Students of Heaven

by Gentian

8 - Duende

8 – Duende

Twilight did not go through the mirror. We finally knew, but the question, then still remained: where was she? The query burned within us all, but with no more clues, there was precious little we could do to divine the answer.

I was now all but certain we weren't under attack, but it was conceivable the Yaks, Changelings or some other neighbor of ours would learn something was amiss and try to take whatever advantage they could, so Cadance continued her organizations of Equestria's defense, while Luna resumed her patrols, no longer calling the rifts, but instead keeping my ponies safe from them. I returned to Twilight's castle in the hopes of finding something, anything that would tell us what had become of her.

I wandered from room to room, inspecting each carefully, and every strange device I found therein. Twilight infused the place. Her scent, her magic, her very essence radiated from the hard crystal walls. They glimmered and shone and reflected images of her from within my mind, but my search for clues proved fruitless.

Sister called me sometime later, her disembodied voice breaking the silence of the dark halls to tell me of another portal. I felt it too: Honesty, and it didn't close. It grew and grew, and I knew it would be trouble, if not for us, then for that other world, but Sunset was there for them, and Twilight was somewhere else.

Luna told me later that the swamp's carnivorous plants pushed their tendrils through the portals. Some of them even fit their entire heads through, but they were far from Ponyville, and no longer held the promise of Twilight's delivery, so she was content to watch from afar until they winked out of existence, and I was content to let her.

Moments after it closed, another opened. Loyalty, this time, and worse, it wasn't in the forest. But it, too was short-lived and vanished. The siren-magic was getting out of hoof, but I remained at my task; Luna and Cadance would protect my ponies, Sunset would do what she could for the humans, and I would find Twilight.

Eventually, I make my way back to her grand hall; another circuit completed, with nothing to show for it. The roots of the Golden Oak hang in the gloom like some tentacled horror from the Immaterium.

This isn't working, and I must not fail. I have to go deeper. I expand my awareness, and in an instant know everything there is to know about the palace. Every facet, every groove, every mote of dust, and every atom. Twilight's lingering scent rises from the obscurity of sundry, useless details, and there, plaited with its strands, are those of an unfamiliar pony, and of the worrying emotions they both felt.

I push my senses further, and the giant, clumsy atoms are left behind. All the forces and energies binding them together resolve themselves, and each tiny measure of the time which stops everything from happening all at once, does too. Smaller and smaller fractions of a second pass, each one entire aeons to me, and here, far, far beyond the threshold I normally leave my senses, is a faint frisson of magic.

Time magic.

I recoil in horrified surprise. Could their shared presence really be a coincidence? Unlikely, but of course, I wouldn't have believed Twilight's and the portal's disappearances were either, even though they now seem to be just that. And what's more, back among the realm of gargantuan molecules, where the scent of the unfamiliar pony lurks: fear. Twilight's fear. And the other pony's scent stinks of anger.

For the thousandth time, I cast my sight across Ponyville, but there were none I didn't recognize. I search more broadly, sending my awareness down roads and rivers, through woods. Fields, and buildings. All throughout my land, I search, but find no recent traces of Twilight, nor of this other pony. If Twilight entered a portal through time, this pony probably went with her.

I loathe time magic, but Twilight must be found, and I'm the only one who can follow her to where she has gone. So, with a heavy heart, I gather my strength, ponder how best to use it, and beg the multiverse itself to give her back to me.

That's when the screaming started.

_________________________________

Normally the walls and distance between us would have prevented me from hearing them, but now, with my senses honed, they roared like thunderclaps. Their cacophony rose and fell with the tidal wave of siren-magic crashing into me; another portal, spewing its noxious stew of eldritch energies like debris in a flash flood.

At once, my sight is again beyond Twilight's castle, and I see it, yawning beneath a tree, right in front of the Town Hall! A half-dozen ponies are in panicked flight; it must have been them I heard. Beyond the gate's mouth floats a creature of terror; a human mare, bewinged, and crowned with a single, malformed horn, whose mad, glinting eyes are limned in cold fire.

With easy waves of her hand, she tears hole after hole between our worlds; I can see Manehattan, Appleoosa, Rainbow Falls, and many others. Too many, and all of them echoing with the fearful screams of my children. This has to be stopped!

Effortlessly, and all at once, I begin casting the spells I'll need: teleports to take me there, and to move any ponies or humans on the wrong sides of the gates; masking spells, so she won't sense my arrival, or the buildup of my magic; shielding spells to protect me, and mine, in case she does; numerous closure spells for the portals themselves; and a variety of attacks to annihilate her utterly, before she can bring any more harm to my dear, dear ponies.

Everything will happen in an instant, and it will all be over before anypony even knows anything is happening at all.

Suddenly, my heart stops.

Sunset Shimmer, straight-backed and stern-faced, standing resolute beneath the monster's unhinged glare.

“Twilight, you can't do this!”

An image flashes to my mind: Sunset, still a filly, in Canterlot with me. We'd spent the day learning about Starswirl's victory over the sirens. “Celestia,” she'd asked. “How could he be so brave if he was afraid?”

“Oh, Sunset,” I'd replied. “That's the only time you really can be.”

Pride and love swell within me. Oh, Sunset...

Magic hums and races along my horn, fighting powerfully to manifest, but I hold it in check, and watch; can she really handle this?

“Why not?! There's a whole world right there, and it's just filled with magic!” A flash of light, an extended limb, and she gleefully blasts another hole through the multiverse.

Twilight told me there were human versions of her friends over there. Uncannily exact, right down to their names. Knowing that, it makes sense that “Twilight” would be the one to recover the gem fragments, and make them into the locket. Now, seeing what she's doing with it is also a sobering reminder of what my Twilight almost became. Of what Sunset did become, until Twilight pulled her back.

“But you're destroying this world to get it!”

“So what? There's magic there, and I want to understand it all!”

I see it coming before Sunset does. The glimmer in the monster's eyes, the curl of her lips, and a thousand and one other clues tell me an attack is imminent. But at the last moment, Sunset begins to dodge, and I know she'll be ok. The beam slams to the ground sending clumps of dirt erupting from the gaping maw of yet another portal.

Another one.

“This isn't the way!”

The largest one yet.

“I know you feel powerful right now. Like you can have anything you want.”

Another portal to crack my world, and endanger my ponies.

“I've been where you are. I've made the same mistake you're making.”

I'm sorry, Sunset.

“I put on a crown, and just like you, I was overwhelmed my the magic it contained.”

This is far too dangerous to let go on.

“I thought it could get me everything I wanted.”

With images of Nightmare Moon's banishment flitting before my eyes, I tally the gates, take note of where each pony and human is, and begin to unleash my blitz. Dimly, I'm aware of my Sister approaching. She must have come all the way from the Everfree. It doesn't matter now, though, this will all be over before she arrives.

I loosen my hold, and feel the bottled energies begin to slip...and my heart stops again! Another power touches me, familiar and wholly unexpected. The Elements of Harmony! Passing in brilliant, colored streamers to the locket held defiantly over Sunset's head.

There's something else, too. I focus my attention on her, and suddenly I'm laughing and howling like a mad-mare among Twilight's dark, vacant halls. This is it! It must be!

Instantly, I drop the other spells, and teleport to my Sister's side; she must not interfere!

_______________________________

Here, above and away from ponyville, I watch through the portal as Sunset slams the locket to the ground. Its pilfered magic bursts from the liberated fragments of the siren-gems, then quickly reforms and engulfs her.

A shiver runs down my spine, and I know Cadance is watching now, too. Luna says something to her eidolon, but I don't care to hear. I'm laughing and whooping, and gliding to the surface. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cadance materialize beside her. They trail me to the ground, regarding me with uneasy concern. They must think I'm mad.

“Watch!” I flick my snout toward the portal. “Can't you feel it?” Probably not, but I can! The seed inside Sunset is cracking open! It's roots are sprouting, and setting her soul aflame! Divine fire burning away her mortality and forging her anew! My Sunset, my Sunset!

My student turned protoge, my protoge turned devil, my devil reformed, and now, at long, long last, my demigoddess! And I can FEEL it all!

My Sister and Niece gasp as the radiance of her transformation fades to reveal her new, bewinged form. I simply lay down in the soft grass. Sunset raises her arms, and in a flash the portal is closed. Two by two, all over my planet, I sense the rifts slamming shut, until only one remains.

Cadance and Luna settle to the ground beside me in silence. I know they're watching me intently, but I am still focused elsewhere. Long ago, when I was put to the test my wrath bested me, and my Sister paid the price. Now, across the multiverse, Sunset faces her own crucible. With furious eyes, and terrible power, she lashes out, and the human girl wails desperately as she is overwhelmed.

Overwhelmed, but not destroyed.

Sunset's visage is hard, and the girl cowers, but I can already read her intention. Closer she floats, in a column of light.

“Take my hand, Twilight. Let me show you there's another way. Just like someone once did for me.” I watch her take Sunset's hand. I watch the light of friendship singe away her bitter callousness, and I sigh euphorically as the last portal is seared closed.