Two Wrongs
Twilight brought her blade down on Gilda's back, slicing into her armor with explosive force. The hawk-like screech in response existed only for a split second before Twilight spun around and kicked with all her might, sending the gryphon careening into a set of stairs. The voice was replaced by breaking bone as Twilight exited another projection teleportation, this time slamming her forehooves into the chestplate and burying the tip of her sword into Gilda's arm.
Twilight's hoof punched into the gryphoness' jaw, forcing the beak closed as she leaned in and met the tear-filled avian eyes. Smoke from burning feathers and cauterized flesh went ignored by her nose, and panic and pain went unmet by mercy.
"What are you--Aaargh!"
Twilight twisted and tilted her blade, then summoned a second one to hold under the gryphoness' beak. Though she was nearly snarling, her voice was clear as crystal, her lips moved with utmost certainty, and neither doubt nor hesitation existed in her voice. "Gilda, if you so much as dream about hurting any of my ponies ever again, I will carve up your tendons and toss you into a hell so dark and incomprehensible, you'll jump into the jaws of the nearest monster you see and burn there for an eternity just so you don't have to look at it anymore. Understood?"
Gilda made some kind of gurgling sound followed by a nod.
"Good. Now get the buck out of this city or the next time Morvana sees you it'll be as thaumic residue in a pine box!"
Slowly, the gryphon's eyes rolled back, and she slumped over.
Twilight used her Sight and peered at Gilda's chest. A yellow wellspring pumped magic slowly but steadily. "Figures." She got up off her and turned to Rainbow. Her friend was hunched over -- no, cowering from her, and shaking like a leaf. "Dash, you okay?"
Rainbow shook her head very, very slowly.
"What's wrong?" Twilight raised her eyebrow. Rainbow was looking like she was roughed up a little, and rather damp, but otherwise no worse for wear. A Wonderbolt wouldn't normally let a few minor cuts and ruffled feathers slow her down. "Did she hurt you? Do you need a medic?"
Nothing. She simply put her hooves over her head and cringed.
Twilight blinked. "What's wrong?" She approached her friend, lightly and cautiously, and rubbed Rainbow's back with a hoof. "Hey, come on, it's me, remember?"
An eye creeped open."T-Twilight?"
"Yeah. It's me. Are you okay? I need to find Trixie. Can you fly?"
Rainbow all but melted into the floor, like some kind of drug-induced terror had vanished in an instant. "I... I think so. Gilda..." Rainbow sat up and rattled her head. "Sorry. Sorry, I just... Wow, Twilight. You were freaking scary! I mean, Sweet Celestia, your eyes!"
Twilight took a step back and gasped. "My eyes? You were scared of my eyes?"
"Yeah! They were, like, black. I mean, black black. Black fire black!"
She winced. “I… I.. I didn’t know. I didn't mean to do that. I didn’t know I could do that…”
The instinct.
“Twilight, is Gilda... dead? Did you actually kill a gryphon princess?"
She struggled to look in Rainbow’s pained eyes. The lump in her throat made it difficult to respond.
“N..n-no. She’s just unconscious.” Twilight shook her head. “I’m sorry Rainbow. I was trying to protect you, and Trixie and… and…everyone … was getting in my way… and… I just blew up!” Twilight hiccuped for air and her chin was quivering.
“I have to go.” She sniffed back a sob. “I understand if you want to stay and get Gilda medical attention.”
Rainbow looked back at her former friend then limped up to standing. “No, I’m with you. Let’s go find Trixie. My wings are good.”
Twilight took a couple deep breaths, steeling herself, and Rainbow returned the back pat. “You were pretty bad-flank back there.”
A smile and a blush creep on Twilight’s face as her horn starts to glow.
Bang!
Twilight re-emerged into physical space flying over the stands at probably thirty meters per second. A second burst moments later solidified the notion in her mind. Wings? Who needs wings? After the third, a suspicious cloud to her right caught her attention. Even without her magic sight, it looked wrong, even putrid. A shift into her higher vision gave her a glimpse of magical fire and corrosion.
"Trixie. Gotta find Trixie." Twilight sparked through a vanilla teleport and appeared over the edge of the stadium. Most of the gryphons were still dots on the horizon, but somewhere beneath her, two of them huddled over a lone pony.
"Trixie!" Twilight burrowed through reality like a mole, leaving little rocks of it scattered about to dissolve into thaumic waste. She popped out next to the figures of Prince Ragnar and Chief Enok, both of whom were over Trixie's body.
"No..." Twilight choked back her tears at the sight of her. Each of her leylines was visible on the surface of her flesh, her armor having been taken off and piled next to her. The traces of magic pumping slowly across her were a mix of violet and green, and shifting back to her Sight revealed additional colours of white, black, and silver.
Most important, though, was the wellspring itself. It was sputtering like an engine about to die, flickering to life one moment and fading the next.
"Her physical wounds aren't that severe, but..." Ragnar put a hand on Trixie's forehead, wiping away some sweat. "I have no idea what those ponies did to her. I've never, ever seen anything like this. Never in a thousand battles."
"Who?" Rainbow asked, growling. "Who was it?"
"Ponies in suits," Enok answered with a glare. "They used illusions the likes of which I can scarcely believe were real. This brave young mare defeated one of them, but another appeared from nowhere and used some kind of device I've never seen before on her. The other mare pointed some kind of device at her for a while and left after dropping a green fire bomb on the stallion that Trixie fell.
"When we left, we carried her out of the fumes with us. The fire was eating through the floor."
"You're kidding..."Twilight's eyes lit up. "Through the stone? And there were fumes and green flames?"
"Why?" Rainbow asked. "What's that mean?"
"I think... I think they used faerie fire. It’s an alchemical substance based on Chlorine Trifluoride. The base substance all by itself is the most effective fluorinating agent in existence, a more effective oxidizer than oxygen, and can burn through almost anything via a fluorine fire. Once transmuted by magic, it becomes faerie fire, which is even worse; it could destroy anything with it’s flames. Though, it gives off fewer fumes.
“Still, we’re talking about the potential for acidic hydrogen fluoride gas. I'd get your lungs checked out after this is over. That stuff is extremely toxic."
Ragnar stood up and leaned on his sword. "Lady Sparkle, I think it's time we had a frank and thorough discussion."
"I agree. But first," Twilight rubbed a hoof on Trixie's chest, feeling her shallow breathing. "Trixie needs immediate medical attention. Her wellspring has been attacked. There's only one pony in the world I know that can help."
Twilight fired off a series of purple flares high into the sky, each exploding into a blossom of fireworks. It wasn't long before a pair of chariots found their way to them, one pulled by nine Day Guard stallions, the other by two of the Night Guard.
"Twilight!" Spike yelled from the darker of the pair, his form among three ponies clad in the armour of the Night. "I brought reinforcements!"
The three Night Guard ponies and Spike jumped off the chariot as it landed. One Twilight recognized right away: the pegasus Cardinal Bloodmoon. The other two were unknown to her.
He probably ran for help as soon as he saw I was fighting. "Excellent work, Spike." She turned to the larger group of soldiers. "Day Guard!"
Each and every one of the Day stallions stood at attention in nearly supernatural synchronization.
"We have a medical emergency. Trixie has been severely injure--"
Two of the stallions leapt out of their harness before Twilight could even finish her sentence, one going for a rather large first aid kit and the other moving to Trixie's side.
"What is..." The stallion next to Trixie asked.
"Her wellspring has been attacked. She should be stable to move. I need you to get her to Princess Celestia right away. She's Trixie's only hope." Twilight signalled another of the ponies to lift her into the chariot. Twenty seconds later, seven of the Day Guard were spreading their wings, and the other two were watching over the mare in their care.
"Move, stallions! By the order of the Sun, we fly!"
Just like that, they were off.
Prince Ragnar stepped forward. "Now that that's been taken care of, we have things to discuss, Lady Sparkle."
"Watch your tone, Ragnar!" Bloodmoon snapped his bat wings out, jangling the chains coming out of his shoulders.
"Easy, Bloodmoon." Twilight held up her hoof towards him. "We need a DE-escalation here, not an escalation." She turned to the Prince and bowed deep. "I apologize for my deception, Prince. It was not meant in hostility to the Empire."
Ragnar raised his eyebrow. "I'm listening."
Rainbow winced as she turned to the Night Guard. "Listen up, ponies! This is highly classified information! Breathe one word of this to anypony and you'll hear from Luna herself!"
The ponies other than Bloodmoon bowed their heads and turned their backs.
Twilight cleared her throat. "Right. Well, to start, up above me in the stands is Princess Gilda. She attacked Rainbow and she was forced to defend herself. Gilda is injured and needs medical attention."
"You must be joking!" Enok stepped between the two. "Highness, are you actually going to listen to --"
Ragnar held up his hand to silence him. "Gilda is a hard headed idiot that has been looking for an excuse to hurt Rainbow for years. I believe her, at least that far. See to her care, Chief."
Enok clenched his beak but sighed in defeat. "Yes, your Highness." With a flap, he was off, only to be replaced by an incoming Princess Freya.
"I think I've managed to evacuate most of the city, but there's a huge red fog consuming the valley! Do we know what's going on?" Freya asked.
Ragnar tightened the grip on his sword. "Not yet. But I think Lady Sparkle does."
Twilight sighed. "I scarcely believe it myself, but here goes." She sucked in a deep breath, filling her lungs down to their very bottom.
"Our objective when we came here was to investigate a lead on the presence of a group of ponies subversive to the crown who were known to use powerful mental projections as illusions, and remove them, preferably without casualties or anyone finding out." Twilight lowered her ears against her head. "Obviously that was a catastrophic failure."
"To say the least." Ragnar stroked his beard. "But, I believe you about the illusions. I saw them myself. Go on."
Twilight continued, "Trixie went undercover to root them out, and when she came under attack I realized that there was a massive crystal inside Gryphonhelm Tower, which the illusionists were using to aid in the creation of their projections. My plan was to enter the tower and disable the crystal to give Trixie an advantage until she could be extracted."
Ragnar nodded. "I'm following you so far. I'm guessing that when you arrived in the valley, that idiot Aldrik took it as a challenge."
"Yes. Unfortunately, he didn't listen to me when I told him I didn't want to fight, so I had no choice. I blew up the tower."
To say that the two gryphons were stunned was an understatement, but Twilight plunged forward, if nothing else to avoid a war.
"The entire structure turned out to be a single massive protection crystal disguised by metal plating. It was probably capable of allowing the Illusionists to create whatever reality that they wanted anywhere in the city. When I destroyed it, there was an enormous amount of thaumic contamination, or miasma, released. These crystals seem to generate it when they operate. The cloud you saw is the result.
"In addition, it turned out that Aldrik was nothing more than another of this group's illusions."
The two royal beaks could have plummeted to the valley floor. "You must be joking! I've known Aldrik since we were fledglings!"
"His armor is at the bottom of the valley, if you're brave enough to go down there. That was the only part of him that was real. I don't think you'll ever see him again."
Ragnar leaned on Freya for support and covered his beak. "Sweet Maker Above..."
Twilight continued, "Afterwards, I teleported out of the cloud and saw Gilda about to execute my Guard Captain, so I... intervened. She passed out."
Silence overtook the gryphons. After an entire minute, Twilight bowed her head. "I'm very sorry about this incident. I meant no harm to the Empire or its citizens. If it will avert a war, I'm willing to send immediate aid in the form of ponies trained in handling hazardous thaumic waste to clean up the miasma. Since the source was destroyed, if we act fast we can avoid permanent ecological damage."
"Avert a..." Ragnar covered his eyes and ran his palm down his face.
Twilight swallowed a lump in her throat. It's a damn good thing I have diplomatic immunity. I hope.
Freya looked like someone had just taken something dear from her. "Twilight, Gryphonhelm Tower was five hundred years old."
"Six," Ragnar interrupted.
"And something like that can't be just snuck into the structure, no matter how good their illusions are. That must have been there for the entire history of the city!"
Twilight's eyes widened, as did Rainbow's.
"Which means," Ragnar said, slumping to the ground like he was being crushed by the revelations.
Twilight's eyes opened wide when she saw the weight on his shoulders. "Every single fight that has ever been done here, every score settled, every contract disputed, every family squabble, everything has been completely invalidated. We don't know which fights were fair and which were manipulated by the Illusionists. It's going to take you years to sort it all out!”
Ragnar nodded. "At this point, the internal disputes will be... It's not about whether we want a war or not, Lady Sparkle. At this point, there's no way we could wage any kind of war against anyone. It's going to take an unbelievable effort just to keep the Empire together!"
"Holy crap, Twilight!" Spike said, leaning back on the chariot for support. "You didn't just start a war with Gryphonia!"
"Yeah!" Rainbow grinned. "You conquered them, the entire nation, single hoofed!"
"That's one way of putting it..." Ragnar grumbled.
"Not. Helping." Twilight said under her breath. "I swear, my objective was to investigate and remove the Illusions, not plunge Gryphonia into civil strife." She took in a deep breath. "Not to mention getting myself declared pony non grata."
"We'll..." Freya looked off to the stadium, "get back to you on that. Probably. Maybe."
"One thing, and only one thing, is certain right now." The Prince stood and sheathed his blade. "You have exposed a great dishonour to our city, and cut the cancer out. Perhaps if you had done so maliciously, it would have meant eventual war. Since you did so in the name of honour, even if the results were cataclysmic, I will personally vouch in your favour. Whether or not that will mean anything, I do not know."
An image of Trixie flashed briefly in Twilight's mind, bringing a shiver of worry to her chest. "We... We have prototype spells to detect and eliminate the illusions. I'll ask Princess Celestia if we could maybe train some unicorns in them and have them work with you to make sure they don't come back."
Freya gave her a bow. "I don't know if Morvana will allow it, but we would appreciate the effort."
Twilight looked to her senechal. "Spike, prepare some letters."
"Speaking of," Bloodmoon said, stepping in. "Lady Sparkle, I'm to deliver this letter to you personally. It is of the utmost importance." He reached into his bag and pulled out a scroll sealed with the personal sigil of Celestia herself.
Twilight took it in her telekinesis and broke the seal, then scanned it contents but stopped after the first paragraph. "I'm being recalled?!"
"Wow," Spike whistled. "That was fast... Wait, I just said you were in trouble. She couldn't have wrote that after my letter!"
"Uh-oh..." Twilight swallowed, reading the rest of the letter. "It's not that, Spike. It's, well, internal to Equestria."
"Bad enough to recall you? Well, now you have my attention once more." Ragnar leaned forward, possibly to read the letter from the traces of ink that bled through to the backside. "Just what happened?"
"Promise to keep it to yourselves?" Twilight peeked over the top of the paper to look at the gryphons, who were giving her dirty looks. "At least for half a day or so? There's no way on Equus this is going to stay under wraps for longer than that anyway, if it hasn’t gotten out already. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if a few newspapers just ordered extra ink."
Freya shrugged. "If it's internal to Equestria, I don't see why not."
Twilight rolled up the scroll and stuffed it in her bag. "Rainbow, Spike. Board the chariot. We have an investigation to conduct." She turned to follow them. "Duchess Artfeather of Cloudsdale has been assassinated."
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:D
wow, the fan for this has to be the largest fan to fit all the crap hitting.
Oh happy days! This story has updated!
Just to let you know the invite for the Discord has expired. You can change the setting on inviting people to make it "never expire" in the advance settings.
The excrement hit the rotary oscillating device and flung the pieces everywhere and exploded.
So many things happened.
So many civil wars.
7329717 I already set it to never expire... Odd...
Yeah, should still be valid. https://discord.gg/AbjNAhs Try a copy/paste?
7329738 Weird because I tried it again and its still saying:
"The instant invite is invalid or has expired."
WOAH.
JUST.
WOAH.
OOHH BOY what a massively engaging and thrilling couple of chapters to end with the reveal of invalidation of an entire empire!
Whew! I need a breather! Hope Trixie gets better and Twilight understands the seriousness of the darkness that came over her.
Holy crap.
7329743 Seems to work for me. But, to be safe, I re-generated the link. Here's the new one.
https://discord.gg/wpsMjyD
7329760 Got it thanks.
Gilda by attacking Rainbow you pushed Twilight's rage button, you shouldn't have done that.
Ho-oly shit. That went surprisingly well for Twilight, but the Griffons just got hammered hard. I expect to see them later in the story, but perhaps not so much in the near future... things were considerably worse than I had thought.
Can't say I didn't see the cliffhanger coming, though. :x
You leave me in an odd predicament. Part of me wants you to take gilda with you,as she is my favorite character. The other side wants me to leave her to her own devices and then hope to see her apology scene with rainbow dash.
......please be the second option!
Great chapter once more, it's been so long thought that I may sound rude when I ask this, but I have forgotten the value of this particular pony.
....who is duchess archfeather?
Soooo, how spicy would that miasma be if you could eat it? Also, does the spiciness get worse the longer the crystal has been in use? ...Geez this is an off topic question...
Dunn... Dunnn... DUNNN!!! It sounds like Twily entering Ascension had forced any number of hidden groups to hurriedly move up their timetables. If she survives, then they can clean up Equestria that much faster.
Does this mean that Princess Twilight might well gain Gryphonia (or some small part thereof) as her personal fief?
7329694
Yeah, sorry. He was waiting on me to edit the chapter. I got a new job, moved, and was trying to finish a class and Microsoft Server certification.
Well, that... could have gone worse?
Ooh, somepony's tying up loose ends....
destroy anything with it’s flames
its*
Things turned out to be a lot more complicated than they seemed. The asassination of Artfeather is undoubtedly linked to the smuggling operation of Cloudsdale Armories. Someone wanted to keep her quiet.
There are going to be some interesting political ramifications from this (global and otherwise), with the Gryphons seemingly on the verge of a civil war and internal strife for years to come.
Internationally, it means Equestria can freely keep intervening in the Zebra-Saddle Arabian war, because the gryphons won't be in a position to pressure or threaten them to do otherwise.
Domestically, this might actually improve the situation with Equestria's outer cities and towns, especially those close to the Gryphon borders. If memory serves me right, many of them were "going dark" and considering "switching sides" so to speak, especially with the Gryphon kingdom looking like a brighter prospect to be allied with compared to Equestria's own government. If, however, the Gryphon kingdom implodes in internal strife or even civil war, essentially ceasing its function as a functional state, that may very well drive these cities back towards Equestria proper. That may very well push back Equestria's own impending collapse.
Behind the scenes, this should actually derail some of Charlemagne's plots, which might or might not be worth something - if I recall, it was he who arranged the whole distraction with the Gryphon kingdom, in order to keep Twilight occupied with external affairs instead of giving her time to conduct local investigations into the council business.
But with the Gryphon situation resolved (in a manner of speaking) and with the assassination of the duchess, Twilight is not only going to return to Equestria but will be explicitly conducting investigation pretty close to the council's proverbial home. I imagine this might make some of the nobles pretty nervous ... with luck, nervous enough for someone to slip up and do something foolish.
7330225 Not that she necessarily wants a personal fief, but that she might well have no other choice than to accept such in order to keep Gryphonia from flying apart and destabilizing a portion of Equestria's borders. If the griffins are ruled through power, and the Grand Mage Twilight has taken out the leader of whoever was effectively ruling the country from the shadows, then she might well have to take control in order to keep things together.
seems like in this reality when Grover lost his position somegryphon found a alternative way to keep the empire from falling apart, and Twilight just blew it up and essentially erased the thing that kept the Empire from becoming like Griffonstone. The number of wars between nobles is going to be insane, it's going to be decades before all the internal conflict gets settled.
7329809
Is that a reference to TFS Dragonball Z abriged? The Goku button?
-Ambassador of the Changelings,
Dopple Ganger
Trixie noooo! Live, dammit"
Oops?
Usually when shit hits the fan, you expect a bit of downtime and cleaning before slinging more. Twi just can't catch a break.
Duchess Artfeather of Cloudsdale has been assassinated.
wow just wow.
Holy crap Twilight is scary when she's mad! And I would REALLY hate to be in the Royal Gryphon Family's position right now. They are going to be having one hell of a time trying to do damage control. I not only wish them the best of luck, but I also hope to see Prince Ragnar and Princess Freya sometime again in the story.
We also knew that Duchess Artfeather of Cloudsdale was going to be getting her comeuppance soon. With the council knowing that she was smuggling Cloudsdale Armory weapons to the Zebras, it was only a matter of time before she got offed. Gotta remove the weaker link after all.
Another excellent chapter CV, and I look forward to the next chapter!
~ Super-Brony12
7329990
That would be interesting. That might just be the path Griffonia would take. To settle the issue of who's should justly be in control, they might just say its Twilight as she's the one that brought down the illusions. However I don't think this would happen.
1)Twilight is an outsider.
2)Having Twilight as King would make them subject to a foreign power.
Not sure if it would believable that Gryphonia would be desperate enough to go the above route.
Yeah; Artfeather was a massive security risk and embarrassment to Charlamane's party. She was dead meat; it was just a matter of when the Council decided to close her file for good.
Actually, I think that the Griffins will come to regard this as their Independence Day from evil. Something was manipulating them since half-way back to Luna's exile; whoever it is can no longer do so from the shadows.
I'm still betting that this is one of Celestia's nastier cousins, who's been exiled to the far end of eternity since Discord's reign.
The Aldrik that Twilight fought, yes... but it's possible that the real Aldrik is, even now, having a quiet drink in a bar on the other side of the city, or trapped in a dungeon somewhere, or something of that nature... if there even was a real Aldrik...
YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
holy shit
Got a tense change here, b0ss
*its
The nope oxidizer. Sets absestos on fire. Was once considered as a potential rocket fuel, but it was too unstable and difficult to store safely. Seriously, google it, it's easier to list the things it doesn't react with.
7331416 Given how long the illusions have been running, it is more likely that Aldrik never existed in the first place.
7333377
That's a possibility, yes. Even a strong possibility. But not by any means a certainty.
I realize that it would make for a slightly less snappy finish, but I really think it makes more sense for Twilight's last two sentences to be reversed in order. It just seems less polite for her to start walking away before she tells him the answer, especially when she's specifically trying to make nice.
This is a really minor nitpick, but it just bothered me a little when I imagined the scene playing out. And "we have an investigation to conduct" isn't that bad of an exit line IMO.
For the story, a nice conclusion to their visit and it seems like this is the deep dark secret the king was hiding. I wonder if we'll find out how deep the rot really goes?
7336578 Of course.
This story is starting to get real! I can't wait for each and every chapter. You're an amazing writer CvBrony
7329723
I don't think there's a fan big enough for this and I don't think even the vaguely expensively and better than marginal quality air spinning mechanism exists any longer. At least not in this dimension.
7331141
Serious political discussion aside, there is no reason to replace the system of government with a different one. It's really the ponies that make it up that matter here.
7333377
Perhaps, but it'd have to be really convincing to have a whole bunch of gryphons convinced. It's far more likely that the fledgeling Aldrik existed, but, beyond that, what's real and what isn't are probably pretty entangled.
Someone has been playing a seriously long game here...
7341655
The illusions have been going on unabated for centuries, and considering how thorough the illusionists have been shown to be, it wouldn't be out of the question for the illusionists to have set up entire illusionary Gryphon families they could use as insiders in the country.
7342711
I suppose that's possible, but consider the magical energy requirements. That seems like it'd be pretty hard to cover up. Maintaining two or generations of illusionary constructs at a time and keeping them from seeming fake or getting destroyed is just not likely. It seems simpler and more productive to me to replace real ponies or gryphons at critical junctures where no one would be able to tell the difference and before they could develop much personality etc that would all you to distinguish them from an illusionary fake. Although I'm not sure how far the influence/range of that crystal actually extends.
In any case, I wouldn't rule out there being a lot more than illusion magic in play. The illusions are just very low profile because they've been established for centuries.
7342770
On the contrary; if the match fixing is as widespread as Ragnar believes it to be (and there'd be no reason to have such a huge structure disguise their crystal if they aren't planning on doing something both huge in scale and semi-permanent with it), then they would need their illusionary agents in the field every single day, and replacing gryphons or ponies every single day (or keeping the replaced imprisoned for long periods of time) would be a lot more liable for discovery than merely introducing your own fighters as legitimate citizens. The more swaps necessary, the higher chance there is of someone finding out, and having to base an illusion off someone people were already familiar with adds another bevy of opportunities for discovery. For example, if they were merely replacing Aldrik, then they'd have to be have the illusion know everything about his past, while if he was an illusion all along, they'd already know since they were controlling him the whole time.
Plus, merely swapping illusions in and our would require very powerful memory magic, both to erase the memories of the swap and the imprisonment, and to add the memories of what the illusions did after they were swapped back in, all while having said memories feel consistent with what they feel that they'd do, even if the illusionists were using him to rig a match in a way the victim wouldn't do themself. It's is possible that the illusionists have memory magic of this caliber, but then that begs the question of why they didn't use any of it on Trixie when they had her captive, instead of just the physical abuse they inflicted upon her.
Twilight says the crystal could affect the entire city, so as long as they had advance warning for whenever their illusions had to leave the capital (so they could temporarily set up a more portable source, or create an excuse for them to stay in the city), there wouldn't be any problems keeping them within range.
7346676 Yup, light blue works very well.
I'm so glad someone values my opinion.
Cheers.
The green fire is based on Chlorine fucking Trifluoride?!
Well... It'll be effective, for sure.
7343096
I never said anything about swapping. I meant that if you were to stay, steal and kidnap a gryphon child at a very early age you could dispose of the real one without most being the wiser.
As a bit of a tangent, they could use cored weapons with real personalities to do some of this or simply place magical control compulsions, onponies/gryphons too young to notice, that are normally passive
Your other point about portable illusion foci screams active long term plans
Damnit, they got ahead of her there, and I ran out of story.
7329932 She is a member of the inner council and high noble of Cloudsdale, se also runs part of the operation that was smuggling guns into zebra hooves.
7392327 ah, okay ^^ thank you. I await another chapter good sir!
7392455 As do I. Also looking forward to the next chapter of your story as well.