Prologue
“Morning, Spike!”
Twilight said as the baby dragon clumsily stumbled his way down the stairs. It was ten o’clock, they had been up late studying and Spike had stayed awake far past his normal bedtime assisting her.
“Your gems are right over there.”
Twilight motioned over to the ornately carved table, on which there was, indeed, a bowl full of semiprecious gems. At the mention of his favorite food the small purple dragon perked up and dashed over to his bowl, biting off the end of a gem. Once he determined that it was of worthy quality, the dragon began to stuff his face with rocks.
Twilight, amused, continued.
“Rarity came by this morning, you know."
Spike spit out several half chewed gems when he heard the name of his old standby crush. Twilight smiled. She had been expecting this very reaction.
“What did she want? What did she want?” Spike shouted enthusiastically.
“Oh, nothing,” Twilight replied with an air of nonchalance doing her best to tease her assistant. “Something about needing an extra hand looking after the Crusaders while she’s working on a new dress..."
"You sure?" Asked Spike urgently.
"Oh, I never joke about dresses!" Twilight said in a Trottingham accent similar to Rarity's.
"I'm going right now! And don't you dare make fun of her!" Spike dashed to the door, ready to take on whatever task his crush had for him.
“Oh no you don’t, finish your breakfast first!” Twilight’s motherly side took over for a moment, surpassing her normal manipulative self.
Spike returned to his table with a grumble, and continued shoving rocks down his throat.
As he continued on his breakfast, a forceful gout of rainbow dragon-fire escaped his throat, pushing the dragon and his chair back several feet.
“Spike!” Twilight exclaimed.
“I’ve never seen you do that before.”
Spike lay on the floor groaning as Twilight turned to examine the product of the multi-colored flame. It was a box crafted of a glowing lavender material, but it shined so brightly it appeared white. The box rested on four legs shaped in the likeness of dragon claws holding solid orbs of the same make.
“I wonder wha...”
Twilight never got to finish her question, as, mid-sentence, the violet lid of the box opened with a flash of light, revealing its contents. The box was filled with a strange material, colored every shade of violet and red. The material was some sort of liquid, shimmering slightly with a full spectrum of violet hues.
“What in the world...”
Twilight touched a hoof to the strange receptacle, noting its soft warmth
“Spike, ydo you have any idea what this is?” Twilight waited a second and there was no answer.
“Spike? Oh!” Twilight only realized now that her assistant was half-passed out on the floor, and she lifted him up and shook him with her magic.
“Ow!” Spike groaned, his head still hurting from hitting the floor. The violent convulsions did nothing to sooth the pain in his skull, either.
“Sorry, but I’m still curious as to what it is.” Twilight apologized quickly, before turning her attention back on the box on her table. The material didn’t sparkle, but it seemed to glow without giving off any light. The box itself was another matter as well, it gave off real light which increased as Twilight approached. She reached out tentatively and touched it with her magic. The substance reacted violently, glowing brighter than before, and rising at a rapid pace. In a panic, Twilight released the box from her magic. The substance maintained its form as a small column of semi-static liquid, reaching about a foot off the table. Twilight gave the liquid pillar an inquisitive gaze, attempting to divine any more of its traits by sight alone, not wanting to resort to magic yet, lest it move again.
She turned to face her assistant, finding him looking on from a safer distance.
“Spike, clear a space in the lab, I’ll see if I can find anything out about it there.”
Spike turned and walked into the basement laboratory, eager to get away from the thing, and later back to his breakfast. Twilight walked up to the box, steadying herself to pick it up on a hoof and move it to her back. As she lifted it with as much care as she could muster, yet it still slipped. On a reflex, she grabbed the box, liquid and all, with her magic. “ Oh buck!” was all the lavender unicorn could muster before her face, quickly followed by the rest of her body, was consumed by the roiling substance.
Twilight lay on the floor encased in a diaphanous shell, her lungs burning as the goo sealed her mouth and nose shut. She tried to throw off some of the glob on her face, but the magic only served to stimulate it. Every attempt she made to kick around was hindered by the slowly hardening substance. Her thoughts were racing for a way to get out, debating using magic on other things, or just letting herself suffocate slowly, but she pressed on in her mind. Unfortunately for her, She could feel her conscious slowly fading away, eventually, despite her struggles, everything went black.
A massive expanse of black and red flames were all Twilight could see. She stood on a small island of burning hot brimstone in the middle of a sea of flames and magma. Constantly changing form, from a horde of infernal beasts clawing and biting at her, to a fiery vortex of burning wind. While she could tell that this place was magic, it felt different than the warm, kind magic she was used to. This was baleful, destructive magic, and it was slowly encroaching on her position. Tongues of hell-fire licked at her coat, leaving black singe marks on her hide. Only one thought was going through Twilight’s mind, she didn’t want to die this way, not now. While she had lived what many ponies would consider to be a full life, perhaps two, there were so many things she had always dreamed of doing. It had been a lifelong dream of hers to work as a professor in a university of magic, working to discover and improve upon new magics, perhaps teaching young unicorns to control and use their magic to the best of their abilities. She had always entertained the fantasy of traveling the world, learning about the cultures and perhaps magics of the people who lived there. Now that was all going to end, because of a mysterious box and a simple accident.
But at that point, as the flames cocooned her like a blanket, and the lava was beginning to pool around her ankles, putting her in immense agony. She could fight back, she was the most magical unicorn in ponyville, likely Equestria, she was the personal protege of Princess Celestia, she was the element of magic, the core of the elements of harmony, and she would not be beaten by this! Twilight lit her horn and began to push outward on all sides with a magical shield that Shining Armor would be hard pressed to match. She had always known that emotions could affect magic strength, but she had never experienced it to the extent she was now. Her pure conviction to not be beaten by this drove her power to new heights. An icy gale whipped through the area around Twilight, cooling the magma around her and obliterating the flames, in addition to whatever fuel they may have been burning on. The lavender unicorn lowered her shield and slowed the frozen wind to nonexistence.
She stepped off of the mound of brimstone she stood on and examined the walls of her once fiery prison. The room was smaller than she first thought, about thirty feet by thirty feet, with walls formed of volcanic rock. She walked towards a wall and tapped it with a hoof. The entirety of the wall crumbled into dust, the rest of the room quickly followed. Twilight stepped out onto a balcony, overlooking a maze of bookshelves,several. The room she was in had a huge domed ceiling, dotted with brightly glowing constellations, providing illumination for the room. The floor beneath the shelves was covered in maps of equestria and lands beyond, even places Twilight had never heard of before. Off to one corner was the largest, most complex laboratory she had ever seen, stocked with beakers bubbling with all sorts of chemicals, and outfitted with every size and type of measurement tool there is. Even the walls of this place contained information, they were chalkboards, containing elaborate equations and describing various magical effects.
“Wow, I wonder who built this?” Twilight said in awe, staring up at the ceiling and down at the floor.
“That would be me.”
Twilight jumped about a foot in the air and turned around mid-air, to see a mask floating behind her. There was nothing particularly special about the mask, other than it was floating.
“And who might you be?” Twilight inquired.
“Just a friendly soul.” The mask answered, it’s mouth not moving.
“Ok, do you know who brought me here and tried to kill me?” Twilight was more curious now, since she now had a way to satiate it.
“That was me.” The mask said, its tone still neutral and its face still expressionless.
“What?! Why?!” Twilight was still curious, but there was now a good amount of anger in her voice as well.
“To make sure this would work.”
Twilight didn’t get a chance to reply, for the second time that day, her senses went black.
“Twilight, TWILIGHT!” Spike shouted from the basement. “I cleared out a space in the lab for the box.”
“Coming Spike!” Twilight shouted back. “Just let me find it, I think I passed out, and I had the weirdest dream.”
Twilight looked at the table where the box had first landed.
“Twilight, you up there?” Spike shouted again.
“Yeah Spike! Like I said, I can’t find the box, I’ll be down in a second.” Twilight yelled towards the basement.
Twilight crouched down and looked on the floor near the table, around where she passed out earlier. Suddenly, Spike opened the basement door behind her.
“Twilight, Twili...” The second half of her name caught in his throat. Twilight could hear choking sounds coming from behind her, quickly followed by rapid footsteps. She turned in time around to see Spike running out the door, slamming it closed behind him.
“What has him all worked up, did Rarity write some hate mail to him?” Twilight thought aloud, chuckling at her own joke.
Twilight turned around to see what Spike had run out of the house for. She looked down out the ground near the basement door and saw... Herself.
“Bu...bu... but i’m right here,” Twilight stuttered, she raised a hoof to her face, on the surface it was normal, she was still her normal lavender color, but that was where the similarities stopped. She could see straight through her hoof, and a halo of pale mist hovered around it.
“This is probably just one of Pinkie’s pranks, she probably borrowed one of Rarity’s mannequins and painted it to look just like me.” Twilight attempted to rationalize the situation.
“And my hoof,” she tentatively glanced at the offending appendage. “She probably slipped something in my coffee. Although that wouldn’t explain why Spike was so panicked, maybe he’s in on it too.”
Twilight started laughing, her pulse still racing after the scare she had just received.
“Ok Pinkie, you got me, you can come out now.” There was no reply.
“Pinkie, did you hear me, I said you got me.” Once again, silence.
“Pinkie? Your kind of scaring me now,”
Twilight slowly approached the door, looking cautiously to both sides out of nervousness. She attempted to turn the knob with her magic, but there was naught but a flicker, nowhere near strong enough to turn the handle Twilight looked up quizzically at her horn, crossing her eyes as she did so. Still nothing, not a spark not a glow, nothing. The unicorn frowned, whatever Pinkie put in her drink must have weakened her magic as well, Twilight rationalized quickly. She reached out to turn the knob with a hoof. Her hoof went straight through the door. Twilight gasped sharply and ran back to the body, her hooves making no sound as they passed through the floor. She bent down to the face. Her eyes were wide open, as they were the moment she was overcame by the strange fluid. Her mouth as well was frozen in the shape of a scream. But by far the most disturbing thing, was the hole, driven straight through her head. From the forehead directly below her horn, out the back of her skull, slowly dripping her life-blood on the floor. Twilight staggered backwards and slammed into the table. Or would have if she hadn’t passed about half-way through it.
It was only at this moment that she heard the voice of a baby dragon outside.
“Twilight is dead!” It shouted, “Twi-Twilight is dead!” She could hear the sobs choking his voice, as well as the hoof-steps of bypassers who heard the shout and came to his side.
“I’m, dead?” Twilight whispered.
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“Whosdeadwhatnow?!” Applejack shouted, stopping almost mid-buck when Rainbow broke the news. Rainbow Dash had been among the ponies near the library at the time, and took it upon herself to tell the others. She nodded solemnly, the new tears running down her face mingling with the dried streaks leftover by the old ones. “Oh mah gosh, she was so young, and imagine how Spike feels.” Applejack could feel the tears starting to build in her eyes, and she did not hesitate to let them fall. Rainbow replied seconds later but it may as well have been hours.
“yeah, he was really upset, he burst out of the library crying and screaming, Twilight was like a mother to him.” Suddenly Applejack remembered something important, important enough to briefly snap her out of the atmosphere of grief. “Spike is going to need somewhere to stay now, at least temporarily.” Rainbow picked up a little as well, remembering she needed to tell her other friends as well. She flapped her wings and rose toward the sky. “You go tell Rarity and see if she can take Spike, I’ll go over to Pinkie and tell her, meet me near the path to Fluttershy’s, we should all tell her together.” The rainbow maned pegasus said before she sped back towards inner Ponyville.
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Rarity heard somepony knock on her front door, “Come in.” she said, barely loud enough to be heard through the door. Applejack opened the door slightly and stuck her head, now bereft of stetson, through the opening, before walking fully into the room. She was both surprised and not at all so at what she saw. There was little out of place around the room, except a small pile of handkerchiefs shoved off to the edge of a counter. One part of her expected this, knowing how neat Rarity was. But another expected a much larger affair, knowing how much of a drama-queen Rarity was. In the nd she shoved both of those to the back of her mind in favor of realizing that Rarity already knew, some thing that made her job a lot easier. “Hello, Applejack, I suppose you’re not here for a dress.” Rarity chuckled slightly at her own joke, but only for a moment before returning to a more stoic expression. “ You’d be correct in assuming that, but I guess you already know why I’m here.” The orange mare replied. Rarity didn’t need to answer, all was clear when she pulled out a clean tissue to wipe the tear that fell from her eye, before being discarded into the growing pile. Rarity turned quickly to face the staircase of her boutique. Rarity turned back and added, “If you’re wondering about Spike, I picked him up as soon as I heard the news. He’s upstairs in my room, the poor dear hasn’t stopped crying since it happened and I don't think he will until he doesn't have any tears left.” She and Applejack look solemnly at the ground for a moment. Applejack looked up first and informed Rarity of their plan to meet at Fluttershy’s. Rarity wrote a quick note to Sweetie Belle telling her that Spike was here, and that she and her friends were not to bother him, and then they departed.
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“No Pinkie Pie! We are NOT making cupcakes!” Rainbow Dash shouted, “I’m not covering for you a third time!”
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