A new day
Proof reader/Editor: Biker_Dash
“And this concludes my report, your Highness,” The Night Watch officer said. Celestia had been listening to his report in her throne room. Using comm units might have been easier than fly the officer to Canterlot, but until she could be sure that the humans could not tap into those conversations, she would not use them for matters like this.
Luna had borrowed idea of Internal Security Agency from the humans, forming what she was referring to as Night Watch within the Royal Guard. At first, Celestia had been doubtful of the idea, but after the group had managed to root out several underground criminal groups she had to admit that they were effective. She had assigned them to watch over the Elements when they were not on official missions, among other “silent” duties they seemed to gather.
“Thanks you. Please keep eye on her,” Celestia said, dismissing the officer. When they had told that they had important information, she had feared that Discord was on the move. As it turned out, it was not as dangerous as that, but equally worrisome. She could no longer ignore deteriorating mental health of her student.
Twilight had attacked her alternate counterpart. Not only attacked, but attacked with intention to kill. Only her timely breakdown and Lulamoon’s intervention had managed to prevent things from spiralling out of control. Still, it was not something she could ignore. So far these underlying issues had manifested in anger and snappiness, but if she was capable of violence... even if under effects of alcohol, she could not take the risk that her student would snap. She would need to officially order her to not to take any action.
Not to mention the new problem she had. Without Element of Laughter, The Elements of Harmony were little more than trinkets. The Others could use them, to an extend, but they were already having problems with them and now with a missing Element, they were near useless. She knew that it was not a problem now, since they had Bearers who could use them, but after they would be gone...
It was a problem she would have to solve later. If she could not deal with Discord now, there would be no later. Discord had succeeded without even fully realizing it. He had completely destroyed the delicate balance that had existed. Humans had become fearful, the Elements had been broken, and worst of all... politics. She hated foreign politics, especially after that disaster in Catsmere. It had happened 500 years ago and the two sides had still not forgiven Celestia for intervening. Discord had made a mess of politics. Even though all sides were allies now, she would need to deal with the new Changeling nation under Chrysalis, the Zebra Unions questions whenever or not Equestria would be worth the alliance, and the Humans becoming paranoid... it would be a mess.
That would have to wait. For now, she had a student to be to officially committed to therapy. She would need to make the papers and then have them delivered.
“Note Book.”
“Yes, Your Highness?” She heard a voice say next to her.
“I want you to prepare papers to commit Twilight Sparkle into therapy, by force if necessary. Have them ready by 1 o’clock.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I shall have them send by then.”
“No. This is something I have to do myself.”
“Are these readings correct?” Saral asked, going over the data that had been sent to her.
“Yes. Final Argument picked them up and Sat-2 confirmed it.” General Caravel said. They had established contact between Luna Aeternal and was currently conducting an emergency meeting with the other generals.
“It’s clear what it is. Our enemy is clearly not going to wait until he has fully recovered and give us time to prepare: he is going to strike at us now,” General Hunington said. “However, it seems that his dragons are not moving. We are only detecting changelings, nothing more.”
“That is a small blessing. Okay, we can’t be sure where they will eventually strike and we can’t split our forces. As such, I am going to evacuate outlying settlements and have our army meet them head on once we have confirmed their entry vector.”
“Risky. What if you fail?” Caravel asked.
“...”
“Saral.”
“You know what to do. Have Final Argument ready and prepped. If we lose... we need to take them out, right then. Not a moment sooner. A single warhead should be enough. No more.” Saral said, lowering her head.
“True, no need to use more force than needed. We might need to deploy them against the dragons too.” Hunington said.
“Except if we can confirm Discord is with the attacking force. If he is, we aren’t taking chances. We will drop everything we have and kitchen sink.” Caravel said, his face in grim determination.
“Are you insane!? It could destroy the entire biosphere!” Saral said, looking shocked at the screen.
“We have survived and will survive. I am not going to take chances that we might die because we lack guts to do what is necessary. This is our last line of defense. We got no more between him and central AM-Core. We can’t allow him to succeed breaking through. Our garrison could not defeat him,” Caravel said, slamming his hand down on the console. The image shook little before stabilizing again.
“I’m afraid general Caravel is right.” A new window showing The First Citizen Korhal opened. “General Saral, I am going to make this clear. If Discord breaks through, we will use Final Argument. No ifs, ands or buts. As such, I suggest you either defeat him or that you intercept him so that environmental and collateral damage is minimized.”
“Yes sir,” Saral said, slumping her head in defeat. Fahrenheit would scream at her if they were to reveal the existence of Final Argument like this. It would alienate nearly every possible ally humans had. They would not like idea of humankind dangling weapons of mass destruction out of their reach, yet able to strike wherever they wanted.
“I do not like this anymore than you do, General, but some hard decisions must be made,” Korhal said, having the decency to at least look reluctant. “In the end, we are responsible for entire the human species.”
“I know. I just fear we are sacrificing long term survival for short term gain,” Saral said. It might not be according to protocol to so openly question The First Citizen, but Korhal didn’t seem to mind.
“I know what you mean. This is could destroy much of our dear ambassador’s work. That’s why it’s important that it will never happen. I trust you will do what is required,” Korhal and cut the connection. Saral just stared at the screen that currently had large red letters saying CONNECTION LOST. She really had no choice in the matter.
“I will need all data from the satellites. I need to find and intercept them before it is too late,” she finally said.
“I will sure you get everything you need,“ Hunington said before cutting her connection.
“The second batch of APCs is coming down now. It should give you a total of ten APCs with AA-capabilities, along side with those rocket launchers. They should help you dealing with the dragons, once they appear,” Caravel concluded, but didn’t cut the connection.
“I just wonder how we are going to deal with Discord. I guess we could use second set of Bearers to turn him into the stone, assuming he hasn’t absorbed enough power to resist,” Saral said.
“...I think I can give you minor solution. Have Final Argument’s crew prepare an additional warhead. Have them load 0.5 grams of anti-matter and have it on stand-by. If possible, let Discord get through and then use that to weaken him. We saw during the Lunar Crisis that these creatures might be immortal, they aren’t invulnerable,” Caravel said.
“I hate you, you know that?”
“Yes, but you also need me to give you the ideas you don’t want to think,” He concluded and cut the connection.
Things were not going as he had planned. Of course, the irony of the personification of Chaos having plans wasn’t lost on him. Any other time, it might have amused him, however, right now, it didn’t help his mood. The loss of a hive was clear indicator that Chrysalis had not only survived, but she has also allied with his enemies. The Elements were also working against him.
He would need to move fast, before they could repeat their trick. Of course, it would be easy, but at this point, he could not risk it. He had already ordered the changelings to move forward, to prepare for the final assault. Right now, he was dealing with the dragons.
“We are not ready. The human’s weapons do not cause simple cuts and slashes. They penetrate deep and create wounds that take a long time to heal, even for a dragon,” The lead dragon said.
“I know, but we can’t afford any delays. How many of you can fight?” Discord asked. He could use mind control on them and force them to fight, but doing so had it’s downsides. One of the biggest being that if they managed to snap out of it, they would turn against him. He could not afford such an event to happen in middle of a battle. The lead dragon simply looked around, taking a look at his clan and some unbound dragons that had joined them.
“I can fight, as well as six others. It should be enough.”
“It has to be enough. Failure would mean that we are back at the begin, no, not even there and all this has been for nothing,” Discord said.
“Then it shall be enough. We will make it so.”
Discord nodded at the dragon before taking off. He had to rethink his position and all the possible outcomes. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think that he could not be defeated. The last time that had happened, he had been turned into a stone statue. It was not a pleasant experience. The first time he had seen it coming and prepared for it. The second time, he was caught unprepared. Unable to shut his mind down for all that time, being force be constantly aware... he was not going to experience it again.
He cursed his moment of weakness. He had been too impatient, too drunk on power. If he had done this silently, with a subtle touch, he could be nearing his objective right now. It might have taken longer, perhaps even years until he could finally achieve his absolute power, but at least he wouldn’t need to worry like this. Yet, he had chosen the easy way: to simply crush all opposition. He could not wait and now he was paying for it.
It was very possible that his enemies could defeat him. It was equally possible that he could win. It would come down to small, nearly insignificant details, that would snowball into large events to decide the future. It is known as the butterfly effect. He had enjoyed using it during his rule. Now his success relied on it making the coin land on his side to grant him the victory.
He didn’t usually take time just think about stuff or doubt himself, but this place... it made you doubt all your beliefs. The way it stripped your innocence and buried it was nothing he had seen before. Sure, he had broken ponies before, made to lose all their beliefs, but even then, it was something he dedicated his attention to. This place, on the contrast, didn’t even try.
It had become apparent during these months. He had seen humans desperately fighting to even slow him down, to make sure that they would not all die. He had seen ponies who had become empty shells who did what they were told to and no more. Even dragons, normally creatures that nothing would shake, would decline to fight because they felt fear. They said there was no point. That at even best, it would be pyrrhic victory.
The creatures in this world seemed to break not because someone tried to break them, but simply because they had lost their innocence so violently. It wasn’t slow growing up or one event that made them look inside. No, these creatures had lived four years in such conditions. Even to him, it was too much. Sure, it might have been chaotic at first, but when they would lose their will to live, and then there would be no chaos. Only the dead, and the dead were orderly: never moving. They were always the same: never changing. The very antithesis of chaos.
He shook his head. Constantly thinking it over would not help him. He would need to succeed and he would create a perfect world of chaos; one that would provide him with infinite power.
And to do so, he would need to win one more battle.
“Too... bright...” Twilight muttered. Her head hurt and her stomach was protesting. What had she done last? She remembered being in the library, reading books. Then Trixie had come and they had taken few sips of wine, or was it a couple of glasses? Wait, didn’t they try to balance bunch of bottles too? Where had those came from? However, her thoughts were interrupted as the bright light disappeared as the curtains were drawn over the window.
“Thanks Spike...” She murmured.
“Sorry, no Spike this time. You have to be content with me,” Came a definitely female voice. Twilight opened one of her eyes and saw Trixie looking down her.
“Trixie?”
“You okay?”
“If by okay you mean feeling like being run over by a carriage, sure...”
“Heh, I guess that is to be expected from a first timer. Don’t worry, I made some food for you. You can get up when you feel like it.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you... doing this? We never were that good friends. I... I just don’t understand,” Twilight said, turning her head away from Trixie. She heard Trixie sigh.
“Because I know what you are going through and I can’t just let you do this alone,” Trixie said. Twilight didn’t say anything, merely pulled herself into a small ball. She suddenly remembered what she had done last night.
“I fucked up, didn’t I?” Trixie didn’t answer her, she didn’t need to. The fact that Twilight had resorted to such language spoke enough. “How am I supposed to walk out there, with knowledge of that I nearly killed someone innocent?” She felt Trixie sit next to her and put her hoof over her.
“You live for others and try to make amends, by being a better pony,” Trixie said quietly. “I know it’s difficult. I still have problems, but I am getting better. I can’t promise everything will be right, but...” She fell silent for a moment. Twilight turned herself so she could see Trixie. “I can promise that if you don’t do anything, it will only become worse.”
“I guess so,” Twilight said. “I guess... I guess I need help.”
Two sat in silence for some time, until Twilights stomach reminded her that she had not eaten for some time now. The pair moved off the bad and to the table where Trixie had set up a small breakfast of sandwiches and coffee.
“Coffee?” Twilight asked, raising her eyebrow.
“Trust me, it’s better than tea,” Trixie said with a grin in her face. Still, she did go back to kitchen to grab hot water and tea. Twilight sat and down started to nibble at her food. Even though she was hungry, she didn’t have much of appetite. She kept replaying the events of last night in her head. She had really lost it and had not been typical angry reaction. No, she had seriously planned to kill her double right here. She saw Trixie returning with the kettle and tea bags.
“Hey, Trixie...”
“Hm?“
“If... if I go to get help... will you be there with me? I... I really don’t want others to see me like this,” She asked. Trixie was, weirdly enough, the only one who she trusted to understand. It was not that her friends wouldn’t help or support her, but she feared they would not truly understand how she felt.
Trixie remained silent for moment, clearly thinking over it. Then she nodded.
“Of course.” That got the first shaky smile out of Twilight during the morning.
It was afternoon when Celestia finally had time to visit her student. She hung her head, wondering how this could go. Twilight might accept her word or she could, once again, deny everything. She really couldn’t say. Funny that. Thousands of years of life experience and she still could not predict ponies. Then again, that was one result of free will. She sighed once more before knocking on the door. She heard muffled voices and someone standing up. Very soon, she found Trixie in front of her.
“Your Highness!” Trixie said in surprise and saluted. You could take pony out of the Guard, but you could not take the Guard out of the pony, Celestia noted.
“Hello, Trixie. Is Twilight here?” Celestia said, before noticing that Trixie was still holding her salute. “At ease, my little pony.”
“Yes, of course! Come on in. Twilight! Princess is here for you!” Trixie shouted as she stepped aside. Celestia walked inside and saw Twilight walk from the bedroom. She didn’t seem to have taken care of herself today, apparently favoring her bed. She didn’t know what her student had been doing, but apparently at least Trixie had been taking care of her.
“Princess Celestia. I am sorry for my appearance. How may I help you?” Twilight said, giving a short bow. Celestia was sure at this point that Twilight knew she had done something wrong. She never was this courtesy unless she was ashamed, but unsure if Celestia was here for her or not.
“Sit down, my faithful student. There is an... important matter we need to discuss,” Celestia said. Now came the hard part. Trixie looked at the two before coughing once, twice.
“I guess I should leave you two...” She said, turning to leave.
“No, please... stay, please?” Twilight said. Two seemed to communicate something silently. Celestia knew that sort of communication, it was one of those that only two could understand. She often had similar unspoken talks with her sister, especially when some noble was giving a boring report on some irrelevant matter, such as ‘Should the term foot refer to average length of common nobles foot or length of Celestia’s foot’. She guessed the two had bonded a lot better than she had ever expected.
“You are sure you want her to stay? The matter I am here to discuss about is very delicate and... private,” Celestia said. It was better to give Twilight chance to back off if she changed her mind. To her surprise, Twilight simply nodded and Trixie took a seat next to her.
“Very well. I do not like doing this Twilight, but I can no longer ignore it. I will say this simply and plainly: You need help. More than what magic of friendship can offer. You need therapy,” Celestia said, preparing for anything. What she didn’t expect for Twilight to nod.
“I guess... you found out?” She said quietly, refusing to look at Celestia.
“Yes,” Celestia said, keeping as much emotion out of her voice as she could.
“...Okay,” Came the timid response from Twilight. “I screwed up badly, didn’t I?” Twilight finally looked at her, clearly wary of the response. Celestia gave a sigh. She seemed to do it a lot today
“Yes. Yes you did. I want you to get to a therapist. You are not allowed to join any operations against Discord. I am sorry, but... I can’t take the risk. I want to trust you, but this latest event... I want to but I can’t. I have ignored your problems until now, but...”
“No more. I understand,” Twilight said, hanging her head down. Trixie put her hoof over Twilight's shoulder, a small gesture of comradeship.
“I assume you are the one who talked to her?” Celestia said, looking at Trixie.
“Yeah. I knew what she was going through.”
“I thank you. I feared I would be forced to do something we all would regret, but thankfully, it hasn’t come to that,” Celestia said, bowing her head slightly. “I may ask a lot, but please, help my student. You are only one who I know she will listen to on this matter.”
“Of course, your Highness.” Celestia smiled at this. At least she could leave Twilight in someones care while she would be away. Next, she would need to deal with the other Twilight...
“I am sorry, but other duties already call me. I already got into argument with my assistants over whenever or not I should take care of this matter personally or not.”
“I understand Princess. I am sorry for trouble I have caused,” Twilight said, finally truly looking at her.
“It’s okay, my dear. Just... get better, okay?”
“Okay.”
After dealing with Twilight, Celestia headed to the Apple farm. Twilight had went there for the night and now she needed to deal with her too. She needed to apologize and explain, not to mention figure out where she could spend rest of her time. She would need to ask Applejack for help. Perhaps it would give her excuse to forgive her taxes for the year. As much as she hated to demand that she pay her taxes on time, despite the hardship, she could not make exceptions. If she gave tax exemption to one struggling farmer, what was preventing her from giving it to others as well?
As she began her descent, she saw Applejack look and run inside. She guessed she was going to gather the others too. She landed in front of a door, only find Applejack already gesturing her to come inside.
“Princess, good to see ya. We hav’ a problem,” Applejack said.
“It’s Twilight, isn’t it? I heard about them. I just came from the library.”
“Darn it.”
“It’s okay. Twilight agreed to get help. She realized she went too far. Now, we need to deal with our double here.”
In another universe, Celestia was going mad from worry. Her scholars were still trying to find out where her student and her friends had ended up, alongside with Discord. So far, things had stayed very quiet, but she knew from experience that peace was always temporal. Something would always rise. Her worry was interrupted with Spell Nexus running into the throne room.
“Princess! We figured it out!” He said, coming to a halt and catching his breath. “We know how to find the correct alternative universe!”
“Really!? How?” Celestia said, standing up. This was first good news for a long time, or at least the first good news that she cared about.
“Yes, though we still can’t lock into them specifically, we can now, with very high confidence, lock into their worlds version of you.”
“Can you do it now?” Celestia asked, eager to confirm this.
“Yes, we just need something that belonged to one of them and it should be enough,” Spell Nexus said. It didn’t take long for Celestia to acquire one of Twilights friendship reports.
Few minutes later, Celestia and Spell Nexus were in the School, with unicorns preparing to cast the spell. The window began to open, green energy forming the frame. At first, it didn’t seem that there would be any image, but then it started to form. When it became clear, it showed Celestia in flight, heading towards Canterlot.
“It worked?” Celestia asked. Even if she was powerful, she was still largely rather mediocre in terms of understanding spells beyond her specialty.
“We think so. With luck, your counterpart will meet with the Elements,” Spell Nexus said. In the image, Celestia had landed and was heading towards Lunas room.
“Luna, you there?” The mirror Celestia asked.
“Yes, what is it sister?” Came the answer.
“I need to talk to you,” Celestia in the mirror opened the door, causing ponies and Celestia to gasp at what they saw. Luna was laying on her bed, missing one wing and half of the other. Near her leg, a strange creature was peeling off the skin, only reveal some sort of metal beneath it.
“Sorry, I didn’t remember it was time for the maintenance,” Mirror Celestia said. Celestia herself could not understand how her counterpart could take such image so easily, unless she had seen it so often, it was no longer a surprise.
“It’s okay sister. This should not take long,” Luna said, nodding towards the creature. The creature lifted it’s head. Celestia absently noted that the entire creature was hidden beneath a some sort of black suit. It’s face was concealed by a mask. A mask with two tubes moving from the sides to the creatures back. The mask had no features, apart from a red t-shaped shape.
“Detaching the leg now, Princess. It might hurt a little,” The creature said, with a strange filtered voice. The Luna in the mirror winced as the creature removed her leg, causing Celestia to take a step back.
“Alright, we are changing to a new model. It should allow you, with some luck, to be able to feel with your leg again. It won’t be as natural, but it’s better than nothing,” The creature spoke again, lifting the leg it had removed and heading towards a table, where another leg was resting.
“What did you want to talk about, sister?” Luna asked Celestia.
“It will need privacy. However, I assume you head about Twilight already?”
“Yes. I guess you went a talked to her?” Luna asked, taking a quick look at the creature before turning back to Celestia “Both of them?”
Celestia, despite still being horrified, was happy to hear this. It mean there were two Twilights. The way two referred to them, it seemed that the spell had succeeded: they had found the correct universe. Now they would just need to find a way to bridge the gap between two. The creature finished... whatever it was doing, seemingly replacing the leg.
“Alright, Princess, try to stand up.” Luna stood, the metallic leg acting like a natural extension of her. Celestia could see Spell Nexus being intrigued by this new magic he was seeing. Luna took few steps, jumped a little and otherwise tested her new leg before turning back to the creature. “If you feel that something is wrong, contact us. Augmentations were pretty much abandoned after cloning organs became more widespread. It should still be up to specs.”
“Feels weird, but then again, I have gone long without feeling in my leg. I will get used to it. Now, please excuse us, but we have private matters to discuss. I shall call you back once we are done.” The creature bowed and left the room. Celestia in the mirror cast a minor spell on the door, which Celestia recognized as silence spell. “Now, what you wanted to talk about?”
“I spoke with both of them. Twilight, our Twilight, agreed to start visiting a therapist. The other one... she is shaken, but seems to be fine. She is staying by the Apple family for now.”
“Good, good. It is not a best outcome, considering all, but with luck, this whole thing will be over soon. I hope.”
“I hope so too. Sooner we have their Discord defeated, the better. I fear that the humans are going to do something rash soon. Perhaps even use one of their weapons.”
“THEY CAN’T!” Luna shouted, clearly shocked. She gathered herself before continuing. “Detonating anything like the one that did to me within atmosphere could do enormous amounts of damage! What if they miscalculate? What if it sets off a chain reaction that sets the entire biosphere on fire?!”
“I see you have been talking with our scholars again. I hope I am wrong, but I can’t be sure.Whatever it is, I hope we can deal with him with the Elements. Actually, I think the Elements are only thing that can truly defeat him. He is, assuming his the same kind, the personification of chaos. The only way to truly kill him, would be to destroy all chaos in the universe.”
“No, he wouldn't die... but he would suffer. Even I wouldn’t wish the same fate upon him as has befallen on me. Though I suspect he could regenerate limbs.”
“There is another issue...”
“What is it?”
“After we defeat Discord... then what? We can’t keep them here forever. We need to have them return. Otherwise, who knows what could happen.”
“I do not know, sister. We cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, we have to worry about the lives of millions of ponies and humans.”
“Yes, you are right...”
“I have seen enough. Shut it,” Celestia ordered. The spell was released and the window disappeared. “Nexus, I want a portal into their world opened and I want it now. Whatever you require, whatever you need to do, you get it and you will do it. I will not allow them to reside in that world any more than necessary.”
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Once again, another incredible chapter... and I get the feeling that Celestia herself will be goin through to retrieve the Element holders, an possibly kicking Discord's ass! lol
Slight change in the tags, BTW. Removed "OC tag" (mainly because, well, it's kinda assumed at story of this level) and replaced it with Twilight tag, to make clear that this fic(and universe) will not feature Twilicorn. At least not in form that was presented in the show. Fuck that shit.
I will not discuss this further. All I will say, is that it was beyond "WTF is is this?" for me. Candace was stretching it already, but Twilicorn... yeah, no.
Nice chapter.
One thing you might want to change though, I did some quick math and it looks like .5g of antimatter would have the yield of about 1-10 kilotons of TNT. This is nowhere even remotely close to an extinction event explosion. Many fusion bombs today have yield in excess of 1000 times that.
2180121
Celestia and Luna are not are of aware of yields. True, half a gram of anti-mater isn't enough for extinction level destruction: it's closer to Hiroshima bomb. However, just like with scientist back then, ponies are not sure what could happen. It was a real feat that nukes could set atmosphere on fire.
2179380
Fuck yeah homie!
...
Did I just type that?
"Canon" Celestia is being kind of a jerk if she wants to yank Twilight and the rest back and leave the other world to deal with canon-world's Discord. Maybe realistic as a kneejerk reaction, but still ... emphasis on "jerk". It will be interesting to see how Twilight and the others respond, if that's the case.
2183745
Or she could serve as Deus Ex Machima
Or not. Maybe she will only appear after whole deal is over. Or in middle big battle. Or before it. Maybe she brings an army with her. Or comes alone.
Who knows what my mind contains