I am a ghost, haunting the memories I love the most.
A raccoon, Twilight seemed to herself: eyes weighted down with tea bags—tea bags that would make the most bitter tea—; up all night; rooting through garbage.
But it was her own garbage.
Coffee grounds and pencil shavings; spilled ink and worn quills; cigarette butts and musty ashes—they all rimmed the center of the laboratory, a room hidden away from the sun and the prying eyes of any of the populace.
Twilight pondered—as she had a million times before—whether or not a window would do her good.
One could be easily installed within a day. It would provide some much-needed Vitamin D, as well as assist her mind in staying awake.
But, as she had decided a million times before, that would take to much time. She had made the decision ten years ago that all her attention would go toward her project.
Blessed, albeit cautiously, by Princess Celestia, Twilight had begun work on a device that would provide equinekind with immense power. It would show new things that could be discovered and researched upon that could skyrocket existence as it was known to heights heretofore unimagined.
Quite simply, it provided a god-like trait.
Omnituence or omnipercipientce would be the most correct of terms, but Twilight instead settled upon Omniscience; she liked the way it rung.
And, despite her exhausted, filthy appearance, inside she was more excited than in years: her work was drawing to its conclusion.
With the rest of the Elements of Harmony scattered about the globe, working equinatarian aid and otherwise working on projects of their own, Twilight found a freedom that she hadn't known for a long time.
She grew lonely, of course, but it was not an emptiness; on the contrary, it was a burning emptiness, filled with passion.
Twilight detected a creak behind her but disregarded it as she lit a cigarette.
"Ya know, Twilight, those aren't good for you..." Spike said in a cautious tone.
"None of this is good for me," Twilight responded with a hoarse tone, "the sleepless nights, the stress, the weight of just what is might be I'll discover will be."
She cleared her throat.
"Don't worry," she continued with a tired smile as she turned her head toward Spike, "I'll quit once my work is done."
Spike entered the room, brow furrowed; "And haven't you been saying that that's 'soon'?"
Twilight's smile grew from tired to almost sadistic.
"Yes. I only have a few more electrics to configure. Today, Spike. Today, Ublade, Fuanov, and Deynia will all align. This will create a surge of magical energy the nopony has seen for decades."
Spike scratched his head, "And . . . this works how, again?"
Twilight waved the question off and gave the simple answer: "CMB. It'll become more apparent and more detectible."
Still frowning and beginning to gag at the smoke Twilight was producing, Spike accepted the answer as if he understood.
"And when will this be?"
"At exactly twelve o' one."
"Lunchtime."
"Sure."
"So . . . if I'm understanding you, today will be the end of ten years of lonely, dirty work? I figured you might be more excited."
Twilight's smile, which had sunk back to a sane state, once again morphed, this time into something a little melancholy.
"I'm tired, Spike. More so than any of my duties as princess have made me."
She stretched her wings.
"But I'm happier than I've been in ages, too, Spike. Beleive me."
The little dragon pursed his lips, concerned and not quite sure if he beleived. But then again, had Twilight ever lied to him?
"Okay, Twilight. I'm excited for you, too."
Twilight's smile became warmer. "Thanks, Spike. Now will you please get me some coffee so I can stay awake one final stretch?..."
Spike nodded, his own warm smile adorning his scaled features. "Absolutely, princess."
And Twilight was once more left alone in the darkness, surrounded by endless diagrams and the scattered machinery, her smoke adding just a little more yellow to the walls.
There were smaller scientific landmarks that had been attended by many more ponies.
But alas, only three were present at the unveiling of this particular one.
The air was thick with grim responsibility and morbid curiosity.
Also with pride, but that emenated solely from Twilight.
Luna puffed on a pipe, her thicker, sweeter smoke doing battle with the tortured whisps of Twilight's in the dimness of the room lit only by candles.
Twilight extinguished her cigarette, her seventh in the last two hours, on the surface of her great oak desk. All her ashtrays had long since been filled, and she hadn't the time to empty them.
Her coffee mug stood empty, signaling the end of the long, arduous journey.
"My dear sisters," Twilight began, "I'm sorry that this is the pony I've turned into during these past years. A princess such as myself should be more regal and, at the very least, clean."
Celestia's amused smile cut through the darkness, but it was laced with concern.
Twilight felt a pride: not only toward her machine, but toward the fact that she was about to prove that concern invalid.
"The machine you see before you is safe. It has yet to be really tested, but that is only because it cannot without the royal presence of you two."
Luna nodded thoughtfully.
Twilight returned the nod curtly, and then whirled around to the machine in question.
It was not as large as one might picture it. It had many moving parts, a projector, and some sort of headgear, as well as a roll that spit charts and readings.
Twilight first flipped the projector on, and it cast its gray light onto the only wall of the room not crammed with notes and blueprints.
"Celestia, Luna; watch here. You will see what I see. I have no way of knowing what I will see. It should not be beyond the comprehension of us princesses, who are versed in immortality and ages past, but I make no promises."
Celestia shifted on her hooves.
Twilight trotted over to the machine, speaking: "The process is simple. I sit here"—she sat upon a cushion—"and place this on my head."
A purple aura lifted an odd device from the side of the machine; a bowl protruding with lights, and a bit to mask the eys of the wearer. It seemed large enough to be putting something into the head of anyone unlcuky enough to don it.
"And I switch this lever."
Celestia leaned in, eyes wide. Luna puffed thoughtfully.
Twilight's body went rigid. Her entire body became enveloped in her own magical aura. The machine began to puff and quiver, steam leaking from several parts.
Luna removed her pipe and began taking mental notes.
Then, they both turned to the cleared wall.
A mass. A great mass of blackness and spite. It ate at the dusty ground it stood upon, bustling and chanting.
And suddenly Twilight became acutely, sublimely aware that she was looking at an army.
Dressed in blacks and grays—very inconvenient uniforms, it seemed, for the sun was beaming without clouds—they either had trunks, or were masked with something with trunks.
Their eyes were red and they were bipedal.
They carried dark banners of an eye, a gear, and a third, stranger symbol which Twilight did not recognize.
Ranks upon ranks of them marched, bipedal aliens, speaking a hideous and gutteral tongue amongst one another.
Twilight blinked.
More masses, but this time larger than even the farthest stars.
She saw stars bigger than the universe, and machines bigger than stars.
She saw a distant mist, woven from colors she thought she couldn't see.
She felt a presence she did not like.
Twilight blinked again.
A being was before her.
It did not look alive, nor seem nor sound alive. But she knew it was. And somehow, it knew she was looking at her.
She consciously blinked this time.
A great valley stood before her. Wreathed in snow and frost, it seemed to be protecting one thing: a spire, miles high, reaching far above where Twilight had the ability to see. The ground around it writhed, spitting up metal and fire, and the spire spat fire and metal back. The sounds were deafning.
Another blink.
Complete blackness.
A blackness more omnipresent and oppressing than Twilight had ever known. It seemed not only to block out her sight, but all senses. Her thoughts felt slow and muddled. A hideous feeling, the darkness gave her.
She blinked.
A world of light.
Light that should have been blinding, but somehow wasn't. Lines of lights and unrecognizable letters, like a code.
Blink.
A blasted desert, filled with howling bests that crawled in the air.
Blink.
A destroyed city, filled with the skeletons of old decaying buildings.
Blink.
A plain of endless sand, the ground spiked with blades, with massive gears turning on the horizon, seemingly suspended at the edge of the world.
Blink.
A blank room without windows, walls, vents, or any visible method of ingress.
Blink.
An underwater abyss, filled with thens of thousands of crab-like creatures, many taller than Twilight or even Celestia, all grimly marching deeper into the darkness.
Blink.
Blink blink blink.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Not opression or darkness, but no light, either.
Blink.
Nothing happened.
What is this?
She felt something seize her.
This was mortifying beyond description. Not simply because of the suddeness of the action, nor the darkness; but because Twilight wasn't physically there!
On instinct she blinked frantically, and made the necessary magic incantions to end the god simulation.
She came to on the ground, panting and sweating coldly, Celestia and Luna above her.
She felt a warmth between her legs.
Twilight's elder princesses gazed upon her, asking what had happened, if everything was okay.
Their words were lost on her, and Twilight began to weep, for of all the things she had seen, after so much work, none were within the scope of comprehension to really use.
