I stared at the statue. This close I could feel the magic wafting off it, like a cold wind from an open window.
“This isn’t good,” I remarked to Twilight. The bookworm was standing next to me with a similar device she had been using the first time we had seen each other, reconstructed from the ground up. She had suggested cannibalizing the parts from the pendant she had made from it but after the havoc it had created, we had decided to just rebuild.
“Readings are massively increased,” she said. “It's like something’s pulling on the ambient energy.” She fiddled with a dial, pointing it several directions. “I can’t localize it this close. This is even stronger than last week, an almost twenty percent increase.”
I held my hand out and touched the marble, avoiding the portal. The cold stone registered for a moment before my skin started to tingle from the output. It felt like my hand was submerged in a hot tub of water, the kind you’d relax in. I felt my awareness expand, sensing Twilight behind me and feeling her anxiousness about the unknown readings.
Suddenly, I felt a shock run through my body, lines of lambent light outlining my arm before I lost sight of the local and saw a lean Unicorn with blue robes standing next to a smaller unicorn in a hood and cloak, barely more than her horn showing.
“This is dangerous,” the smaller pony snapped. “Sending them there could end in the enslavement of the creatures that live there.”
“Nonsense,” the older pony said, turning to reveal a long beard. “I’ve severed their link to magic. The most they could do is get small sips of energy, just enough to sustain them. Barely.” Starswirl the bearded started to walk away.
“And when the Gate opens again in thirty moons?”
“You worry far too much, Clover,” the wizard said. “There may be a small transference, but they’d have to be near the aperture for it to be harnessed. Plus, I've sealed it as best I can."
I felt myself stumbling backward, suddenly intensely aware of Twilights worry. I blocked off her thoughts, reaching up and holding on to her for support as I caught my breath.
“Are you ok?” she asked, a look of shock and concern on her face.
“I,” I shuddered, suddenly cold. “I saw Star Swirl the Bearded, shortly after he sent the Sirens through.” I went and sat on a bench. “I’ve never received visions without touching a person before.”
“Do you think it could be a product of the increased energy output?” Twilight asked, sitting next to me.
“I don’t know. Even if it was, I shouldn’t get that from anything or anyone without my pendant on.” We all had taken to keeping the strange geode pendants we had taken from Gloriosa in our pockets since the energy readings had started to spike. “But I can feel the magic leaking through now, and that’s never happened before.” I rubbed my forehead, a strange ache starting to grow just above and between my eyes.
“I can feel it too,” she said, stepping right up to the pedestal and taking a chip from the marble, putting it in a test tube. She put the sample away touched the statue. I tensed, but no light or trance overcame her. I started to sigh in relief when she started to float into the air, a hazy form surrounding her, wings and horn vaguely evident.
“Twilight!” I shouted, reaching out to pull her away like she had when I tranced out. I grabbed her hand, but instead of pulling her away I was pulled into the air too, the ache in my head dying away and replaced with a familiar sensation.
I reached up and felt a horn protruding from my forehead. Then the fact that I had on the fingerless gloves I had been wearing when I had faced off against Twilight at the Friendship Games, my leather jacket gone.
I saw Twilight as she turned towards me, her form different as well. Midnight Sparkle floated before me, but the image was softer, no hint of malice or madness. Her horn was intact, and her coloration a little lighter. Her wings also held a softer look, more like a dove's as opposed to the imposing, hooked appendages they had been. We started drifting to the ground as she lost her connection with the monument.
“Twilight,” I said, uneasy. “Talk to me.”
She shook her head, the form starting to fade. “I don’t know what happened,” she whispered, confused.
I felt a rush as my form dissipated as well, fatigue overwhelming me. I bent over, panting to catch my breath.
“Wow,” a voice came from behind us.
I turned to see the other Twilight standing there, a long trench coat draped over her form for warmth. “So that was what you two became at the Games,” she continued. "Empowered versions of your dichotomic and eponymous situations."
“Yeah,” I said, still strangely exhausted. "Something like that."
The pony Twilight looked at the portal, a strange look on her face.
“It’s emitting a resonant pulse,” she said, rubbing her forehead where her horn would have been. "How odd." For a second I thought I could see her horn on her forehead.
“Resonance? From what?” Sunshine asked. With both of them here, my mind had already reverted to the nickname.
“I’m not sure,” said the princess. “I can feel a pulse where my horn should be, but that’s not supposed to happen.” She took a card from her pocket, then stuck a pen in her mouth.
“Twilight,” I said, holding my hand up and waggling my fingers. She looked at me, then blushed, taking the pen out of her mouth.
“Right, force of habit,” she said sheepishly. “I'm writing Spike and Starlight a message to find anything on natural artifacts and resonant properties.”
She started to jot down the note when Sunshine spoke up. “They might also want to search for anything pertaining to the difference between Equestrian and Earth time,” she suggested. “Especially if there is a difference in lunar months and why it seems to age you down when you cross through to this side.”
After she finished filling out the note, she rolled it up, slipped a wooden ring over it and tossed it back into the portal.
“Now,” she said, smiling. “How have you two lovebirds been?” she asked, coming forward to hug us.
We sat in my apartment, sipping hot tea and going over the notes Sunshine and I had gathered over the last two weeks.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Twilight said. “I don’t show any increase of ambient magic energy on my side. But from the looks of things, there have been steady rises of energy in what looks like a regular pattern.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “We walk by that statue almost daily for nine months out of the year and we’ve never had reactions like that before.” I put my head in my hands.
“What about the rest of the girls?” Sunshine asked.
“None of them have mentioned anything.”
“We should ask them, just to be safe,” Twilight said. “Could you call them?”
“Dash will be the first to get here,” I said, sending a mass text.
“What do you mean…”
A knock sounded on my door. I smiled. “It’s open,” I called.
Dash walked in, her hair a little windswept as she hopped in. “What’s up?” she said, throwing her jacket onto my coatrack.
“How…” Twilight sputtered.
“I told you about it when we came back for the funeral,” I said as Rainbow went and hugged the princess before draping herself across my couch, one leg hanging over the arm. “And I think I’ll wait till the rest get here before I go on.”
“A demonstration would let me get an idea of what’s going on,” Twilight said. “Obviously Dash got speed similar to that of her pony counterpart.”
“Pinkie’s not really allowed to demonstrate hers indoors,” Sunshine said.
“Why?”
“She kinda makes things explode,” Dash said.
“Oh.”
We sat around my table, a couple of mostly empty boxes of pizza sitting on the counter nearby. We had all demonstrated the powers we had gained at the camp, though we had taken Pinkie to the roof for safety purposes. Dash and AJ were already drawn into another video competition while Pinkie and Sunshine brainstormed desserts. Rarity and Fluttershy were sitting off to the side, chatting idly.
“This makes no sense,” Twilight said. “There are corresponding similarities to some of your pony counterparts, like Applejack being immensely strong, Fluttershy being able to talk to animals, or Dash’s speed, but some of the others don’t line up.”
“Like my empathy or Rarity’s shield,” I said, picking a piece of crust up off my plate and biting into it.
“Right,” she agreed. “Though her shield could be an offshoot of the fact her counterpart is a Unicorn. Shield and telekinetic spells are some of the first things you learn as a Unicorn, as you know. I want to research this some more, but I’ll need to be at the castle to do so.” She shifted in her chair. “I’ll head back tonight and see what I can find. Between Starlight and I and the resources we have, we might be able to find some sort of solution or at least a direction to look in.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, leaning back and crossing my legs. I could smell vanilla and cinnamon and knew baking had commenced.
“In the meantime, you have got to tell me how you got the nerve to propose!” she said in an excited whisper. “I’d have been too anxious.”
“Well, technically, she brought it up first,” I said, recounting the morning in my family’s home over Hearth’s Warming.
“And then you gave her your mother’s ring?” Twilight repeated. “That’s an unusual thing to do.”
“Not really,” I said. “I’ve heard of rings passing down through families for generations, and it’s quite common here,” I took a sip of my tea. “Not to mention Mom kinda left me the permission to use it in her final letter.”
Twilight nodded. “And how did the breaking the news to her folks go?”
“Well, if you mean the engagement, about as we expected, they tried to plan it for us.”
“That had to be fun,” Twilight grimaced. “I remember how they were at the Royal Wedding, despite the fact that Celestia had planned most of it.”
“Yeah, no such luck here,” I sighed.
“But I meant you telling them you were a Unicorn,” she continued.
“Didn’t have to,” I said, running my hand through my hair. “Apparently, Cadence let that cat out of the bag when talking her parents into letting her transfer schools.”
“They’ve known all along?” She looked shocked.
I waved my hand. “I’ve already had words with Cadence about it, and truth be told, they are remarkably open-minded.” I leveled my gaze on her, a hint of a smile forming. “As you should know.”
A ding sounded from the kitchen and I heard the oven door open and the smell of cinnamon grew stronger.
“Cookies!” Pinkie shouted as she swapped the baking sheet out for a plate in a way only Pinkie could. While the rest of my friends went to go sample the sugary treat, I pulled Twilight back a pace.
“You mentioned once having done a study on Pinkie," I said softly. "Did you ever find out how Pinkie can do half the things she can?”
The princess shrugged. “Not scientifically,” she said. “Until a new theory comes up, I choose to believe she does it simply because she can.”
I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist. “Not a very scientific view,” Sunshine said.
“Do you have a theory?” she countered friendly.
“Not really,” she said. “I like to think the laws of physics just give her a lot of leeway.”
We all walked Twilight back to the portal, hugs and best wishes being exchanged. I forget sometimes just how much a part of the group she was. I felt a bit of heat rising in my face as Sunshine hugged me from behind again and nuzzled the back of my neck. I turned to look at her. “Behave,” I mouthed. She stuck her tongue out at me and I sighed in response.
“I’ll see you all later,” Twilight said. A thought struck me just as she turned to duck into the portal.
“Hold it,” I said. “Did you get a chance to find some sort of glamor so you all can come to graduation?”
Twilight smiled. “Starlight and I have almost perfected one, but it has some testing to go before I can declare it perfect.”
Sunshine smiled at that. “Then we’ll be sure to send you all wedding invitations, too.”
With a grin and a slight blush, the princess stepped through the portal and was gone.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, rubbing my head. “This increased energy is giving me a headache.”
Sunshine and Rarity nodded in agreement, and for a moment I saw ghosts of horns hovering before them. I frowned, and as my gaze swept the others, I saw spectral wings behind Dash and Fluttershy and a slight glow around AJ and Pinkie.
What in Tartarus was happening?
