• Published 2nd Apr 2017
  • 5,274 Views, 373 Comments

Reflections - RQK



Crystal Faire, a Flurry Heart from an alternate reality, attempts to stop the collapse of all existence. ...With a little help, perhaps.

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3 - Preparations

Twilight Sparkle squinted in the light of the mid-afternoon sun as she sunk deeper into the cushion beneath her. Images of Crystal Faire’s scarred face flashed through her mind again, but Flurry Heart’s giggles and snorts dashed those just as quickly.

“Even then,” Cadance said, chuckling, “being Dragon Lord must have been exciting. Even if he only did it for ten seconds.”

“I know I’d be proud of Spike too,” Shining added as he drew circles in Flurry’s chest.

“Eee mumum,” Flurry said while trying, futilely, to reach up and touch her father’s nose.

Shining looked down at her, smiled, then leaned forward and blew a zerbert into her belly. Flurry squirmed and roared with laughter.

Twilight giggled as well and turned back to Cadance. “Yes. My little Spike is all grown up. He’s becoming a fine young dragon.”

“I can imagine,” Cadance said.

“He’ll be just as big as you are before you know it,” Shining said. “And, well, he is a dragon. I guess, someday, he’ll be even bigger.”

“Huh. Sure. He might even outgrow the castle,” Cadance said. “Makes me wonder if he’ll go live someplace nearby.”

“Or if he’ll go live with the dragons,” Shining added.

“Well, no matter where he goes, or what he does, or whatever happens to him,” Twilight said with a grin, “he’ll always be my Spike.”

The double doors creaked open and they all turned in response. The smiles disappeared from their muzzles as they stood up. Crystal Faire stood in the doorway. She wore, once again, the cloak from the night before.

Crystal trotted into the room without shutting the door behind her. Flurry watched Crystal approached and then cooed curiously. Crystal stared at Flurry even while the latter tried to reach up and bat at her all while making assorted coos and warbles. Finally, Crystal chuckled and batted back. The two poked at each other which prompted Flurry to laugh like a hyena.

Meanwhile, the others exchanged glances and shared nervous chuckles.

Crystal drew back and turned to Twilight. “Well, I have returned. And there is much for us to discuss, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight nodded. “Yes. I suppose there is.”

“I’m still in a rather sightseeing mood. So… I was hoping that you would join me for a walk.”

Twilight looked at Shining and Cadance for guidance. They exchanged glances and nodded back.

“Fine by me,” Twilight said.

“We’ll be right here when you get back,” Cadance said.

“Go get them, Twily. Save the day for us,” Shining added as he wrapped a hoof about his wife’s withers.

Twilight smiled. “I will.” She turned to Crystal and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Crystal nodded and led Twilight toward the door. Twilight looked back one last time at Shining and Cadance, the latter of whom cradled Flurry in her hooves. All three wore smiles on their muzzles.

Twilight smiled and waved before exiting the room and shutting the doors behind her.

* * *

“I see,” Twilight said, “so it was an entire cult of ponies. Not just those four.”

Crystal nodded in response. “Their intention was to disrupt the royal lineage here. It was the first part of a plan to start installing themselves into positions of power. But they are otherwise very skittish and typically don’t even make it this far.” She shook her head, whipping her mane back into place. “They know by now that their plans have failed spectacularly and, now that they are on the map, they won’t have the nerve to try anything else from now on.”

The two trotted around the very edges of the Crystal Empire. The Crystal Palace, which reached into the heavens, stood like a sentinel in the distance.

Twilight looked up to admire how it sparkled in the sun. She thought of the crystal ponies who lived in the shadow of the castle yet, at the same time, lived in the light.

She then thought of those that lived in actual shadow, and her smile faded.

“So then, what about this other thing?” Twilight asked.

Crystal cleared her throat. “Right. The other thing. This is the villain which you will face within the next few hours. I have no doubt that, armed with what I will tell you, you should be able to deal with it no problem.”

“Tell me about it?”

“Miasmus is a parasitic entity. He is… much like the Tantabus, which I’m sure exists over here.”

Twilight nodded.

“Now, you shouldn’t have encountered him at all before now. It’s very rare that Miasmus makes it past step one of his plan to take over Equestria.” Crystal paused. “But, of course, in this timeline, he actually does, which is why you’ll have to deal with him.”

“I didn’t know those kinds of creatures could even be male,” Twilight said. Her muzzle curled into a small grin. “That’s fascinating.”

At that, Crystal paused, and then she pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “That… I swear. Miasmus is an it, but for some reason, it identifies as male. I don’t know why.”

Twilight frowned. “Well, if it feels like it’s male, then we’ll just call him that.”

Crystal shrugged. “Regardless, he can’t survive for long on his own, so he nestles himself within hosts and essentially makes their bodies his own.” She looked over Twilight and added, “That’s how he survives.” She shook her head and said, “But he picked the wrong host a while back and he usually just dies out in the middle of nowhere.”

Twilight hummed in thought. “So, I’m guessing that he caught a break this time.”

“By sheer dumb luck,” Crystal said, punctuating her words by punting a rock as they passed over it. “Miasmus is grossly incompetent. He also happens to think that he’s all that. …I had to teach myself not to laugh at him on sight.”

Twilight hung her head. “But if that’s right, and we lost to this thing… What does that say about us?”

Crystal snorted. “Again, dumb luck. Had you been in Ponyville yesterday, you would have caught him and summarily defeated him during the beginning of stage two.”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “Okay.”

“Honestly, this situation that you’re in right now with Miasmus being on the upswing is pretty rare by itself.” Crystal narrowed her eyes. “The fact that you’ve also been dealt a double-whammy situation is just as rare. So this is interesting.”

“The fact that we had two threats at the exact same time, you mean,” Twilight said. “I’m guessing there have been other times where it’s been like this?”

“Yes. I’ve even seen triple-whammies before. And…” Crystal’s muzzle scrunched up as she thought. “I think the most I’ve seen is a quad. But that was such a long ago.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You mean, a long time ago for you.”

Crystal chuckled. “Of course.”

“I see. So… what’s step two, exactly?”

“Step two…” Crystal trailed off, “was you, your friends, your student, and Celestia.”

Twilight froze midstep. She felt a shiver run up and down her spine, and her fur stood on end. She looked over at Crystal with a quivering jaw. “My friends… Celestia…” She swallowed. “Crystal… Where is he right now? Can you see him?”

Crystal smirked and said, “I can see everything, Twilight. Let’s see...” before gazing blankly into the distance. Her pupils swayed from side to side and her smirk turned more into a frown with each passing second.

Finally, Crystal furrowed her brow and mouthed the words “What the?” under her breath. She whirled around and started toward the mountains.

“Crystal?” Twilight asked. “Tell me where Miasmus is right now.”

Crystal stopped after a few steps and glanced back at Twilight with a dazed expression. “Oh, right. He… Miasmus… He is closing in on them.”

“How long?”

Crystal considered it. “Not too long.”

Twilight shook her head in slow disbelief and then in vehement anger. “No… No no no no! You should have told me earlier!” she yelled. “I have to be there for them!”

Crystal merely hummed in acknowledgment before she spread her wings and took to the air.

Twilight frowned. “Crystal!” she cried before flapping her wings and taking off behind her.

Crystal ignored her and flew in the direction of the mountains.

“Crystal! You need to talk to me right now!” Twilight seethed. “If Miasmus is about to have my friends, then I need to go help them right now!”

Crystal continued onward, still scanning the ground below. “Y-yeah,” she mumbled in response.

Twilight gripped her head and breathed in and out at a rapid pace. “Oh stars, oh stars, I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s doing to them right now. Oh stars…”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Crystal said without looking over. “I’ve dealt with Miasmus any number of times. I could fix it.”

“Fix it!? If what you’re telling me is accurate, he’s already there!” Twilight yelled, kicking the air underneath her.

“Sure,” Crystal vacantly replied.

Twilight opened her mouth to speak then closed it again. Crystal was ignoring the situation. “I don’t… I can’t. How are you not concerned about this?”

Crystal blinked and then finally looked over. “S-sorry. I’m just…”

“And where are you going, anyway?”

Crystal frowned. “Uh, you see, when I was looking for Miasmus just a bit ago, I saw something strange.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “And what exactly was so strange, huh?” she asked, her tone sharp.

Crystal pointed at something on the ground. “That there,” she replied.

Twilight turned her gaze down to where Crystal pointed. Situated within a large depression at the base of the mountain was what looked like a small, black hemisphere. The object sat sticking halfway into the ground. The very air around it rushed into it like a vacuum. Most snow around the object had vanished.

And then a small, black sphere with the same look and consistency appeared just above the hemisphere’s surface, and the hemisphere, in turn, reached toward it with something like a tendril and swallowed it whole, growing in size at the same time.

Twilight’s jaw twitched and she, now like Crystal beside her, stared at it with intensity. “What is that?”

Crystal looked over and nodded. “That’s… what I want to find out.”

The two swooped down and landed on the lip of the depression (which had to be at least a hoofball field in diameter by Twilight’s reckoning and was slowly expanding). The Crystal Empire lay a fair ways behind them, so far, in fact, that the tallest spire could not see the black object in the depression. Air rushed past the two of them, just enough to blow their manes about but not enough to rob them of their footing.

“No, really,” Twilight said, “what is that?”

After a moment of staring it down, Crystal shook her head. “I don’t know.”

What do you mean you don’t know!?” Twilight yelled. She sighed. “Didn’t you say that you can see everything? Past, present, and future?”

Crystal’s muzzle twitched. “I… did. But…” She scratched her muzzle and scanned the snow-covered ground. She then lit her horn and plucked a rock from underneath the snow. She levitated it whilst keeping an eye glued to the strange hemisphere.

“I can see past, present, and future,” Crystal said with a wavering tone, “but… when I look at this spot… I see nothing.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. She found her lingering thoughts of her friends and the rest of Ponyville shelved for the moment and she turned her attention to the spot as well.

Crystal tossed the rock up and down once, twice, and then hurled it wholesale toward the black, bubbly object. The rock disappeared past the event horizon. The black object continued sucking in snow and air and dust like before.

“It’s… a hole,” Crystal said.

The hole, almost in response, suddenly expanded by a quarter of its size. Another hole appeared to the side, and it grew and grew, and then the two merged together. The winds increased in intensity from there.

Crystal lit her horn and formed a barrier around the site, encasing both holes. With that, the gales subsided, and all the dust and snow, which had been flying through the air, either splashed against the barrier or dropped to the earth again.

Crystal hummed and stroked her muzzle.

“Hole?” Twilight asked. “What kind of hole?”

“I have some ideas, but...” Crystal continued to stare for a few moments. She then turned to Twilight and said, “Well, it would seem that I have to change my plans. I was going to take you to Ponyville in about an hour from now so that you could deal with Miasmus. I was going to be there to make sure it went well. But…” Crystal pointed to the strange holes. “I have to figure this thing out.”

Twilight frowned. “But what about what you came here to do?”

“Changed plans, Twilight. I don’t know what this is, but this needs my attention.”

Twilight glared Crystal down. “Alright, fine. Admittedly, I think that this is strange too. And fascinating. And I’d like to study whatever this”—she pointed at the hole—“phenomenon is. But I need to go to them.”

Crystal raised her eyebrow.

“I understand if you want to stay here,” Twilight continued, “but… if that means that you won’t be helping me to save my friends and stop Miasmus, then so be it.”

Crystal tilted her head in consideration. Her mouth moved a few times as if about to form words. Finally, she hummed. “You would still go? You don’t even know how to defeat him.”

“No. I don’t. But I will try anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Crystal asked. After a pause, she said, “You know you’ll be taking your chances without me there to help you.”

Twilight nodded. “It’s a struggle. It always is. But my friends… they’re like family to me. Kind of like you are, in a way. And they… they make my life worth living.”

Twilight pressed a hoof to her chest. “They are worth taking a chance for.”

The hole, still contained within Crystal’s bubble, expanded. A few more, much smaller holes appeared just above its surface then joined up with the main hole. Pieces of ground fell into the horizon, never to return.

Crystal kept her eyes on the display. Her muzzle shifted from side to side in thought. And then Crystal turned her attention back to Twilight.

Twilight stood at her full height, trying to appear as tall and confident as possible.

“I see,” Crystal said. She looked back at the hole. “No, I won’t be joining you. But… if you are so insistent on going now, then the least that I can do is tell you how to beat him.”

* * *

The wind blew through Twilight’s mane as she soared through the air. The Crystal Empire lay at her back with its spires gradually withdrawing past the horizon. Twilight knew that, soon enough, she would not be able to see it at all.

The snow-covered ground steadily passed underneath her. The air, already cold, chilled her even more as she blew through it. It made her shiver a few times.

The other shivers originated from her thoughts. Crystal’s last words ran through her mind over and over again.

“Focus on Celestia. Concentrated magical bursts will overload and dislodge him. Above all, trust no one.”

Twilight sucked in a breath. She beat her wings and surged forward. Miasmus…

Ponyville had not yet poked its way out from beyond the horizon. That was at least an hour or two yet. Even still, her eyes remained focused on the point where she knew it would be.

This thing… if he’s after them… If he already has them…

The air whistled in her ears as she flew which served to further elevate her heart rate.

And he’s a thing that… takes hosts… if he already has them…

Twilight swallowed, letting several chills creep down her spine. I… I might have to use magic against them.

Am I prepared to do that?

* * *

Crystal paced about the perimeter of her barrier. The anomaly itself grew by an inch or two on occasion but otherwise held steady.

She funneled a spell through her horn, and a cloud of magic materialized within the barrier. The cloud hung back from the event horizon and Crystal eyed it closely. Her spell then replied with a short string of information which spoke of the vacuum within the barrier.

It sucked all the air out, Crystal thought. But I knew that.

She then commanded the cloud to move. The magical cloud poked at the hole, prodded at it, and then penetrated the blackness. The bits of cloud still outside fed her the same information from before, but those parts of the cloud within the void fed her new things. Things that felt like gibberish. Things that Crystal could not recognize.

Crystal frowned and tried to pull those bits of cloud out. The bits still in actual space pulled back with no difficulty. The submerged bit of cloud, however, never reappeared. Crystal could feel her spell still floating somewhere in the void but she could not tell where it was exactly.

She channeled more energy into her horn in an effort to move the disconnected part of her spell. She felt it respond, and it continued feeding her jumbled information, and it felt like it was moving about. But, with every bit she moved it, her spell seemed to scatter. Eventually, it seemed that, despite sending her the same unusual data as before, the cloud had dissipated.

Crystal disconnected from the lost parts, and the sensation that the cloud fed her faded out. She frowned, discontinued the parts of the cloud still within the barrier, and she felt energy draw back into her horn.

What in the hell is going on? she thought. It’s like… where did my spell actually go?

She trotted forward and laid a hoof against the barrier. And why is it just this timeline? Only this timeline?

Crystal felt a shiver run down her spine. What does this mean?

She looked over her withers and stared into space. Her thoughts tumbled together for a moment as several images fought for attention. Then, finally, her image of Twilight Sparkle won out, and Crystal blinked.

She cocked her head in the direction of Ponyville. She imagined a mare flying through the skies at neck-breaking speeds. She imagined a being of energy sitting within his hosts. She heard his laughs. She heard shouts and cries and the sound of wood snapping.

And Crystal looked back at the hole. A smaller hole appeared between the larger one and her barrier, almost taking a chunk out of it in the process. The second hole floated above the first, just as idle as its brother.

Crystal snorted. Twilight’s fine. Everything’s fine. ...Probably.