The Preparations

The Preparations

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One Week Later (Week 9)-

The Amethyst Platform was the primary train station for the Crystal Empire. Originally only a single building with barely any amenities or accommodations, the increased flow of travelers, goods, and railways had required the station to expand. A dozen platforms now stood amongst the grassy plains outside the city, and there were even plans in the coming year to build four more.

Cadance and Gleaming were snuggled together on a couch in a private room within the main station. It was mid-morning, and they were munching on snacks while pretending they weren’t watching the clock to strike the hour. Their normal retinue of guards was outside, and they were each reading a book to pass the time.

Knock, knock, knock.

Cadance and Gleaming perked up. With shared grins, the both eagerly got to their hooves.

“Come in!” Cadance called.

The door opened, and in walked Rex with all her usual stoic demeanor. A set of heavy-looking lavender suitcases were resting on her back, and she stepped to the side while clearing her throat.

“Announcing Princess Twi—”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

A lavender blur sped into the room in a rush of fuzz and feathers. Twilight Sparkle ran for the royal couple like a purple missile and leapt into their arms, hugging the daylights out of both of them.

“Foalsfoalsfoalsfoalsfoalsfoalsfoals!” She let out a whoop and nuzzled their cheeks. “Yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes!”

Gleaming and Cadance chuckled and hugged her back.

“I take it you’re excited, Sis,” Gleaming said.

Twilight gasped at Gleaming’s voice. In a flash, she leaned back to take a proper look at her brother-turned-sister.

“Oh… my gosh, Shiny,” Twilight said. “You look like those old pictures of Gramma Starlight when she was young! You look great! And—-what the hay? Why is your coat so soft?!”

Cadance burst out laughing.

“Seriously!” Twilight starting running her hooves along Gleaming’s withers. “Ugh, and your mane, too?! No fair! Do you have any idea how hard I have to work to make mine like that, and you get it naturally?!”

Gleaming gave her a patient look. “Twily, I’m pregnant.” She blew a stray lock of her out of her face and held it up to the light. “Thick, healthy hair kinda comes with the package.”

Twilight blinked. “Oh, yeah… heh.” She put a hoof behind her head. “Forgot about that.”

“It’s great to see you, Twilight!” Cadance stepped in and gave her sister-in-law another hug. “It’s been too long.”

“Yes! It has!” Twilight said, nuzzling her happily. “I keep meaning to get some time to come up, but every time I try, there’s an event of some kind, or I have to attend some government thing or another, or Equestria’s suddenly on the verge of total annihilation…”

Cadance snickered. “Oh, don’t you just hate that?”

“Again, seriously!” Twilight threw up her hooves with wide eyes. “Why can’t the world just stay safe for a little while? All I’m asking for is one peaceful weekend! Is that too much to ask?!”

“Far too much, clearly,” Gleaming said with deadpan. “Clearly, you must be on guard and watch over Equestria twenty-four seven. No personal life for you! CONSTANT VIGILANCE!”

Twilight smirked at her. “Oh, my most sincere apologies, Princess. I’ll develop a spell immediately to monitor every pony in Equestria at all times!” Her horn glittered for just a moment. “Soon, no villain shall escape my sight!”

Gleaming smirked as well. “Truly, it is the only way! Sacrifices must be made!  Equestria will be made safe! It must be done… for the greater good!”

“The greater goooooood!” Twilight echoed in a spooky voice. She waved her hooves back and forth in the air.

“Ooooooh!” Cadance chimed in, raising her hooves like a zombie.

The three of them burst out laughing and made funny faces at each other, completely disregarding all tact and propriety.

Meanwhile, still standing over by the door, Rex resisted the urge to facehoof.

“Royalty,” she muttered.

“But anyway!” Twilight said. “I’m here now! And I came prepared for what we need to do, so we’ll get that done quick, and then we’ll have the whole weekend together! It’s gonna be so great! I have all sorts of ideas to modify the spells for a multiple pregnancy!”

Her horn glowed, and her suitcases floated over in her aura. They snapped open with a sound like rushing wind, and dozens upon dozens of thick spellbooks poured out like a waterfall of literature.

A few seconds later, they were in the eye of a gently-spinning cyclone of books.

“Uh… Twilight?” Cadance said, warily eyeing the revolving tomes.

Twilight began speaking in a rapid tone. “I couldn’t decide which books to bring when you told me the news, so I just decided to bring every book on reproduction and anatomy I could find! Oh, and of course I brought the spellbooks to augment the spells we’ve already cast, but then I got to thinking, there might be some other spells we might think of when we start, so I brought my arcana section, too! And then of course I had to have some reading material for the trip, so I brought the first ten books of the Daring Do saga, but then I wanted to read the Ahuizotl Chronicles—”

“Twily.”

Twilight ceased her rambling. “Shiny?”

Gleaming gestured to the inter-spatial tear in reality floating within both suitcases. “A pocket dimension? Really?”

A faint blush appeared on Twilight’s cheeks. “Well… I thought it would safer if I just brought as much as I could. Besides, it’s not like it’s hard for me, y’know? I have all these books marked with spell tags. I can have them reshelved in seconds!”

Gleaming rolled her eyes. “We have libraries here too, you know.”

Twilight raised her chin with a hmph. “Do your libraries don’t have a copy of The Asclepius Journals, or the genealogy of our family going back ten generations? How about a manuscript of Starswirl’s notes on alicorn anatomy? One of your foals might be an alicorn, you know. Heck, they all might all be! We might need to give you a magic infusion of magic so that their magical fonts will develop properly! Do you your libraries have any information about that, Miss Smarty Pants?”

Gleaming opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She thought about saying quite a few things in reply, but wisely, decided not to. Instead, she conceded the point and looked over to Cadance.

“Thanks for covering our bases, Twilight,” Cadance said, smiling. “Especially with bringing all those rare books. I suppose with you coming up on short notice, it makes sense that you’d just grab a bunch of stuff in bulk.”

Twilight beamed at the praise. “I’m glad that somepony here understands my thought process.”

“Your ‘thought process’ once got you electrocuted back when we were kids,” Gleaming said flatly. “Remember that one?”

“One time!” Twilight snapped back. “One! Freaking! Time! And it wasn’t even that bad! The burns didn’t even leave marks or scars!”

Gleaming shook her head. “Can’t say the same for the floor… or the wall… the door… the ceiling... the tree outside your window…”

“Ugh, I swear.” Twilight’s horn flared again, and all the books flew back into her suitcase at blinding speed. “You have one little spell blow up in your face, and suddenly the whole world thinks you’re a madmare. Shoot the messenger while you’re at it, why don’t you.”

She closed the briefcase and floated back over to Rex, who took it without comment.

“Now, then!” Twilight said, rubbing her hooves together. She spread her wings with an odd gleam in her eye. “We have MAGIC to do! Come, my pink apprentice, and you as well, my precious pretty specimen. Let us be off… to the Secret Lab!”

She cackled maniacally and trotted out the door.

Gleaming and Cadance shook their heads as they watched her leave.

“Just think,” Gleaming muttered with a faux-wry note. “Our children have those genes.”

A thought suddenly occurred to Cadance. “You know, considering your family’s propensity to burst to flame, we should probably invest in some flame-retardant cribs.”

“Flame-retardant nursery is more like it.”

“I said stop fidgeting, Shiny!” Twilight said for the third time. She scowled at Gleaming from behind the trio of floating spellbooks in her grasp. “This spell needs to be precise! Keep this up, and we’ll have to start over!”

The three of them were in one of the alchemical laboratories adjacent to the Crystal Athenaeum. Originally, it was the one Twilight liked to use whenever she came to visit, but seeing as just about nopony else ever used it (and there were twelve others just like it in the castle) Cadance and Gleaming decided to restrict its use so she could leave things in it. Twilight had actually taken to this idea with gusto, and she’d requested they move a bed and other furniture into it so she could also use it as a guest room.

Add a few illusion and security spells to prevent somepony from just randomly stumbling in, and suddenly, you had something that could very well be called a secret lab.

The room was lit by warm crystal chandeliers that glinted with blueish-white light. The walls were lined with bookshelves filled with ancient grimoires and modern day textbooks, and tables with various alchemical instruments were neatly set up and organized in alphabetical order. The Crystal Mirror was off in one corner, dormant and plain-looking, and Twilight’s personal effects were up in a cozy loft just above.

Gleaming was standing (once again) in the center of a magical array with complex magical symbols, although this once was different in shape, design, and intent. Her sister’s soft, magenta glow was emanating from her entire body, and while this was expected, it also itched like mad.

“I’d like to see you try this, Twily,” Gleaming grumbled through clenched teeth. “It feels like ants are crawling on my skin! And through my insides!”

“Good, that means it’s working.” Twilight muttered something under her breath, her horn flaring a little brighter. “You’re gonna have to deal with it, or otherwise you’re gonna suffer through some very unpleasant things down the road.”

“Urghghghgghhh…” Gleaming ground her teeth as the tingling intensified. “Cadance, Honey, remind me of all the spells we’re using, here?”

Cadance, who’d been poring over a scroll that stretched all the way down to the floor, looked up from her work and cleared her throat. “Let’s see… the first is a modified version of the Irongut spell. It’s mostly just to help with the nausea and heartburn right now, but it’s also going to strengthen your bladder, cervix, intestines, and other internal organs. Twilight’s also making it so it helps with oxygenation and circulation, so you shouldn’t have problems with cramps, or swelling.”

Gleaming thought that over. That was all certainly neat, and it certainly explained the maddening itch in her chest and throat, but it was all still a little beyond her. She knew she’d appreciate all of it down the line, but right now, the magic just made her want to squirm.

“What else?”

Cadance hummed and went down the scroll. “Next is a combination of four spells Twilight found in the Aesclepius Journals. Their names are Old Equuish, but their literal translations are ‘body, to heal,’ ‘body, to stretch,’ ‘body, to refine’, and ‘body, to enforce.’ Basically, we’re trying to make your squishy parts stronger and healthier, but let them shift around when your skin and tummy stretch to fit the foals.”

Gleaming frowned. That one sounded complicated as all get out. Not to mention messy, if it was gotten wrong. Quite frankly, if it were anypony but Twilight trying to cast that, she would’ve teleported out of the array right then and there.

“Sounds like that book contains some pretty potent stuff,” Gleaming remarked.

Cadance looked to the side. “It’s normally in the Restricted Section at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. We got permission to use it when we told Aunt Celestia what we were trying to do. The Ovulation spell came out of there, too.”

Gleaming exhaled out her nose. “Lovely. Anything else?”

Cadance moved to the bottom of the page. “Those are the big ones. Although... I was meaning ask you; you’ve been eating five meals a day all this week, but I’ve noticed you’ve been having trouble getting through all of them. It’s a lot to eat, isn’t it?”

Gleaming made a face. Doctor Endo had given her a caloric minimum she had to meet every day, and it couldn’t be just any old food because there were nutrition needs to consider. It translated to eating a full-course meal every few hours, and while it was all really tasty, the bottom line was that the flesh was weak.

“We could do something about that, if you want,” Cadance said. “I asked Endo about it, and he thought an Appetite spell would help. It’d also coincide well with all the other spells we’re casting. What do you think?”

Gleaming didn’t even need to think. “Do it, please.”

Cadance set down the scroll she’d been holding and floated over a small tome with a bookmark in it. She opened it to the chosen page, then she began to softly chant under her breath.

“Yesssss, yesssss,” Twilight murmured in a sinister tone. “Good thinking, my pink apprentice. Your skill is improving greatly. Cast that while I finish these incantations...”

Cadance giggled. She adopted a raspy voice, hunching over slightly.  “Yes, Master, thank you, Master. Soon, all will fall into place, and the specimen shall be ready...”

A soft, evil laugh escaped both their lips.

Gleaming sighed. She decided right then and there that next time they decided to play Mad Scientist, one of them would be the experiment.

“Are you sure everything’s gonna be okay?” Gleaming asked. “This kinda seems like a lot, even for you.”

At this, Twilight stopped her casting. She looked over at Cadance a moment, then turned to Gleaming with a very serious look. “Mind if I show you something?”

Gleaming hesitated. “Uh… sure.”

Suddenly, Twilight’s entire body shimmered. There was an exponential increase of ambient energy in the room as she flared her magic, and a wave of harmonious energy emanated out from her very core. Her hooves glinted with sigils in the shape of her cutie mark, and the tips of her wings shifted colors, so that they were similar to Cadance’s. A streak of yellow appeared in her mane and tail to give it four tones instead of three, and her eyes danced with raw, electric power.

“The power of the Elements was changed in the battle with Tirek,” Twilight said, her voice calm and sure. “And the way my friends wield it was changed, as well. The result, for better or worse, is what you see. We call it ‘Rainbow Power’, and while we can activate it at any time, a portion of it always leaks through, no matter what.”

Goosebumps ran all along Gleaming’s body as she beheld her sister, realizing she’d gone up another level in power. The difference between them was suddenly revealed in full, and as the pulses of light passed through her like a refreshing wave, she couldn’t help but stare in awe.

“Twily…”

Twilight closed her eyes and cut off her power, letting herself return to normal. “I probably wouldn’t have been comfortable doing something like this alone before. Or at least, not without the power of the Elements to help me out. But with the passive power boost I’ve gotten, well… let’s just say my confidence is at an all-time high. I would never, ever, ever try something like this on you, or anypony else without one hundred percent confidence in myself, and I tested everything out threefold on the way here. Trust me when I saw you have nothing to worry about, Shiny. You’re in good hooves right now.”

“So long as you stay quiet and let her do her work,” Cadance said with a meaningful look.

Gleaming was stunned. She’d heard reports of the fight Twilight had had with Tirek, along with the castle that’d appeared in Ponyville shortly after, but she hadn’t heard anything about this. It appeared that her dearest baby sister was more up to the task than she’d realized.

“Shutting up now,” Gleaming said simply.

Cadance and Twilight snickered.

It took the greater part of three hours for Twilight and Cadance to finish. Gleaming had had to stand completely still the entire time, too, and while she was used to such things from her days on guard duty, she hadn’t exactly enjoyed it. Fortunately, it was over now, and the three of them were now breaking for lunch in one of the smaller, more private dining rooms.

“Thank Celestia,” Gleaming said. Their food had just been served to them on a series of steaming silver platters, and she snatched three of the trays in her magic and brought them over to her plate. One had some kind of casserole on it, the second was piled high with wild rice and cooked spinach, and the third was mostly chilled fruits. She took ample portions of all three and eagerly started chowing down.

Twilight and Cadance watched her with interest. They each took portions of their own, but seemed content to just watch Gleaming eat for the moment.

“I take it the Appetite spell is working,” Cadance remarked.

Gleaming mumbled an affirmative through her current mouthful. Without even looking up, she magicked over a few more platters with nuts and cheeses and began loading up a second plate.

Twilight chuckled. “Glad to hear. Things should be pretty smooth sailing from here on out, hopefully.”

Gleaming wiped her mouth with a napkin. “You think so?”

She shrugged and nibbled on some raisins. “For eight or nine months, at least. There’s a few extra things we were planning on doing once you’re closer to your due date, but nothing major.”

“Like what?” Gleaming asked.

Twilight examined her spoon as it gently revolved in her magic. “Some things to ease the discomfort of foaling, mostly, which I think Cadance already told you about. Oh, and seeing as you’re gonna have four mouths to feed, I thought we’d use a Lactation spell so you’ll produce enough milk.”

Gleaming groaned. “Yeah… we thought of that a few weeks back, too. We’re thinking of using enchanted bottles to get and save as much as we can once my body, uh… kicks into gear.”

Twilight hummed thoughtfully. “There are variations of the spell depending on what will work best. Varying levels of strength, and such. We can decide which one we wanna use once we get closer to that time.”

“Fair enough,” Gleaming said. She eagerly resumed her eating. “I supposhe we can jusht use formula if we run out.”

“What about those magic infusions you mentioned, Twilight?” Cadance asked. “You said something about that if one of the foals is an alicorn. How soon do you think we’ll be able to tell?”

Twilight took a moment to think. “I’m pretty sure species development and identification of crossbreed offspring is generally done at twenty weeks. We won’t need to do anything until then, but as soon as you find out, you need to let me know, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Cadance said. “Any particular reason why, though?”

“Well, not only will this be the first record of a naturally-born alicorn in a long, long time, it’ll also require some additional safety precautions like those magic infusions.” Twilight took a deep breath. “Annnnnd… if that’s the case, I think I’ll need to be here full-time.”

Cadance blinked several times. “Full… time?”

Gleaming’s heart skipped a beat. “Wait. What are you saying, Twily?”

Twilight gave her sibling a calm, level stare. “Naturally-born alicorns are pretty much uncharted territory. The only documentation on it is from Starswirl’s manuscripts, and even that isn’t much. If you’ve got an alicorn in there, I’d really like the chance to learn more. Yes, Cadance can do the alicorn magic infusions, but in all honesty, I’d feel better if I was close by to help out. What do you think?”

Gleaming and Cadance’s eyes went wide. They knew that Twilight was pretty heavily invested in what they were trying to do, but this…?

“Of course you can come up!” Gleaming blurted out. “Yes! Do it! We’d love to have you!”

“Definitely!” Cadance agreed. “It’d be great for you to be here! By all means!”

Twilight giggled, her cheeks turning a faint pink. “This isn’t just about science for me, of course—it’s about family, too. I want to hold my sweet little nieces and nephews, and spoil the living daylights out of them. I promise, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you and them are safe through all this.”

“But what about your duties as Princess?” Gleaming asked between bites of food. “I hate to say it, but you can’t just drop everything to come up here. You have responsibilities.”

Twilight rolled her eyes with a very unladylike grunt. “I know, and I’m not planning on it. I’m not sure what I’m gonna do if push comes to shove, but I’ll think of something. We’re still talking hypotheticals, here.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage it, Twilight.” Cadance winked at her. “You’re good at figuring out problems like this.”

Twilight’s gaze fell to the floor. “That doesn’t make it easier, though.”

“Oh, don’t pretend like you don’t enjoy the challenge,” Gleaming said. She polished off her second plate and dove into her third. “We both know you’re not happy unless you’re solving a problem that’d make most ponies pull out their manes.”

Twilight snorted. “I guess I’m doing a civil service, then. I’m preventing premature baldness in the pony population. I’d seriously love to see the analytics of that if it was a thing.”

Gleaming smirked. “You would.”

“Yeah! I really would!” Twilight said. “It’d be really interesting! We could make a side-by-side comparison of the before and after, as well as the effects on the pharmaceutical market, the economy as a whole, and maybe even—”

Twilight stopped as she realized Cadance and Gleaming were looking at each other again, a shared smile on their faces.

“Uh…” Twilight cocked her head. “What?”

Gleaming turned to her with a soft laugh. “Never change, Twily. Never change.”