Angels and Demons 2: Timelock

by lunabrony

A Great and Powerful Encounter

Trixie. Silver couldn't say he was absolutely familiar with the name, although in his world he'd seen advertisements, they were not explanatory past informing him of a travelling show. Twilight had taken the day off at the University, and cheerfully gone with him, making idle conversation as they walked to the outskirts of town. A signpost directed him at a crossroads. WEST - ROCK FARM.. EAST - APPLE FARM. "Come on, slowpoke, we're almost there." She said, trotting down the left road. "I warn you, we might have to wait a while."

It was hard to read this Twilight, of course he'd only known about the princess in a fairly indirect way through the friendship lessons that circulated in the newspapers, from having assessed the extent of her magical abilities and how reliant she was on her friends. Novaria wanted something that could up the advantage Celestia had for political reasons. He had ideas, eventually he hoped to see if they could be made to work here in this world. This Twilight seemed more carefree and unburdened. Rock farm.. that meant this Pinkie Pie, and here if the pattern was consistent she'd be working there outside of her capacity to plow for rocks, but what if anything had happened to Applejack? He tested Twilight as she lead him to either of the two, if she stopped at the sign it meant she knew neither and even their mutual friendship or knowledge of each other had been prevented. Also he asked her questions. "How much magical training have you recieved? Ever done transmutation spells?"

Twilight didn't even look at the sign, she walked right past it heading for the rock farm, although she made no mention of either mare. "I went to magic kindergarten,and I studied as a filly for quite a bit. I once had a chance to really learn magic, but I'm afraid I wasn't quite cut out for it." She shrugged. "And I can't say I have, those are extremely difficult." As they reached the top of the hill, he saw two things. One, in the distance, the infamous rock farm, a few houses and trailers surrounded by boulders of various sizes. Secondly, a wagon had been set up at the base of a hill. In front of it was an enormous queue bordered by rope, looping left right left right leading around the back of the caravan. The queue was filled with ponies, patiently waiting.

"Do you know Pinkie Pie?" Another small test. Rocks could be fairly valuable, depending on what was in them or simple for the plain granite they were made of. All farms when they tilled the soil get up a bunch of rocks, this place was similar only to a strange excess, rocks literally seemed to grow out of the ground here. And some family had realized, though it was back breaking work, that a life could be squeezed out tilling them. In this world Twilight Sparkle had failed her magical exam, though being a rock farmer seemed unlikely. You didn't have to demonstrate the awe inspiring powers she had demonstrated to be accepted to that school, but then again with her life's ambitions crushed, would she have tried again. When she had been little, other than magic, it had been Celestia she had been dying to meet.

Twilight shook her head. In a perfect world, EVERYONE knew Pinkie Pie. "I can't say I do, is she a friend of yours?" She asked. The two of them approached the wagon, all the ponies in line were muttering amongst them selves, some had small foals, others had items like shovels or sacks of wheat.

He didn't know if this Trixie was the one who had bent space and time, or whether she had simply been made to fill the place Twilight ought to have filled. "How long has she been Celestia's student? Was it before you started studying magic?" The creature in the castle, who he had ominous suspicions about that he tried to quelm, was the probable cause.

Twilight thought a moment. "The thing you have to understand is that Trixie is extremely full of herself. She auditioned for the open role of Celestia's student shortly after I did, and I suppose the Princess saw something in her. At the very least, a personal project. She's talented, even if she's a jerk." She sighed. "I practice magic now and then, but my motivation just isn't there anymore." This timelines Twilight seemed a bit more easily broken than he knew, especially since she didn't have five friends to support her.

He considered her with no small amount of sympathy, another pony of this world that had become undone by whatever temporal effects had occurred. Hopefully it could be undone, and all of this, himself as he was now included, unless he was truly immune.. would be returned to way it ought to be. "Don't let your failures get you down Twilight, I happen to have seen you do a difficult long teleport without taking a breath. I think you're being more hard on yourself than you should be." Equestria lacked an internet, and handheld computers and decent radio, and a lot of other things the desires for which was returning to him now that he needed it. She wouldn't know advanced magic… but he wondered if maybe she had perfected other day to day spells. "Say… would you be able to summon books from the library even out here? Teleported?" It was a suggestion, if she could, then he'd ask her to look up in the registry for registered fliers under Rainbow Dash.

"Oh, of course, that's an easy temporal search and relocation spell, just tell me what you need, and if it exists, I can find it!" She exclaimed brightly. Although she had nearly given up on improving her magic, it clearly made her happy to show it off now and again.

"Find the register for all registered fliers." Any flighted pony who had passed the flight school was there, from when it had been started, the first one registered was Celestia as she had also been the one to start it. Luna was a notable exception. "Look for a Rainbow Dash, check her wing power.. I'm guessing it should be around seventeen or nineteen" Assuming something had happened to her it might be a lot lower, of course there was an even crueler possibility. "If you don't find anyone there, then look under..." He had to think for a bit. "The Cloudsdale wing trauma centers admission list, her name might be there." Though without permission he might not be able to get a diagnosis. He tried to see where the queue was leading.

Twilight concentrated, and closed her eyes, her horn glowing. No material appeared, but she seemed to be going through it mentally, searching through loads of information. "Rainbow Dash. Former Resident of Ponyille. Graduated with Honors at Cloudsdale Flight Academy. Wing Power 16.5. Current location... unknown." She broke off her spell, looking fairly drained. "Does that help you at all?"

He was sometimes surprised by how little cruelty was shown in this world. She was alive, that was good, and her abilities weren't handicapped. Current location unknown, hmm… "It does a little, you're fairly smart, do you know if any pegasus has managed to pull off a sonic rainboom in recent history?" That was the event that had been the nexus of their original friendship, the one that had been all six ponies on a collision course with each other. There was also another realization about Twilight here. They way she asked him... it wasn't that she was inquisitive, but she trusted him. She wasn't a leader here. Without Celestia as a mentor it almost figured, but it hurt his heart. "You're not going to ask me what I need all this information for?" He smirked. And promised himself that he'd help all six of them if he could.

A snort of laughter. Twilight covered her mouth with her hoof. "I'm sorry, you just surprised me. A sonic rainboom? That's impossible." She said firmly. "As for your questions, your reasons are your own, I'm not going to pry into your business." She said kindly. At that moment, a small purple and green dragon approached them, scroll in hand. "Excuse me, are you two going to get in line or not? The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't allow loitering." He warned.

He considered it for a moment, looking at the length of the queue, wondering if they'd manage to get through it before sunset. Bribery was always a possibility. There was something odd about this. Celestia's student acting as a showpony? He wondered. "Does the great and powerful Trixie accept a challenge? I have one for her that she'll find impossible." He removed his large gem, sizable and pure, even with an ethereal inner glow. Exchangable for a quite a few bits. You could buy a small home with it. "I'll put this gem up for the challenge if she can do it, it'll be hers, if she fails, then I get to ask her a couple of questions that she'll have to answer truthfully."

The dragons eyes sparked with greed, and he salivated slightly. "Wait here." He said, and disappeared into the back of the wagon. Twilight was staring at him as if she recognized something, but shook her head as she dismissed the idea. After a few moments, the dragon returned. "The Great and Powerful Trixie will see you now." There was a groan from the line, and the dragon snapped at them. "Oh, shut up!"

He had never meet the princesses major domo, so he couldn't judge if that behavior was normal. The dragon looked aggressive in a way that didn't quite seem to fit with what little he knew. A picture was starting to form of this Trixie. "Twilight, walk with me." It would be a simple challenge, he'd ask her if she figure out where any pony was born. Simple spell, only with him it would fail, because he wasn't born a pony, but a human. He became a pony when he got here, and it became his true nature when he discovered his cutie mark, but his origin was in another place. Of course, it might not work, in which case he had lost a precious gem. Though of course, he'd easily be able to get it back, but not in a way he'd want to ever do.

The door the dragon led him to was closed, and he could hear a voice from inside. "It is not Trixies fault that your family is going hungry. Work harder, and stop being lazy. Get out of Trixies sight. she is done with you." "You'll regret this, loser!" The door flung open with a bang, and an enormous creature pushed him out of the way. Half lion, half eagle. The first he'd seen anything like that. This one glared at him through shadowed eyes. "Out of my way, dweeb." She snarled, and took off into the air.

Gryphons, always so aggressive, but that one had been irate. He raised his eyebrows and looked at Twilight. "I think these negotiations are going to be tough.. Twilight, could you enlighten me on spells to tell another pony's origins? Is there a spell that would seek out where a pony was born?" He had gotten the idea when he had seen her do the library searches. "I'm not talking about looking up in a registry, though that's permissible.. do these spells have limitations?" If Trixie did it by looking up all registries in Equestria she'd come up empty as well, but a more generalized spell might fail since he hadn't been born a pony, and not even on Equestria, in fact he was from a magic-less world. And if it succeeded, perhaps she'd think the answer so far out that she'd second guess the result and assume that her spell had failed and given nonsense as a response.

Twilight thought for a moment. "I don't think so, at least not to my knowledge. Whatever you're planning, there comes time a moment when you simply have to sail into the wind and hope for the best." She smiled. "I'm sure you'll do wonderfully." An angry voice yelled from behind the door. "Trixie will not wait forever! Get in or get out!"

And a dreamer too. He entered at a comfortable pace, unthreatened by her, respective but dignified. Who was this pony that Celestia had been training up until her disappearance? "I'm coming in humble, I'm a travelling mystic and seeing as you had been trained by Celestia herself, I was wondering if you could answer a conundrum that I'm wondering whether anypony can solve. I want to know the name of where I'm born. Where did I come from? Is there any spell that you can use to find that answer?" He genuflected in respect, catering to the ego she had in full measure of. The gem was levitated out. "All that remains of my former treasure, yours if you can answer that question. If you fail, I should like to ask you some other questions. This is a challenge and a request, quid pro quo, yes or no?"

The blue mare sitting behind an ornamental desk rolled her eyes. "Trixie is confused by your request, but it is so laughably simple that she will oblige. Your challenge is accepted." She said. "You shall be witness to the power of Celestia's chosen one!" She announced. Twilight was right, she was quite full of herself. Her horn glowed blue, and the unicorn smiled confidently. After a few minutes, her smile had faded halfway. "Just a minute. Trixie is experiencing technical difficulties."

"I have nearly given up hope, I'll accept it if you can't, but I'll still want answers to other questions" A humbled head, looking a little downcast, as if he had already anticipated this. If she failed she see this, and come to believe that the fault was not with her, because he didn't want to enrage her. He gave Twilight a wink. She was smart, he hoped she would start to think about how spells like that could fail.

Trixie became more frustrated by the minute, yet refused to concede defeat. "The planets are out of alignment, Trixie's magic is weakened. Trixie will reschedule you. Come back next week." She sounded irritated.

"I'm afraid I don't have that long, you have three witnesses to the challenge, if I go now I'll tell of your failure." He stood up again, erect. "Will you answer a few simple questions of mine in return? They won't be long or complicated, or tricky, they'll be things you probably won't think much about, or you've already told a dozen times to other ponies."

Trixie's eye twitched, and she snorted so hard a toonish plume of smoke shot from her nose. "You dare challenge the Great and Powerful Trixie?! Fine! Trixie accepts your questions!"

"I know you applied to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, was this of your own free will or did someone suggest you to go there? Secondly, tell me exactly what happened in the examination room.. I know you were given an egg to hatch, and I suspect you struggled for a little while in hatching it. What made it hatch? Answer truthfully, don't lie or I'll know." He turned to Twilight and whispered to her. "How could a spell like the one she tried to cast fail? Its a puzzle." He had to give a her a subtle hint. "You need to think outside the box, the answer is extraordinary."

Trixie looked annoyed. "Trixie is amazing, what dragon wouldn't hatch for her? Trixie simply displayed some of her powerful magic, and was rewarded with Spike." She looked proud of herself. Twilight was deep in thought, gears turning, and didn't respond.

He took a step towards her. "You're not outright lying, but you're not telling the truth either. This is the story you're telling everyone and yourself. I don't want to hear general terms, I want specifically what you did." Silver wasn't a magical fighter, but he could look imposing when he wanted to. However much he wanted to think of himself as a pony, he wasn't one entirely, and he knew his eyes could look frightening. It helped that he wanted to bash her head in. "You will answer, or I have a means of making you look embarrassed and outdone. After you've answer these two questions properly, I have one last question and then you'll likely never see me again."

The unicorn frowned deeper. "Trixie was presented with the egg, and tasked with hatching it.No matter what Trixie did, the egg would not open until Trixie admitted to herself that what she wanted was not power, but a friend. Disgusting, right? But the egg hatched at the last minute, Celestia saw potential in Trixie and tried to change her. But of course, as soon as she disappeared, Trixie went back to her original plans for using the dragon for her own advantage. Happy now?"

It seemed the truth, however thin it was. The bit about friendship fit as well, in the original timeline Twilight had become the one to discover the magic of friendship. He wondered.. and looked at Trixie's cutie mark. Twilight's had been rare, if not completely unique. Most magical users had celestial bodies, hers had been an abstract symbol of the magic of friendship. "That was one question, the second was how did you get admitted to the entrance exam in the first place? Once you've answered that... what can you tell me about Celestia, how she vanished, anything?"

Trixies mark did not seem to have changed, it was a half moon and scepter, as it had been before. She was her usual annoying self. "Celestia suffered many hardships. She became reclusive and depressive after Nightmare Moon took over Ponyville. Then when the Crystal Empire was destroyed, she took it really hard. Manehattan was the last straw, and she disappeared. Even Trixie does not know where she went."

"One down, Trixie, and you won't see again." About what he had already been told, he supposed that she knew nothing more to it than that. It confirmed the other information he had, and closed down some possibilities as to Trixie's own involvement in it. "I have reasons to believe that your actual magical skills, though I'm sure Celestia has taught you a lot, are fairly feeble. How did you come to be admitted to an entrance exam in that school?" He had no reasons to suppose that in the original timeline she hadn't done so on her own and simply failed, but it was worth checking. It was also the question she had been hiding from. Then again it might simple be a mundane answer. He felt a small amount of frustration, none of her answers had taught him anything he didn't already know.

Trixie looked a bit proud. "That is simple. Trixie's parents bribed the Royal Guard. They did not guarantee Trixie would win, but promised a chance even though the auditions were full. Trixie always knew she was meant for Greatness, was there ever any doubt?"

Fffff... he thought, realizing that he couldn't even think that word... whatever it had been, which had been so appropriate in situations like this. "Thank you for your time Trixie. You've been given a lot of privileges you couldn't live up to, this wasn't prope. It wasn't you who was supposed to have cracked that egg." He turned and walked out, leaving Trixie angered.

"Nopony walks out on the GREAT AND POWERFUL TRI-"

The door slammed.