Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

A Bout

"Did it work?" the stallion asked, noticing the shift in the alicorn's expression.

Twilight's clone took a few moments to answer, looking herself over in the mirror first. "Yes, it did," she finally said.

The stallion excitedly tapped his hooves against the floor. "Do you think you can manage to replicate it now?"

Standing still once again, Twilight's clone fixed her eyes on her reflection in the mirror, and focused on what she'd felt a moment before. It wasn't an immediate process, but between the better understanding of what was going on inside her and the way she'd learned to push her powers she shortly after managed to flick back to her regular self, then to switch back and forth between the two until she'd quickly mastered the process. She tried for a different shape and found she could pull it off with little difficulty. Smiling, she cast a glance towards the stallion and changed the way he saw her. "Does that answer your question?"

"Hurray!" The stallion gave a brief prance around the room. "Oh, you should tell me all about what else you find later. Can I get rid of the mirror now?"

Twilight's clone thought about it for just a moment. "Yeah, sure." It was only useful for checking changes to how she viewed herself, but she'd already managed to get those under control, and if she really needed she could always just look down.

The stallion began to carry away the mirror, back up the stairs. As he did, Twilight's clone began to mentally fiddle with the controls of her power. That was how she envisioned it, in her head. It was kind of like using magic, in a sense, precisely controlling something that wasn't physically there. She would probe around, bump into something, and slowly build up a mental image of what she could and couldn't do with her newfound ability. Some of it would need to be verified with another creature, but she was pretty sure she had a good idea of what it all did, testing could wait for later.

The sound of hoofsteps down the stairs reminded her that she did have a test subject there, but not one who would be particularly useful. And given how much she'd already learnt from him about herself, she wondered if the possible uses she could have out of him still outweighed the risks of keeping him around. She turned towards the stallion with a grin, just as he stepped back into the room.

He spoke first. "If you're thinking about ending me, I suggest you do a magic scan on me first." He casually walked up to her.

Frowning slightly, partly out of surprise, Twilight's clone did as he asked. Then, she froze.

"I told you it was there." The stallion smiled at her. "I don't know how much you've heard about scales, but I'm sure you can figure out by yourself what would happen if you weren't careful around this thing. And it just so happens I managed to hook this one up to my vital signs. Assuming you don't care about the house being destroyed, do you think you can teleport away quickly enough not to get caught?"

Twilight's clone stared at him. "I could teleport you inside a mountain and let you blow up there."

"And do you trust I don't have other precautions set up for that? That I don't have a way to tell the world about you, after what you've seen? Isn't it safer to buy my silence at this point?"

The alicorn swallowed. "What do you want?"

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Just because the stallion's crazy doesn't mean he's stupid. Besides, even his madness is just an accurate but minority view of reality. Stella's asked the big question: What does he want from her?

[Saix]

Hah, good for him.