Termination Shock

For what must have been the fifth or sixth time since Rainbow Dash had left up the Spire of Harmony, the Princess found herself wishing that Celestia, or even Luna, were by her side. The older sister was better, infinitely calm and comported even in the face of dire tragedy. She would be the peaceful heart in a maelstrom of staff officers and civilian leaders, carefully applying force with the inevitability of some natural phenomenon. And she would have had the guts to make the decision Twilight couldn't stand to think about.

Once the glow of the theoretical achievement had passed, it was replaced by an icy, rising dread. On the singular occasion it had been done in the past, it was at an energy level barely half of what she was now carefully preparing to do, and even then only because both Celestia and Luna worked together to ensure success. That wasn't a story you would find in any of the official or redacted histories. Her mentor had mentioned it only once, in hushed and secretive tones after one too many glasses of wine at a state occasion long forgotten. She hadn't told Rainbow Dash about that though. The rainbow pony had been furious enough as it was with her, and for a moment she had thought that her commander would openly rebel and take action regardless. But the time limit and authorisation to act immediately when it passed had placated her.

Twilight paused for a moment beside her throne to make sure all the holographic projectors were back in their correct nooks, then hopped up off the ground and took flight in one graceful motion. Outside gentle zephyrs of warm evening air carried the soft scents of the hundreds of types of ornamental flower along and around her, mixed with the sharper notes of distant ponyoak trees and even the smell of the kitchen garden and its hearty fare. The whole climate was perfectly controlled out to the edge of the estate, where it met up with Canterlot City proper. Otherwise the gusting winds at the height of the mountain would be near storm force on a calm day. Luckily the city here was domed and sheltered, visible as a morass of bubbles and tubes beyond the walls. Twilight felt as much of a fraud as the weather as she put on height and speed, circling once over the lawns and flowerbeds before doubling back and heading upwards to her Royal Erie.

In the sky above her, sixteen needle shapes clad in harsh black held station with the vanishing point of the Spire of Harmony. Every so often one of the smaller attendant ships she knew were there would catch the sunlight and throw off a dazzle, making it appear as though they were magic wands, glittering in the oncoming night. As she alighted on the covered platform that topped the Castle, a seventeenth appeared, dropping out of Transition with a silent, invisible burst of hard x-rays.

From a mechanical perspective, what she planned to do was very similar to how the Transition drive functioned, albeit achieved through magic instead of the fantastically complex machines that had given ponykind the ability to leave their own world. They had been invented, after all, as a direct result of her fruitless quest to explain the fundamental properties of magic. Even after a thousand years of study, that was one area which still eluded her, and probably always would. Many in her scientific circles questioned if it was even possible to probe those sorts of deep interactions with the cosmos. However, the physical effects of magic were easily observed and explained, and had lead to many such ground-breaking inventions across the board.

Nopony had ever moved an entire planet before. Twilight settled down into a comfortable position, closing her eyes and feeling the tangible threads of magical energy quiver around her. The phrase echoed around her head as she began to marshal those threads, calling more into being. As though sensing her plans, they felt far harder to call upon than usual, actively resisting the usually simple process. Magical output was always measured in Star swirls, with one Star swirl being the force required to manifest a single atom of hydrogen. She felt her horn begin to heat up and whine as she surpassed a Gigaswirl. Behind her eyelids the glow of Cherenkov radiation rose to near daylight levels. Two gigaswirls. Five. Sixteen. A new personal record.

Twilight concentrated as hard as she could, electric fear keeping her going. If she lost control of the charge now the resulting feedback would go off with the force of a small nuclear weapon. Some fragmentary aspect of her mind cursed the lack of time, cursed the lack of anywhere much safer to do this. For a brief moment she wondered if the cure might turn out to be worse than the illness. Then, without any fanfare, a terrifying and lucid wave came over her mind. A complete stillness. She was standing, watching herself, out of her own body. Then the viewpoints multiplied. She was a dozen versions of herself, hundreds. The purple light was so violent now that the paintwork and programmed plastic construction of the Erie was beginning to melt, boiling and turning black in the ferocity.

Some sort of ripple like a bubble in lava began to form, some other had stepped in to control what she was doing. She was every one of her many selves but the one racked and contorted with the immense effort beneath the bulging orb of pure magic. Twilight couldn't even hazard at guess at its energy output. The roof suddenly turned into a cloud of hot plasma, quickly followed by the floor, just blown away as though it were made of sand. It didn't seem to matter very much. Normal physical rules about gravity and so on had apparently been upended, as the assembled herd of Twilights remained in place high in the air, suspended like moons around their parent world.

The other opened her stolen eyes, staring right at Twilight even though she was deeply multiple, a baffling skewer through concepts about geometry and perspective she once held dear. Though the features were her own, they gave a content, infinitely patient and deeply familiar smile. It couldn't be, it wasn't possible. But the quiet grin could belong to nopony else. Then her possessed body was fully enveloped by the orb in one fell expansion. Twilight went blind, eyes searing in the first real taste of the energies at work. The air cracked and ripped apart as it was tortured. She swore she heard the grinding scream of bending metal, the castle below falling apart.

And then the planet moved.