Painful Truths (Revised Edition)
I have to say, the response to this fic has been much more positive than I ever anticipated! This was really just supposed to be a minor side-project to slake my thirst for writing as I finished formulating the outlines of my other two epic-length fanfictions.
I did receive some constructive criticism on the second chapter, saying that the instigating incident of the main conflict felt slightly forced, and I've been struggling with the idea of rewriting the chapter to make it feel more natural. So, in true Wizards of the Coast fashion, I've decided that the best way to improve the story is to retcon the hell out of it. 
...Okay, so it's not a total retcon. Apart from the most important interaction, it's more or less completely unchanged. But looking back, I do feel that the best way to make this chapter work is to change the most important bits of dialogue. If you've already read the previous version of the chapter, you're not missing much if you skip the updated version, but feel free to read it again if you like and tell me if you think it works.
Finally, I'd like to once again throw in a warning that this chapter contains references to self-harm, mutilation, and mild gore.
Princess Celestia had lived for a long time, so long that most ponies could barely comprehend it. Yet over the past several years it felt as though more had happened than the entire previous millennium.
Her pupil, Twilight Sparkle, had at once proven herself to be the most talented and capable pony she had ever known, while also having an inner compassion that left a lasting impression on every other pony she would come to know. There was a good reason that she had been chosen to be the Princess of Friendship.
At least, that was what she had continued to tell herself.
Yet even still, there was a lingering doubt in the back of her mind. Celestia had quickly learned to ignore it, but that doubt came back in full force when she received a letter from Twilight one fateful day.
At first glance, it appeared no different from all of the other letters that had been sent to her, appearing in a puff of smoke during a pleasant afternoon brunch with her sister on the castle balcony. She took a sip of her tea as she levitated the envelope in front of her, carefully opening it and reading the message contained within.
Dear Princess Celestia,
As much as I’d like this letter to be another friendly correspondence, I’m afraid the situation has become much more dire. Today, I had what is probably the first near-death experience of my life.
It started when I began researching a way to travel between planes of existence without the need for the Magic Mirror, so that Sunset Shimmer and I could visit each other’s worlds without allowing magic to leak from one world to the other. I created an artifact that I called the Planar Amulet, which would allow for its bearer to travel between planes at will.
Unfortunately, while the Amulet itself was constructed to withstand the chaotic energies of the interplanar space, I had neglected to ensure the chain that attached it to my body could survive as well. When I tested its effects, I traveled to the space between worlds, and the interplanar energies destroyed the Planar Amulet’s chain. The artifact was lost, and without it protecting me I was exposed to the raw energies of interplanar space.
Everything that I’ve researched in Star Swirl’s notes says that being exposed in such a manner would have killed me instantaneously, and this was consistently verified by my attempts at sending Spike’s tissue samples (don’t ask) through interplanar space. Yet I managed to not only survive, but I was able to make it back to Equestria through means that I don’t fully understand.
Because of this, I would like to request access to Star Swirl’s old laboratory this afternoon, there may be some of his research I haven’t seen that could help explain what happened to me.
Your faithful friend,
Twilight Sparkle
P.S. After completing the initial letter, I had a sudden thought, and asked Spike not to send it until I went over my notes again. When I did, I realized that something about the Planar Amulet itself doesn’t completely make sense. It was designed to enable interplanar travel, yet its ability to do so comes entirely from focusing my own magic into it. I had constructed the first so that it was attuned specifically to my own magical essence so that only I could use it, and the one I planned to create for Sunset would be attuned to her. Yet if I go over the calculations again, it seems as though the Amulet’s interplanar travel ability ONLY works if I assume the magic that goes into it has the properties of my own essence. There’s something unique about my magic specifically that’s related to the Planar Amulet’s capabilities, and I suspect that it’s related to the reason that I survived.
Celestia loudly spit her tea across the table, ruining several of her favorite cakes and pastries, staining the tablecloth, and spraying several ounces of hot liquid directly onto Princess Luna’s face.
Though she remained mostly unfazed, Luna couldn’t help but wince at the scalding tea in her eyes. Despite her pained expression, she met Celestia’s eyes not with anger but with worry. “Is everything alright, sister?”
Celestia’s stomach began to twist itself into a knot. She met Luna’s eyes only reluctantly, and answered. “I... I don’t know, Luna. I believe Twilight Sparkle may be on the verge of discovering the true nature of her magic.”
Luna’s eyes went wide. She opened her mouth, quietly mimicking an ‘oh’ sound. Several seconds of tense silence passed.
“...You did tell me you knew that this day would come,” Luna finally spoke. “That she would come closer to learning the true reason for her ascension.”
Celestia sighed. “I know. But I didn’t think it would be so soon.”
“You should tell her,” said Luna. “Even after everything you’ve done, she deserves to know.”
Celestia hung her head low. “I know,” she said. “And I will.”
———————
At first Twilight had wondered how Celestia had managed to send her a response so quickly. Even for a response to news of her nearly dying, she didn’t think it was possible for Celestia to have penned, signed, stamped, and sent a full reply in less than five minutes.
Her former mentor must have been seriously concerned. Or rather, that’s what she thought before she read the letter.
Dear Twilight,
Please meet me at Canterlot Castle as soon as possible. I need to talk to you in private.
- Princess Celestia
“That’s it?” said Twilight. “I nearly died and this is all she sends me?”
“Well, it is the middle of the daytime. Maybe she’s just busy?” Spike suggested.
“Spike, I’ve memorized her daily schedule down to the exact second!” said Twilight, “Right now she’s supposed to be at brunch stuffing her face full of cake!”
“Totally not creepy at all that you know that,” Spike remarked.
“Spike, this isn’t funny! This letter, it’s... it’s so short it almost sounds passive-aggressive!” Already Twilight’s breath had quickened. A more rational part of her mind chided her for jumping to conclusions, but it was ignored just as it usually was. “What if Princess Celestia’s mad at me? What if I did something wrong? What if that’s why she wants to talk to me private? What if she has some sort of punishment? Like, like... like something so severe I can’t even think of what it might be! That’s how horrible it is!”
“Hey!” said Spike. “Deep breaths, Twilight! Deep breaths!” He produced a paper bag from somewhere and handed it to Twilight Sparkle. She quickly grabbed it and placed it over her muzzle, breathing heavily into it until her breaths stabilized.
Twilight removed the bag from her snout and crumpled it up, tossing it into a corner with several other crumpled bags like it. “Thanks, I needed that.”
“Hey, it’s no problem,” said Spike. “Besides, Princess Celestia cares about you a great deal. Heck, you’re almost like family to her! I’m sure she just wants to see you in person so she knows you’re okay.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. It really was silly of me to think otherwise, wasn’t it?” Twilight gave Spike a warm smile. “Anyway, if Celestia wants to see me as soon as possible, I should probably get going. I’ll probably be back by the end of the day.”
“Sounds good!” said Spike. “I’ll see you later!”
As Twilight left she could vaguely hear the the muffled scratching of Spike’s claws against his owns scales, as he muttered profanity and something about tissue samples.
———————
Normally, Twilight would have taken the Friendship Express to Canterlot, as she very much enjoyed the opportunity to relax and watch the scenery go by. But with the urgency suggested by Celestia’s letter, she had decided to resort to a much faster means of travel.
When she was still a unicorn, teleportation was easily one of the most difficult spells she had learned. It took not only intense concentration but a perfect mental map of the surrounding area, to the point where it was dangerous to try teleporting anywhere that wasn’t directly in her line of sight. To top it off, the spell itself was so magic-intensive that it usually took her a full second to cast, rendering it useless in most contexts.
As an alicorn, the question of magical power was a non-issue, as she had access to more than she ever really needed in any practical circumstance. Not only that, but she had found a clever way of getting around the limitations of a mental map: she could send out a pulse of magic towards the sun or the moon, aimed in such a way that it would reflect off the celestial body and then land in the general area she intended to travel to. The magical pulse would then scan the area and transmit a mental picture of it directly into her mind, allowing her to perfectly teleport to its location.
The calculations needed to reflect the pulse in exactly the right trajectory to land where she wanted it to would be unimaginably complex to any other pony, but she had memorized the formula, the sun and moon’s positions throughout the day, and the overall geography of Equestria to such a degree that the math was almost trivial to her. By her own estimation, she could use this technique to reliably teleport anywhere within a five hundred mile radius of her location.
Naturally, teleporting to Canterlot, a mere sixty miles away, was so easy that it was almost reflexive. As the initial pulse completed and the map transmitted to her mind, she disappeared in a flash of light, and reappeared at Canterlot Castle’s front gates. The royal guards at the entrance shot each other a glance, before shrugging and opening the doorway.
Twilight had soon made her way to the throne room, where Celestia would normally be residing at this time of day. She passed by a long line of irritated-looking ponies that carried all the way to the throne room’s door, which had been shut tight by the pair of royal guards stationed at the entrance. As she approached, the guards opened the door and motioned at her to enter, earning her a series of sharp glares from the line behind her. Twilight cringed at the realization that Princess Celestia must have cancelled the rest of her audience hours to see her.
“Sorry! Important royal business,” she said weakly as she passed through the door.
As she entered the chamber, the door slammed itself shut forcefully behind her, locking itself with a distinctive click. True to her stated intentions, Princess Celestia sat alone atop her throne, with not even a single royal guard within the room. The elder princess’s horn glowed, and the door was surrounded by a pink aura that Twilight recognized as a powerful soundproofing spell.
“Princess Celestia... you said there was something you wanted to talk to me about?”
Celestia stood up from her throne and approached Twilight, regarding her with a deep sorrow in her eyes. “There are many things that I wish to discuss with you, Twilight. But first, there is something that I must ask you. Do you recall what it was that awakened the Elements of Harmony the first time I had sent you to Ponyville?”
Twilight lifted an eyebrow. “What? Of course I do! Each of that friends that I had made embodied one of the virtues that the Elements represented. Without them, there would have been nothing for the Elements to draw their power from.”
“And what of the Element of Magic in particular?” Celestia asked. “Do you remember what it was that brought it to you?”
“W-with all due respect, Princess, I don’t understand why you’re asking me this question,” Twilight stammered. “The Elements are an integral part of my friend’s history. To a significant extent, they each represent who we are. If this is some kind of test, then I don’t know what I’m being tested on right now.”
Celestia’s face remained absolutely firm. “It is not a test, Twilight Sparkle. There is something that I need you to understand, and to do so, you must understand what your Element draws its power from. What do you recall of the prophecy foretelling the Element of Magic’s appearance?”
“...That a spark would cause the sixth Element of Harmony to appear,” Twilight answered. “I didn’t realize it when I first read the prophecy, but that spark turned out to be an epiphany. It was a metaphor for the realization of how much my new friends meant to me. But I still don’t understa-”
“I understand that is what you had come to believe.” Celestia’s words remained firm even as she abruptly cut Twilight off. “Unfortunately, it is also untrue.”
Twilight’s jaw went slack. “Wha- untrue? B-but, Princess, that’s ridiculous! The Element of Magic literally embodies the magic of friendship! It’s the keystone that holds together everything the Elements of Harmony stand for! I-is this some kind of joke!? Because if it is, it isn’t funny!”
“Friendship is what the Element of Magic represents, and you would not have been able to harness its power if you did not understand what it meant to have friends,” Celestia replied. “But that alone could not have bound your Element to you. The spark spoken of in the prophecy is something else altogether.”
“Like what?” said Twilight.
“Patience, Twilight,” Celestia chided. “Everything will be clear soon enough. You said in your letter to me that your... ‘Planar Amulet’ would allow its bearer to travel between planes of existence, but that it only functioned when it used your magic specifically. That can only mean one thing: it was not the Amulet itself that let you travel to the space between worlds. That ability exists entirely within your own power.”
Twilight’s mouth hung agape. “En... entirely?”
“...And that brings me to the spark,” Celestia continued. “The spark is a metaphysical essence that one in every million souls is born with. The vast majority of those who bear the spark will live their entire lives without seeing one iota of its true power. But for an exceedingly rare few, the spark will ignite, and its bearer will become one of the few beings capable of traveling between planes of existence unaided. Your ignited spark is the spark spoken of in the prophecy. You, Twilight Sparkle, are a planeswalker.”
“I’m... a planeswalker?” Twilight had suddenly begun to feel dizzy. Her head spun, and she struggled to hold herself steady even though she was standing completely still. “But why? Why am I only learning of this now? Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
Celestia’s expression softened as she looked into Twilight’s pleading eyes, and she let out a regretful sigh. “Because, in a fit of anger, I had declared that all memory of their kind be forever erased from Equestria. The last planeswalker to enter our world was a tyrant unrivaled by any foe you have ever encountered. He murdered my mentor and dearest friend in an attempt to steal the Elements of Harmony, all for a weapon he claimed to be his legacy. In the end, the Elements turned their power against him, forever banishing him from this plane. But that is a story for another day.”
“Y-your mentor? But that would mean....” Twilight’s eyes suddenly went wide as the realization dawned on her. “H-he murdered Star Swirl!?”
“Please!” Celestia blurted out. “I... I don’t wish to discuss it any further.”
“I...” Twilight looked into Celestia’s eyes, noticing the pool of tears that had already begun to form. “...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up. I... I think I understand why you didn’t tell me about planeswalkers. I wouldn’t want to be reminded of that either.”
“I still do not believe it was right of me to keep your planeswalker spark a secret from you,” said Celestia. “You are nothing like the man who killed my dearest friend. Either way, the prophecy said that a planeswalker spark was the only thing that could awaken the Element of Magic and save my sister from the Nightmare. I spent one thousand years searching for the pony who would bear that spark. The day you received your cutie mark, I knew it had to be you.”
“That was when my spark ignited?” said Twilight.
“That is correct,” said Celestia. “The Academy for Gifted Unicorns was one of hundreds of institutions I had created for the purpose of finding one with the spark. Your unusual aptitude with spells had convinced me that you were the most likely pony to be destined for the Element of Magic, and thus possess a planeswalker spark. To test this, I had placed a spell over the academy to detect if anything had left our plane of reality. Sure enough, at the very moment you received your cutie mark, you had unknowingly dipped yourself into the Blind Eternities, the space between planes. Not a fraction of a nanosecond later, you had returned, your newly awakened power surging out of your own control.” Celestia regarded Twilight sadly. “...I’m sorry that I did not tell you the truth sooner. It wasn't right for me to hide my intentions from you the entire time.”
The corners of Twilight Sparkle’s mouth turned upwards. “Princess Celestia... you don’t need to apologize to me. It doesn’t matter if you told me if I’m a planeswalker or not. You’ve helped me learn and grow in ways I never could have imagined. If it weren’t for your guidance, I would have never become the princess I am today.”
To Twilight’s surprise, Celestia flinched as though she had been physically struck. The tears in her eyes had continued to pool, and now they had already begun to start flowing down her cheeks.
“Princess Celestia!” Twilight reached out towards her with a hoof. “Are... are you okay? Is something wrong?”
When Celestia spoke, her voice had begun to waver. “Oh, Twilight... You don’t understand just what it is that I’ve done. It’s not just that I kept your true nature as a planeswalker a secret. When I had made you a princess, I... I had an ulterior movie.”
“Wha...” Twilight's brain skipped over itself as though it were a broken record, in its attempt to process the statement it had just heard. “An ulterior motive? I... I don't understand, Princess. What are you talking about?”
“I had told myself that you had earned your station through your own accomplishments,” Celestia tearfully replied. “And looking at all that you've become on your own, I can see that there was truth to that statement. But there was another reason that I couldn't find the courage to admit, even to myself. I... I was afraid.”
“A-afraid?” Twilight stammered. “Afraid of what?”
“I was afraid of losing you!” said Celestia, barely keeping herself from sobbing. “I was afraid that once you learned of your true abilities, you would leave this world behind!“
“Princess Celestia, that's ridiculous! I'd never leave-”
”And what would happen if you were to find yourself in danger!?” Celestia interrupted. “What would happen if your life was threatened on another plane and there was no way that anypony could reach you!? What would I do then!?”
The question had given Twilight pause. Her ears folded against her head as she answered. ”I... I don't know.”
”Then you understand why I wanted to keep you from planeswalking,” said Celestia. ”I gave you a duty to Equestria, and to all of its ponies, to ensure you would not have the opportunity to leave. Despite what I had tried to convince myself, I was not certain that you were ready for such a responsibility. You have proven yourself more than worthy since, but the truth is... I had still deceived you. I had manipulated you, because I was too cowardly to tell you the truth.”
”Princess Celestia, I...” Twilight turned her gaze away from Celestia, avoiding direct eye contact. A maelstrom of conflicting emotions had stirred within her, leaving a heavy, twisted feeling within her chest. ”...I have to go. I need time to think about this.” Her horn glowed, and she recited the teleportation spell in her thoughts. In the sudden haze that had clouded her mind, she did not even bother trying to scan the area of her destination.
The last thing she heard before vanishing was Celestia desperately calling her name.
———————
Twilight had suddenly found herself in her bedroom. It was a reckless move to teleport without taking the necessary precaution, but she had grown so intimately familiar with her castle that her mental map was more than accurate enough to complete the spell.
Her head spun as she considered the conversation she had just left. Becoming the Princess of Friendship was far and away the most important event of her entire life, but the knowledge that Princess Celestia had ulterior motives had rendered the memory distinctively bittersweet.
She understood Celestia's reasoning. She was afraid of losing her pupil, a feeling that Twilight knew all too well. Yet as easily as she could forgive Celestia for not telling her about the spark, the knowledge that Celestia did not initially believe in her as much as she had let on had stung. Twilight had trusted Princess Celestia more than any other pony in her life, but now doubt had begun to eat away at that trust. It almost made her feel sick to her stomach.
As she tried to sort her own emotions, her thoughts turned again to the Planar Amulet, and to her own capabilities. An idea slowly began to take shape within her. It sounded almost crazy when she repeated it back in her mind, but it was the only thing she had to make sense of her situation.
She had to prove Princess Celestia wrong. She had to prove that there was no reason to worry if she traveled to other planes. She had to prove that she could take care of herself in other worlds just as easily as in this one.
Twilight had no idea how to planeswalk, and yet that didn't stop her from trying. She focused her magic in the same way that she did when wearing the planar amulet, yet this time her desire was different. She did not merely wish to test her ability to travel between planes, but to exist within another plane altogether.
A light surrounded Twilight's vision, first engulfing herself, then everything else. She then felt herself being ripped away from her entire universe.
———————
When Twilight’s senses returned, she had found herself in an environment vastly different from the secure confines of her bedroom. It wasn’t the space between planes - the Blind Eternities as Celestia had called it - as she couldn’t feel the constant tingling beneath her skin. She raised a hoof to her eye, and wiped the last of the blurriness from her own vision.
What she saw was the most grotesque and horrifying sight she had ever seen.
She stood within the central area of a tattered, worn-down circus tent, with a massive crowd surrounding her on three sides. Many of them looked like the humans from the world beyond the Magic Mirror, but their skin tones were far less colorful and varied, and many of them didn’t even look human at all. Some of them had pointed ears like no human she’d ever seen, others were short and greenish with sharp teeth and hooked noses, and still others were completely translucent, as if they were entirely immaterial.
But more horrifying were the things she was in the circus with. In one corner she could see a lion tamer with a chair and a whip. The clothes he wore were made entirely from tanned animal hide, and he was covered in scars that appeared to be entirely self-inflicted. The “lion” he was taming was a disgusting creature that she was certain didn’t exist naturally, a haphazard amalgamation of a lion, centipede, and frog.
In another corner was an even more disgusting abomination balancing itself atop an inflatable beach ball. Like the frog-centipede-lion it was an amalgam of various animals, but where the creature before the “lion” tamer was clearly alive, this one was the work of what Twilight could only assume was a necromancer, a hideous misshapen animal skeleton constructed from the bones of who-knows-how-many different animals and reanimated with what must have been evil magic.
In the third corner was a decaying human corpse dressed as a clown, juggling a series of flaming batons, along with what were apparently its own severed legs.
Finally, in the far corner, furthest from herself and the audience, was someone dressed as a ringmaster. Twilight wasn’t sure what it was, but it most definitely wasn’t human. The closest thing she saw was the form Sunset Shimmer had taken when she donned the Element of Magic: sharp yellow teeth, vicious claws, leathery red skin, reptilian eyes, and bat-like wings. But even Sunset’s monstrous form could not compare to the sheer viciousness the creature seemed to project from itself just by existing.
The crowd jeered and booed at Twilight relentlessly, and all around her was the stench of death. The ringmaster gestured at her with his baton and hissed at her in a language she didn’t understand, but the murderous intent was absolutely clear in his beady, sunken eyes.
She had to get out of there. She had to get out of there right away.
Twilight lifted off from the ground at a speed that would make even Rainbow Dash envious, tearing a hole through the tent as she flew away and leaving the circus behind, never to look back again. She didn’t care where she was flying, only what she was flying from.
———————
For nearly his entire life on Ravnica, experimenting had been the one thing that made it worth living. He had spent so many years building up his reputation as an innovator, only to have it all snatched away in a single afternoon. His guildmaster was intensely displeased with the failure of Project Lightning Bug, and had made sure afterward to demote him to the most tedious research imaginable. It was all endless drudgery, mostly replicating the results of other researchers, with no chance to realize his true potential.
He supposed it was his fault for intentionally sabotaging the project, but it was a necessary sacrifice to conceal his secret. The Firemind was nothing if not avaricious in his desire for information, and there was no telling how he would react to the knowledge of planeswalkers, much less that the Living Guildpact himself was one. And that was to say nothing of how the other guilds would respond if they knew their sole mediator was absent from the plane for extended periods of time.
When the workday had finally ended, the guildmage quietly excused himself from the halls of his research station, into the busy streets that defined his home plane. There were several bars that he frequented within the district, and he had already decided which one he would visit that evening.
He had made it halfway to his destination through the bustling crowds when his attention was forcefully drawn skywards. As strange things happened in Ravnica with some regularity, most others paid no mind to it, but his eyes were far too keen to let it escape his notice.
It was a small equine that superficially resembled a pegasus, but with a large horn atop its head similar to the creatures known as unicorns on other planes. Its features were diminutive, with a shortened muzzle and large, front-facing eyes uncharacteristic of a typically herbivorous species. Most notably of all, its entire coat and mane consisted of unusually vibrant shades of purple.
Most others would likely write it off as another one of the Simic’s mutant experiments, but he had realized the truth almost instantly: the creature was not native to the plane of Ravnica.
Ral Zarek clasped his forehead with his fingertips and let out a deep sigh. It was going to be one of those days.
———————
Twilight, Alicorn Ascendant 1URW
Legendary Planeswalker — Twilight
+1: Twilight, Alicorn Ascendant deals 1 damage to up to one target creature. Up to one other target creature gains prowess until end of turn.
-1: Discard a card. If you do, draw two cards.
-6: You get an emblem with “You have no maximum hand size” and “Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell from your hand, you may put that card into your hand instead of into your graveyard as it resolves.”
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Betting time! Who's the first fellow Planeswalker that Twilight will find herself bumping into?
Ahh, much better. Great work on the rewrite!
The lack of flavor text annoys the hell out of me. Why isn't there an OC tag?
much much better. ^_^
8372558
Planeswalker cards generally don't have flavor text.
8372558
Planeswalkers don't have flavor text, as far as I know. Not enough room.
I like this conversation between Twilight and Celestia much better. I'm kind of sad that my previous message got deleted though.
Oh well, I can always just remake it...
Twilight sees the world as an Eldrazi sees it.
Man, Urza (I assume it was Urza, given your use of the word "legacy") was a dick. Not as bad as Nicol Bolas though.
Good job Twilight, you planeswalked right in the middle of a Rakdos circus act. Just be glad you didn't waltz in on the middle of a different act.
Ral Zarek seems to be doing pretty well. We'll find out how well he does with a pretty purple pony princess.
Hey, maybe Twilight can hang out with the Gatewatch at Jace's place? Maybe the Gatewatch can hang out with Twilight at her place in Equestria!
Also, I wonder how the plane of Equestria works, considering that you pretty much confirmed that the EQG world is canon in this fic. Maybe its two parts of on plane in this instance?
Vast improvement over the previous version!
Twilight, a Rakdos circus act was far from the worst place you could have appeared. After all, Rakdos and his followers fall under lawful evil. Sometimes.
Celestia: "I didn't tell you anything, because I feared you would leave Equestria for good!"
Twilight: *leaves the plane of Equestria and nopony will ever know to which world of the multiverse she went*
GG Twilight, GG... no seriously, her friends, her student, her mentor, her family. Everyone has now no clue what happened with her and will forever wonder where she went. Or so I think, please don't write this kind of plane/time travel fic where Twilight comes exactly in this moment back to her Equestria (IF she does, who knows what will happen) when she disappeared and no-one is the wiser that she even disappeared at all.
That would be so anticlimatic if especially this confict of Twilight disappearing is the very thing Celestia wanted to prevent from happening from the start.
Very nice story. I will follow it.
Much Better....
8372558
Also, why would he use an OC tag if he isn't using any OCs?
Anyway, I cannot wait to see where this goes. As soon as I read circus tent, I knew what was going on. And of course Twilight immediately catches an Izzet's eye. It's only natural.
princess
Since in this version she is planeswalking from her bedroom instead of the throne room, I think a comparison to her bedroom would be more apt.
hey thats pretty good
8373180
Yeah, that was a line I forgot to alter from the previous version, good catch.
I've gone ahead and fixed it already, thanks!
This sounds interesting. Before I begin reading, how much do I have to know of Magic: the Gathering to not get lost?
8373197
Most of it will make more sense if you're already familiar with the Magic story after Oath of the Gatewatch, but it's not strictly required: most of the fic will be told from Twilight's perspective and she doesn't really know anything about the MtG storyline either, so you'll probably learn what you need to know from what she learns.
Okay, liking the rework much better. Hahahaha, Celestia is gonna lose her shit. Oh, and the Elements being capable of bopping an oldwalker, and Urza at that, should be very interesting.
Looking forward to Nicol Bolas eating the friendship laser.
Silly Zennistrad. This is just Beta. The next version will be Revised, followed by Fourth Edition.
In all seriousness, much improved from before. As I said earlier, let's just hope Twilight survives Ragnica long enough to find her way back home.
i would not be surprise if twilight end up meet up with discord some how who able to move between the planes with easy but just him self.
Ral Zarek! My favorite! :D Izzet is my spirit animal.
I really like the story so far! I've only ever seen one other good MTG/MLP crossover and it was never finished. :(
RAKDOS CIRCUS
Our Show is to DIE for!*
* If you stay alive you get your money back.
8373380
The Elements wouldn't work on Bolas. Even post Mending he handed the Gatewatch their asses. And they took down the Eldrazi.
8373944
They wouldn't work anyway because they're technically not around anymore.
Hmmm, nice story. I really like it. The only flaw I see is your Twilwalker card.
I think she doesn't have red, like at all. I se her more like mono-blue, or blue-white. Her abilities being like
Twily UUW3
+1 draw two cards
-1 exile target permanent, then return it to the battlefield under it's owner control
-5 prevent all the damage that would be done this turn by spells or permanents target player controls
6
8374413
Twilight has a tendency to live very closely to her own emotions, to the point where they sometimes interfere with her more rational thinking. Plus despite her meticulousness in most circumstances, she also has a tendency to try to solve problems in a very short-sighted manner, usually because she doesn't fully think through the consequences of her attempted solution (e.g. casting a spell on the parasprites to make them stop eating food, not apparently realizing that they'd still be hungry, and would start eating everything that wasn't food.)
Both of these traits are defining flaws of red's outlook, but Twilight also repeatedly demonstrates one of red's key strengths: namely, she has an incredibly deep sense of love, compassion, and empathy, to the point where the literal elemental essence of friendship was able to bond to her personally. Plus she's also a tad more creative than blue and white generally are on their own. This is shown by her method of long-distance teleportation in this chapter, which involves a very unusual, yet effective, technique.
8374540
Yeah I can see how she'd be Jeskai.
3 guesses to who it was...
1. nicol bolas
2. ob nixilus
3. i have no idea
i'm sorry but that is the oddest planeswalker spark ignition i heard
Dang it! she won't fit into any of my decks!
8374540
huh, I never considered that...
You somehow convinced me that twilight has red...
man, you are a genious.
(I still don't like the card, specially the part where you discard a card. I don't think twilght would sacrifice information, but simply obtain more)
I found it interesting when you said she's going have some red alignment, as I've always thought of her as about 2 parts Blue to 1 part white. Then I realized something: it's because she's purple, isn't it?
8374540
That's pretty well thought out. Can't wait to see more of this story; good characterization can be so rare in Crossovers.
The conversation with Celestia was pretty lame, in my opinion. That is to say, the two ponies are acting distressed for little to no apparent reason, Twilight is acting like she knows what a planeswalker is (sort of), and it all feels like it's just an excuse to get Twilight off of the plane.
The Celestia conversation aside, I am liking this fic well enough to keep reading, and look forward to Twilight's adventures on Ravnica.
As for the card: I like it. While I'd have likely made her four-colored and tacked on black, Jeskai is the best tri-color I could ask for. I like her ultimate, too. What would Twilight do with infinite mana? Everything, of course.
And the fact that it combos well with her first ability does not escape me, either.
She may be slightly undercosted (I'd peg her at 5cmc), but I'm no balance expert and it's likely close enough.
8379506
You're right in that I want to be able to have Twilight get to be off the plane, because that's what this particular fanfic is about, but given the setup I'm not sure how to respond to this criticism because I think this version of events is the one that's most consistent with each character's internal motivations.
Celestia cares about Twilight deeply, but I wanted to make a point that she's far from the perfect individual that Twilight seems to have believed her to be: she's not above witholding a critical truth from her student even if it's probably better for her to know. Her distress comes from her own guilt over having an ulterior motive that she wasn't up front with, and it's hard for me to imagine that Twilight wouldn't also feel pretty hurt by her mentor refusing to tell her the whole story about why she ascended.
In the previous version she was a lot more angry and upset by this, but I think that it'd be more consistent with her motives to be conflicted: she's more than capable of understanding why Celestia would take strong measures to keep her close, but that won't change the fact that Celestia told a pretty serious lie of omission regarding the most important event of her life.
Given exactly how deeply Twilight cares for Celestia (and vice-versa) I'd imagine the closest thing Twilight would have to a response to this would to be to try to simultaneously reassure Celestia and prove her wrong by demonstrating her fears to be unfounded. Unfortunately, Twilight also happened to decide to do this by trying out a newly-learned magical ability before she understood what the full consequences would be - a mistake she's made in canon on several occasions (a Bird in the Hoof, Bats!, a Lesson Zero, ect.)
Twilight didn't know what a planeswalker is, but she was more than aware of the existence of planar portals and alternate planes of reality due to her past experiences, so I don't really think it's a stretch to imagine that she'd be somewhat familiar with what the term means even if she'd only just heard of the concept.
Multicolored cards tend to have a lower converted mana cost in comparison to monocolored because it's more difficult to cast a spell with more colors. Wedge cards specifically have a tendency to be even more undercosted because their color combination is especially uncommon (even after Khans of Tarkir dedicated an entire set to them), making it even more difficult to find a proper mana base.
Either way, I'm glad you're enjoying the fic so far. I've more or less finished the basic outline, and it won't be very long, but I've already got a few ideas that I think are pretty interesting and I hope you'll stick around.
Great story so far, loved that she ended on Ravnica after jayce became tge guild pact, but I have to say twi planeswalker is unispired to me you goy U and W right but she is more G than R. (She would go better with selesnya than izzet)
8376818
My guess is Urza... Celestia called it a man. The elements could have been targeted as the original power source of the legacy weapon. Instead, the elements gave Urza the boot and he had to settle for the less powerful 'Mox Gems'.
8392104
yeah... i saw something like that...I have not read up on the lore of mtg predating like alara block (if that) so... i have no idea about urza and his endeavers other than ramos...
8392613
I didn't want to have it be explicitly spelled out, but yeah, it's Urza. The keywords in the chapter are "legacy" and "weapon," which should make it pretty obvious (the Legacy Weapon was the collection of artifacts that Urza assembled to defeat Yawgmoth.)
Urza was also a pretty massive dick, too. Murdering Star Swirl is definitely on the low end of the atrocities he'd committed.
8392683
To be fair, all of the 'Old Walkers' except Freylise were massive dicks.
Then again, she had a nasty habit of destroying her adversaries blue mana sources... Green be weak to counter magic... and land destruction being the least fun way to win... if highly effective.
Ral Zarek's section might need another look. I'm caught up on lore thanks to Aether Hub, but by not introducing the new prospective's person, it's a mighty stumbling block. I was aware of a scene change, but with how you do not indicate a different person in the first line, the sentence seems jarring, as if Twilight had been flying for days between cuts. And while well verserd MTG players understand who Niv-Mizzet is, newbies maybe won't, so maybe a drop on how Niv is Ral's Guildmaster might also help.
Also, a note on how and why PLB was a tracking program would be nice, but you nicely explained why Ral sabotaged the project through context clues.
8480589
I’ve changed “Niv-Mizzet” to “his guildmaster” so it should be a bit more obvious that it’s a different person. I’m not so sure about expositing on Project Lightning Bug though, since I don’t anticipate it will be too important to the story.
8480601
Nice, make's Niv seem a bit more ominous by only referring to him as The Firemind, and I can understand not wanting to extrapolate on Project Lightning Bug.
Still doesn't help the stumbling transition.
8480610
Would it help if I changed the first line to “his days as an Izzet guildmage?”
8480617
Potentially, the only problem I see is keeping Ral's identity reveal at the end a bit hampering. We're both transferring to a new point, while simultaneously keeping the POV hazy, while also delving into personal stuff of the POV.
How about:
For an Izzet guildmage, experimenting was near everything to them. But for one, that had practically been taken away from him. One day to the next, the days all soon began to blend together. Ever since Project Lightning Bug had been terminated, his guildmaster had made sure to assign him to the most tedious research imaginable. It was all endless drudgery, mostly replicating the results of other researchers, with no chance to innovate or realize his true potential.
8480647
Alright, I think I cleaned up the introduction to the paragraph a little. Thanks for the advice.
8480659
Nice work with linking twi with her spark it make complete sense from the shows point of view if a little tame by m.t.g. standards as I know them but it works well
Evil circus?
Definitely Rakdos.
Dude, that ult is busted. Like, turn 3 Liliana the Last Hope was a real threat to ult and win the game by herself. Twilight comes down a turn later but still ults at the same time. All you need is a Time Walk effect, and oops, game over.
Anywho, this story continues to look excellent!
Little did the author know, there was something brewing. Hasbro and Wizards would go on to make three silver bordered cards. I freaking love this story. (I actually own the mlp secret lair drop) Also that ultimate is so unfair! This is why wizards makes sure to balance most of their cards
9508102
Go online and look up “Tamiyo the moon sage” trust me it’s even worse. It’s not just spells, it’s permanents
11586867
Sure, the text on Tamiyo's ult might be stronger, but that's not the issue. What makes Twilight insane is that she gets to her ult so quickly. Tamiyo not only comes down a turn later, but she also takes forever to get there.
Lemme illustrate this clearly:
Liliana the Last Hope comes down on turn 3 and ults on turn 7
Twilight comes down on turn 4 and ults on turn 7
Tamiyo comes down on turn 5 and ults on turn 9
There's so much more time to react and deal with Tamiyo. Frequently, the ultimates on planeswalkers don't matter, but Liliana ult was an actual competitive gameplan because she came down early and got there relatively quickly. Twilight looks to be similar.