it would be. I’ll try again later.

Nightmare is getting impatient again. Her temper is hard to deal with sometimes. Still, she talks to me...At least Zecora came by with some herbs today. I wonder when she’ll want me to pay her back for that.

The spell to free her requires control that I don’t have alone. Experts must have worked on her prison. They must have had a reason to be so thorough...I don’t like where that line of thought ends. But I made a promise, and I made it to a person who’s lived the same life I have. I just have to hope she’s as loyal to me as I am to her.

Celestia stepped between Twilight and the rolling mass of shadows. “My name,” she said slowly, “is Celestia. Not paladin. Not Solar Knight. I am a person, Twilight Sparkle. I can’t let you walk this path because I care. Because I want to help you. I work with the Solar Knights because I care. Because I want to help the world around me. And I know that once, you did, too.”

Thirty-two tries to free her later, and I’ve realized I need a control to study. It needs to be a paladin of the Solar Knights, too. I need to know how their seals work if I’m ever going to figure out how to dispel them. I’ve never managed to find out how their anti-magic spells work, so I’m going to have to hope my precision work is enough. The holding tanks for my abilities are going about as well.

Twilight reached out an uncaring hand, her body sucking in some of the dark energy from the Nightmare’s twisted prison. “Your offers mean nothing to me. You have no evidence of your good will. You give me no reason to trust you. And several reasons not to. Why would I trust the kind of person who would trap her own sister in a gem for all eternity? The kind of person who would use my own brother as a bargaining chip? When do I join the lineup of people you’re using?” Nightmare laughed from behind her.

“I had no choice.” Celestia said to her mace more than to Twilight.

“You always have a choice.” Twilight insisted more urgently, angrier now.

I thought about going back today. Turning Nightmare in, hoping they’d be merciful. Why would they ever let me be, though? Who would ever accept me back? With what I can do to them, without even meaning to? I can’t bank on odds like that. Besides, I can’t turn on somebody who trusted me this far. Even if they are...ominous. Even if they never talk about anything other than freedom and conquest. I have to believe she’ll be better when she’s free. Just because nobody else will give me a free hand doesn’t mean I can’t offer one, right?

Celestia looked down. “You’re right. I could have chosen to let her.” Celestia severed the Nightmare’s connection to the outside world with all but the last of her dispels, knowing it would take her sister enough time to find a way back out that Celestia would be able to talk without her influence coming into play.

Twilight stopped. “Let her what?”

“I could have let her kill me when she tried.” Celestia looked over at the Nightmare, memories flooding into her. “Part of me was tempted. My own sister hated me enough to kill me? Maybe I deserved it. But truth be told, I have enough scars left over from that day.” She pulled back her hair, emphasizing the jagged line of dark tissue running from her ear to her collar bone. “One of seven she gave me that day. All of them given to me because she wanted to show me she was stronger than me, and that her iron fist would keep the peace better than I ever could.”

“You can’t prove she did that.” Twilight’s hand shook.

“I can only tell you what I know.” She switched gears, knowing that attempts to prove herself would go nowhere. “You had a choice too, you know.” Celestia looked at her with pity. “You could have let yourself be captured, before all this began. You only assumed what they would do to you.”

...Another failure. I’ll patch the burns in the morning. It’s not worth doing it now. I’m so tired of running. I’m so tired of everything.

“I knew my choices!” Twilight’s breathing grew fast and shallow.

“You feared consequences. You never bothered to learn what they were.” Celestia remained firm.

“St-stay back!” Twilight took a step away from the spare room, back into the hall.

“I’m not getting any closer.” Celestia showed Twilight her empty palms. “But I need you to let me bring back my sister. I need to know if there’s anything I can do for--”

“Don’t touch her!” Twilight’s hands glowed with power, anger and protectiveness rising in her voice.

Celestia’s eyes softened. “If I let you work with her, she’ll corrupt you. Twist you. She wants to use you, Twilight. Your freedom is entirely incidental to her--”

“You won’t take my freedom from me!” Celestia’s entire body rushed downwards without warning, dragged forehead-first by the coiling blue magic. There was a clicking noise, and then a set of energy spikes drove themselves through the floor towards her. They travelled through the wards in her armor, then through her skin and flesh to pierce something far more primal. Twilight flicked her hand, and Celestia went flying forward into the forest chamber, a wave of blades made of inky blue magic travelling through her chest. She landed on her face, a soup of dark energy bubbling up to swallow her. She pounded a fist against the floor, forcing herself to stand on shaky feet. A great weight was suddenly developing over her mind and body. She felt like she was running a flu. Starlight gathered into the shape of giant, floating equine skulls all about Twilight. Celestia made to get to her feet, only for the horse heads to suddenly turned into a hail of powerful lasers, pressing against her armor and crushing it against the floor. The darkness swallowed her up, draining more of her energy with every minute.

“Heh.” Twilight smirked, floating toward Celestia with burning midnight eyes. Despite herself, and her situation, she gave a giddy grin. “I call it Gale of Nosferatu. Saps the wakefulness of the victim. Not that you’ll remember as much once I put you to sleep.” Her eyes were very much not her own; the pupils had the haunting glow of cyan that denoted the presence of Nightmare Moon, while the sclera was a void of empty blackness speckled with the night sky. The cyan pupils flashed with the inky blue energy periodically, illuminating Twilight’s look of fury, and emphasizing the way her eyes quivered with fear. Lavender flames spread across Twilight’s back, her feet dangling like those of a rag doll. Twilight dragged Celestia to rest below her feet, then shot her against the wall with a resounding thud with the flick of a finger. Celestia studied the supply room, eyes casting around for whatever Twilight was...was...she wondered for a minute what she was looking for. All she knew for now was that it was time to use a desperation enchantment. Something her boots could do once per day. An emergency teleport. Twilight reached out with a hand to smother the magic gathering about her opponent’s feet, but Celestia threw out a quick dispel to snap her focus for a moment. This time, Twilight was much quicker to react than she had been when Celestia had interrupted her magic earlier. But still not quick enough. The blast of energy that Twilight let out hit the wall, causing the tower to shake with the raw force of the blast.

Celestia landed in the room containing the Nightmare with a heavy thud. The insidious smoke still trailed around her, coating her body with black magic. “Just give up now,” Twilight’s demand echoed from the forest, “I don’t want to hurt you any more.” Then she saw it. The shelf with the fluid. Fluid she’d read about in Twilight’s notes, back when she’d been in the basement. “I can’t live like this!” Twilight’s begging voice got closer by the minute. “I can’t keep living like a monster!” Celestia dragged herself along the ground. “And you won’t stop me!” Celestia’s dwindling thought process kept telling her the shelf was important, the fluid was important, what it did was important. She slid an arm up onto the bench. Shelf, fluid, reaction. With the last of her strength, she slid her hand slowly along the surface until it reached a mug of some persuasion, then gripped her hand around the handle.. She opened her mouth and downed the contents of the mug with a greedy desperation, almost drowning herself in it in the process. It tasted disgusting. It bit into her throat and soaked its way into her tastebuds with the complexion and flavour of bile. It also jolted her out of her stupor in a few tenths of a second, just as she’d anticipated. Just as the notes had promised.

She hauled herself up to her feet using the bookshelf, looking at Twilight with nothing but resolution. Light shone from the palm of her hand. Twilight pulled back from the blinding light enveloping Celestia. She used the moment to slip the Nightmare’s vial into her satchel, the last of her dispels serving as a contingency measure against Nightmare’s influence while the teleport to the analysis team began taking place. Celestia ran down what spells she had left. She her dispel stock was empty, her emergency teleport was gone, she’d left her mace behind. All that remained of note was her helmet and two anti-magic spells. Fortunately for her, however, she knew exactly what to use them on.“That’s your problem, Twilight Sparkle; you live a life ruled by fear. You’ve never taken a risk before in your life. You don’t understand the importance of sacrifice.” With the air full of magic, there were only two things she could safely cast the anti-magic upon. Twilight would never let her get close enough to use them, and she’d never be able to fire one off without it hitting excess magic in the case of a different spell.

So if she couldn’t prevent magic being cast by Twilight, she had to make sure of something else. She cast the magic over herself. One washed over her body, while the other washed over her armor, stripping it of all of its enchantments and strengths in an instant. The equal-yet-opposite force of the anti-magic caused the runes engraved into the armor to fizzle, burn and then dissipate altogether. Celestia advanced towards the blinded foe, armor dimming to nothing in a moment. “And that’s why you’ll never be happy--because you’ll never let go of what you have, even if it means finding something better. You’ll only take a risk if it’s on someone else’s terms.” Twilight tried to Celestia’s body in her telekinesis, only to find that she couldn’t get a hold. She fired another blast from one of her horse’s heads, but a golden glow shimmered around Celestia, faltering in patches but holding in others.

“D-don’t touch me!” Twilight hovered backwards, spells activating at random, now. “I’m not coming with you! I’m never going back! I can’t go back!”

“But you’re too busy being a victim to see the way forwards.” Celestia continued her march. A column of fire dug into her right shoulder with enough force to rip through the anti-magic and sear armor and flesh alike. Celestia shrugged off the burns with a grimace. “And I can understand. I can understand hiding your pain. I more than any other guard, maybe. I who banished my own sister because I could not see her faults, because I could not see her hatred growing in my shadow. I who disguised wanting to find somebody--anybody--to fill the gap she left as a pure-hearted attempt to save a troubled soul.”

“You don’t know anything about me!” Twilight erupted a galaxy of blazing stars over her head, firing them towards Celestia. The blue magic that had burned in her eyes began to evaporate into inky smoke. “You don’t know what I am! The things I do just by existing! You don’t know the monster I am!” Runes criss-crossed around Twilight’s skin, pages of magic runes flying from her body and exploding with great force against Celestia’s body and armor. Bruises, cuts and angry burns dotted all over the paladin’s body, but it only slowed her down. Twilight’s entire body was shaking, and her lavender pupils were huge in her shy, mousey face.

Celestia forced her way through the burning array of pseudo-stars, fire etching scorch patterns across her face and body. She’d noticed fairly quickly that the black magic had dissipated the moment Twilight had begun a retreat--Deep down, the girl just didn’t have the heart for it. “I can never go back!” Twilight began to uproot a tree, lightning arcing from her hands and body. “I can’t show them what I am! I won’t be hated by anybody else!” She blasted long, clumsy arcs in Celestia’s way. “I don’t need anybody else! I don’t need your l-lies! I don’t need your hope! And I don’t n-need your help!” Celestia caught the electricity on her arm, forcing one part of her body to spasm. The rest of her reached out to grab Twilight, pulling her out of the vortex of desperation and destruction the troubled witch had created. Burning, scarred and battered, Celestia held Twilight nonetheless. Not with the brutality of an arm of the law. But with the strength and tenderness of a servant of the peace.

“I believe in you, Twilight. I believe in your better nature, and the better nature of your family. Even if you don’t believe in anybody else’s.” Twilight’s hands grabbed her own arm. Panic stared back at her, tears running down the wounded creature’s face. Celestia, despite what the blind thrashing of the damaged woman had done to her, knew whose wounds she really needed to heal right now. She let Twilight hold her, and in that moment, the all-powerful witch dissolved into the heartbroken little sister; the self-abasing genius; the betrayed would-be scholar; the owl-training, slumber party-loving, book-collecting little girl that had always hid in its shadow.

Twilight clung to her for dear life. “I just wanted to--I can’t--I don’t have the courage to--If I’d been free, I’d--”

Celestia let her cling to her, resting another hand on Twilight’s shoulders. Tears flowed freely from her would-be enemy’s form. “I know, Twilight, I know.”

Author's Note:

For those worried about the abrupt end, I'll be posting an epilogue tomorrow. Thank you for following me this far, though! I know the ride was short, but I hope it stayed just long enough that you enjoyed everything it had to offer. Thanks to all who stuck through to the end!

Comments

[Night_Song]

6768671 No problem! I don't spend enough time on the computer to offer my services as an editor, so I chip in where I can.

[HaruHaru]

I hope you continue..I really want to know what happens after.
This is probably one of my favorite portrayals of Celestia and Twilight as humans.
So be it ..still takes the cake though.

[PFisken]

I really like this, both the characters and the world building. I wish there was more. :)

[josue]

6751129 more

[subjectdeltapunch]

dArk magic can be used for good, hell in dragon age you can learn blood magic and necromancy...,but anyways a dark caster can still have a remnant inside of him that allows him to cast for the sidea of good.