The Godking is NOT Amused

by Zemez

Dragons are a Godking's Best Friend (Part 2)

Twilight rushed through the crystal castle, oh, how she could use her number one assistant right now to bounce ideas off of. How could she be so stupid?! Of course the crystal heart was a magical artifact, how else would you turn emotions into magical energy? She thought it was just something special about the crystal ponies.

She knew Spike was doing something important right now, she didn't know what, and she almost doubted he knew either. But that look on his face... her brother, and she truly thought of him that way, was growing up. She just wished it wasn't on the eve of some egotistical mad king with the agenda of plunging the world into darkness and eternal servitude.

Shining Armor, her big brother best friend forever, or BBBFF, ran beside her as she spoke hurriedly.

"Sombra had to have a place where he spent the most time, he'd have hidden the way to the artifact there, if not the artifact itself. So we need to think, where would a king, obsessed with his rulership and authority stay?"

"Well, in o- uh, overarching history, mad kings usually stayed where their symbol of power was." Shining armor says, stuttering behind her as she ran.

"Symbol of authority, symbol of authority..." She muttered under her breath as she ran. "Right! This way!"

"Wait, where-" Shining had to stop talking before he got left behind as she suddenly pivoted and ran down another hallway. A king's authority was in their throne and crown. Since she doubted Sombra could hide the heart on his pony- er, body, she reminded herself, she had to stay creature neutral, he could only have hidden it in the throneroom.

They skidded to a stop as Twilight surveyed the room. The stained glass windows had nary a curtain, the entire room was lit up brilliantly like the sparkling gems it was made of, holding no shadows to hide... shadows! She barely paid heed to Shining trying to get her attention, her mind devoting everything to figuring out a solution.

The problem? Sombra studied dark magics, the type the library described as black as the moonless sky, and filled the majesty, the second part was propaganda most likely, some poor book writer forced to write falsehoods to fulfill one stallion's ego. The issue? She knew the basics of any dark magic, enough to be a laypony, but not enough to actually competently cast a spell, because she knew no spells.

Yet... Her mind thought back, embarrassment washing over her as the memories filled her. Veretus said that his... wizards he called them, manipulated magic like a limb through knowledge and dedication... She had the knowledge, but she had barely tried anything else since she almost destroyed ponyville.

Yet... they were doomed if she didn't try, the crystal ponies were out there, enjoying a festival, the others distracting them so that their rejuvenated spirits wouldn't fall lower than they had ever been...

Formulae ran through her mind, Shining's worry and exclamations washing through her with no comprehension, her horn buzzed with magical potential that she held in place. Here was an issue, her magical glow brought light to the room, filling it with a magenta glow accompanying the symphony of colors. She needed it to be dark, pitch black, yet her own nature showed through...

"Twilight..." Shining's voice came through her haze of calculations, softly, worried, and everything paused. She realized, she had no idea how to change magic's nature... if she could even do so, but she could change herself.

She couldn't think like Twilight Sparkle, who had the best brothers in the world, whose friends were amazing and great and wonderful and every one of the other forty-seven adjectives she could think of. She had a be a king, a tyrant.

"Stand back..." Was all she could manage to say as her magic flowed around her horn, not like the gas that it normally took the shape of, but like liquid, coiling up and down her horn. She was egotistical, The world was against her, so she'd crush it under her hoof, one peasant at a time. She was powerful, time and time again, she stood victorious...

The liquid around her horn bubbled and glowed a sickly purple and green, it no longer flowed in a scintillating pattern, but oppressed her horn like boiling ink. She raised her head high, And the pulse that emanated from her horn turned the throneroom distorted.

No longer were the rainbow-hued crystals sparkling brilliantly, now they only gave off different shades of grey. Ascethic spiking juts were now sharp and angular, but the most important part was the throne itself, now black and imposing, it cast a shadow over the room. In that inky black shadow were stairs leading down.

"Twily... are you okay..?" He put a hoof on her withers, and she nodded.

"Fine... I need to go down... Can- Can you make sure none of the Crystal ponies comes in? If they see the room like this..." She didn't finish, but Shining slowly nodded.

"They'll panic, thinking Sombra did it. Will you... Will you be okay?"

"Yeah... I- think so." He didn't look convinced, but he walked back to the doors of the room anyways, checking down the hallway before giving her an all-clear. And so, she began her descent.

Going down the spiraling staircase was boring, if dark. The stairs were some silvery metal jutting out of the crystal wall, which was so grey it could be mistaken for stone. It felt like she had been walking for hours when she finally saw the bottom. Looking up, she couldn't see the top entrance, just walls and stairs reaching as far as she could see in the dim light.

The bottom was barren, with no door, window, or any type of portal. The only fixture was a large ornate mirror. A clanking noise echoed above her, like armor clattering together, yet she couldn't look up, in front of the mirror, her gaze was glued to her reflection.

Her horn was inky black and sharp. Her irises were a sickly dark purple as they glowed, trailing off into the air like magical fire. This... It wasn't possible, She- She just- She couldn't form coherent thoughts. Could casting one, admittedly self-made, spell cause this? Corrupt her so much?

She felt awful, not because of the physical changes, but because she knew, and read countless books that warned it was a slippery slope. Today she was doing the basics, but what about tomorrow? next week? next year? Would she find that her friends hated her? Or what if she suddenly thought of them as subjects to experiment on?

She saw him, but her thoughts were spiraling downward too much to care, his gleaming armor shone even in the darkness they were in. His every step down the stairs was deliberate and heavy. Thunk... thunk... thunk... and then all was silent as he stood behind her, towering over her in every way. His crown of horns and glowing orbs lit up the area like torches.

It was Veretus, and his eyes were filled with hatred and pity as he drew his sword, the sound grating on her ears.

"You had such promise young Twilight, but here I find you, the next tyrant, ready to take the throne after I have dispatched that horrible stallion." She tried to refute his words, say something, anything, yet her throat felt like a clamp was over it, she couldn't breath, couldn't speak...

"Already you give false hope to the kingdom and trick your friends into stalling for you until you could assure the artifact is still hidden. You betrayed their trust, you betrayed mine... You even let spike go off to his death... He was a child, Twilight. He wasn't ready for Sombra... And I couldn't protect him..." His words dug even deeper, Spike... was gone? Was all he said true? She couldn't find an ounce of anger or indignation at his accusations within her, only sadness and resignation. The evidence lined up...

She didn't stop Spike, She had no idea he'd go off and try to directly help Veretus... She had tried to reason it away. She would have always realized a page was missing from a book, so she should have known right away something was wrong, and yet, did she purposefully pretend to not notice? And then she didn't have Shining follow her... Did Shining suspect too? He was guarding the door, so they would have run into each other...

And there the indignation came, not at her brother, or Veretus, but herself. Shining was her BBBFF, Even if she plunged the world into darkness, he wouldn't allow anyone to kill her, god or not.

It was a spark, She barely saw it seep into her dull eyes as the sword came down. But it was there, and she held onto it. Her friends- yes, obviously they were doing their best, they all were, and they constantly reminded her she wasn't perfect. They didn't put her down, but reminded her that when she couldn't do something, they were there. That she didn't need to be perfect, she just had to be... herself.

The blackness covering her horn shattered with a burst of magenta light flowing across it, the sword stopped above her, her back shielded with a half-opaque barrier the same color. She turned away from the mirror, it wasn't her, none of it was.

Seeing that pressing down farther was futile, Veretus backed away, his wings unfurled, and she wondered what brought this on. Maybe she couldn't call him her mentor like Celestia, but she saw a lot of the same qualities in him. He was old and immortal, a ruler, and he always wished to see those around him grow. He taught her his version of magic, and even now, she could feel the liquid magic flowing over her horn. Usually, it'd take effort to hold this much magic, but it almost seemed to want to flow, to keep in motion, whereas before it wanted to disperse and separate.

He lunged at her again, and she realized the stairs, even the walls were gone. The magic came unbidden, and with a pop his sword slashed at empty air, she was behind him, but too stunned at the suddenness to do anything but stand there as he turned around.

"Why-" Her question was interrupted as he attacked her once more, this time, each time she teleported, he was on her immediately, yet even through it, she found it strange. her mentor, Celestia, once told her about how he fought with Luna, and yet he was only attacking her with his sword. And oddly enough, as much as she hated fighting, She was adapting to this, so much so that she began creating shields instead of teleporting, which cost much less to do.

This fueled her suspicions even more, She was nowhere near as skilled as her brother, who could shield an entire city alone for weeks. Veretus was physically strong, but each strike only cracked her shields.

"Who are you!" She shouted after teleporting one more time a distance away. the thing impersonating Veretus paused and turned its head at her. I seemed to think, before shaking its head and this time, with a large flap of Veretus's wings, it ascended. She barely had enough time to teleport away as it divebombed at her.

She felt foolish. Did she really have so little trust in Veretus that she thought he'd try to kill her? She sighed, she had hope, and faith that her friends and brothers could help, because she couldn't figure out how to get out, not while whatever this thing masquerading as Veretus was attacking her.

"Faith?" For some reason, the word sparked something in her memory. Veretus always claimed his powers were based off of it, but always denied being like those ponies that proclaimed themselves as dieties and mythological descendants in order to fool the masses.

---

"Spike, enough, your stance is off," Veretus called out as Spike was holding a large stick the god had conjured out of thin air, a quarterstaff he called it.

"I'm trying, I swear, but... I don't think I can really use this, it's awkward and clumsy... can't you just teach me how to use that cool flamy thing you do?" Spike complained, and Veretus shook his head.

"How can you create divinity when you don't even have any faith in yourself?" He scolded as he walked past twilight, who was taking notes.

"Like... worshiping myself? Is that like some god loophole or something?"

Veretus sighed, shook his head, and summoned that ethereal golden flame in his palm. "My divinity is the whole of myself, When I fight with it, I am essentially flinging myself at the enemy, and trusting them to break before myself. The first step is to have something you want, a concept, a desire, and then have faith in yourself to carry on with that desire. In truth, your language would call this trust, instead of faith. But in my realm, the two are the same when dealing with godhood. Now, resume the stance, unless you think you're still incapable of it?"

And so Spike and Veretus continued, until Veretus was satisfied, which varied between weapons, sometimes he was satisfied even though Spike was just flailing about with no form...

---

And then she realized, whichever pony followed her would get caught in the same trap she was stuck in. It wasn't just her that had to have faith in her friends and family, They had the same in her, because she needed to break this trap. She teleported once more, this time in front of her attacker. He kneeled as she conjured a shield directly on him, She was done being passive, but she had to be sure she could destroy whatever it was. It was the only thing she could destroy after all.

He struck the barrier over and over as her horn lit up. She needed more, hence why she trapped him. as her entire focus was on gathering magic into her horn. Cracks spread through the shield as her horn lit up the black space around her, outshining even the imposter's light. With a shattering sound the shield broke, and she still didn't have enough! Every time she tried to push more, something within her screamed, told her that pushing more was a very bad idea...

The sword came at her slowly, at least to her. Twilight's horn hurt, but... she could do this, she had to do it... her life flashed before her eyes and she realized her friends really did make her life better...

Almost unbidden, the liquid magic around her horn seemed to react, right now her horn was covered, no longer could it flow, and so it didn't. Instead, it seemed to crystalize, her horn felt heavy and solid, and then the sword impacted it.

An explosion rocked the space around them, everything within her sight disintegrated to white...

"TWILIGHT!"

Author's Note:

Alright, short part two, Let's make this three parts now! But seriously, Twilight's segment came out way longer than it was supposed to be, and I still hate a lot of it, mostly the fighting scene, as I kept picturing an awesome scene of twilight constantly on the defensive, instead, it reads out to me like a chicken flailing and a new farmhand trying to wrangle it. Or, in other words, the reality of a mare with little combat experience trying to survive a construct.