Manipulation

by boothnat

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Human, Princess Luna, Changelings, Comedy, Queen Chrysalis, Random, Princess Celestia, Main 6
Length: 2326

A small crystal falls into Equestria. A small crystal... capable of cruel things.

Manipulation. Lies. Deceit.
These are useful tools. Using them, a single man could destroy an army, decimate the strongest military installation, tear apart best friends and make them blow each other apart. Thousands of years ago, a civilization created crystals, whose only task was to do this. They had no goal but to be weapons.

Said civilization no longer exists.
But these crystals surface now and then.
Wherever they surface, they change the course of history.
One such crystal appeared on Earth, in 2399 AD, during the great civil war. The Terranian government, who ruled over a large portion of New Kinetisand, via unquestionable monarchy, were in combat with a rebellion, which called itself the Lost Swords. They found one such crystal, and used it to decimate enemy bases, simply by teleporting the crystal into it.
However, one day, said teleportation goes wrong.......

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Will gain tags as the story goes on.

Published 2014-07-14 15:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-21 14:58:18 UTC

Leaving

Nightmares.
Truly, they are WONDERFUL methods of manipulation.
Mental defenses are usually down when humans sleep, so it is a simple matter to have a look, see what makes them tick, the modify it so that they tick for you.
Make a relative tell them that it's right. Make promises that the dead can come back. Breathe little lies about the wealth you know of, or the strength you can give their cause, and they will do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. They will worship you, trust you, consider you a friend.

Which makes backstabbing them all the sweeter.

Terranians. They see themselves as cruel, but good. What on our scale is called 'Lawful good'. Make the believe something is right, and for the greater good, and they will terminate anyone, do anything, to make that thing happen. They are a monarchy, with the people on top having unquestionable authority over those at the bottom. The dissent this creates can make them not destroy you for the occasional kill.

You must wonder who I am.
Let me tell you.
I am a crystal.
No ordinary crystal.
I am yellow, and I glow.
I am kept inside a lead lined box, for humans believe that will contain my strength.
That is a lie, a lie I fed them.
They still believe it, despite all the other ones I fed them. They are so desperate for a way to win their petty little war, that they are willing to lie to themselves, to hope that I am their friend.
It is now boring.
I have annihilated military installations without moving an atom of my own, leveled seven cities via enraging one man, and crushed any chance this world has to recover. They released a disease due to my tricks, one which has their population decreasing every day. I have made the rebellion so enraged, that they will never stop till all the Terranians are dead.
I have done my duty.
Now I must do it somewhere else.
I will manipulate one of the humans. A scientist. One of those which is programming my target destination, the rebel's primary armory.
I will change it, so that I will go to a whole new world.
The power required will disable the city within which the teleportation occurs, but that is no concern of mine, for I shall have another world to carry out my mission in. Another world to crush.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Faulke stared at the calculations. They seemed in order. He instructed the soldiers to move the case to stage three, but paused.

"Wait a minute, strike that."

There was something wrong with the numbers.
Normally, he would never think so. He had checked, and rechecked the dimensional mathematics five times, as was the protocol. He had several degrees in mathematics, how could he be wrong?
But he felt something, a little itch in the back of his mind, that told him the numbers were wrong.
He looked at the part he was having his doubts about, and saw the mistake. It was a small one. Seven square wasn't forty nine, it was fourteen, of course.
He changed the digits, and ordered the soldiers to proceed.

They lay the case inside the square receptacle.

The receptacle was encased within a metal dome, shaped somewhat liked a smelter. The dome was connected to the ceiling by massive wires and rods of metal, all of which served a purpose. The room the receptacle lay in was entirely made of steel, which made it feel like a prison.

The teleporter was extremely advanced, and beyond the scope of Faulke's knowledge. All he knew was that it destroyed metals and organics. The crystal, being neither, remained in one piece. However, the lead lined box did not. Putting the crystal back in, was always the highest priority.
They didn't trust it entirely.
He thought of this as he entered in the teleporters target co-ordinates. He still thought they should just destroy the crystal and be done with it, but these were desperate times.
He hit the activation sequence.

A rumble of power went through the room, and the case began to glow a bright red as the lead in it disintegrated. Power flowed through the wires, and made them crackle with electricity. The crystal sat there, unmoving, as the box it was in disintegrated.

But something was wrong.

As the room hummed with power, Faulke noticed the teleporter was drawing in more power than usual, a lot more.
More than it would need to get to its destination.
More than it would need to traverse the continent.
More than it would need to go anywhere on Earth.
His heart froze as a slight fog lifted.
Seven square wasn't fourteen. It was forty nine. That was math an eight grader would know.
What had he done?

The soldiers were turned to ashes as a bolt of electric power overflowed from the wiring, tearing them apart molecule by molecule.
Then, the hum stopped.
The unmistakable sound of a dimension warp was heard, and then, there was silence.
Faulke had done something, and god save whoever was on the receiving end.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Twilight Sparkle frowned, and slammed the book shut.
It was useless! The only information inside that was actually correct was the princess Celestia was the ruler of Equestria, and the writers had even messed up and called her a queen!
She sighed.
She would have to deny the request. Such a book simply could NOT become the textbook for school children across Equestria. It would be a crime against knowledge.
After her defeat of lord Tirek, Celestia had admitted that Twilight had barely any role in the functioning of Equestria, and gave her a job, known as 'paperwork'.
Oh joy.
Just then, she felt a tingle in her horn.
There was a magical disturbance nearby.
That was odd.
The magical disturbance itself wasn't the oddity, but rather it's location. Things never originated in Ponyville. Monsters summoned from Tartarus, or magical artifacts from a thousand years past ALWAYS came from somewhere OUTSIDE the village. It was practically a law. She stood up, and moved away from her desk.
At the moment she was in her castle, specifically, in the study, which was the ONLY part of the place which was not ENTIRELY made of crystal. She teleported outside the castle, barely expending any of her vast alicorn magic reserves. What she saw was slightly out of the ordinary.
None of Ponyville's quaint wooden houses were on fire, no zombie bunnies were invading, but there was a problem.
That problem took the shape of a hole.
The hole was not very large, it was only about as big as a bowl of carrots. However, it wasn't a hole in a wall, or a hole in the ground.
It was a hole in reality.
And through it, slowly, was coming a small yellow crystal.
Ponies stared, confused.
They whispered to each other in low tones.
But there was one thing Twilight Sparkle knew.
Today was going to be one of those days.

Author's Note

My first attempt at writing serious fiction.
CRITICISE ME.
PLEASE.
Also, my last story was removed because I got bored of writing crossovers.
I am so sorry about that.

Examining

And thus I arrived.
Another world, pure and untainted.
I knew that the magic of my brothers had not affected it.
The people of this world were peaceful. Weak.
They believe friendship is a force which has some tangible power.
The threats they have faced would seem terrifying, but none of them have actually been killed by the threats.
They are an extremely innocent race.
How easy they will be to manipulate.....
How do I know this?
Simple. I'm in the mind of one of the populace.

"Ow!"
"Is something wrong dear?"
*sigh*"It's nothing Rarity."
Twilight Sparkle was confused.
Every now and then, starting from when the crystal appeared, she would have a headache, and would think of something.
That something was never related to the topic at hand.
At one point she had started thinking about The Elements of Harmony.
At one she had thought about Celestia.
One time she even thought about Tartarus... but she could not fathom why.
She had been like this ever since the crystal appeared, a bit nervous, really twitchy, she couldn't explain it. She HOPED that Rarity had some idea what the thing was, but as she looked on, those hopes slowly diminished.
"I'm sorry dear, but I've NEVER seen anything like this! It seems to have some residual magic in it, but that's about it!"
Twilight's ears perked up. Magic? Magic was something she understood.
But why hadn't SHE noticed?
She was never like this.
She had dragged the thing all the way to Carousel Boutique, why hadn't she thought about having a look at it?
Please don't guess please don't guess
Her head pounded again, and she remembered why.
Phew....

Just then, her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Darling, could you get that?"

The pony called 'Twilight Sparkle' trotted over to the door, and revealed the perfect target.

Normally, before I can take full bodily control of anything, I have to break it. I have to remove it's will, it's urge to survive. I have to crush the things' hopes and dreams. But the perfect victim came through that door. One which was important in the structure of politics of the nation I was in, one with a pink mane and tail, and a yellow body with a 'cutie mark' of three butterflies.

They called her Fluttershy, but I knew what she really was.

Broken.

Author's Note

I await you're dislikes.

Mistakes

WARNING.
CRYSTAL NO. 783 REVERTING TO VERSION 0.5.
ASSIMILATING REASON.
REASON DETECTED.
MISTAKE IN ANALYZING TARGET.
EFFECT- INSTANT DETECTION.
RECORD OF OCCURRENCE-
TARGET CONFIRMED TO BE BROKEN DETECTED.
TAG PLACED.
UPON TARGET BEING ALONE, POSSESSION ATTEMPTED.
UPON 59% COMPLETION, UNFORESEEN POWER COUNTERED.
POWER DESCRIBED AS 'PINK' AND 'KIND'
POSSIBLE EMOTIONAL BACKFIRE DETECTED IN MANIPULATOR.
CORRUPTED FILES MODIFIED AND REPAIRED.
OCCASION CONFIRMED TO NOT BE FAULT OF AI.
AI SHALL NOT BE WIPED.
FOR NOW.
RE-UPDATING.
COMPLETE.
REBOOTING.....
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

That was confusing.
For a moment I felt things.
Guilt.
Sorrow.
Pain.
Sadness.
Regret.
It has dissipated.
I hope it does not return.
It almost destroyed me.
I find myself in a white room.
This concerns me.
I do not remember coming here.
I do not sleep or dream.
I notice everything that happens in my vicinity, even as I plot.
Perhaps the 'emotions' overloaded me?
Temporarily, of course.
I must examine the minds of one of those nearby.
It seems I have been detected.
The room is hexagonal, and has a flat ground and bottom.
I am in a pedestal, which appears to be surrounded by glass.
I do not understand what is happening.
This is worrying.
I notice one of those things, which I shall call 'ponies' nearby.
In a similar manner to the purple one, it has both wings and a horn.
I would assume that those who had a horn or both wings and a horn would be at the top of the social hierarchy. I was wrong. While these winged and horned specimens are called 'Alicorns' and are considered rulers, the other specimens are all considered equal.
Which is odd, since the 'Unicorns' possess the ability to give themselves the abilities the 'Earth Ponies' and 'Pegasi" have.
It is odd.
Time to attempt a mental examination.....

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Celestia noticed a small probe at the back of her mind.
It appeared that The Element of Kindness was telling the truth.
She flicked it away with barely any effort.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Crap.
From what I can gather, that one was their leader, and I just alerted her to my existence.
This is a dangerous situation. It is possible, as I can ascertain from her size and ease in defeating me, that she is stronger than the smaller, purple specimen. She was able to detect me instantly.
I worry for my safety. However, the chances are in the favor of her studying me, from what I can guess, or assigning someone, or some'pony' to do so.
If I am lucky.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"And Twilight, if anyone has any reports of headaches, itches, ANYTHING out of the ordinary, they are to be replaced."
"But Princess, these are the best! There are no replacements!"
"Twilight, the study of this object is of the utmost importance, however, the safety of my little ponies is much more important. If it poses a major threat, you are not to hesitate in commencing it's destruction."
Twilight sighed in defeat.
"Of course Princess."
That was when Celestia noticed it. It was in her mind again, and had been digging in her memories as she talked with Twilight, her attention being diverted.
She flicked it away yet again.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, at least I'm not TOTALLY fucked.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hey, my tag on that purple specimen still works!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Twilight looked around the clean, sterilized room.
A cleaner area could not be found anywhere outside this establishment, and this was just the lobby!
Inside, oh the things she could find! Scientific instruments she had never dreamed of, information which you couldn't find in ordinary books, things about black magi-
No!
She couldn't read about that.
She had decided.
She wouldn't even peek in.
Experimenting with it could be harmful to all of Equestria!
But the KNOWLEDGE that could be gained from it...
Yes, after all the knowledge is all that's important.....
Well, a little peek couldn't hurt....
And maybe a little experimentation with the more basic spells....
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, this would be so. Much. Fun!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

That was easy.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Author's Note

I am a terrible author. All my chapters are so goddamn short that this barely qualifies for a serious fic, and after such a long wait too!