The Stronger Tiara

by computerneek

Chapter 12 (Edited)

Diamond wakes up, very suddenly, and lifts her head off the hard metal in a heartbeat, eyes wide. She’d come back down here earlier, and spent a few hours trying to find some of those ‘nanites’ Lyra mentioned. Perhaps- perhaps, since her tiara is still powered by the sun, she could use it to feed her… ‘Bolo’ enough for it to remember how it works for her. To do that, though, she needs nanites- and to pray she’s right about how to link the power over.

She’d been unable to find any, and eventually cried herself to sleep, here in the very room the tiara theft had happened in.

And now, it’s awake. She doesn’t know how; it doesn’t either. It feels very weak, somehow- but for all that weakness, it’s refusing to show any. She can feel the nanites scattered throughout the entire monstrous thing working to find out… what caused it to lose power, she thinks. It’s thinking so hard about that that it hurts her brain to try and follow it.

Then, something Lyra had said crosses her mind.

“If you happen to know how they’re powered, and where some of them are in your hull out there, you might be able to restore it to function. In theory. In practice, I bet you don’t remember how it works, and thence won’t be able to after all.”

She sucks in a gasp of air. She doesn’t know how the nanites are powered- no, correction, she does know, they’re powered directly by the Bolo. Which has power right now. And she knows where some of them are- where all of them are, even though only a small number are active right now for… she doesn’t understand the reason, but she rather suspects it’s related to power. And, she may not remember how it works, but it sure does!

How do I restore power, then?

While a tiny portion of its very hard thinking starts throwing a series of possible answers at her, none of which she understands, another thing Lyra had said crosses her mind. One she hadn’t remembered until now.

“Those things are solar powered.”

Solar! The Sun! Get that!

She senses its thought patterns shift in response to her thoughts.

And then, just moments before it dies once again, it discovers something she understands.

It can’t absorb sunlight, because that’s broken. Fortunately, though, it’s plenty capable of fixing that- and she can help it go faster by clearing dirt off the metal around the sinkhole; a tiny bit of that was able to be restored, even in the brief moment she had.

She jumps to her hooves and starts galloping. She doesn’t know where that temporary burst of power came from; it never found out and, to be honest, neither it- nor she- were too worried about finding out.

Then she rounds the corner at the bottom and crashes straight into Scootaloo.

She lets out a small yelp, leaping backwards, off of the pegasus, and blinking at the same time, glancing around. Scootaloo is rarely alone- just like this time, she isn’t alone. No; Sweetie Belle, Applebloom, and Princess Twilight are all here as well. “Sorry!” she squeaks, towards Scootaloo.

“Diamond-?” Sweetie asks. “Are you okay?”

Applebloom stares wide-eyed between Sweetie and Diamond.

Twilight sighs. “Sorry, Diamond. I just caught these three nosing around down here.”

“Hey!” Scootaloo half-yells, back at Twilight.

Diamond raises an eyebrow at Sweetie.

Sweetie shrugs. “They wanted to explore the sinkholes,” she states, gesturing towards the other two Crusaders. “It was all I could do to point them at the safe one.”

“Ahh…” Diamond mutters, before glancing at the other two Crusaders as well. “It’s just a maze of passages that you will get lost in, right now. And all the other sinkholes, that we’ve found so far at least, are deadly drops to different mazes of passages you will also get lost in.”

“Aww,” Scootaloo groans.

“Anyways, you’d better head out,” Diamond informs them. “I rather expect Twilight doesn’t want to have to send search teams after the search teams she sent after you.”

Twilight raises an eyebrow at her, but otherwise doesn’t speak up.

It takes only a couple minutes to get the Crusaders safely outside her Bolo. Diamond stops at the entrance to watch then run back towards Ponyville- and only partly because Twilight stopped her with a wing.

“Diamond,” Twilight finally states.

She looks up at Twilight. “Yes?”

“It’s finished.”

She nods. “Okay.”

Twilight goes on. “It still has your magic signature, though- so it must be beneficial. Everything still…?”

Diamond shakes her head. “When it finished… It hurt. And it’s even more damaged.”

Twilight blinks. “What-? But that shouldn’t be possible! There were only two possible outcomes, and both should have been silent! If good, it’d just… finish. If bad, then it would break down, lose its magic signature, and possibly even get turned to stone. But it would do so silently, and painlessly!”

Diamond shakes her head. “It hurt, a lot. But it’s not lost.”

Twilight blinks. “What?”

She nods. “Yes. Right before I ran into you… it had a little power. Just enough to work, but not enough to… um, I think it was referring to the mindmeld thing.”

Twilight puts a hoof to her chin. “Hmm… that might’ve been when Sweetie had her horn lit. Which she did so far down because the glow crystal I gave them last week for a school science experiment ran out.”

She blinks. “... Huh.”

“Anyways, did you learn any more about it? Did it… heal?”

She shakes her head. “No… it was too busy trying to figure out what happened. And the power didn’t last long enough for it to heal.” She looks up at Twilight again. “But it did have enough power to find out that a bit of the … er, the metal around the sinkhole still works.”

Twilight looks at her. “The what?”

She shrugs. “I have no idea what the word it used means… but whatever it is, if the sun shines on it, it can produce power.”

Twilight blinks. “Meaning, if we widen the sinkhole, it can come back?”

She nods. “Yes.”

Twilight promptly turns back towards it, lights her horn, and peels back some dirt and rock, before stopping. “... Huh. It’s a bit of a peak here… I don’t know how much I can expose.”

“That should be enough, thank you,” Diamond answers. It’s still not answering her, but she sees the spot she knows was the restored bit, nicely exposed.

“It’s back?” Twilight asks. “It’s working again? You’ve got control of the doors and whatnots?”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s not making enough power for that… I think. But it should be making some power at least, and using that to fix itself.”

“What-!?” Twilight begins. “Then-!”

She shakes her head. “Now we just give it time. Until it fixes itself a little and wakes back up again, there’s nothing more I know of that will help.”

She sighs. “Alright then. Let me know when it wakes up, okay?”

She nods. “Will do.”

Then Twilight looks up. “And you said Sweetie has one too?”

“Uh, yeah,” she mumbles. “But please don’t feed it with the Element of Magic. That makes it readily detectable to dark magic.”

Twilight looks at her. “What-? How do you know that?”

She looks up. “Because I fought a dark magic user for a few hours last night before mine finished, right here at the hole. We only barely won- and without it awake, I don’t remember the fight at all.”

Twilight blinks. “Oh, so that must be why Lyra and Bonbon seemed so tired this morning. Okay, so I won’t feed it with the Element of Magic… but I can still make sure it hasn’t absorbed any dark magic, right?”

“Right. It’s over here… be careful, though. I don’t remember if there were any more sinkholes waiting to happen.”

Twilight looks back at it, then at her. “It can see through solid rock?”

“Ahh… it’s supposed to be able to, I guess. But it’s all broken. I think Sweetie’s actually could, because I know I looked through solid rock at one point. I don’t remember what I saw, though.”

Fortunately, no additional sinkholes appear on their way over to Sweetie’s hole- and Twilight’s dark magic check comes up negative.

Twilight scowls. “Huh. This one seems to be just about to start its period of vulnerability.” She glances up. “You know if Sweetie has been…?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Mine uses a strange code to describe whatever it does for the mindmeld… and while I know Sweetie is capable of it and has been linked to hers the same way I am to mine… hers can’t do it right now. I’ve only talked to hers, though… and I don’t understand the words it used.”

“You… talked to it.”

She nods. “Turns out these things can talk to each other without using words. And of course, they understand each other perfectly.” She scowls at the hole. “Which, of course, means I understand it perfectly… in their context.”

“Rrrright,” Twilight mumbles. “So, Sweetie hasn’t had any difference in what defines ‘her’?”

Diamond blinks. “Uh… Not that I’m aware of, no. She’s been rather upset by that, actually.”

Twilight blinks as well. “What-? Why?” She glances down. “Wouldn’t it be a bother?”

Diamond shrugs. “If it didn’t come with its own mind, sure,” she answers. “Thing is, it does, and that mind knows all about it. So from the moment I first, ah, connected to it, I could make it do what I wanted as if I had been doing it for years. Because, in the end, I have- at least, the part of the combined entity that was me that actually does them has been.” She scowls. “That… didn’t come out quite right.”

“I… I think I understand,” Twilight nods. “But then, what makes it so attractive? It’s just a bunch of doors underground, right?”

She winces. “The body, currently, yes. That mind, though, despite working in a language I don’t understand, does understand images- and math. Oh, does it understand math.” She grins. “When I first merged with it, I went to school… took one glance at my math homework, and instantly knew not only what the answers were but exactly what I got wrong.”

“Then…”

She nods. “Even though it was actually doing the math in its own language and translating it back for me.”

Twilight blinks. “And… that doesn’t work with words?”

She shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t… I think it’s related to how concepts are easy to translate, but words aren’t even close.”

“Ahh… How well does it remember those concepts?”

She smiles softly. “It’ll remember anything I tell it, whether it understands it or not,” she states. “And it remembers it with perfect recall.” She looks down at it. “I… don’t remember what limits it might have had.”

Twilight stares at her for six seconds.

“You know, you’re making me wish I had one.”

“Well…” she begins. “There’s… a possibility. Remember when I said I looked through solid rock?”

Twilight nods. “Yeah?”

“I don’t remember what I saw, but I remember… um, a description of what I saw, I suppose. It was… um, alarming?” She scowls. “Nah… that doesn’t fit.”

Twilight nods encouragingly. “Yes?”

She grins. “You know how nopony could get any trees to grow in this field for centuries?”

Twilight blinks. “Yeah…? There’s a reason they’re called the Treeless Plains.” She touches a hoof to her chin. “Pretty sure they’re still officially owned by Sweet Apple Acres.”

“That’s because there’s more of them here, scattered about. A total of twenty-seven of them.” She looks across the plains. “A lot of them are a bit further down than mine and Sweetie’s, but they’re there.”

Twilight nods slowly. “Ahh… And what you said down there, about sending search teams after the search teams?”

She nods. “Yeah?”

“Did you really mean that?”

She nods. “It was a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s big enough it wouldn’t be hard for even a search team to get lost in there.” She sighs. “And even when it’s working, I can only ‘see’ a very small amount of the inside. A lot of my inside senses are broken.” She blinks. “That sounded so wrong…”

Twilight blinks. “Oh. Um…” She glances about the field. “Of those, ah, twenty five more… can you talk to any of them?”

She shakes her head. “I remember trying, but not one talked back. I can only assume they’re not working.” She shrugs. “Getting them to work might be as simple as letting them see the sun, but it might also not be.”

---

“Twilight,” Applejack states calmly.

“What?” Twilight gasps, struggling against her exhaustion to stand up straight.

Diamond, completely unexhausted, smiles knowingly as she watches from the side.

“Might I ask why,” Applejack continues, before gesturing past Twilight. “Why you’ve turned the Treeless Plains into the Cratered Plains?”

“Uh,” Twilight mumbles. “For science!”

Applejack looks at Diamond, and raises an eyebrow.

“She’s looking for something,” Diamond answers simply.

Twilight takes a deep breath. “For science!” she bellows once again, horn glowing brightly, and takes aim.

Once again, Diamond flinches when her Bolo makes contact with her once again, suddenly having enough power to do so. Once again, she instantly knows that Twilight’s shooting in the wrong direction.

Author's Note:

Edited 11/16/19. It was a bit too happy-go-lucky for the direction I wanted the story to go. The changes are in the details, but they're very important details.

Comments

[Canary In The Coal Mine]

I really enjoyed this update. Twilight connected to a BOLO would probably be surreal.

[computerneek]

9841346
That and more than a little bit crazy.