The Spirits of Harmony

by TinCan

Chapter XII

In a flash of magic, the Princess of the Night had whisked herself and Pinkie from the street before Golden Oaks and deposited them on the tiny, uppermost balcony atop Ponyville’s town hall. The rest of the town spread out around them in all directions. It was the best vantage point in the little town.

Luna threw back her head, pointing her horn at the sky, and cast a mighty spell. A flare of light rose straight up from her into the air.

Pinkie oohed appreciatively, then gasped in dismay. “Why'dja do that, princess? Now he’ll know where we are!” she complained. Her fears about the alchemist had been growing and growing ever since she’d agreed to help Luna catch him. The words, ‘you shouldn’t be here; you should run away’ repeated themselves over and over again, louder and louder in her mind. She could hardly think of anything else.

Instead of speaking, Luna simply held up a hoof for silence and watched the flight of her spell, still rising like a rocket. The point of magical light lost momentum high above the town, hung in the air for a moment, then burst, sending a growing, ring-shaped wave out and down to land about the outskirts of town. The light of the moon and stars was tinted an unearthly shade of blue and the air grew still.

Pinkie opened her mouth to ask what had just happened, but Luna expected the question. “I have domed the entire town in an impregnable shield,” she explained. “Our quarry is still here, like as not; alchemists lack the self-mastery to turn and leave behind something they desire. You, in this case.”

Luna’s reluctant ally gulped and peeked over the edge of the railing down on the sleeping town. “But... but he had to have seen that! He knows right where we are! Magic us out of here before we’re trapped!”

Annoyed at Pinkie’s lack of confidence in her abilities, Luna joined her at the railing and scanned the landscape. “No, this location is ideal. He knows where we are, and he knows the only way out is through me breaking the spell. The town hall and the square around it are deserted at this hour, and he must approach over open ground, in full sight of us.”

Pinkie squeaked and scooted back from the edge. She didn’t like this plan at all. “What if he takes a pony hostage, or if he just burns down town hall? Shouldn’t you try to get the drop on him instead of waiting?” she asked.

The princess shook her head and began casting spells of detection, searching the area beneath her barrier for any gray stallions matching the description Pinkie gave her. “Just because my domain is the night does not mean I prefer sneaking about and stalking prey like some nocturnal predator!” This preconception was something of a sore point for her. “Nopony will be dripping upon anypony else. To chase after an alchemist is to play right into his hooves. He’ll be at his weakest when we force him to come to us. Have patience.”

Deferring to Luna’s apparent greater experience, Pinkie Pie held her tongue and took up watch on the other side of the balcony.

Several minutes passed in tense silence.

Finally, Pinkie couldn’t take the unnatural quiet anymore. “What if we sort of got together one of those pitchfork-and-torch mobs and asked everyone in Ponyville to help us search?” she suggested. “It’d be like an alchemist-catching midnight block party, but for every block at once! Everypony’d have so much fun and it would be so safe since they’d all be there, and we’d find him in no time!”

The sudden distraction destabilized Luna’s searching spell, which was just as well since it wasn’t finding anything. She was certain that the alchemist was still nearby, just able to hide from her magic somehow. The odd interference she was getting through her spell was proof enough. It was supposed to sweep the town for a pony matching the description Pinkie had given her; an unmarked, uniformly gray stallion about Pinkie’s age. She hadn’t found anyone who fit it yet, but what she was finding was certainly caused by some alchemist’s trick deceiving her spell. According to it, Twilight Sparkle was both nearby and absent, three ponies in town were both older than her stars yet hadn’t been alive more than a day, and all of their positions were impossible to pin down. Luna smiled coldly to herself. Yes, this ‘Concord’ was still here, and he was running out of options. Struggle as he might, there was no escaping her!

“You saw what happened when we involved other ponies in our quest,” Luna reminded Pinkie. “My own guard balked at my orders and a pair of physicians tried to have you committed. The more ponies get involved, the greater risk there is of them being harmed, or worse, being tricked into doing our enemy’s bidding.”

“What about Spike, then? Why’d you make him go to sleep? If he can’t help us, shouldn’t he at least be with Twilight?”

Luna snorted. “Trust a dragon around ruthless villains who can make lead into treasure? Far be it for me to make that mistake twice. The steps my sister will take to save our friend Twilight Sparkle are likewise nothing Spike ought to witness. You must understand; alchemists are unbelievably wily. Their cunning is legendary and they never do anything straightforwardly. That is why we must be prepared for anything; it is not as if he will simply announce—”

“HEY! Hey Pinkie, izzat you?” Called a mellow voice for the ground. Pinkie squealed in fright and flattened herself against the floor.

Luna goggled. “Is that... is he... ?”

“It’s me, Concord! I’ve been looking for you all over!”

“He must think we don’t know what he is,” Luna surmised. “He’s still trying to pass as an ordinary pony.”

From below, one of Concord’s companions hissed something at him. “Oh, right!” he continued. “As you know, I am an evil, uh, al-chem-ist! Also, I'm coming up there to get you... Muh-hah-hee-haw!”

Not believing her ears, Luna magically rendered herself invisible for a moment and peeked down into the square. There, advancing fearlessly toward town hall in the tinted moonlight, was a trio of ponies. One was wrapped in an oversized hooded cloak that had been stained with a wide variety of chemicals, one was a spaced-out-looking unicorn and the other was a little filly who walked with a limp. Could Pinkie have been right about the hostages? But just calling out and announcing himself like that... it didn’t match the way he’d been hiding from the spell. Besides, if alchemists really went around shouting out their identities nopony would doubt whether they existed!

“So that’s your alchemist, Pinkie Pie?” The Princess of the Night gave Pinkie, who was still hugging the floor, frozen with fear, a skeptical look. “I’ve heard of obfuscating stupidity, but this is pointless. He’s just given away any advantage he could have used against us. Also, his clothes are sloppy. They’re usually quite fastidious. Might he not merely be some crude decoy, or even a careless stallion who carried a jest too far?”

“He’s not! It’s not!” Pinkie insisted. “He must be doing some sort of double-triple-meta bluff to get you to not take him seriously! Pretty-pretty-please don’t leave me, your great, merciful, nice, friendly, smart highness! I don’t have anypony else but you!”

Luna was more and more certain that one or both of them were being put on, but the words struck a chord in her, and Pinkie’s terror looked all too real. “Fear not, Pinkie Pie. I will not abandon you. Follow my plan and we will discover who this fool is once and for all.” She leaned down and whispered her strategy into the distraught mare’s ear.

Though she wanted to get away more than anything, Pinkie quickly agreed to it; what other choice did she have? She just hoped and prayed that Concord wouldn’t be able to trick Princess Luna with his slow-witted folksy act.

---

When the conspirators left the library’s basement, they had found Spike in his bed, cast into an enchanted sleep. Owlowiscious was watching over him protectively and drove them away. He seemed to think Twilight’s voice coming from a strange pony was some sort of trick.

They abandoned the library, and Verity’s knowledge led them toward where Pinkie and the princess had gone even before the flashy spell had walled off the town.

“Concord, if you keep on acting like some laid-back bumpkin, you’ll never pass for an alchemist.” Twilight scolded through Verity as the spirit and her “brother” climbed the spiral staircase to the hall’s roof. “I thought when you told me you were capable of lying without breaking space and time, you’d actually be good at it!”

“I hadn’t ever done it before,” Concord said defensively, itching maddeningly beneath his new clothing. The hooded cloak was nothing more than the cloth from Twilight’s lab, ‘enhanced’ with chemical stains from the same and pinned sloppily at the base of his neck. It was hot, hard to see from and made his back feel all tingly. Other than that, a utility belt filled with stoppered test tubes of various harmless compounds rounded out his alchemist disguise. “Anyway, it’s not acting. That’s just how I am!”

“Seventy-three members of the Order of Alchemists had accents that were considered rustic for their time,” Verity noted, not liking Twilight criticizing her brother through Verity’s own mouth.

Twilight had reconnoitered the roof while the spirits were entering town hall, and she’d seen how Princess Luna had reacted to Concord’s theatrics so far. “I’m sure that’s true, but it doesn’t matter,” Twilight said, trying to moderate the annoyance and worry in her voice, “All that matters is what Princess Luna thinks an alchemist looks, acts and sounds like.”

“An’ what’s that?”

Verity checked. “She thinks they’re haughty, cultured, decadent, even more cunning than she is and completely amoral.”

Concord grinned and started tugging at the cloak. “Guess I can take this rag off, then.”

“No! No, leave it on,” Twilight insisted. “We’re committed now, so we can’t all start changing things and going off on our...” She realized something was missing. “Okay, where did Verse wander off to this time?”

“He climbed out a window two floors back while you were up on the roof,” Verity answered.

Twilight was beginning to get used to the constant stream of nonsensical actions from her new companions, and took the news in stride. “Fine, whatever. He would probably just get in the way. Let’s get this over with.” She turned her attention back to Concord, who had thrown back the hood and was trying to shake some volume back into his mane. “Concord, you have to try and follow Luna’s lead. Pay close attention to her and live up to her expectations for what an alchemist is. Pinkie will think you’re the real deal no matter what, so use that to our advantage.”

The cloaked stallion nodded. “No sweat. Bein’ agreeable is my normal M.O.! Ooh, and me and Pinkie will be working together!” He squealed with delight like an oversized schoolfilly.

“No! No squeals! No getting all googly-eyed. You have to be an evil, heartless alchemist, got it?”

Concord nodded soberly, but he was only half-listening, if that. Imagining Pinkie being released from her curse and seeing him as her hero occupied most of his conscious attention, and climbing the spiraling stairs without tripping on the cloak demanded the majority of the rest.

The spirits weren’t the only ones she worried about. Twilight had little confidence in her own ability to trick one of her best friends and an alicorn princess. Other than a brief stint as the silent Mare-Do-Well and a role in the Hearth’s Warming pageant (which was the same every year), she hadn’t done much in the way of acting since the play her class put on in magic kindergarten. She had been cast as the Principle of Contagion, only had to memorize two rhyming lines, and flubbed them badly from stage fright. How could a pony go from that to improv? Still, the fate of the world was on the line. She’d give it her all.

“Okay, Verity,” Twilight continued, “you’re sure it’s all right for me to speak through you for a while? I’m going to have to say a whole lot of things that aren’t exactly truthful. We can’t save Pinkie and everypony else if the planet cracks in half when I make you tell a fib.”

“It’s not the same. I’m just lending you my voice. Your lies are still on your own head.”

Twilight detected disapproval in the spirit’s tone, but still, everything seemed to be as ready as she could make it on such short notice. In fact, losing Verse and his constant babble might even help their mission! They climbed the last few flights to the door leading to the roof in silence. Concord shoved the door open, eager to see Pinkie again.

---

In spite of the princess’s pledge, Pinkie Pie was up there all alone, huddled fearfully against the railing when the door slammed open and Concord made his entrance with Verity close behind. The pink mare stared at him wide-eyed but didn’t move or speak.

His role instantly forgotten, Concord’s cheeks flushed and he trotted forward, signature grin once again splitting his face. “Hey, hey, don’t be afraid,” he said consolingly, lowering his head and folding his ears forward to look as non-threatening as possible. “That thing I said on the ground, don’t pay it any mind. I didn’t realize how much it would hurt you.”

The mare stood stock-still, not even daring to breathe. The tracks of tears darkened her cheeks

“Pinkie, I never meant to scare you,” Concord swore. Tenderly, he raised a hoof to wipe away a teardrop from his beloved’s face.

The moment he touched her, the image of a frightened pink mare melted into a cloud of magenta smoke.

Concord raised his head, surprised. “Uh... wha? Pin—”

“NOW!” called a terrible voice from above.

Before he could finish the thought, a barely-visible ripple in the night air flashed down on him from above and knocked the spirit stallion flat onto the ground. Something made of cold metal pressed against his back with enough force to pin him to the floor. He tried to struggle, but the leg holding him down was as unyielding as a mountain. Verity watched the scene unfold with a slight twinge of fear.

“So, the ‘evil alchemist’ reveals himself at last,” said a disapproving voice from the distorted air. “How did you expect this to go? Surely you knew I was up here.” Princess Luna let the invisibility spell on herself drop and returned to opacity wearing a grim and triumphant smirk.

Remembering Twilight’s orders to go along with this big pony’s suppositions, Concord nodded as much as his position would allow. “Yep, yes I did. I knew you were up here.” He tried to look around. “Is Pinkie Pie up here too, or was that a trick all along?”

“She is safe from you. You will not defile so much as a hair on her hide, you lecherous, treasonous dog!”

“I won’t?” Concord said. “Uh, ah, no! I won’t! Because... because I’m an alchemist, which means I’m bad, and bad ponies shouldn’t be allowed to defile hairs, ’specially not hairs as nice and poofy-curly as Pinkie’s, no-ma’am!”

Twilight would have winced. For all the chaos he’d indirectly caused, this spirit of peace had no idea how to act menacing or villainous.

Luna removed her hoof from Concord’s back, trusting to her magic to keep him sealed to the floor. “Cease your foolery!” the princess ordered him. “What did you do to Twilight Sparkle? Where is the object you stole from her? Reveal your scheme at once!” Luna was perplexed by her captive’s behavior. Not only was he dressed in a filthy rag and chattering like a jackdaw, but he just lay there without struggling, making no attempt to reach his phials to fling acid or spray poison gas or even detonate a smoke bomb. Maybe the order had gone downhill since its heyday, but this was just shameful. She carefully relieved him of the belt anyway just to be safe and stowed it in a pocket of folded space.

“My... my scheme? Uh, I definitely have one of those!” Concord said. “It’s... It’s... hold on, it’ll come to me...” Twilight had coached him on what to confess to as they were traveling to the square, but he couldn’t remember any of it now.

Twilight metaphorically stepped in to help the floundering spirit. “I heard him say he was going to use a mutation potion to turn all the ponies in town into mixed-up monstrosities!” she made Verity blurt from the sidelines, speaking in falsetto to disguise the filly’s near-perfect reproduction of her voice. “He tested it out on me, and just look what happened!” Twilight hoped desperately that this lie would account for Verity’s mismatched appearance to Luna.

“Yep, that’s it! That’s the one. You got me.” Concord assented, giving Verity an un-subtle theatrical wink.

The princess turned and paid close attention to Verity for the first time since... well, technically for the first time ever. Twilight flitted anxiously back and forth, hoping Luna wouldn’t arrive at the same conclusion as before.

The alicorn’s eyes narrowed. “You have the voice of Twilight Sparkle, hide it though you try.” Keeping Concord prone with magic, she stepped warily toward Verity. “A plot to give ponies ugly deformities?” she continued. “It’s cruel enough, but alchemists would never do something so blatant and pointless. I can tell you are still hiding the truth from me. There are more likely ways for a pony, or should I say, a being to come by these unnatural additions.”

She was starting to suspect the truth! The filly yelped and backpedaled to the far railing. “No, no! It’s not that! Please!” Twilight frantically blurted.

“And what would ‘that’ be, little ‘pony’?” Luna asked, readying another spell.

For the first time since climbing out onto the rooftop, Concord realized the thinness of the ice he was on. He’d pretty much coasted by on his powers for all of his spiritual existence, but just going along and doing whatever seemed easiest wasn’t going to cut it this time! That big princess was about to figure out that Verity was a spirit, and Twilight said that would ruin everything! Pinkie was depending on him!

...Well, actually she wasn’t because she didn’t know, but that was part of what he had to help Twilight fix! The stallion’s mind raced.

“Okay, okay, I’ll talk! Just don’t hurt her!” he said.

Luna didn’t even give him a backward glance. “Alchemists care nothing for other ponies. Try a better trick.”

“Verity, she, uh... she’s not a pony.”

“Concord, what are you doing?!” Twilight hissed, completely forgetting to disguise her voice. Was he just giving up?

“Yes, I had gathered that,” Luna said with a roll of her eyes. “You must have used the stolen Element of Magic to summon a—”

“See, uh, I made her. With alchemy. She’s one-a those, ah, fake ponies like you make in a bottle?” Concord bluffed, trying to sound as sincere as he could while having no idea what he was talking about.

Luna paused and stared at Verity, head cocked to one side. “So this is the equinculus? The legendary lesser pony of artifice? It does not look like much.”

Concord pretended to be ashamed. “Yeah, an equi-calculus. I, er, I made her wrong, though. She was supposed to be a copy of Twilight Sparkle. I got the voice and the mind right, but the rest, well...”

His captor pursed her lips. Why was he being so forthcoming? Was this just to stall for time? Still, bringing back an actual equinculus would be indisputable evidence. She unwove the spell of eradication from her horn.

“A fake to mislead us while you dragged the secrets out of the real bearer. I see. You are saying you failed, then.”

“Yeah. My, uh, evil alchemist buddies left me behind to take the fall. I told them I could make it look like a spirit instead, but it would take too long. They weren’t happy. Not real understanding types, you know.”

Luna nodded, slowly allowing herself to become convinced. She spoke to Verity again. “So, little creature, you have the mind of Twilight Sparkle? How could mere alchemy grant you that?”

“I... don’t know?” Twilight said, thinking on her figurative hooves. “But it’s true, your highness! I am Twilight, or I think I am. Do you remember when you visited Ponyville on Nightmare Night, and I found you by the bridge? I took you to my friend Fluttershy so you could learn to talk like a nor—er, like you do now.” Twilight could tell Verity was amused by how the plain truth was serving to mislead.

The Princess of the Night was startled. “Y-yes?”

“I was Star Swirl the Bearded, remember? Hoof-stitched robe, bells on the hat, the whole shebang. You were the only one who recognized my costume.”

Luna shook her head in wonderment. “That is uncanny. It recalls events that none but she and I were present to witness. I did not think alchemy could perform such a wonder, but neither do I see any other way for this to be.”

“That’s because us alchemists are all se-ee-cretive and myst-e-ee-rious,” Concord said, sounding more cheerful than any pony magically glued to the floor ought. “I’m an alchemist and you caught me! So where’s Pinkie?”

“She has been among us all this time, hidden by my spells of invisibility and silencing,” Luna said. “Pinkie Pie was supposed to shut and block the stairwell door to prevent your escape, but she seems to have lost her nerve.” She released the spells that were hiding the pink mare with two flashes of her horn. “No matter. Pinkie Pie, I have the situation well in hoof. Come forth and identify this miscreant!”

Nopony responded. Luna, and Concord looked one way and then another for the freshly un-cloaked pony. Other than them and Verity, the rooftop deck was deserted.

“Pinkie!” Luna commanded more forcefully. “He cannot harm you now. Show yourself at once.”

Again, only silence answered the princess’s words. Twilight remembered her own studies of invisibiliity, being warned repeatedly to never, ever make another pony undetectable because of the difficulty of finding them to undo the spell. That didn’t seem to be an issue for Princess Luna’s powers, but where could Pinkie have gone? The only way off this tiny balcony beside the door was...

The same thought occurred to Twilight and the princess simultaneously.

Luna’s eyes widened in shock and she rushed to the railing to look down the steeply-sloping roof. “Oh no, oh no! Could she have—? She was so afraid...”

“No! Pinkie, no!” Twilight shouted, and zipped out from the building, trying to find her friend.

Concord wasn’t sure what was making Twilight and Luna so excited, but whatever it was it involved Pinkie and it seemed bad. “Psst, Ver!” he hissed. “What’s going on? Where did Pinkie go?”

His sister blinked and instantly knew the answer. “Down.”

Twilight saw it a split-second before the princess did: a path of damaged shingles ran straight down the precipitous roof and bounced off the side of a steep roof-ridge covering one of the hall’s dormer windows. The trail of destruction ended at the lower balcony, where a spot of bright pink lay surrounded and partially covered by roofing debris. In the dimness and distance, she couldn’t see whether Pinkie was okay, and suspected the worst. Twilight and Luna vaulted the railing, all else forgotten, and dove toward the scene of the disaster.

Comments

[Aurora Dimmet]

It's like watching Occam's Razor and the Sword of Damocles have a fencing match.

[Classy Toad]

Lawl I have no idea what's goin on.

[GMZ_Casper]

...Oooh, Twilight, you just made a mess out of an already messy situation. I believe a good facepalmed would suffice in this case. Well, things are going to get worse before it gets better if this keep up. And, it seems poor Pinkie getting the bad end of Luna's mess...

C&Cs:
“Concord, if you keep on acting like some laid-back bumpkin you’ll never pass for an alchemist.”
> Comma after ‘bumpkin’.
“I thought when you told me you were capable of lying without breaking space and time you’d actually be good at it!”
> Comma after ‘time’.
For all the chaos he’d indirectly caused, This spirit of peace had no idea how to act menacing or villainous.
> Lower the casing on ‘This’. If you’re trying to emphasis on the word, use bold and italic instead.

[Qussar]

So concord is the spirit of peace
This explains a lot ...

[TinCan]

2890688

That's a wonderful analogy.

2890984

Yeah, sorry for that. I completely rewrote this chapter twice, and I'm still unsatisfied with it. Too much stuff glossed over, too much 'off-screen' action that only gets alluded to and I think I cut out some exposition that I should have left in.

2893972

Thanks again for the C&C! Changes made.

And yes, as I'm writing this, I constantly want to have Twilight wordlessly express her frustration with the spirits, but it's hard to do when she's kind of a disembodied observer.

2915069

I really ought to have explained more than I have by now about what the heck spirits and alchemists are and do in this setting. Thank you and all the rest for following along this far!